Artist Linda Sholand Vander Weele

As part of the multi-part exhibition Text Support: A Library Exhibit About Paper, the Kohler Art Library is currently featuring the exhibit Handmade Paper with Wisconsin Roots. For almost 50 years, Wisconsin has been a remarkable leader in the field of book arts and has played a vital role in the resurgence of handmade paper. Curated by Lyn Korenic and Tracy Honn, this exhibit showcases artists’ books that contain handmade paper made by artists with Wisconsin roots. The artists include pioneers, teachers, students, and practitioners, all of whom have been inspired by the craft and artistic possibilities of paper. The artists utilized a variety of interesting ingredients to craft their pieces, including used clothing, donated UW—Madison hospital sheets, flax, cotton, linen, bird’s nests and iris leaves. Featured artists are Walter Hamady, Jim Escalante, Mary Hark, Joe Wilfer, among many other talented artists!

At a glance:

• What: Exhibit of artists’ books containing handmade paper made by artists with Wisconsin roots
• Where: Kohler Art Library
• When: April 15th – June 30th, 2013

Want more?

• Visit the other components of the exhibition, History of Handmade and Commercial Paper and Wisconsin-related Industry, Department of Special Collections (976 Memorial Library) and Paper Engineering, Silver Buckle Press (2^nd floor, Memorial Library)
• Join co-curators Tracy Honn and Lyn Korenic for a gallery talk in the Department of Special Collections on Thursday, May 30^th from 3:00-4:00pm.

The Marketing Committee dove into the Archives and the Digital Collections to find vintage images for this year’s black-and-white postcards, which include thought bubbles that students can personalize.  Of course, there is also a color design featuring Bucky Badger at his most studious!

Postcards will be available at the big study hubs around campus, and each participating library will also be posting a set number of postcards for students during Finals Week.

Look for all four postcard designs at these participating libraries, and ask a librarian about how to send them home!

• College Library
• Memorial Library
• Wendt Commons
• Ebling Library
• Steenbock Memorial Library

Dr. He then screened the top 62 university libraries’ Chinese collections in the United States.  The University of Wisconsin—Madison Chinese Collection is delighted to announce that they came in fifth place. What an honor!

Here’s how the top-ranked Chinese Collections stacked up:

The success of the collection can be attributed to the dedication and effort of the four China studies librarians who have worked to build the collection over the years. Congratulations to Chester Wang (1965 to 1997), Thomas Hahn (1998 to 2001), Victoria Chu (2002 to 2005), and Dianna Xu (2006 to present). Thank you for all your hard work!

Dr. He’s article can be accessed at http://www.bookdao.com/article/46574

Last week, Madison B-cycle unveiled 30 new “Poetic Bikes” into their bicycle lending system as part of a city-wide partnership with Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, a local organization run by Parallel Press poet Shoshauna Shy.  In the past, Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf has partnered with Community Car in a similar effort to integrate poems and poetry into everyday events– like a commute to work or school.

In order to choose poems, the team sifted through over 300 submissions, searching for work with a Madison theme.  10 poems were selected and were added to 30 of the iconic red B-cycle Bikes.

Several of the featured poets witnessed the release of their poems into the Madison B-cycle bike share program last Friday, including a variety of Parallel Press Authors and editors (linked below).

List of poems and their poets:

• “Tree on Johnson Street” by Jan Chronister
• “the wi film festival” by Amelia Cook
• “Old House on Lake Monona—the Near End of Jenifer ST” by Peg Carlson Lauber
• “It was already clear” by Ralph Murre
• “First Fall Semester” by Andrea Potos
• “Cursive Discarded From Grade School Curriculum” by Shoshauna Shy
• “From my Window” by Danez Smith
• “Orange Custard Chocolate Chip” by Frannie Zellman
• “Arboretum Walk”  and “State Street, Late November” by Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva

In a tight race against Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, LOTR claimed the UW-Madison Libraries 2013 Book Madness tournament title on April 10th.  LOTR won with 51.7% of the votes– here’s how the final match-up went down:

• The Lord of the Rings: 451 votes, 51.7%
• Pride and Prejudice: 421 votes, 48.3%

The new posters, seen at right, show Bucky reading his copy of The Lord of the Rings at the terrace.  The posters are 9×12,” a perfect size for lockers, bulletin boards, or dorm room walls.

E-mail bucky@library.wisc.edu if you’re interested in ordering these special-edition Book Madness Bucky READ posters.

Special thanks go to Senior Artist Dan Joe for creating the new design.

