| November 2002 |
HAVERFORD COLLEGE |
No. 30 |
Table of Contents
From the Librarian
by Bob Kieft
The College and
its alumni find many ways to stay in touch-official Alumni Weekends,
regional events, seats on the Board of Managers, and publications,
together with such less systematic means as correspondence between
professors and former students, class email lists, athletic events,
interviews with prospective students, and occasional visits to
campus while on business or vacation. The Library, in collaboration
with the Office of External Relations, among whose responsibilities
is the care and feeding of alums, and the nascent Humanities Center,
are hoping in 2002 to find a new mode for this relationship between
alumni and Alma Mater through a lectures series that will bring
to campus young alumni who have chosen an academic career.
Liberal arts colleges contribute disproportionately
to the ranks of the professorate in terms of their share of the
undergraduate student population. While Haverford academic departments
bring dozens of lecturers to campus each year, many of them are
mid- or later career, and, with the possible exception of the
sciences, not many are alums. Both to celebrate the near-term
accomplishments of more recent graduates and to afford current
students the opportunity to meet fellow 'Fords who have recently
made an academic career decision, we thought it appropriate to
give "lectures by young academic alumni" a try.
Based on recommendations from faculty, the series
will bring three or four speakers to campus per year. To qualify,
the alum should be in the late stage of writing their dissertation,
in a postdoctoral position, or in their first three years of an
academic appointment. The campus visit includes a lecture based
on a current research project, a lunch opportunity to meet with
students from relevant departments, and a dinner with faculty.
Gwendolyn (Wendy) Alker '92 prototyped the program
in the spring of 2002 when she was on campus doing dissertation
research under a Gest Fellowship in the Library's special collections.
Her lecture, entitled "Quaker Silence and Performing Postmodernity,"
grew
from research for her dissertation, "Silent Subjectivities:
The Performance of Silence in Theatre, Ritual, and
Sound," for the Department of Performance Studies in NYU's
Tisch School of the Arts. Gwen expects to receive her degree in
2002.
The fall of 2002 brings to campus two members of
the Class of 1989, Jonathan Burton and Leon Sachs, both of them
English majors. Jonathan, who completed his PhD in 1999 at City
University of New York, is now in his third year of teaching at
West Virginia University; Leon received his PhD in French at Yale
in 2002 and is in his first year of teaching at Davidson College.
We hope you are able to take advantage of the opportunity to attend
their lectures, Jonathan's on Wednesday, October 2, and Leon's
on Monday, November 18, both lectures at 4:30 PM in the Philips
Wing of Magill Library.
-Bob Kieft is Librarian of the College
Funds for Feminae
by Margaret Schaus
Haverford College Library has
received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index. The $20, 500 grant will
fund indexing of journal articles and essays from 1990 through
1992 for inclusion in the Feminae online database as well as a
new feature in the database, links to full-text articles. Feminae
strives to serve as a reliable guide to recent scholarship in
a fast developing field, providing timely coverage, a wide range
of publications indexed, and a thorough description of each item.
With over 6500 items now indexed from 1994 to the present, users
most often request online full-text access and coverage of earlier
years of publications.
Feminae is a Web project supported jointly by the
libraries at Haverford College and the University of Iowa. Librarians
and scholars across the country contribute their time as indexers
and advisors. Since 1996 Haverford history majors have provided
able assistance, entering data, keeping records, and going on
forays to gather material at the libraries of Bryn Mawr, the University
of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University. Grant money will now
fund an additional Haverford student worker as well as two graduate
student indexers from the University of Pennsylvania. The editor
and advisors hope to add material published from 1975 through
1989 to the database, as future funding permits.
Feminae is available on the Web
at http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/mfi.html
-Margaret Schaus is Reference Librarian and Bibliographer,
and editor of Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index
Collection Building: Music, Film,
and Narrative
by John Anderies
This past year I began collecting
in the field of Film Music in support of a new course being offered
at Haverford this fall, Music, Film and Narrative, taught by Professor
Richard Freedman. While occasionally including small film and
music projects in several of the courses he has taught at Haverford,
Freedman developed this new course through the assistance of a
New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation. The course
is an introduction to the study of music and film, and aims to
address the "orchestration, harmony and thematic process
[of film music] as they contribute to cinematic narrative and
form." It focuses on works from the 1930s through the 1950s,
including such composers as Auric, Copland, Eisler, Herrmann,
Korngold, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Steiner, Tiomkin, and Waxman.
While our Music Library has several strengths for
a library of its size, film music certainly wasn't one of them.
We collect most strongly in the fields of Western art music, jazz
and Native American music. Collecting in the field of film music
would be a challenging but rewarding prospect.
First, there are all the formats. When our students
study film music, they not only will want to listen to the music
on sound recordings and read it in the form of musical scores,
but they must also see the films themselves. In addition, there
is a rich repertoire of writings on the subject, including analyses,
discussions, histories, plot synopses, and so on. Recent additions
to our collection have included such items as the video of the
film classic Hangmen Also Die (music by Hanns Eisler), the soundtrack
to Frankenstein (music by Hans Salter), and the full orchestral
score of Sergei Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible. Books we've purchased
on the subject include Thomas Hischak's Film It with Music: An
Encyclopedic Guide to the American Movie Musical and Salman Rushdie's
interpretation of The Wizard of Oz from BFI Film Classics.
Another exciting aspect of collecting for film music
is the chance to learn about an up-and-coming area in the field
of musicology. A new professional journal devoted to the subject
sprang up this year (The Journal of Film Music) and last year's
American Musicological Society's annual meeting featured numerous
papers on film music topics. The field is fresh and exciting.So
far we've developed a pretty good basic collection here at Haverford
(and Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore's strong film collections have provided
us with some great resources too). I think I've done a pretty
good job of balancing the desire for a well-rounded collection
with the need to stretch our funds as far as possible. Still,
there are more items that we'd dearly love to have. Musical scores
to the films, if available at all, are often out of print (for
instance, Aaron Copland's score to The Heiress), and we'll have
to turn to the rare and used book market if we hope to obtain
them. Out of print as well are videos of some important films:
for instance, Specter of the Rose (music by George Antheil) and
Kuhle Wampe (music by Hanns Eisler). We'd even be interested in
collecting LPs of film scores from the 30s to the 50s (though
we have stopped collecting LPs in most other genres). Most primary
sources-for instance, a given composer's original film scores
and parts-belong in specialized archives, but it would be great
to have a handful of examples that show "the composer at
work." And finally we'd like to go beyond the scope of Freedman's
present course and start collecting in the areas of both silent
and contemporary film music. The collecting opportunities are
tremendous.
-John Anderies is Music Librarian
The Gilbert F. White Science Library: Open for Business
by Julie Miran
On Monday, September 2nd, the
Gilbert Fowler White Science Library <http://www.haverford.edu/library/science/>
opened its doors to the public. Located in the Koshland Science
Center, the new Library brings together the collections and resources
that support the Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics
and Physics Departments that were once a part of the Stokes and
Sharpless Libraries.
The Library underwent many transformations during
the building process before reaching its final configuration.
The two-storied building consists of compact shelving for the
bound periodicals and standard shelving for all of the monographs.
The current periodicals are displayed in a reading room area that
is on the main floor. Five new PC's contain software that mirrors
those installed on the public machines throughout the labs in
the building. The Library has over 60-networked seats available
to the public and will have wireless networking in place by the
end of September.
The new space beautifully blends the high tech and
classic features of a library space. The presence and use of online
journals has allowed us to cancel many reels of microfilm, and
the space allocated for those resources has been transformed into
a Gilbert Fowler White Science Library networked seminar room
for class meetings, Library meetings, or Library instruction.
In the evening it functions as additional group study space for
students, complimenting the two existing ones. Chairs, tables
and carrels made by Thomas Moser Cabinetmakers allow for all types
of studying from the individual thesis writer to two people scanning
journals for a poster presentation to an entire class in a large
study room working on a problem set.
The move truly reflected the collaborative spirit
of the College and its staff. First, guided by the direction of
Michael Freeman and Wendy Wasman, the new Library is in place
mainly because of the great efforts of the College staff, the
Library staff, and the faculty of the science departments. Working
over the last two years, faculty have been actively engaged in
identifying resources that are vital to their teaching and research
while also finding those that no longer fit their needs. These
kinds of conversations provide the direction for the continued
development of these collections. Virtually every member of the
almost 30-person staff at the Library has provided support to
ensure that the collection was ready on opening day. Hats off
as well to ACC and Physical Plant as we couldn't have opened without
them.
Stop by and see the new space. We look forward to
helping you use it.
-Julie Miran is Science Librarian
One Thousand Children, Inc.
by Laura Gumpert
In 1941 and 1942, the American
Friends Service Committee (AFSC) rescued three hundred German
and Austrian Jewish children from war-torn France, saving them
from certain death in the Holocaust. These children were among
the one thousand unaccompanied children who came to the U.S. from
Europe between 1933 and 1945. On June 30, 2002, I traveled to
Chicago, where many of these AFSC children held a first-ever reunion.
Magill Library provided funds from the Michael Freeman Memorial
that enabled me to attend the conference. One Thousand Children,
Inc., an organization dedicated to making this virtually unknown
aspect of the Holocaust part of American history, organized the
conference.
During the conference, I presented research from my history thesis
dealing with the AFSC's behind-the-scenes efforts to rescue the
three hundred children. The unaccompanied children, now in their
sixties and seventies, spent three days attending panel presentations
ranging from the work of rescue organization to the experiences
of the children adjusting to life in the U.S. with foster families.
In some cases, adults who were too young in 1941 to recall their
trips to the U.S. and learned details of their escapes from Europe
during the conference. In other cases, individuals who had last
seen each other as their ship docked in New York were reunited
in Chicago for the first time in over sixty years.
The three-day conference was a moving experience for everyone
involved, not just the survivors. Many second- and third-generation
family members spoke about their own memories that often included
childhoods filled with silence about the past. The reunion was
the first time many children and grandchildren heard the details
of the escapes.
I attended the conference as both a presenter and participant.
In addition to presenting my own work, I had the chance to hear
my grandmother's story of coming to the U.S. in 1938 alone as
a sixteen-year-old. She talked about her experiences living with
various foster families as she went through high school and the
uncertainties she faced as her mother, father, and sister tried
to escape Nazi Germany. It was the first time I heard many details
of the story, and the loneliness, fear, and sadness that she spoke
of during those years made me better understand and appreciate
the sense of perseverance that characterizes my grandmother so
well.
The One Thousand Children conference drew attention
to a largely unknown part of U.S. history and Holocaust studies
while reuniting individuals with each other and their past. It
came at a time when survivors are growing older and travel to
such gatherings is becoming more difficult. It also created a
forum for Holocaust survivors who have largely remained silent
about their past to finally gather together and share memories
with each other and their families.
-Laura Gumpert is a 2002 graduate of Haverford
College
Michael Freeman History Prize
Awards
by Bob Kieft
As it has for the last few years, the Library this
year awarded two prizes to History Department majors in memory
of Michael Freeman, former Librarian of the College. This year
the faculty of the History Department awarded the Michael Freeman
Senior Research Prize to Ari Worthman '02 for archival work he
did on his thesis, "Murder Trial of a Sex Psychopath: The
Construction of Homosexuality in Mid-Twentieth-Century America."
Arunabh Ghosh '03 was awarded the Michael Freeman Prize for Outstanding
Work in History 361, the History Department's junior seminar.
The Library extends it warmest congratulations to Arunabh and
Ari on their fine work.
Each student in History 361 does two exercises,
one studying an artifact and the other editing a document from
the Library's manuscript collections. Arunabh's artifact was a
cheek block (a pulley mechanism used to change the direction of
line on a sailing vessel) dating from the mid-Twentieth Century
in the Great Lakes region. His manuscript was a letter written
by a British military engineer to another engineer in 1856; the
letter's primary concern was a proposal for a new and better system
of weights and measures for Britain.
Ari's thesis traces the popular and psychiatric
assumptions about homosexuality that informed the murder trial
of Seymour Levin, a seventeen-year-old native Philadelphian who
in 1949 was accused of raping and murdering twelve-year-old Ellis
Simons. Ari's microhistorical approach to studying the history
of sexuality provides a glimpse of the ways in which medical experts
and laypeople during the mid-Twentieth Century linked notions
of homosexuality and violence. His study draws heavily upon 200
pages of trial transcripts now in the Philadelphia City Archives
and a microfilm archive of the Inquirer and Daily News housed
at the Free Library. The newspapers were invaluable in this case
because they contain segments of the lawyers' closing arguments
and the complete psychiatric evaluation of the defendant, the
former of which do not appear in the court records and the latter
of which is not publicly accessible according to current Pennsylvania
law.
Michael Freeman was the Librarian of the College
from 1986 to 1999 and was a historian as well as librarian. Many
friends, staff and faculty, family and College community members
contributed to a fund in his memory, which the Library, with the
concurrence of his family, is using in part to honor history students
whose work demonstrates particularly effective research and use
of archival materials.
-Bob Kieft is Librarian of the College
Honey, I Ruined the Document
by Rob Haley
So many things can happen to documents these days
to render them unreadable or inaccessible: coffee spills, cigarette
burns, pages blown away by gusty winds. All of those have happened
to documents I have been reading. I have also left important articles
at home , in another city, or another country when I needed them
at work.
(You might wonder, after reading this, what I'm
doing in a job that involves document delivery. That's a story
in itself. Stop by the ILL Office and I'll give you the short
version.)
Things have changed for the better in the world
of document delivery. These days, if you request an article though
Interlibrary Loan, you don't get paper. You get a URL that connects
you to a pdf file (pdf stands for "Portable Document Format"*).
You can print it out. You can read it online. You have a choice.
My job is to make sure the document gets to you
in a readable format. The only requirement on your side, other
than access to a computer and the Internet, is that the computer
has Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If it isn't installed, that's
easy to remedy. It's a free download
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
When you request an article through Interlibrary
Loan, I try to find a library that not only carries the relevant
article, but can send the document to us through a high quality
scanning network called ARIEL. The lending library scans the article
and sends it via ARIEL to Haverford. I then forward the article
to our document delivery server, http://tricolib.haverford.edu/ariel,
and send you a message (which is, unfortunately, pre-written and
impersonal). The message contains instructions on retrieving your
document through use of a Personal Identification Number. You
follow the link to your document. Again, you can read it online
or you can print it out.
I hope you are as encouraged by this new development
as I am. The most encouraging aspect of this is how quickly you
receive the article after it gets to Interlibrary Loan. It saves
time and, possibly, paper. I look forward to your requests.
-Rob Haley is InterLibrary Loan Specialist
Library Open House Winners
by Margaret Schaus
This year's Open House for freshmen featured contests
along with information booths, webpage demos, refreshments, and
giveaways. Congratulations to the eight winners drawn at random
from the questionnaires "What Five Books Should Every Frosh
Read?" They will be shopping in the College bookstore for
the Library Browsing Collection. Congratulations also to the three
students who came closest to guessing the number of items checked
out of Haverford's libraries last year (64,450). Three more winners
came closest to guessing the number of sheets of paper (690,112)
used by the public printers in Magill Library last year.
-Margaret Schaus is Reference Librarian and Bibliographer
Staff News and Announcements
by Mike Persick
John Anderies, Music Librarian,
attended the 2002 annual conference of the International Association
of Music Libraries, Archives, and Document Centers (IAML), at
the University of California, Berkeley, August 4-9. The current
president of the Association is John Roberts, HC '63, Head Music
Librarian at UC Berkeley.
Linda Bills, Tri-College Consortium Special
Projects Librarian, and Norm Medeiros, Coordinator for
Bibliographic and Digital Services, are contributing authors to
"The virtual approval shelf: a look towards the future?,"
an article appearing in the June 2002 issue of Against the Grain.
The paper, written with colleagues from Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore
Colleges, considers the viability of utilizing electronic surrogates
for books during the collection development process.
New Interlibrary Loan Specialist, Rob Haley
comes to the Library from the other side of the tracks, having
spent twenty years working in bookstores. Rob confesses to weaknesses
for British folk music, alternative country music ("whatever
that is", he says), microbrewery beer, cats, and bookstore
managers at small liberal arts colleges -- not necessarily in
that order. (Rob's partner is Julie-from-the-College's-bookstore-Summerfield.)
His inability to be in the middle of fewer than 5 books at one
time should help him to make ILL transactions in a variety of
formats on the broad spectrum of subjects. Rob claims to be very
happy to be here.
Bob Kieft has been reappointed to the Organization
Committee of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA)
and to the Wilson Indexes Committee of RUSA's Collection Development
and Evaluation Section. At the American Library Association's
Annual Conference in June 2002, he was a panelist on a Young Adult
Library Services Association program on information literacy.
He published "When Reference Works Are Not Books: The New
Edition of the Guide to Reference Books" in the Summer 2002
(41:4) issue of RUSQ: Reference and User Services Quarterly.
Alice Pakhtigian will be having Cochlear
Implant surgery on October 7th. She hopes soon to be better able
to hear music, the phone, people, background noises, and birds
chirping. The staff news compiler presumes to speak for the rest
of the Library staff in wishing Alice the best in her upcoming
procedure.
Trudi Swain had a short-lived retirement
from the Library. She announced her decision to leave the Interlibrary
Loan department, but then, before her retirement date could arrive
at the end of the past academic year, she accepted an offer to
stay on as part- time Library Executive Assistant.
Roopal Thakkar joins the Library as Bibliographic
and Digital Services Assistant in the Serials Department. Roopal,
who holds a degree in Physics, is new to libraries, but brings
us the experience of having worked with an assortment of computer
systems.
Ann Wetherill Upton is our new Quaker Bibliographer
& Special Collections Librarian. She replaces Betsy Brown,
who served for twenty years, from May 1982 until her retirement
in May 2002. Ann was College Archivist and Special Collections
Librarian at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, from
1998 to 2002. Before that she worked as a staff member in Special
Collections at Haverford College from 1995 to 1998 while earning
her MSLIS from Drexel University. Ann's husband Rob is chair of
the Math Department at Haverford School and assistant Track &
Field Coach at Haverford College. They have two sons in college
and live in West Chester. Ann is delighted to return to Haverford
and looks forward to the future here.
-Mike Persick is Assistant Cataloger/Head of
Acquisitions
