Library News: In the News 
In 1800, a literate slave known as Gabriel planned a
rebellion that was to involve a march into Richmond. Although the
action was suppressed, it confirmed the growing outcry for justice and
the volatility of the slave economy.
VCU Libraries
will host "Gabriel's Conspiracy: Exploring the Richmond Slave Rebellion
of 1800" on Wednesday, March 13 at 7 p.m. in the W.E. Singleton
Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave.
The event will feature two prominent experts on the
subject of Gabriel's Rebellion, discussing this landmark in Virginia
history: Dr. Michael Nicholls, professor emeritus of history at Utah
State University and author of "Whispers of Rebellion: Narrating
Gabriel's Conspiracy," and Dr. Philip J. Schwarz, professor emeritus of history at VCU and author of "Gabriel's Conspiracy: A Document
History." Schwarz is also emeritus of the VCU Friends of the Library Board.
These two books, "Whispers of Rebellion" and "Gabriel's Conspiracy," both recently published by the University of Virginia Press, aim to present a
complete account of the rebellion.
Event registration: http://www.library.vcu.edu/events/gabriel/
This event is in partnership with the Year of Freedom Committee, the VCU Department of History, the VCU Department of African American Studies and the Library of Virginia, which is also hosting a related lecture at noon on March 13 at the library, 800 E. Broad St. Details:
"Pinning Gabriel's Rebellion"Wednesday, March 13Noon-1:00 PMLecture Hall, Library of Virginia
Using the new website HistoryPin, historians Gregg Kimball and authors Nicholls and Schwarz will trace the activities and events leading up to the best-planned--and potentially most damaging--slave insurrection in Virginia. The region's geography and the library's documents are merged on the website to graphically depict the actions and aftermath of the Henrico bondsman. This program is presented in partnership with VCU Libraries.
VCU News posted this feature story about an innovative class that was a collaboration among VCU Libraries, the Anderson Gallery and others.
VCU Libraries is now live with a unified resource management system and stands at the forefront of libraries worldwide in adopting the next generation of library technologies.
Changing scholarship, shifts in the publishing industry and new technologies are driving this improvement. "It is a system that positions VCU Libraries for the future of managing materials in all media on an increasingly large scale," said John Duke, senior associate university librarian, who has led the technical team. "A huge benefit of being an early adopter is that VCU Libraries has had considerable voice in refining the software to answer the unique needs of a research library with a large academic health sciences campus. We also received some cost savings in opting in early," noted Duke.
Alma has been created using modern, rapid software development tools. This makes for very quick software production, with managed feedback from users to guide development as it is constantly tested. Alma was designed with partner libraries to help manage the variety of materials a modern library holds, taking advantage of technology and learning from other libraries to reduce costs and speed processing. Over time, it is expected that many internal workflows will change and library leadership envisions new efficiencies and savings that can be invested in enhanced services or improved collections.
In a small group of early-adopter libraries, VCU Libraries has been working with Ex Libris to replace the library management system VCU has used for a decade. Ex Libris began rolling out the new Alma system earlier in 2012. VCU is the third library in North America and the largest major research institution to date to launch Alma. It follows Boston College and Fort Hays State University, which went live in the summer.
Alma is a single, consolidated library system that manages print, electronic and digital collections. It replaces several systems that separately manage different aspects of library operations. The use of business analytics and real-time resource analysis tools within Alma will allow the library to become much more efficient and provide an opportunity for cost-containment. This uniform resource management system allows staff to monitor and manage collections, databases and other resources. Library staff also can track usage and analyze collections on a real-time basis.
Alma, and its kin software, Primo, represent the next generation in information management. Primo is a single search discovery tool that effectively is retiring the old "catalog."
Alma is cloud-based software often referred to as software as a service (SaaS). For years, the library has operated its integrated library systems on computer servers on campus and managed these systems using personnel of VCU Libraries and Technology Services. The new model moves the library system off campus to the Internet, where it runs on robust servers managed by a third-party vendor. Service is seamless to the library patron and available around the clock. The benefits for the university: Less expense, less server maintenance, better access, enhanced reliability.
