The JOCL Celebrates the 2010 Winter Games

Here at the Jean Outland Chrysler Library, we’ve recently discovered that we have many books on Olympics and sporting, just in time for the 2010 games. One by Kennedy Graphics shows Olympic posters of 1976 by the likes of Romare Bearden, Gene Davis, Lee Krasner and Alex Katz. Another gives the history of the Olympic Games and artistic representations of Olympic events both historic and modern. If you are in the sporting spirit in these last few days of the 2010 Games, please stop by the JOCL and check out our resources. They’re worthy of a gold medal!

Thoroughly Modern

If it were 1913, we’d all be in a bit of an uproar at the moment. This week in 1913, Marcel Duchamp displayed his now-famous “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” at the First International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York City. We know this show, now a tradition, affectionately as “The Armory Show.” The American public was scandalized by the Cubist and Futurist-influenced piece. The art critic Julian Street went so far as to dub the painting “an explosion in a shingle factor.”

Scandalous or not, Duchamp was in good company. Other artists exhibiting included Kandinsky, Picasso, Brancusi, Sloan, Matisse, Munch, Redon, Cezanne, van Gogh, Prendergast and more. Kandinsky, Picasso and Duchamp were being shown in the United States for the first time. The show, organized over the course of a year by artists and critics, aimed to showcase the new era of thought and energy emerging within the art world. Though some patrons were hesitant at first, The Armory Show and its works - those loved and hated- sparked conversation all over the country and marked a change in American thinking about art.

As we look ahead to The Armory Show 2010, which will be held March 4- 7, I can’t help but be grateful for that first show nearly one hundred years ago. We live in a world where, on a whim and at the click of a mouse, we can travel to nearly any museum or stand in nearly any gallery in the world and see what’s new. And yet artists and patrons alike make the pilgrimage year after year to New York to see, to be seen and to see what everyone will be talking about tomorrow. The conversation that began on February 15, 1913 continues generations later.

Speaking of which, does anyone out there have an extra ticket?

http://www.thearmoryshow.com/cgi-local/content.cgi

Library Assistant Sara Mason

Cataloging Fellowship 2010

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library seeks a graduate, or recently graduated library and information science student interested in career as a cataloger in archives or libraries. Qualified applicants will:
            • Be current graduate students in good standing in a library science, information studies, preservation, archives or
             related program
            • Have experience in technical services and cataloging or have significant coursework in relevant areas.
            • Have knowledge of MARC, LCSH, AACR2, and DDC.
            • Have familiarity with art history research materials
            • Have good computer skills and familiarity with searching bibliographic databases.
            • Be detail oriented, organized and flexible with the ability to work independently.

 Cataloging Fellows will have the opportunity to work on a variety of cataloging and technical services projects. Responsibilities will include:

              • Assisting with the acquisitions workflow including accession records, physical processing and tracking of
                materials prior to cataloging.

             • Copy, derived, or original cataloging; Fellows will assist with cataloging materials in various formats including
                books, periodicals, archives, etc.

             • Some work with other formats including serials and audio-visual materials.

             • Technical processing of library materials

             • Introductory cataloging of rare books and unique materials.

             • Regular reports of project progress and participation in Library outreach activities including presentations to the
               public.

             • Some reaching and lifting may be required.

Applicants must commit to 10  weeks of employment between June and August 2010. Fellows will receive a stipend of $5,000 to be used for housing, travel and other expenses. The stipend will be divided into three payments: one upon starting, the second halfway through and the third upon completion of the internship.

 APPLICATION

To apply, candidates should submit: a letter of recommendation from an academic advisor or work supervisor, a cover letter, and a resume. Cover letters should highlight previous employment, coursework, and/or other qualifications. Applications must be received by April 15, 2010.

Applications may be sent via e-mail (lchristiansen@chrysler.org) or mail to:

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library
Attn: Laura Christiansen
245 West Olney Rd.
Norfolk, VA 23510

  Only those applicants who are chosen for possible placement will be contacted within two weeks of the respective application deadline to arrange for an interview.

Curious about what the Cataloging Fellow actually does? Take a look at the wonderful work of our 2009 Fellow Rachel Juris here:  

http://chryslermuseumlibrary.blogspot.com/search/label/fellowship

Alas! For Lack of Gold She Left Me...

Paul Simon said “Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.” Well, the goodly ladies and gentlemen who penned such 19th century ballads as “For Lack of Gold She Left Me,” “Terry Ye Moments,” “The Cavalier from Rokeby” and Farewell, Farewell” certainly attempted just that. The music collection of the Myers family, housed at the Jean Outland Chrysler Library, is simply overflowing with songs of love, loss and waning devotion from England, Ireland, Scotland, France and America. As I thumbed delicately through this music earlier in the week, I could not help but think of the endurance and universality of these themes. One lovely set of lyrics even details a young shepherd herding his flock past his lady-love’s home every day. One must assume that this was the 19th century equivalent of riding your bike past the home of your crush. Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, this collection has something for your heart, aching or happy. Happy Valentine’s Day, all! Until next week “Farewell, Farewell.”

Library Assistant Sara Mason

Item of the Week: The Snow Show

If you’re in downtown Norfolk, you might have noticed a quick snow shower passing through this afternoon. After last weekend’s snow storm, our Hampton Roads readers might be ready for warmer weather, but here in the Library we’ve enjoyed looking out the reading room windows at a fresh white blanket of snow. It’s a little inspiring, like a blank canvas or a new sheet of drawing paper. Around Ghent a number of well-dressed snowmen and impressively large snow forts attested to the inspirational power of snow as a medium. This week’s item of the week The Snow Show reveals the both the amazing results and nuanced challenges of sculpting with snow on a massive scale. Curated by Lance Fung, The Snow Show paired thirty-four international artists and architects and challenged to collaborate on a works of art built from the snow and ice of Lapland in winter. The resulting works were unique, ephemeral and massive. This catalogue brings together dramatic images of the completed works with detailed descriptions of the process of collaboration and construction that went into their creation. So if this weekend’s weather doesn’t have you pining for spring, stop by the Library and take a look at The Snow Show.      

You  might just find yourself hoping for another passing snow shower.

Cats in Art

Periodically, we ask our interns to create a virtual collection by collecting digital images of some aspect of the library collection to be decided by them. For example, they could  choose to collect images of bookplates in the collection, of details on binding, books with funny titles, or books on a particular subject – the possibilities are endless.



This week’s collection was created by our Fall Intern, Sarah Fowler who is a student at Old Dominion University. Sarah described her collection “Cats in Art” as follows:

"I chose to do my library project on cats in art. I chose cats in art because I wanted to see how much information the Jean Outland Chrysler Library had on the topic. I was pleasantly surprised to find a wide range of books. Some books I found deal with the different representations of cats in art. Other books were children’s books such as The Cat in The Hat. Two of my favorite books were The Cats Gallery of Art by Susan Herbert and Ernie by Tony Mendoza. The Cats Gallery of Art is quite an interesting book. The author has taken great works of art and recreated them using cats instead of humans. Ernie is a collection of photography of the author’s cat, Ernie. The author explains the relationship that he and Ernie share through short narratives from both of their points of view. This project taught me that there is an endless amount of information in a library’s collection and all you have to do is search for it."

 - Sarah Fowler, Library Intern Fall 2009
 
If you'd like to see all of the books in Sarah's collection stop by the Library, or you can browse their covers here.