Towers - University of Idaho Newsletter - Vol. 15, Issue 3 (2012)

Towers

Newsletter of the Library Associates of the University of Idaho Library Early Fall 2012

Volume 15, Issue 3

Teaching with History:The New Gem of the Mountains Digital Collection

Inside this issue: The New Gem of the Mountains Digital Collections.........................................1-2

Teaching with the Mark Twain Collection..............................................3

40th Anniversity of the University of Idaho Women’s Center........................3

Ways to Give................................................ 4

Dean’s Corner: Thank You!......................... 4

To subscribe to Towers, please visit us at: www.lib.uidaho.edu/giving/

P.O. Box 442350 Moscow, ID 83844 Phone: (208) 885-6534 Email: librdean@uidaho.edu

. You probably knew that former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987, but did you know Carol Ryrie Brink, author of Caddie Woodlawn, was a 1917 graduate? Or that W. Mark Felt, a.k.a. “Deep Throat,” (former associate director of the FBI) graduated from the University of Idaho in 1933? These are just a few of the interesting pieces of history at your fingertips in the new Gem of the Mountains Digital Collection! You can visit the collection online at: http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/ gem/.

The Gem of the Mountains was the official yearbook of the University of Idaho from 1903 to 2004 and the interactive digital Gem of the Mountains Collection recently released by the University of Idaho Digital Initiatives department allows you to browse through any year or search for yourself or friends, relatives, favorite former professors, or famous people in the yearbook’s pages.

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Gem of the Mountains, continued from p. 1

. The Gem of the Mountains Digital Yearbook Collection was digitized and processed for online viewing by staff and librarians in the digital initiatives department during the 2011-2012 school year; it is finally complete and ready to be explored by students, researchers, alumni, and friends of the university! Over 100 volumes — including more than 33,000 pages and 3 terabytes worth of image files — were broken apart, sliced at their bindings, and fed through a feed scanner to produce the pdfs, images, and featured highlights that make up the new collection. . These yearbooks contain a wealth of University of Idaho history. The early volumes feature stories and photographs of long-forgotten traditions, such as an annual SophomoreFreshman “Hulme” fight that took place each St. Patrick’s Day, the Homecoming Bonfire, and the Gem Beauty Queen awards, which in 1948 were judged by Bing Crosby. Browsing later volumes creates a unique timeline of the changes in Idaho and US history and culture in the past decade. The 1974 volume, for example, offers a page of contemplative photographs of flowers and a long haired man gazing over a wild landscape with the epigraph: “I search the answers to myself.” A quote from the 1985 volume, on the other hand, reveals the changed zeitgeist of the Me Decade: “One night I dreamed I was in a game of Trivial Pursuit and I won

The image above is an example of a digital bookplate availablable to donors. . because I knew Warp Six was the maximum safe cruising speed of the Starship Enterprise. It was terrific.”

Each digital yearbook has its own webpage featuring highlights from the issue, a memorable quote, a search box, and a link to a downloadable PDF. All issues are viewable on both desktop and mobile devices and can be browsed in a magazine-like format. The entire collection is full-text searchable, allowing users to search for any University of Idaho alumna or alumnus.

Visitors can support the new digital yearbook collection and the library by sponsoring a year of the collection with a donation of $1000 or more. Sponsors’ names are listed at the top of each yearbook’s webpage and inserted, via a digital bookplate, into the online yearbook itself.

The site also provides an interactive feature that enables users to digitally sign the web page of any yearbook.

To become a sponsor and see a list of current yearbook sponsors you can visit the Gem of the Mountains Digital Collections Support webpage: http://www.lib.uidaho. edu/digital/gem/support.html or contact Dean Lynn Baird at lbaird@uidaho.edu.

Homecoming from the 1958 Gem of the Mountains Yearbook 2

Teaching with the Mark Twain Collection I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. ---Mark Twain.....

---Mark Twain Great Gatsby. Likewise, Twain is also represented in fine collector’s editions, such as those issued by Easton Press, the Folio Society, and Franklin Mint.

The particular collection is noteworthy for the opportunity it provides students and researchers to trace the trajectory of Twain’s career and legacy.

History and English classes could explore the ongoing popularity of Twain, as he evolved from pop journalist and humorist to American literary giant. Equally valuable is a . comprehensive collection of secondary work on Twain, as well as a substantial selection of ephemera, prints, and film adaptations, showing changes in how popular culture has interpreted Twain over the years.

Special Collections & Archives is very excited to report the donation of over 300 books by and about Mark Twain from the Rev. Canon Donald Fraser. Canon Fraser is a new friend to the Library Associates, who was introduced to us by Library Advisory Board member Dolores Chapman. This collection includes over a dozen first editions, and most of the other volumes are first edition thus (i.e., an edition of a work that postdates the original first edition but contains some modification to the work, such as a new introduction, added illustrations, and/or a revision of the text). There are also several multi-volume editions, including all books published by the Mark Twain Project at University of California at Berkeley, and all of the manuscript facsimile editions.

With this gift, the University of Idaho will have one of the finest collections of “Twainiana” in the Northwest.

This collection will be housed in Special Collections, but like all of our resources, widely available to all researchers.

Twain has always been a bestseller, and the sheer variety of iterations represented in this collection attest to that. For example, included in this gift is the 1946 Bantam edition of Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, which has the distinction of being the very first Bantam Book pocketsize paperback released. It is telling that Bantam chose Twain as the author to launch their popular reading series. Indeed, most of Bantam’s first list of paperbacks were well-known classics, most of which had been published originally years earlier, including Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and Fitzgerald’s The

This collection allows students to trace how young Samuel Clemens (left) became legendary American writer and wit, Mark Twain (right)

University Women’s Center Celebrates 40th Anniversary

The University of Idaho Women’s Center, now celebrating it’s 40th anniversary, is one of the oldest university women’s centers in the country. This fall, a series of special programs honor the hard work of many individuals and groups who have been involved in creaing and sustaining the Women’s Center over the past four decades.

. The University of Idaho Women's Center was founded in 1972 to address the high attrition rates of female students on campus. Since then, the Women's Center’s role and purpose has evolved to include a breadth of programming and outreach that addresses the contemporary issues U-Idaho students are now facing. Women's Centers exist because gender equity has not been achieved in any country around the world.

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The library took part in the Women’s Center’s 40th Anniversary Celebrations with an exhibit of materials honoring the Women’s Center’s work and goals. For more information about the history of the Women’s Center please visit their website: http://www.uidaho. edu/studentaffairs/womenscenter/40th-anniversary

The Dean’s Corner: Archives and Learning

Ways to Give

Dr. Lynn Baird, Dean of the Library

testimony about how exciting it is to work with primary sources.

Once again, the University of Idaho provided an undergraduate with a research opportunity that few other Idaho institutions can match.

We work to make the contents of our archives accessible through our digital collections. We also strive to protect and conserve these resources. Our archives need to have a climate-controlled environment designed to preserve these important materials. As we continue to inspire futures, I look to you to help us steward our past.

--Lynn Baird

For more information on giving options and ensuring your gift is used exactly the way you want it to be, contact Dean Lynn Baird at (208) 885-6534.

• Cash Gifts • Planned Giving • In-kind Gifts (Materials and Personal Collections) • Tax Benefits Appreciated Assets • Memorial or Honorary Gifts For more information, please visit: www.lib.uidaho.edu/giving/ways.html

Visit us online: www.lib.uidaho.edu Become a Fan: facebook.com/UofILibrary Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/UofILibrary Check in on Foursquare: foursquare.com/venue/1500910

P.O. Box 442350 Moscow, ID 83844 Phone: (208) 885-6534 Email: librdean@uidaho.edu

In our world, the new school year is couched in a flood of autumn color: deep reds, oranges, and brilliant yellows heralding the fall. We wipe the tears of anxious parents, unpack student boxes, and greet the new semester, full of promise and expectations.

We launched this fall semester with the University of Idaho’s first convocation, which gave us an opportunity to welcome and inspire new Vandals. As I stood in line with the other deans, I made small talk with the sophomore who was carrying the banner for the Faculty at Large, the group that includes those of us who are faculty without a college affiliation.

“What’s your library story?” I asked. Without hesitation, she replied, “The archives.” When pressed, she gushed about her opportunity to have a tangible experience with history (although I truly didn’t believe the 1950s were history). She was delighted by the way photographs and letters of people living during this period supplemented her research in books and articles, offering a