Transitions

The tardy poster strikes again! So much to do, so little time.

Hate to see you go department:
Joe Eshleman, library assistant supreme, is going on to greener ($$ - yeah!) pastures. Starting Dec. 1, he will be the Instructional Librarian at Johnson & Wales University Library. It is a well-deserved full-time position that will enable Joe to use all his talents. Joe was really instrumental in getting MARCO up and running and training staff in its use as well as being the major wiki page creator. We couldn't have done it without you, Joe! We will miss you!!

The hits just keep on coming department:
Many thanks to the Ceramic Circle of Charlotte and to the Delhom Service League for contributing funds for library purchases! These funds will enable Brian Gallagher to select needed resources for the library to obtain in order to support his work with the ceramics collection. Thank you!

New titles department:
- Two new books on Copley - Carrie Rebora Barratt's John Copley in America, and Emily Neff's John Copley in England; both essential reference on the artist.
- Informal Learning and Field Trips: Engaging Students in Standards-Based Experiences Across the K-5 Curriculum by Leah Melber provides ideas, rubrics, websites and activities.
- Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting from the Museum of Arts & Design - For someone who just dabbles in this discipline on a really elementary level (that would be me), WOW! For someone well-versed in textile craft, WOW! Talk about cool stuff! If you loved the Fiberart show, you'll love this exhibition catalog! Here is a slide show of just some of the work in the exhibition. The image at the top of this page is a Cat Mazza piece from the exhibition.
- And some must reads: Possibilities artist Vivian Beer's work adorns the cover of Furniture Studio 5: The Meaning of Craft and includes her work along with a brilliant essays by Bruce Metcalf and many others. And speaking of brilliant essays, the massive SOFA Chicago catalog includes Annie Carlano's illustrated essay "Transition and Transformation: The Mint Museum of Craft + Design Anew."

Mark your calendars!

It seems like a long way off right now, but before you know it. . . The 2nd Mint Museum Library Book Sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 16, 2009. As with the first time around, all proceeds will go toward library conservation needs.


All Facebook, all the time!
It seems lately that the entire staff has a Facebook page, and I admit to being overwhelmed by all the sea creatures, kidnaps, beers, Pathwords challenges and covered dishes I haven't been able to respond to. But I did have a great experience with a Facebook application that we might use here in some way. I did some online mentoring through the Discussion Board of the Facebook group, UNCG Library and Information Studies. Very interesting!

It's about space . . .
We're doing some serious shifting around as we plan for bringing all the materials from the library at MMCD into the Randolph Road building. (As well as making space to store items to go into the Book Sale!) And trying to figure out some potential floor plans for re-configured library space. So if you see me muttering to myself while wielding an 1/8" scale ruler, you'll know what's going on!

Where are they now department:
Joe's imminent departure has gotten me thinking about the assistants and interns that have been a part of the library and moved on just since I've been here. The cool thing is, it seems that everyone has gone on to bigger and better things. To name a few:
- Shawn Reynolds - Shawn just got promoted at Heroes and is now Operations Manager so she is not only in charge of the store, she is also doing all the buying. Stop in and say hi when you get by Heroes Aren't Hard to Find on Seventh St. And let her know how you like her new look on the web site! (evil laugh)
- Archimedez Thomas - Just recently got a postcard from Archimedez and he and Dorinda and Yukon (the schnauzer!) have moved to Baltimore and he is attending graduate school at Morgan State University studying landscape architecture. Not bad for a (self-described) recovering dilettante! Hope you can come back to NC and visit soon!
- Emily Boone, long-time intern and recent Davidson grad, is teaching English in France! (tough break kiddo)
- Jenny France, intern from USC, got her library degree and is now working as a librarian for PLCMC.
- Allison Tyous, intern from UNC, got her undergraduate degree as planned in art history, decided to pursue graduate studies in librarianship and got an internship at the Library of Congress. If you are coming home for the holidays Allison, you have to stop by and let us know how it is going!
- Jessica Sedgwick, completed her masters in library studies at Chapel Hill and immediately got a full-time job in their library.

