Category Archives: Uncategorized

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Information:  Monday, February 6, 2012
Contact: Jennifer Wilson, 745.6977 or jennifer.wilson1@wku.edu

Friday, February 24 will mark the grand opening for the Richardson Quilt Gallery–WKU’s latest permanent exhibition. The gallery will include two dozen quilts and historic textile samples collected by Elizabeth Richardson and donated by her daughter June McGuyer. “The acquisition of the Richardson Collection enhances the stature of the Museum as a leading Kentucky institution for the study of quilts and quilt making,” said Sandy Staebell, Museum Collections Curator.

Assembled over two decades, the Elizabeth Richardson Collection is a case study of American quilt collecting from the late 1930s through the late 1950s. In addition to the Richardson Collection, the gallery will also feature sixteen Star pattern quilts that were selected from other donors of the Kentucky Museum Quilt Collection. Dedicated to Richardson’s memory, this permanent gallery will offer a rotating selection of quilts and historic textiles.

Vicki Fitch, Executive Director for the Bowling Green Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, says there is a large following for the quilt industry. “Supporters will drive many miles to view a new collection of quilts. It’s their passion,” said Fitch “We are very pleased that Bowling Green can now offer the Richardson Quilt Gallery as an attraction to the state.”

The grand opening will open with a Chamber Ribbon Cutting on Friday, February 24 at 2 pm. Anyone in the community is welcome to attend this event. For more information regarding the quilt gallery, go to wku.edu/museum.

Patron number count in the Educational Resources Center has almost doubled with an 87% increase since it’s relocation to the first floor of Gary Ransdell Hall. “The move to Gary A. Ransdell Hall has made the ERC much more visible and accessible to the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, as well as the larger WKU community. We have seen a tremendous increase in library use. Our circulation figures have risen dramatically, as have our reference and research assistance services. It’s a pleasure to have students, staff, and faculty come into the ERC, wanting to use our facility for study sessions, computer use, meetings, and other group activities. This is what a library should be–a vibrant center of any community. We are absolutely delighted with the response,” said Roxanne Spencer, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the ERC.

The Educational Resources Center offers more than 45,000 practical materials to check out for classroom, special projects, or home use. The collection includes books for youth, titles for teacher education, K-12 textbooks, as well as hundreds of family friendly and instructional videos, and other multimedia resources. Several computer workstations are also available to access WKU Libraries’ research databases, WKU online accounts, the Internet, and for general coursework.

Join us for our community wide reading program SOKY Reads! featuring the book “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts” by Neil White. Get your free copy of the book at our area book giveaways:
Thursday, August 9th-Warren County Public Library at 6:00 p.m.
Thursday, August 16th– Bowling Green Technical College from 2:00 – 2:30 p.m.
(Free books are made possible by the generous support of the Alive Center)
To view the complete SOKY Reads! program guide please visit www.sokybookfest.org/SOKY_Reads .

The massive rains of July 20th caused leaking on the 8th and 9th floors of Cravens Library. A portion of science and health books were damaged.

Stephen Ruemmele’s rendering of the restored Capitol Theater with its attractive marquee.

The Capitol Theater has a storied past in Bowling Green’s entertainment history.  An earlier theater at 416 East Main Avenue was called the Columbia.  It went through extensive renovation in 1920 and was renamed the Capitol.  That building was razed and a modern structure erected; it opened in March 1939.  The architect designed the Streamline Moderne structure using local limestone and Carrara glass and crowned the cornice with an appropriate belt course of stars.  The building was in constant operation until 1977.  A few years later local citizens and government officials decided to renovate the theater and use is as a community arts center.  Volunteers helped raise the $1.2 million necessary to restore the building in 1981.

Recently the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center (SKYPAC) assumed management of the Capitol.  During the transfer, six architectural renderings of the theater’s exterior and interior from 1979 were donated to the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives in WKUs Special Collections Library.  Each drawing has two components:  a mylar sheet with a line drawing of the facility and a colored back sheet that gave depth and visual interest to the otherwise staid renderings.

Stephen Ruemmele executed the Capitol renovation drawings in 1979.  To find the drawings in KenCat click here.  Manuscripts & Folklilfe Archives houses over 2,000 architectural drawings sets, some consisting of only one drawing, while larger projects contain twenty or thirty drawings.  The renderings chiefly date from 1920 to 1990 and document the built environment in southcentral Kentucky with an emphasis on Bowling Green.  The collection includes drawings of residences, schools, churches and governmental structures.  Click here to search KenCat for cataloged architectural drawings.

Click to enlarge.

Dr. Charles Smith has just published a short article in the Journal of Biosciences, a publication venue of the Indian Academy of Sciences.  In the article he discusses an aspect of the views of the English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection.  Smith is currently readying two books on Wallace for publication in 2013:  one dealing with his 1886-1887 lecture tour in North America, and another on aspects of his thought for a French publisher (it will be published in French).

On June 3rd WKU Library faculty and staff threw a surprise party for Peggy Wright on the occasion of her 87th birthday. Peggy has been full and part-time faculty at the library since the 1970s.