The Architecture, Design, and Art Library
presents:
A Virtual Pop-Up Library & Book Showcase Oct 1 via Instagram
Virtual Pop-Up Library & Book Showcase
In partnership with Blaffer Art Museum’s First Friday Studio Sessions, browse through a selection of curated art books and museum catalogues thematically related to the museum’s current exhibition Jagdeep Raina: Bonds & Martine Gutierrez: Radiant Cut.
See via QR code or Instagram October 1
Blaffer Virtual Tour
Join Katherine Veneman, Curator of Education, on a live tour of their latest exhibition Jagdeep Raina: Bonds & Martine Gutierrez: Radiant Cut. Get inspired and learn how to ” tell a story” through fiber art & water media. Tours are free and open to the public
Art Activity: “Tell a Story” Fiber Art & Water Media
Zoom Meeting
Join Zoom Meeting
https://uh-edu-cougarnet.zoom.us/j/92383160735?pwd=ZFNjZVZXZDQzR2tpeWlXT2YxdkFLUT09
Meeting ID: 923 8316 0735
Passcode: 155875
Time: 10am-10:30am Central Time
Date: October 1
About
Pop-Up’s
The pop-up library program began in 2018 in collaboration with Blaffer Art Museum and the Architecture, Design, and Art Library to introduce students to two campus resources. Each pop-up consists of curated art books and featured catalogs. Comment your favorite pop-up book and enter a chance to win a free reward.
First Friday Studio Sessions
Blaffer Art Museum offers Studio Sessions the first Friday of every month during the fall and spring semesters. Students are invited to join drop-in tours and hands-on activities to better connect with current exhibitions. The Blaffer regularly partners with the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library to a host a pop-up at each event where students can check out art books and supplies.
The Architecture, Design, and Art Library will have the following fall hours until further notice.
Fall Hours
Monday – Thursday : 8am – 8pm
Friday : 8am – 5pm
Saturday & Sunday : Closed
Holidays
Labor Day- Closed
Monday, Sep 6, 2021
Thanksgiving- Closed
Thursday, November 25 – Friday, November 26, 2021
Winter Break- Closed
Friday, December 24, 2021 – Friday, December 31, 2021
The Architecture, Design, and Art Library
presents:
A Virtual Pop-Up Library & Book Showcase Sept 3 via Instagram
Virtual Pop-Up Library & Book Showcase
In partnership with Blaffer Art Museum’s First Friday Studio Sessions, browse through a selection of curated art books and museum catalogues thematically related to the museum’s current exhibition, Jamal Cyrus: The End of My Beginning.
Link via Instagram
Time: All-day
Virtual Tour of Jamal Cyrus: The End of My Beginning
Join Katherine Veneman, Curator of Education, on a live-virtual tour of the latest exhibition Jamal Cyrus: The End of My Beginning. Get inspired and learn how to design and album cover. Tours are free and open to the public
Zoom meeting ID: 940 8705 0976 (Passcode: 803409)
Click here to access the meeting
Time: 10am-10:30am
Art Activity 1: “Let’s Weave!” Collage
Art Activity 2: “Design an Album Cover”
About
Pop-Up’s
The pop-up library program began in 2018 in collaboration with Blaffer Art Museum and the Architecture, Design, and Art Library to introduce students to two-campus resources. Each pop-up consists of curated art books and featured catalogs. Follow @uh.arch.art.library and @blafferartmuseum on Instagram for a chance to win free library swag.
First Friday Studio Sessions
Blaffer Art Museum offers Studio Sessions the first Friday of every month during the fall and spring semesters. Students are invited to join drop-in tours and hands-on activities to better connect with current exhibitions. The Blaffer regularly partners with the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library to a host a pop-up at each event where students can check out art books and supplies.
The Architecture, Design, and Art Library is happy to announces its new non-consumable and consumable art & design supplies! Students may check-out these items at the Service Desk for a period of six-weeks. Get yours while supplies last.
