A Few Spirits from… Ghosts in the Books
Did you miss seeing the recent exhibition Ghosts in the Books, held at the Museum of Printing History? You now have a second chance to learn about how the former owners of books speak to us, as described by UH faculty member and Engines of Our Ingenuity radio host Dr. John Lienhard. A small selection of works from Ghosts in the Books will be on display through February 16th, 2007 on the second floor of M.D. Anderson Library, just at the top of the staircase.
StoryCorps comes to Houston
The StoryCorps MobileBooth will be in Houston from January 11- February 3. Reserve a slot now to record you and your family’s and community’s stories. Stories collected through this project form the StoryCorps archive, which is housed at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Ship of Ghosts Reading Wed., Nov. 15th
Please join the University of Houston Libraries for a reading by James D. Hornfischer, author of Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of her Survivors, now available from Bantam Books. A riveting account of the story behind the library’s own Cruiser Houston Collection, Ship of Ghosts has been chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club and the Military Book Club, and as an Alternate Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.
The reading and book signing will be held in the Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion at the M.D. Anderson Library, University of Houston, Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 6:30 pm. Attendees are also invited to enjoy the USS Houston (CA-30) exhibition on display near the Pavilion.
To reach the Library from I-45 South (coming from downtown), exit Spur 5 South (44B). Turn right at the first stoplight and take University Drive to the entrance to the University. A parking garage is on your left. M.D. Anderson Library is past the student center towards the center of campus. The Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion is located on the 2nd floor, accessible from the elevator or staircase just inside the front entrance. If you need special assistance, please contact Julie Grob by e-mail at jgrob@uh.edu or by phone at 713-743-9744.
Librarians Attend RBMS Pre-conference in Austin, TX
Amelia Abreu, Pat Bozeman and Julie Grob recently attended the Rare Books & Manuscripts Section’s 47th annual pre-conference in Austin, TX, Libraries, Archives and Museums in the Twenty-first Century: Intersecting Missions, Converging Futures?" held June 20-23. Amelia was one of 30 highly competitive scholarship awardees of an Institute of Museum and Library Service grants for first-time attendees at an RBMS pre-conference. Winners were selected from a pool of a record-breaking 352 scholarship applications.
Provocative Paperbacks on View at Library
This spring and summer, the University of Houston Libraries invites you to explore the colorful, fascinating, and sometimes overlooked world of paperback books in a new exhibition at M.D. Anderson Library. Penguins, Pulps, and Pretty Ladies: A History of Paperbacks will be on view on the 1st floor of the library from April 26th through the end of the fall semester.
Beginning with the dime novels of the nineteenth century and continuing through the pulp fiction of the nineteen-fifties and on into the present, paperback books have provided a sanctuary for material that was purely entertaining or outside the mainstream of society. Westerns, romances, detective stories, science fiction, and queer fiction have all found a home within the covers of paperbacks. In opposition to this trend, highbrow publishers such as Penguin and Vintage have used the paperback format to make quality literature available to the masses.
Penguins, Pulps, and Pretty Ladies was curated by Julie Grob, Digital Projects and Instruction Librarian for Special Collections, with University of Houston student Carolina Faustch. For more information, please contact Julie Grob at by e-mail at jgrob@uh.edu or by phone at 713-743-9744.
Special Collections hosts AHA
The Association of Houston Archivists Spring Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 5 at the Special Collections of the University of Houston’s MD Anderson Library.
Dr. Joe Pratt, history faculty at UH and editor of the Houston Review of History and Culture and others will talk about various Houston history projects. Light refreshments will served starting at 5:30 p.m. and Dr. Pratt’s presentation will begin at 6:00 pm.
We hope to see you here!
Vanishing Bits & Bytes Conference
What electronic information should be preserved?
How can electronic information be preserved?
Who should preserve the electronic information?
Although UT-Texas Medical Center holds a health informatics conference every year, this year’s offering is of particular interest to us on the other end of the spectrum, and hopefully, a much needed crash course in our responsibility to electronic materials. Entitled Vanishing Bits and Bytes: Preserving Digital Information. Speakers will include Clifford Lynch of Coalition for Networked Information, Victoria Reich of LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) and Samuel Kaplan of the Texas Medical Center. It takes place May 8, 2006 at the UT School of Nursing, Houston. More information is available here.