Changing scholarship, shifts in the publishing industry and new technologies are driving this improvement. "It is a system that positions VCU Libraries for the future of managing materials in all media on an increasingly large scale," said John Duke, senior associate university librarian, who has led the technical team. "A huge benefit of being an early adopter is that VCU Libraries has had considerable voice in refining the software to answer the unique needs of a research library with a large academic health sciences campus. We also received some cost savings in opting in early," noted Duke.
Alma has been created using modern, rapid software development tools. This makes for very quick software production, with managed feedback from users to guide development as it is constantly tested. Alma was designed with partner libraries to help manage the variety of materials a modern library holds, taking advantage of technology and learning from other libraries to reduce costs and speed processing. Over time, it is expected that many internal workflows will change and library leadership envisions new efficiencies and savings that can be invested in enhanced services or improved collections.
A team of information management experts, led by University Librarian John E. Ulmschneider and Senior Associate University Librarian John Duke, have been working through the myriad of details, tests, feedback and iterations since March, 2012. The new system went live October 24.
"The Roving Eye," an Oct. 2, 2012 article by Edwin Slipek Jr. in STYLE Weekly, publishes many rare photos of everyday life in Richmond early in the century and tells in detail the story of a turn-of-the-century Richmonder, Harris H. Stilson. Stilson was a streetcar conductor and motorman and an amateur photographer and filmmaker who captured images of Richmond in the 1910s, '20s and '30s.
Kitty Snow, Stilson's great-granddaughter, is the driving force behind the work to save the photographs and films. She told STYLE: "His pictures show how people made a living, where they shopped, where they worked and what Richmond was like in the early 20th century." Some 125 of these rare photos will be published in the forthcoming book, "From a Richmond Streetcar." VCU Libraries will be hosting a book launch event Oct. 30.
Kitty Snow, Stilson's great-granddaughter, is the driving force behind the work to save the photographs and films. She told STYLE: "His pictures show how people made a living, where they shopped, where they worked and what Richmond was like in the early 20th century." Some 125 of these rare photos will be published in the forthcoming book, "From a Richmond Streetcar." VCU Libraries will be hosting a book launch event Oct. 30.
Author of "We the Animals" and recipient of the 2012 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award Justin Torres has been named to the career-kick starting 5 Under 35 list by the National Book Foundation. The foundation awards the National Book Awards.
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Torres will be on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus Nov. 8 for a reading, book signing, Q&A and sessions with students.
The following week, on Monday, Nov. 12 at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO,
Brooklyn, the National Book Foundation will kick off National Book
Awards Week with a party for this year's 5 Under 35 authors.
Host for the evening will be musician Neko Case, with poet and photographer Thomas Sayers Ellis as DJ. Author Anya Ulinich, a 2007 5 Under 35 Honoree, will moderate a conversation between the young writers. Musician and author Alina Simone will interview all of the authors at the event, to be shared in clips on the foundation's website.The 5 Under 35 program, now in its seventh year, honors five young
fiction writers selected by past National Book Award Winners and
Finalists.
Los Angeles-based writer Daniel Olivas interviews Justin Torres, recipient of the 2012 Cabell First Novelist Award, in a lengthy article in the Los Angeles Review of Books. The interview mentions VCU and the high quality of entries for the award. Torres also tells the interviewer that he won't prepare much for his Nov. 8 book talk and Q&A in Richmond. "I'm pretty terrible at prepared remarks. I much
prefer spontaneity and interacting with audience questions. Also, I'm
more frank, and crass, and honest, if I'm not given time to prepare." The article
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 of the Virginia Association of Museums is designed to show the importance of
preserving artifacts in care at collecting institutions such as museums,
libraries and archives.
VCU Libraries has nominated one artifact in need of preservation and it tells a significant story about one of VCU Libraries' special collections, the Comic Arts Collection.