Architectural Drawing Set
A proficient drawing set with a variety of assortments perfect for drafting, it includes:
★ Graphic Compass + Attachments
Architectural Ruler
A heavy-duty laser etched scale excellent for drafting, it includes:
★ 12″ Aluminum Triangle Ruler
Basic Tool Set
A helpful assortment of tools to start any project perfect for modeling, designing, stretching canvas, crafting, wiring, practice safety measures and more, it includes:
★ Round Nose Plier
★ Side Cutter Plier
★ Easy Cutter (Model Making)
★ Safety Glasses
★ Scissors
★ Cut Resistant Gloves
★ Measuring Tape
★ Steel Spring Clamp
Ceramic & Sculpting Set
Premium assortment of ceramic & sculpting tools excellent for clay carving, sculpting, modeling, smoothing, hand building, burnishing, throwing, and scraping, it includes:
★ Rubber Rib
★ Serrated Rib
★ Wood Tool 1
★ Wood Tool 2
★ Pottery Tools
★ Carving & Sculpting Tools
Chopper II
A mighty chopper tool producing accurate cuts perfect for cutting wood and making models, it includes:
★ 7 x 7 ” Cut Base
★ 30°, 45° and 60° Degree Miter Cut Guides
Coloring Pencils
A fantastic set of coloring pencils excellent for sketching and designing, it includes:
★ 24 Pencils
Cutting Mat
The ultimate self-healing mat perfect for designing and crafting, it includes:
★ 11 x 17″ Self-Healing Mat
Drafting Ruler Set
A superior assortment of drafting rulers excellent for drafting, it includes:
★ 12″Ruler
★ 6″45° Triangle
★ 6 ” 30/60° Triangle
★ 6″ Protractor
Drawing Board
An exceptional easel board great for sketching, drafting, and painting, it includes:
★ 19.75 x 29.5″ Portable Sketching/Easel Board
French Curve & Circle Set
A fine variety of curves & circles excellent for designing, it includes:
★ Large & Small Circle Template
★ 5.25″ Curves
★ 6.5″ Curves
★ 8″ Curves
★ 8.5″ Curves
★ 12.5″ Curves
★ 10.25″ Curves
Glue Kit
Excellent assortment of glues great for models, paper crafting, wood making, collaging, repairing, scrap-booking, and more, it includes:
★ Wood Glue
★ Tacky Glue
★ Modeling Glue
★ Balsa & Basswood Glue
★ Foam Glue
★ Glue-All
Palette Knife & Brush Set
Deluxe paint knives & brushes perfect for painting and mixing, it includes:
★ Palette Knives
★ 2″Artist Knife
★ 2″ House Paint Brush
★ No. 8 Flat Brush
★ No. 4 Filbert Brush
★ No. 6 Filbert Brush
★ No. 0 Round Brush
★ No. 1 Round Brush
★ No. 2 Round Brush
★ No. 4 Round Brush
★ No. 4 Bright Brush
★ No. 8 Bright Brush
Parallel Bars
Exceptional parallel bars great for drafting, it includes:
★ 36″ Parallel Straightedge + Attachments
Sketching Markers
Top-Rated color markers with dual-tip perfect for sketching, illustrating, and crafting, it includes:
★ 72 Color Markers
Sketching Pens
Premium pens great for sketching, illustrating, and crafting, it includes:
★ 6 Black Fine Liner Pens
Speedball Linoleum Cutting Tool
A fine assortment of cutting tools perfect for linoleum relief-printing, it includes:
★ 1 Linoleum Cutting Handle
★ No. 1
★ No. 2
★ No. 3
★ No. 5
★ No. 6
T-Square
An outstanding T-square great for drafting, it includes:
★ 36″ T-Square
Wood Carving Set
Excellent wood carving tools perfect for woodcut relief-printing, it includes:
★ 7 Piece Tool Set
X-ACTO Knife Set
A precise assortment of blades & knives excellent for modelling, designing, and crafting, it includes:
★ 3 Knives
★ 10 Blades
Reserve yours online, click here to request them while supplies last.
William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library Terms & Conditions
→ Supplies are to be returned in good condition.
→ A fee will be added to supplies that are lost or damaged.
→ Supplies must be handled with caution & care.
→ The University of Houston Libraries, it’s officers, agents, employees and students are hereby released from any and all claims, accidents, deaths, or personal injuries that these art & design supplies may cause from the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library.
History
In 2019, the Architecture, Design, and Art Library expanded its collection by introducing new art & design supplies available for check-out. The goal was to assist students who would not be able to complete their coursework because they lack access or funding for these supplies. In 2021, the library expanded its supply collection with consumable & non-consumable items.
Contact us archlib@uh.edu.
