This fall brings several big changes to Special Collections that we are excited to share with you!
We will soon be introducing Aeon, our new reading room management tool. This new system for patrons will be used in Special Collections, the John Martin Rare Book Room at Hardin Library, and the Cantor Rare Book Room at the Music Library.
Using Aeon, you can:
Set up an account in advance of your visit. This only needs to be done once, so there’s no more paperwork each time you use a new manuscript collection.
Request material before your visit to the reading room, making your visit more time efficient.
Record past visits, helping you keep track of material you have already viewed or wish to revisit.
Order scans or photocopies more easily, and retrieve scans more quickly.
While Aeon will change how some things are done, don’t worry! Staff will be on hand with resources to help you navigate this new system.
In tandem with the introduction of Aeon, Special Collections will be changing its reading room hours. Starting July 30th, Special Collections reading room will implement the following hours:
Monday: 10 am- 5pm
Tuesday: 10am- 7pm
Wednesday: 10am-5pm
Thursday: 10am-5pm
Friday: 10am-5pm
8 am to 10 am Monday-Friday remains available to patrons by advance appointment. Feel free to contact us to set up one of these appointments whether you are traveling across the country or across the campus!
Iowa Women’s Archives reading room hours will remain the same as they have been.
If you have questions or want to schedule an appointment, reach out to us at lib-spec@uiowa.edu or call (319) 335-5921
The University of Iowa Libraries is delighted to announce Margaret Gamm as the new Head of Special Collections. She replaces Greg Prickman, who leaves on July 2 to become the Eric Weinmann Librarian and Director of Collections at the Folger Shakespeare Library after serving as Head of Special Collections since 2011.
Gamm joined the UI Libraries in 2013 as the Special Collections Librarian in the Map Collection. In 2014 she was appointed Acquisition and Collection Management Librarian for Special Collections, and this past year served as Assistant Head of Special Collections.
Gamm arrived at the University of Iowa having interned at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the University of Georgia Georgiana Collection, and served as a research assistant in the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Over the past five years, she has overseen the acquisition of new materials, supervised staff, managed budgets, led the implementation of new software programs, and curated rare works–particularly medieval manuscripts, incunabula, cartographic works, and artists’ books. Gamm has also worked to bring Special Collections further into the UI community, teaching sessions on book and cartographic history, working closely with donors, and devising new engagement opportunities for patrons.
“I am thrilled to begin my new role as Head of this incredible department that has accomplished so much,” said Gamm. “We have a lot of momentum here in Special Collections that will carry us into the future, and I am so excited to lead us there. I am already looking forward to a busy year filled with new exhibits, visiting medieval manuscripts, the debut of an online patron registration system, and so much more.”
As a dedicated and visionary librarian, Gamm maintains a staunch commitment to the evolving staffing needs of a 21st century Special Collections, as well as the dynamic spaces required to house and showcase the UI Libraries’ remarkable holdings. Looking ahead she sees great potential for new collaborations across campus and within the Libraries to advance understandings of and access to these collections.
A 2010 graduate of the University of Georgia, Gamm majored in English and History, before obtaining her Master of Science in Library Science with a concentration in archives and records management at UNC-Chapel Hill. In 2015, Gamm was named a “Bright Young Librarian” by Fine Books & Collections magazine.
Special Collections is excited to see Gamm as the new head of the department and cannot wait to see what the next chapter will bring.
It is with a mix of sadness and joy that Special Collections bids goodbye to Colleen Theisen as she leaves to start her next big adventure. Colleen has accepted a job at Syracruse University as their Chief Curator of Exhibitions, Programs, and Education. Although we are sad to see her go, we cannot help but feel excited for this new chapter in her life. While at Iowa, Colleen helped create the group Historic Foodies, curated the exhibit “The Land Provides: Iowa’s Culinary Heritage” at Old Capitol, grew Special Collections instruction program, and brought national attention through NBC Nightly News and Atlas Obscura to our collections. Colleen’s last day will be June 1st, and we wish her the best of luck!
Taking over as our new Outreach and Engagement Librarian is Elizabeth Riordan. A recent graduate from the University of Iowa’s School of Library and Information Science, Riordan has been involved with Special Collections for the past two years, working as the Brokaw Graduate Research Assistant this past year. A Des Moines native, Elizabeth received BAs in Anthropology and in Theatre Arts from Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. A self-diagnosed silent film nut, Elizabeth is excited to work more with the Brinton Entertaining Company Collection and other film-related material here at Special Collections. She looks forward to getting involved with the community and finding ways to bring the collections out of the stacks for all to see.
