Read This Book!

By Danika Stegeman

In this episode of "Read This Book!," Danika Stegeman highlights four books included in the "From Our Collections" exhibit in Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota.

* "The Round House" by Louise Erdrich

* "Turn Here Sweet Corn," by Atina Diffley

* "One! Hundred! Demons!" by Lynda Barry, and

* "A Frolic of His Own" by William Gaddis

The exhibit features library-owned books recommended by faculty, students, staff, and others. This month’s theme is award-winning books.

'The Round House'

Our first recommendation is "The Round House" by Louise Erdrich, which won the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction. You can find it in Wilson Library's McCollister Collection for Contemporary Literature.

"The Round House" takes place on a fictional reservation community in North Dakota. The narrator, Joe, takes matters into his own hands when his mother's rapist goes unpunished.  The novel is both a coming of age story and an important look at how United States law has failed many Native American communities.

'Turn Here Sweet Corn'

If you're interested in the local food movement or organic farming, pay attention to our next book, "Turn Here Sweet Corn." Long-time organic farmer Atina Diffley chronicles the ups and downs of running a Minnesota family farm - Gardens of Eagan. The writing in this book is beautiful and lyrical. It combines memoir with organic farming how-to alongside a classic David-and-Goliath story as Atina and her husband take on a major corporation that wants to build a crude oil pipeline across their land.

This book won the Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Non-fiction in 2013 and can be found at Magrath Library on the St. Paul campus.

'One! Hundred! Demons!'

Our next book, "One! Hundred! Demons!" by Lynda Barry, was a library staff suggestion and it is the most colorful book in the exhibit. This book won the 2003 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album.

"One! Hundred! Demons!" is a collection of memoiristic comic strips that originally appeared in Salon’s ‘Mothers Who Think’ section. The strips cover a variety of content including an ex-boyfriend with head lice, childhood kickball bullies, and rules for who can groove and who really shouldn’t.  It can be found in Wilson Library’s general collection.

'A Frolic of His Own'

And, last but not least, we recommend "A Frolic of His Own" by William Gaddis, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1994 and can be found in Wilson Library or the Law Library.

William Gaddis is a keen observer and has a dark sense of humor, which he applies to the American legal system.  Gaddis weaves together multiple character's stories and legal wranglings around one incident - a frivolous case about a dog off on a frolic of his own. I recommend this book to anyone interested in innovative style in fiction or in satire of American culture.

More information

These are just a few of the recommendations in our current display. We hope you’ll check out one of these books or stop by the 1st floor of Wilson Library to take a look at the exhibit.

* View the exhibit online on our Pinterest board:

* Make a recommendation for the exhibit 

Exhibit now online

* Exhibit closed in 2014

* Experience Rejoice the Legacy! online

Lisa Von Drasek wants "everyone to come and see this exhibit." Von Drasek, curator of the Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries is referring to "Rejoice the Legacy!," the exhibit currently on display at Elmer L. Andersen Library at the University of Minnesota.

The exhibit displays original manuscript pages, artist dummies, picture book proofs, and original art and sketches selected from among Andrea Davis Pinkney’s more than 20 published children’s and young adult titles. The exhibit will provide insight into one writer’s creative process as well as a peek into editorial practice.

"'Rejoice the Legacy!' is the history of black Americans, of American history, of the Civil Rights movement, (and) of the creation of picture books," Von Drasek said. "And we're here to celebrate Andrea's work, and her husband's work, Brian Pinkney."

Attend the May 3 Arbuthnot Lecture featuring Davis Pinkney

Davis Pinkney will give the 2014 May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture on May 3, 7 p.m., at the University of Minnesota. The 7 p.m. lecture is free, but tickets are required.

"She is going to talk about her writing process, being an editor, and what it's like to be an African American woman in publishing today," Von Drasek said.

Davis Pinkney is a New York Times best-selling writer of more than 20 books for children and young adults, including picture books, novels and nonfiction. Pinkney’s books include “With the Might of Angels,” “Bird in a Box,” “Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down,” “Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride,” “Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters,” and “Duke Ellington.”

Science Librarian Megan Kocher discusses cookbooks in this episode of "Read This Book!" from the University of Minnesota Libraries.

The books are:

* “Edible Twin Cities: The Cookbook,” by Angelo Gentile

* “Minnesota’s Farmers Market Cookbook,” by Tricia Cornell and Paul Markert

* “Minnesota’s Bounty: The Farmers Market Cookbook,” by Beth Dooley

* Original Local,” by Heid E. Erdrich, and

* “The New Midwestern Table,” by Amy Thielen.

Each of the books are part of the University of Minnesota’s Kirschner Cookbooks Collection. Kocher is the curator for this collection. For more information, please refer to the Kirschner Cookbooks Collection blog.

In her role with the Exploring Minnesota’s Natural History project, Rebecca Wilson sees thousands of images. Every so often, one really stands out.

“There will be a series of 100 photographs of blackbirds,” said Wilson, describing the somewhat routine part of her job as project manager. “But, then, photograph 101 will be a hand holding two meadowlarks.”

“There are just fantastic images,” said Erik Moore, head of the University of Minnesota Archives, who is leading the project. “We have digitized over 6,000 glass plate and film negatives, 3, 000 lantern slides, and 2,000 print photographs that depict botanical specimens, landscapes of Minnesota, and animals in their native habitats.”

Some materials haven’t been seen for 100 years

The yearlong project will digitize and provide online access to unique botanical, zoological, and geological material from archival collections that document the natural history of the state of Minnesota. The materials relate to the establishment of the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey in 1872 by the state legislature under the auspices of the University’s Board of Regents.

In addition to digitizing the survey records and field notebooks, the records of the University’s Bell Museum of Natural History and the departments of botany, geology, and zoology – all entities which credit their initiation to the original Survey – will be included in the project. Funding is provided by the State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society.

“The materials include everything from field notebooks kept by the officers of the survey to observational journals that amateur naturalists used to record bird sightings. The materials haven’t been seen by anybody for 50 to 100 years;” Moore said.

The materials that will be digitized for this project include:

* 6,500 glass plate and film negatives

* 2,200 photographic prints

* 3,200 lantern slides

* Over 170,000 pages of archival material, including journals, correspondence, scrapbooks, departmental records, publications, and reports

The University Libraries’ Digital Library Services unit – which has considerable experience with large-volume projects featuring photographs, archival manuscripts, and other mixed-material – is conducting the digitization. Through January 2014, the unit completed 138,371 scans in slightly more than 2,000 hours.

Handwritten notes provide context

Wilson said that the material includes corresponding information – handwritten notes and captions.

“Once those materials have been scanned, it’s my job to decipher the hastily written hand notations and make sure all of these new digital records have contextual information,” Wilson said. For example, glass plate negatives in the Bell Museum records are encased in envelopes that have handwritten notes on them. The notes typically include the date and location of a specific photo, but may also include the aperture of the camera or the length of exposure.

“So a media researcher could take this information and write a history of field photography,” Moore said. But the project will also provide researchers of Minnesota’s environment the ability to establish benchmarks and comparable points of data in order to study the changes to the larger ecosystem, he added.

“The historic nature and rich content of these collections will serve as an important foundational resource not only to researchers at the University of Minnesota but to those everywhere who are studying changes in the environment.”

Project continues spirit of 1872 Act

Through digitization,

Read This Book!: Science and Bicycles, features Carolyn Rauber, a University of Minnesota science and engineering librarian. In this episode, Rauber highlights four books related to the science of bicycles.

* "All About the Bike"

By Robert Penn

* "The eBike Book"

Hannes Neupert, Juliane Schroder, and Marisa Schulz

* "Four Centuries of Geological Travel: The search for knowledge on foot, bicycle, sledge, and camel"

Patrick N. Wyse Jackson

* "Evaluation of Blue Bike-Lane Treatment in Portland, Oregon"

William W. Hunter, David L. Harkey, J. Richard Stewart, and Mia L. Birk

2000

The Transportation Research Record

Viewing the current Downton Abbey exhibit at the Wangensteen Historical Library left graduate student Jeff Moulton feeling a bit queasy as he thought about medicine of the early 20th century.

Exhibit info

"Downton Abbey: Behind the Scenes of Health and Illness" runs through May 16 at the Wangensteen Historical Library at the University of Minnesota.

Hours, location, details

"There are some things that are almost terrifying," Moulton, a big Downton Abbey fan, said about some of the exhibit artifacts that include "a lot of pokers and tweezers."

"I'm glad I live now," said Emily Hagens, a Ph.D. student who is co-curator of the exhibit, "Downtown Abbey: Behind the Scenes of Health and Illness."

"It was hard because there wasn't good anesthesia (and) they didn't have the antibiotics that we have now," Hagens said. "So there was a lot of danger in living in the time period."

"It's hard to imagine," Moulton said. "It makes me wonder, a century ago, did the people who actually lived those lives, what kind of faith did they have in their doctor."

About the exhibit

Someone suggested to Lois Hendrickson, curator of the Wangensteen Historical Library, the idea of creating an exhibit by combining medicine and Downton Abbey. Hendrickson and Hagens, both fans of the show, jumped at the opportunity.

"The vast majority of the materials in the exhibit does belong to Wangensteen," Hendrickson said. "In addition to the books, the Wangensteen has a nice artifacts collection, which you see exhibited as well."

To get started the two watched all of the shows again, trying to identify themes for the exhibit.

"We focused on the medical events that happened around World War I," Hagens said. This included shell shock, amputations, civilian nursing, and development of civilian hospitals. "We're  really interested in showing the changing role of medicine during this time period," Hendrickson added.

Why you should visit

Hendrickson and Hagens say the exhibit is popular with Downton Abbey fans and for non-fans who are simply interested in history and medicine.

"I think people who come see the exhibit, who love Downton, will come away with a new understanding of the show," Hagens said.

Said Hendrickson: "People who are not fans of Downton Abbey can still enjoy the exhibit because it really lays out how medicine changed during this time period and how World War I, for example, influenced medicine."

If you want to see the current Bell Library exhibit, you had better hurry. The exhibit, "Bound Fragments: 60 Years of Collecting at the James Ford Bell Library," closes on February 28.

Exhibit Hours

The exhibit is in the T.R. Anderson Gallery, located on the 4th floor of Wilson Library on the west bank campus and can be viewed Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; evenings and weekends by appointment.

The exhibit is part of the Bell Library's 60th Anniversary celebration. And as curator Marguerite Ragnow says, it's important to celebrate such milestones.

"Milestones provide opportunities to come together as a community, to celebrate our common experience, to acknowledge the achievements of those who were key contributors, and to reflect on the future," Ragnow said. "This special anniversary exhibition is the result of several years of planning and thinking about how best to represent an astonishingly rich collection that has grown to more than 30,000 items."

About the exhibit

The exhibit materials reflect a variety of topics and themes that were chosen to represent the many facets of the collection, Ragnow said. It includes curator and staff favorites, one-of-kind items that exist nowhere else, and special gifts that reflect the commitment of the Bell family and the Associates of the James Ford Bell Library.

The exhibit also honors those who played a significant role: founder James Ford Bell, curators John (Jack) Parker and Carol Urness, and T. R. Anderson, one of the founders of the Associates of the James Ford Bell Library, as well as the donors who have contributed over the years.

"I think this exhibit will  appeal to just about anyone who is interested in history ... The James Ford Bell Library represents our collective history," Ragnow said. "As curator, I feel particularly blessed to have been given charge of this magnificent collection, a collection comprised, as Mr. Bell often remarked, of 'bound fragments of time.'”

About the James Ford Bell Library

The James Ford Bell Library advances understanding of our global heritage by documenting the history and impact of trade prior to ca. 1800 CE. Its premier collection of rare books, maps, and manuscripts, and its innovative programs support scholarship and education at all levels, enriching our community by helping to make the world we live in more meaningful.

"Read This Book!" Featuring Lisa Von Drasek

In a series of episodes of "Read This Book!" Lisa Von Drasek discusses her favorite children's books for 2013.

