WKU Libraries blog

On Thursday, November 19, Peruvian Folk Rock Artist Oscar Pajares Ruiz performed Peruvian folk music and dance to an enthusiastic audience of faculty and students at Java City-Helm Library.

This was part of the Java City-Helm Library concert series sponsored by the Independence Bank.

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Barry Kitterman was this month’s featured speaker in our Far Away Places series. He talked about his experiences in 1970s Belize as well as about his novel and creative writing on Thursday, November 19 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Bowling Green, KY. A book signing followed.

His first novel, The Baker’s Boy, was published by Southern Methodist University Press in 2008 and in 2009 won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award. He drew inspiration from his work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Belize in the 1970s.

Set in Central American and Middle Tennessee it tells the story of a former Peace Corps worker at a boys’ training school in Belize near the Guatemalan border who thirty years later is toiling as a baker while still haunted by his earlier experience. Kitterman spent almost a decade writing the novel which has drawn praise from critics everywhere.

Kitterman coordinates the creative writing program and visiting writers series at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN where he’s been a member of the faculty since 1994.

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Robert Dickey was the featured speaker in this month’s Kentucky Live! on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at Barnes & Noble.  Dickey attended WKU and graduated from Centre  College.  Following a stint in the marines and a hitch as a reporter for the Bowling Green Daily News he graduated from Vanderbilt Law School.  His first client was Beech Bend Park owner Charles Garvin.  In Charles Garvin’s Dynasty of Dimes he tells the history of a man who he calls an “eccentric entrepreneur” who built an amusement park “empire” in Bowling Green, Kentucky based on 10 cent admissions.  It’s a fascinating story spanning four decades, and one indelibly linked with the tourist business in South Central Kentucky.

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Lynwood Montell spoke at the KY Library & Museum on the evening of October 29 about his newest book, Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes. An author of numerous Kentucky-related books and former faculty at WKU, Montell made his first appearance in WKU Libraries Kentucky Live! series. His tales of ghost stories in Kentucky and Tennessee are legendary, and his Halloween readings have been popular for many years.

Montell, a native of Rock Bridge in Monroe County, founded the Folk Studies Program at WKU in 1972 and taught several generations of students there between 1969 and 1999. He’s the author of 22 books with such enticing titles as: Ghosts Along the Cumberland; Killings: Folk Justice in the Upper South; and Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky.

In his newest book he recounts stories of unusual items in caskets, mournful pretenders, long-winded preachers, and even pallbearers falling into graves. They all serve to demonstrate the pivotal role played by morticians in Kentucky life and culture.

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On October 16, 2009, a panel discussion on John Brown by Drs. Glenn Lafantasie, John Hardin and Robert Dietle was conducted in Helm Library 100. This discussion was co-sponsored by the History Department and the Department of Public Library Services, Western Kentucky University. Scores of WKU students and faculty members, including some of the Libraries employees attended the discussion.

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Professor Debbie Kreitzer from the Department of Georgraphy and Geology is the first speaker in the tenth series of talks on “Far away Places with Strange Sounding Names” sponsored by the friends of WKU Libraries and the Kentucky Museum. Debbie teaches classes on World Regional Geography, the Georgraphy of North America and Geographic Information Systems. She led a Study Abroad group to Slovenia in 2007 and made a return visit in 2008. This event was held at Barnes and Noble on Thursday September 17th at 7:00 p.m.

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Mr. Guillerman spoke as part of our Kentucky Live series on Thursday, October 15th at Barnes & Noble on Campbell Lane.

Michael D. Guillerman worked for the Peabody Coal Company from 1974 to 1991. Over his long career, his jobs included belt shoveler, timberman, shooter, drill and shuttle car operator, rock duster, and finally section foreman. Now retired, he lives with his wife Marie in Union county, Kentucky.

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Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

September 26 - October 3, 2009

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. This year WKU Libraries hosted exhibits on the Cravens 4th Floor and at the ERC. The ERC display included quotations from students in Children’s and Young Adult Literature classes about how their lives had been impacted by reading some of these “challenged” books. The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.

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On Sunday, September 13th VSA arts of Kentucky and the Kentucky Library & Museum kicked off the start of the Side by Side: VSA arts Statewide Exhibit with a reception at the Kentucky Library & Museum.

More about the exhibit.

On the evening of August 26, 2009, M.A.S.T.E.R. Plan students had a good time in the Kentucky Museum at an event dubbed as “Night at the Museum,” a marketing effort to bring more students into the facility and familiarize them with the exhibits. Attendees had a chance to take a photo with “Lincoln” and his “wife,” and had a taste of the life lived by their ancestors in the Civil War period, such as wearing the girdle, writing in cursive styles with feather pens, and reenacting the war with figurines. These photos will show you how much they enjoyed the night at the Kentucky Museum.

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