Folios - The Magazine of W&L's Library

folios

The Magazine of the Washington and Lee University Library

Folios fall 2022 A Note from W&L’s University Librarian

Dear Friends,

Regular recipients of Folios may have noticed that we did not publish an issue in the 2021-22 academic year. A lot has happened in the interim, only some of which we were able to squeeze between the covers of this fall’s issue. Keep reading for articles about several student-focused programs, including the Library Student Advisory Board, capstone projects for the largest cohort to date of Digital Culture and Information minors, and the new DCI180 course Every Map Tells a Story. We are also celebrating ’22 library student staff and new faculty and staff in both the undergraduate and law libraries. I know many of you are passionate about our special and digital collections. Check out the article about the Walker-Woods Collection for just one of our projects in that area.

This issue of Folios also marks a return to partnering with W&L’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs for layout and design. Many thanks to Jamie Lipps, Director of Publications and Design, and his team for recreating the magazine from first principles with us. Librarians pride ourselves in making connections and working with experts. I am excited to be demonstrating that in fact as well as principle!

I hope you enjoy reading about just a sample of the programs, collections, and people that make the University Library at Washington and Lee so special. Your support as a colleague, friend, or contributor is part of our success. Please reach out to me if you have questions or ideas for us.

Happy fall,

Prof. K.T. L. Vaughan , MSLS, EdD Professor and Hal F. and Barbra Buckner

Higginbotham University Librarian Washington and Lee University kvaughan@wlu.edu

Our LSAB students plan and participate in several activities throughout the year.

The Library Student Advisory Board

Emily Cook reports on the value of a distinctly student perspective.

n 2019 librarians Emily Cook and Elizabeth Teaff formalized a student advisory group to accomplish projects focused on giving students the freedom to easily express their opinions and spearhead library initiatives. This group came to be known by its acronym LSAB, s hort for Library Student Advisory Board

LSAB is dedicated to the auditing and improvement of library services, spaces, collections, and programming. Members represent all class years and majors and range from library student workers to students who just love the library.

During the 2021-22 school year, membership on the board increased from 7 to 21 students. Members met once a month to discuss action items.

In addition to making tech and administrative improvements in the library, such as acquiring new self-checkout machines and generating new signage, LSAB connects with the student body by sponsoring a “study break” where students can grab snacks, chat, and leave feedback and suggestions for the library.

Projects that the group assisted in this past academic year included but were not limited to: creating a printed building directory, input on the new online maps of Leyburn, diversification of the fiction collection, a book sale, and collaboration with W&L’s office of sustainability to install faucet aerators on bathroom sinks. Other recent LSAB projects were: plants in the restrooms, fun decals in the Leyburn and Telford stairwells, and improvement to the main floor “Book

Nook’” space. In the spring, LSAB created a “Who We Are” poster display to advertise the board and new signage about safety on campus for Leyburn restrooms.

For several years, they have been promoting “LSABurdays” on Instagram. This social media presence gives fun exposure to the board members by highlighting them on the library’s Insta page.

LSAB MEMBERSHIP HAS INCREASED FROM 7 TO 21 STUDENTS

Finally, this past academic year, LSAB set-up a finals week “happy box” project as a creative way for student’s to de-stress, created an interactive display for Library Lover’s Day, and had a very successful a trivia night and “guess the volumes” contest for National Library Week. n

This group is open to suggestions from students, faculty, and staff, can be contacted here: library.wlu.edu/library-student-advisory-board

Manuscript Collection: Walker-Wood Family Papers

Paula S. Kiser takes a look inside our digital archive and reveals a snapshot into the early 20th century.

this is a rich collection of papers from the Walker and Wood families, two prominent Black families from Lexington. The materials range from 1910-1975; most of the items created are from 1910-1950. The collection is a combi nation of images, documents, correspondence, and reports that give a glimpse into life in the first half of the 20th Century. These items provide a look into the economic, social, educational, and religious life of the African-American community in Lexington. They also include information about the historic Blandome home and the development and creation of the Lylburn Downing School. This is the first collection of family papers from a Black family given to the W&L University Library Special Collections and Archives and the first collection of family papers in Special Collections to be completely digitized.

Image above: Nannie Walker Wood and Clarence M. Wood

Image at right: The Wood Family photographed June 1954, from left to right: Clarence, Marie, Clarence, Sr, Nannie, Bette Jo, and Alex

The University Library is also very excited to share this collection through the Digital Public Library of America. (https://dp.la/) This provides far reaching access to the history of these Lexingtonian families. The Walker-Wood collection has been used as part of the curriculum at W&L already. The digital scholarship done with this collection is only possible thanks to the hard work done by a team of people in the Library and Special Collections. Former Digital Collection Assistant student workers Annjoy Gichane ’21 and Madison Williams ’23 digitized many of the photographs and documents. Cindy Morton, Manager of Digital Services, digitized the rest of the collection and created all of the metadata for the items, naming and describing the resources in the collection which allows people to find them. All of this was done with the consultation, training, and support of Byron Faidley, the Rare Materials Digitization Coordinator and Paula Kiser, Assistant Professor & Digital Scholarship Librarian, the project manager. n

MATERIALS THAT ARE AVAILABLE RANGE FROM 1910 TO 1975

To view these photos and additional images in our digital archives:

photo below

https://hdl.handle.net/11021/35418 photo at left http://hdl.handle.net/11021/35628

DCI CAPSTONE

What do French bestiaries, cryptocurrencies, and educator diversity have in common? Mackenzie Brooks explains.

Turns out they’re all topics of student capstones in the Digital Culture and Information (DCI) minor!

Based in Leyburn Library, the DCI minor aims to equip students with the information and digital skills they need to find success in any academic program or career path. The diversity of topics chosen by our 2022 class demon strates that the minor attracts quite the range of students. Our class of seven included majors in Business, English, Studio Art, Dance, Strategic Communication, French, Education Studies, and Computer Science.

To finish the minor, students must complete a capstone: a semester-long project using the digital research methods and skills learned in previous DCI courses. Prof. Mackenzie Brooks (Digital Humanities Librarian & DCI Program Coordinator) taught the capstone course, guiding students through weekly meetings filled with discussion, skill building, and peer review. Each student was encouraged to select a topic of interest to them (some students combine their DCI capstone with a thesis or capstone in other programs).

While the capstones all took different forms, every student conducted in-depth research, gathered and analyzed data, then presented their findings on a custom website. We can’t wait to see what our minors get up to after graduation! n

NAYONGI BORTHWICK ’ 23

Beasts and Bestiaries in French Lore and Beyond

KATE FISHER ’ 23

Putting the Art Back in Business

ROSE HEIN ’ 22

Textual Analysis of Civil War Sentiment and Ideology in a Mass Corpus of Post-Bellum American Literature

MARK NATIELLO ’ 22

The Crypto Capstone: A Project Aimed at Giving People a Clearer Look into Cryptocurrency

RILEY PARKER ’ 23

An Analysis of Educator Diversity in Virginia Public Schools

YOSEPH TAMENE ’ 22

Text Classification of 19th Century Newspaper Articles by Publication Press

EMMA THAI ’ 22

The Lipstick Effect: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Examining the Lipstick Effect Throughout Time

Kate Fisher proves she’s not afraid of a li’l color in her DCI Capstone project “Putting the Art Back in Business.”

HONORING OUR 2022 STUDENT WORKERS

Laura Hewett showers well-deserved praise on this year’s best of the best.

every year, many of the units in the University Library hire student assistants. Often these students work in the library for all four years; some even go on to become librarians after they graduate (see p.8 article on Brittany Norwood)!

Our student staff touches almost every aspect of the library. They assist in providing the W&L community with services that aid in achieving their educational goals.

Each spring we ask our graduating seniors to select a book that is meaningful to them. These books receive a bookplate that honors the students’ contributions to the library. During the spring term and throughout graduation, thanks to work by Laura Hewett (Access Services Supervisor), there is a physical display of these titles on the main floor of Leyburn. Thanks to the work of Chloe Thomas (Senior Library Assistant and Cataloger) there is now an updated and revised permanent display online of these book titles. The online display captures student selections dating back to 2020. n

We’d like to give one more shoutout to the students listed below. We wish them all the best—they will be missed very much!

Student worker Kit Lombard helps fellow student worker Julie Ham with Library information.

Pleased to MEET YOU

Chloe Thomas

As a southwest Pennsylvania native, I earned my MS in Library and Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. With a keen interest in museums, educational programming, and research, I joined W&L in November 2022 as a Senior Library Assistant Cataloger. n

Mattie Clear

I grew up in Chilhowie, VA and am over the moon to be closer to home and family. I received my BA in History and Sociology with a certificate in early American History, Material Culture, and Museum Studies from the College of William & Mary. After undergrad, I spent four years working as a Ref erence Archivist at MIT Libraries’ while completing my MA in History and MSLIS from Simmons University. My Master’s Thesis was entitled “Hidden in Correspondence: Letters of Enslaved Women as Resistance and the Case for Improved Archival Description.” I also love to read, bake, and crochet. n

Michelle Cosby

Michelle Cosby joined Washington and Lee in June 2022. As Assistant Dean she leads the Law Library in research support and oversees daily operations. Professor Cosby was previously the Director of the Law Library at Temple University. Ms. Cosby also served as the President of the AALL from July 2019-July 2020, and is a Fastcase 50 Honoree. Professor Cosby received her B.A. in Sociology from Butler University and her JD and MLS from Indiana University-Bloomington. n

Brittany Norwood

I’m from Delano, TN, a small town between Knoxville and Chattanooga. I graduated from W&L in 2016 with a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology. In 2019, I received my MSLS from UNC Chapel Hill in. I then worked as a Commons Librarian at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I’m excited to return to Lexington for a short while, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to bring a fresh perspective to library services and to make sure we are creating a welcoming and inclusive library for all our patrons. n

EVERY MAP TELLS A STORY

John Tombarge explains.

Place-based technologies permeate our lives, from the location services on our smartphones to the spatial-decision support systems that guide applications in areas such as disaster management, health care and public health, digital humanities, resource and water management, urban and regional planning, sustainability, and business analytics. The class “Every Map Tells a Story”, taught by Prof. John Tombarge, investigates the power of maps and spatial data to document and illustrate local and global issues. Students learn how to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to explore the world and share ideas, and apply GIS principles and tools to create their own maps and tell their own stories.

Voting and election results provide an excellent example. We’ve all seen electoral maps presenting the election results at the state level over the whole country, which, given our electoral college, makes sense (map at top). Yet we see a different story when we look at these same results at the local level: we may find a broader range of political opinions across individual states. We would also get a different picture if the map showed the percentage of the share of votes shaded by color (map at bottom). In this case, the polarization between the rural areas and the urban areas of the country is much more obvious.

By exploring the data through mapping technology, even familiar data, new insights and understandings emerge, opening up the opportunity to communicate findings in much greater depth. n

folios

editors

Jacci Falls

KT Vaughan contributors

KT Vaughan

Emily K. Cook

Laura Hewett

Paula Kiser

Mackenzie Brooks

Elizabeth Teaff

John Tombarage designers

Jamie Lipps

Wendy Redfern

Billy Chase

Emmaline Nelsen publisher

Washington and Lee University Library 204 W. Washington Street Lexington, VA 24450 coordinator

Jacci Falls talk to us 540-458-8642 library@wlu.edu

ON THE COVER: ORIGINAL ARTWORK OF THE LEYBURN LIBRARY

BY EMMALINE NELSEN

DISCOVER THE FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY

We’re here to support the academic mission of Washington and Lee University through activities which strengthen the University Library’s collections and services. We aim to foster closer relations between the library and the community, stimulate the intellectual life of the library users, and support library programming through monetary and in kind donations.

library.wlu.edu/friends