Those wishing to hear the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design’s celebration of the life of its former dean, Joe Mashburn, may do so here:
ANNUAL REPORT FROM THE STAFF OF THE WILLIAM R. JENKINS ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN, AND ART LIBRARY TO OUR STUDENTS AND OUR COMMUNITY ON OUR EFFORTS TO SUPPORT EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN LIBRARY STAFFING, COLLECTIONS, SERVICES, OUTREACH, AND OPERATIONS
June 2021
The killing of George Floyd, a native of the Third Ward neighborhood that is home to the University of Houston campus, and the response to peaceful protesters demanding racial justice in 2020 motivated the Jenkins Library staff to consider what we can do and are doing to advance social justice in the microcosm of our library. We developed strategies that we believe will help us meet our goal of eliminating systemic racism and inequity from our operations, hiring, and all aspects of our library services. We also pledged to assess the success of these implemented strategies with a publicly distributed mid-year and annual report. By holding ourselves accountable in this way we hope to make continual progress. This is our first annual report.
Staffing Plan
Our library employs one librarian, 1 part-time and two full-time assistants, and 3-7 student workers, who specialize in art and design research. We actively recruit our professional staff from the alumni of the academic departments we support. Our department has traditionally been an ethnically and racially diverse one. We recognize that we need to recruit employees who represent multiple demographic, cultural, and ability groups so that our students benefit from many experiences. We will strategically promote our job openings to ensure a diverse pool of applicants for our open positions.
- We will continue to promote open student worker positions to the students of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design and the Katherine G. McGovern College of the Arts. We will also promote job postings directly to multi-ethnic student organizations, as well as groups for students who face additional challenges in higher education because of their gender, sexuality, identity, physical disability, or other factor.
- We will promote our professional job postings directly to arts organizations for people of color and groups traditionally under-represented in higher education, as well as community organizations dedicated to connecting under-represented groups to employment opportunities, in order to ensure a diverse pool of applicants for these positions.
Assessment
The library had the opportunity to hire two student workers since last summer. In addition to Cougar Pathway, social media sites, and our academic departments, our employment notice was distributed to student organizations representing a wide range of underrepresented and/or ethnically diverse groups. The following campus groups that were asked to distribute the job description include: African Student Union, Association of Latinx/Hispanic Advocates and Allies, Bayou City Bhangra, Black Scholars Collective, Black Student Union at The University Of Houston, Bangladeshi Students Association, Caribbean Students Organization, Chinese Students & Scholars Association, Dhun A Cappella, Filipino Student Association, Future Women in Architecture, Gamma Rho Lambda, Graduate Assocation of Pakistani Student UH, Graduate Indian Student Organization, Graduate Women Association, Houston Di Shaan, Houston Jannat, Indian Student Association, Intercultural Women’s Association, International Students Organization, Iranian Community at University of Houston, Korean Student Association, Latin Dance Association, Lebanese Student Association, Malaysian Singaporean Student Association, Mexico at UH, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Organization of Minority Architecture Students, University of Houston, Nepalese Student Assocation at University of Houston-Main Campus, Pakistan Student Assocation, Persian Society at University of Houston, Students of East Africa, Syrian Student Association, Taiwanese Students Association, The Nigerian Students Association, Venezuelan Student Union, Vietnamese Student Association.
Collections
The librarian wrote an analysis of the general collection in 2008, which noted the prevalence of Western-centric subjects and white male artists and designers in the collection. This resulted in a plan to increase resources in multiple subject and geographic areas, in order to create a more balanced set of resources. The plan was implemented the following fiscal year and continues to guide collection decisions. In 2019 the librarian also developed a plan for the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room collection, which is located within the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art. The plan recognized the lack of racial inclusion in the collection and acknowledged that it does not sufficiently reflect the major research interests of our academic departments. The general collection of the Architecture, Design, and Art Library is roughly 90,000 volumes and the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room collection is approximately 1,000 volumes. Given those numbers, as well as the budget and the expense of rare books, it is not possible to quickly rectify a lopsided collection. While the number of titles in those much-needed subjects has increased significantly over the past thirteen years, the effect has been only moderately noticeable. The library staff is cognizant of the fact that, for most of our patrons, the library collection is the most fundamental representation of the University of Houston Libraries. It is the physical manifestation of the library’s mission, more so than any other service or staff member. In order to increase progress at a faster pace, therefore, we pledge to implement the following measures.
