The University of Iowa Special Collections has a new podcast, Historically Yours which will be a biweekly podcast. In each episode Outreach Librarian Colleen Theisen and a guest will read one historic letter, research the context, and discuss the role of letter writing past and present.
Episode 1 features Digital Project Librarian Laura Hampton reading a letter from April 15, 1942 from Horace Ainsley Vachell of Bath England to Mr. Corder. (MsL V1183co).
Do you know anything about Mr. Corder? Or Mr. Vachell? Or anything else in this letter? Let us know.
Write to us with information, feedback, stories or comments and we’ll read them on the podcast:
History of Iowa City by Christopher Jones for the Rare Books and Manuscripts Conference to be held in Iowa City in June. http://conference.rbms.info/2017/655-2/
Instruction Update:
In February 2017 we had 40 class sessions!
Staff Awards & Updates:
University Archivist David McCartney was elected president of the Midwest Archives Conference for a two year term. Read more.
Event Recap & Photos:
Book artist David Esslemont visited Special Collections for the opening reception for “Open * Set.” This traveling exhibition from the American Academy of Bookbinders is on display on the third floor of the Main Library outside Special Collections until April 19th.
The evening of the exhibition opening, Acquisitions and Collections Management Librarian Margaret Gamm presented new acquisitions to the Iowa Bibliophiles on March 8th.
University Archivist David McCartney has been elected president of the Midwest Archives Conference for a two year term.
MAC is one of the nation’s largest regional professional associations for archivists. Founded in 1972, MAC now has more than 800 individual members. MAC’s institutional members include a variety of corporate, government, religious, and university archives, as well as historical societies and other manuscripts repositories and special collections.
The MAC region is the 13 heartland states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
David has been a member of MAC since 2001 and has previously served as secretary and also as vice-president.
Join us in congratulating David for this honor and join us in thanking him for his willingness to serve and make an impact on the field.
Members of the Internet Creator’s Guild who are makers of educational video have come together this week to collectively release work on the theme “Create.” The University of Iowa Special Collections’ contribution to this effort is a two and a half minute hand drawn video about book anatomy.
Hannah Hacker put her pen to paper to make drawings of the parts of a book as part of her two year position in Special Collections as an Olson Graduate Research Assistant. Hacker is also a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science and the Center for the Book, and is a prolific artist. This is the first time Special Collections’ staff have utilized hand drawings as part of an educational video. Her efforts have been assisted by the talents of undergraduate video assistant Farah Boules.
The Book Anatomy video can be seen on Special Collections’ YouTube Channel where you can leave praise, feedback, questions, or ideas for new videos in the comments.
The Documenting Dada/Disseminating Dada exhibition continues until April 28, 2017 in the Main Library Gallery and is free and open to the public. More details can be found on the exhibitions page for UI Libraries: https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/gallery/
Andrei Codrescu, Timothy Shipe, Jim Leach, and Chris Merrill
Special Collections and the Iowa Bibliophiles will be hosting a reception and open house extravaganza the evening of Wednesday March 8, 2017 celebrating the arrival of the traveling exhibition Open*Set while providing an opportunity for in-depth investigation of our newest acquisitions.
Explore the Open*Set exhibition from the American Academy of Bookbinding, in the Special Collections gallery space while recent acquisitions from Special Collections are set up for browsing in our Reading Room. Bookbinder, printer, and Open*Set judgeDavid Esslemontwill speak about the exhibition at6:15pm.
Acquisitions and Collections Management Librarian Margaret Gamm will provide an in-depth recap of rare book acquisitions over the past three years at 7:00pm. Learn how the University acquires material through purchase and donation, and discover which areas have been most heavily developed, all the way from Medieval manuscripts to modern artists’ books. Come for a bit or stay for all. The festivities all take place in the Special Collections Reading Room on the 3rd floor of the Main Library from 5:30PM~7:45PM. Refreshments will be served
The University of Iowa Libraries’ Special Collections is pleased to announce the imminent arrival of Open*Set an exhibition in the third floor gallery space in Special Collections March 8-April 19th, 2017.
The OPEN • SET competition is a NEW triennial competition that formed in response to the burgeoning interest and palpable momentum in finely crafted design book bindings in the United States. Sponsored by the American Academy of Bookbinding, www.bookbindingacademy.org.
All are welcome for a reception in honor of this exhibition March 8, 2017 in the Special Collections Reading Room from 5:30pm. Artist, designer, printer, bookbinder and publisher and Open*Set judge David Esslemont will speak about the exhibition at 6:15pm. Light refreshments will be served.
