These periodicals tell VCU's official story in news articles, features, calendars and images of students, staff, faculty and leaders. Departments and schools submitted articles and news items. Letters to the editor, editorials and formal messages from deans and the president are also found in the 542 issues in this online collection.

The first of these official news organs was published in May of 1972 as the weekly VCU Today. (It was preceded on the MCV campus by the Medicovan, published from 1948 until 1973.) VCU Today was published on an irregular basis, often monthly, until the 1980s when it became a bi-weekly.

The staff included professional writers, photographers and editors, who represented the views of the university administration and highlighted news that the school wanted publicized. By the 1980s, the newspaper was circulated to full-time staff on both campuses and was also made available in a number of VCU buildings. It was probably the institution's best vehicle for communicating to the large university community.

In 1988, the newspaper became the VCU Voice. In 1998, it became the UniverCity News. In 2001, it became  VCU News. It was published online in 2002 and is today's News Center.

The print issues are housed in the Special Collections and Archives departments in the Tompkins-McCaw Library on the MCV campus and in the James Branch Cabell Library on the Monroe Park Campus.

Dates for the publications:

• VCU Today: 1972-1988
• VCU Voice: 1988-1998
• UniverCity News: 1998-2001 
• VCU News: 2001-2002

Copyright for the materials in this collection is managed by the VCU Libraries. The use of these materials is subject to the stipulations specified in the VCU Libraries copyright page.

"That photo is from 1905. That's just two or three generations away," he said. "So for a lot of Richmonders, their great-grandparents participated in these marches. With this website they can learn more about it, explore the topic itself, and tell others about it."

To view the exhibit, visit http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/freedom.html. The information was gathered from a variety of sources but mostly from newspaper accounts from Richmond newspapers. Chronicling America, the Library of Congress' online resource of digital versions of American newspapers, was instrumental in that research. Other sources included journal articles, monographs, and the microfilm versions of late 19th and 20th century newspapers. Additional items will be added to this site as new information is uncovered. Members of the community are invited to email Special Collections and Archives  additions to the information as well as personal observations and questions. Visit this site for additional Resources on Slavery in Richmond

"Sketchy Medicine" is now on display in the Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences Special Collections Reading Room.

This exhibit was inspired by the website Graphic Medicine that explores the use of graphic novels and comics as a resource for patients, medical professionals and caregivers.

This exhibit provides a brief overview of the subject and displays a sampling of VCU Libraries' collection of medically themed graphic novels as well as some examples of web comics with a medical focus.

The talk is 3 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12 at the VCU Welcome Center, 1111 W. Broad St.

A reception and book signing immediately follow.

About the book.

"Portrait as Community" is the culmination of a special course inspired by Growing Up in Civil Rights Richmond: A Community Remembers, a project organized by the Anderson Gallery with South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa and American Studies scholar Laura Browder. Students from the VCU Departments of Photography and Film and Art Education examined historical examples, research methodologies, ethical concerns and artistic strategies related to the representation of communities. They selected and worked with Richmond communities over the semester to create their projects. 

This collaborative course was offered by the Department of Photography and Film, VCU Libraries and the Anderson Gallery. Teachers were Yuki Hibben, assistant head, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, and Michael Lease, head of exhibitions and design, Anderson Gallery.

The show is on view during regular gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

More The opening reception, Friday, Nov. 30, 5-8 p.m., is free and open to all. 

Student projects on display are by:

• Jaclyn Brown
• Casey Collier
• Kate Fowler
• Lauren Lyon
• Jessica Overcash
• Mark Strandquist
• Breonca Trofort
• Michael Weinheimer

• The article
• More about the Stilson Collection 

• The article
• More about the Stilson Collection

• 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.
  

The cartoonist Fred O. Seibel was the newspaper's editorial cartoonist for more than 40 years.

The Fred O. Seibel Papers are housed in the James Branch Cabell Library's Special Collections and Archives. The collection is part of the library's Comic Arts Collection which includes the papers of several cartoonists, a collection of comic books and a significant collection of reference materials that focus on the comic arts and its history.

The Seibel collection includes correspondence to Seibel, a complete set of his published cartoons, 34 thirty-four original Seibel cartoons and other items. More 

• More about the Military Month display
• More on his work from a comics arts blogger and from his official site
• About VCU's new Military Veterans Alumni Council: Take the survey.
  

"The Newlyweds," created in 1904 by George McManus, was the first newspaper comic strip to feature an American family--paving the way for "Hi and Lois," "The Family Circus," "Close to Home," "The Better Half" and many others.

Published by the New York World, "The Newlyweds" centered around a young couple. In due time, Baby Snookums was added to the family. Later, the strip moved to The New York American and continued as "Their Only Child." The Baby Snookums character went onto stage and screen fame and, to some extend, endorsement fame.

