Natasha Trethewey, Poetry Reading
Wednesday, November 18, 4:00 p.m.
Beinecke Library, 121 Wall Street
Yale Collection of American Literature Reading Series
Contact:nancy.kuhl@yale.edu

Natasha Trethewey is the 2009 James Weldon Johnson Fellow in African American Studies at the Beinecke Library; she is the author of Domestic Work (selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet), Bellocq’s Ophelia, and Native Guard, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She has received awards and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. She is Professor of English at Emory University where she holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry.

The James Weldon Johnson Fellowship in African American Studies was established at the Beinecke Library in 2008. This fellowship is designed to permit outstanding scholars to devote a full academic term in residence at Yale University to conduct research and writing in connection with the James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Beinecke Library.
Founded in 1941 by Carl Van Vechten, the James Weldon Johnson Memorial collection stands as a memorial to Dr. James Weldon Johnson and celebrates the accomplishments of African American writers and artists, beginning with those of the Harlem Renaissance. Grace Nail Johnson contributed her husband’s papers, leading the way for gifts of papers from Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, Walter White and Poppy Cannon White, Dorothy Peterson, Chester Himes, and Langston Hughes. The collection also contains the papers of Richard Wright and Jean Toomer, as well as smaller groups of manuscripts and correspondence of such writers as Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Wallace Thurman.

"J. Edgar Hoover's Influence on American Political Culture"
Professor Beverly Gage, Department of History, Yale University
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall St.
Thursday, November 19, 4:00 p.m.

Gage, author of "The Day Wall Street Exploded: America in its First Age of Terror "(Oxford, 2009) will speak on her current research on the FBI's founding Director, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover served under eight Presidents from Coolidge to Nixon and during his 48 year tenure as Director, the FBI grew in responsibility and importance and achieved iconic status in both American political and popular culture.

Beverly Gage is assistant professor of 20th-century U.S. history. Her teaching and research focus on the evolution of American political ideologies and institutions. She teaches courses on terrorism, communism and anticommunism, American conservatism, and 20th-century American politics. She completed her graduate work at Columbia University, where her dissertation received the Bancroft award for best U.S. history dissertation. Her first book, "The Day Wall Street Exploded" examined the history of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the 1920 Wall Street bombing.

In addition to her teaching and research, Professor Gage has written for numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, Time, and the New York Times. She has also appeared as a historical commentator on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS). In 2007, the History News Network named her one of the country's Top Young Historians. In 2009, Professor Gage received the Sarai Ribicoff Award for teaching excellence in Yale College.

Oral History of American Music at 40
Vivian Perlis and Libby Van Cleve
Tuesday, November 3, 4:00 p.m. (Rescheduled from Oct. 29)
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall St
Free and open to the public

Oral History of American Music (OHAM) at Yale is the only ongoing project in the field of music dedicated to the collection and preservation of oral and video memoirs in the voices of musicians. It is a special kind of history, one that captures sights and sounds and recreates the spontaneity of a moment in time. The sound of a voice is an immediate link to the past--gestures, speech patterns, laughter--these are vivid reminders of the unique qualities of a personality, and they reflect the atmosphere of his or her time and place in history. Artists in the OHAM collections include Virgil Thomson, Eubie Blake, Aaron Copland, Ned Rorem, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

Founded in 1969, OHAM is celebrating its 40th anniversary. This lecture by Founder and Director Vivian Perlis and Associate Director Libby Van Cleve will include a history of the project as well as recordings from the collection. Other anniversary events include a concert in Sprague Hall on April 6, and a special concert in Carnegie Hall on April 8, part of the 'Yale in New York' series.

Vivian Perlis is a historian of American music, specializing in twentieth century composers. She is widely known for her publications, lectures, recordings ,and film productions. On the faculty of the Yale School of Music, Perlis is founding-director of Oral History of American Music. With Libby Van Cleve, she is the author of the award-winning volume Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington, published in 2005 by Yale University Press.

Libby Van Cleve is Associate Director of Oral History of American Music. In addition to her work at OHAM, Van Cleve is recognized as one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary music for the oboe. She is an adjunct faculty member at Wesleyan University and Connecticut College.

October 14, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Bass Library L01 (Lower Level)

Created in 2006 as a way for friends and colleagues to stayed informed about daily activities, Twitter has now grown into a service that is being used in any number of ways including citizen journalism, customer service, library and information services, and educational purposes. This session will offer a practical and theoretical examination of the current and possible roles of Twitter in higher education. Joe Murphy, Coordinator of Instruction and Technology in the Science Libraries, will provide suggestions on how to enhance teaching with Twitter within and beyond the classroom. He will also discuss best practices and policies for teaching including practical management and instruction considerations. Eric Gordon, Professor of Visual & Media Studies at Emerson College will address the idea of "choreographing attention" in the classroom. He will speak about the adoption of computers and devices in the classroom to enhance the physical situation to make for a more "robust" learning environment. Professor Gordon's preliminary research on this topic can be found at: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/2/000049.html.

