Author Archives: Daniel Peach

Brian E.  Coutts, Rosemary Meszaros and Charles H. Smith, Professors in the Department of Library Public Service retire this summer.

Brian Coutts served as Coordinator of Collection Development from 1986 to 1991 and since 1991 has been Head, Department of Library Public Services.

He received the Reference and User Services Association’s highest honor, the Isadore G. Mudge Award in 2017 and is a past winner of the CQ Press Marta Lange Award for Distinguished Law & Political Science Librarianship and the Louis Shores Award for distinguished reviewing. For WKU he served as moderator for more than 200 programs in the WKU Libraries’ Far Away Places Series and Kentucky Live Series and was one of the founders of the Southern Kentucky Bookfest. From 1986-2016 he selected the “Best Reference Sources of the Year” for Library Journal, the nation’s leading trade journal. He serves on the Dartmouth Medal Committee and is a judge for the Benjamin Franklin Awards.

Rosemary Meszaros joined the DLPS faculty in the spring of 1998 and has served as the Federal Depository Librarian for the Second Congressional District and as the Coordinator of Government Information and Law.  She received the Government Documents Round Table’s

“Documents to the People Award” in 2018 and is a past winner of Kentucky’s Academic Librarian of the Year Award. She’s the author of Rising Through the Ranks: Women in War and chapters on government periodicals in numerous editions of Magazines for Libraries.  With Katherine Pennavaria she’s been a popular presenter at numerous academic and public libraries around the state on genealogical sources and strategies. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.

Charles H. Smith joined the DLPS faculty in March of 1995 and has served as Science Librarian and principal liaison to Ogden College of Science and Technology.  He’s a past winner of the American Library Association’s Oberly Award for distinguished bibliography and a Presidential Award for Distinguished Public Service.  Over the past two decades he has created the Alfred Russel Wallace Page as one of the leading and most widely consulted online sources on one of the world’s most distinguished scientists.  One of the world’s leading authorities on Wallace, his many books and articles on Wallace led to his induction into the distinguished Linnaean Society of London. He’s been a featured speaker in Mexico, Brazil, and the UK.  His Alfred Russel Wallace Page and his Classical Music Navigator sites are frequently consulted. His newest book on Wallace will be published by the University Press of Chicago in 2018.

After more than 200 programs over the past two decades, most held at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Bowling Green, our DLPS Series will be ending this spring.

Peggy Wright and Brian Coutts conceived of an international series following the return of former Kentucky Librarian Nancy Baird from a trip to South Africa.  We launched our first program in September, 2000 and followed with programs on Costa Rica, China, Brazil, England and Germany.  We took our name from a 1948 song “Far Away Places with Strange Sounding Names ”. Since then we’ve visited every continent and places from Alaska and Greenland to Antarctica. Our final program was Soleiman Kiasatpour’s fascinating talk on Morocco in April. 2018

In February, 2003 we launched a companion series “Kentucky Live, southern Culture at Its best!” with a program on Jonesville & Shake Rag: Historic Black Community of Bowling Green from Maxine Ray and Dr. John Long, Department Head of Philosophy & Religion. Programs on photographers, artists, poets, writers, restaurants, historians, bourbon, coal mining,  the Derby and virtually every iconic Kentucky product from the Louisville Slugger to Fruit of the Loom Underwear, and the Corvette followed. Our final program this April was from J.D. Wilkes founder of the Legendary Shack Shakers, a Southern Gothic rock and blues band.  What a great way to end.

None of this would have possible without our genial hosts Barnes & Noble Booksellers.  Special thanks to Jennifer Bailey, David Hollifield and before them Natalie Boddeker and David Coverdale and all of your fine staff for setting up all those chairs and ordering all those books and helping us promote these programs.

Thanks also to Dr. Richard Weigel, Professor of History who edits the Book Page for the Bowling Green Daily News for running so many reviews of books from our featured speakers.  The attention you focused on many regional authors was very much appreciated by them and by us.

David Keeling, Michael Trapasso, John Dizgun and Haiwang Yuan, and so any others from around the country and beyond—world travelers all—thanks for so many exciting evenings.

To our sponsors Coca Cola, Trace Die Cast, Integra Bank and the Friends of WKU Libraries—we appreciated your interest and support.

To former Deans of WKU Libraries Mike Binder and Connie Foster—thanks for your interest and support.

Finally—thanks to our series team over two decades—Peggy Wright, Bryan Carson, Haiwang Yuan, Daniel Peach, Eric Fisher, Ryan Dowell, Shaden Melky, Jennifer Wilson, Christopher McConnell and a host of talented DLPS Office Assistants and Students.

Hasta luego,

Brian Coutts, Moderator

Rosemary Meszaros, Professor and Coordinator of Government Information and Law, in the Department of Library Public Services at WKU since 1998 was honored on Sunday, June 24, 2018 with one of the American Library Association’s, Government Documents Round Table’s highest honors, the ProQuest/GODORT/ALA “Documents to the People” Award.  The award which consists of a cash prize of $3,000 goes to an individual, institution or library that has most effectively encouraged the use of government documents in support of library service.  A reception was held at the Louisiana Supreme Court Building, 400 Royal Street, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Rosemary received her MLS from LSU’s School of Library and Information science and an MA in history from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Prior to coming to WKU she worked at Boston University and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

In 2015 the Federal Depository Library for the Second Congressional District of Kentucky celebrated its 80^th Anniversary.

The SOKY Bookfest was honored to have former Governor Steve Beshear as one of our very special guests on Saturday, April 21 for our 20^th Anniversary. Brian Coutts moderated his 11:00 a.m. session.

Beshear was elected the 61^st Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2007 and reelected to a second term in 2011. Among the many issues he focused attention on were sustainable economic growth, lifelong learning opportunities and Affordable Health Care and enjoyed considerable success in each one of these. He used the Affordable Care act and Medicaid expansion to insure some 300,000 previously uninsured Kentuckians.

So successful was he that the Democratic Party selected him to give the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on February 28, 2017.

Susann deVries, Dean of WKU Libraries, speaks with Steve Beshear

Since leaving office he’s served as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and written a new memoir People Over Politics.

Following his talk he answered numerous questions about his memoir and current political issues and signed copies of his book.

Steve Beshear (left) with Brian Coutts

WKU Biologist Nancy Rice talked about “The Magic, Mystery, and Misfortune of Modern Kenya” in WKU Libraries’ Far Away Places series on Thursday, February 22 at Barnes & Noble Bookstore.

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