Peter Gilbert

Author: Peter Gilbert

Constitution Day!

On Saturday, September 17, 2011 (Constitution Day), Lawrence University will once again join in the national commemoration of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States (on September 17, 1787). As part of this celebration, we’ve created a web site with links to information on the Constitution, its content, its creation, and its relevance.

In addition, the Mudd Library is offering a display on the U.S. Constitution from the library’s collections. Items in the exhibit include various facts about the Constitution, a copy of what the Constitution looked like in its handwritten form, a selection of books about the Constitution from the library’s collection, and microfiche with the Constitution in various languages. Don’t miss it!

Harry Jansen Kraemer ’77 kicks off school year, convo series

Harry Kraemer

Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr., former chief executive officer of the multibillion-dollar global health care company Baxter International, joins President Jill Beck in opening Lawrence’s 163rd academic year and 2011-12 convocation series Thursday, Sept. 15 with the annual matriculation address. The theme for this year’s convocation series is “Liberal Arts and the Life of the Mind.”

A 1977 Lawrence University graduate, Kraemer presents “Becoming a Values-Based Leader” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The convocation is free and open to the public.

Read the press release: “President Beck Welcomes Business Leader, Author Harry Jansen Kraemer Jr. ’77 for Annual Matriculation Convocation”

Library and Web resources:

Canine Therapy 2011

Canine Therapy 2011
We had our biggest crowds ever at Canine Therapy 2011! Ten dogs and dozens of their admirers swarmed the Library Plaza for an hour-long mutual-admiration stress-relief session.

Comments from the participants:

“This is the best student therapy EVER!”

“Thank you for putting it on! We all need fluffy doggy therapy at this time of the year!”

“This is the most smiles I’ve seen since that Tom Petty concert!”

“Woof!”

Photos of the event are available on the Library’s Flickr site.

Sara Quandt ’73 at Lawrence

Sara Quandt

Sara Quandt, a professor in the department of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University’s School of Medicine, examines the health inequities and social justice challenges faced by rural and minority populations in Lawrence University’s final convocation of the 2010-11 academic year.

A 1973 Lawrence graduate, Quandt presents “It Takes a Community: Collaborating to Reduce Health Disparities in the U.S.” Tuesday, May 17 at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.

Read the press release: “Medical Anthropologist Sara Quandt ’73 Examines U.S. Health Disparities in Honors Convocation”

Library and Web resources:

Convo: Mary Jane Jacob on “The Collective Creative Process”

MJ Jacob
Mary Jane Jacob
Independent curator and executive director of exhibitions, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
“The Collective Creative Process”
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
11:10am

Curator, author, educator, Mary Jane Jacob is known for her work on the national and international art scene. Exploring art outside the museum context, she has spent the past 20 years as an independent curator organizing groundbreaking programs that have tested the boundaries of public space and relationship of contemporary art to audience. Among her most influential programs was “Culture in Action,” a two-year-long project in Chicago that partnered artists with community members to explore the changing nature of public art, its relationship to social issues and an expanded role of audience from spectator to participant.

During the 1980s, as chief curator of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Jacob staged some of the first U.S. retrospectives and one-person shows of American and European artists, as well as organized some of the key surveys of art of the period.

Resources by and about Mary Jane Jacob

It’s BubbleWrap Day!

Bubblewrap!

We get a lot of mail here at the Mudd and so we see a lot of packaging material. Our favorite, of course, is bubblewrap so we were delighted to discover that today, Monday, January 31 is BubbleWrap Appreciation Day!

There’s nothing like popping a pristine sheet of bubblewrap to relieve the stress of, say, a Freshman Studies midterm. So: have at it!

Now — back to work….

History of the Book exhibit

Students from Professor Garth Bond’s fall-term English 527: History of the Book class will be exhibiting their term projects in the Mudd Library. The exhibit opens Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 4:30pm. Come join us for refreshments and interesting conversation about the research the students have done on books housed right here in the Mudd.

Founders Day at the Library!

There’s been a library at Lawrence since its founding lo, these many years ago. The first Lawrence catalog from 1850-51 says this:

“A commencement for a good Library and Cabinet has been made, and 250 volumes or more secured for the former. Additions will continue to be made and the friends of the institution are hereby requested to make donations to the Library and Cabinet that they may speedily take rank with those which grace and benefit similar institutions in the East.”

Sam AppletonIn 1854, Amos Lawrence’s uncle-in-law, Samuel Appleton died and left $10,000 in his will for the “the increase of the Library” at Lawrence. In Uncle Sam’s honor, the library was called the “Appleton Library of Lawrence University.”

Before 1906, the library was in Main Hall. MH interior According to the 1855 catalog, access to the library was limited to one visit and one book per week, but by 1859, the Faculty Library Committee voted that “no students except those of the Senior Class shall be allowed to go into the Library to consult books.”

Catalog The library catalog was handwritten and listed books as they were added to the collection. To check out a book,
“On a slip of paper write the title of the book desired, the letters and number, according to the Catalogue, together with the name of the person drawing, and hand it to the Librarian, or his assistant. It would be well to put down several, in the same way, so that if the 1st be not in, the 2nd, or if the second be not there, the third may be drawn, and so on.”

Zelia Zelia Anne Smith, class of 1882, was Lawrence’s first full-time librarian and she served in that role from 1883 to 1924. This painting of her (to the right), commissioned by alumni on her death, hangs in the University Librarian’s office.

The Carnegie In 1905, Lawrence received a donation from Andrew Carnegie for the construction of a new library building. That building, located on the site of the current library, was torn down in 1974 to make way for the Mudd.