George Stephens is still an enigma, even though it's been almost 40 years since a group of Haverford students founded the George Stevins [sic] Memorial Association. Their quest was to gather enough information about him in order to understand this courageous Haverfordian. Here are some of the characteristics known to date through discovered artifacts: he was a little ungainly on the soccer field, his team having suffered defeat in Ethiopia when the ball dribbled past his left-leaning feet (see "Sinistericon" and his sneakers as evidence); he had little humor, as the well-known artist, Kevorkian, revealed in his portrait of Steyvens [sic]; he wrote his senior thesis on an unknowable topic, given that the 5" floppy on which it was presented can no longer be read; and he had a preference for large women (see Margaret Dufay's toothbrush). Perhaps a visitor to the exhibit, which closes on March 15th, will discover the perfect artifact. We welcome any creative evidence that will fulfill the mission of the Jorge Esteban [sic] Memorial Association.
Exhibit in Magill Library: The Elusive George Stephens, a Haverford Original
Underground Poets, Quakers, and Red Sox
You are invited to join
Jake Brunkard '08
Mark Kharas '08
Trude Raizen '08
The three winners of this year's A. Edward Newton Student Book Competition Awards will discuss their experiences creating their book collections
Come enjoy the talk accompanied by refreshments at our reception on the first floor of McCabe Library.
Thursday, February 28th 4:15 PM
McCabe Popular Reading Lounge
Religion and Spirituality on Campus: Religious Texts and Objects Exhibit
Religion and Spirituality Week may have been last week, but you can still enjoy the great exhibit sponsored by the Interfaith Center in McCabe Library, 2nd floor Cratsley Lounge.
The exhibit displays books, artifacts, and objects from various religions and beliefs represented on campus, including Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahá’í Faith.
New exhibits in Magill's Information Hub
This January we're starting out the semester with several new displays. Come by and take a look!
Explorations in Literature takes a look at books and the movies based on them, featuring Oil, by Upton Sinclair (There Will Be Blood, currently in theaters, is based on this book), Persepolis (a graphic novel), and the old favorite of screenwriters everywhere, Jane Austen.
The display for political science features new books and journal articles about voter turnout in U.S. elections. Some titles focus on the problems of disengagement and low numbers of voters at the polls, while others look at such recent positive trends as political activism, youth involvement, and results of democratization.
In the fountain area library displays welcome students back to campus and honor the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. One display features photographs from the Civil Rights movement. Whether the book was published in the 1950s or last year, the photographs preserve the immediacy of the protest marches and organizing efforts.
An adjacent display invites viewers to "Read" with a tempting array of novels, critical studies, histories and art books on a wide variety of topics.
The final display in the Fountain Area presents new books about the French Revolution which demonstrate a number of current themes in historical research including the body, gender, popular caricature, and the continuities from the period of the monarchy through the Napoleonic era.
Extreme Makeover: Plaster Edition
Whitney Ale, teaching assistant for Haverford sculpture professor Marianne Weil, spent the tail end of fall semester restoring a 150-year old plaster- cast bust of the goddess Diana that once sat atop the shelves of the old Haverford Library. As reported in a previous blog posting, busts of Diana and Aristotle were recently identified and discovered on campus.
Ale, a senior anthropology major from Bryn Mawr, has put in over 20 hours of work cleaning and repairing the sculpture and predicts just as many hours before she finishes. The first step in Ale’s restoration process is to sand the entire bust by hand with a fine grit sandpaper. This step removes small nicks and gives the bust an even and clean appearance.
“When I first saw Diana she looked tortured,” reports Ale. “She had been colored on with marker, given eyeballs with pen. It looks as though at one point her head had fallen off and was glued back on.”
Following the initial sanding, Ale will soak the bust in water to open its pores in preparation for the final steps, patching large cracks with new plaster and giving the work a final sanding to make the repairs flush with the rest of the piece.
Having worked extensively in bronze, wax, steel and clay, this is the first time Ale has worked with plaster and she is really enjoying it: “I feel that I am forming a real connection with the piece. It is very exciting at this point to see her becoming beautiful again.”
Once completed, Diana will make a triumphant return to Magill Library where she will be offered pride of place in Haverford Special Collections.