Hear Kären Mason, curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives (at the University of Iowa Libraries) reflect on the significance of 6-on-6 high-school girls’ basketball, drawing on rich personal narratives from Iowa Women’s Archives collections. For most of the 20th century, the state of Iowa was nationally known for its devotion to a unique form of women’s sport known as 6-on-6 girls’ basketball. As other states abandoned 6-on-6, Iowa remained steadfast in its commitment until the state’s final 6-player championship in 1993, where Hubbard-Radcliffe prevailed over Atlantic, 85-66. The year 2018 marks the 25th anniversary of the end of 6-on-6 girls’ basketball in Iowa.
Free to attend. Registration required.
Exhibits
Invisible Hawkeyes – African American pathfinders & tastemakers, 1930-1970
By looking at the University of Iowa and a smaller Midwestern college town like Iowa City, this book reveals how fraught moments of interracial collaboration, meritocratic advancement, and institutional insensitivity deepen our understanding of America’s painful conversation into a diverse republic committed to racial equality.
An exhibition co-curated by all the student employees in Special Collections. Their work processing collections, shelving books, providing references services, and teaching in our classroom brings the most beautiful, bizarre, profound, and silly historic items to their attention and each person provided a favorite item that you’re bound to love.
Where: Special Collections on the 3rd floor of the Main Library.
When: 8:30AM-5:00P M, W-F and 8:30AM-7PM on Tuesdays.
What gems are preserved inside of Iowa City’s libraries, museums, and archives?
At the area’s first-ever archives crawl, visitors can snoop in between the pages of historic diaries, read other people’s mail, hold feathers and fossils, and peer into mysteries revealed by historic artifacts like swords and locks of hair kept in remembrance.
All events are free and open to the public!
Between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm, the following sites will be open to the public. Each will offer tours, demonstrations, and short talks by experts (see specific times at archivesagainstamnesia.com/archives-crawl). Start your crawl at any of these sites, where you can pick up an archives crawl “passport” and map. Bring your fully stamped passport to any site for a prize!
University of Iowa Main Library, 125 W. Washington St.
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, Macbride Hall, 17 N. Clinton St.
Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St.
State Historical Society of Iowa Research Center, 402 Iowa Ave.
All four sites will be open to visitors between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
The Iowa City Archives Crawl will occur prior to the 2018 Provost’s Global Forum and Obermann Humanities Symposium, Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice.
Free and open to the public.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Colleen Theisen in advance at 319-335-5923.
University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections is pleased to announce the acquisition of the library and papers of noted Romanian-American writer Andrei Codrescu. Comprising approximately eighty linear feet of manuscripts, books, audiovisual material, digital media, art works, and ephemera, this acquisition is a major addition to the University Libraries’ literary collections, and will provide a treasure trove of material for researchers in a variety of fields.
Andrei Codrescu was born in Sibiu, Romania in 1946. His literary career began with a number of poems written in Romanian when he was in his teens; it was during this period that he changed his surname from “Perlmutter” to “Codrescu.” Emigrating to the United States in 1966, he soon started writing and publishing in English. Living first in Detroit, he moved to New York and then to California, coming into extensive contact with the New York School of poets as well as the Beats. He held teaching positions at Johns Hopkins University and, for many years, at Louisiana State University, commuting by Greyhound bus to Baton Rouge from his home in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Since his retirement from LSU, Codrescu has been living in New York City while maintaining a rural retreat in the Buffalo River Valley in northern Arkansas, where besides writing he has been experimenting with sculpture and collage-constructions.
Codrescu is perhaps best known for his regular commentaries on NPR’s All Things Considered beginning in 1983. His writing encompasses virtually every genre, including poetry, novels, short stories, plays, essays, book-length non-fiction, autobiography, and film scripts. In recent years he has resumed writing poetry in his “native” language, Romanian. (Romanian was actually his third language, since as a child growing up in Transylvania, he first spoke German and Hungarian.) Besides his numerous books of poetry and his novels, Codrescu’s most influential books include The Hole in the Flag (an account of his return to Romania as an NPR reporter just days after the 1989 revolution), The Disappearance of the Outside,The Posthuman Dada Guide,Bibliodeath, and a series of innovative autobiographical works. He is also well-known for editing the journal Exquisite Corpse, named after a surrealist game.
