“These big corporations see us as numbers, not names. They’d just as soon write you off as look at you.”

“This was a booming area for manufacturing, now there’s nothing.”

“Winchester was an integrated part of the community, and the people who worked there were respected…”

These quotes are all part of a larger story currently being told in a new exhibit on Level B of Homer Babbidge Library.

“Our Community at Winchester: An Elm City Story” is the story of the Olin-Winchester Repeating Arms plant, one of New Haven’s most important employers of the 20^th century.

The history of the plant and the stories of its workers are told in 35 display boards of oral histories, photographs and other documents such as newspaper clippings and company memos.   They chronicle the company’s creation in the late 1800s up to the aftermath of its closure in 2006. Like many large corporations, it has had its fair share of triumphs, struggles and controversies.

The elements of the exhibit, compiled by Joan Cavanagh, archivist and director of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association, tell the story of labor struggles, union battles, racial tensions and impact on the community brought on by the manufacturing giant.

Especially compelling are the oral history accounts, which were collected by Dorothy Johnson and Lula White, two sisters whose father worked at Winchester. The accounts, both positive and negative, paint a picture of life for the various workers at the plant. Along with photos of the interviewees, quotes and background information give a vibrant overview of each of their individual experiences and often, struggles.

The exhibit will be on display until June 13, 2016. It’s definitely something to check out, whether you need a quick study break or just want to learn something new.

There will also be a reception and gallery talk April 18, 4:30-6:30 p.m. titled “Workers at Winchester: Community, Contradictions and Struggle” by Joan Cavanaugh, Archivist/Director of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association.

“Art and Activism in the Humanities” is student work as part of our collaboration this semester with the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program series “Feminism/s and Future/s.” These works are from students in several classes in WGSS where they were asked to consider the meanings of feminism in the future and the kinds of future they envision. Using the lens of “Art and Activism in the Humanities” to identify, interrogate, and express their thoughts on everything from marginalized bodies and household economics to sexualization in the media and changing gender expectations around the world, these students produced a close examination of utopias, dystopias, US and global movements for social justice, and the many ways in which the personal is political.

The exhibit is located on the Northwest side of Level 1 for the next few weeks. The public is invited to a reception on Monday night from 5-6:30 where you will have the opportunity to talk to the students as well as join in some gender-neutral swing dance lessons.

 

Faculty members play the key role in choosing, adapting, and developing new learning materials and methods which leads to student success. This symposium will be an opportunity to enter into conversations about the pedagogical possibilities that open/affordable learning resources offer and to become inspired to explore and integrate them into your own classrooms. These resources allow a freedom to develop, reuse, and remix materials of all types to create dynamic and engaging courses, all without increasing student debt or leaving behind students who are unable to afford expensive traditional materials.

We will be joined by experts on the national stage as well as those who have had success here at UConn to lead the conversation on the challenges and rewards to this style of teaching.

The symposium is being sponsored by the UConn Affordable Textbook Initiative (ATI) Task Force through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation and the University Student Government. Established in 2015 by the Provost’s Office, ATI is looking into best practices for excellence in teaching and learning using new, open, and/or alternative materials and methods that are more affordable for our students.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Rome Commons Ballroom, UConn, Storrs 

Registration is free and required. Lunch is included. 

Symposium Schedule:

9:15am – Registration and Reception
9:45am – Welcome
10:00am – Keynote Presentation – David Wiley

Dr. Wiley is Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning, an organization dedicated to increasing student success, reinvigorating pedagogy, and improving the affordability of education through the adoption of open educational resources by schools, community and state colleges, and universities. He is also currently the Education Fellow at Creative Commons and adjunct faculty in Brigham Young University’s graduate program in Instructional Psychology and Technology, where he leads the Open Education Group (and was previously a tenured Associate Professor).

