Juan Felipe Herrera will become the next U.S. poet laureate this fall, but his words have long echoed through the halls of USC. In 1973, Herrera performed and read from his works as part of the Festival de Flor y Canto de Aztlan. Hosted by USC, the landmark Chicano literary event featured established writers such as Oscar Zeta Acosta and Luis Omar Salinas alongside emerging poets like Herrera.

Herrera returned in 2010 for the festival's reprisal in Doheny Memorial Library, joining many of the writers from the original event. In conjunction with the 2010 festival, the USC Libraries digitized video recordings from the 1973 event and made them publicly accessible. Watch Herrera's appearance above, and explore the full collection of videos and photographs (part of the Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies collection) at the USC Digital Library.

Herrera (right) with Frank Sifuentes and Enrique Castillo outside the 1973 Festival de Flor y Canto. (Photo credit: Michael Sedano)

As he did in 1973, Herrera accompanied himself on guitar at the 2010 reprisal. (Photo credit: Michael Sedano)

• Phi Kappa Phi initiates. Commencement season kicks off at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13, with the Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) initiation ceremony at the Bing Theater. Provost Michael Quick will deliver the keynote address. The USC Chapter of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, which makes its administrative home at the USC Libraries, is the university's oldest fully interdisciplinary honor society.
• Academy for Polymathic Study fellows. The USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study inducts 35 new fellows—its largest class yet—on Thursday, May 14, at 10:00 a.m. The ceremony takes place in the academy's quarters in Doheny Memorial Library, Room 241.
• Wall of Scholars honorees. A ceremony inside Leavey Library at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 14, recognizes the USC graduates whose names will be etched onto the Wall of Scholars in the library's Weingart Reading Room. Created by the Skull and Dagger society in 1995, the Wall of Scholars honors students who have been awarded a national or international scholarship or have earned certain USC academic accolades.
• Master of Management in Library and Information Science graduates. The USC Libraries toast the first graduates of USC's Master of Management in Library and Information Science (MMLIS) program on Friday, May 15, at 1:30 p.m. The reception features remarks from Valerie Sugar, who earned a master's in library science from USC and now serves on the USC Libraries Board of Councilors. The libraries partnered with the USC Marshall School of Business to launch the MMLIS program in 2013. USC Marshall will host a second reception for MMLIS graduates at 3:30 p.m., followed by the Marshall graduation ceremony at 6:30 p.m. in the Galen Center.

In addition, later this month the libraries—in partnership with PKP, the USC School of Social Work, and the Undergraduate Writers Conference—are publishing USC's 2015 Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS) anthology. And as always, the historic Doheny Memorial Library provides the backdrop for the university's main commencement ceremony, which begins at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, May 15, in Alumni Park.

A new exhibit on the second floor of Doheny Memorial Library highlights the avant-garde movement futurism, founded by Italian artist and poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. In 1909 he published in the French newspaper Le Figaro the first manifesto articulating the goals of his crusade, which was nothing less than a “reconstruction of the universe,” where everything that was old was to be ridiculed and disposed of. Speed, technology, industry, and violence were the new buzzwords of this forward-looking movement. One of the objects on display is Les Mots en Liberté Futuristes (Futurist Words in Freedom), a key example of Marinetti’s use of unrestrained typography. His revolutionary aesthetic catalyzed an onslaught of literary and artistic experimentation. The exhibit was prepared by students Madeline Karabian, Zoe Kemp, Gabriella Koek, Michael Ramsey, and Emma Ross under the supervision of Professor Gian-Maria Annovi as part of the course "Modern and Postmodern Italian Literature." 

Martzi Campos and Yuting Su took first prize in the eleventh-annual USC Libraries Wonderland Award competition for “Curiouser and Curiouser!” Judges chose the interactive book from an array of imaginative submissions by students from USC and other participating institutions around Southern California. Forty-five students in total participated in the competition.

Taking first place honors in the graduate student category was Slavic languages and literatures major Natalia Dame for her submission “Russia in Distress, or the Tortured Virgins in the Russian Satirical Journals of 1905–1906.” Her work examines the (lesser-known) 1905 revolution, and how satirical journals responded to authorities’ draconian crackdowns on protesters and the press by portraying the country as a chaste woman tormented by demonic beasts. Born in Russia, Dame was delighted to discover the USC Libraries had a resource that she was hard pressed to find in her own homeland. 

A new USC Libraries exhibition opening March 31, 2015, on the ground floor of Doheny Memorial Library explores the science and art of pitching. Inspired by the USC Libraries' Biomechanics of Motion collection, Velocity and Vulnerability features materials from the libraries' collections, baseball memorabilia, and rare items from the USC Athletics archive.

Also on March 31, a related Visions & Voices event beginning at 6:00 p.m. on USC's Dedeaux Field explores baseball's biological limitations in depth. Organized by the USC Libraries and USC Athletics, the event features a conversation among USC Keck orthopedic surgeon Seth Gamradt, USC alumnus and baseball legend Tom House, USC Biological Sciences and Biomedical Engineering professor Jill McNitt-Gray, and World Series champion pitcher Robb Nen. Complimentary stadium-style food will be available, and after the discussion students and other attendees will have a chance to test their fastballs against a radar gun. RSVP online.