Comic books started in the early part of the century and were made up of reprints of popular newspapers strips. The books were sold at newsstands. 

The comic artist McManus worked for the era's big-name publishers: He drew for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and for William Randolph Hearst. For Hearst's papers he created his best-known strip, "Bringing Up Father." To browse the collection

# # #

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Jennifer L. Cason, digital specialist at the VCU Libraries from 2007 to 2011.

The event includes two sessions. The first, from 6 to 6:30 p.m., will offer an overview of the VCU Book Art Collection by Gay Acompanado, archival assistant for the arts. The second session, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., will allow attendees to see, touch, play with and listen to pieces of book art.

"Interactive Book Art" is co-sponsored by the Cabell Library Undergraduate Advisory Committee (CLUAC) and the VCU Friends of the Library. The event is free and open to the public. Attendees are asked to register online.

Also called artists' books, book art is a contemporary art form in which the artist uses the structure or elements of the book to communicate a message or concept. Artists' books can be one-of-a-kind objects, or they can be published in limited editions. Their content can be textual, visual, tactile, auditory, or a mixture of these. Formally, artists' books may closely resemble traditional books or appear more sculptural. VCU's  Book Art Collection includes nearly 4,000 items. The collection is international in scope and is strongest in publications from the 1960s to the present. It encompasses all aspects of contemporary book art publications ranging from photo-narratives to three-dimensional works.

Web site for the event

"Cavemen in Space," "American Barbarian" and "Barbra in the Sky with Neil Diamonds" might sound like the punch lines to a bad joke, but to the folks at AdHouse Books, they're serious business.

Founded in 2002, the boutique publishing house has printed 45 art books, graphic novels and comic books. While it might be small, the Richmond-based company has established quite a name for itself in the comic realm. Books published by AdHouse have won almost every award in the industry, including honors from Domtar, Ignatz, Communication Arts, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, AIGA and two Eisner Awards for James Jean's "Project Recess 2: Portfolio."

Publisher Chris Pitzer says while the company could print five to six projects a month, it prefers to be more selective, usually releasing five to six books a year. "Hopefully the quality of our library reflects that," he says.

One standout from the AdHouse canon is "Afrodisiac" by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg. The book is an anthology for a fictional blaxploitation character as he progressed from a newspaper strip and into the big time.

"It's a love letter to blaxploitation comics -- if they existed," Pitzer says. "That was a very proud moment."

"Afrodisiac" was nominated for an Eisner in 2010 for best humor publication. "The books are absolutely beautiful. Chris puts a lot of thought and care into the design of the book," says Cindy Jackson, an archival assistant at Virginia Commonwealth University's Cabell Library. "We've made a concerted effort to purchase everything AdHouse puts out."

The company's next release will be "Blue Collar/White Collar," a retrospective of Sterling Hundley's illustration and painting work. Hundley, who works as a professor at VCU and an instructor at the Illustration Academy, says that this will be his farewell to illustration work so he can focus on painting.

"It's a nice, tidy way of wrapping up one chapter and embracing another one," Hundley says. For 13 years he's worked as an illustrator, with work appearing in Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic.

"I've always loved his work," Pitzer says. "It's always nice to see a creator who pushes his boundaries."

"Blue Collar/White Collar" gets its title from Hundley's transition from the blue-collar world of illustration into the white-collar world of painting. Wedged between the full-color pages of the book are sketches and notes made by Hundley about his work.

"I'm really pleased with what he's done with my property," Hundley says of Pitzer's efforts. "He really is an internationally recognized publisher. ... AdHouse produces some of the best artists' books that are out there."

AdHouse is breaking form this year, publishing about 10 books instead of the usual five. But don't expect Pitzer to have any big changes in mind for his publishing house. "We are a boutique, we are small press," he says, "but we're a juggernaut." 

"Makers, readers and lovers of zines and other homebrew publishing pursuits will gather for a day to trade and sell their wares, as well as network with others in the zine community.

A "zine," loosely defined, is "an independently created publication containing anything you want it to" and pronounced like magazine without the "maga-", according to Alex Wrekk and Joe Biel's "Stolen Sharpie Revolution." (Something of an introductory guide to do-it-yourself printing and publishing.)

Zines are typically published via photocopier and can contain anything from original art and writing, to appropriated printed-source material, to a collage of both. They also, according to event organizers, can deal with any conceivable topic.

"It's really complicated," said Celina Williams, student research assistant at Cabell Library, which features a collection of zines from as far back as 1969. Williams also is one of many event organizers for the Richmond Zine Fest.

