The Rogue Scholar

J.R.R. Tolkein Manuscript Exhibit Opens at Lincoln Center

From the METRO-L listserv:

J.R.R. TOLKIEN MANUSCRIPT EXHIBIT  AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY’S LIBRARY AT LINCOLN CENTER CAMPUS

October 5 – November 19, 2009

Literary manuscripts from Marquette University’s renowned J.R.R. Tolkien Collection will be exhibited this fall at Fordham’s Gerald M. Quinn Library at Lincoln Center.   The partnering academic libraries, both Jesuit institutions, are pleased to present “The Beginnings of a Masterpiece:   Original Manuscripts from The Fellowship of the Ring.”

Scheduled for October 5–November 19, the exhibit marks the first time that the literary manuscripts have been exhibited in New York City.

Select items will be featured in the exhibition at the Quinn Library. The complete manuscripts for The Lord of the Rings, written by J.R.R. Tolkien between 1938-1955, contain more than 9,250 pages.   Some highlights featured in the Fordham exhibition will include drawings and sketches, maps and calendars of Middle-earth, linguistic notes about the author’s invented languages, Hobbit family genealogies, detailed time schemes and other plot notes, and examples of Tolkien's finest calligraphy.  The original documents reflect an extraordinary creative process; as many as 18 drafts exist for some chapters.

Marquette University Libraries preserves the manuscripts and working drafts for three of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most celebrated books, The Hobbit (1937), Farmer Giles of Ham (1949), and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), as well as the original copy of the illustrated children's book Mr. Bliss.  The acquisition of the manuscripts was the brainchild of then Marquette library director William B. Ready (1914-1981).  Ready recognized The Lord of the Rings as a work of genius and negotiated to purchase the Oxford professor’s papers.  Tolkien's personal and academic papers, as well as his other literary manuscripts, including The Silmarillion, are preserved by Oxford University.

"The Beginnings of a Masterpiece" is free.  Located on the first floor of the Lowenstein Building at 113 West 60th Street, the Quinn Library will be open to visitors between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, Monday through Saturday and 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, Sunday.  All visitors will be asked to show a valid photo ID to enter the Lowenstein Building and the Quinn Library.

Marquette University Libraries' Tolkien Archives Fund, established in 1987 by the late Richard E. Blackwelder and expanded by numerous enthusiasts, is sponsoring the manuscript exhibition.

Frick Art Reference Library Launches 'Arcade' Research Catalog

This bulletin comes here courtesy of the METRO-L listserv (edited for links):

We are delighted to announce the launch of Arcade, the shared catalog of the Frick Art Reference Library and the libraries of the Brooklyn Museum and The Museum of Modern Art. The catalog, which can be found at http://arcade.nyarc.org, unites more than 800,000 records representing material of art and cultural history from the antique to the contemporary. This collaboration was made possible with the generous funding of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A third grant was awarded in December 2008 to further develop Arcade. 

 
The press release can be found here.

Additionally, we are thrilled to have been mentioned in The New York Times!


For questions please contact:

Lily Pregill at [email protected]  
Or Debbie Kempe at [email protected]

All I can say about this is that if Lily Pregill--with whom I had the pleasure of working at the Academy for several years--worked on this project, it's sure to be something special.  Enjoy!

Google Book Search Settlement Meeting Report

This comes from Dottie Hiebing, Executive Director of the Metropolitan New York Library Council, by way of the METRO-L listserve:

http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=1881 

Members of library community discussed the implications of the Google Book Search settlement in a meeting hosted on February 9, 2009 in Washington, D.C. by the American Library Association Washington Office, the Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College & Research Libraries. Under the settlement, Google and the American Association of Publishers and Authors Guild resolve their legal dispute over the scanning of millions of books provided by research libraries. The settlement still requires approval of the presiding judge.

Although this is a private settlement, the result has very real implications for public policy and the way libraries of all types will operate. The mission of libraries is to provide the broadest public access to the use of information, and the library community has a long history of advocating for laws and policies that protect the rights of library users. Because of the complexity of the agreement, its potential long-term impact on libraries, thus user interests, and the enormity of the book collection involved, many librarians have raised questions about the settlement's impact.

Issues raised at the meeting that members believe are of key concern to libraries include:

-Access. What will the settlement mean for protecting the public's ability to access and use digital resources from the nation's libraries? Since the Book Rights Registry established as a condition of the settlement will represent the interests of the authors and publishers, who will represent the interests of libraries and the public? What are the financial implications of participation? Could the settlement create a monopoly that threatens the mission of libraries by raising the prices to an unreasonable level that limits public access?

