Category Archives: Events

by | June 30, 2010 · 5:50 am

Putting on the Ritz

Posing for the camera

Posing for the camera

Posing for the camera

Bowling Green residents and their grandchildren from Oregon  enjoy a chance to play dress up in the Photographers Studio in our Civil War exhibit.  Besides learning more about the unique role Kentucky and Kentuckians played in this conflict, visitors this summer can uncover the past of the man behind the cake box, national food icon Duncan Hines, see early twentieth century photographs of a German immigrant community in South Central Kentucky, view some of the fabulous pieces of furniture from the KYLM decorative arts collection, and discover what makes Western Kentucky University so special.

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by | June 15, 2010 · 7:18 am

Edgar Stansbury Collection

Edgar Stansbury

Edgar Stansbury

Edgar Bryant Stansbury, son of Emmet and Mable Stansbury was born 1906 in Corbin, Kentucky. He attended Shepherdsville high school and came to WKU in 1926 where he played basketball and football. Upon graduation in 1930 he became assistant coach to E.A. Diddle. After World War II he returned briefly as athletic director in 1946-1947. Stansbury returned to the air force in 1947 and later worked for Rockwell. A lifelong WKU supporter, he died in Largo, Florida in 2009 at the age of 103.

A collection of his personal papers have recently come into University Archives and are being processed. They include 10 scrapbooks compiled over the course of Stansbury’s life regarding WKU athletics and his military career and a photograph collection. Three of the scrapbook have been digitized so far and are available online at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_alum_papers/

The collection is available for researchers to use in the Harrison-Baird Reading Room of the Kentucky Building, Monday-Saturday, 9 to 4.

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by | June 11, 2010 · 11:44 am

New Compact Shelving on Cravens 5th Floor

Compact Shelving on Cravens 5th Floor

Installation of a new compact shelving unit on Cravens fifth floor has been completed.  The unit is manually operated using hand cranks, and provides space for an additional 3000 volumes on that floor.  The unit was funded through a Classroom Improvement Grant from the Provost’s office.  The additional shelf space will help alleviate overcrowding on that floor.  Allison Sircy and Jessica Simpson (pictured) oversaw the shelving of volumes on the new unit and will work with student assistants and staff this summer shifting volumes throughout the fifth floor.

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by | June 10, 2010 · 6:29 am

Duncan Hines Objects on Loan to National Inventors Hall of Fame

Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix Box

Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix Box

What do containers that advertise Duncan Hines’ yellow cake mix, double-fudge brownie mix, and chocolate ice cream have in common with a “Recommended by Duncan Hines/Adventures in Good Eating” sign from 1951? Selected from the Duncan Hines Collection at the Kentucky Library & Museum, they are part of the “Inventive Eats: Incredible Food Innovations” exhibit mounted by the National Inventors Hall of Fame.From what it takes to fry an egg, have a bowl of breakfast cereal, or enjoy a bag of potato chips, innovations abound in the food world, and Inventive Eats presents the fascinating stories behind many of these food innovations.

Recommended by Duncan Hines sign

Recommended by Duncan Hines sign

Interested in knowing more about Duncan Hines?  Come visit the “Recommended by Duncan Hines” exhibit at the Kentucky Library & Museum which features photographs and postcards as well as pots and pans, barbecue tools, canned goods, china, and other objects associated with this nationally recognized food icon.  The “Inventive Eats: Incredible Food Innovations” exhibit is currently running at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria, Virginia and will move to its sister institution in Akron, Ohio in 2011.

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by | June 8, 2010 · 9:17 am

TopScholar exceeds 100,000 downloads

Though it may seem quiet in the WKU libraries now that most of the students are gone for the summer, exciting work is still going on.  As evidence, TopSCHOLAR® the University-wide, centralized digital repository dedicated to scholarly research, creative activity and other full-text learning resources that merit enduring and archival value and permanent access crossed a significant milestone.  As of June 1st, 2010, there had been 100,247 full text downloads  from the site.  There are over 3,000 items housed there.  WKU faculty, staff, and faculty-sponsored students are encouraged to publish in TopSCHOLAR®.