In the running: the office door of pioneering cartoonist Billy DeBeck featuring an oil painting of Barney Google and his equine sidekick. The door resides in the office of Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library.
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. Like many illustrators and cartoonists, DeBeck didn't confine his art to paper but painted on his office door. The door was donated to Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library by DeBeck's former secretary, who had ties to Virginia.
VCU
Libraries: Vote in Virginia's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts campaign. This
public awareness campaign of the Virginia Association of Museums is designed to show the importance of
preserving artifacts in care at collecting institutions such as museums,
libraries and archives.VCU Libraries has nominated one artifact in need of preservation and it tells a significant story about one of VCU Libraries' special collections, the Comic Arts Collection.
In the running: the office door of pioneering cartoonist Billy DeBeck featuring an oil painting of Barney Google and his equine sidekick. The door resides in the office of Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library.
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. Like many illustrators and cartoonists, DeBeck didn't confine his art to paper but painted on his office door. The door was donated to Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library by DeBeck's former secretary, who had ties to Virginia.
- To vote, use this link and scroll down to the click-off button for the DeBeck door.
- If you have difficulty voting, send your choice by email to srobinson26@vcu.edu
- Voting ends August 29. 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.
Each year, VCU honors a first-time published fiction writer with The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
The recipient receives a $5,000 prize. Travel expenses and lodging also are provided for the author and his or her agent and editor to attend the VCU Cabell First Novelist Festival, a series of events that focus on the creation, publication and promotion of a debut novel.Co-sponsors of the award and the festival are the VCU Department of English, the VCU MFA Program in Creative Writing, the James Branch Cabell Library Associates, the VCU Friends of the Library, VCU Libraries, the VCU Honors College, Barnes & Noble @ VCU and the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.
The recipient receives a $5,000 prize. Travel expenses and lodging also are provided for the author and his or her agent and editor to attend the VCU Cabell First Novelist Festival, a series of events that focus on the creation, publication and promotion of a debut novel.Co-sponsors of the award and the festival are the VCU Department of English, the VCU MFA Program in Creative Writing, the James Branch Cabell Library Associates, the VCU Friends of the Library, VCU Libraries, the VCU Honors College, Barnes & Noble @ VCU and the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.
The deadline for the 2013 VCU Cabell First Novelist
Award is September 15 for books published January through June
2012. For books published July through December 2012, the deadline is
January 12, 2013.
For more information, visit www.firstnovelist.vcu.edu.
Justin Torres has won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award,
which honors an outstanding debut novel published during a calendar
year. His winning book, "We the Animals," is a powerful coming-of-age
novel about three brothers growing up amidst the chaotic and destructive
love of their working-class parents.
Torres will receive the award at the VCU Cabell First Novelist Festival at Virginia Commonwealth University on Nov. 8. He was one of three finalists for the prize, now in its eleventh year. The other finalists were Alexi Zentner for "Touch" and Peter Mountford for "A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism."
Published in August 2011 by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, "We the Animals" is narrated by the youngest sibling in a
voice that is both compelling and urgent and prose that is brutally
honest and beautifully poetic. Composed in short, disjointed chapters,
the novel swiftly moves through six years in the tumultuous childhood of
the three brothers as they claw their way toward adulthood. More
VCU Libraries receives funds to save rare films of Richmond urban life and street scenes in 1920-30s
Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries has been awarded a grant from the National
Film Preservation Foundation to preserve select films from the Harris H.
Stilson film collection.
Grants were awarded to 35 projects--including preservation of a newly discovered film by
composer John Cage--in 22 states. VCU is the first university in the
commonwealth to receive a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. For more information
Stilson (1868-1934) was a Richmond streetcar conductor, later a motorman, and amateur photographer and film documentarian. His films offer a rarely-seen visual record of Richmond 1929-31. Highlights of the collection are street scenes of black and white citizens, streetcars and buildings and leisure life at Byrd Park and Shields Lake.