Andrei Codrescu has longstanding connections with Iowa City’s literary scene, having been friends with a number of local authors. His library is filled with dedication copies of books by Iowa writers, former participants in the International Writing Program, Beat poets, Romanian authors, and major figures representing every strand of contemporary American literature.
Andrei Codrescu and Timothy Shipe
In February of this year Codrescu presented a lecture-performance in connection with the Libraries’ exhibition Documenting Dada, Disseminating Dada; the video is available online. During his visit, he met with a variety of groups on campus, including the School of Library and Information Science, the MFA Program in Translation, the International Writing Program, and library staff. Discussions began with Special Collections staff concerning the possible acquisition of his papers, and in August librarians Tim Shipe and Amy Chen visited Codrescu’s Arkansas studio to inspect the collection and discuss terms. Following the successful conclusion of these discussions, the collection arrived at the University Libraries in mid-October, and is now in the preliminary stages of processing.
An art installation on the theme of post-communism, on site at Codrescu’s Arkansas studio; now in University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections.
Among the highlights of the collection are three unpublished novels, manuscripts, correspondence, and ephemera related to the author’s published books (including the Romanian flag with the Communist symbol cut out that inspired the title of The Hole in the Flag), communications concerning assassination threats from the Romanian secret police, documentation of exhibitions, and a number of two- and three-dimensional collages and art installations. Also included are back-up copies of pre-1990 manuscript materials now housed at Louisiana State University. Codrescu’s library includes annotated books that Codrescu used during his research for his novels and non-fiction prose works. Also included is a comprehensive collection of Codrescu’s books, including some proof copies with manuscript revisions.
Andrei Codrescu’s collection promises to be a fruitful resource for researchers for many years to come, and a new draw for visitors to America’s first UNESCO City of Literature.
Tuesday, December 5, marks the 50-year anniversary of what was to that date the largest anti-war protest on the UI campus. Over 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Iowa Memorial to protest the presence of Dow Chemical representatives who were on campus to interview prospective employees. There were 18 arrests and the day’s events ushered in a new era of protest, both locally and nationally. Less than four months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson, citing eroding public support for his administration’s policy on Vietnam, announced he would not seek re-election to another term.
The day’s events were filmed and recorded by Robert Coover, an assistant professor of English, whose documentary is featured on our online exhibit, “Uptight and Laid-back: Iowa City in the 1960s.” To view the film in the online exhibit, go to https://dsps.lib.uiowa.edu/sixties/, scroll to videos, and click ‘On a Confrontation in Iowa City.’
Late October and November were filled with big events in Special Collections and the Iowa Women’s Archives.
Iowa Bibliophiles 15th Anniversary, 11-8-2017
The November meeting marked the 15th anniversary of the group. In celebration, the evening’s talk was given by Arthur Bonfield, who gave the inaugural Bibliophiles talk in November, 2002.
The Iowa Women’s Archives celebrated their 25th anniversary with an open house, a gallery tour, a gala dinner, and a full day symposium.
Teaching with Medieval Manuscripts
Teaching with Medieval manuscripts was a theme this month. Special Collections librarians and graduate student workers from the School of Library and Information Science all worked together to bring in all eight sections of the Medieval Art survey course Cave Paintings to Cathedrals (ARTH:1050:0A01).
Also this month Center for the Book faculty member Melissa Moreton partnered with librarians and graduate student workers to bring in two fifth grade classes from Horace Mann Elementary School to test a lesson teaching young students with medieval manuscripts.
“Saving Brinton” Documentary Premieres in New York City, November 9-16th
The documentary “Saving Brinton” premiered at DOC NYC. The documentary features a collection of very early motion pictures that are now housed in Special Collections. See a selection online. The documentary continues to play at film festivals around the country before a wider release next year. More.
NBC Nightly News Films in Special Collections, November 30, 2017
NBC Nightly News filmed a segment about miniature book creator, collector, and donor Charlotte Smith, and School of Library and Information Science student Bethany Kluender who has cataloged one thousand of the tiny books. The segment will air sometime in the next month.
