Signage Preview for Bailey/Howe

The Communications Team has been working with local way-finding, sign-designing company "The Image Farm" to create brand new signage for Bailey/Howe. The company recently presented the Com Team with a preview of their outstanding work. Check it out!
http://libstaff.uvm.edu/forms/BH%20Signage%20Conceptual%20Design.pdf

In this picture, Bill Gill demonstrates the new templates for creating in-house signage, also found on the LibStaff Page. Bill easily updated his charming old sign in favor of a new one. Thanks Bill!

Durick Library Tour

A reminder that the Staff and Faculty Development Committee has arranged for a tour of the Durick Library at St. Michael's College.

The tour will be at 1:15pm on Tuesday, June 30th. We expect it to take around 90 minutes to 2 hours.

There will be a general tour of around 30 minutes by the director John Payne, and then we'll break up into areas of interest based on what we want to see:

Acquisitions/Collection Services
Archives and Special Collections
Cataloging/Metadata/Systems
Circulation
Interlibrary Loan
Reference, Instruction, and Web Development

Scenes from the Indoor Picnic, Featuring Ryan's Ridiculous Cake and Special Guest Photographer

Hey, I said it all in the headline. Enjoy the photo essay.

Guest Blogger: Sharon Thayer & Her Obssession with Documentaries

I love documentaries. Working here, we are so fortunate to have a fantastic collection pretty much at our disposal in the Media Resources Department. Following is a list of my Current Top Ten favorites that are available on DVD in the Library:

1. Devil’s Playground (DVD 3141) – a look a Amish teens during their often wild “rumspringa” free time before they decide whether or not to formally join their church.

2. Helvetica (DVD 5684) – yes I know, the story of a typeface sounds ultra boring, but it is anything but – it’s a fascinating exploration of the first arguably modern global font used to label much of our Western world, and also an amusing glimpse into the sometimes eccentric and opinionated world view of graphic designers.

3. I Like Killing Flies (DVD 6023) – a very NY story of the cranky oddball owner/chef of a café in Greenwich Village and a slice of life now almost lost in today’s slicker, more homogeneous city.

4. Mad Hot Ballroom (DVD 3846) – a city-wide school competition, with 5th grade kids from different socio-economic classes learning and vying for victory in the unlikely arena of ballroom dancing. The kids are charming, funny and real, and their teachers' interest and dedication is a wonderful thing to witness.

5. Man on Wire (DVD 6204) – a portrait of Philippe Petit and his amazing tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974 – told as if it were a crime caper, and even though you know the outcome, you are on the edge of your seat.

6. Spellbound (DVD 2746) – another school-aged competition, follows 8 teens from disparate backgrounds/motivations as they compete at the annual National Spelling Bee – surprisingly tense and exciting as the field narrows.

7. Stolen (DVD 4111) – the story of the still unsolved 1990 art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Art historians, fine art detectives, the IRA and the Boston Mob all figure in this mystery.

8. Surfwise (DVD 5786) – powerful, disturbing story of a hippie surfer family with 9 kids and a charismatic and overwhelming father.

9. The Up Series (DVD 3291 plus DVD 2509) – classic British film study following the lives of 14 people from different backgrounds and experiences checking in every seven years from the age of 7 on “up”. The first was done in 1964, the latest, 49 Up, was released in 2005.

10. Winged Migration (DVD 2705) – beautiful, moving, almost silent film of what birds go through on their migrations – filmed over many years from hot air balloons and gliders on all seven continents giving one gorgeous vistas of the earth and the sense of being in flight right along with the birds.

All Libraries Meeting: This Takes the Cake

The All Libraries meeting was about moving into the future, but also about remembering someone from the Libraries' past. After discussing plans to take strategic action, we paused to recall a library legend who will live on in our hearts and minds...as well as in name through the Milton H. Crouch Faculty Award.

All Libraries Meeting: June 9, 2009

All Libraries Meeting

June 9, 2009

AGENDA

I. Announcements (Mara Saule)

II. New Logo Templates and B/H Signage Project (Mara/Selene)

· “How to Use the New Templates” Open Forum: Wed., June 24, 10-11 a.m.

III. Strategic Planning: The Vision (Mara)

IV. Group Discussion: Turning the Plan into Reality

V. Remembering Milton Crouch

Guest Blogger: Jake Barickman on What's Worth Keeping

I don't know why this gift to the library is such a problem. Granted, the books are 1920s vintage and older, in German, many with that archaic font that we think of as "gothic." Most have dusty, monochromatic covers, but others have interesting art deco designs. And most are signed by Karl Krueger (1894-1979), along with "Wien 1921" or a similar date, even his street address.

1920s Vienna. Probably when Hitler was trying to sell hand-painted postcards on the street. And who is Karl Krueger? He's a Kansas-born organist and conductor who led orchestras like the Seattle Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and the Detroit Symphony, from 1926-1949. He was the first American to direct orchestras of this caliber.(Leonard Bernstein gets the honors for a major metropolitan orchestra.) His stay in Vienna and Heidelberg was just a few years, but long enough to get some European training. And collect a few books.

So is Krueger famous? (This question seems pertinent since he signed so many of his books.) In a way, yes. In addition to his conducting, he founded the Society for the Preservation of the American Musical Heritage which produced ca. 150 recordings of American music. Bailey/Howe has several of these, as well as one of his 2 books. Reviews that I've seen of both his books and recordings are mixed, however. Some just give him a solid C-plus.

Are the books he collected worth keeping? The slim volumes on conducting technique are definitely a curiosity, and one title from 1953, (a later acquisition, obviously) "The Magic of the Baton" (German: /Magie des Taktstocks/) has been added to Bailey/Howe, mostly because of the stellar photos of Europe's great and almost-great conductors. And then there's Heinrich Berl's provocative/ Das Judentum in der Musik /(1926, "Jewishness in Music"), with a bold, underlined "Karl Krueger" signature on the inside. That's worth keeping. But do we need a German translation of Kierkegaard, even with its beautiful cover? German translations of a Swedish novelist?

Decisions, decisions....