We pledge to spend endowments designated for the library’s general collection on works by and about people of color, as well as activist art and design during Fiscal Years 2020-2022 to create a more representative collection. This will also help us align with the curricula, goals, and faculty interests in the College of the Arts, as well as the College of Architecture and Design.
We will pursue the goals of the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room Collection Plan (2019), which include increasing the number of books by and on people of color in the rare book collection.
During Fiscal Years 2020-2022 new purchases for the Franzheim Room will be books by or about people of color or about the visual culture of under-represented regions. By increasing the holdings in these subjects, we will not only support the faculty interests and curricula of our academic units but will also more closely meet the needs of our many students who select thesis and other research topics for which the collection offers few resources.
Assessment
At the end of June, three endowments designated to purchase materials for the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library’s general collection have been spent exclusively on materials about artists, movements, and subjects related to people of color. Titles are listed below.
| .AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People |
| 2019 ARTIST OF THE YEAR: MARGARITA CABRERA CATALOG LIMITED EDITION |
| A Beautiful Confluence: Anni and Josef Albers and the Latin American World |
| A black hole is everything a star longs to be |
| ABAX Arquitectos: Homes: Architecture Comes to Life |
| Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions 1965–2016 |
| Affordable Houses, Inclusive Cities |
| African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities |
| African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia |
| Al Borde: Less Is All |
| Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe |
| Among Others: Blackness at MoMA |
| Among Others: Blackness at MoMA |
| Ancient Churches of Ethiopia |
| Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott |
| Authority and Ornament: Art of the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea |
| Bangkok Design: Thai Ideas in Design, Textiles and Furniture |
| Barthélémy Toguo |
| Basquiat’s Defacement: The Untold Story |
| Beyond Mammy, Jezebel & Sapphire |
| Bisa Butler: Portraits |
| Black art notes |
| Black Built: History and Architecture in the Black Community |
| Black Futures |
| Black Lives 1900: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Paris Exposition |
| Black Sun: Women in Photography |
| Blues for Smoke |
| Border Crossings: North and South Korean Insights from the Sigg Collection |
| Born to Serve: A History of Texas Southern University |
| Cairo since 1900: An Architectural Guide |
| Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State |
| Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight |
| CELIA ÁLVAREZ MUÑOZ: OBRAS |
| Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s |
| Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi |
| Dialectic VII: Decolonizing Architectural Pedagogy. |
| Diversity Among Architects |
| Diversity and Design: Understanding Hidden Consequences |
| Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s University |
| Essays, Arguments & Interviews on Modern Architecture Kuwait |
| Geometry Beyond Limits: Latin American Contemporary Art from the Jean and Colette Cherqui Collection |
| GEORGE SMITH: 1970 – 2016 |
| Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America (from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter |
| Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem |
| I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 |
| In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury |
| Infinite Span: 90 Years of Brazilian Architecture |
| John S. Chase—The Chase Residence |
| John S. Chase—The Chase Residence |
| Jordan Casteel: Within Reach |
| Josef Albers in Mexico |
| Julie Mehretu |
| Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful |
| Landscape of Faith: Interventions Along the Mexican Pilgrimage Route |
| Legorreta |
| Lorna Simpson Collages |
| Lo―TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism |
| Lubaina Himid: Workshop Manual |
| Luis Barragan’s Gardens of El Pedregal |
| Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night |
| Mario Bautista O’Farril, Architect. The beginning of modernity in Mexico |
| Mark Bradford: End Papers |
| Mathias Goeritz Modernist: Art and Architecture in Cold War Mexico |
| Maya Lin: Thinking with Her Hands |
| member: Pope.L, 1978–2001 |
| Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph |
| Modern Architecture Kuwait 1949-1989 |
| Monument Wars. Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape |
| Noah Davis |
| Paulo Mendes da Rocha: Museu Nacional dos Coches |
| Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens |
| Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism |
| Pulses of Abstraction in Latin America: Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection |
| Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America |
| Revelations: Art from the African American South |
| Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition |
| Samuel Fosso: Autoportrait |
| Senga Nengudi: Topologies |
| Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai |
| Slave Labor in the Capital |
| Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side. |
| Stick to the Skin: African American and Black British Art, 1965-2015 |
| Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades |
| Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington |
| Teodoro González de León |
| The Journey: New Positions in African Photography |
| The Latin American City |
| The Neocolonialism of the Global Village |
| The Power of Lo—TEK: A global exploration of indigenous architectural innovations |
| The Shadows Took Shape |
| The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs |
| To Build a City in Africa: A History and a Manual |
| Togo Murano, 1931-1963 |
| TRACING OUR PILGRIMAGE: KERMIT OLIVER |
| Trenton Doyle Hancock: Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass |
| Tyler Mitchell: I Can Make You Feel Good |
| Walter Fernandes: Angola Cinema: A Fiction of Freedom |
| When Ivory Towers Were Black |
| Wifredo Lam: The Ey Exhibition |
| Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties |
| Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop |
| Wrapped in Pride Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity |
| Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation |
| Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists |
Services
The Architecture, Design, and Art Library’s services and programming include traditional library services, such as research instruction, technology support, and resource procurement. It also offers services related to its foci on art, architecture, and design, such as exhibitions of student artwork, curation of digital and in-house exhibits, organized talks on architectural publishing, and pop-up libraries in fine arts centers around campus. The staff pledges to provide equitable service and representation to the populations we serve.