"It's something (the Library Special Collections) has grappled with," she said. "When people ask me, 'what's in a zine?', I have to ask, you know, 'what's in a book?' It can be about anything." More

• Artist bio and background, official publisher's information
• How to Read Love & Rockets, an advisory from the publisher
  
• The Artists on Video. Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez talk about Love & Rockets and Citizen Rex; moderated by Kristy Valenti and filmed by Justin Bloch and Eric Nath at the Comic-Con International: San Diego 2011. 
• Reliving Love and Rockets, a June 2011, in-depth interview by Mother Jones magazine with Jamie Hernandez

Writer, professor and historian Edgar Edgeworth MacDonald, who served as Senior Cabell Scholar at the Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries for more than 25 years, died Sept. 10 in Richmond. He was 94.

MacDonald specialized in Virginia history and literature and wrote extensively about Southern writers. Among his favorites was James Branch Cabell, of whom he is credited with writing the definitive biography. He is also credited with spearheading the movement to have VCU's James Branch Cabell Library on the Monroe Park Campus named after the Richmond author in the 1970s. 

After retiring from a 30-year teaching career at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland in 1974, he joined VCU as an unpaid Cabell Scholar.

"For all of us on staff, Dr. MacDonald was an affable, witty and sophisticated presence, possessed of a sharp intellect that he delighted to use in the service of entertainment as much as scholarship," said John E. Ulmschneider, university librarian. "He drew our admiration and our respect, and he was always and foremost an inspiration. For our good colleagues in Cabell Special Collections and Archives, who worked with him and enjoyed his company nearly every day, Dr. MacDonald was a constant companion and a good friend. They cared for him deeply."

The Richmond native's many publications included "James Branch Cabell and Richmond-in-Virginia," "James Branch Cabell: Centennial Essays" and "Ellen Glasgow: A Reference Guide," as well as a newsletter on Glasgow that he edited for 10 years. MacDonald's scholarship on Cabell and Glasgow is showcased in part online in a library special collection.

He wrote for publications such as American Literature, the Southern Literary Journal, Resources for American Literary Study and the Mississippi Quarterly.

"As a longtime and valued member of the James Branch Cabell Library Associates, Dr. Edgar MacDonald was a light among the shadows. An authority on Virginia literature and genealogy, he acted as a vital link between the present generation of readers, students and scholars and previous literary giants," said Walter Dotts, president of the James Branch Cabell Library Associates. "Dr. MacDonald's biography of James Branch Cabell and his promotion of Ellen Glasgow helped secure their places in the American literary canon. His knowledge of the forces and the families that shaped Virginia history helped illuminate the contemporary social and political landscape.

"Dr. MacDonald's guidance and input as a board member of the Cabell Associates supported strategic Cabell Library initiatives and echoed his broader community philanthropic activity. Although he avoided recognition during his life, his effect on generations of students and his beloved city will be felt for many years to come."

MacDonald served with the 99th Infantry Division in World War II. He received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Belgian Fouragere.

During his career, he served as an English professor at Randolph-Macon College, a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the State University of Leningrad and as a board member of the Library of Virginia and the James Monroe Law Office Museum and Memorial Library in Fredericksburg. He also served as a trustee of the James Monroe Memorial Foundation.

Quoted on the Randolph-Macon College website, R-MC Humanities Professor M. Thomas Inge, a Randolph-Macon alumnus and former VCU professor, remembered MacDonald fondly.

"He was the professor at Randolph-Macon who first opened my eyes to the wide world of literature," said Inge. "He taught a class in world literature that reflected his own experiences traveling and studying abroad and shaped my worldview. But he also cherished the local and taught me about Southern writing and his own favorite, James Branch Cabell. I had the pleasure of co-editing with him a collection of essays on Cabell. He was one of the most erudite, widely read, witty and sophisticated men I ever knew. His congenial presence will be missed."

"Professor MacDonald, known for his idiosyncratic ways, had a strong and lasting impact on his students for over three decades," said R-MC President Robert R. Lindgren.

Among many accomplishments in a life of letters, he was a founder of the Virginia Genealogical Society, the Friends of the Virginia State Archives and the Ellen Glasgow Society.

MacDonald earned his bachelor's degree at VCU's precursor, Richmond Professional Institute, and his master's degree from the University of Richmond. He earned his doctorate from The Sorbonne, University of Paris.

He left no immediate survivors.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, Sept. 24, at 2 p.m. at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 1214 Wilmer Ave.

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.

Special Collection & Archives is accepting donations of Rams memorabilia from the recent championship. Items such as tickets, flyers, posters, t-shirts, pennants, cheer gear, and photographs, almost anything that will help document the season, are particularly desired. If you have items that you would be interested in donating, please bring them to Special Collections & Archives on the fourth floor of James Branch Cabell Library from Monday through Friday between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. For questions or suggestions, please contact Special Collection & Archives at (804) 828-1108.