Category Archives: Uncategorized

Susan Raab hosts new blog “Artstomarket”

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Susan Raab is interviewing some of the best in the arts business and publishing their fascinating advice on her new blog “Artstomarket.”  Read great tips like “do’s and don’ts in the arts business” by Roxie Munro and Steve Light, advice on networking and making yourself “visible and indispensable” from Michael Astrachan,  President and Creative Director, XVIVO LLC.  This great blog was created in conjunction with the workshops coming up at UConn on September 28, 2012, for students in the morning and folks working in the creative arts in the afternoon.

“Arts Market Discovery” Workshop for Students

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"Arts Market Discovery" 9/28/2012 Dodd Research Center, Storrs, CT

“Arts Market Discovery” 9/28/2012 Dodd Research Center, Storrs, CT

Artists, writers, and performers, join other University of Connecticut students at an intensive 3-hour workshop to investigate marketing strategies and outreach, messaging, and goal setting as you set off on your career in the arts. “Arts Market Discovery” is free and sponsored by the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection, The Straightors Fund, and the Aetna Chair of Writing, English Department at the University of Connecticut.  Come prepared with a short description of a product or a concept you hope to promote. Susan Raab, CEO of Raab Associates, will help you identify your most marketable skills.  “Arts Market Discovery” will be presented in Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, on September 28, 2012, from 9am to noon.

A second session in the afternoon will cover roles social media, public relations and other marketing tools play in discovering your public persona.  Students are welcome to stay for the afternoon program too.  Please register separately for each session.  Attendance is limited for both sessions so reserve your seat now with jean.nelson@lib.uconn.edu.

“Arts Market Discovery” Workshop 9/28/2012 Dodd Research Center, Storrs, CT

NCLC and Friends Sponsor Workshop

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"Crafting a Public Identity" Workshop 9/28/2012 Dodd Research Center, Storrs, CT

“Crafting a Public Identity” Workshop 9/28/2012 Dodd Research Center, Storrs, CT

“Crafting a public identity: a workshop for creative artists, writers and performers on navigating the arts business maze” will be presented at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center on September 28, 2012, from 1-3:30pm in Konover Auditorium. Susan Raab, CEO of Raab Associates, will moderate a panel consisting of Charles Coe, Program Officer at the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Sharon Butler, Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University; Jeff Raab, 2012 graduate of NYU’s Steinhardt Musical Theatre Program;  Roxie Munro, author/illustrator of over 35 children’s books; and Laura Rossi Totten, a book publishing and public relations expert.

The panel will discuss the strategies, techniques and tools used to build an effective marketing presence.  Sponsored by the Aetna Chair of Writing, English Department at the University of Connecticut, The Straightors Fund, and the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the UConn Libraries.  Attendance is limited, so reserve now with jean.nelson@lib.uconn.edu.

“Crafting a Public Identity” Workshop 9/28/2012 Dodd Research Center, Storrs, CT

 

New book on Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson out!

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Dr. Philip Nel’s newest work, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss:  How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature, has been published by the University Press of Mississippi.  This book is the culmination of years of work to bring to light the lives and times of the man who created Harold and the purple crayon and the woman who, with Maurice Sendak, created A Hole is to dig.  Over the course of their marriage and collaborations, they created over 75 books and influenced some of the best in the business, including Chris van Allsburg who thanked Harold and his purple crayon in his Caldecott acceptance speech in 1981.  Nel points out that while Krauss and Johnson were “never quite household names…Their circle of friends and acquaintances included some of the  important cultural figures of the twentieth century” (pg.7) .   This impeccably researched work which literally took Nel a decade to write, is arranged in 28 chapters, with extensive notes, bibliography, index and illustrations, some reprinted from published works and some from the three dozen archives he visited including the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection.  In his epilogue, Nel writes, “Crockett Johnson shows us that a crayon can create a world, while Ruth Krauss demonstrates that dreams can be as large as a giant orange carrot.  Whenever children and grown-ups seek books that invite them to think and to imagine, they need look no further than Johnson and Krauss.  There, they will find a very special house, where holes are to dig, walls are a canvas, and people are artists, drawing paths that take them anywhere they want to go” (pg. 275).

Congratulations, Dr. Nel, on an exceptional work of scholarship.

Philip Nel, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2012).  ISBN 978-1-61703-624-8.  EBook 978-1-61703-625-5.

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Paul Galdone greeting card illustrations donated to NCLC

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Ms. A. Siegel of Illinois has donated four illustrations for greeting cards created in the 1960s by Paul Galdone. Galdone was born in 1907 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1921. He studied art at the Art Student’s League and New York School for Industrial Design. After serving in World War II in the U.S. Army, Engineers, the author and illustrator of children’s books worked as a bus boy, electrician’s helper, and fur dryer, in addition to four years in the art department at Doubleday (NY). His work was awarded runner-up for the Caldecott Medal (Eve Titus, Anatole, 1957 and Anatole and the Cat, 1958) and was selected by the American Library Association for its Notable Books program (The Little Red Hen, Winter Danger, and Flaming Arrows). He died of a heart attack on 7 November 1986, in Nyack, NY.

 

Webster-Doyle Papers hold key to ending bullying

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Established in 2004, the Terrence Webster-Doyle Papers contain materials having to do with bullying prevention, conflict management, peace studies, emotional response, and how psychological conditioning prevents peace and creates conflict, individually and globally.  Influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968, Webster-Doyle began to teach classes at Sonoma State University in the search for understanding the cause, nature, and structure of conditioning.  Webster-Doyle also studied the work of Dr. David Bohm, a physicist who studies the relationship between thought and reality; A. S. Neil, the founder of the Summerhill School, an intentional community in England; and Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World which explored the nature and effect of negative conditioning.