11:30am – Tim Dzurilla, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science
12:00pm – Lunch & Table Top Discussions
1:00pm – Panel Discussion

• Daniel Byrd, President Elect, UConn Undergraduate Student Government
• Aynsley Diamond, Director of Faculty Development Programs, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
• Kathy Labadorf, Project Coordinator, Affordable Textbook Initiative, UConn Libraries
• Edward Neth, Lecturer, Department of Chemistry
• Amit Savkar, Associate Professor in Residence, Department of Mathematics
• Ethan Senack, Higher Education Advocate, U.S. PIRG
• Jeremy Teitelbaum, Dean, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

2:00-2:30 – Wrap Up

If you have any questions, please contact Kathy Labadorf.

An exhibit of handcrafted books created by members of the world-renowned Ediciones Vigía, a fine press publishing house in Cuba, is on display in UConn’s Homer Babbidge Library through May 2.

Since its creation in 1985 in the city of Matanzas, Ediciones Vigía has been internationally recognized as a unique artist’s collaborative press, whose work is included in outstanding private and public collections, such as the British National Library, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the Library of Congress, and numerous universities throughout the world. Ediciones Vigía’s catalog combines limited editions by authors such as Baudelaire, Emily Dickinson, Pasternak, Tolstoy, Tagore, and Verlaine, Spanish-language authors such as Borges, Federico García Lorca, and Gabriela Mistral, and renowned Cuban writers such as José Martí, Lezama Lima, and Nancy Morejón.

However, Ediciones Vigía’s work is especially notable because of their aesthetic value and original design, which use wood, paper and cloth scraps, and the most unimaginable objects and materials. This reflects both the artists’ creativity and the unfortunate economic crisis and resource shortages currently experienced by Cubans. Each handmade volume is a genuine piece of art, as well as a powerful testimony of struggle and artistic survival and sustainability.

“This exhibition takes place within an exceptional context,” says Professor Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, associate professor of UConn’s Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Literatures and Cultures department and co-curator of the exhibit. “Since December 2014, when U.S. and Cuban Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced their mutual intentions of reactivating the relationship between the two nations, the general interest in Cuba has unexpectedly increased. One of the result of more than 50 years of political and economic disconnection is the tremendous lack of information about today’s reality in Cuba which must be addressed.”

This exhibition about one of Cuba’s most innovative fine art publishing houses sheds light on this often misunderstood country, Casamayor-Cisneros observes.

 

“While showcasing pieces of remarkable aesthetic value, the exhibition also exposes the visitors to a little known aspect of Cuba’s cultural production,” she notes.

The UConn Libraries’ Archives & Special Collections currently owns 42 of these beautiful handcrafted books and looks forward to adding more work from the collective in the future, says co-curator Marisol Ramos, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Latino Studies, Spanish & Anthropology Librarian.

The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Department of Literatures, Cultures & Languages and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC).
Two public receptions will be held in connection with the exhibition on March 24, from 4-6 p.m. at the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center and on April 18 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Homer Babbidge Library.

All organizing is science fiction. A world where everyone has a home, a great education, community based transformative justice, nourishing food to eat and clean water to drink, where we are in right relation to the planet, to each other, where are free to be and love ourselves as we are, to grow together? We have never seen it; its possibility remains speculative. Yet speculative fiction, perhaps particularly science fiction, offers a powerful opportunity to speculate-into-being.

Walidah Imarisha, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (AK Press 2015), will facilitate a salon focused on the history of science fiction and social change, considering ways to use science fiction as a practice ground for social justice strategizing and vision.

March 23, 12:30-2 p.m. in the Rowe Building, Room 122 (please note this is a room change.)

This is the second lecture in the Feminism/s and Future/s salons sponsored by the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program in partnership with: the UConn Libraries; the UConn Humanities Institute; the UConn Reads! Program; the Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies; the Africana Studies Institute; the Women’s Center; and the English Department.

Want to learn about some of the tools out there to help effectively manage and analyze your research data? Ever wondered what OpenRefine, Introduction to R, Data analysis and visualization in R and SQL for data management can do for you?

Join us for a two-day Data Carpentry workshop on Mar 7-8 from 9:00 am-4:30 pm and explore basic concepts, skills and tools for working more effectively with data. This will be focused on ecology/natural resources research data but anyone is welcome to attend. UConn participants can register for either the UConn Associate or the General seats.