Andrea Rolich

Our staff spotlight this month is Andrea Rolich, Preservation Librarian at Memorial Library. Although the nature of her work does not typically put her in the spotlight, Andrea was happy to share a wealth of knowledge about the Preservation Department and had some fascinating items to show off. Read on to learn more about Andrea and the vital role preservation plays in the libraries.

News: Can you tell me a little bit about what goes on here in the Preservation Department?

Andrea Rolich (AR): Preservation should be taken into account in every aspect of library and archives operations. Materials in disrepair, mostly from circulation, come to us for treatment. In other cases, materials are chosen for treatment based on their subject matter or their rarity.

When an item enters the department, the first order of business generally consists of sorting in order to determine what type of treatment the material needs and bibliographic and physical control in which the Preservation location of all items are entered into Voyager so that they may be easily located should a patron place a request. Depending on each individual case, the activities we engage in can include commercial binding, hand repair, microfilming, creation of paper facsimiles, replacement with out-of-print copies, mass de-acidification, and digitizing.

We also received a lot of items to “stabilize” for the Google Books initiative, which kept all Preservation-related staff very busy.

In addition to these “behind-the-scenes” activities, preservation staff are also involved with outreach activities like conducting education sessions and workshops for other University staff and libraries of all kinds, acting as guest lecturers for courses at the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS), and setting up exhibits to spread awareness of preservation activities.

Overall, our goal is similar to that of other library departments, which is to maintain and enhance access to all of the great research materials available through the University Libraries.

News: As you are well aware, this week is Preservation Week (April 21-27)! Can you tell me more about that?

AR: Libraries use Preservation Week to connect with their communities through events, activities, and resources that promote awareness of the importance of preservation activities.

There are three free webinars going on this week through ALCTS:

• Tuesday, April 23: The Preservation of Family Photographs—Debra Hess Norris
• Wednesday, April 24: Personal Digital Archiving—Mike Ashenfelder
• Thursday, April 25: Archival 101: Dealing with Suppliers of Archival Products—Peter D. Verheyen

Each of these webinars can be accessed after the fact, too, so if you can’t make it for the live webinar, you can feel free to register and watch it at your leisure.

In the past, we’ve been able to be much more active during Preservation Week by creating local exhibits, setting up group showings of webinars, etc., but this year won’t be quite as eventful simply because our daily operations have kept us very busy lately.

News: What is your favorite part of your job?

AR: I would have to say that working with other staff members who have similar interests is one of the best parts. But also, the type of work we do is quite satisfying. To know that something that is incomplete or fragile and virtually unusable in its current form can be made fully accessible to users is very fulfilling. For example, there was this brittle Chinese book that came to us– it practically crumbled if you touched it.   We were able to restore it by creating a facsimile copy. The new version is now perfectly useable on beautiful, creamy, acid-free paper.

One downside to the work is that there are sometimes instances in which nothing can be done for a book. For instance, we had an item with the imprinting from another page on top of the text. It looked like the ink was still wet and it was laid on top of the already-printed page. Our first option would normally be to get an ILL copy and just photocopy the undamaged page from it and replace the damaged page with that copy. Unfortunately, in this case there were no other copies available as we owned the sole copy registered in OCLC, so we were unable to fix it.

News: Since it was just National Library Week, I have to ask… What is your favorite library?

AR: Well, I of course have to go with the obvious answer, Memorial Library. I have used and loved it from the time I first came here for grad school in the late-1960s. I worked here as a student and later as a half-time cataloger of Slavic and Baltic materials, from 1983-1991. I was lucky to be at SLIS in the later eighties at a time when there was a Preservation track, which is one of the reasons I’m in my current position (since 1991).

Other than Memorial, I also frequent Middleton Public Library from time to time, since I live in Middleton.

News: What are you reading right now?

AR: My favorite authors are Russian and French authors—I have a background in Slavic Languages/Literatures, and actually got my PhD in that before attending library school.

Want more?

Just inside the Preservation Department office doors, display cases feature terribly damaged books and humorously and horrifically botched “home repairs” that have made their way to the Preservation Department over the years. Amongst signs proclaiming quips like “Books are not candle holders” you’ll find books that have been devoured by insects, covered in highlighting, and bandaged with band-aids and electrical tape, to name only a few of the delightfully atrocious specimens. The banner above the display appropriately sums up the Preservation Department’s mission, stating “Great collections deserve great care. You can help!”

• Check out the ALCTS page on ALA’s website for ways you can get involved with Preservation Week
• Look for Preservation Week printouts in the lobby of Memorial Library
• Visit the UW-Madison Preservation Department website
• Attend a preservation webinar!