Don Glaister
Mark Esser
Patricia Owen
EXHIBITION LOCATIONS AND DATES 2017
DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY – January 5 to 28
SAN FRANCISCO CENTER FOR THE BOOK – February 1 to March 4
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA – March 8 to April 19
AH HAA SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS, TELLURIDE – April 24 to May 20
NORTH BENNETT STREET SCHOOL, BOSTON – June 8 to July 19
AUSTIN PUBLIC LIBRARY – July 26 to August 26
SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY – September 8 to October 28
MARRIOT LIBRARY, SALT LAKE CITY – November 10 to January 19
OPEN SET JURORS
CATHY ADELMAN
Cathy Adelman began her bookbinding career by accident – a happy accident – at North Carolina’s Penland School of Craft in 1999. In 2003, she graduated from the American Academy of Bookbinding, having spent five years studying with Tini Miura. During that time she also began a 10-year pilgrimage to the internationally known Centro del Bel Libro in Ascona, Switzerland, to study with Edwin Heim and other international master binders.
Originally from northern Maine, Adelman is now a studio binder in southern California. Her work is exhibited both domestically and internationally
by ARA (France, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland), Designer Bookbinders, Society of Bookbinders, Estonian Association of Designer Bookbinders, Guild of BookWorkers, and Hand Bookbinders of California. She has received several awards from The Society of Bookbinders: ‘Highly Commended’ (2001); ‘Harmatan Leather Award’ for forwarding (2003); and ‘First Prize Case Binding’ (2007). She also received recognition from the Estonian Association of Designer Bookbinders (2005) and the Chicago Public Library (2006).
Cathy teaches at the Penland School of Craft as well as privately. She is a Trustee at the Penland School of Craft in Penland, North Carolina, and the Center for Craft Creativity and Design in Asheville, North Carolina.
DAVID ESSLEMONT
David Esslemont hails from Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and studied fine art (painting) at the Central School of Art in London. He began printing, binding and publishing in 1978 and from 1985 to 1997, was Controller (artistic and managing director, and printer) of Gwasg Gregynog, the University of Wales’ private press.
He has won many awards, including the Felice Feliciano International Award for Book Design. He has judged both Designer Bookbinders UK competitions and book design and production surveys in Wales. In 2012, he won a chili cook-off and turned the recipe into a book: Chili: a recipe. This book won the Printmaking Today ‘Innovation in Printmaking Award’ at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair (2013) and a ‘Best of Show’ Award in the Feast exhibition in Portland, OR. His books and fine bindings have recently been selected for exhibition in Marking Time (Guild of BookWorkers, 2009-11), Feast (23 Sandy Gallery, 2013) and InsideOUT (Designer Bookbinders UK, 2014-15).
Esslemont has lectured widely in the U.K. and U.S., and his work can be found in both private and public collections worldwide. His archive is held at the University of Iowa. He has been artist-in-residence with the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, England, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) in Minneapolis. He now lives on a farm in northeast Iowa and continues to work as an artist, designer, printer, bookbinder and publisher.
ELEANORE RAMSEY
Eleanore Ramsey began her studies in design bookbinding with Barbara Hiller in San Francisco, CA in 1974. She began exhibiting work in 1978 and has been teaching fine bookbinding privately and accepting commissions since 1980.
Ramsey has presided over a number of presentations, courses and workshops at prestigious institutions, including Mills College, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Scripps College, the ‘Standards of Excellence’ Conference for the Guild of BookWorkers, the American Academy of Bookbinding in Telluride, CO, and the California Chapter of the Guild of BookWorkers in Los Angeles, CA.
Her design bindings have been exhibited widely. Notable awards include Hand-Bookbinding Today: An International Competition and Exhibition, Stanford University, 1992 (winner of the competition); the DeGolyer Triennial Competition sponsored by Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University (awards received in 1997, 2003 and 2012 for ‘Design’ and ‘Excellence in Fine Binding’); the Oscar Lewis Award, given by the Book Club of California for outstanding contributions in the field of Book Arts (2004); and the San Francisco Center for the Book,in recognition as one of “Five Treasures” for extraordinary dedication and innovation in Book Arts (2009).
Ramsey continues to work and teach in her San Francisco studio.
If you tune in to the Big Ten Network for basketball games you might have noticed the LiveBIG segment featuring our social media team that plays during the breaks. The feature introduces the work that Special Collections staff have been doing in online communities on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and for the Special Collections YouTube channel.
On their blog, writers from BTN particularly highlighted the YouTube channel as something unique saying, “Even if old books and maps aren’t your thing, the Special Collections team’s work is really…likeable. Ironic and self-aware, the videos play like an alternate universe cast of New Girl discussing the trivia of Antiques Roadshow in an aesthetic similar to the basement bullpen scenes of Spotlight.” You can read the feature here: http://btn.com/2017/02/19/iowas-special-collections-embeds-its-archives-in-the-digital-space-btn-livebig/ and subscribe to the YouTube channel for updates on new content there: http://youtube.com/uispeccoll/subscribe.