And last but not least - some great freaking numbers!
Per Google Analytics, in the last MONTH:
- MARCO has had 233 visitors (internal and external); spending an average of over 9 minutes on the site; an over 15% increase from the previous month;
- AND the Mint Wiki has had 1,239 visitors (internal and external); spending an average of over 2 minutes on the site; an over 40% increase from the previous month!
That is just in one month!!

And who's the fairest of them all? Why ANDY of course! 341 visitors just for him!

Till next time!

Lucky us!

August went by quickly but not without an impact!
In the "define irony" department: A disaster preparedness workshop for library and registration staff scheduled here for August 27, had to be re-scheduled on account of . . . you guessed it! . . . a DISASTER!!

Here is a shot from inside the museum at the lake that fortunately is once again the front lawn. We were lucky though - some water in the building, but no harm to collections. Check out this link for some video footage of the flooding around the museum from local news:
http://www.wcnc.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=276533 Thanks for sending this Leslie!

In the "survey sez" dept:I know I'm dating myself with that heading but anyway many thanks to all our friends who completed the survey about MARCO and gave us some excellent feedback. We will be tweaking MARCO based on the feedback we received so look forward to some improvements (IMHO) to come.

In the great gifts department, Robert and Daisy Rieke have bestowed a lovely collection of books and exhibition catalogs on Käthe Kollwitz that complements their gift of Kollwitz prints to the museum. Thank you so much! Also a big thank you to Jean Thomas and her tremendous gift of books on art and antiques - we are still counting but it looks to be over 200 titles! WOW!


New titles to look for include:

- Carrie Rebora Barratt's Gilbert Stuart, a (dare we say?) definitive monograph on this important artist from the Met.

- Edward Tufte's Envisioning Information to get our brains thinking in different ways.

- China Design Now from the V& A - a stunning visual followup for those of us who didn't get enough from the Bejing Olympics.

- Richard Powell's To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities - a complex project; an important exhibition; and an overdue thank-you to the academic institutions that preserve and celebrate these collections.

- And for our fashionistas: Surfers, Soulies, Skinheads and Skaters: Subcultural Style from the Forties to the Nineties - "an audacious panorama of street style from Beatnik to Hippie to Cyberpunk, and its influence on high fashion" from those wacky folks at the V&A.

In the volunteer recognition department: A shout-out to our dedicated band of library volunteers!

Ellen Show, who aids with barcoding and with issues in the Delhom Library;

and Allison Tyous, who is also helping out with barcoding and will be working on a scanning project. Thank you all!

And a very special shout-out to Doris Anne Bradley, volunteer extraordinaire, who is recovering from surgery - Thank you and get well soon!!

And in the crunching numbers dept: As you may know, Joe got the Mint Wiki site and MARCO set up with Google Analytics so we can track visits to both and see what folks are looking at, how much time they are spending on what and where they are "visiting" from; you know, good geeky number stuff. Anyway, just to give you an idea, here is just a little bit of the info gathered:

- Even though MARCO is just out, we've had over 285 visits from outside and the average time spent is over 8 minutes!

- The exhibition page that the most people have looked at on the Mint Wiki is . . . (drumroll, please) The Brilliant Period of American Cut Glass (!) with 224 visits! The rest of the top five, in order of popularity are: The Art of Affluence, Scene in America, Possibilities, and American Scene. Interesting, huh?

- The Mint Wiki has had visitors from 36 countries! The top five are: U.S. (of course), UK, Canada, Australia and India!

- Mint Wiki has averaged 17 visitors a day over the last month! Does this mean I get to add these to library stats?

And in the last but not least dept: If you are out and about tonight - especially if you are already downtown at the OAA opening, "crawl" on down to Hodges Taylor and see Lynn Saville's photography exhibition! Lynn was featured in an exhibition here in 2007!

On the road and back again

Road trip!

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) annual conference was in Seattle, WA this year and a great time was had by all. Great sessions - more about those later -, wonderful tours of the Seattle Art Museum Library, the Experience Music Project and the Paramount Theater, lots of wonderful sightseeing and more salmon than any one person should eat. Oh yeah - and the coffee! Even the hotel room coffee pot has good coffee!