Take a Study Break: Rare Documents in Special Collections
Need to get out of your tiny library cubicle and see something exotic and stimulating for a change? Want a rest for your weary computer screen strained eyes? Stop by Special Collections any day this week to see rare and unique materials from the collection.
Each day we'll be bringing out one or more of Haverford's major treasures from the Collection, including:
12/17/07 – The Pemberton Bible, Northern France, ca. 1225-50 & the Haverford Hebrew Bible, Spain, 1266
12/18/07 – Nicolaus Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium caelestium, 1543
12/19/07 – Maxfield Parrish, Chemistry Notebook, 1890
12/20/07 – Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery, 1688
12/21/07 – Eadweard Muybridge, Photographic Plates from Animal Locomotion, 1887
Perfect Study Break--the Sharpless Gallery Exhibit at Magill
If final papers and exams are making your head swim, just take a moment to imagine what your life might have been like as a Haverford student in 1836. In those days, all exams were given orally in the presence of the school's entire Board of Managers. They covered all material from an entire school year and lasted for three full days.
You can find out much more about early life at Haverford, as well as about Haverford's earliest library collections, at "A Few Well Selected Books," the current exhibit at the Sharpless Gallery, Magill Library. The exhibit runs through January 31.
APB: Haverford Special Collections Ten Most Wanted
Last week we posted about the re-discovery and ensuing restoration of two 150-year-old Greek plaster-cast busts that had once graced the shelves of the Haverford College Library. Through careful examination of photographs from the College Archives library staff have identified a total of eleven busts that were once on display in the library from at least 1865 to 1895 and perhaps beyond. As we would be pleased to see the identification and return of more of these wayward characters, we provide below—in the form of an old FBI wanted poster—a line-up of this motley gang of Ancient Greeks, Quakers, and a few unknowns. If you’ve seen any of these fugitives lurking around campus please don’t hesitate to be in touch with Special Collections staff!
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150-year-old Greek Busts Return to Magill Library, Set to Get a Make-over
When the organizers of “A Few Well Selected Books,” the current exhibition in Magill Library, chose an 1865 photograph of the library to use in the promotion of the exhibit, they had no idea it would lead to the rediscovery of two very old plaster-cast Greek busts. This iconic photograph of the library in Alumni Hall features (from left to right) professors Thomas Chase and Paul Swift, superintendent William Wetherald, seniors James A. Chase and Allen C. Thomas, assistant professor and librarian Clement L. Smith, sophomore Samuel Collins, and president Samuel J. Gummere. Peering down from high atop the wooden bookcases are several Ancient Greek busts, including (from left to right) Socrates, Aristotle, Diana, and Cicero. 
After our exhibit announcements went out, we were informed by Haverford professor Darin Hayton that the bust of Diana could be found in the faculty lounge of Hall Building. Scuffed up, embellished with magic marker, and appearing to have suffered a neck fracture, Diana has clearly been through some rough patches over the past century and a half!
A few weeks after the discovery of Diana, as librarians Christa Williford and David Conners were preparing to record an exhibit narrative with Classics professors Deborah Roberts and Bret Mulligan, Roberts revealed that she and husband professor emeritus Aryeh Kosman had another of the busts—that of Aristotle—in their home on College Avenue. Kosman reports having rescued Aristotle from a trash pile in the 1970s.
Archival photographs from 1865 to 1895 reveal an array of Ancient Greek mythological and philosophical characters to have been part of the collection, as well as a couple of Quaker luminaries and some mystery busts yet to be identified. Librarians have long wondered what had become of these venerable figures as they are not part of the extensive online inventory of college-owned art maintained by College Archivist Diana Franzusoff Peterson.
Both busts have been returned to Special Collections and now they will be undergoing restoration and repair courtesy of Haverford sculpture professor Marianne Weil and her teaching assistant Whitney Ale BMC '08. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will provide updates on their progress and will also report on more of the missing busts which have been identified in photographs from the College Archives.