Yale Family Weekend is here. Events are taking place across campus, including at the Library. Click here for the full schedule.

The Whiffenpoofs of 2010 and Whim'n Rhythm will kick-off the Yale Whiffenpoof's Centennial Reunion with a short concert this evening (October 1) in the Sterling Memorial Library nave from 5:15 to 5:45 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

Many will have also noticed the engaging exhibitions in Sterling highlighting Whiffenpoof history and discography. They were curated by Barry McMurtrey '88, a Whiff alum and a member of the Access Services Department. Barry was assisted by colleagues from Historical Sound Recordings, Manuscripts and Archives, and the Preservation Department.

Walking Backward: The Life and Work of Flannery O'Connor
Brad Gooch, Professor of English at William Paterson University & author of
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little Brown 2009)

Thursday, September 24, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public.

The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor published her first book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships - with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy and James Dickey among others - and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as 'A' in O'Connor's collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from O'Connor was made available to Gooch in 2006.

Brad Gooch's previous books include City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara; as well as Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America; three novels--Scary Kisses, The Golden Age of Promiscuity, Zombie00; a collection of stories, Jailbait and other Stories, chosen by Donald Barthelme for a Writer’s Choice Award; a collection of poems, The Daily News; and two memoirs, Finding the Boyfriend Within and Dating the Greek Gods. His work has been featured in numerous magazines including: The New Republic, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Travel and Leisure, Partisan Review, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Art Forum, Harper’s Bazaar, The Nation, and regularly on The Daily Beast. A Guggenheim fellow in Biography, he has received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, and a Furthermore grant in publishing from the J.M. Kaplan Fund. He earned his PhD at Columbia University.

A lecture on September 24 by Brad Gooch, Professor of English at William Paterson University and author of the best-selling Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor, will be the first in a series of public lectures and programs sponsored by Yale University Library during the 2009-10 academic year. Exhibits are also being held across the Library system and additional events will be announced over the course of the year.

The schedule of lectures and exhibits in Sterling Memorial Library follows below. Updates to the schedule will be posted at www.library.yale.edu/librarynews/.

LECTURES
All lectures are free and open to the public and will be held
in the Sterling Memorial Library lecture hall, 128 Wall Street.

September
Brad Gooch, William Paterson University, author of Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little Brown, 2009)
September 24, 4:00 p.m.

October
Vivian Perlis & Libby Van Cleve, Oral History American Music, Yale University,
authors of Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington (Yale, 2005)
Wednesday, October 28, 4:00 p.m.

November
Beverly Gage, Department of History, Yale University, author of
The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror (Oxford, 2009)
Date and time TBA

December
Christopher T. Buckley, author of Losing Mum and Pup (Twelve, 2009)
Date and time TBA

January
Molly Haskell, author of Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited (Yale, 2009)
Date and time TBA

February (Black History Month)
Hazel V. Carby, African American & American Studies, Yale University,
author of Cultures in Babylon: Black Britain and African America (Verso, 1999)
Date and time TBA

March
James J. O'Donnell, Provost & Professor of Classics, Georgetown University,
author of The Ruin of the Roman Empire (Ecco, 2008)
Date and time TBA

April (Yale Pride)
Graeme Reid, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Studies, Yale University,
author of Above the Skyline (forthcoming)
Date and time TBA

May
Marlene Wagman-Geller, author of Once Again to Zelda (Perigee, 2008)
Date and time TBA

EXHIBITS IN STERLING MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Information on exhibits across the Library system can be found on
individual library and department web sites.

July-September: Islamic Art and Architecture

July-October: Whiffenpoof Centennial Exhibits

September-November: Benny Goodman: A Century of Swing (Gilmore Music Library)

November-January: From Nineveh to New Haven

November-December: Treasures of the Babylonian Collection

December-February: Centennial of Tel Aviv

December-February: Stover at Yale

March-May: Architecture, Utopia, and Empire

March-May: Medieval Studies at Yale

The Collaborative Learning Center is once again offering a weekly program called Teaching w/ Technology Tuesdays. This program is for those teaching at Yale (staff, faculty, and students) interested in innovative instructional activities that utilize technology. All sessions take place on Tuesdays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon except for the Twitter session on Wednesday, October 14 from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.

September 15
3-D Imaging [Presenters: John Eberhart & John ffrench]
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Bass Library L01 (lower level of the library)

3-D imaging is any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the illusion of depth in an image. Several different 3-D imaging techniques are being used at Yale for research and teaching purposes. We will hear from two speakers about how they are using 3-D imaging to support teaching at Yale. The Yale University Art Gallery recently completed a joint project with the Peabody Museum of Natural History to digitize and share their collections online with ARTstor. John ffrench will show the 3-D imaging technology that was employed for some of the objects from the African Art collection, and discuss the process used to create and compile these images and the teaching applications of these images. John Eberhart from the School of Architecture will discuss how he supports the teaching of architecture with 3-D imaging techniques and a 3-D imaging lab.

John ffrench is the Associate Director of Visual Resources at the Yale University Art Gallery. John Eberhart is a Critic in the School of Architecture.

Fall 2009 Schedule
September
15 3-D Imaging - John Eberhart & John ffrench
22 CLC Media Equipment Checkout Service - Carolyn Caizzi & Matt Regan
29 Beyond Power Point: Online Presentation Tools - Robin Ladouceur & Pam Patterson

October
6 Photosynth - Stacey Maples
14 Twitter - Eric Gordon (Emerson College) & Joe Murphy (Session takes place on Wednesday 1:00 - 2:00pm)
20 Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro - Trip Kirkpatrick & John Graves
27 A new digital environment for exploring cultural connections - Professor George Syrimis, Gabe Rossi, & David Hirsch

November
3 Collaborative Editing Tools - Michael Farina & Scott Matheson
10 Handhelds and the Mobile Web - Katie Bauer & Yianni Yessios
17 QR Codes and RF Codes - Ken Panko

For more information visit http://clc.yale.edu or contact clc@yale.edu.

The Collaborative Learning Center in the Bass Library is a resource for the Yale community designed to foster interactions among Yale students, faculty and staff from across the campus in the support of teaching and learning. The Collaborative Learning Center brings together the services of the Library, ITS - Instructional Technology Group and Media Services, the Graduate Teaching Center, and the Center for Language Study.

Tuesday, September 8
1:15 p.m., Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall (128 Wall Street)

The Yale Information Society Project and the Yale University Library cordially invite you to a special lecture on "The Googlization of Everything" by Siva Vaidhyanathan, media scholar, author, and associate professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, September 8 at 1:15 p.m. in the Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall. The title of the lecture is the title of Professor Vaidhyanathan's upcoming book, which seeks to answer three key questions: What does the world look like through the lens of Google?; How is Google's ubiquity affecting the production and dissemination of knowledge?; and how has the corporation altered the rules and practices that govern other companies, institutions, and states?

About Siva Vaidhyanathan

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently an associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a blog, http://sivacracy.net/. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book.

In March 2002, Library Journal cited Vaidhyanathan among its “Movers & Shakers” in the library field. In the feature story, Vaidhyanathan lauded librarians for being “on the front lines of copyright battles” and for being “the custodians of our information and cultural commons.” In November 2004 the Chronicle of Higher Education called Vaidhyanathan “one of academe’s best-known scholars of intellectual property and its role in contemporary culture.” He has testified as an expert before the U.S. Copyright Office on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

He is noted for opposing the Google Books scanning project on copyright grounds. He has published the opinion, that the project poses a danger for the doctrine of fair use, because the fair use claims are arguably so excessive that it may cause judicial limitation of that right.

Yale University is hosting the Eastern CONTENTdm Users Group 2009 Conference at the Whitney Humanities Center on August 6 and 7. Preconference workshops will be held on August 5. CONTENTdm is a single software solution that handles the storage, management, and delivery of library digital collections. CONTENTdm provides the interface for the Library's Yale Daily News Historical Archive. For more information, visit the conference's web site.

"The Utopian Impulse: Constructing the Ideal in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America"

Wednesday, July 22, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

Please join us for a lecture given by the curator, Mia Reinoso Genoni, Mellon Special Collections Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow. A reception will follow in the Memorabilia Room.

The lecture complements The Utopian Impulse, an exhibition on view in the Sterling Memorial Library Memorabilia Room until August 21, 2009. The utopian impulse is the desire to imagine or create a perfect society. Focusing on examples from the 15th through 18th centuries, this exhibition examines the many ways that Early Modern Europeans at home and abroad expressed the utopian impulse, seeking to fashion and explore new or "discovered" ideal societies, paradises lost and found, and perfect, harmonious built environments. Objects on view include architectural treatises and plans, utopian tracts, travel narratives, and maps of real and imagined places.

The Utopian Impulse is a collaboration across the collections of the Yale University Libraries, featuring works from the Anne T. & Robert M. Bass Library, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Manuscripts and Archives, the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, the Sterling Memorial Library general collections, and the Yale Map Department. The exhibition was generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Grove Street Cemetery: City of the Dead, City of the Living
Wednesday, June 24, 2:45 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
(Part of the 2009 Festival of Arts & Ideas)

Karyl Evans, director and producer, will talk at a screening of her documentary Grove Street Cemetery: City of the Dead, City of the Living, on June 24 at 2:45 p.m. in the Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, following a walking tour of the Grove Street Cemetery. The recipient of five Emmy Awards, Ms. Evans will be introduced by Judith Schiff, Chief Research Archivist, Yale University Library, the project historian and a commentator in the documentary. Metadata and Emerging Technologies Librarian Daniel Lovins, Grove Street Cemetery Docent and commentator in the documentary, will also participate in the program. The thirty minute film that captures the history and beauty of this National Historical Landmark in all four seasons recently received two Emmy nominations.

The Grove Street Cemetery walking tour will start at 1:30 p.m. at the cemetery’s main gate. It will last approximately one hour.

Day Associates Lecture
Friday, July 3, 5:00 p.m.
Niebuhr Hall, Yale Divinity School, 409 Prospect Street

Brian Stanley, Director, Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, will deliver "From the ’Poor Heathen’ to ‘the Glory and Honour of all Nations’: Vocabularies of Race and Custom in Protestant Missions, 1844-1928."

“The Utopian Impulse”: Exhibition Lecture and Gallery Talk
Wednesday, July 22, 3:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
(Part of the 2009 Festival of Arts & Ideas)

The “utopian impulse” is the desire to imagine or create a perfect society. Focusing on examples from the 15th through 18th centuries, this exhibition in the Sterling Memorial Library's Memorabilia Room examines the many ways that Early Modern Europeans at home and abroad expressed the utopian impulse, seeking to fashion and explore new or "discovered" ideal societies, paradises lost and found, and perfect, harmonious built environments. Objects on view include architectural treatises and plans, utopian tracts, travel narratives, and maps of real and imagined places.

"The Utopian Impulse" is a collaboration across the collections of the Yale University Library, featuring works from the Anne T. & Robert M. Bass Library, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Manuscripts and Archives, the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, the Sterling Memorial Library general collections, and the Yale Map Department . The exhibition was generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and curated by Mia Reinoso Genoni, Mellon Special Collections Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow. It will run until August 21, 2009.

After the lecture on July 22 there will be an opportunity to visit the exhibition with the curator.

There is also a short tour being offered as part of the Festival of Arts & Ideas on June 23. Space is limited; please contact the festival at (203) 498-1212 to make a reservation. The tour will meet at the Yale Visitors Center, 149 Elm Street, at 1:30 p.m., and then proceed to the exhibition.

All events are free and open to the public.
For more information, e-mail: atYUL@yale.edu.

Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, will present the 16th Lewis Walpole Library Lecture on Friday, May 8 at 5:30 p.m. Professor Hunt will speak on "Visualizing Religious Difference: Picart's Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World (1723-1737)."

The lecture is free and open to the public and will be held in the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street. Please note that seating is limited. A reception will follow in the Library Court.

The Lewis Walpole Library is a research library for eighteenth-century studies and the prime source for the study of Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. Its collections include significant holdings of eighteenth-century British books, manuscripts, prints, drawings and paintings, as well as important examples of the decorative arts. Housed in an historic frame house in Farmington and given to Yale by Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis and Annie Burr Lewis, the Lewis Walpole Library is a department of Yale University Library, open to researchers by appointment.

Jewish Marriage Contracts as Documents of Acculturation
Vivian B. Mann
Director of the Master's Program in Jewish Art, Jewish Theological Seminary
& Curator Emerita of the Jewish Museum of New York

April 28, 2009, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street

For more information, contact Nanette Stahl.

Co-sponsored by the Program in Judaic Studies.

Michael Donoghue, G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, will present the keynote address, “Charles Darwin, the Tree of Life, and the Future of Biodiversity,” for the 61st annual Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Associates Lecture on April 15.

The lecture in the Medical Historical Library of Yale School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street will begin at 4:00 p.m. A reception will follow in the Beaumont Room. The event is free and open to the public.

Yale is marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of his publication of The Origin of Species with campus-wide programs and events. In this lecture, focusing on Darwin’s early theories of evolution and the first evolutionary “tree,” Donoghue will bring perspectives on evolutionary biology up-to-date.

Donoghue’s own work focuses on plant diversity and evolution, particularly the origin and early evolution of flowering plants. Research in his laboratory concentrates on understanding the Tree of Life and the phylogeny — or development of a species over time — of plants. He has also been a leader in the national and international movement to reconstruct the entire Tree of Life.

Donoghue, who assumed the newly created position of Vice President for West Campus Planning and Program Development last year, joined the Yale faculty in 2000. He served as chair of Yale’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 2001-2002 and as director of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History from 2003-2008. Since earning his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard, he has published over 180 scientific papers, co-authored a textbook on plant diversity, and co-edited the book Assembling the Tree of Life.

Additionally, on display at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library through April 17, a rare book exhibit surveys the scientific history of evolution by natural selection from seventeenth century natural theology to the integration of natural selection and Mendelian genetics in the “modern synthesis” of the 1940s. The exhibit is free and open to the public in the Medical Library Rotunda, at 333 Cedar Street.

Other campus-wide celebrations and events are listed on the Yale Celebrates Darwin website http://opa.yale.edu/sp/darwin/ .

Jennifer Finney Boylan
Author of She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders and I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted
Professor of Creative Writing and American Literature, Colby College

Thursday, April 16, 2009, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

To celebrate Yale Pride, the University Library is pleased to present a reading by Jennifer Finney Boylan on April 16, at 4:00 p.m. in the Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall. Boylan's 2003 memoir, She's Not There, was one of the first bestselling works by a transgendered American; until 2001 she published under the name James Boylan. She's Not There, currently in its eighth printing, is popular both as a textbook in high schools and colleges, as well as with reading groups. She's Not There won an award from the Lambda Literary Foundation in 2004, the year after its initial publication. Anna Quindlen called it “a very funny memoir of growing up confused, and a very smart consideration of what it means to be a woman.”

Her 2008 memoir, I'm Looking Through You, is about growing up in a haunted house. While transgender issues form part of the exposition of the book, the primary focus of I'm Looking Through You is what it means to be "haunted," and how we all seek to find peace with our various ghosts, both the supernatural and the all-too-human.

Since 1988, Boylan has been Professor of Creative Writing and American Literature at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

For more information on Jennifer Boylan, visit her web site: http://jenniferboylan.net. The full Yale Pride schedule is available here.

The Finger: A Handbook
Angus Trumble
Thursday, March 26, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free & open to the public

In this illustrated lecture Angus Trumble provides a sort of tour d’horizon of the digit, not only in art but in general. His project also seeks to permit the finger to gesture with some precision toward some curious aspects of us. This, at least, has been his rule of thumb.

Angus Trumble is Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art. He is the author of a number of books, including A Brief History of the Smile. He is currently finishing off The Finger: A Handbook, which will be published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) will be speaking in Yale's Sterling Memorial Library lecture hall (128 Wall Street) from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 23 on "Collections and Convergence: Libraries, Archives, and Museums Supporting Scholarship in the Digital World."

Dr. Lynch is a leading figure in the world of digital libraries and collections. He is a wonderfully lucid and visionary presenter on topics connected with digital scholarship. For more information, and a link to Clifford Lynch's presentations and publications, please see: http://www.cni.org/staff/clifford_index.html.

Kenny Crews
Director of the Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University
Thursday, March 5, 3:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

Kenny Crews will speak about his 2008 landmark study for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in which he compares fair use and other copyright limitations/exceptions across some 150 countries. Professor Crews gave a fascinating sneak preview of the findings of this study at the IFLA Congess last August in Quebec. He will also provide recent updates related to this work. If you think WIPO is just another of the many indistinguishable acronyms in today's information and rights-world, this talk will be important in describing the organization's critical influence in global copyright arena -- and why librarians and academics want to be informed about it.

Kenny Crews has a distinguished career in copyright and fair use issues. Until his appointment at Columbia in January 2009, he was a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis and the IU School of Library and Information Science. Crews has been a faculty member of the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center since its founding in 2003. He previously practiced business and entertainment law in Los Angeles and has taught and published widely on copyright, constitutional law, political history, and library science. His work has won wide acclaim, and he has been active in projects and initiatives on copyright law in the United States and around the world. You can read more about his work at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/news/libraries/2007/2007-07-03.crews.html.

Co-hosted by the Yale University Library and the Yale Law School's Information Society Project.

African American Heritage Cooking in the Post Soul Food World
Frank Mitchell
Consulting Historian and Curator, Amistad Center for Art & Culture
and the Wadsworth Atheneum

Monday, February 23, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall St.
Free and open to the public | Reception to follow

With George Tillman's 1997 film Soul Food the conversation around the standards of African American Heritage Cooking moved from a political and cultural discussion into a public health debate. In Tillman's drama three sisters in Chicago try to maintain the family's Sunday dinner tradition as their mother dies of diabetes, presumably related to soul food cooking. Soul food is again as controversial—now for health reasons— as it was forty years ago when cultural nationalist poet Amiri Baraka coined the phrase. African American Heritage Cuisine remains a beloved culinary tradition continuing to evolve in daily practice. It is also a fascinating historical symbol whose relevance is changing as a result of the whole foods revolution, popular culture, shopping habits, and neighborhood demographics. African American Food Culture, a volume in the Greenwood Press Food Culture in America series, presents the history and culture of African American Heritage Cooking along with examples of daily practice and the food's healthy potential. Though some storied neighborhood restaurants have closed and the food is critiqued in public health literature, African American Heritage Cooking is alive and adapting to current priorities of the food world.

This is the third and final lecture in the series marking Black History Month at Yale University Library. Join us afterwards for a reception catered by Mama Mary's Soul Food.

Generously co-sponsored by the Office of New Haven and State Affairs and the Yale University Library Diversity Council.

The Nazis and Dixie: African Americans and Germany in the 1930s
Glenda Gilmore
Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University

Wednesday, February 18, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public - Reception to follow

Traditional historical wisdom holds that the United States remained unaware of the extent of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews and of the danger that it posed for liberty around the world. However, African Americans tracked the Nazi persecution throughout the 1930s and realized what was at stake. Germany’s treatment of the Jews was front page news in every black-owned newspaper from 1933 onward. African Americans compared it to their oppression by Southern whites, and they forged an alliance with American Jews to create a language of tolerance and democracy in the face of the Nazi example.

This is the second in a series of lectures organized by the Library to mark Black History Month. The third and final lecture by Frank Mitchell ("African American Heritage Cooking in the Post Soul Food World") will take place in the SML lecture hall on February 23 at 4:00 p.m.

Exhibition Tour: Arabic Cinema Posters

Tuesday, February 24, 12:15 p.m.

Near Eastern Curator Simon Samoeil will give a tour of "Arabic Cinema Posters," an exhibition on display in the Memorabilia Room in Sterling Memorial Library. The first Arabic film was produced in Egypt in 1923 and the Arab world boasts an active and prodigious film industry. Advertising films produced in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, the colorful and engaging posters offer unique insights on cinematic and social history in the Arab world.

Space is limited. To reserve a spot on the tour, write to: atYUL@yale.edu.

Film Screening: Adrift on the Nile (1971, 115 minutes, Arabic with subtitles)

Thursday, February 26, 2:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall
Free and open to the public

In Adrift on the Nile we meet a group of hedonistic middle-aged friends who gather each night on a luxurious houseboat for dancing, love-making, and smoking hashish. When a young reporter visits the houseboat to write a story on the group, she is outraged to learn the tragic depths of their social alienation.

Based on the novel by the Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz, this 1971 production offers a revealing look at the Egyptian elite on the eve of the 1967 War. By this time, Nasser had ushered in an age of enormous social change, leaving the sons and daughters of the old bourgeoisie high and dry.

Directed by Hussein Kamal, Adrift on the Nile features the atmospheric cinematography of Mostapha Emam and a delightful musical number.

(Please note that the film is two hours long. University employees should secure their supervisor’s permission to attend the screening. Arrangements to cover time may also be necessary.)

Yale University Library is pleased to present three engaging speakers in celebration of Black History Month.

‘Adam is come’: The Life and Work of an Eighteenth-Century Connecticut Slave
Allegra di Bonaventura
Mellon Special Collections Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University
Tuesday, February 10, 4:00 p.m.

The Nazis and Dixie: African Americans and Germany in the 1930s
Glenda Gilmore
Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University
Wednesday, February 18, 4:00 p.m.

African American Food Culture
Frank Mitchell
Consulting Historian and Curator, Amistad Center for Art & Culture and the Wadsworth Atheneum
Monday, February 23, 4:00 p.m.

All lectures are free and open to the public and will take place in the Sterling Memorial Library lecture hall, 128 Wall Street.

Information: (203) 432-8061 | atYUL@yale.edu

February 2, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall
128 Wall Street
Free & open to the public

The Library's copyright lecture series continues with Sheree Carter-Galvan, Copyright Counsel at Yale University. Carter-Galvan speak on what it's like to be a copyright attorney at a major university. Her talk will offer insights into life in the Office of General Counsel, where she deals with numerous campus rights issues, not just those affecting the University Library.

Over the course of the semester, the Library will host two more speakers:

Kenny Crews, Director of the Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University, will speak on March 5 at 3:00 p.m. about his recently completed landmark study for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in which he compares fair use and other copyright exceptions across some 150 countries. Professor Crews gave a fascinating sneak preview of the findings of this study at the IFLA Congess this past August in Quebec City.

On April 29 at 3:00 p.m., Bill Carney, OCLC Content Manager, will make a presentation about OCLC's copyright registry evidence project, particularly aimed at addressing the so-called "Orphan Works" problem. An Orphan Work is defined as "a copyrighted work where it is difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder." Orphan works are the bane of many of current library digitzing projects and the OCLC initiative should, over time, provide a way forward.

The lecture series is co-sponsored by the Yale Law School's Information Society Project.

Elizabeth Abbott
Research Associate in the Arts
Trinity College, University of Toronto

Thursday, January 15, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

Elizabeth Abbott, author of Sugar: A Bittersweet History (Penguin, 2008 and just shortlisted for the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction), will discuss how sugar and its seductive sweetness and energy changed the face of the New World during the early decades of colonization, uprooting millions of Africans to produce it and creating the world’s most brutal version of slavery, later exported to the American Colonies. At the same time, European and later North American dependence on sugar grew steadily as it ceased to be a culinary extravagance and was deemed a necessity by European leaders from Napoleon to Hitler. Sugarcane production is now known to be an environmental catastrophe that has caused greater loss of biodiversity on the planet than any other single crop. Today’s sugar industry lobby is also a powerful political force that strongly influences consumer behavior and food guides like the World Health Organization’s Food Guide.

Elizabeth Abbott is a writer and historian with a doctorate from McGill University. She is Research Associate in the Arts at Trinity College, University of Toronto and was the College’s Dean of Women from 1991 to 2004. She is the author of several books, including A History of Celibacy, which have been translated into sixteen languages.

James Neal
Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University
"Copyright Still Matters: Preparing the Academy for the Attack on Balance and Fair Use"
Tuesday, December 2, 3:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

This presentation will highlight key legislative and legal developments related to copyright of concern to the research university community, and will call for understanding, commitment and action for the advancement of academic interests. Mr. Neal will also speak about the Section 108 study, which focused on updating proposals for the new digital environment. The talk will be a fascinating insight into the workings of such a group and the various positions and tensions experienced therein. In turn, these lead to inconclusive and sometimes vexed outcomes.

James Neal has been involved over the past twenty years in a variety of initiatives at the national and global levels in the areas of copyright and scholarly communication. He participated in the recently concluded Section 108 (of the US Copyright Act) expert study. Section 108 addresses exceptions to copyright law, in particular how libraries and archives deal with copyrighted materials in fulfilling their scholarly missions.

Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings Staff Concert
Wednesday, December 3, 12:00 noon
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

Staff from the Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings and the Gilmore Music Library, along with a guest performer from the Neighborhood Music School, will present a lunchtime concert in the Sterling Memorial Library lecture hall at 12 noon on Wednesday, December 3. The performance is free and open to all and will feature works by Debussy, Vaughan Williams, Schubert, Charles Ives, and Cole Porter.

The Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings collects, preserves, and makes available recordings of performers important in the fields of Western classical music, jazz, American musical theater, drama, literature, and history, including oratory.

Dale Martin
Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University
Thursday, December 4, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

Dale Martin specializes in New Testament and Christian origins, including attention to social and cultural history of the Greco-Roman world. Before joining the Yale faculty in 1999, he taught at Rhodes College and Duke University. His books include: Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity; The Corinthian Body; Inventing Superstition: from the Hippocratics to the Christians; Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation; and Pedagogy of the Bible: an Analysis and Proposal.

Professor Martin will speak about his recent book Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation, including explaining his own movement from a childhood in fundamentalist Christianity to his current position as a spokesperson for something approaching a "postmodern Christianity."

Charles Cronin
Information Society Project, Yale Law School

Monday, November 17, 3:00 p.m. [Not 4:00 p.m. as earlier advertised]
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public

Copyright protects expressive works of intellectual endeavor: literature, music, films, perfume... Perfume?? "Yes," said the Netherlands Supreme Court in a recent decision; "Yes" and "No" have said various French courts grappling with the same question over the past twenty-five years. This presentation considers whether copyright should be extended to such products of human ingenuity, and the role of human perception in determinations of copyright eligibility. We will experiment with a number of fragrances, and all who attend should leave in an "odour of sanctity" (or at least that of Chanel).

This is the first lecture in a new series devoted to copyright and intellectual property being sponsored by the University Library and the Information Society Project. Future speakers include:

James Neal
Vice President for Information Services & University Librarian, Columbia University
December 2, 3:00 p.m.

Sheree Carter-Galvan
Copyright Counsel, Yale University
February 2, 2009, 3:00 p.m.

Kenny Crews
Director of the Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University
March 5, 2009, 3:00 p.m.

All lectures are free and open to the public and will take place in the Sterling Memorial Library lecture hall, 128 Wall Street. For more information, contact Geoffrey Little.

Frank Prochaska
Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar
Department of History, Yale University

Tuesday, November 11, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Free and open to the public | Reception to follow

Having witnessed a watershed moment in America's history, join us on November 11 for a look back at the early history of the presidency. Frank Prochaska, author of The Eagle and the Crown: Americans and the British Monarchy (Yale University Press, 2008) will discuss his new book and will argue that America’s Founding Fathers created what Teddy Roosevelt later called an “elective king” in the office of the president, conferring quasi-regal status on the occupant of the Oval Office and his successors.

Frank Prochaska has taught, researched, and published British history for more than thirty years. He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 1972 and has taught in various American and British Universities, including Northwestern; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; St. Hugh's College, Oxford; University College London; Royal Holloway College, London University; and Yale in London. He has been a Research Fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine and a Visiting Fellow at All Soul's College, Oxford. He is currently an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research in London, an Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway College, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

The lecture is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception.

Ben Kiernan
A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History & Director, Genocide Studies Program
Yale University

Wednesday, October 29, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Reception to follow | Free and open to the public

For thirty years Ben Kiernan has been deeply involved in the study of genocide and crimes against humanity. He has played a key role in unearthing confidential documentation of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge and his writings have transformed our understanding not only of twentieth-century Cambodia, but also of the historical phenomenon of genocide.

Kiernan examines outbreaks of mass violence from the classical era to the present, focusing on worldwide colonial exterminations and twentieth-century case studies including the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalin’s mass murders, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides. He identifies connections, patterns, and features that in nearly every case gave early warning of the catastrophe to come: racism or religious prejudice, territorial expansionism, and cults of antiquity and agrarianism.

The Library's annual fall Open House is this Saturday, October 25 from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Sterling Memorial Library. The event coincides with Parents' Weekend and Yale parents and members public are warmly invited to take advantage of tours, displays of special collections, and other fun events. A full schedule follows below. For more information, contact Tam Rankin.

10:30–11:15 a.m.: Tour of the library's stained glass with Judy Schiff. Please meet opposite the Circulation Desk near the guard station.

10:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.: Manuscripts and Archives Open House.

11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m.: Bass Library tour with Danuta Nitecki. Please meet in the Thain Family Café.

12:30–2:30 p.m.: Tours of the Sterling Memorial Library's public areas. A new tour leaves every 30 minutes; the first begins at 12:30 p.m. and the last at 2:30 p.m. Tours take approximately 40 minutes. Please meet opposite the Circulation Desk near the guard station.

The Library's Preservation Department will also have an information table in the Sterling nave and Yale University Library merchandise will be on sale. Start your Christmas shopping early!

Yale University Library and Oxford University Press will mark the 80th anniversary of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) with a symposium featuring four “word-renowned” experts on October 1.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Sterling-Sheffield-Strathcona lecture hall, 1 Prospect Street. The speakers are Fred Shapiro, Associate Librarian at the Yale Law School and editor of The Yale Book of Quotations; Simon Winchester, author of The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary and The Professor and the Madman; Jesse Sheidlower, the OED’s editor-at-large; and Ammon Shea, author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages.

The Collaborative Learning Center is offering a weekly program called Teaching w/ Technology Tuesdays. This program is for those teaching at Yale (staff, faculty, and students) interested in innovative instructional activities that utilize technology.

September 16: Facebook

Facebook is an online social networking website that was launched in 2004. The New Media Consortium’s 2008 Horizon Report designated Social Operating Systems, like Facebook, one of the 6 emerging technologies of 2008 likely to be widely implemented in educational contexts in the next 4-5 years. This session will orient you to the Facebook topography and showcase how it is being used by faculty and library instructors. Please come to our fall inaugural Teaching w/ Technology Tuesday, if you have ever wondered what all the fuss is about Facebook, or how it might be used for instruction.

When? Tuesday from 1:00 - 2:00pm

Where? Bass Library room L01 (lower level of the Bass Library)

Who? Robin Ladouceur, Instructional Design Specialist, will introduce Facebook. Michael Farina of the Italian Department and Geoffrey Little, Communications Coordinator in the Library, will demonstrate how they use Facebook for instructional purposes.

Fall 2008 Schedule

September
16 Facebook
23 Geospatial Data Collection
30 Ynote (collaborative research database tool)

October
07 Wikis
14 Teaching w/ Digital Images
21 Viddler
28 Student Created Video

November
04 Tablets
11 What's on the Horizon - Bryan Alexander, NITLE
25 RSS and Alerts

For more information visit http://clc.yale.edu or e-mailclc@yale.edu.

Yale University Library is pleased to announce its program of lectures, exhibitions, and public events for the 2008-09 academic year. Detailed information and updates/changes to the schedule will be available on the Library's web site: www.library.yale.edu/librarynews.

Yale alumni, spouses, friends, family, and guests are warmly invited to Reunion Weekend events at Sterling Memorial Library on June 6 and 7. June 7 coincides with the Library's Open House Day and all are welcome. Detailed information and a schedule of tours and events can be found in the "read more" section of this entry.