Webster-Doyle is a sixth Dan in Take-Nami-do karate, and utilizes his extensive martial arts experience as a focus for the exploration of the nature of conflict and its ramifications for the individual, schools, society and the world.  With his wife Jean, they founded the Atrium Society and its subgroups, Martial Arts for Peace, Youth Peace Literacy Project, and Education for Peace (http://martialartsforpeace.com/index-2.html).  His published works usually contain not only a main work but also guides for students, teachers, martial arts instructors, and parents, with worksheets, group and individual activities, with tools to chart progress in conflict resolution.

 

Webster-Doyle’s books, archives, and audiovisual materials are held by the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection.  His books are also on permanent display at the International Museum of Peace and Solidarity in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the Commonwealth of Independent States and at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.

–Terri J. Goldich, Curator, Northeast Children’s Literature Collection

Claudia Rueda wins Nati Per Leggere Award

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Claudia Rueda

Claudia Rueda, a former Billie M. Levy Travel Grant recipient, reports some very good news:

The Italian edition of my book NO (published in English by Groundwood) has been the recipient of this year’s Nati Per Leggere (Born to Read) Award!!! This award aims to support the best editorial production for preschoolers in Italy and to recognize the creativity and commitment to the Born to Read project.

The national programme “Nati per Leggere” is meant to inspire an early interest in books and reading. The project is supported by the Italian Library Association (AIB), the association of pediatricians (ACP) and the child health centre (Centro per la Salute del Bambino, CSB).

Here’s the link to their site http://www.natiperleggere.it/index.php?id=174

Congratulations, Claudia!

Judy Blume to speak at Mark Twain House

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The Mark Twain House & Museum is hosting Judy Blume next week as a fundraiser for the historic home and museum. Judy is a wonderful writer who has changed the lives of children all over the world for many decades.

They still have a number of seats left for the event. She’s speaking on Thursday, June 21st at the University of Hartford. Tickets can be purchased at http://harttweb.hartford.edu/tickets.aspx (they are $25, $40, or $85 depending on seating, and an opening reception with Judy at the highest ticket level). Judy will also be doing a book signing after the event.

The Mark Twain House is offering a discount code for local organizations, especially those with kids involved, in order to make the event more affordable for families. The discount code is FUDGE and can be entered online when buying tickets, or over the phone.

Meet Kyle Lynes: a Volunteer Profile

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Kyle Lynes, May 2012

Kyle Lynes is the sort of volunteer we here in the archive absolutely treasure – smart, confident handling the collections, and always eager to do a thorough  and good job on her projects.  Kyle started volunteering in Summer 2011 when she was still a graduate student getting her Masters in Library Science degree at Southern Connecticut State University (she completed her degree in Fall 2011) and wanted some experience working in an archive.  Even though she accepted a position in September 2011 as Reference and Cataloging Librarian at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich, Connecticut, her schedule has allowed her to continue coming to Archives & Special Collections one day a week to work with our collections.

Kyle is currently working with me on an exhibit we’re calling Workers at Play: Baseball Teams, Bowling Leagues and Company Picnics, of images from the Connecticut Business Collections showing the pastimes, sponsored or promoted by companies in the state,  that workers indulged in in workplaces in the past.  Kyle has exhaustively searched through over a dozen business collections and has meticulously chosen the photographs that will be in the exhibit.  She has scanned them for an online exhibit, written captions, and logged each image for either duplication or preparation for display in the exhibit.  The exhibit will be up in the Dodd Research Center Gallery from July 9 to October 19.  After that it will be a traveling exhibit and have an online presence (which I will announce in this blog in October).

Kyle tells me that she has most enjoyed the work of sifting through the old photographs, immersing herself in the eras depicted in the images.  She loves getting a sense of how workplaces around the state promoted a sense of community through their sports teams, dances, parties and other pastimes.  Kyle also said that she has enjoyed working in Archives & Special Collections, with staff and student assistants who care about the work of preserving the past.

After the exhibit is done Kyle will likely not continue her volunteer work here – her own pastimes and other volunteer work, in addition to her professional work at Three Rivers, will more than occupy her time – but we will always welcome her back if she decides to work again with our collections.  Next on her horizon is some volunteering at the Middle Haddam Public Library, where she will utilize her experience with archival collections.

Thank you, Kyle, for volunteering your time in Archives & Special Collections!

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

Men’s basketball team from New Britain Machine Company, 1920

NCLC remembers Maurice Sendak

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My favorite memory of Mr. Sendak comes from a dinner at Dean Emeritus Dr. David Woods’ house.  Dean Woods had invited a few folks over following Sendak’s visit to UConn to deliver the inaugural Robert Gray Memorial Lecture.  Another of the guests was Etienne Delessert, also a well-known children’s illustrator from western Connecticut.  They discussed politics.

ImageThe NCLC holds original Sendak illustrations from the book he did with Ruth Krauss in 1952, A hole is to dig.  It was one of his first major books arranged by Ursula Nordstrom.  The NCLC also hold a few illustrations for Somebody else’s nut tree by Krauss, published in 1958.

What a wonderful, scary, brilliant man.

–Terri J. Goldich, Curator

Celebrate National Poem In Your Pocket Day

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The Academy of American Poets sponsors the annual National Poem in Your Pocket Day today.  Since the Fall of 2000, Poetic Journeys  has brought the campus community a “poetic respite from their busy days, and an opportunity” to enjoy poetry written by UConn students, faculty and staff every time they ride a bus or enter an elevator in the Library.  So if you don’t have a pocket, take a look at the past Poetic Journeys poetry available on their website or in the University Archives and celebrate the end of the semester with a poem.

–Betsy Pittman, University Archivist