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Events and Exhibits

Presidential Inauguration, September 7, 2006

inauguration

Anne Kenney and Ed Weissman led the retinue of librarian representatives who marched in the procession at President Skorton’s inauguration.

inauguration

Decked out in academic regalia with an added dash of Cornell red sashes announcing “A Great University, A Great Library,” the marchers gathered for a group photo at the entrance to Olin. From left: Suzanne Cohen, Erla Heyns, Janet McCue, Anne Kenney, Lee Cartmill, Sarah Thomas, Ed Weissman, Margaret Nichols, Jean Poland, Oya Rieger, Brenda Marston.

On July 12 the Adelson Library hosted an ice cream social for Lab of Ornithology friends and members in celebration of the the display of the Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio (1886). David Corson presented remarks on this rare and beautiful book. We all enjoyed the now-extinct ice cream flavor “Ohio Nests and Eggs” (coconutty spring thaw with candy-coated chocolate “eggs”), designed especially for the occasion. The book will be on display at the Adelson Library until June 2007. The pages will be turned regularly to avoid degradation from light.

Maps and The Great Gatsby

Bob Kibbee

The Maps and Geospatial Information Collection (M&GIC) invites you to enjoy our latest display, Maps and The Great Gatsby: The Geography of Privilege. The display examines the geographical framework of the novel chosen for this year’s New Student Reading Project.

Geography provides a defining framework for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. New York City, the two Eggs, and the Valley of the Ashes are the geographic core, but places on the periphery, “the vast obscurity beyond the city”—Louisville, Chicago, Minnesota, and even the Nevada gold fields and the Lake Superior shore—have their part to play. Midwestern values clash with those of the East and are transformed and distorted in their new environment.

We selected the maps of this exhibit from a variety of sources to bring Fitzgerald’s geography to the fore. We hope they will give careful readers new insights into the structure and meaning of The Great Gatsby. The entire M&GIC staff contributed to this display, but we owe special thanks to Susann Argetsinger, whose careful and empathetic reading of this great American novel led her to these inspired selections and brilliant organization. Susann is a map collection assistant and a preservation technician. She and Pat Fox, also a preservation technician, mounted the display. Thanks also to Howard Brentlinger, also a map collection assistant, for the map of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad from his private collection. Elaine Guidero, a temporary map assistant, put a great deal of thought into the typography, and her choices were very effective. Please note that the originals are not displayed in the case. They were carefully scanned and plotted or photocopied by Susann Argetsinger and Elaine Guidero.

Please take the time to see the display on the lower level of Olin Library, just outside the media room. The display will remain in place until mid-November. We’d be very pleased if you stopped by and shared your reaction to the novel and the display with us.

The exhibit First Person Cornell: Students’ Letters, Diaries and Scrapbooks will be on display in the Mann Library addition, first floor, through October 13. Inspired by an invitation from historian Carol Kammen, the author of First-Person Cornell (Cornell University Library, 2006), which explores student life at Cornell over the past 140 years, Mann Library curator Ashley Miller’s newest exhibit explores a little of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and College of Human Ecology (CHE) angle on the Cornell experience. From pen and ink to instant messaging, the ways Cornell students communicate have changed drastically. Spanning the years from 1868 to 2003, First Person Cornell: Students’ Letters, Diaries and Scrapbooks shows us materials penned and illustrated by CALS and CHE students, both long past and recently graduated, and brings into high relief the changes that have occurred in communications, language, and culture over the years.

Mann is pleased to be hosting the 2006 Conference of the United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) on October 8-11. The preliminary program is now available on the conference Web site. The main invited speakers include Joan Lippincott, Coalition for Networked Information; James Giovannoni, head of the Tomato Genome Project, USDA/Cornell University; Michael Shamos, director of the Universal Library Project at Carnegie Mellon University; Fedro Zazueta, Office of Academic Technology at the University of Florida; and Anton Mangstl, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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