University Archives Acquires History of Hydraulics Lab Collection
The C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory at the University of Iowa is one of the nation’s leading fluids-related research centers. Established in 1920, it is also historically significant. Recently the University Archives acquired a set of daily journals maintained by the laboratory’s first director, Floyd Nagler of the College of Engineering faculty. The typewritten logs document activity at the laboratory from 1921 to 1933, its first dozen years of operation. During this time, the laboratory was formally established as the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (IIHR), and in 1932 ground was broken for the present-day structure on the west bank of the Iowa River.
Here is Prof. Nagler’s terse but turning-point entry from Tuesday, July 5, 1932:
“University Building Committee agreed to construct partitions in hydraulic laboratory addition. Contractor began excavation for foundation of laboratory.”
The journals have been added to the Records of the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (collection no. RG 10.0006.001) and are open for research. The Dept. of Special Collections expresses its appreciation to Dennis A. Hill for making this acquisition possible.
A post shared by U. of Iowa Special Collections (@uispeccoll) on
“Freaky Friday” October Halloween Video Series on Facebook
Elizabeth Riordan, graduate student assistant in Special Collections and student in the Scho0l of Library and Information Science wrote and directed a Halloween film series for our Facebook premiering every Friday in October. Watch the whole playlist here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/uispeccoll/videos/
Slate magazine interview with Peter Balestrieri, curator of Science Fiction and Popular Culture, about launching a crowdsourcing opportunity for fans to connect with 1930s fanzines. Retyping the Future’s Past: An archival transcription project from the University of Iowa invites us to explore the history of science fiction.
Join Special Collection for a pop-up exhibit of STRANGER READS! We will be featuring items that inspire the series, “Stranger Things”, along with some more frightful and unusual material. You’ll even be able to take a bit of our collections with you, in button form! We’ll have the library’s button maker available for you to create a button of your very own. See Facebook event.
Monday, October 20, 3pm, Group Area D, Learning Commons
Iowa Bibliophiles 15th Anniversary with Guest Speaker Arthur Bonfield
The Iowa Bibliophiles is a gathering of book collectors and those interested in the history of books, held monthly during the academic year at the University of Iowa Libraries. The November meeting marks the 15th anniversary of the group. In celebration, the evening’s talk will be given by Arthur Bonfield, who gave the inaugural Bibliophiles talk in November, 2002.
We will gather for hors d oeuvres and refreshments at 6:30pm in the Special Collections Reading Room on the third floor of the University of Iowa’s Main Library. At 7:00pm Arthur Bonfield will talk about mathematical and descriptive (anthropocentric) geography as depicted in representative European books printed between 1493 and 1750. These books were frequently titled a “cosmography”,”geography”, “chronicle”, or “history”, and sought to describe various parts of the world as the authors understood it. A number of the geography books from this period will be available for viewing at the time of the talk. The event is free and open to all. More information.
Professor Arthur Bonfield is Allan Vestal Chair and Associate Dean Emeritus at the University of Iowa Law School and for the last 60 years has been collecting original copies of books printed during this period.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017, Special Collections Reading Room, 3rd Floor Main Library
The Iowa Women’s Archives will be celebrating their 25th Anniversary November 10-11, 2017.
There will be an open house, exhibition tours, a gala dinner with guest speaker Rekha Basu, and an all-day symposium on Saturday.
All events are free except the gala dinner. Please RSVP for the dinner and the symposium.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Colleen Theisen in advance at colleen-theisen@uiowa.edu or 319-335-5923.
From the Web and Social Media
Our podcast, Historically Yours, has a new episode reading a letter from Arkham House Publishers with details about printing and paper in 1943 during war time.
More information: https://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/speccoll/2017/10/25/historically-yours-podcast-episode-7-academics-fans-h-p-lovecraft-and-the-price-of-paper/
Raymond Mentzer, Daniel J. Krumm Family Chair in Reformation Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, and Greg Prickman, Head of Special Collections will present about books and the Reformation during the 500th Anniversary Year. A selection of related books will be on display. Read more.
William Anthony Conservation Lecture—Mark Esser “Bookbinding Has Been Very Good to Me”
Thursday, October 12th. Light refreshments at 6pm. Talk at 6:30PM.
E105 Adler Journalism Building
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Colleen Theisen in advance at colleen-theisen@uiowa.edu or 319-335-5923.
Using Aeon, you can:
