August 2011 Archives
Here's a new way to support Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Libraries: Vote in Virginia's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts campaign. This public awareness campaign is designed to show the importance of preserving artifacts in care at collecting institutions such as museums, libraries and archives.
"It is important to save and preserve these artifacts and other items that comprise our material culture because they hold much symbolic, research and educational value," says Jodi L. Koste, archivist at Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences.
VCU Libraries has nominated two artifacts in need of preservation that tell significant stories about its special collections. They are:
- Matriculation Book of the Medical College of Virginia, 1838-1871. In this book all the names of students were recorded along with the student's address, preceptor and previous schools attended. Student entries are annotated when the individual graduated. The book is of high value for the information it provides on early students. It is also an interesting artifact because it includes the signatures of several Union soldiers who left their "mark" in the book during the occupation of the college's building after the Civil War.
- The office door of pioneering cartoonist Billy DeBeck featuring an oil painting of Barney Google and his equine sidekick. William Morgan DeBeck, 1890-1942, was a giant in the "comic strip" art form. To readers in the Jazz Age and Depression era, his characters were as beloved as Superman, Peanuts and Doonesbury became to later generations. Dialog from Barney Google became part of the cultural syntax. Catchphrases from his strips included: "Horsefeathers!" "Heebie-jeebies;" "Jeepers Creepers!" "Bus' Mah Britches!" and "Time's a'wastin'!" DeBeck invented the moniker "Google" for his character.
These two artifacts are examples of the content of VCU Libraries' special collections. Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences houses archives, artifacts, books, manuscripts, photographs, portraits and prints related to the history of health care in Virginia. The archives for the Medical College of Virginia campus are also located in the library on the MCV Campus. On the Monroe Park campus, James Branch Cabell Library is home to significant collections in comic and graphic arts, artist's books, modern Richmond history and culture, oral histories, literary manuscripts, and documentation of Central Virginia minority and activist communities.
To vote: www.vatop10artifacts.org/p/how-do-i-vote.html Voting is online and there are two ways to vote. One is to go to the photo album, create a free account in the Picasa platform, and "like" your favorite artifact. Or, you may prefer to choose from a drop-down box in a Google spreadsheet. Links to both voting methods.
If you have difficulty voting, send your choice by email to srobinson26@vcu.edu Use Internet Explorer.
Voting ends Sept. 20. Public voting will be considered by an independent panel of collections and conservation experts who will select the final Top 10. That list will be announced in November.
Follow on Twitter: #vatop10
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Virginia's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts is a program of the Virginia Collections Initiative, which is a project of the Virginia Association of Museums, made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. The IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums.
Additional improvements to VCU Libraries include:
VCU Libraries, serving the Monroe Park Campus and the MCV Campus, offers major new collections of e-resources (e-books, streaming audio, streaming video, and databases).
A comprehensive list of new collections--acquired during 2010-11--and available now is posted. All databases in the A-to-Z Guide.
Some notable additions to the collections include:
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online
- Methods in Enzymology
- New England Journal of Medicine
- American History in Video
- Classical Scores Library
- Classical Music Reference Library
- African American Music Reference
- Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online
- Berg Fashion Library
- International Bibliography of Art
- Stratfor
- The Left Index
- Alternative Press Index
- Index Islamicus
- Designinform
- Access Medicine
- Access Science
- Access Engineering
- Material Connexion
- SPIE Digital Library
- Grzimek's Animal Life encyclopedia
- Underground Comics & Graphic Novels
- World News Collection
- LWW Nursing Health Assessment Video Series
Programs and exhibits at James Branch Cabell Library in the center of VCU's Monroe Park campus offer opportunities for the community to reflect on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath.
VCU Libraries and its Friends of the Library present "9/11 Commemoration," a collection of installations and exhibits open from Tuesday, Sept. 6 through Friday, Sept. 23 at James Branch Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 9 from 4 to 6 p.m. beginning with remarks from contributors.
These programs explore September 11, 2001 before and after:
- Wall of Memories. Just inside the entryway of James Branch Cabell Library, patrons will find a blank wall where they may post brief reflections on September 11, 2001.
- World Trade Center Recordings: Winds After Hurricane Floyd. Stephen Vitiello, associate professor in the VCU Department of Kinetic Imaging, supplies an installation of sound recordings that he made from the 91st floor of the first World Trade Center tower in 1999. Vitiello's sound installation will be housed on the first floor of Cabell Library in an intimate gallery space where patrons can experience the recordings in small groups. Originally presented at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the installation will also appear this year at MoMA PS1 as a part of the group exhibition "September 11."
- Construction Prints of the World Trade Center, 1967-1973. In the gallery space near the elevators on the first floor of Cabell Library will be detailed sketches commissioned to document the progress of construction of the World Trade Center from the foundation up to its significant position in the New York City skyline. These prints are on loan from VCU Friends of the Library members John Jay and Gail P. Schwartz and are by artists Nicholas Solovioff and Lili Réthi.
- Commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of 9-11. Cabell Library Special Collections and Archives stages three exhibits: "Comic Artists Respond to September 11, 2001," "Artists' Books Commemorate September 11" and "Richmond and 9-11: 10 Years Ago." These exhibits draw on materials in three major collections (the Comic Arts Collection, the Book Art Collection, and university archives). The display is in the fourth floor gallery area.
This program, including the opening reception, is free and open to the public. Register online or by contacting Gregory G. Kimbrell at (804) 828-0593 or kimbrellgg@vcu.edu. Please also contact him for special accommodations. Parking is available for a fee in the West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks.
A "Welcome New Students" banner will be flying and some 500 attendees are expected. Attendees will have opportunities to:
- Sign up for an iPad giveaway
- Sip Starbucks samples at a station located behind the Ask Us desk
- Sign up for a drawing to receive a poster of Rams basketball coach Shaka Smart
- Get bookmarks featuring Rams basketball coach Shaka Smart
- Sample foods from VCU Dining Services in Room 250
- Meet research and instructional services librarians and other library staff
- Tour the building and get an overview of resources and services
- Join the Friends of the Library, on the fourth floor
- See Special Collections exhibitions in the fourth floor gallery
- Pick up information sheets at some tables
- Ask questions of librarians and Technology Services, Dining Services and Campus Learning Center representatives
The article by Dale Brumfield:Much has been written of Richmond's paranormal past, but 50 years ago, one particular Ghost spoke out against segregation, brutal local police tactics and the College of William and Mary's patronizing stranglehold on what one day would be Virginia Commonwealth University.
Nine issues of The Ghost were "published when needed" between February 1960 and August 1961 by self-described 20th-century scalawag Edward H. Peeples and his friend, transplanted New Yorker Richard Kollin. Arguably the city's first modern-era true underground publication, the Ghost was passed around the Fan and Richmond Professional Institute, known colloquially as RPI, at the height of the civil rights era.
The Ghost was launched out of Peeples' acute frustration with a bigoted racist philosophy dubbed the Virginia Way, coined by Douglas S. Freeman of the Richmond News Leader, supported by the Byrd political machine and endorsed through vitriolic pro-segregationist editorials by the News-Leader's James J. Kilpatrick; Virginians, as The Ghost proclaimed sarcastically, were able to "segregate like gentlemen," not like those "rubes in Alabama who give segregation a bad name."
"We feel that The Ghost should be provocative and 'newsy' and that it will become the overt voice of your wishes and desires of RPI and the Fan district," the 1960 debut issue announced. The magazine's primitive mimeographed layout belied its authoritative skewering of sacred Richmond cows, including the tacit acceptance of social injustices against women and blacks that largely had gone unchanged since post-Civil War days. "Challenging segregation and the Virginia way was our main goal," Peeples explained.
A varsity basketball starter, 1957 RPI graduate and self-professed "spy for the black community," Peeples participated in the infamous early '60s lunch counter sit-ins with other Richmond notables, including Doug Wilder and Edward Meeks Gregory. "I was never arrested," the Richmond native insists, "but I have been thrown out and fired from a lot of places, including RPI."
RPI -- the grandfather of Virginia Commonwealth University -- was considered a brash, blue-collar school -- "'College for the rest of us'," according to Peeples, and "a hotbed of slanderous stereotypes" according to the News Leader -- scorned in its own city and virtually ignored by W&M overseers. Embracing its reputation as a working-class upstart, RPI students maintained a strong sense of college pride while attracting a large number of Northerners, mostly because of the enormous respect that RPI art school founder Theresa Pollak commanded in New York.
After a post-graduation stint in the Navy, Peeples rejoined Richmond's counterculture in 1959, excited to be "connecting with the Richmond radicals -- both of them." He patronized the 900 block of West Grace Street, where -- according to The Ghost -- 85 percent of all Richmond's 1959 felony arrests occurred.
"The Village Restaurant was the gathering place," Peeples says, explaining that the communists, leftists, beats and artists all staked out their corners of the restaurant to pontificate on their pet causes. Nearby on that block was the Meadow Laundry and art gallery (where the Village Restaurant stands today) and the reopened Lee Theater: "The Ghost offers three hearty cheers to the Lee Theater opening, and particularly, for [Ingmar Bergman's film] 'Wild Strawberries.' We need the Lee Theater, and they need us." Also on this strip -- and a possible reason for the high number of arrests -- was the presence of a gay beer joint, Eton's.
Peeples and his small number of like-minded radicals worked tirelessly to drive their egalitarian causes into the hearts of the Richmond aristocracy. "We were shakers, but not movers," he says, laughing, recalling an Adlai Stevenson rally organized in Monroe Park in 1960 that drew "about a dozen supporters" -- and sadly, no Adlai.
During its brief run, The Ghost was fearless in exposing racial inequities in college sports. One scheduled basketball game between RPI and Union Theological Seminary was "mysteriously called off" because there was a "negro player" on Union's team. "There is a vague policy," The Ghost opined, "enforced by some vague bureaucrat somewhere in the W&M administrative scheme, restricting RPI and Norfolk Division from competing against anyone but bright blue-eyed Aryans."
Suffocating rules enforced on female RPI students by dorm mothers was another thorny issue. The Ghost noted, "We still enjoy the puritanical delusion that a thick, gooey subterfuge of archaic rules will preserve chastity and repute." Women who served as army WACS weren't permitted to live in the RPI dorms, the mag reported. "It seems the administration feels these girls are much too worldly for OUR little women!"
A regular feature, "Les Gendarmes," charted the actions of the Richmond police. It featured a cartoon of a snarling police dog, along with a caption: "The Ghost submits this drawing to city council as a possible substitution for the present Richmond city seal." Some articles remind us that times haven't changed. One recalled how the police's "intolerant, tactless handling of noise complaints" resulted in students getting dismissed from the institute.
The editors eventually accepted future author and then-recent RPI graduate Tom Robbins into their fold. "Robbins was not interested in the social issues," Peeples recalls. "He just enjoyed savaging Southern culture. ... My friendship with Robbins ended when he said that using drugs was OK."
By August 1961, Peeples became heavily involved in numerous civil rights causes, including documenting the Prince Edward County school closings. Kollin, meanwhile, went back to Columbia University for his master degree (he died last year). This forced an end to The Ghost.
Peeples is now retired, as emeritus associate professor of preventive medicine and community health at VCU, but he remains as fiercely loyal to his alma mater as to the social causes he pursued more than 50 years ago. "Ed is one of VCU Libraries' biggest supporters and is a wealth of knowledge," says Special Collections archivist Ray Bonis, who maintains a large, collection of papers in the James Branch Cabell Library documenting Peeples' work in civil rights. This includes four surviving copies of The Ghost, housed in Cabell's Special Collections.
"We [in the movement] nailed and eliminated the de facto expressions of white supremacy. ... We took that as far as we knew how," Peeples says of the seminal tract. "We now ask this generation to kick democracy up another notch." S
Note:This article has been corrected from the print edition.
John Glover, reference librarian for the humanities, presents What Do I Read Next? on Friday, Aug. 26, noon to 1 p.m. in Cabell Library Room 250.
This workshop will introduce participants to tools for finding leisure reading materials at VCU Libraries. It will cover resources such as Book reMarks, Fiction Connection and free online tools to help readers discover authors and explore genres.
The event is free and open to all. No registration is required.
VCU Libraries is recruiting creative and enthusiastic students to serve on the Cabell Library Undergraduate Advisory Committee (CLUAC). The committee meets monthly to discuss library issues, advise VCU Libraries administration and participate in library service activities.
For details and an application.
The deadline for application is Sept 1.
International student orientation for undergraduate and graduate students will take place Wednesday, Aug. 17 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Hibbs Hall, 900 Park Ave. VCU Libraries offers multiple orientation sessions for international students August 17-19.
International students from more than 80 countries were admitted for the semester; the top four countries represented by rank are India, China, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. Students' majors and/or programs range from arts to pharmacy at the undergraduate, transfer, graduate and doctoral levels.
"This year's international class directly contributes to VCU's strategic plan, 'Quest for Distinction,' by bringing a cohort of academically-qualified students to VCU from around the world to further enrich the campus community," says R. McKenna Brown, Ph.D., executive director of the VCU Global Education Office.
For the first year, VCU will host students from Christ University in India who will study at the VCU School of Business at the graduate level. Students from several of VCU's 15 partnership universities are also represented in this year's class. The partnership program provides VCU faculty and students the opportunity for multicultural collaborative research grants and projects, internationalized curriculum, student and faculty exchanges as well as joint conferences.
Librarians and others who want more information about VCU's international students may contact Lane Burgess, VCU Global Education Office, 804-828-3636, leburgess@vcu.edu
In one quick hour, students can learn their way around the VCU Cabell Library building, learn what services are offered by VCU Libraries, and receive an introduction to how large American university libraries work.
In these orientations, we will address:
- What level of help can you expect from libraries' staff?
- Where do you ask and how can you best word your question to elicit the best help?
- What can you do yourself?
- How much can you do online from your home or dorm room?
- What library jargon terms should I learn?
- Wednesday, August 17: 10-11 a.m., noon-1 p.m., 3-4 p.m.
- Thursday, August 18: 3-4 p.m.
- Friday, August 19: 3-4 p.m.
Art and science mix for painter and scholar Victor A. Yanchick, dean of the VCU School of Pharmacy.
His paintings will be on display during the fall semester through Nov. 23, at Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, 509 N. 12th St.
Watercolor is the pharmacy educator's medium of choice, and work on display includes landscapes, pastoral scenes, still lifes and themes from the American Southwest. He started painting 11 years ago. A self-described lifelong learner, he said, "I wanted to do something totally different from what I do on a day-to-day basis. Painting is a way of expressing one's self."
Yanchick, who has served as dean of the School of Pharmacy since 1996, has been a leader on the national level as president of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. He studied pharmacy at the University of Iowa and received his Ph.D. in pharmacy from Purdue University. His wide-ranging interests in the pharmacy profession have included medication use in the elderly and inter-professional education. He has guided several programs through a time of rapid change with a personal commitment to improve patient care outcomes through advances and innovation in pharmacy education.
Yanchick donates his watercolors to help raise funds for student scholarships and philanthropic organizations.
For special accommodations, please contact Thelma Mack at (804) 828-0017 or mackta@vcu.edu.
For more information, please see the event website.