Campus librarians on the award committee used the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Standards as the main criteria for assessing the applications for the awards.  Last week, the selection committee chose four Undergraduate Research Award Winners for 2013. They include:

Participants thought outside the “cake box” when it came to choosing their edible materials. Entries were crafted using a wide variety of ingredients including Jell-O, Triscuits, candy bars, rice noodles, artichoke hearts, herbs and spices, daikon radishes (believe it or not, two creations included this unique vegetable), and Wisconsin’s state fruit—cranberries.

A Bus Called Heaven

One entry that really embraced the “Communities Matter” theme was “A Bus Called Heaven,” created by Katelyn Martens and Ashley Guy of MERIT Library. A funky, vibrant bus, sculpted from Rice Krispie Treats and fondant, represented the picture book by Bob Graham. A Bus Called Heaven tells the inspiring and whimsical story about a community of neighbors from all walks of life coming together to refurbish an abandoned bus.

“The Green Truck Garden Giveaway” was an impressive and highly-detailed garden landscape, made by Lesley Wolf and Marion Ceraso, of the Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute. The creators were inspired by The Green Truck Garden Giveaway: A Neighborhood Story and Almanac and used seasonal ingredients to represent each of the four seasons. The outcome was a lovely (and fragrant!), meticulously hand-crafted panorama.

We Are In A Book!

One of the “punny” entries was Stephanie Unertl’s cake featuring a spot-on reproduction of author Mo Willem’s lovable characters, Elephant & Piggie. The book it paired with was We Are in a Book!, so naturally the characters on the cake declared “We Are On a Cake!” Stephanie knew she wanted to represent a children’s book because she was inspired by their colors and illustrations, but wasn’t sure which book to use, so she turned to her fellow SLIS classmates and the elementary school students she teaches for their opinions. “Elephant & Piggie” was the answer, hands down.

When asked about her creative process, Stephanie spoke about the virtue of patience and the challenges she encountered working with food as a medium. “You have to wait for your cake to cool or you’ll crumble it, and butter cream frosting can get too warm and might have to go back in the fridge until it has a better consistency for piping. And if you goof, frosting and cake are fairly unforgiving—it’s hard to cover errors when working with frosting on frosting unless you scrape it off and completely recover the area you were working in.” But the best part about working with cake? “You get to eat it! Cake is ephemeral—it doesn’t last… but it’s made to be eaten and appreciated.”

The edible books were ogled by library staff, students, and community members who had the opportunity to cast votes for the People’s Choice award. The entries were then analyzed by four very qualified judges, the 149 votes were tallied, and prizes were awarded in six different categories.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the winners!

• People’s Choice- Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute, “The Green Truck Garden Giveaway: A Neighborhood Story and Almanac”
• Most Creative Use of Ingredients- Jacobsen Primate Library, “Ham the Astrochimp”
• Best Visual Presentation- Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute, “The Green Truck Garden Giveaway: A Neighborhood Story and Almanac”
• Funniest/Punniest- Stephanie Unertl, “We Are On a Cake!”
• Best Entry Based on a Children’s/Teen’s Book- MERIT Library, “A Bus Called Heaven”
• Best Literary Mash-Up- Memorial Library Reference Department, “One Book, Two Book, Red Book, Blue Book”

Want more?

• Visit the Edible Book Festival website 
• Check out ALA’s page about National Library Week and how you can celebrate!

Cover image of “Tricks of Light,” by Jeanie Tomasko. Parallel Press, 2011.

April is always a busy time for the poetry community because it’s National Poetry Month. National Poetry Month provides a great opportunity to listen to (and share!) favorite poems and to discover new work. Many Parallel Press chapbook authors are participating in local events and poetry readings throughout April in honor of this celebration.

Here are just a few of the many events going on in the area:

• April 17-24, Fox Cities Book Festival Many wonderful poetry-related events will be happening throughout the week including a reading by WI Poet Laureate Max Garland! Max is the author of the poetry chapbook Apparition (Parallel Press, 1999). Check out the whole schedule of events here!

• Tuesday, April 23, 6:30pm at Appleblossom Books in Oshkosh Jeanie and Steve Tomasko of Middleton, WI will each read a selection of their own poetry, followed by an open mic session where participants may read one or two of their own poems or favorites. Jeanie is the author of Tricks of Light (Parallel Press, 2011).

For more ways to celebrate, check out the UW-Madison Libraries Pinterest board, dedicated to all things National Poetry Month!