Registration and laptops with specific software are required. Information on both of these be found on the Data Carpentry website.

Want to learn more?

On March 21-22 we will offer a second two-day workshop that will focus on the basic concepts and tools for your research, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. This will also be focused on ecology/natural resources research data. UConn participants can register for either the UConn Associate or the General seats.

Registration and laptops with specific software are required. Information can be found on the Software Carpentry website.

The UConn Libraries is pleased to be partnering with the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program on their upcoming discussion this March.

“The Politics of the Post-Apocalypse: Race, Gender, and Sexuality After the End”
March 2, 4 to 5:30pm, Class of 1947, Homer Babbidge Library

The very meanings of race, of gender, of sexuality, of labor and reproduction, of power, justice, and even of survival itself might not change after the apocalypse; then again, they might. Dr. Stacy Missari (Quinnipiac University) and Dr. Mary Burke (University of Vermont) will join Dr. Barbara Gurr (UConn) for a salon that focuses on what popular culture teaches us about post-apocalyptic politics and the human imagination. They will consider the ways in which post-apocalyptic narratives organize and possibly limit our abilities to imagine a different world, but also potentially create ruptures in hegemonic notions of “progress”, “civility”, relationship, and social change, particularly around concerns of race, gender and sexuality.

 

The second salon in the series is titled

“The History of Science Fiction and Social Change”
date tbd

All organizing is science fiction. A world where everyone has a home, a great education, community based transformative justice, nourishing food to eat and clean water to drink, where we are in right relation to the planet, to each other, where are free to be and love ourselves as we are, to grow together? We have never seen it; its possibility remains speculative. Yet speculative fiction, perhaps particularly science fiction, offers a powerful opportunity to speculate-into-being. Adrienne Maree Brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (AK Press 2015), will facilitate a salon focused on the history of science fiction and social change, considering ways to use science fiction as a practice ground for social justice strategizing and vision.

Both salons are sponsored by the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program in partnership with: the UConn Libraries; the UConn Humanities Institute; the UConn Reads! Program; the Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies; the Africana Studies Institute; the Women’s Center; and the English Department.

Our own Beth Rumery, library director for the Avery Point Campus Library, received the I Love My Librarian Award for her outstanding public service to the community and ongoing commitment to transforming lives through education and lifelong learning. Rumery was one of only 10 librarians within the United States recognized this year for this esteemed honor.

Beth was nominated by Sue Shontell, the Executive Director of the New London Housing Authority for her outreach efforts both to students and faculty at UConn and the community at large. With physical changes to make the library more inviting and a safe location for students to come and discuss issues with sexual orientation, depression and other difficult personal issues, she has created a sense of place within the library. She has also been an active member of the greater Groton community, reaching out to the low income elderly and disabled housing authority and their families. According to the nomination, her work has “opened university speakers to staff and families as a way to reach them and show that they too can go to school, not be intimidated by campuses and connect with their lives.”

As part of the award process, library users nationwide are invited to nominate their favorite librarians working in public, school, college, community college and university libraries. This year more than 1,300 library patrons submitted detailed stories showing how their librarian had an impact on their communities and lives by connecting people with the information access and critical resources they need to succeed in today’s digital age.

Beth received her award, which includes a $5,000 prize, last week at a ceremony in New York City. The event was hosted by Carnegie Corporation of New York, which generously sponsors the award along with The New York Public Library and The New York Times. For more information and a copy of the nomination form, please see ALA’s website at http://www.ilovelibraries.org/lovemylibrarian/2015/15winners

About Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 “to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.” In keeping with this mandate, the Corporation’s work focuses on the issues that Andrew Carnegie considered of paramount importance: international peace, the advancement of education and knowledge, and the strength of our democracy.

About The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.

About the American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 58,000 members in academic, public, school, government, and special libraries. The mission of the American Library Association is to provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all. The ALA administers the I Love My Librarian Award through the ALA’s Public Awareness Office which promotes the value of libraries and librarians.