Far Away Places presents Sarah D. Phillips
Filed under Events, Far Away Places, Flickr Photos, General, Latest News, New Stuff, People
Java City Concert Series off to a Great Start!
The Java City Noon concert series returned on Wednesday with a performance by Technology vs. Horse. Bowling Green’s premier alt-rock group performed to an appreciative crowd outside the newly renovated Java City cafe in Helm Library. The concerts have become a tradition here on campus over the last few years as a great way to take a break while listening to live music. Don’t miss next week’s concert featuring singer/songwriter Alec Vincent.
Filed under Java City Concert
A “Letter on a Record”
USO “Letter on a Record”
Before there was e-mail or Skype or DVDs or even cassette tapes, there was the “Letter on a Record.” During World War II, servicemen could enter a booth at USO clubs operated by the National Catholic Community Service and make an audio recording. The result was a two-sided, wax-coated cardboard disk, 6-1/2 inches in diameter and playable on a turntable at 78 r.p.m., that could be mailed to friends or loved ones back home.
One of these “letters on a record” is part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library. Speaking from Camp Crowder, Missouri, Private Thomas W. Sutton extends greetings to Eva Mae Stone in Washington, D. C. In the few minutes of recording time available, Sutton asks her if she’s heard any good dance records lately (like Don’t Do It Darling), tells her about mutual friends, including “Chuck” (“he had to take a few weeks of basic [training] all over again and of course that didn’t appeal to him”) and, true to the nature of many soldiers, talks about his plans for his next furlough and how much he misses the “barbecue sandwiches and milkshakes” at one of his favorite hangouts.
A finding aid for Thomas W. Sutton’s “letter on a record” can be downloaded here. For more information on World War II collections at WKU’s Special Collections Library, search TopScholar and KenCat.
Filed under Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
WKU’s TopSCHOLAR database in top 5%
TopSCHOLAR, WKU Libraries’ research and creative activity database, ranks in the top 5% of universities worldwide according to CSIC, a public research body in Spain. Rankings are based on size, visibility and rich files. TopSCHOLAR is ranked 185th out of 3026 among US institutions. According to Library Technical Services Department head, Connie Foster, the ranking indicates the “TopSCHOLAR is not only digitally competitive with other United States universities but with universities from all over the world.
Filed under Events
Exhibit Documents Bowling Green’s Theater History
Enjoy the Show
The Kentucky Library & Museum is currently displaying materials that document the history of Bowling Green theater in an exhibit titled “Enjoy the Show,” which ends February 14, 2011. Nineteenth century items are rare, but the exhibit does include an March 1833 hand scribed broadside advertising the Bowling Green Thespian Society’s production of the melodrama, “Luke the Labourer; or, The Lost Son.” Tickets to this amateur production cost twenty-five cents. Other items from the 1800s include illustrations of Bowling Green’s opera house, programs, an elaborate paper puppet stage, as well as photographs of costumed actors.
Theater in Bowling Green blossomed in 1932 with the incorporation of the Bowling Green Players Guild. Items on display from this early amateur group include playbills, programs, the organization’s constitution and a membership card, as well as sketches for set designs and costumes. Items from later theater groups, such as the Alley Theater, Public Theater of Kentucky, Fountain Square Players and Bowling Green Community Players are included.
The exhibit emphasizes dramatic productions at Western Kentucky University. One case features memorabilia from the Western Players and another focuses on longtime WKU theater professor, playwright, and director, Russell H. Miller (1905-1968). Two costumes from the WKU Department of Theater and Dance highlight the exhibit. The more elaborate ensemble is a shepherdess costume from “Bastein and Bastienne,” a Mozart opera performed last spring. The other is a simple, but symbolic, green dress used in “The House of Bernarda Alba” in 2009. The Kentucky Library & Museum thanks Shura Pollatsek, Department of Theater and Dance, for assisting with the costumes.
Kentucky Live! Presents Mark Wetherington
On September 9, 2010, the Executive Director of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville was the opening speaker in WKU Libraries’ eighth annual Kentucky Live Series. The series took place in Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Bowling Green, KY. The topic of his talk was “Steamboating on the Western Waters: Bicentennial Reflections.” At the end of the talk he signed his book.
He says he was most influenced by the southern sense of place, southern history and southern literature. His love of history came from reading and hearing older people talk about people and the past. His research has focused on people and their lives in the area he grew up in (Piney Woods, Georgia) from about 1850-1910. In his first book The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia, 1860-1910 published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1994, he explored the transformation of an area characterized by pine forests, northern tourists and health seekers to one of cotton production and tenancy. It won the American Historical Association’s Herbert Feis Award. His most recent book plain folk’s fight: The Civil War & Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2005 and won an Award of Excellence from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. In it he examines the effects of the Civil War on the rural Southern home front in the wiregrass region of southern Georgia.
A native of Tifton, Georgia Mark grew up in Milan, Georgia where he attended public schools and thought about being an archaeologist or maybe a lawyer. After a stint in the US Navy he enrolled at Georgia Southern College from where he received his BA and MA in history before transferring to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for his PhD.
Filed under Events, Flickr Photos, General, Kentucky Live, Latest News, People
Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database Trial
Starting 9/1/10 and ending 10/2/10, WKU Libraries will have a trial subscription to Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database:
CLCD is an ever growing online database with over 400,000 reviews, MARC records and related information about children’s literature. CLCD contains reviews supplied by over 38 quality review media including:
- The ALAN Review
- BookList
- KIRKUS
- National Science Teachers Association
- VOYA
You can access CLCD at their homepage or through their search engine.
Filed under Acquisitions, Latest News
DLPS Faculty Retreat at State Park Resort
On August 25, the faculty from the WKU Libraries’ Department of Library Public Services had their faculty retreat at the Barren River Lake State Resort Park.
Kentucky Museum Art Now on View in Lexington
Portrait of a thoroughbred colt by Anna Hyatt Huntington
Filed under Latest News, New Stuff, People, Stuff