Library Stuff

Texas “Identity” Politics: 1900 – Present

What is politics? When you think of politics, does it apply only to certain parts of your life? Or can everything be considered political?

Every person has multiple axes of identity: gender, sexual orientation, religion, race/ethnicity, political affiliation. As we go through life, we also have more changeable and/or ephemeral identities: student, parent, family member, professional, and so on. This exhibit focuses on political identities in Texas from 1900 to the present and the ways in which politics have become intertwined with our identities. The word politics, like propaganda, often has negative connotations, but it’s really just a descriptive term that can be fraught with complexity and emotion.

Texas “Identity” Politics: 1900 – Present shows different groups advocating for their civil rights in relation to various aspects of their identities, such as worker, mother, or citizen. When people advocate for or against any piece of legislation or policy that affects people’s lives in any way, then they are being political.

Texas “Identity” Politics: 1900 – Present is located in Special Collections, 6th floor, UT Arlington Central Library and runs through August 11, 2012. Hours are 9am – 5pm Monday through Saturday. This exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information call 817-272-3393 or contact spcoref@uta.edu.

There is a purple martin house in a pretty little copse next to the parking lot I use south of the Library and Life Sciences building. I had a feeling I was being watched as I walked past earlier this week.

I moved around the structure until the curious occupant took a look to see if I was going to climb up to eat him. I decided against it.

Urban landscapes with active wildlife show a level of health that users may not regularly recognize, but is important. The turtles in the pond under the bridge to the large student parking lot south of my lot, the birds that hop in the fountain on the southwest corner of the Central Library, squirrels that ignore food from people because there is so much indigenous food, they’re welcome signs that the percent of lawn and trees, when compared to the amount of concrete and buildings, sustain an environment for these small animals. I watch people along with the wildlife, and am glad to regularly see individuals walking up the hill from the parking areas pause to watch the antics of a squirrel or grackles in the fountain.

In summer when there were concrete benches under the trees near University Hall one could see these squirrels spread eagle on the cool concrete, dissipating heat from their bodies through their torsos and the membranes at their armpit and groin areas. In fall you can pick up pecans on the lawn of the Library Mall and generate high-pitched scolds from the squirrels that are dropping the nuts from those trees. This isn’t random noise unrelated to you, you’re interacting with that tiny individual.

There’s a lot of life on campus, and I predict that with the advent of the community gardens more wildlife, with an adverse effect, may arrive. Here’s hoping resourceful gardeners can set up the gardens and its defenses in a way that don’t harm the beneficial wildlife while still finding a way to exclude the interlopers. The many facets of companion planting are useful in this. And have-a-heart traps. As with the squirrel above, wildlife doesn’t always live in the places we would wish them to (or not.)

National Public Radio correspondent John Burnett speaks about “The War Next Door” at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 21, in the sixth floor atrium of the Central Library.

The event is part of “The War Next Door: Narco-Violence and the U.S.-Mexico Border” series tied to the “Life and Death in the Northern Pass” photography exhibit in the Central Library sixth floor parlor.

Burnett, who is based in Austin, has spent much of his career producing investigative reports from the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. His special reporting projects have included New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, and many reports on the drug war in the Americas.

He has received the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting. His reports are heard regularly on NPR’s award-winning newsmagazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.

For more information, contact Sam Haynes in the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies at 817-272-3997 or haynes@uta.edu.

Lifted directly and without editing from UTA TrailBlazer newsletter

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, Dr. Gerald Saxon will be stepping down from his role as Dean of the UT Arlington Library as of August 31, 2011*. After a year’s leave to prepare for his duties in the classroom, Dr. Saxon will be returning to the faculty in the history department. I am pleased to announce that Ms. Julie Alexander has agreed to serve as Interim Dean of the UT Arlington Library effective September 1, 2011. Ms. Alexander has worked in UTA’s library since 1978, and as associate director since 1995, so her years of executive experience will be a valuable benefit for the University’s administration.

Ms. Alexander is a member of the American Library Association and the Library Administration and Management Association, serving on numerous committees for both associations. She received her B.S. degree from Sam Houston State University, her M.L.S. degree from the University of North Texas, and has completed coursework toward a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science also at UNT. Julie has received several honors, including her selection to attend the ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute in 2004, and her appointment to the UNT Library Capital Campaign Steering Committee which is helping raise more than $1 million.

I look forward to working with Julie in her role as dean. Please join me in congratulating her on this interim appointment.

Sincerely,

Donald R. Bobbitt
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
June 30, 2011

*A note from Gerald Saxon to Library staff on July 28:

As you know, Julie has been appointed Interim Dean of the Library, and I am sure you are as happy as I am about this, knowing that the Library will be in good hands as the University begins a search for a new Dean in the fall. With my tenure as Dean coming to a close, Julie and I thought it would be best if we begin the transition of leadership in August. So effective on August 1, Julie will take the lead in decision-making and guiding the Library into the future.

Photos from the UT Arlington Library events are posted regularly to the Click! pages at the Star-Telegram. They typically appear in the Arlington Star-Telegram in print, but online they are visible to anyone anywhere.

If you wish to download a photo, open the link for the photo(s) you’re interested in, then right click your mouse and “save as” to your prefered file. This will be the full size photo that I sent to the paper and can be used for making a photo print at any camera store, etc.