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by | May 26, 2010 · 8:46 am

Settling Schweizer: Scenes of an Immigrant Community

Oswald Kummer and Fido

Oswald Kummer sits in a haystack with the faithful family dog, Fido.

Schweizer, located in southwest Simpson County, Kentucky, was chiefly settled by German immigrants in the mid-1890s. Christian and Friederike Kummer emigrated from Germany to Minnesota in 1882, and permanently settled in Schweizer in 1889. The families of the area were particularly close, bound by language, religion, and customs.

Oswald Kummer, the son of Christian and Friederike, was two years old when his family immigrated to the United States. Only nine when his family settled in Schweizer, Oswald remained there until his death. In 1906, Oswald, then 24, acquired a camera and unofficially became the community chronicler. His glass plate negatives became part of the Kentucky Library & Museum collection in 1989.

An exhibit of 87 photographs and artifacts from the Kummer collection will be on display in the Kentucky Library and Museum from May 26 through August 31, 2010.

Photo Album

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by | · 7:10 am

The Southern Educator

Before there was WKU, there was the Southern Normal. A school that evolved from the Glasgow Normal, which moved to Bowling Green and changed hands several times before the Cherry brothers took over. The Southern Normal existed between 1893 and 1906 when it split into WKU and the Bowling Green Business University.

The Southern Educator serves as a journal of pedagogy, alumni magazine, advertisement for the Southern Normal, course listings and gives an overall look into the daily life of the Southern Normal.  Published more or less quarterly from 1897 to 1906, the newspaper is being digitized and made available online to researchers.  A name index available at: http://www.wku.edu/Library/dlsc/ua/bgbu-a.htm.

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by | May 25, 2010 · 5:37 am

KHQS Annual Quilt Show Now on View

Community Bookshelf Wall Hanging

Community Bookshelf Wall Hanging

The 2010 Kentucky Heritage Society’s annual quilt show is now on display in the Kentucky Museum & Library’s third floor gallery. Quilts inspired by books is the theme of this year’s show. Quilters have stitched a wide variety of subjects including the popular tween book “Twilight”, the classic children’s story “Where the Wild Things Are” and the “Book of Genesis” from the Bible. The exhibit is on display through June 6th.

Photo album from exhibit.

More information …

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by | May 14, 2010 · 12:07 pm

Finding Family in City and Telephone Directories

The Kentucky Library and Museum (KLM) holdings include many city and telephone directories. There are similarities between the two and if used skillfully, they can reveal a great deal of personal and family history information such as occupational data, relationships, home ownership and locations. They also can help with identifying persons with the same names or initials. City directories in particular list items such as asylums, cemeteries, fraternal organizations, newspapers, railroads and schools. They also have city maps with defined boundaries and can, through the years, include the changes of street names. Even in the addenda, there is pertinent information that was “too late for insertion” or and in some select directories, there were lists of deaths in an epidemic year. City directories were often compiled through door-to-door surveys and so had the benefit of verified information from the householder. The library has city directories from Bowling Green starting in the late 1880s and telephone directories starting in the 1920s.
February, 1958 Telephone Directory

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by | May 13, 2010 · 4:38 pm

Selden Society Publications

Through our new HeinOnline digital collection, patrons of WKU Libraries now have access to the Selden Society Publications.  Founded in 1887, the Selden Society is one of the premier publishers of research on early English law. The collection also includes publications from the Ames Foundation, a leading provider of early English historical legal documents. Many of the resources found in the Selden Society Publications cannot be found anywhere in print.

From on campus, you can follow the links above or connect through our database page. Go to the HeinOnline collection, then click on the Selden Society Publications link. To access this resource from off campus, don’t forget to log into our proxy server.

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