Some exceptional formal conference sessions included Using Controlled Vocabularies to Enhance Access to Cultural Information; "I Don't Know Art, but I Know What I Like": Critical Visual Literacy and Distributed Digital Preservation: the MetaArchive Approach. To view these presentations (and more), go to http://www.slideshare.com/ and search "sla 2008." So, while the sightseeing was grand and the food divine, the real reason to go to these things is truly to learn. And learn I did. Also, a very special thanks to Traci Timmons, librarian of the Seattle Art Museum for her time and suggestions.

Good News Department: Our IMLS Grant got extended for another year so that Nancy Mosley can continue doing what she does best - making our catalog truly reliable and authoritative! Thank you Nancy and looking forward to another great year!

New Titles Department:

• Courtesy of the Barnett Newman Foundation, we just received a copy of the hefty Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonne. Fabulous resource.
• Nine to Nineteen: Youth in Museums and Libraries: A Practioner's Guide - Just in from IMLS, a slim volume chock-full of resources, case studies, and practical information from their "Engaging America's Youth" initiative.
• Elizabeth Currid's The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art & Music Drive New York City which is, as the author describes, "about how creativity - particularly artistic and cultural creativity - happens and why it happens in some places . . . more than others." This book "explains how the cultural economy works - and why it is vital to all great cities." Required reading for fall?
• Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels and Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels - Long unavailable reprinting of wordless novels using woodcuts to tell their stories. Thank you Joel for requesting these sensational and powerful books!

From the Newstand Department: Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand: the Graphic Work of Clare Leighton is featured in the latest issue of Journal of the Print World (Vol 31, No. 3 Summer 2008). (And cool! It evens mentions the MintWiki!)

Just around the corner I swear Department: We are so close to getting MARCO live we can almost taste it. Stay tuned.

We reach more than we know . . .

Welcome new interns!

Two new interns will be helping us out in the library this summer. Katie Griffin is a graduate student in the Library and Information Science program at USC with a concentration in archives. Lauren DeReese is an undergraduate at Queens Unversity. Please be sure to say hello when you see them in the library. Welcome to Katie and Lauren and hope you enjoy your summer here at the Mint!

Mint Wiki goes global!

Remember Helene Blowers at PLCMC's Learning 2.0? As she hoped, her program has been picked up and adapted and is in use all over the place. One place is the State Library of New South Wales (Australia) and one of the wikis they point to as an example is ours! How cool is that!

AND Joe is using Google Analytics on the Mint Wiki to see who views the page and from where. Just in the last month, the Mint Wiki has been visited by folks from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, (of course) North Carolina, but also Australia, the UK and Russia!! Plus, from the analytics, we can see that folks are actually looking at the site - not just clicking through - by the amount of time they spend there. This is so neat!

AND a professor at Kansas State University just wrote to ask permission to use a screen shot of the Mint Wiki in her new book! The screenshot will be used "in a guide for professionals at small museums who want to create an "eMuseum" . . . and would be presented as an example of a museum using a Wiki to communicate with the public." (Yeah!) The book is Developing Curriculum Materials for Teachers: Lessons from the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum. Proceeds from its sales will be donated to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO. We will get a copy when it gets published! All the way cool!

New titles/articles department:

• Each year, the Friends of the Mint donate a book in honor of the past president. This year, the book Queen Victoria and Thomas Sully, by Carrie Rebora Barratt has been donated in honor of Donald Freund. The Mint's painting The Student, Sully's lovely portrait of his daughter Rosalie, is one of Donald's favorite paintings, so this was a perfect gift in his name. Thank you Friends! and thank you Donald!
• Ripped from his still warm hands: The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957 from the V&A's exhibition. Thank you Charles!! It is absolutely to drool over. (and actually, the ripped from his hands part is not true - it was offered very graciously, but I just had to say it)
• The latest entire issue of Fiberarts is devoted to "Our Fiber Heritage". Subjects include Andean tapestries inspiring new forms, guidelines for the care of textiles, and a review of the Met's exhibition of ancient Peruvian featherwork called Radiance from the Rain Forest.
• New book - The Furniture of Sam Maloof - a great big volume with tons of pictures of his gorgeous furniture. But you'll have to get it from Allie 'cause she had first dibs!
• Latest issue of Charlotte magazine has a big feature article about what South Tryon will be like in 2010 - very different and very exciting! Great composite "what it will look like" photo.