These photos have been submitted under the Star-Telegram’s guidelines, and are theirs to use. In addition to downloading for free, they offer a way to email the link, and provide the html code for embedding any of these images in your web site. Finally, they offer a service to sell prints of these photos.

Though there is a link to purchase photos (on a yellow button) under each photo, that method doesn’t work. To find photos to purchase, go to the Star-Telegram front page and scroll to the  footer where there is a line for Photo Galleries. You’ll see a link for “Photo Store,” and these photos are arranged by the day they ran in the paper (not the date of the event).

The last set of Friends of the Library photos were published in the Arlington paper on January 14, so view the thumbnails to find which photos they offer for sale. Not all of ours from the Click! page are sold, so check both places, and print your own if it isn’t sold by the paper. (The photo above I linked to from the Click! page doesn’t appear to be for sale–possibly because it was cropped to remove a lot of uninteresting wall in the photo. The digital file may be smaller than they can use for all of the sizes they offer). 

Finally, if there are any of these photos that you would like a full-size digital copy of, cropped or uncropped, email me at dwyer@uta.edu and I will send it to you electroncially.

http://click.star-telegram.com/category.php?id=41

The next Friends meeting is

Friday, October 22, 2010
Central Library sixth floor parlor, 7:30pm
Guest speaker John Miller Morris

John Miller Morris is an associate professor of geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he has taught since 1992. He received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Texas at Austin. He has authored four books, including From Coronado to Escalante (1992), El Llano Estacado (1997), A Private in the Texas Rangers (2001), and Taming the Land (2009).

Morris will be speaking to the Friends about his latest book, Taming the Land, a book that reflects the interest of Texans in the postcard graze that gripped the country from 1905-1920. During this time, hundreds of people took up cameras, and photographers of note chose some of their best works for photo postcards, which sold for a nickel and mailed for a penny to friends and relatives. Morris will show the Friends many of these revealing cards and discuss what they reveal about Texas and Texans in the early part of the 20th century.

Copies of the book will be sold during the reception following his presentation.

Last month Rafia Mirza and I worked on a prolonged photo shoot. Over several days we rattled around the library with a book truck loaded with books from the library stacks and personal books that library staff offered for the occasion. Appointments were made to catch groups, others were simply minding their own business at their desks when we passed by. The books sold themselves – library staff are particularly vulnerable to the sense of indignation that THEIR favorite book might have been banned or challenged. Many who might normally not have asked to have their photos taken happily posed with their friends in print.

The digital photos were processed by me and sent as raw images to Kathleen Houston, who cropped and inserted the information about Banned Books week and named each model. And the slide program looks great! It was a lot of work, and wouldn’t have happened if each of us didn’t give it a lot of thought and time. But I’m pleased to post a link to the 2010 slide show and libguide. Click on the photo to go straight to the slide show, or visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/utarlingtonlibrary/ for the Library Flickr page.

A corresponding exhibit will be in place on the first floor of Central Library during Banned Books Week. Thanks to Kathleen Houston, Rebekah Lee and Angela Johnson for that. And thanks to Rafia Mirza for sticking with this project to keep it moving to completion!

–Maggie Dwyer

This was a great photo exhibit, but the building owners asked that the web site take down the images. I’ll leave this link because he has some great finds around New York City to take a look at.

I spent two years working at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, back before the big restoration began, and enjoyed unlimited wandering through the buildings. I usually had a camera with me, and loved photographing the interesting features but also what neglect had done to the island. And based upon that enjoyment, you can see why I find this discovery thrilling: The Abandoned Palace on Beekman Street.

A tour of this exhibit is scheduled for Thursday, July 1, at 1pm in Special Collections, on the sixth floor of the Central Library.

The University of Texas at Arlington Library Special Collections’ summer exhibit is “For All Workers: The Legacy of the Texas Labor Movement, 1838-2010.” This exhibit features the personal papers of labor and political activist John “J.W.” Jackson, as well as numerous items from the Texas Labor Archives at UT Arlington.

Inspired by J.W. Jackson’s generous donations of labor archive records and personal papers, it explains what labor unions are and why they are important, shows the importance of the labor movement as seen through the life of J.W. Jackson, and concludes with accounts of labor events that have impacted Texas history. The labor movement, a little-known aspect of Texas history, is nevertheless inextricably intertwined with the legacy of what it means to be a Texan, shaping the makeup of who we as a state are today.

“For All Workers: The Legacy of the Texas Labor Movement, 1838-2010″ is open from May 17 through August 7 in the Special Collections Library, located on the 6th floor of UT Arlington’s Central Library. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Summer hours are 9am – 5pm Monday through Saturday. Call 817-272-7511 for more information.

702 Planetarium Place
Arlington, Texas 76019-0497
Map to the Libraries

This year photos of library events have been sent to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. If you like and want a copy of any of these photos, you have a few choices. You can open them at the Star-Telegram (they have the full-sized digital photo) and save it (right click and save to where you want to keep it) or you can buy a print from the Star-Telegram. Or you can contact me, Maggie Dwyer, tell me which photo it is you want, and I can email you a copy of the digital file. Fees paid for prints purchased from the Star-Telegram are retained by the Star-Telegram.

http://click.star-telegram.com/category.php?id=41 will take you directly to the category of Library photos sent to the paper. You can go back through many months and find our events interspersed with other libraries in the region.

The most recent Friends of the Library meeting was also posted this week. Photos include Friends members with Bob Ray Sanders.