A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus Jack Bales
Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus Jack Bales was interviewed on History.com and Chicago’s Daily Herald on his book, The Chicago Cub Shot for Love, about the 1932 shooting death of baseball player Billy Jurges by his former lover, showgirl Violet Popovich.
The Crime of Passion That Led to Babe Ruth’s Epic World Series Home Run (History.com)
Chicago Baseball’s Link to the Great Chicago Fire (Suburban Chicago Daily Herald)
In recognition of the annual American Library Association’s Banned Books Week (September 26-October 2), a Read-out was held on Wednesday, Sept. 29, on Campus Walk, in front of Lee Hall, and on the University Center steps facing Ball Circle, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. President Paino and other administrators, faculty, and students read from selected banned and challenged books in a free, public event sponsored by the Department of English and Linguistics and Simpson Library. A special exhibit of banned books will be on display in the lobby area of Simpson Library throughout the week and on the UMW Libraries Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pages.
Executive Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden
Executive Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden ’02 and Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin were interviewed in The Free Lance-Star about Mary Washington’s LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project. UMW Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives just launched the oral history collection, made up of recorded interviews and transcripts by students in Devlin’s oral history seminar in 2019.
When Mark Thaden first arrived at the University of Mary Washington in the late 1990s, the campus LGBTQ group met quietly, behind closed doors, in an upstairs room of the campus center.
“It was a social group, but it was very much about support,” said Thaden, a 2002 graduate of UMW who is now the university’s executive director of alumni relations.
Thaden said he was not out when he came to UMW from rural Maryland and a small, Catholic high school. At the club carnival early his freshman year, he was excited to see that there was an LGBTQ campus group, but he was too nervous at first to approach members.
Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin
Luckily, a friend signed him up to receive the group’s emails and the meetings became formative in his journey toward self-acceptance.
“That’s where I started feeling more comfortable, being with people who were comfortable with themselves,” Thaden said. “That’s where I started feeling like it was OK.”
Thaden’s memories and those of two dozen other LGBTQ alumni were recorded and transcribed in 2019 by students in Associate Professor Erin Devlin’s Oral History seminar. Read more.
Carolyn Parsons, head of Special Collections and University Archives for UMW Libraries, was interviewed for an article in The Free Lance-Star entitled, “Sites work to preserve these pivotal times.”
“It is such a history-in-the-making moment,” said Carolyn Parsons, head of special collections and university archives for the Simpson Library at the University of Mary Washington. “Back in March, shortly after the university was asked to close, we really just started thinking about how this moment is currently here in time and we wanted to preserve it so future researchers could have it before that content was lost.” Read more here and here.
October 20th is National Day On Writing. Around UMW and all over the globe people will share their love for writing through the #WhyIWrite campaign sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. Join others on Simpson’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and tell us why you write. You can also go to add your thoughts and comments to Simpson’s Call to Contribute page and document your experiences during COVID-19. https://libraries.umw.edu/call-to-contribute-submission-form/
#WhyIWrite #NDoW109
Sponsored by UMW Libraries, UMW English and Linguistics, UMW Honors Council and the UMW Creative Writing Club.
UMW librarians Angie Kemp, Carolyn Parsons and Sarah Appleby are assembling a COVID archive for future students and historians.
UMW Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives team was recently interviewed by WVTF Radio IQ, an NPR affiliate, about their new initiative, Call to Contribute. The librarians are compiling an archive of COVID-19-related content.
When the school year ends, many teachers and staff take a break, but at the University of Mary Washington, three librarians are busier than ever – creating an archive that will tell the story of COVID-19 on campus.
As head of UMW’s Special Collections and University Archive, Carolyn Parsons understands how present day documents become history. Read more.
UMW Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives team is collecting and digitizing a variety of COVID-19 related materials, from diaries to photos to social media posts. Anna Billingsley, associate vice president for University Relations, submitted a screenshot of her personal blog, “Coronavirus Captivity,” chronicling her experiences working remotely and living during the pandemic.
Reference Librarian Peter Catlin was set to get married in Virginia Beach in May. But the state’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order canceling public gatherings put a kink in his wedding plans. Instead, after many attempts, the couple got special permission from Fredericksburg’s clerk of circuit court, who married them on the sidewalk outside the city courthouse.
The nuptials marked the beginning of a life together and, when Catlin typed up his story, something else – a special UMW Libraries initiative named Call to Contribute. “It was a very cool start to the project,” said Records Coordinator Sarah Appleby ’06.
The University’s archiving team likes to dig deep in the past, but its mission is also to gather current experiences so future historians can better understand today. To do that, they are asking the UMW community to help create a record of what lives look like in these days of quarantine, remote learning, hand-sewn masks and Zoom meetings.
“We see history happening, and we have to do something to make sure that doesn’t just go away,” Appleby said of the effort.
The team – Carolyn Parsons ’83, head of Special Collections and University Archives; Angie Kemp ’11, digital resources librarian; and Appleby – will collect and digitize a variety of COVID-19 related materials, from diaries and blogs to artwork and photography. They encourage anyone affiliated with Mary Washington to contribute. Read more.
Archival materials detailing the University of Mary Washington’s history are used in many research projects. Photo provided by Simpson Library.
Today, we are all finding our way through a crisis that future students and scholars will be studying in the years ahead. We know that it is important to preserve as much of the record as possible for future researchers. Staff in Special Collections and University Archives are archiving the University’s response to COVID-19. However, there are important materials that we cannot collect without your help: individual stories. If you’re a UMW community member and have been keeping a record of these events and how they’ve impacted your life, please consider donating them to University Archives in the future. If you haven’t, please consider this a call to write and help us document this unprecedented global crisis. Read more.
Archival materials detailing the University of Mary Washington’s history are used in many research projects. Photo provided by Simpson Library.
Today, we are all finding our way through a crisis that future students and scholars will be studying in the years ahead. We know that it is important to preserve as much of the record as possible for future researchers. Staff in Special Collections and University Archives are archiving the University’s response to COVID-19. However, there are important materials that we cannot collect without your help: individual stories. If you’re a UMW community member and have been keeping a record of these events and how they’ve impacted your life, please consider donating them to University Archives in the future. If you haven’t, please consider this a call to write and help us document this unprecedented global crisis. Read more.
UMW Libraries is excited to announce that the second round of VIVA Course Redesign Grants is now open. These grants are designed to empower faculty at Virginia higher education institutions with the resources and time they need to redesign courses by swapping out expensive textbooks for open, no cost, or library options. These materials may be adopted as is, adapted, or created from scratch.
This program awards grants from $1,000-$30,000 to assist faculty members at any VIVA institution in transitioning to course materials available at no cost to students, such as OER textbooks and/or library resources. Proposals may involve one person or teams that include: teaching faculty, librarians, instructional designers, subject matter experts, editors, graphic designers, or others as needed. Applications that include multi-institutional partnerships are encouraged.
More information, including the full Request for Proposals, application details, and evaluation criteria are available at http://vivalib.org/courseredesign.
Applications are due September 30, 2019, and award notification will take place on December 9, 2019.
An informational webinar will be held at the following times, and will include a general introduction to the grants, the application process, and a Q&A:
Questions about the program may be submitted to viva@gmu.edu.
UMW faculty interested in utilizing Open Educational Resources (OER), no-cost, or low-cost learning resources can find additional resources on the Libraries’ OER Guide at: https://libguides.umw.edu/OER.