Only a matter of time department: Artist's tees from the Gap! They are celebrating the 2008 Whitney Biennial by issuing artist designed t-shirts by former Whitney Biennial artists.http://www.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=40760 There is also a full multi-page spread of ads for these in the latest issue of W - on the shelf in your library! Take a peek. (I especially like the Kenny Scharf and the Kiki Smith) Speaking of Kiki Smith, she's now doing a line with Steuben Glass - a collection of designs inspired by tatoos!

Favorite design ideas department: Metropolitan Home's annual top 100 designs issue is always fascinating but I didn't get to see it until I was at the eye doctor last week. I scribbled down some of my favorites while my eyes were dilating!(Don't you love this "you are there" aspect of the blog? I am kidding.) Anyway, a few I thought were particularly noteworthy (but in no particular order):

• Charles + Ray Eames postage stamps - Classic design for 42 cents!
• Jasper Conran's designs for Wedgwood - He's the son of . . . and the designs are gorgeous
• The Encyclopedia of Life - http://www.eol.org/ . Just check it out - it's just one of those things the Internet was made for.
• GreenForAll.org - Good work, good sense, for good.
• LocalHarvest.org - Like the web site says, "real food, real farmers, real community."
• And for fun, the Eiffel Tower Lego! Build your own in the comfort and safety of your own home.
• And last but not least, BIKES! Or pedal power with some really gorgeous examples from Puma. Of course, there is always my personal favorite - the Townie!

By the way, are we going to have bike racks uptown outside of our new building?? I'm trying to up my own personal pedaling percentage and know others are doing it too. So, I'm thinkin' it could be a really good idea.

A farewell and more

Thank you Emily!

We wish a fond farewell to Davidson intern Emily Boone who has been with us for three semesters! Her special project has been documenting the extent of our huge collection of back-issues of periodicals. The Mint Museum Library holds art magazines and journals going back to the turn of the century - the 20th century that is! Emily's efforts mean that we can begin cataloging these periodicals and make them more accessible for research. Emily also contributed to the Contemporary, Cool and Collected exhibition catalog, writing several artist entries under Carla's supervision. An art history major, Emily is graduating this month and plans to travel to France to work teaching English. Way to go Emily!! We will miss you!

Great new books and articles in the library (in no particular order

• How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness by Darby English - Called "groundbreaking" and a work that "expands the social and intellectual context for recent African-American art."
• A review of Scene in America: a Contemporary Look at the Black Male Image in the May 1 issue of The Charlotte Post - it is in the exhibition file!
• Do you like the "goose bowl?" Check out Art & Reform: Sara Galner, the Saturday Evening Girls, and the Paul Revere Pottery - the catalog by Nonie Gadsen for the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
• She's not here quite yet, but you can familiarize yourself with some of her work! Review Annie Carlano's Sleeping Around: the Bed from Antiquity to Now.
• From the North Carolina Arts Council, check out Creative Economy: the Arts Industry in North Carolina which documents the "economic impact of the arts as a significant industry" in NC.
• A collection to dream over! The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation Collection is a nice big lucious look at an exemplary contemporary collection in an estate setting. Let's see . . . there's the Jean Arp in the TV room and the Jasper Johns and David Hockney in the library and the Alexander Calder in the garden and the Mark Rothko and the Anselm Kiefer in the living room. . . you get the idea!
• A mention of the Clayman show in the latest issue (May) of Sculpture magazine

And online . . .

