Wendell Ford – Friend of UK

Senator Wendell Ford and Deirdre Scaggs
at Ford's 90th birthday celebration

I was honored this week to speak at Senator Wendell Ford’s funeral in Owensboro, Kentucky.  Hundreds of friends and supporters attended the funeral including Vice-President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton.  Associate Dean Deirdre Scaggs also represented UK Libraries at the funeral.

Senator Ford was a great friend of UK Libraries supporting our Federal Documents Repository Program, placing his papers and oral histories in the Special Collections Research Center, and helping to establish an endowment in support of the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center.  Senator Ford understood and appreciated the value of libraries and the importance of assuring that citizens had access to public information.  His efforts to promote civic engagement and citizens’ involvement with government will be missed.

As a United States Senator, Wendell Ford worked with every UK President since Dr. Otis Singletary to assure that UK received its fair share of federal funds to support education and research.  Clay Ford, Senator Ford’s grandson, serves on the UK Libraries National Advisory Board continuing the Ford family's contributions to UK.

-Dean Terry Birdwhistell

UK Libraries mentioned in The New Yorker

The February 2 edition of The New Yorker includes the piece "The Pursuit of Beauty," on Yitang "Tom" Zhang. Zhang, a part-time calculus instructor at the University of New Hampshire, solved an old problem on prime numbers and won fame and a MacArthur award.  

After finishing his doctorate at Purdue in 1991, Zhang spent some time in Lexington involved with a Chinese democracy group and keeping books for a local restaurant.  

The following quote is on page 23 of the magazine:

"When Zhang wasn't working, he would go to the library at the University of Kentucky and read journals in algebraic geometry and number theory."

UK Libraries welcomes students to Spring 2015

Beth Fuchs

As the spring semester began, Undergraduate Learning Librarian Beth Fuchs represented UK Libraries at the K2 Kickoff. The event welcomed new, transfer, and international students to campus. Beth created a presentation using animation video software to introduce students to UK Libraries. The presentation focused on the challenges of academic research and highlighted the role of UK Libraries faculty and staff in student success. 

Also at the beginning of the semester, Director of Collections Heath 

Martin and Information Literacy Coordinator Debbie Sharp introduced new graduate teaching assistants to the resources and services available to them through UK Libraries.

Debbie Sharp

Heath Martin

Heath advised the graduate students to get to know their academic liaisons, the subject specialist librarians who support them in their teaching and research needs.  Debbie focused on library support in the classroom, recommending the February 11 Graduate Student Workshop, “What Your Students Think They Know about Research and How You Can Help.” The workshop will highlight best practices in the design of library research assignments.    

Stacie Williams to attend Archives Leadership Institute

Stacie Williams

Stacie Williams, Learning Lab Manager in the Special Collections Research Center, will attend the 2015 Archives Leadership Institute, held at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, June 14 to 20.

The Archives Leadership Institute (ALI) is funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, a statutory body affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration, and is hosted at Luther College for the years 2013 to 2015.  ALI@Luther provides advanced training for 25 archival leaders each year, providing them with the knowledge and tools to transform the archival profession in practice, theory, and attitude.

Nathan Moore presents Breathitt Undergraduate Lecture

Nathan Moore

Nathan Moore, a University of Kentucky English senior from Louisville who is also a UK Libraries Undergraduate Diversity Scholar Intern, presented the 21st annual Edward T. Breathitt Undergraduate Lectureship in the Humanities on January 22. Moore's lecture focused on intersections of African American literature, history, and cultural memory.

The Breathitt Lectureship is named for an outstanding UK alumnus who showed an exceptional interest in higher education and the humanities, Governor Edward T. Breathitt. The lectureship is awarded to an undergraduate who has eloquently expressed the qualities of mind and spirit, including one or more of the basic concerns of the humanities: form, value and memory. Each year all undergraduate students are invited to apply for the lectureship.

Moore's lecture, "Subjugation and the Supernatural: The Ethnogothic in African American Letters,"  explored slave narratives. Moore discussed how former slaves used conventions of Gothic fiction to expose the brutality of their enslavement. Through discussions of genre, he examined how this traumatic history is left silent in many contemporary discussions of race and class.  

More information is available from UKNow.