"The Stilson work is a unique treasure," said Wesley J. Chenault, head of Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library. "Film footage of the city is rare and our research suggests that these films are among the oldest, if not the oldest, held by any local or regional cultural institution in the commonwealth."
Adding to the historic value are provenance and documentation. The donor is the filmmaker's
great-granddaughter, Kitty Snow. Recognizing the importance of this record, she
has actively worked to locate and preserve Stilson's collection, which includes
some 3,000 photographs and negatives that document the ordinary lives of
Richmonders, including African American and Jewish communities and individuals
from his streetcar routes. It also contains meticulous records - ledgers,
receipts, notes - that identify who and what Stilson captured through his
lenses.
Snow says her great-grandfather (at left) "was the poor man's photographer, selling pictures for 20 cents to pay for his cameras, film, and developing materials. He was also an innovative photographer, hand-coloring and even inserting a missing relative's face into a family portrait, sort of an early 'Photoshopped' picture." A selection of his images is the subject of Snow's forthcoming book "From a Richmond Streetcar." The film collection at VCU Libraries represents his only known surviving film work. VCU Libraries is working with Snow to acquire the photographs, negatives and personal papers, which will add immense historical depth and context.
The Kodacolor films in the collection will be the first to be preserved. Introduced for 16 mm film in 1928, this Kodak brand was associated with an early color process known as lenticular. After being cleaned and preserved, the films will be made available for public research and use in Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library and online through VCU Libraries Digital Collections.
The film collection is expected to have broad research interest to scholars, students, documentarians and others interested in early 20th century urban life, Virginia and Richmond history, race relations, urban studies, architectural history and more.
Created by the U.S. Congress in 1996 to save the nation's film heritage, the National Film Preservation Foundation is affiliated with the Library of Congress's National Film Preservation Board. It awards basic preservation grants to nonprofit and public institutions for laboratory work to preserve culturally and historically significant films.
Stilson (1868-1934) was a Richmond streetcar conductor, later a motorman, and amateur photographer and film documentarian. His films offer a rarely-seen visual record of Richmond 1929-31. Highlights of the collection are street scenes of black and white citizens, streetcars and buildings and leisure life at Byrd Park and Shields Lake.
"The Stilson work is a unique treasure," said Wesley J. Chenault, head of Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library. "Film footage of the city is rare and our research suggests that these films are among the oldest, if not the oldest, held by any local or regional cultural institution in the commonwealth."
Adding to the historic value are provenance and documentation. The donor is the filmmaker's
great-granddaughter, Kitty Snow. Recognizing the importance of this record, she
has actively worked to locate and preserve Stilson's collection, which includes
some 3,000 photographs and negatives that document the ordinary lives of
Richmonders, including African American and Jewish communities and individuals
from his streetcar routes. It also contains meticulous records - ledgers,
receipts, notes - that identify who and what Stilson captured through his
lenses. Snow says her great-grandfather (at left) "was the poor man's photographer, selling pictures for 20 cents to pay for his cameras, film, and developing materials. He was also an innovative photographer, hand-coloring and even inserting a missing relative's face into a family portrait, sort of an early 'Photoshopped' picture." A selection of his images is the subject of Snow's forthcoming book "From a Richmond Streetcar." The film collection at VCU Libraries represents his only known surviving film work. VCU Libraries is working with Snow to acquire the photographs, negatives and personal papers, which will add immense historical depth and context.
The Kodacolor films in the collection will be the first to be preserved. Introduced for 16 mm film in 1928, this Kodak brand was associated with an early color process known as lenticular. After being cleaned and preserved, the films will be made available for public research and use in Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library and online through VCU Libraries Digital Collections.
The film collection is expected to have broad research interest to scholars, students, documentarians and others interested in early 20th century urban life, Virginia and Richmond history, race relations, urban studies, architectural history and more.
Created by the U.S. Congress in 1996 to save the nation's film heritage, the National Film Preservation Foundation is affiliated with the Library of Congress's National Film Preservation Board. It awards basic preservation grants to nonprofit and public institutions for laboratory work to preserve culturally and historically significant films.