• Art21's new blog Teaching with Contemporary Art which "will focus on why contemporary art in the classroom is important, the kinds of things that happen when it’s part of the curriculum, and ideas for approaching contemporary art from a variety of angles." Cool
• Thanks to Very Short List, my new favorite music video Happiness from Goldfrapp. Get happy (or is it hoppy?) (and thanks Em for sending)

Great visit from Curator's Circle! On Wednesday, May 7, members of the Curator's Circle (who support Dorie and the ancient American art collection) visited the library as part of their regular meeting. After refreshments, the main focus of the meeting was a "behind the scenes" with Katherine and everyone got to check out the pottery storage areas. Then, everyone came into the library for a viewing of some very significant resources we have including the Mayan and Aztec codex facsimiles, the 1877 first edition of Squier's Peru: Travels and Exploration of the Land of the Incas, and original printings of the 1908, 1910 and 1911 issues of Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University describing explorations in Peten, Guatemala. These journals are especially significant because of the high-quality of the photographs they contain. The photographs of stela, architectural elements and buildings at various archaeological sites are in many cases the only survivng record of the inscriptions and sculpture. Dorie provided recent photographs of many of these same ruins for comparison and the ravages of time, acid rain and poor (or nonexistent) conservation are evident. It highlighted the constant struggle between the need for conservation and the difficulty in obtaining funds and attention towards it. A great evening! Many thanks to Dorie, Katherine, Kimberly and all the members of the Curator's Circle who attended.

The things you find in books

While barcoding books in the Delhom-Gambrell library these last few weeks, I came across a few letters from bygone days . The first one was found in The Old Furniture Book and is a typed letter from the author, N. Hudson Moore dated March 4, 1904. Note the vernacular of the times.
(you can click on the pictures for a larger view of the letters)





The second letter is hand written and a bit tougher to read. It was found in Tulip ware of the Pennsylvania-German potters; an historical sketch of the art of slip-decoration in the United States by Edwin Atlee Barber and was written in 1914.



There is a fair amount of barcoding left, so I will share any other interesting finds.

On another note, I attended a Polaris (the software behind MARCO) user meeting last Friday at the Chapin Library in Myrtle Beach. There were 30 librarians and a few (including a Polaris representative) gave presentions about the software. It was a great way to meet fellow users of the software and hear about the current issues and future direction. I enjoyed fielding questions about our unique design due to the fact that everyone else was from a public library.

Very truly yours (I'm just trying to stay consistent with the letters),

Joe

WOW!

SPECTACULAR!

On Tuesday, March 18 at the celebratory tea in honor of Miss Delhom's 100th birthday, the Delhom Service League presented the library with two spectacular rare books: Johan Nieuhoff's An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperor of China . . . , London, 1673, and the Montanus Atlas Chinensis, London, 1671. Both are significant primary sources of decorative art design and the Nieuhoff has been referred to as “one of the earliest and most influential documents in the history of Europe’s growing awareness of the Far East.” A truly fabulous gift! Thank you Delhom Service League!


IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf
The Mint Museum Library was one of 851 libraries and museums nationwide to receive a collections of books, DVDs and online resources pertaining to conservation of collections from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The award is part of the IMLS's Connecting to Collections initiative. For more information, check out the website. A Guide to Online Resources is also available.

New stuff

• In the latest issue of Ceramics: Art and Perception, a profile of Ben Owen II by Charlotte Vestal Brown of the Gregg Museum of Art & Design. A copy is in his artist file!
• From the Portland Art Museum, The Dancer: Degas, Forain, and Toulouse-Lautrec - a great big scrumptious look at the work of these "fascinated observers" of the dance.
• A timely exchange publication from the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis: I Remember Heaven: Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol which "explores affinities" between the two artists' works.
• And these are just a few of the new titles!

A little shift

Nancy Mosely, cataloger extraordinaire, will be moving over to MMA within the next week. She will be working out of the Delhom Library. I will block out her schedule on the MMA calendar so folks know when she will be in there. Staff is welcome to use the library for research but will need to schedule meetings for times when she is not there. More particulars to come!

MARCO

We've gotten just a few entries so far in the "Give MARCO a face" contest and would love to get some more. Our first entries are really good. Don't miss out on the opportunity to "Give MARCO a face!"

Very special guest

An update to the update!

