Today's Fun Find!

Hello again!

We were doing some spring cleaning and found a curious plastic lens contraption along with some instructions for using it hiding in a drawer. The instructions explained how to use the 'viewer' to look at the stereoscopic images (better known as 3-D) in the Stereo World Magazine! Orginally, I thought that Stereo World was a magazine about music or sound art, because people normally associate the word stereo with stereophonic sound. However, the word stereo actually has Greek origins relating to three-dimensionality.

So how does 3-D imaging work? It imitates our eyes! The average person's eyes project two slightly different images onto the retinas, which are then transformed in the brain into spatial representations. Using both eyes allow one to perceive spatial representations. But when we look at a regular image it is only "one-eyed" and therefore flat. When the lenses imitate a person's eyes, a pair of almost identical images are separated by the average distance between a person's eyes - the viewpoint becomes similar to the view seen by the left and right eye, thus creating a 3-D image! How cool is that? With 3-D movies, television, videogames, and art on the rise in popularity it is nice to know the basics of that technology.

Stereo World Magazine has been around since the 1970's and is quite a gem in our collection. It thoroughly keeps track of the past, present, and future of 3-D imaging. Feel free to come into the library to check out these fun magazines! We can even provide patrons with a handy-dandy pair of viewers.

-Library Assistant Rebecca Wilkinson

Parent Teacher Conference Circa 1825

Greetings from the Jean Outland Chrysler Library!
Today's blog post is brought to you by the Moses Myers Archives. We were transcribing some letters and came across a rather entertaining set of exchanges between Samuel Myers and his son's teacher, which today could be the equivalent to a parent-teacher conference. Through these letters we see that the dynamic between parents and teachers has not changed much since 1825. Consider this glance into the past of a tense moment between a parent and a teacher...

Here is the context:

Samuel Myers, son of Moses Myers, lived in Richmond, VA with his wife and his son named Moses II. When Moses turned eight-years old they sent him to the other side of town to be taught by a teacher named Jeremiah Osbourn. Mr. Osbourn's letters provide some fascinating insight into the teacher/parent dynamic of that time period.

The first letter:

In the first letter Mr. Osbourn confirms that Samuel's tuition payment has been recieved and he expresses his thanks for doing so. He writes: "Sir, I have received thirty dollars which you, this day sent me, in full compensation for the tuition of your son, Moses." Wait. Thirty bucks for a years worth of tuition!? I'll take that. But then again, this was the 1800s and thirty-dollars back then was about 600-and-something-dollars today. Jeremiah seems exceedingly grateful for the paymen: "Permit me, sir, to express my sincere thanks for this advance. It relieves me from the serious apprehension of being unable to clothe myself decently." 

The second letter:

In the second letter, things start heating up. Eight months after Moses started school, Jeremiah writes Samuel expressing his anxiety that Moses is not living up to the expecations of the school. He writes, "He was more successful in grammar than either of us had anticipated but, like the other children, his learning has sensibly evaporated in the long vacation. The peculiar difficulty attending Moses is his disinclination to study." I suppose that's a nice way of saying, "your kid finds everything else under the sun way more interesting than my grammar book." Jeremiah then offers some suggestions that might help Moses improve his education.

The third letter:

The third letter is, in my opinion, the most engaging part of the exchange, which was written five days after this previous letter. Jeremiah writes, "We agree that he has not applied himself to study as he might; but we may not perfectly agree that he has been properly instructed." Did Samuel Myers insult Jeremiah's capabilities as a teacher in his earlier reply? This part also brings up that timeless debate between parents and teachers: whoes fault is it if the child isn't learning? But, Jeremiah clearly see's the potential in Moses and knows what it would take to bring out the scholar: "If a radical change is to be effected in the distinction of a student, it can only be affected by prudent means applied for some considerable time. This is the case of your son Moses. This genius is equal to that of a good scholar, but not to that of the first order, whose orbit is very eccentric."

-Library Assistant Rebecca Wilkinson

Celebrate Opsail with the Myers Family!

As the boats of OpSail parade through our waters this weekend, it is the perfect opportunity to see tall ships  similar to those that local shipping merchants would have commissioned over two hundred years ago. The Myers family of Norfolk was one local family who attained prominence in the shipping industry in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In addition, the Myers family were the first permanent Jewish-American residents in the Norfolk area, and would compose the region’s entire Jewish population for over a decade.

