Freda Spaulding was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 30, 1893. She received her degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1915, attended the Parsons School of Design in New York, and studied under Roger Pearson in Chicago and Joseph Albers in North Carolina. Spaulding taught art in St. Paul, Minnesota and in Rochester, New York before joining the faculty at UNL in 1942. She received her MFA from the University of Colorado in 1952 and then retired Associate Professor of Art Emeritus in 1963 from UNL. Spaulding died December 27, 1974.

Spaulding enjoyed painting in oil and watercolor, yet her outstanding achievements were in the areas of graphics and printmaking. She was a charter member of Lincoln’s Artist’s Guild and active in the Associated Artist of Omaha. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections. Several sketches and paintings created by Spaulding between 1940 and 1960 make up a collection currently on display at the Calvin T. Ryan Library courtesy of the Museum of Nebraska Art.

April 8-14 marks this year’s National Library Week!  First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.  It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries – school, public, academic and special – participate. 

Calvin T. Ryan Library will be having an open house to commemorate the week.  Please join us!

When:   Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 2:00-4:00p.m.
Where:  Library, first floor
What:    Refreshments and the unveiling of our new READ posters, featuring Chancellor Doug Kristensen!

While in the Library, check out the display boards by the stairwell on first floor.  One board highlights what the Library staff are reading.  The other board will be ready for you to let us know what you are reading!  Please come celebrate libraries and the joys of reading and discovery with us!

MONA art:
The Museum of Nebraska Art highlights a specific artist regularly in the library.  This semester’s artist is John Falter, a native of Plattsmouth, NE, and best known for his cover paintings in The Saturday Evening Post.   The artwork is displayed on the main floor, at the entrance to the library and within the  Cafe.

Departmental posters:
For the last three years the Library has been show casing the work of UNK’s faculty, departments, and service units through a series of displays.  The displays are up for about a month during the school year.  You can view many past displays on the Library’s flickr page.   Current posters featured are from the departments of Geography & Earth Science and Computer Science & Information Systems.

Student research:
During the same period, over thirty students have had their research displayed in Library in the form of posters.  The posters are provided by the Office of Undergraduate Research and represent the broad range of research interests UNK students have; all have been previously exhibited at either the Fall or Spring Student Research Day.   Posters, two at a time, are up for about a month.  Currently, see posters by Jordan Heiliger/Dr. Longo and Jess T. Lammers/W. Wyatt Hoback.  You can view many of these posters  on the Library’s flickr page.

Gifts from China:
Chancellor Kristensen joined a delegation from the University of Nebraska at Kearney on a Recruitment and Development trip to China in the summer of 2011.  Some of the beautiful and unusual gifts he received from our Chinese counterparts and colleagues are on display on the first floor by the Cafe for all of the UNK community to enjoy.  Cities visited include:  Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Beijing, Weihai, Shenyang, and Shijiazhuang.

by Michael Sutherland, sutherlandmj@unk.edu

The library has renewed the subscriptions of several local Nebraska newspapers and relocated the collection from the lower level to the main floor near comfortable seating.

A listing of our current newspaper subscriptions may be found by clicking here.

If you would like to renew a local newspaper subscription for the library, or subscribe to one not listed, please contact Jon Ritterbush, Electronic Resources Librarian, at 308-865-8585 or ritterbushjr@unk.edu.

Hispanic Heritage Month, observed annually from September 15 to October 15, was created to celebrate Hispanic culture.  Hispanic Heritage Week was approved by President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover this 30-day period.

To learn more about this month, check out the Library’s online catalog to discover our resources.  

A few books include:   
The disinherited : exile and the making of Spanish culture, 1492-1975, by Henry Kamen

Ideologies of Hispanism, by Mabel Moraña, editor

Encyclopedia Latina : history, culture, and society in the United States, by Ilan Stavans, editor

Government Documents:  
Subcommittee hearing on minority and Hispanic participation in the federal workforce and the impact United States. Congress. House. Committee on Small Business. Subcommittee on Regulations, Health Care, and Trade Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 2008

Toolkit material for Hispanic outreach, partnership development and training [Washington, D.C] : United States Department of Health & Human Services, c2008

For materials directed toward children:
La familia student workbook, by Ana Consuelo Matiella ; illustrations by Ron Salinas

Grandma Francisca remembers : a Hispanic-American family story, by Ann Morris  

A kid’s guide to Latino history : more than 50 activities, by Valerie Petrillo

Picture books by Latino writers : a guide for librarians, teachers, parents, and students, by Sherry York

Teaching music with a multicultural approach, by William M. Anderson

When you are in the building, please take a moment to check out the Hispanic Heritage Month display, located on the second level, adjacent to the Learning Commons Welcome Desk.

September 24−October 1, 2011

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.”  – Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Celebrate your freedom to read! Two of the great hallmarks of our culture are the freedom to read and the freedom of expression. This means we are all free to choose the books we read and writers are free to express themselves through written or visual works, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.  Throughout history, these rights have been challenged by individuals, organizations and governments.  Banned Books Week  highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted prohibition of books across the United States.  Come over to the Calvin T. Ryan Library, visit our banned books display, unplug, and settle into a comfy chair with your favorite banned book.

Related Links:

For more information on banned and challenged books, go to:

• American Library Association (ALA) Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read.
• ALA Freedom to Read Foundation
• www.bannedbooksweek.org
• Book Bans and Challenges Map

For information about frequently challenged books, see:

• ALA Frequently Challenged Books
• ALA Banned and Challenged Classics
• Google Books Explore Banned Books

“For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough) – they are experiences.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke

Celebrate National Poetry Month at the Calvin T. Ryan Library and visit our first-floor display of Reynolds endowed chair and Nebraska poets!  National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. The American Academy of Poets hopes to increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.

Inaugurated by the Academy in April 1996, National Poetry Month brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

The Nebraska Center for the Book is celebrating Nebraska authors on November 6, 2010.  The Calvin T. Ryan Library display for November 6 – 12 will celebrate the following award winning books:

1. 2010 Jane Geske Award Winner

Plainsongs – poetry magazine of Hastings College

2. 2010 One Book One Nebraska Winner

The Home Place – by Wright Morris

3. 2010 Nebraska Book Award Winners

UPDATED NOV. 11 – Images of this display are posted on the library’s Flickr account.

The Calvin T. Ryan Library designed a Banned Books Week display that celebrated the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment.  See the Sept. 28 posting on Banned Books Week to find books available in the library which appear on the American Library Association’s Books Challenged & Banned in 2008-2009 list.

September 8 was proclaimed International Literacy Day by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) on November 17, 1965. It was first celebrated in 1966. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. On International Literacy Day each year, UNESCO reminds the international community of the status of literacy and adult learning globally. Celebrations take place around the world.¹

Click here to view a list of library-owned materials about “literacy” in the library catalog.  Click here for images of the library’s display for International Literacy Day.

^1. UNESCO. (2010). Literacy. http://www.unesco.org/en/literacy/.

Wright Morris is a noted Nebraska author, whose photography has recently been featured by the Museum of Nebraska Art.  The library owns a number of Wright Morris works (view a list in the library catalog) and currently has a display about Wright Morris for viewing on the library’s main level.

Wright Marion Morris

Born: January 6, 1910, Central City, Nebraska, U.S.
Died: April 25, 1998, Mill Valley, California

American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and photographer who often wrote about the Midwestern prairie where he grew up. In his writings he sought to recapture the American past and portray the frustrations of contemporary life.

Morris grew up in Nebraska. His mother died within a week of his birth, and his father was often absent. Morris roamed across the United States as a young man and then traveled in Europe, where he became interested in literature. He returned to the United States shortly before World War II started and began experimenting with both photography and prose, an effort that gained expression in works combining photographs and text. An excellent example of these is The Inhabitants (1946), which has Morris’s running commentary on Henry David Thoreau juxtaposed with his photographs of buildings expressive of history and character.

Morris’s wanderings across America in the 1920s and ’30s led to his first novel, My Uncle Dudley (1942), in which a group of people travel cross-country by car. He went on to write 19 more novels, among them The Works of Love (1951), The Field of Vision (1956) which won the National Book Award, Ceremony in Lone Tree (1960), Earthly Delights, Unearthly Adornments (1978), and Plains Song (1980) which won the American Book Award. An acute observer of American character, Morris used sharp details, subtle irony, and multiple perspectives to explore obliquely the idiosyncracies and failed lives of people from small Midwestern towns. One of his best-known books is the memoir Solo: An American Dreamer in Europe (1983), which chronicles his youthful travels in Europe. He also published essay collections and several volumes of photographs of the rural Midwest. His Collected Stories: 1948–1986 appeared in 1986, and he published Writing My Life: An Autobiography in 1993.

Morris, Wright. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica.  Retrieved July 15, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://0-search.eb.com.rosi.unk.edu/eb/article-9053821