From Leslie Strauss:

Wanted to share this picture from a recent visit with artist and photographer Bobby Hansson. This photo shows Wayne Werner, Maryland jewelry artist and good friend of Bobby's, Bobby in center and Allie in our conference room poring over old magazines. Wayne is holding a Craft Horizons magazine from our archives featuring cover photography by Bobbie. As you can see, Bobby is a colorful character! He is an artist and author of The Art of the Tin Can, but also was very involved as a supporter and photographer of the craft movement. Wayne and Bobby were traveling through town to go to SNAG in Savannah, where Bobby was a featured speaker, and decided to visit us to see the museum collection and go to lunch with Allie and me. Wayne did an Extreme Craft demo for us a few years back, and also exhibits at ACC.
When I mentioned at lunch that we had the Craft Horizons magazines in our archives, Wayne insisted on pulling Bobby up to take a look. Though Bobby at first joked that he'd "just wait in the car," he actually really got into it and enjoyed finding his work, and sharing lots of great stories about working with some of the folks who are now 'art stars'. He told us that he was paid $5 each for many of the photographs we saw in the magazines!
Below is an excerpt from an email from Wayne after the visit, FYI. Just wanted to share with you how much all the museum's hard work in keeping archives available meant to someone. Thank you!!
Les
From Wayne:
Words can not describe how much Bob enjoyed coming to the museum and meeting you both, it is all he talked about for two days. I think that he decided that he finally got the payment he deserved for his photography work. He made the comment that he was proud to be a part of preserving what was going on in the Craft movement. He said that at the time the Art world could have done without it, that it was more a Hippie idea. .... So I just wanted to thank you both and let you know how much it meant to Bob.

Spring blows in

and all kinds of wonderful things happen!

Especially some wonderful donations! To name but a few . . .
From Sara H. Bissell: a wealth of extraordinary reference books on antiques and ceramics, including some very scarce titles;
From our own Joanna Rice: a slew of books on photography - much needed!
From Davidson's Dr. Gill Holland: His translation of Chinese poetry in honor of Joe Eshleman (yes, our Joe!)
From Dr. Francis & Lilly Robicsek: A great collection of recent auction catalogs as well as some ancient American art titles;
And from the Delhom Service League and the Ceramic Circle of Charlotte: Four excellent titles selected in memory of the inimitable and much missed Pat Bursley.
And a very special donation to be unveiled on Tuesday, March 18th! We are truly fortunate to have such generous benefactors to the library!

More on MARCO
Entries have been a little (!) slow in coming in the "Give MARCO a face!" contest so here is some more idea fodder . . .
Did you know that it is to Marco Polo that the use of the term porcellana to describe what we now know as porcelain is attributed?
And don't forget that the person who comes up with the best "face" or logo, gets their choice of THESE FABULOUS PRIZES! Select one of these unique book bags or apron for your very own!

Here are some close-ups of the fabulous designs!

WAY Cool Dept.
In the latest issue of Fiberarts, check out a short article about an upcoming exhibition/conference at The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Hendersonville and one of the featured presenters, a woman who is doing some of the coolest stuff around: Rachel Wingfield of Loop.pH Design.
She creates "environmentally responsive textiles" like "the light-reactive window blind that glows brighter the darker the space becomes." How many ways can I say "I WANT ONE!!"
The exhibition Inspired Design: Creative Entrepreneurial Textiles is May 20-August 22 and the conference is in January. Road trip??

Look What I found Dept. While checkin out YouTube, did a quick "mint museum" search and found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYZtt9oiKjY Hear Carolyn describe the "cultural campus"as you "travel" through the scale model!

February love notes

Say Hello to MARCO!


Yes, as introduced at the staff meeting on Monday, the Mint Art Research Catalog Online is up and running and available to staff. Everyone with a network login should have a shortcut to MARCO on their desktop. Please give us feedback - any problems, suggestions, questions - just let us know!

MARCO has a name - but no face!
As a way to make MARCO more memorable, the Library is sponsoring a contest to give MARCO a face! MARCO's "face" could be a logo, a character, a cartoon . . . you pick! Actually, we pick . . . you create. So, sharpen your pencils and give MARCO a face! Entries should be submitted via email to joyce.weaver@mintmuseum.org or placed in the library mailbox. Prize to be announced soon!

Score!