We will launch an annual assessment of the inclusivity and equity of our programs and services. Our good intentions are not enough. At the end of each academic year, we must publicly assess the balance of ethnic and cultural perspectives of our exhibits, artists, speakers, and programs.
Assessment
We analyzed our services in order to determine whether all patrons can equally take advantage of these services, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, or identity. We have not yet found evidence that our services are inaccessible to any patron group. We have also attempted to make our services more widely available to students who are facing Covid-related financial and physical risks by mailing materials to them, so they need not come to campus or pay for parking, and by extending the due dates for art and design supplies, so students with financial challenges need not purchase their own.
Once our operations return to normal, post-pandemic, we will solicit input from users and experts (for example, the Office of disABILITIES) to ensure our services are as equitable as possible. Major services include:
-Research assistance and instruction
-Circulation and distribution of materials
-Pop-up art libraries
-Student art exhibits
-Virtual and physical exhibits of collection materials
-Course reserves
-Assistance with interlibrary loan and document delivery
-Digital tutorials
-Circulating art & design supplies
In 2019-2020 the library partnered with the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design to create a series of talks called Books and Bites, accompanied by a reception, that celebrates local authors of art and design books and allows others to learn about their experiences researching, writing, and publishing those works. The series was retitled Books and Bytes in Fall 2020 and moved to a virtual platform.
Books and Bytes schedule:
September
Reto Geiser, Rice University School of Architecture
Moderated by Michael Kubo, UH College of Architecture and Design
October
Ronnie Self, UH College of Architecture and Design
Moderated by Sandra Zalman, UH College of the Arts
November
Gail Peter Borden, UH College of Architecture and Design
Moderated by Rafael Beneytez-Duran, UH College of Architecture and Design
December
Natilee Harren, UH College of the Arts
Moderated by Bruce Webb, Professor Emeritus of UH College of Architecture and Design
February
Kevin Story, UH College of Architecture and Design
Moderated by Bruce Webb, Professor Emeritus of UH College of Architecture and Design
February
Sandra Zalman, UH College of the Arts
Natilee Harren, UH College of the Arts
April
Stephen Fox, UH College of Architecture and Design
Peter Gershon, author
April
Fabiola Lopez-Duran, Rice University School of Architecture
Moderated by Michael Kubo, UH College of Architecture and Design
April
Dietmar Froehlich, UH College of Architecture and Design
Moderated by Maria Elena Solino, UH Department of Hispanic Studies
Online exhibits that addressed diversity, equity, globalism, and inclusion:
6/3 – Black Lives Matter and Protest Art
6/16 – LGBTQ artists and architects in celebration of Pride
8/5 – Essential E-Books for Architecture and Art Students
8/12 – Essential E-Books for Architecture and Art Students
8/19 – World Photography Day (included titles about social justice)
8/27 – Gardens from around the world
9/10 – Hispanic Heritage Month (books about Hispanic artists and architects)
10/1 – International Coffee Day (books about coffee and the countries that produce it)
10/13 – Celebrating Indigenous Art
11/11 – Native American Art & Architecture
1/11 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day (books about the civil rights movement and protest art)
1/28 – Album Cover Art
2/4 – Black History Month (Black Artists and Architects)
3/3 – Women’s History Week (Women Artists and Architects)
4/5 – Sustainable Architecture and Design
5/2 – Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (Asian and Pacific Islander Artists)
6/1 – LGBTQ Artists and Artwork
Our exhibits curators considered diversity of experience within each subject for each online or in-house display of materials. An exhibit on Manga and Comic art, for example, included titles on under-represented groups in comic art. A Halloween exhibit included materials on the holiday’s international and multi-ethnic influences. Other examples are below.