Alcove Gallery at Magill: The Lost-Wax Initiative begins 11/30
The Lost-Wax Initiative, is a collaborative project between Swarthmore College art history students and sculpture students from Haverford College. For a limited number of studio/foundry sessions, students from Associate Professor Patricia Reilly's Ancient Greek and Roman Art class met with sculpture students from Visiting Associate Professor Marianne Weil's class at Haverford's Foundry. Under Prof. Weil’s guidance, students explored the lost-wax casting process through "hands-on" preparation of their wax sculptures, investment molds and the finishing “chasing” of the bronzes at our College Foundry.
This project was a unique opportunity for students in both departments to share an in-depth collaborative research experience in a workshop setting and provides the premise for an ongoing dialogue between our departments. It was generously funded by a Mellon Tri-Co Seed Grant.
Alcove Gallery at Magill: Student Painting and Drawing, 11/20 - 29
Painting and drawing students from the 200 and 300 level classes will be showing their work from this semester in the Alcove Gallery at Magill. There will be large scale drawings, designs created for the library mural now underway, as well as collages and paintings. From November 20 through 29.
Alcove Gallery at Magill: Student Printmaking through 11/12
Podcasts to Accompany "A Few Well Selected Books" Now Available
Podcasts to accompany Magill Library's current exhibition, "A Few Well Selected Books: Building Collections, Curricula & Community at Haverford College," are available through iTunes (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=267176778).
New exhibits in Magill's Information Hub
The new exhibits are up in the 2nd tier Information Hub. Through the end of the semester, stop by and take a look at the resources highlighted in the following areas:
Religion: The past two years have witnessed an interesting phenomenon in the book publishing world. A number of books which have challenged religion have captured the attention of the public and gone on to become bestsellers. This display features those books.
Economics: This semester's economics exhibit contains several resources related to development economics. Along with the featured items is an essay on the building blocks of development authored by Uma Kambhampati.
Literature: Stop by to see literature and poetry about war, starting with futuristic tales of war from H.G. Wells to poems by modern writers against the Iraq War. Other highlights include Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Max Aub's Laberinto mágico.
Music: The Music Library's exhibit ties in with both literature and anthropology in featuring music with a connection to war. Take a look at the score to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem or listen to the CD. Handel's rendition of Orlando Furioso, Orlando, joins Berloiz's take on the Trojan War, Les Troyens.
Anthropology: The anthropology of war and peace is featured in the Information Hub with books, journal articles, and web pages. Specific topics treated include mass crime, death squads, genocide, and reconciliation commissions.
In the Fountain Area one display celebrates gay history with a selection of books and a poster declaring "History has set the record a little too straight."
Another poster advises passersby to practice random acts of reading. To facilitate this activity, a variety of eye-catching titles are spread out in history, political science, art history, and literature.
A small display features a poster , "The First People," with an early photograph of a native American mother, father, and child. Books concern Native American history and current political issues.
"Modern Musings": Art books exhibit and lecture at Swarthmore
Modern Musings: Treasures from the Lieberman Collection
McCabe Library lobby, October 24-December 23
Talk by Professor Graham Bader, Tuesday, October 30, 4:15 p.m.
This exhibit, curated by Sarah Burford '08, showcases some of our favorite items from the Lieberman collection. This generous gift from William S. Lieberman '43, prominent curator at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, comprises thousands of volumes on art, history, literature, and a myriad of other subjects. Lieberman graduated Swarthmore in 1943 with a B.A. in English, and almost immediately embarked on a six-decade career in the art world. The exhibition includes books, catalogs, original prints, and lithographs created or signed by figures such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, W.H. Auden, and Andy Warhol. Lieberman knew many of these artists personally, and the exhibition offers an exciting look at works representative of some of the most important developments in modern artistic culture.
Please join us at 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, October 30th, for a talk on the exhibit by visiting Art History Professor Graham Bader. We hope to see you there!
A Few Well Selected Books: Exhibition in Magill Library
October 5, 2007 to January 31, 2008
Curated by Christa Williford
Sharpless Gallery
Magill Library, Haverford College
Haverford's first library catalog was a slender 40-page book printed just three years after the first students arrived in 1833. The 770 titles included in this nascent collection give clues to the kind of intellectual life the school's Quaker founders sought to encourage in these young men. In the years that followed, the collection has expanded under many other influences; faculty, alumni, community groups, other libraries, and, most especially, students have all played a role in building Haverford's collections. This exhibition tells the story of the first "few well-chosen books" and honors those who have been responsible for growing this corpus into today's wide-ranging collections.
http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/
New exhibits in Magill's Information Hub
Come check out the new displays in the Information Hub. During the first half of the semester, you can check out exhibits on the following subjects:
Science Library Presents Planet Earth and Beyond
Check out the well-received documentary Planet Earth on DVD or books and videos on the cosmos.