The patriarch of the family, Moses Myers, served briefly in the American Revolutionary War and helped to aid the cause for independence by acquiring military supplies for American forces. After marrying his wife Eliza Judah Chapman, Moses moved to Norfolk and began building his business.

By the height of his career in 1807, Moses owned his own fleet of merchant vessels, with an average of six ships at any time in the fleet. Ships with cargoes marked for Moses Myers arrived from ports all over Europe and the West Indies, carrying goods such as textiles, spices, sugar, liquor, coffee, tea, and iron. Moses Myers also traded in Smithfield hams, which had a reputation for exceptional quality.  He shipped hams to buyers as far as Great Britain, and sent them as gifts to friends and business associates.

Moses’ business suffered during the embargo of 1808-1809 and the War of 1812, rebounded, but then was devastated as a result of the crash of 1819. Despite these setbacks, Moses sat on the Common Council from 1794 to 1800, served as consul to France and the Netherlands, achieved the rank of Major in the militia, was appointed Superintendent of the Norfolk branch of the Bank of Richmond, and was a founder of the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce.  His wife Eliza gave birth to twelve children, nine of whom survived to adulthood.

As you celebrate Opsail, consider stopping by the Moses Myers Historical House to learn more about the remarkable mercantile family that lived there for five generations!

The Moses Myers House has been on
Freemason Street for more than two centuries.

Moses Myers House

FREE ADMISSION
Open Friday through Sunday
Noon—4 p.m.
323 E Freemason St Norfolk, VA 23510


You can also contact the Jean Outland Chrysler Art Library to learn more about the Myers Family Papers, which contain a collection of family correspondence and business papers dating from the 18th century into the late 20th century.

My First Days at the Chrysler!

Greetings from the Jean Outland Chrysler Library! I am Rebecca, the new Library Assistant. I graduated recently from Old Dominion University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History. However, my goal is to one day be an art librarian. What a perfect place to start! As the new assistant I figured I would tell you all about my first couple weeks here.

On the first day, I woke up that morning, did my usual routine, and started to put on my makeup when I realized my entire face had broken out in hives! I rushed to the local pharmacist and asked what could help reduce the swelling on my face and not make me drowsy. He assured me that Claritin would work - it even said “non-drowsy” on the box. I would find out later that this was not true. I finally pulled myself together and made it on time for my orientation with the Human Resources Manager. I was with two other girls and she started explaining what it would be like working here. Thank goodness she has a really good sense of humor or I would have been a fidgety, nervous wreck the entire time.

Once in Jessica’s company, I was finally able to relax. Jessica was my former boss at the Hoffheimer Art Library on the ODU Campus, so I knew I’d be okay. She was also the one who inspired me to pursue librarianship! We ended up going to lunch and she filled me in on some things about the Chrysler Library. During lunch she explained to me that she would be out on Friday and that I would be opening and closing the Library by myself. Nerve-wracking, but doable. Back at the Library, we briefly went through what my responsibilities were, a tour, and the assistant’s manual. Then she prepared me for the upcoming Friday. I picked up the routine with relative ease and that Friday went surprisingly well.  A couple of students came in that day and I helped them with research, which is my favorite thing to do. I met some of the staff and told a couple of museum goers about the Library. The rest of the day I read Legacy, which is the well-written and entertaining history of Walter P. Chrysler Jr. and the Chrysler Museum. So, despite my apprehension, the second day was not bad at all.

A week later I got to go to my first staff meeting with Jessica. This meeting was really pleasant: everyone stands in a big circle and updates the other departments on special events or nice things a group of people or someone in particular has done. I think it’s important to recognize the nicer parts of people’s work experience, especially in a museum of this size. After the staff meeting Jessica gave me a tour of the education department and the break area, where we could get coffee and water. Once back in our library she showed me our little eating area, which looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. Jessica explained that because she had been so busy she was never able to use the area. That’s when I came up with the clever idea to make Jessica and me a Library-Survival-Kit. This kit consisted of:

A coffee maker, coffee, creamer – help us get our morning jumpstart

A box of emergency chocolate – for those especially stressful days

 Power bars – for when we are hungry and it’s not lunchtime yet

 Mints – so we don’t frighten patrons away with coffee breath

Sparkling lemon water and straws – for a refreshing drink during the day

 

The rest of training has gone really well. I have had many small victories from processing my huge pile of mail and putting one gigantic cart of books away, to organizing the periodical section.  I am beginning to understand how complex a librarian’s job is and why assistants are absolutely necessary. I have learned so much in my first couple weeks - from my daily tasks and special needs, to mind-boggling ideas and questions about the library within a museum. I am still slightly overwhelmed by all of my responsibilities, but that’s balanced with a huge sense of excitement about everything else I am going to learn and experience here.

