Friends of the SMU Libraries/Colophon

Grants 2007

The Friends of the SMU Libraries Grants Committee met on April 25, 2007 to review grant proposals submitted by the libraries. The committee was chaired by Toni Terry and included Missy Collins, Judy McMillin and Donna Wellington. Amy Carver was ex-officio. The following grants were announced at the Annual Meeting on May 1, 2007:

$12,000 to Fondren Library Center Periodicals to purchase a Digital Microform Scanner for the Fondren Library Center Microform Area. The new scanner will provide viewing and printing services for both microfilm and microfiche.

$9,000 to CUL Collection Development to fund membership in the Text Creation Partnership covering the Evans Early American Imprint Collection. The Evans Text Creation Parnership makes the most important texts of Early American history fully searchable by keyword to support a cooperative effort led by the English Department, CUL and the Bridwell Library to purchase the Evans Collection (American books, 1639-1800) and the Eighteenth Century Collection Online (British books of the 18^th Century).

$3,000 to the DeGolyer Library to purchase fiction and poetry for the Colophon Collection of Moderns.

$2,400 to Bridwell Library for a new flatbed scanner and desktop computer and screen for use in the circulating collection area.

$2,000 to the Hamon Arts Library to partially support the acquisition of a special edition of Watermark, Joseph Brodsky’s collection of reflective essays on Venice. This edition is one of fifty copies illustrated with photographs by the artist Robert Morgan and published by esteemed designer and printmaker Peter Koch. The remaining cost of the publication will be provided by the Art History department, the English department and DeGolyer library.

$1,900 to Hamon Arts Library to purchase six recent advertising reels and one historical advertising collection. Reels are CD or DVD compilations of award-winning or otherwise exemplary advertising. The reels will be housed in the Hamon AV department where they will be readily available as study resources and teaching tools for professors and students in the Temerlin Advertising Institute for Education and Research.

$1,400 to Bridwell Library to purchase a new flatbed scanner for use in processing Interlibrary Loans and reserves.

$1,210 to the Fondren Library Center Reference User Services Team (RUST) for Assistive Technology Software to be used in the Fondren Library, Hamon Arts Library and Bridwell Library to support the assistive technology services provided in these three libraries for patrons with special needs.

$822.50 to the Jerry Bywaters Special Collections of the Hamon Arts Library for the purchase of materials and fabrication of seven frames to be used in exhibiting materials from its holdings. The new frames will be utilized initially in two upcoming exhibitions at the Meadows Museum: “Jerry Bywaters, Interpreter of the Southwest” and “Jerry Bywaters: Lone Star Printmaker” (Nov. 30, 2007-Feb. 24, 2008).

$799 to the ISEM Library to purchase The Handbook of Paleoanthropology.

$630 to Fondren Library Center Reference to purchase the electronic version of the four-volume Encyclopedia of India.

Amount of grants: $35,161.50

Grants approved for yearly distribution:

$3,000 to CUL to assist in funding the production of the CUL annual report publication.

$1,000 to support the Library School Scholarship Award. This year’s recipient is Chris Edwards from the Hamon Arts Library.

TOTAL of all 2007 grants: $39,161.50

Cindy, Gill and Tom Fomby and " The Library is the Heart of a University"

"Mail Art : What is your favorite book?"

Exhibit will open between June 13th and August 16th in Fondren Library link.

@ "How does the library support scholars, who want to use more advanced technology in their teaching/publication?"

@ "What is the net work experience of the faculty, students?"

@ "Make library a space that is owned by the community!"

@ "Assist students to make the transition from the recreational use of technologies to academic use of technologies!"

Alias Grace is a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood.

It won the Canadian Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The story is about the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper Canada. Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was sentenced to life imprisonment.
“In her astonishing novel, Margaret Atwood takes the reader back in time and into the life and mind of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of mid-nineteenth-century Canada. As the story begins, one-time maid-of-all-work Grace Marks is serving a life sentence in the Kingston Penitentiary for her involvement in the vicious murder of her employer, the wealthy Thomas Kinnear, and of Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent: after all, she was barely sixteen in 1843, at the time of the tragedy. Others think her evil or insane. Grace herself, having spent an interlude in the Lunatic Asylum in Toronto, claims now to have no memory of the murders.

Dr. Simon Jordan is one of the up-and-coming men of his day in the burgeoning field of mental illness. Engaged by a group of Kingston “reformers” and Spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace, he listens to the account of her life – her family’s difficult passage from Ireland to Canada, then her time spent in service from the age of twelve. As he brings Grace closer and closer to the day she can’t remember, he hears of the strained relationship between Kinnear and Nancy, and of the alarming behaviour of Grace’s fellow-servant, James McDermott. Dr. Jordan is drawn to Grace, who manifests “a composure a duchess would envy;” but he is also baffled by her. Still, it is his professional objective to wake the part of her mind which lies dormant. How will he do it, and what will he find? Was Grace a female fiend, a bloodthirsty femme fatale – or a weak and unwilling victim of circumstances?

Alias Grace is a beautifully crafted work of the imagination, which examines the convoluted relationships between men and women, and between the affluent and those without social position. It potently combines violence, the forces of sexual attraction, and a practical insight into the harsh existence of the poor, with a tender and surprising lyricism.

Margaret Atwood has reclaimed a mysterious and disturbing story from the past century, and has woven it into an intricate narrative that brilliantly evokes time and place. Its characters will continue to haunt the reader long after the final page. Alias Grace is vintage Atwood – a major achievement.”

(recommended by Marna Morland)

CUL NEWSLETTER
Southern Methodist University

How many reference Librarians does it take to change a light bulb?*

June 2007

Amount of grants: $35,161.50

TOTAL of all 2007 grants: $39,161.50

CUL NEWSLETTER Southern Methodist University

How many reference Librarians does it take to change a light bulb?*

June 2007

Amount of grants: $35,161.50

TOTAL of all 2007 grants: $39,161.50

CUL NEWSLETTER
Southern Methodist University