-Privacy. What will reader privacy look like in a Google subscription-based world? Will the years of hard-fought effort to protect library users' confidentiality be compromised as a for-profit company has new capabilities to monitor and track user reading habits under this settlement?

-Intellectual freedom. Are there academic freedom issues to consider? What are the implications of Google's ability to remove works at its discretion? Will there be notification of their removal? What are the issues regarding possible access and use restrictions on the Research Corpus?

-Equitable treatment. Since not all libraries are addressed in the settlement, what impact will it have on the diverse landscape of libraries? In light of tight economic times, will this negatively affect libraries with lean budgets? Will it expand the digital divide?

-Terms of use. Under the terms of the agreement, will library users continue to enjoy the same rights to information under copyright and other laws? Will the settlement impact the legal discussions and interpretations of library exceptions that allow for library lending, limited copying and preservation?

Next, the executive boards and other leadership bodies of the library associations will consider a number of options available to them to have their voices heard in this debate. To stay posted on the latest developments of the associations' next steps, see www.ala.org/washoff; www.arl.org; and www.ala.org/acrl.

Neil Gaiman Wins Newbery Medal for Children's Literature

From the NY Times:

Newbery Medal for Children’s Literature Goes to Neil Gaiman
By Motoko Rich

Neil Gaiman, the British-born fantasy author, has won the Newbery Medal for his children’s book “The Graveyard Book.” (Yuko Shimizu)

The John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature was awarded on Monday to “The Graveyard Book,” by Neil Gaiman, a British-born author who has distinguished himself both as a science fiction and comics writer for adults. “The Graveyard Book,” about a boy who lives in a cemetery and is raised by ghosts, was published by HarperCollins Children’s Books and has spent 15 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. The American Library Association announced the prize at its midwinter conference in Denver.

Read the rest of the article here.  Congrats, Neil!

Too Cool for Words

This is Lara (aka, Mrs. Rogue Scholar, MLS). Lara is a librarian at the NYC Dept. of Health Library. Before she started there, she worked at the EPA Library on Broadway, NYC.

This is Lara's book, "Fat Chicks Rule: How to Survive in a Thin-Centric World." (I helped write the first chapter.)

And this is Lara's book being brought into a debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Aren't you proud? God knows I am.

Anyway, buy the book. Write to Senator James Inholfe, R-Oklahoma, and ask if he supports anti-size discrimination legislation. Or ask him why he hates libraries and the environment (although perhaps not in that order).

Duke U. Press Joins LOCKSS

An announcment from Duke University Press & Duke Libraries, care of Kimberly Steinle:

For immediate release: Nov. 8, 2006

CONTACT: Mandy Dailey-Berman (Duke University Press, Journals Publicity  Coordinator)
[email protected]

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, DUKE LIBRARIES TO SUPPORT LONG-TERM STRATEGIES  FOR PRESERVING ELECTRONIC SCHOLARLY JOURNAL CONTENT

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University Press and Duke University Libraries will  be participating in Portico and the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Alliance, two long-term strategies to preserve electronic scholarly journal content for future scholars, school officials announced Wednesday.

“The mandate to preserve scholarly work is an implicit and critical component of a library’s mission and one that has been vastly complicated by both the shift to electronic publishing and the fiscal challenges that libraries now face,” says Kimberly Steinle, Duke University Press’s library relations manager. “Portico and LOCKSS offer libraries reliable solutions to these problems, securing perpetual access to archived online content, while also eliminating the financial burden of creating an archive.”

Kevin L. Smith, scholarly communication officer at Duke, adds, “We recognize that academic research libraries such as those here at Duke University need to invest in digital repositories that help scholars maintain access to and control of their research product at various stages. Both LOCKSS and Portico represent substantive progress on the broad issue of electronic archiving.”

Portico was launched in 2005 with support from JSTOR, Ithaka, the Library of Congress and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Portico’s mission is to preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and to ensure that it remains accessible to future generations of
scholars, researchers, and students. In pursuit of this mission, Portico operates a secure, permanent archive of electronic scholarly journals.  To date, more than 5,200 journals have been promised to the Portico archive, and a broad range of scholarly publishers and libraries have chosen to participate in Portico as an important component of their archiving strategy.

Initiated by Stanford University Libraries, LOCKSS is open source software that provides librarians with an easy and inexpensive way to collect, store, preserve, and provide access to the local copy of authorized content they purchase. Running on standard desktop hardware and requiring almost no technical administration, LOCKSS provides accessible copies of e-journal content as it is published.

You can take a look at what LOCKSS is planning here.  Portico's got the same basic idea, but there are differences, so take at look at them, too.