Professor Roy Foster to speak on Irish Revolution

Roy Foster

Professor Roy Foster, Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford, will lecture at the University of Kentucky on Monday, October 26, 2015, at 4 p.m. in the UK Athletics Auditorium of William T. Young Library. He will discuss the history of the Irish Revolution of 1912 - 1922, focusing on the central event of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the motivations that drove the people behind it. His lecture will also consider the agendas, elisions, and implications of commemorating events in history that are at once inspirational and divisive: raising issues such as the changing historical interpretations of revolutionary change, the psychological uses of memory in Irish history, the challenges presented by the current centennial observations of the Irish revolutionary decade of 1912-22, and the possible lessons of Irish history for the larger United Kingdom and European picture.

Foster is the author of the recent and widely-acclaimed Vivid Faces: the Irish revolutionary generation 1890-1923, which has just been awarded a President’s Medal from the British Academy for “transforming the understanding of a period or subject of study.”

University Press of Kentucky Interim Director Dr. Jonathan Allison, professor in the UK Department of English, has been instrumental in bringing Professor Foster to campus. The event is part of the Year of Europe sponsored by the UK College of Arts & Sciences.

Lauren Hamm joins UK Libraries

Lauren Hamm

Lauren Hamm joined UK Libraries as head of Reserves in William T. Young Library on October 18. Hamm has her bachelor’s degree from Morehead State University in English Literature. She previously worked at the Camden Carroll Library at Morehead.

Matthew Strandmark joins UK Libraries

Matthew Strandmark

Matthew Strandmark will join UK Libraries and the Special Collections Research Center on November 1 as education archivist. A graduate of Hanover College, Strandmark received an MA/MLS in History and Library Science from Indiana University. He previously served as outreach archivist at Emory University.

UK Libraries National Advisory Board holds Fall 2015 meeting

The UK Libraries National Advisory Board held their Fall 2015 meeting on September 25, 2015, at the Hilary J. Boone center on campus. During the meeting, Dr. Stacey Greenwell, associate dean for Academic Affairs and Research, and Mary Beth Thomson, senior associate dean, spoke about student success initiatives and UK Libraries’ international partnerships. Board members also heard updates from NAB President Dr. LuAnnette Butler, Dean Terry Birdwhistell, and the Marketing and Development directors.

The board deliberated in a closed session on the recipient of the UK Libraries Medallion for Intellectual Achievement. The recipient of the medallion will be announced later in the academic year, and will be honored at the 2016 UK Libraries Spring Gala. The NAB will provide support and sponsorship of the 2016 Gala.

Members of the UK Libraries National Advisory Board are:

President LuAnnette Butler

Vice President Billy Lanter

Bess Abell

Martha-Ann Alito

Jonathan Allison

W. Clay Ford

Michelle Gardner

Gail Hart

Marie E. Hochstrasser

Brenda Lampton

Jan Miles

William Miles

Jennie Lou Penn

Angela Rice

Anne G. Ritchie

Wood Simpson

Alan Sullivan

Laurance B. VanMeter

Charles T. Wethington

Harvie Wilkinson

John van Willigen

UK Librarians lead at KLA/KASL conference

UK librarians took an active role in the recent Kentucky Library Association and Kentucky Association of Special Libraries joint conference held in Louisville, Kentucky last month.

Laura Whayne, head of the UK Transportation Center Library, presided as current president of KLA.

Valerie Perry, left, receives an award from
KLA President Laura Whayne

Valerie Perry, director of Branch Libraries and the Agricultural Information Center, received the prestigious Carol J. Parris Mentoring Award from the KLA. The Parris Mentoring Award is “presented to a Kentucky librarian who has exemplified the ability to assist and advise new members to the profession.” From the awards program: “…it is clear that Valerie has encouraged and inspired many…Valerie was described as genuine, generous, and supportive, but her ability to empower her colleagues seems to be her greatest gift.”

Jen Bartlett, head of William T. Young Reference, attended as outgoing chair of the Resource Sharing Round Table. Marsha Seamans, director of Cataloging & Database Integrity, attended as chair of the Academic Section Professional Development Committee. Sandee McAninch, head of the Federal Depository Unit, attended to give the Regional Depository report at the Government Documents Round Table meeting. Laura Hall, Young Library reference and periodicals, attended as a conference participant.

Judy Sackett, oral history librarian, and Peter Hesseldenz, reference librarian and business and economics liaison, presented on: “Innovating for Diversity: UK Libraries Undergraduate Diversity Scholars Internship Program.”

Beth Kraemer, information literacy librarian, and Beth Fuchs, undergraduate learning librarian, presented on: “We’ll Show You Ours if You Show Us Yours! Favorite Technologies to Support Information Literacy.”

Julene Jones, head of Database Integrity, gave the talk: “Many Hands Make Light Work, part II: NACO at UK Libraries.”

Stacie Williams co-authors chapter in archival studies book

Stacie Williams

Stacie Williams, manager of the Special Collections Research Center Learning Lab, co-authored a chapter in the forthcoming book Critical Archival Studies, edited by Michelle Caswell  of the University of California, Los Angeles and T-Kay Sangwand of the University of Texas, Austin. The book highlights how archivists and archival scholars have incorporated critical theory - including Marxist, feminist, deconstructionist, postcolonial, queer, and civil rights theories -into their work. Stacie is co-author of a chapter with Jarrett Drake, digital archivist at Princeton University. The chapter details a community oral history project the authors facilitated to document police violence in Cleveland in August, 2015. The book will be published by Libraries Unlimited in 2016.

New Learning Lab interns begin work and research

Learning Lab interns Daria Goncharova and
Aaron Mueller work on the blueprint collections

The UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center recently welcomed a new class of interns to the Learning Lab program. The internships, supervised by Learning Lab Manager Stacie Williams, take place over the course of the academic year and target undergraduates interested in primary document research.

Interns process archival collections and produce scholarly projects related to the collections and their own research interests. The 2015-2016 interns will process 10 cubic feet of blueprints from Lexington, Kentucky, architectural firm Frankel and Curtis. The students will work on scholarly projects examining the economic development of Lexington through construction and development.

The Learning Lab interns are: sophomore architecture major and environmental studies and sustainability minor Nick Hodge; sophomore architecture major Sommer Cade; sophomore architecture major and French minor Steve Ngandu-Sankayi; sophomore history and classics major Abby King; senior English and linguistics major Daria Goncharova; and sophomore computer science and linguistics major Aaron Mueller.

Learning Lab interns attend "Description Camp"

SCRC Director of Archives Ruth Bryan led interns in a "Description Camp" to learn about proper handling of archival documents. The interns also received training on ArchivesSpace and had the opportunity to practice describing collections.

Students will present their final projects in April 2016.