Young Adult

* "Indenpendent Study" (Testing Trilogy #2) by Joelle Charbonneau

* "Uncrashable Dakota" by Andy Marino

* "Romeo and Juliet" by Gareth Hinds

* "Dark Triumph" by Robyn LaFevers

Chapter Books

* "Anna Was Here" By Jane Kurtz

* "The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp" by Kathi Appelt

* "The Thing About Luck" by Cynthia Kadohata

* "Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures" by Kate DiCamillo

Interactive Books

* "Nighty Night Little Green Monster" by Ed Emberly

* "Animal Opposites" by Petr Horacek

* "Flora and the Flamingo" by Molly Idle

* "Bugs: A Stunning Pop-Up Look at Insects, Spiders, and Other Creepy Crawlies" by George McGavin

Best Books for Emerging Readers

* "Gossie and Gertie" by Olivier Dunrea

* "The Big Wet Balloon" by Ricardo Liniers

* "Twinky the Dinky Dog" by Kate Klimo

Best Picture Books

* "Friends" by Mies Van Hout

* "The Silver Button" by Bob Graham

* "Maria Had a Little Llama" by Angela Dominguez

* "Once Upon a Memory" by Nina Laden

Von Drasek is the curator of the Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Read more from Von Drasek's blog, "Early Word Kids."

Featuring Lisa Von Drasek

In this episode of "Read This Book!" Lisa Von Drasek discusses some of her favorite graphic format children's books:

* "Relish: My Life in the Kitchen" by Lucy Knisley

* "The Sleepwalkers" by Viviane Schwarz

* "March Book One" by John Lewis

Von Drasek is the curator of the Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

James Ford Bell Library was founded in 1953

Ellen George

This year the James Ford Bell Library celebrates its 60th anniversary of preserving and documenting the history of trade around the world.

The Bell Library was established at the University of Minnesota in 1953 through an agreement between the Board of Regents and James Ford Bell, a local industrialist and philanthropist and also a member of the Board of Regents from 1939 until shortly before his death in 1961.

"James Ford Bell was an avid collector," said Ellen George, President of the Associates of the James Ford Bell Library. "And what he wanted was to share his collection with the public."

Originally focused on what was known as the Age of Exploration, roughly 1400 to 1800, the Bell has expanded its collecting focus to encompass all pre-modern materials that preserve and document the history of trade and its impact. The collection, currently, consists of more than 30,000 items, ranging from handwritten invoices for goods dated as early as the 5th century to early 19th century accounts of expeditions into the North American wilderness.

The James Ford Bell Library is a key resource for undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, and the public, said William Phillips, professor emeritus of history at the University of Minnesota.

Supporting education

William Phillips

"[Undergraduates] come into the Bell Library not believing that they can touch materials that are 500 years old," Phillips said. "And they find that they can and it sparks something in their imagination."

Phillips and others say that access to primary sources is critically important for students and researchers.

"Nothing really replaces an encounter with original sources," said Kathryn Reyerson, professor of history at the University of Minnesota. "To hold a document is something that can make a lasting impact."

"You should be able to look at what people were thinking during the actual time [in history]," said Zoe Hill, an alumna of the University of Minnesota and a member of the Associates of the James Ford Bell Library. "It helps you to weed out biases ... And it gives you an opportunity to form your own opinions."

Carla Rahn Phillips, professor emeriti of history, said that the Bell is an important asset for recruiting graduate students to the University of Minnesota. "Graduate students often choose to come to an institution, such as the University of Minnesota, because of the research opportunities that that institution has," she said. "The Bell Library is one of our greatest drawing cards."

Supporting research

Nabil Matar

Nabil Matar, a professor of English, said without the Bell Library he would not have been able to conduct his research.

"The fact that a particular book is here helps me very much in terms of finding material that somebody else at a different university, which doesn't have the book, would not find with the same ease," Matar said.

Carla Phillips said the book she most enjoyed writing was inspired by a packet of materials at the Bell Library. "This was a book called 'Six Galleons for the King of Spain,' and the Bell Library, in fact, had the delivery documents for those six galleons," Phillips said.

Supporting community

Ford Bell

It's important for a research library like the Bell to be housed at the University of Minnesota, a major research institution,