| Name | Topics |
| Rodney McMillian: Historically Hostile Exhibit Theme | White supremacy, immigration, slavery, civil rights movement, and activist art. |
| Graphic Design, Drawing, Illustration, Manga, and Comic Art Theme | Black women in comics, Asian comics, designers of color, and underrepresented graphic design subtopics. |
| Stephanie Syjuco: The Visible Invisible Theme | Immigration, diaspora, women fashion, art & activism, embroidery movement, gender, dress culture, textiles in Indian Ocean, Tonga, Peru, Bhutan, and Norse societies. |
| Horror Titles Theme (Halloween Special) | Diverse horror subjects in medical photography, art in science, funerary art, archaeology, ancient Egyptian tombs, Day of the Dead celebration, Maya rituals & tombs, African American cemeteries, haunted past of the U.S Civil War, Vietnam, Native American & Indigenous horrors, women liberation movement, symbolist art, gothic art & poems, European, Asian, and Latin American cinema, women in horror films, first colored women in horror films, and gender & horror films. |
| Simon Fujiwara: Hope House Theme | Museum activism, human rights, Anne Frank, WW2, the Holocaust horrors, reflections, victims & survivors, consumer culture, Judaism, other world Holocaust, authenticity, modeling, hope, art & its uses, LGBTQ Jews, Auschwitz, art power, Nazis after Hitler, Jewish architecture, Berlin memorial. |
| Native American Art Theme | Female Native American artists, performance & representation, visualizing the sacred, Indians on display in museums, rock art, Contemporary American Indian films, photography, American Indian schools & art education, Indigenous bodies, artifacts, ancient tattoo traditions, special ceremony paintings, Indian and Ancient Art of the Americas, sculpture, decorative art, colonialism, preserving traditional arts, Folklore in the West, and quilts. |
| Celebrating Black History Month Theme | Women artist of the Harlem Renaissance, Black artists in America, the African diaspora, Black writers & artists of the Depression Era, LGBTQ Black artists, Black pioneer cartoon artists, history of Black culture, Black muralists, Black painters, the injustice of slavery, Black culture, in hope of a better era, Black artists in the 60’s & 70’s, photographers of the Civil Rights movement, the history of African-American roots, politics of culture, plays by African-American women, Black public art in Chicago, the new Black Arts Movement, Hip-Hop Graffiti subculture, African-American performance, creating a new Black cinema, drawings & lithographs of Black artists. |
| Valentine’s Day Theme | Romantic women poets, the Romantic era, Romantic cinema, Romantic China, Romanticism in British cinema and art, history of Romanticism in the 19th C, Romanticism & slave narratives, French romanticism, pre-cursors of Romanticism, Swedish Romanticism, Romantic Netherlands, Jewish Romanticism, Romanticism & the Anglo-Hispanic imagery, Welsh Romanticism, German Romanticism, 19th century female Romantics, Rococo, Romantic poetry & literature. |
| Celebrating International Women’s Day Theme | Women in Mexican Folk art, women artist & democracy, Japanese women artists, designing women, visual culture, art of the Feminist Art Movement, Impressionist women artists, Chinese women artists, women making history & art, women in the Digital arts, women photographers, Canadian women artists, women architects & modernist in India, Tunisian women artists, feminist art in London, Contemporary art, Surrealist women, African-American women artists & writers, women artists from the Great Basin, women equality, LGBTQ artists & writers, creative women in Korea, southern women artists, transcultural encounters among women, women architects, women artists in all ages & countries, Mexican artists, Women’s Army Corps, 18th century women, women & gender, women Canadian artists in the age of Impressionism, women in the Fine Arts, minority women architects in California, art & the maternal, Feminist aesthetics, Togolese women artists. |
| Spring Season Theme | Gardening, sustainable Asian homes, flower photography, landscape architecture in Australia, green roofs, flower drawings, flower art in Japan, the art of botanical & bird illustrations, creative garden photography, building with earth, the art of flower arrangements & design, Chinese market gardening in Australia & New Zealand, landscape women architects, Mexican gardens & patios, tapestry garden art, sustainable homes, the art of model flowers, art of preserving flowers, still life paintings, Australian flora art, drawing Tulips & other flowers, floral artists, struggle for social & spatial justice, modern Japanese landscape architecture, art of making wine from flowers & herbs, rainwater design, artists who painted flowers & landscapes, Islamic gardens & landscapes, design & cultivation, the art of flower panting, women in green voices, Japanese garden design, landscape modernism in Asia-Pacific, stories of ethnic gardening, sustainable Singapore homes, nature paintings in Chile, Abstract art & nature, flora symbolism of the great masters. drawing & reinventing landscape. |
| Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Theme | Japanese design, Thai decorated art, Pacific arts of Polynesia and Micronesia, Feminism & Contemporary art in Indonesia, Chinese art, Southeast Asian ceramics, gender & Chinese contemporary art, Chinese architecture, Pacific arts, art of early post-war Japan, visual art in Melanesia, art & architecture of Thailand, Urban design in the Philippines, Chinese art & film, Chinese architecture & history, Japanese Zen calligraphy, Oceanic art in European museums, photographs of madras, Chinese art across cultures, art in Australia, Aboriginal Photographies, New Zealand botanical art, Japanese color prints, art & civilization of Taiwan, Japanese gardener’s art, Buddhist visual cultures, Hong Kong art & stories of Vietnamese people, architecture of the Japanese Momoyama period, Chinese religious art, Japanese theatrical art, galleries of Maoriland, Chinese cultural revolution, a Vietnam sketchbook, Chinese 20th C. Avant-Garde, performing art in Oceania & Southeast Asia, Australia’s art history. |
| National Photography Month Theme | Landscape photography, stories from the camera, lighting secrets, portraiture & photography in Africa, women photography between wars, why photography matters, professional architectural photography, secrets of stunning images, 20 C. photographers, photographers & cinema, female photographers, black & white photography, photography & anthropology, nonhuman photography, gender & photography, bird photography, key writers on photography, lens on life, digital photography, history of photography, macro photography, early photography, Italian photography, effects for portrait photographers, street photography, photography in 19 C. India. |
Community engagement
According to the Houston Arts Alliance’s economic impact study, Arts & Economic Prosperity 5, Houston’s arts and culture industry generates $1.12 billion in annual economic activity in the greater Houston region—supporting 25,817 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $119.3 million in local and state government revenues.1 The Architecture, Design, and Art Library has opportunities to partner with arts organizations in Houston in order to leverage support for both art and design research on campus as well as artistic expression in the City of Houston. That community support should include all segments of Houston’s population of artists and designers. Houston is and has been home to a thriving community of visual and performing artists who claim ancestry from Africa, Asia, indigenous America, and Latin America. It is our privilege, as the largest public art library in the region, to collaborate with, to celebrate, and provide research support to that community.
- We will reach out to community art organizations committed to social justice and equality to learn how we can support and partner with them.
- We will explore opportunities to facilitate dialogue with academic units and community partners on how information resources support social justice, as well as racial, ethnicity, gender, and identity-based equality.
- We will leverage our social media presence by creating spotlights for diverse members of our artistic community, including members of our academic departments and student bodies, to show their work and give them a space to talk about their educational influences, the books and resources they recommend, and talk about the importance of art and design research in their endeavors.
Assessment
Our social media curator has vigorously promoted art and design events in the city and on campus, including many that promote equitable representation in the artistic community. The staff has also assisted researchers at museums, such as an upcoming exhibit of black artists at the Station Museum. We have not, however, engaged in more outreach this year, as a result of our pledge, or developed new partnerships. We have made an inventory of organizations with which we hope to work in the future and will communicate that aspiration to them.
Summary
Strengths: staff, exhibits and services
The professional staff of the Jenkins Library has traditionally been more diverse than is typical in libraries, where only 17% of librarians and 30.1% of classified staff did not identify as white (non-Hispanic) in 2019, according to the AFL-CIO.2 Half of the professional staff and most of the student employees employed by the Jenkins Library since 2004 have been people of color. Multiple generations, ethnicities, first languages, nationalities, and physical abilities have also been represented by employees. 68.75% of the Jenkins Library professional staff have identified as female since 2004, compared to the 82% average recorded by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2019.