Back in the day, The Red Clay Reader was an "ahead of its time" journal that featured excellent writing by such folk as Fred Chappell, Doris Betts, Jack Kerouac, etc. but also art by then UNCC prof Maud Gatewood among others. This seminal journal lasted from 1964 to 1970 and the Mint Library now has the complete set of seven issues. Stuff in here just isn't anywhere else. Oh, and it was published right here in Charlotte.


Off the rack . . .
the magazine rack that is.

• Latest issue of School Arts (Vol. 107, No. 6, Feb 2008) features a page of links for resources on contemporary art for art educators. Links include ArtThink (www.sfmoma.org/artthink ) and Art Today (http://schools.walkerart.org:8083:arttoday/ ) - Good stuff!


• Great article on Jun Kaneko in Arts and Activities (Vol. 143, N. 1, Feb 2008) - I'm sending a copy down to MMCD! - with a link to more information and to obtain resources for teachers.
  Here's the link: http://artsandactivities.com/


• Arthur C. Danto chimes in on the whole art v. craft thing in his lengthy article "Visionary Ceramics" in the latest issue of American Ceramics (15/2). Yes, a new issue of American Ceramics has actually arrived! I've made a copy of the article for the Jones Library; the journal goes to MMCD.

New Titles

• Danko-McGhee, Kathy. The Impact of Early Art Experiences on Literacy Development. Provides specific example activities and relates them to specific literacy development skills. Brilliant.
• Sanford Robinson Gifford [1823-1880] The catalog from an exhibition of the artist's work at the University of Texas Art Museum in 1970.
• Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists. Catalog from the Kohler Center exhibition - Fascinating examination and celebration of "outsider" art.
• Wiley, Kehinde. The World Stage - China. Wiley takes on the Cultural Revolution in his own inimitable style.
• Also, the 2008 editions of the Official Museum Directory and Who's Who in American Art are in!

End of year flurries

. . . of activity that is. And starting the new year with a bang!

In the Can't Believe It department: Huge thanks to Epson America for donating an Epson 10000XL Photo Scanner to the library from their Focused Giving Program! WOW! Digitization projects, here we come!!

Online catalog update: Our converted records have been imported again . . . for the THIRD time and hopefully this time will be the charm. Bar code labels had to be returned so a slight delay on getting the labeling started as well. Looking to launch to staff at the February staff meeting, so let's keep our fingers crossed!

Recommended Readings:

• Our own Charles Mo in Fiberarts, the Jan/Feb issue, on caring for a wearable art collection. There's a copy in the Jones library of the article and the magazine itself is at MMCD!
• Ken Shulman's Once Bitten Twice Denied article in Art & Antiques December issue about the de-authentication of a Warhol silkscreen.
• Review of Jiha Moon exhibition in the latest ArtForum
• Great article on Randy Shull in the December issue of American Craft.
• Museums and Libraries Engaging America's Youth: Final Report of A Study of IMLS Youth Programs, 1998-2003. Access the PDF at http://www.imls.gov/pdf/YouthReport.pdf

In the Great Gifts! department: The library has been extremely fortunate this past year with gifts we have received from generous donors. Nelson Grice donated 91 titles in 2007 on American Indian art and culture; artists Hugh Slonem, Lucinda Bunnen and Philip Moulthrop each donated books on their own works; and Frances Parrack donated 32 books on quilting along with back issues of Quilter's Newsletter to name but a few. Friends of the Mint not only donated a book to honor their outgoing president but also funds for the purchase of a book in honor of Jon Stuhlman. Plus we received exhibition catalogs from almost 30 art museums around the country as part of the exchange program! And these are just a few of the wonderful donors and donations that aided the library in 2007. Many, many thanks to all!

And in the Last but Not Least department: Early in 2007, the library received the gift of the personal papers and sketches of an interior designer named Jessica Rummell. She taught interior design at Parsons in Paris in the 1920s and then moved to New York and had her own interior design business there for years. Although the sketches were marvelous - she would go to auctions, see something she liked, run home and sketch it and then take the sketch to her client to see if they would be interested! - we realized that this was not the place for this type of archive. Fortunately, Parsons School of Design is! The head of their library and archive is not only willing but delighted to receive Miss Rummell's papers as she is former faculty! Now her work will not only have a home, but a home where students can access all her fabuous sketches and research! A very happy ending.