Music Library
The 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love is upon us this year, and to celebrate, the Music Library offers an enticing display of psychedelic concert posters, albums from 1967, and the Monterey Pop Festival on DVD.
Explorations in Literature
Monsters, of the human and animal variety are the topic for the literature display. Visit an island where the humans are yahoos and beasts are cultured in Gulliver's Travels, see a video performance of Beowulf (in Old English!), or read about centaurs, werewolves, or vampires.
Multinationals
This semester's economics exhibit contains several books on multinational corporations and their effects on the global economy. The featured imprints, along with a fine essay by the late international economics scholar Edith Penrose, offer a window into this increasingly important topic.
Faculty Publications
The first faculty exhibit of the 2007-2008 academic year features the work of four Haverford scholars. Anne Preston, Associate Professor of Economics, presents several papers on charitable giving and other-regarding behavior. Karl Johnson, Associate Professor of Biology, presents research on flagella that was completed in his lab with Haverford alumni Jessica Shapiro '99 and Jessica Ingram '04. Lisa Jane Graham, Associate Professor of History, presents her paper on 18th Century novels that were used to criticize current events and royal government. Ken Koltun-Fromm, Associate Professor of History, features his recent book, Abraham Geiger's Liberal Judaism: Personal Meaning and Religious Authority.
Political Science
In the area of Political Science, a display features books and articles on the interactions between new technology and political processes including the Internet in China and cell phones in Africa.
Fountain Area Exhibits
Banned Book Week, September 29-October 6, recognizes titles that have been challenged in libraries across the United States as well as censorship practices in other countries. The display includes a list of the ten most frequently challenged books in 2006 in the United States along with a selection of titles on censorship in various time periods and areas of the world.
Rock and roll poster art inspired Shepard Fairey's graphic "Make Art, Not War." The display features reactions from Goya and Picasso to recent photographers' conceptions of peace and protest art against the war in Iraq.
Zora Neale Hurston is featured on another lobby table. Her work both as an author and a folklorist is represented in collections of short stories, biographies, letters, and critical works.
Lecture: Christopher Morley: The Haverford Edition
Please join us for a lecture by Steven Rothman, noted Christopher Morley scholar and curator of the current exhibition in the Philips Wing, on Morley and his life-long relationship with Haverford College. Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 4:30 pm in the Philips Wing of Magill Library, Haverford College. Refreshments will be served.
Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was a prolific and popular novelist, editor, playwright, poet, essayist, and book lover. But more than anything, Morley was a devoted Haverfordian, who grew up on the campus (his father was a beloved mathematics professor), graduated from the college in 1910, and returned as a successful writer to give lectures and visit brother Felix, who became Haverford’s fifth president. On the fiftieth anniversary of Christopher Morley’s death we honor this “local boy made good” and his lifelong commitment to Haverford College.
For more information on our exhibition and events:
http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/
Rare Environmental Book Exhibit in Haverford Special Collections
As a part of the two weeks of environmental events leading up to the "Saving Communities, Saving the Environment" conference at Haverford during Earth Day weekend, there is an exhibit of rare and valuable environmental books in the Special Collections. This exhibit has been developed by Lesley Fleischman, in conjunction with Earthquakers (Haverford's environmental group) and with help from Ann Upton.Cypriot pottery exhibit in Carpenter Library
Cypriot Pottery From the Ella Riegel Memorial Museum curated by Rebecca Hahn '07, presents about 80 pieces of pottery from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, ranging in date from about 2500 to about 600 B.C.E. It is on display in the Kaiser Reading Room of Carpenter Library until April 13.