Exhibits, virtual events, and services regularly include underrepresented perspectives, cultures, and identities. Nearly half of 2020-2021 digital exhibits, for example, explicitly addressed inclusion, multi-culturalism, and social justice.
Improvements: collections and planning
As a result of our pledge, we are more conscious of inclusion in planning our programming, services, and events. It is difficult to say whether our exhibits and program are more inclusive because we did not track that information before 2020. When we plan now, however, we include a process of asking who is being left out, who is being welcomed, and will the service work for all our patrons equitably.
In addition, our collections are becoming more diverse for three reasons: (1) it is our intention, (2) our patrons are asking for more materials on people and subjects that have traditionally been underrepresented, and (3) publishers have increased their offerings of materials on these subjects.
Need to Improve: community and patron engagement
We have not engaged with the on- and off-campus community as much as we intended. Covid precautions have prevented us from engaging socially, which we hope to do in the near future. We also intend to partner with other researchers and organizations, as well as our neighborhood institutions, in order to expand our patrons’ opportunities to engage with information that will result in scholarship and artistic output.
In addition, our social media curator plans to create more interactive content in order to create a conversation and deeper connection with our community. We can use all our online platforms to showcase student work and its relationship with research materials and inquiry.
We also need to be better about soliciting feedback from our patrons, so our conversations and efforts around racial and social justice and related services do not occur in an uninformed vacuum.
In honor of the late Joe Mashburn, the Architecture, Design, and Art Library would like to share an interview archived in the UH Digital Library.
The interview took place in 2015 between Joe & Anna Mod from the series Building Houston. Joe discusses his background, personal interests, professional practice & teaching.
The Architecture, Design, & Art Library is happy to present two new special collections exhibitions featuring newly acquired items from our Franzheim Rare Books collection!
In the Mezzanine area we have on display issues no. 5, 7, and 9 of the Fluxus journal Fluxus ccV TRE.
Fluxus was an avant-garde art movement that emerged in the early 1960s and created in response to the elitism and commercialism that was found in the art market at the time. Conceived by George Maciunas, a central figure in the movement, the Fluxus publishing program was meant to communicate the group ideas on an international scale. The issues on display feature images from Fluxus performance events, such as issue no. 9 John, Yoko, and Flux which contains images from 1970’s Flux Fest.
On the first floor display case is a collection of papers from Fellow Communards and Communal Fellows. The box contains a series of printed objects such as maps, flyers, zines and photographs, created by artists, activists and members of the Llano del Rio Collective in response to the social and political landscape of Los Angeles. The materials included address issues such as immigration, refugees, and gentrification.
To make an appointment contact us at archlib@uh.edu.
The Architecture, Design, and Art Library is now open to students, faculty, and staff who want to browse the collection. See details below.
Mode of service
- The general library spaces is open with limited capacity.
- The service desk continues to be open in order to provide the following services.
- Borrowing of library materials
- Scan requests
- Research assistance requests
- Information and basic library instruction
- Scans and in-depth research assistance continue to be delivered online.
- Patrons may continue returning library materials through the drop-box on the interior wall and outdoor book bin only.
Requests & Services
The library staff continues taking requests from UH patrons and distribute any physical material in-person, mail or scans via email. Please submit all your requests (book pick-up/holds, scanning, or mailing) using our library request form. Only items from our collection are eligible. Items from other libraries, please visit here. Shipments will continue to be made weekly with limited staffing. We appreciate your patience.
Research assistance
- Staff members continue provide limited research assistance at the service desk, if circumstances are optimal.
- Most research assistance will be provided virtually.
- Patrons may request assistance with class and faculty research at archlib@uh.edu.
Reserves
- The library staff continues to provide e-reserves, as usual.
- Pdf’s will be created on request
- Library staff will link pdf’s and e-materials to Blackboard pages, or deliver them electronically to instructors, who may deliver them via another platform.
- We will not provide physical reserves (books/dvd’s/etc.) at this time because of potential health risks. We will, however, make scans of readings from books that instructors require.
For questions or concerns, please email us at archlib@uh.edu.