If you did not catch it on TV, here is the original TV segment:
And a second feature they created on their Facebook page:
Prairie Pop: NPR’s Codrescu breaks down Dadaism’s ongoing influence [Little Village feature about Adrei Codrescu’s talk at UI Libraries on Saturday] http://littlevillagemag.com/prairie-pop-nprs-codrescu-breaks-down-dadaisms-ongoing-influence/
Special Collections YouTube channel was included as a case study in a recent article in Library Hi Tech by Heather Moorefield-Lang:
Heather Michele Moorefield-Lang , (2017),” Delivering the Message: Disseminating Information and Professional Development in the Field of Librarianship through Technology “, Library Hi Tech, Vol. 35 Iss 1 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/LHT-04-2016-0039
On Saturday, February 18, Poet Andrei Codrescu (author of the Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess, editor of Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Life & Letters, and the 2017 collection of new poems, The Art of Forgetting) will present a talk Andrei Codrescu’s Posthuman Dada Guide, and will sign books. Shambaugh Auditorium, UI Main Library, 7pm. Registration is requested.
On Thursday, March 2, the 2017 Brownell Lecture on the History of the Book speaker is Marcy Dinius. E105 Adler Journalism Building 7:30pm.
CHICAGO – Janet Weaver, assistant curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa, is the winner of the 2017 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Women and Gender Studies Section (WGSS) Award for Significant Achievement in Woman’s Studies Librarianship. The WGSS award honors a significant or one-time contribution to women’s studies librarianship.
A plaque will be presented to Weaver at a WGSS event during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.
“The Awards Committee was greatly impressed by Weaver’s creation of the Migration is Beautiful website, which is a project constructed from oral histories and other archival material housed at the Iowa Women’s Archives,” said award chair Stacy Russo, librarian and associate professor at Santa Ana College. “Migration is Beautiful was developed from the Iowa Women’s Archives’ Mujeres Latinas project that launched in 2005. The committee especially noted Weaver’s level of collaboration with her colleagues and undergraduate students. The students selected documents for the website and also wrote vignettes. The introduction on the website reads: ‘Migration is Beautiful highlights the contributions Latinas and Latinos have made to Iowa history. Migration is central to understanding and interpreting the past, shaped first by Native Americans, and later by immigrants from around the world.’”
The Migration is Beautiful digital humanities project highlights the contributions of Latinas, their families, and their organizations to Iowa history. Visitors can navigate the site in multiple ways to access hundreds of digitized primary documents and audio clips from oral history interviews through historical topics, life stories, and a migration map.
“Weaver’s work has brought accessibility to primary source documents that were previously only available to visitors at the Iowa Women’s Archives,” continued Russo. “After its launch in 2016, Migration is Beautiful debuted with a travelling exhibit at the national League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) convention in Washington, D.C. In her continued emphasis on outreach, Weaver has made presentations to Latino groups around Iowa regarding the project. Her work has also been featured on Hola Iowa, a news outlet that focuses on Latinos in the Midwest.”
Weaver received her M.A. in Modern History from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
On Saturday, February 18, Poet Andrei Codrescu (author of the Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess, editor of Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Life & Letters, and the 2017 collection of new poems, The Art of Forgetting) will present a talk Andrei Codrescu’s Posthuman Dada Guide, and will sign books. Shambaugh Auditorium, UI Main Library, 7pm. Registration is requested.
Exhibitions:
Instruction:
Amy is working with Serina Sulentic to allow her graphic design students create printable and boxed versions of Codex Conquest: The Game of Book History, which is currently being developed and tested.
The Instruction Program is gearing up for the spring: we’ve already booked 77 classes!
If you have any plans to bring a class in this semester contact us ASAP about availability.
Timothy Shipe, curator of the International Dada Archives has two new publications:
“Hugo Ball.” (in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism)
“A Century of Documenting Dada: From Coupures de presse to ‘Dadabase’”. In Caietele avangardei, no. 8 (2016).
University Archivist David McCartney wrote the cover story in this month’s Archival Outlook called, “Archival Bonds, Love and Friendship in the Archives.” http://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?i=376049
University Archivist David McCartney was elected president of the Midwest Archives Conference for a two year term. 
Amy is working with Serina Sulentic to allow her graphic design students create printable and boxed versions of Codex Conquest: The Game of Book History, which is currently being developed and tested.
Timothy Shipe, curator of the International Dada Archives has two new publications: