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| Building Our Vanderbilt Library Community
Dear Friends,
It is an honor to serve as the Acting University Librarian at Vanderbilt University. At the libraries we come together to do important work--work that makes a difference in the world. We are educating the next generation of global leaders and we are enabling research that helps solve some of our most pressing challenges.
Six weeks into classes, and the libraries continue to roll out the welcome mat to all of our students. Librarians are also around campus connecting with students in classrooms, student centers, and schools. We spent the summer preparing, training librarians on best practices for teaching research skills, whether in person, remote, or a hybrid classroom; we improved opportunities for information discovery, especially with improvements to our catalog; broadened access to scholarship produced by Vanderbilt researchers; and created welcoming and safe spaces for collaboration and quiet study. We are actively working toward creating an inclusive community and a culture of belonging for everyone who engages and works with us.
This edition of Primary Source reflects some of our recent accomplishments and those we anticipate in the near future. One thing we look forward to is welcoming our off campus Friends back to the libraries in person. Until then, please join us virtually for one of our upcoming online programs highlighted below and follow us on social media (@vandylibraries).
It is an exciting time to be a part of the Vanderbilt Libraries. We are so glad you are a part of our community.
Hilary A. Craiglow
Acting University Librarian
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| Out of the Vault Curatorial Talk on October 22, 2021
Join our curators Friday, October 22 at Noon–1:00 p.m. CST as they walk us through the exhibition Out of the Vault, open to the campus community in Central Library's 4th floor foyer through November 19, and through this online exhibit for our many community Friends. Cases filled with treasures from our distinctive collections take you on an intriguing tour of a few of the many special collections housed at Vanderbilt University. Please RSVP here to register for the talk. Once registered we will send you the Zoom link for the meeting. Look forward to hearing these curatorial presentations:
Paula Covington, librarian for Latin American, Iberian and Latino Studies and senior lecturer in Latin American Studies, will discuss the history of tango and the items used in the display case from the Latin American collections housed in Special Collections.
Christopher Ryland, curator of the History of Medicine Collections and Archives, will tell the story of the beginnings of the virology department in the School of Medicine and how Dr. Ernest Goodpasture became a leader in the field. Chris will also discuss how the History of Nutrition Collection came to feature a wide-ranging collection of cookbooks from the 1700s to the present.
Teresa Gray, curator of Special Collection Southern Collections, will regale us with stories about illustrator Edward Gorey and his unique style and inventive yet macabre tales about unwanted visitors and odd little children. Teresa will also bring us spooky tales of the unseen world highlighting mediums from long ago as well as stories that will prepare us for Halloween and All Souls Day.
Kathy Smith, university archivist will talk about Special Collections' growing civil rights collections featuring the Reverends James M. Lawson, Jr. and Kelly Miller Smith as well as Salynn McCollum, a Peabody College student who participated in the Freedom Summer and was eventually expelled from college because of her activism.
Yvonne Boyer, librarian for Art, French, & Italian and librarian for WT Bandy Center for Baudelaire & Modern French Studies will present on the symbolism of flowers in the art of J.J. Grandville, a 19th century French illustrator.
For the campus community, the exhibition runs through November 19, 2021 on the 4th floor of the Central Library. Our Friends are invited to enjoy the online exhibit. For more information, please contact University Archivist Kathy Smith.
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|  |  | Rissi Palmer sharing her songbooks and stage outfits as writer-in-residence Alice Randall looks on. Photo: John Russell
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National Museum of African American Music and the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries Announce New Acquisitions
Vanderbilt’s long-term partnership with the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) aims to enrich educational and research opportunities around the musical legacy of African American composers, performers and supporters and their impact on American culture and musical history.
Included in the partnership with the museum is a collaboration with the libraries to support an expanded collection of books, scores, sound recordings, and material objects related to African American music. This collection will be available for loan to the museum and will also serve as an important resource for scholarly research on Vanderbilt’s campus.
In addition to the recently acquired John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie Collection, the NMAAM/Vanderbilt University Collections Initiative has acquired a stage worn coat by R&B icon Janet Jackson. The black four-button coat with velvet lapels was worn by Jackson as part of her wildly successful Rhythm Nation tour in 1990 while performing her hit singles "Control" and "Nasty." The coat will be displayed at NMAAM in the future.
Vanderbilt has most recently acquired a collection from Rissi Palmer, an influential singer-songwriter and Apple Music Country host who is breaking barriers for country music artists of color. The materials include the artist’s personal songbooks that comprise her discography, and the dress she wore when she played the Grand Ole Opry.
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See New Acquisitions in Distinctive Collections You told us you wanted to see new acquisitions, and we listened!
Please join our curators as they highlight items added to Vanderbilt's distinctive collections this past year. This Friends of Vanderbilt's Libraries event is Friday, November 5, 2021, Noon–1:00 p.m. on Zoom.
Register here. Once registered, the Zoom link for entrance to the webinar will be emailed to you.
Zach Johnson, curator of special collections, will share highlights from the Dinah Shore Collection: memorabilia and photographs from the 1940s-1980s of singer, actress, talk show host, and Vanderbilt alumna (BA’38).
Holling Smith-Borne, director of the Anne Potter Wilson Music Library and Sara Manus, music librarian for education and outreach, will tell us about Vanderbilt’s partnership with the National Museum of African American Music and share a little of two collections purchased through this program: the John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie Collection of archives, photographs, and memorabilia and two coats worn by Janet Jackson during her 1990 Rhythm Nation tour.
Teresa Gray, curator of special collections' southern collection will examine recently acquired wartime correspondence from five soldiers writing home from the Vietnam and Korean Wars.
Chris Ryland, curator of the History of Medicine Collections and Archives will touch on two important additions to existing collections from Nobel laureates Dr. Earl Sutherland and Dr. Stanley Cohen.
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|  | Fine Arts Gallery view, showing works by Jeffrey Gibson (L) and Kara Walker (R) on the walls. Photo Credit: Aiden Layer, BS'19
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Artist Panel
Sympathetic Magic: Works of Faith, Healing and Transformation Sympathetic Magic contrasts Christian imagery with ritual objects from China, pre-Columbia North America and modern art as a means to explore ritual. The contemporary artists in this exhibition—Department of Art faculty María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Raheleh Filsoofi, Jana Harper and alumnus Aiden Layer, BS'19,—draw insight from distinct mediums and diverse cultural backgrounds, contributing artworks that bridge the inner life of an individual with the material world we all share.
Sympathetic Magic runs through January 30, 2022, and is open to the campus community. A video tour of the exhibition is also available.
Artists Panel Discussion
Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, 5 p.m.–6:30 p.m. CST.
Join us to discuss themes of healing, resilience and transformation with exhibition artists. Each will discuss their creative process and current work and respond to the installation. The presentation will be a hybrid live-Zoom event including a short video tour of the exhibition. This event is open to the campus community in Cohen Memorial Hall, Room 203, and to our Friends off-campus, via Zoom.
Please RSVP for the event, and to receive the Zoom link.
The Fine Arts Gallery will be open until 8 p.m. on November 10, for the campus community.
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|  | Engraved Plate Illustration of a Papermill, Diderot, Denis et al. Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences,des arts et des métiers. Paris: Briasson [etc.],1762. Print.
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New Exhibition: Papermaking in Europe and America From its beginnings in China as early as 140 B.C.E., the ancient craft of papermaking was kept secret for almost 1000 years. Between the 8th and 12th centuries paper mills were established in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Fez, while the first mills in Europe were in Xativa, Spain (1151) and Fabriano, Italy (1276). As demand for paper for journals, receipts, letters, and books escalated, paper mills spread throughout Europe and colonial America. Vanderbilt's libraries hold outstanding examples from Europe and America of this ancient and modern craft, spanning five centuries to the present.
This exhibit Papermaking in Europe and America, highlights various aspects of making paper by hand including watermarks, paper mills, late 18th-century American papermaking, and the work of modern papermakers Dard Hunter, Claire Van Vliet, Peter and Donna Thomas, and Beverly Plummer. Archival photographs from the Hayle Mill in Kent, England, are also on exhibit.
Examples of papers from 1493 to the present day are on display. This exhibit runs through November 2021, and is open to the Vanderbilt campus community by appointment, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. in the Special Collections Library on the 2nd Floor of the Central Library. For more information, call 615-322-2807 or email Special Collections.
You may also view this exhibition online or watch the video presentation narrated by curator Molly Dohrmann by clicking in the title image above.
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| Pick-Up Program Makes Circulating Materials
Available to Off-Campus Borrowers One of the things we have most missed during the past year and a half has been welcoming our Friends into the libraries. We hope to invite everyone back into our buildings soon, but until then, we hope those with borrowing privileges will use our Pick-Up Program, a service that allows us to continue sharing our resources.
By logging on to the library website, alumni and other community members with borrowing privileges are able to request circulating items be pulled from the shelves and left for you to pick up outside the Central or Music library buildings at a scheduled time.
If you have any questions, please feel free to Ask a Librarian. We hope to see you in person soon.
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Buchanan Library Fellowships in the News
Buchanan Library Fellowship, Telling the Story of Civil War Nashville through Story Maps led by Associate Professor of Military Science and Arts and Science Brandon Hulette and Librarian for Geospatial Data and Systems Stacy Curry-Johnson, worked with the Battle of Nashville Trust to learn more about this battle, which is said to be the turning point of the Civil War. Fellow Jordan Rhym was a part of the Vanderbilt team using GPR technology to uncover clues from the Battle of Nashville on Shy’s Hill. This technology allowed them to look more than six feet under ground in hopes of finding items from the battle. Watch the full story on Channel 5.
In the Summer/Fall 2021 issue of the Vanderbilt Magazine the 2020 Fellowship Building a University: Vanderbilt’s First Decade, 1875–1885 was featured. Read the full story
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Please send questions and suggestions to ACE@vanderbilt.edu
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