See http://www.brynmawr.edu/news/2007-03-29/cypriot.shtml for more information.
reBound: Contemporary Artists' Responses to 18th and 19th Century Ticketed American Bindings
reBound is a collaboration between the Bryn Mawr College Special Collections Department and The Philadelphia Center for the Book. The Center, formed in 2004, promotes the book as a vital contemporary art form and as a catalyst for inspiration, education and creative expression. Its diverse membership includes book artists, collectors, teachers, writers, librarians, book dealers, and art professors. The works being exhibited are newly-created pieces that respond to the exhibition, Bound and Determined: Identifying American Bookbindings, on display in Canaday Library’s Rare Book Room through May 2007.
Exhibition opening and reception - free and open to the public
Friday, March 30, 2007
6:00 - 7:30 pm
New exhibits in Magill's Information Hub
Come check out the new displays in the Information Hub. Topics include Sports Economics, the Senior Thesis Archive, and SExplorations in Literature. The Music Nook is featuring Jazz CDs and scores from the Music Library, and the Science Library is showing materials on mathematics and dark matter.
Our faculty publications display features works from four professors: Casey Londergan, Ying Li, Paul Smith, and Benjamin Le.
Most items on display are available for checkout. Just ask at the Circulation Desk if you're not sure.
Closing Reception: Fine Arts Exhibition
Please join us:
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Magill Library - Haverford College
for the closing reception for:
Revealed: Selections from the Fine Arts Collection of Haverford College
Beauty, skill and imagination are uncovered in the more than 70 works of art--many presented in public for the first time--on display in the exhibition Revealed: Selections from the Fine Arts Collection of Haverford College. Spanning many centuries and cultures, the show includes prints and paintings by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Edouard Manet, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Haverford’s native son Maxfield Parrish, artifacts from ancient Greece and Africa, as well as a rich selection of photography including prints by André Kertész, Diane Arbus, Eikoh Hosoe and Andres Serrano.
More information:
Phone: 610-896-1161
http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/
Mystery writer Laura Lippman speaks on campus
Award-winning mystery writer Laura Lippman will speak on campus, talking about her mysteries, her reporter-turned-detective Tess Monaghan, and her own work as a reporter in Baltimore before she began writing novels. Lippman has won every major prize in American crime fiction, including the Edgar, Nero Wolfe, Anthony, Agatha, and Shamus. Her novel In a Strange City was a New York Times Notable Book.
Lippman will speak on Tuesday, November 7 at 4:30 pm in Carpenter 21. Her lecture is sponsored by the Friends of the Bryn Mawr College Library, and will be followed by a reception in the Rare Book Room, Canaday Library. The Bryn Mawr College bookstore will make copies of Lippman's works available during the reception. The exhibition Pointing Fingers: Women, Sin, Crime, and Guilt is on view in the Rare Book Room. Lecture and reception are free and open to the public.
Winner of the Best American Novel Contest!
The votes are tallied and the winner is in: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, the famously postmodern novel set in late WWII London. Pynchon's novel, nominated by three people, was the only book with more than one vote. Other nominees included Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, A Time to Kill by John Grisham, and Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Thanks to all who participated, and congratulations to Alyssa Perez who won the $50 gift certificate to the bookstore! Come by the Information Hub at Magill to see these and other nominees for best American novel on display.Revealed: Selections from the Fine Arts Collection of Haverford College
Beauty, skill and imagination will be uncovered when more than 70 works of art, many presented in public for the first time, go on display in Revealed: Selections from the Fine Arts Collection of Haverford College. Spanning many centuries and cultures, the show includes prints and paintings by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Edouard Manet, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Haverford’s native son Maxfield Parrish, artifacts from ancient Greece and Africa, as well as a rich selection of photography including prints by André Kertész, Diane Arbus, Eikoh Hosoe and Andres Serrano.
October 2, 2006 through January 31, 2007
Magill Library - Haverford College
Free & open to the public
http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/
Guido Ruggiero on Courtesans; Exhibition on Women, Crime, and Sex
Ruggiero's talk will be followed by a reception and the opening of the exhibition, Pointing Fingers: Women, Sin, Crime, and Guilt, both in Canaday Library's Rare Book Room. The exhibition looks at women criminals and their offenses through trial reports and popular accounts from the early sixteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The exhibition also considers disgrace and scandal, and how those categories of notoriety interact with actual crime in popular versions of women's lives.
Both events are free and open to the public. We hope you will be able to join us!