Commemorating a Sherwood Anderson Anniversary

I’ll be honest. I’ve written about Sherwood Anderson on the blog before. Three times, to be more precise. And this makes four, but for a good reason. Among his many works, Sherwood Anderson was the author ofWinesburg, Ohio, a collection of short stories first published in May 1919. Why am I being specific about the month? Because this May will be the book’s 100th anniversary and Special Collections and VT Publishing in the University Libraries are doing something to celebrate!

On May 2, 2019, we will be hosting a reception and a guest lecture by Dr. W. D. Taylor about Sherwood Anderson. In addition to commemorating Anderson, the event will celebrate VT Publishing’s digital and analog publication of Dr. Taylor’s essay, “Requiem for a Wanderer: Sherwood Anderson’s Last Days.” During the event, select items from Special Collections relating to Anderson will also be on display.

Downloadable pdf of the flyer: Anderson_Flyer

But, of course that’s not enough Sherwood Anderson for the month! During May, Special Collections display cases in the reading room will feature an exhibit called “The Life, Letters, and Literature of Sherwood Anderson,” with a focus on Winesburg, Ohio, and contextualizing the work in Anderson’s life and time. Special Collections has editions of the book in more than eight languages! In addition, we will take the opportunity to launch a permanent digital exhibit called “Sherwood Anderson: His Life, His Letters, His Literature, and His Circle.” This digital exhibit will contain content from collections in Special Collections related to Anderson directly, as well as to his family, friends, and collaborators. It will feature highlights from collections already digitized, including the James T. Farrell Letters to Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, 1952, 1954 (Ms2017-005) and the Sherwood Anderson Correspondence with Llewellyn Jones, 1916-1924, n.d. (Ms2015-044), as well as newly digitized collections, photographs, book covers, dust jackets, and illustrations.

The calendar item for this event is online at https://calendar.lib.vt.edu/event/5228637 and more information about the forthcoming exhibits is available online at https://calendar.lib.vt.edu/event/5228708. “The Beautiful Truths of Sherwood Anderson” is an event open to all and we encourage you to join us for some refreshment and conversation! It begins at 5pm on Thursday, May 2, 2019, in the Multipurpose Room on the first floor of Newman Library. If you have questions, contact us (specref@vt.edu or 540-231-6308)!

Previous posts on Sherwood Anderson:

Expressions of Remembrance: April 16th 10th anniversary exhibits

As part of Virginia Techs annual observance of its Day of Remembrance, condolence items and artifacts received by the university in the days that followed April 16, 2007, will be displayed at several locations across campus. The displays are among several “Expressions of Remembrance” that will be located in Newman Library, Squires Student Center, Moss Arts Center, and Holtzman Alumni Center; they are free and open to the public.

Each year, in observance of the Day of Remembrance, University Libraries at Virginia Tech displays materials from the April 16 Condolence Archives and invites the community to reflect and remember.

Below is a list and photos of exhibits all around campus. For more on each, please see the press release and the We Remember website.

Sending You All Our Love

The exhibit will include materials received from other colleges and universities, as well as some of the large white boards and signs created on the Drillfield the week of April 16, 2007. Additional items include flags, t-shirts, and condolence books, and a quilt from the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance at State University of New York College at New Paltz. The exhibit title came from one of the quilt squares, each of which was made by a SUNY student.

This display can be seen April 8-16 in the Old Dominion Ball Room in Squires Student Center.

Remembering Those Lost

Artifacts include flags flown over the Statue of Liberty and at Tikrit Air Academy in Iraq by soldiers during Operation Iraqi Freedom; Farham Aboussalis painting Ceremonial Eternity; Carol Davis 32 hand-decorated eggs; Marilyn Rogges painting of a child releasing a red balloon; a KoKeshi Doll from the U.S. Navy Fleet Activities, Yokosuka, Japan; and some of the paper cranes received.

This display will be held April 8-16 at Newman Library Special Collections (first floor). Part of the exhibit is in the windows of Special Collections onto the cafe, open during library hours. A second portion of the exhibit is inside Special Collections, open Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm.

A Community of Learners, a Legacy of Achievement

A selection of books will be displayed to honor of the students and faculty lost on April 16, 2007.

This display will be held April 8-16 at Newman Library Learning Commons.

Communities of Caring

A digital exhibit featuring community expressions of support from the April 16 Condolence Archives.

This display is available online at http://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/april16/introduction.

Communities of Caring April 16th 2017 digital exhibit
Communities of Caring April 16th 2017 digital exhibit

April 16 Condolence Archive display

Items include cards and letters written to police and first responders; a display of the badges of police units who came to help Virginia Tech; Cheryl Thompsons painting, Remember the 32; condolence books; quilted squares from Union Village United Methodist Church; black marble laserworks by David Cunningham, and April 17th Hokies United by Miss Prices second grade class from Riverlawn Elementary, Fairlawn, Virginia.

This display will be held April 12-May 3 at the Holtzman Alumni Center.

Passages

A quiet, contemplative space for remembrance and reflection, this display will include prayer flags from the Virginia Tech Graduate Arts Council, Hillel, Living Buddhism, and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the New River Valley and photographs from the community.

This display will be held April 12-16 at the Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery and Sherwood P. Quillen 71 Reception Gallery in Moss Arts Center.

Women’s History Month 2017

This year for Women’s History Month, Special Collections has some special thingsgoing on! We will have a display on the second floor of Newman Library near the main entrance. “Remarkable Women Throughout History: Snapshots from Special Collections” is a month-long display (March 1-31) with posters, items in exhibit cases, and a book display from the circulating collection. In addition, we will also have more materials from our collections on display in the exhibit cases in our reading room on the first floor near the cafe.We invite you to visit our exhibits during the month of March and learn about our collections and some of the remarkable women represented in them. (We’re grateful to our amazing colleagues throughout the library who helped us make this happen, as well as the students who delved into our stacks and boxes to find the stories of these women to share.)

womensmonth_poster_2017feb

For the fifth year running, our “What’s Cookin’ @Special Collections?!” blog will continue its “Women’s History Month” series, highlighting the contributions of women to the culinary and agricultural fields! You can view the posts to date here:https://whatscookinvt.wordpress.com/category/feature-items/womens-history-month/. New posts should also show up under this category as they are published. We don’t have all the posts planned out just yet, but we know will be featuring the work ofFrances Harriet Whipple Green McDougall (cookbook author, artist, and activist), Mrs. D. A. Lincoln (author and educator), and Ellen Swallow Richards (one of the first women to teach at MIT).

And, although we didn’t build a new digital display this year, we do still have our exhibit from 2016 available in case you missed it! You can view it online here:http://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/womens-history-2016.

Keep in mind there will be events all over campus in March 2017. The Women’s Center at Virginia Tech has a calendar here:http://womenscenter.vt.edu/Program/womens-month.html. We encourage you to check it out and join in where you can!

Words of Comfort: An exhibit of letters from around the world in the April 16th Condolence Archives

Things have been busy in the University Archives of Special Collections this month, with two exhibits going up this and next week. The first is the memorial exhibit honoring the memory of the victims and survivors of the tragic day of April 16, 2007. Every year we commemorate that day with an exhibit of items from the April 16th Condolence Archives. Please read the press release below to find out more about this year’s event.

The second is an update to the Virginia Tech Alumni Association’s (VTAA) Alumni Museum, with whom Special Collections has worked for over a decade to provide university memorabilia for display. Several archivists and students have been selecting items to update the current display, which will be installed next week. There is no end date for the display of these items, as we plan to continue working with the VTAA for years to come. Also, if you are attending next weekend’s Black Alumni Reunion, you will get to see several additional photographs from the university archives of many pioneering Black female students and alumnae at Virginia Tech, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first six Black women to attend the university in 1966: Linda (Adams) Hoyle, Jackie (Butler) Blackwell, Linda (Edmonds) Turner, Freddie Hairston, Marguerite Laurette (Harper) Scott, and Chiquita Hudson. You can learn more about them at The Black Women at Virginia Tech History Project.

Words of Comfort: An exhibit of letters from around the world in the April 16th Condolence Archives

Day of Remembrance display in Newman Library shares words of comfort and hope

Following April 16, 2007, schools, fellow universities, children, community and religious groups, businesses, and other individuals from around the world sent words of comfort and hope to Virginia Tech. These cards, letters, signs, and other handwritten items expressed the world’s condolences and gave Virginia Tech a global community of support.

This week, on April 15-16, many of these items will be on display in the Multipurpose Room on the first floor of Newman Library at 560 Drillfield Drive in Blacksburg. The exhibit, “Words of Comfort: An exhibit of letters from around the world in the April 16th Condolence Archives,” is free and open to the public, and will be on display from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

These items represent over 40 countries and every continent, showing the outpouring of support from around the globe. Selected items on display include:

The materials are part of the Virginia Tech April 16, 2007 Condolence Archives of the University Libraries.

Campus visitors also left symbols of comfort and signs of support at memorials around Virginia Tech, which were displayed on campus for several months before being gathered and inventoried under the direction of the University Archivist. Together, the collection consists of more than 89,000 materials available through Special Collections in Newman Library.

In the summer of 2007, many items were digitally photographed for preservation and to share with the world. A large portion of the Condolence Archives of the University Libraries is now publicly available online.

The upcoming exhibit is organized and curated by LM Rozema, processing and special projects archivist for the University Libraries Special Collections, and Robin Boucher, arts program director for Student Engagement and Campus Life.

Free parking is available on weekends at the Squires Student Center and Architecture Annex lots along Otey Street. Before 5 p.m. on weekdays, a valid Virginia Tech parking pass is required to park in these lots. Find more parking information online, or call 540-231-3200.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact LM Rozema at 540-231-9215 during regular business hours prior to the event.

For more information and other expressions of remembrance, please visit the We Remember site.

Upcoming Events: Montgomery County Memory Project: People, Places, and Things of Montgomery County

The Montgomery County Memory Project: People, Places, and Things of Montgomery County, Virginia seeks to uncover local treasures hidden in corners of family homes, making connections within and among people in thecommunity.

With the support of the Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center, the University Libraries at Virginia Tech, and the Christiansburg Library, along with a Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Samantha Parish Riggin organized a series of events for the Montgomery County community.

These events will educate the public about preservation and identification of artifacts, documents, manuscripts, and photographs while offering the opportunity to digitize them. Creating digital versions of family items will give visitors the opportunity to preserve items that may not withstand time so their families can have permanent digital keepsakes. The Memory Project events may also lead to discoveries that enrich Montgomery County history as well as visitors own family histories.

There are several events associated with the project:

  • A talk bySamantha Parish Riggin, “Antique Speak,” on April 10th from 2-4pm at the Christiansburg branch of theMontgomery-Floyd Public Library
  • Digitization day, April 23rd from 10am-2pm, Community Roomat the Christiansburg branch of theMontgomery-Floyd Public Library
  • Digitization day, April 30th from 10am-2pm,Multipurpose Room on the ground floor of Newman Library at Virginia Tech
  • A talk by by Spencer Slough later in the summer, based on some of the items digitized at events in April. More information will be forthcoming in the future.

 

WVTF ran a story over the weekend that includes an interview with the project’s director, Samantha Parish Riggin. as well as some additional information. You can read the article and listen to the story online.Questions may be directed to the Samantha Parish Riggin, Program Director for The Montgomery Country Memory Project at 724-493-0750.

Two Upcoming Events!

If you’re in or around Blacksburg, there are two upcoming events you may want to know about! On March 24, 2014, the University Libraries is co-hosting the Third Annual Edible Book Contest with the Blacksburg branch of the Montgomery-Floyd Public Libraries. There’s still plenty of time to register for the event (and we won’t turn you away at the door, either). You can visit the website to find out more and sign up:http://tinyurl.com/AEBC2014. Even if you don’t want to enter, please come to the Blacksburg Public Library from 6-7pm on March 24th. It’s your votes that will help us determine the winners in each category!

3rd Edible Book Contest

And, on March 25th from 5-7pm, the University Libraries will be hosting the Second Annual Appalanche. Appalanche is a celebration of Appalachian culture. This year, the event will include music and food, as well as displays and information about wildflowers, quilting, apples, the Wilderness Road Museum, and more! Be sure to stop by and visit us on the first floor of Newman Library that evening!

Appalanche2014digitalsign

Special Collections Open House, October 1st!

Did you miss our Special Collections Open House on September 3rd? Don’t worry–you have three more chances to join us! Our next event is on Tuesday, October 1, from 5-7pm. You’ll have a chance to view a variety of materials from our collections, talk with an archivist (or two or three!), ask questions about what we do, learn about how we can help with personal and professional research, and even take a behind the scenes tour!

Here’s a few things you might see if you stop by:

 

We’ll also display items from the University Archives, the International Archives of Women in Architecture, and maybe even a few speculative fiction magazines.

If you can’t join us in October, we’ll have two more open houses this semester: November 5th and December 2nd (both Tuesdays and both from 5-7pm), so be sure to mark your calendar. See you soon!

Grief and Remembrance

It is often true that in our experience of sorrow we discover ourselves to be part of larger communities than we had first realized. Our grief resonates with others and our shared humanity becomes manifest in expressions of common feeling and supportfirst as condolence, and later as remembrance.

In the days and weeks following the events of April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech received over 89,000 cards and letters of support, posters, banners, art, poetry, wreaths, memory books, and other unique items from around the world. Campus visitors often left items at the Drillfield memorial. These were displayed on the Virginia Tech campus for several months before being gathered and inventoried to create the “Virginia Tech April 16, 2007, Archives of the University Libraries.” The collection consists of over 500 cubic feet of materials available to researchers through University Libraries Special Collections. (The finding aid for the collection is available here.)

This year, as part of Virginia Techs remembrance of the April 16, 2007 shootings, an art exhibit of items from the Condolence Archive will be installed in the Special Collections reading room on the first floor of Newman Library from April 13 – 16.

The exhibit,Never Forgotten: A Remembrance Art Exhibit from the April 16 Condolence Archives,is curated by Robin Scully Boucher, art director of Squires Perspective Gallery, and includes some works that have not been publicly shown before.

Hours of the exhibit:

  • April 13: 9:00am 4:00pm
  • April 14: 1:00pm – 4:00pm
  • April 15: 8:00am – 5:00pm
  • April 16: 8:00am – 5:00pm

A reception will be held April 16 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm

The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. For more information, please contactTamara Kennellyat 540-231-9214.

We hope you will come by Special Collections to see this selection of the tremendous outpouring of support and love extended to the Virginia Tech community in its time of grief.