So far, I am absolutely taken with this place and am convinced I have the coolest job in the world right now. Why is this job so awesome? First, I am working with some of the most exquisite publications ever produced. Second, Jessica and I act as the medium between information and people, which is absolutely necessary for any institution and the surrounding communities to develop and function. And finally, I am also working at the internationally known CHRYSLER MUSEUM!

Our Newspapers are Literally "Hot" Off the Presses!

Have you ever wondered what happens to the Art Library's old newspapers? You can see them in action at the Chrysler Museum of Art's Glass Studio! About once a month a stack of Virginia Pilots, New York Times and Wall Street Journals are transferred from the library to the glass studio so that the glass blowing artists can use them in their work. Generally, 4-5 newspapers are folded and cut into thick, square layers that fit in the artist's hand. The papers are then soaked with water and used by the artist to shape the glass. Although the water prevents the paper from burning, the immense heat of the molten glass often causes the paper to smoke.

The Chrysler is thrilled to welcome world-renowned glass artists Benjamin Moore, Dante Marioni and Janusz Pozniak to the Glass Studio this week as part of the Chrysler's Visiting Artist Series. Stop by the studio to watch a free demonstration, and see the Library's recycled newspapers in action! Space is limited, so make sure to arrive early:

Friday, March 2 10:00am-1:00pm, 2:00-5:00pm
Saturday, March 3: 10:00am to 1:00pm
Sunday, March 4: 2:00-5:00pm

World-renowned glass artist Janusz Pozniak uses wet newspaper to shape hot glass at the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio.
Copyright Chrysler Museum of Art, all rights reserved.

Student Research Workshop this Saturday!

Have studies got you in a slump? Let the Jean Outland Chrysler Library show you how to save research time in the stacks and online!

Discover new tools and techniques for finding relevant information quickly. Learn about the Library’s collection of more than 112,000 monographs, exhibition and auction catalogues, vertical files on artists, art journals, and archives. Get an overview of searching our subscription databases, evaluating resources, and citing sources in perfect Chicago Manual, APA, or MLA style. We’ll tailor the session to meet your needs, so bring your assignments with you!

When: February 25, 2012 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Where: Jean Outland Chrysler Art Library

Cost: Free!

Art & Books 2012 Selections Announced!

Readers, rejoice! Our book club is back on a bimonthly basis. Join us every other month to discuss great books and enjoy light refreshments. We’re proud to announce that our new partner—the Norfolk Public Library—will stock copies of our bimonthly selection for your reading (and budgeting) pleasure.  Book club selections may also be found at other local public libraries and are available for purchase at major retailers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The bookclub meets from 6:30-8:00 in the Chrysler Museum of Art's Gifford Room, which is located next to the library. The cost is free to museum members and $5 for all others. Hope to see you there!

Here are the bookclub selections and dates for the Jean Outland Chrysler Museum Library book club for 2012:

March 28, 2012: Child of the Fire: Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject by Kirsten Pai Buick

Child of the Fire is the first book-length examination of the career of the nineteenth-century artist Mary Edmonia Lewis, best known for her sculptures inspired by historical and biblical themes. Buick illuminates Lewis’s fraught but active participation in the creation of a distinct “American” national art, one dominated by themes of indigeneity, sentimentality, gender, and race.


May 16, 2012: Birth of Venus: A Novel by Sarah Dunant
 
The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.



July 25, 2012: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemmingway
 
Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway’s most enduring works. Widely celebrated and debated by critics and readers everywhere, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.

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September 26, 2012: The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein

Down the muddy waters of the Yangtze River and into the seedy backrooms of "The Hall of Eternal Splendor," through the raucous glamour of prewar Shanghai and the bohemian splendor of 1920s Paris, and back to a China ripped apart by civil war and teetering on the brink of revolution: this novel tells the story of Pan Yuliang, one of the most talented—and provocative—Chinese artists of the twentieth century.


November 28, 2012: Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton

In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

*Book descriptions are from Amazon.com