Scheduled maintenance to the Libraries Electronic Resources on 1/3/2012
On Tuesday, January 3, 2012, the Systems Division will be upgrading our EZproxy server. This could potentially lead to an intermittent down time of up to 3 hours. We will be initiating the upgrade at 9am and estimate that the upgrade will be completed by noon. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Extended Hours for Finals Week @ M.D. Anderson Library
Call for Artists
The University Libraries is now accepting artwork for its fifth Annual Student Art Exhibit, a competitive juried exhibit that will be on display in the M.D. Anderson Library February 24 – April 20, 2012. Jurors will include curators from the Menil Collection and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as prominent members of the Houston arts community and UH School of Art faculty.
The exhibit is open to all UH students enrolled spring 2012 – any classification or major. Students are welcome to submit multiple entries. Requirements of submissions: 2D in any medium, ready to hang with wires/brackets or on foam core, not to exceed 5’x5’, 5 pounds, or extend more than 4” from the wall. Sculpture with pedestals, no more than 20 pounds total and must fit inside a library elevator.
Students should submit their work to the Architecture and Art Library, located in the College of Architecture. Deadline for submissions is February 3, 2012. Artists must complete a waiver form, as well as an exhibition agreement for each work submitted.
Alonso S. Perales Photographs now available in the Digital Library!
When you get a moment, please take a look at our newest UH Digital Library collection, Photographs from the Alonso S. Perales Papers.
A civil rights lawyer, diplomat, political leader and soldier, Alonso S. Perales (1898-1960) was one of the most influential Mexican Americans of his time. These photographs, highlighting aspects of his life and career, are part of a larger exhibition, In Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American Public Intellectuals, on view at the M.D. Anderson Library from December 8, 2011 through February 29, 2012.
Perales saw himself as a defender of la raza, or race, especially battling charges that Mexicans and Latin Americans were inferior and a social problem. Perales was one of the founders of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929 and helped write LULAC’s constitution. He served as the organization’s second president.
An intellectual who firmly believed in the law, Perales wrote about civil rights, religion and racial discrimination, which he argued “had the approval of the majority.” His work included the pamphlet “Are We Good Neighbors?” and the two-volume set, “En defense de mi raza.” A member of the American Legion and the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, Perales was also a columnist for La Prensa and other Spanish-language newspapers.
Highlighting the 2010 acquisition of the Alonso S. Perales Papers by the University of Houston Libraries’ Special Collections Department, courtesy of the Perales Family and the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, scholars will present their research on this trailblazing public intellectual at a day-long conference bearing the same name as the exhibition on January 13, 2012. These presentations will shed light on Perales’ activism and defense of Latinos, including the chronology and history of Mexican American and Latino civil rights movements, the impact of religion on Latinos, the concept of “race,” and individual versus community action to bring about social and political change.
Alonso S. Perales Photographs
Archon Finding Aid
Dr. Jagdish Mehra Audio Collection
Dr. Mehra’s research in the history of 20th century physics has produced taped interviews with many famous scientists. The tapes compile discussions on physics, astrophysics, cosmology, quantum mechanics and quantum physics. Those interviewed include P.A.M. Dirac, W. Heisenberg, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Willis E. Lamb Jr., Murray Gell-Mann and numerous other Nobel Laureates and distinguished scientists. Other tapes record speeches by many Nobel Prize winners in physics and the humanities. The information included in these oral histories are not only vast but varied and unique.
Some of Dr. Jagdish Mehra’s literary works include; ‘The beat of a different drum: the life and science of Richard Feynman’, ‘The Historical Development of Quantum Theory’, and ‘Einstein, physics and reality’.
This first digital collection to go online consists of remastered audio tapes, transcripts and speaker biographies from a small portion of this unique oral history collection. It features speakers from the annual humanities series presented at the Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute (now the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth).
Speakers include:
- Margaret Mead (anthropologist)
- William Slone Coffin, Jr. (clergyman and activist)
- Archibald MacLeish (Poet)
- Gerald Holton (engineer and physicist)
- Jerome Wiesner (engineer and mathematician)
- Oscar Handlin (historian)
- Philip Morrison (physicist)
Check back throughout 2012 for these upcoming lectures, transcripts and biographies:
- Paul A.M. Dirac – Development of the Physicists Conception of Nature.
- John A. Wheeler – The Role of General Relativity.
- Jurgen Ehlers – Nature and Structure of Space-Time.
Link to collection
Additional finding aids
Poetry & Prose Reading: Monday, Oct 24 @ 5:30pm
The October 24th Poetry & Prose event presents readings in association with the Shrimp Boat Project, a creative research project that explores the regional culture of the Houston area and is sponsored by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston.
The reading will feature local authors and students from this semester’s Creative Writing Program’s Shrimp Boat Workshop. These writers will present works of non-fiction, poetry, and fiction that delve deeply into the issues surrounding Galveston Bay. Additionally, the reading will feature a small exhibit connected to the Shrimp Boat project, containing books and postcards from the UH Libraries’ Special Collections and photographs by MFA student Stacey Farrell.
The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts will host a reception following the reading.
Find brief reader and artist biographies, view the Poetry and Prose website.
The reading is free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there!
Been hearing about the DJ Screw collection?
That’s just the beginning.
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Summer Book Club meets in August
Join us for our second (and last!) meeting on Friday, August 19 at 12 noon. The book is Pym: A Novel by UH creative writing professor Mat Johnson. A Booklist Review by Julie Hunt pronounces it: “Funny, insightful, racially important, Pym is a death-defying adventure and a probing examination of notions of race, even at the farthest ends of the earth. ” The Summer Book Club is co-sponsored by the UH Libraries and the Women’s Resource Center. Refreshments will be provided. The Summer Book Club is open to all UH students, staff, faculty, and affiliates.
Copies of Pym are available through the Libraries’ fabulous and free Interlibrary Loan service. The Interlibrary Loan department will borrow an extra copy of the book from another library for you. You can retrieve your copy at the M.D. Anderson Library’s service desk when it arrives. Visit their website to set up an account.
Join us for the fun!
Decorative Arts for Decorative Arts’ Sake: The Birth of Art Deco now on display
The Jenkins Architecture and Art Library in the Hines College of Architecture invites you to stop by for a look at our new Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Book Room display. Two volumes from the collection – French portfolios of heliogravure (photogravure) printed plates – provide an intriguing snapshot of a pivotal point in design history.
From 1923, La Ferronnerie Moderne, by Gabriel Henriot, documents the fanciful, exquisite metalwork of the late Art Nouveau style. La Sculpture Décorative à l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925, by Henri Rapin, features the work of designers exhibited in the titular event. With its focus squarely on the decorative arts and its singular preoccupation with pure decoration, the 1925 exposition boldly explored and employed myriad, unrelated impulses and inspirations. The juxtaposition of these two, rare volumes tantalizingly suggests the ultimate transition of late Nouveau to a burgeoning new and fresh “modern” style, a style borne of l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925 – Art Deco.
The library’s display, assembled by Evening Supervisor Chris Conway, is further enhanced by the inclusion of text from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s website and by reproductions of postcards from l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925.
Join the UH Summer Book Club
Our first meeting will be on Wednesday, June 22 at noon in the Women’s Resource Center to discuss the book: The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure. We will also meet Friday, August 19 at 12 noon we will meet to discuss: Pym: A Novel by UH professor Mat Johnson. The Summer Book Club is co-sponsored by the UH Libraries and the Women’s Resource Center. All UH staff, students, and faculty members are welcome.
If you don’t have the books and don’t wish to purchase them, you can pick up a copy from the M.D. Anderson Library’s Service Desk, while supplies last.
