In anticipation of the move of the Journalism collection into the newly renovated Thompson Library, Journalism Library will be closing during Summer Quarter 2008. The circulating books are being transferred to the Ackerman Library until the move back to Thompson Library. Bound periodicals and the reference collection are being transferred to the Sullivant Library and then they will be moved to Thompson Library when it reopens.
June 24th, 2008
From June 16-August 21, bus service to and from the Book Depository/University Archives and the Ackerman Library/Buckeye Village will run every 30 minutes, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
There will be no weekend bus service during summer quarter.
•The one-bus, 30 minute service from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. will leave from Ackerman each hour at :00 and :30, and from RPAC at :15 and :45.
•The first pickup at the Ackerman Library will be at 7 a.m., and the last pickup will be at 7 p.m.
•The first pickup from RPAC will be at 7:15 a.m., and the last pickup will be at 6:45 p.m.
The schedule includes service to the Book Depository during its hours of operation, Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4:30 p.m.
Although bus service ends at 7 p.m., the Ackerman Library will remain open until 10 p.m. Monday-Friday during the summer.
June 19th, 2008
All University Libraries will close at 5 p.m. on Thursday, July 3, and remain closed on Friday, July 4, in observance of Independence Day.
The Science & Engineering Library will open on Saturday, July 5, at 8 a.m. All other main campus libraries will resume their regular summer schedules beginning Saturday, July 5.
June 19th, 2008
Kleibacker: New York Designer to Ohio Curator
Through July 6
Riffe Gallery, 77 S. High St.
Produced by the Ohio Arts Council in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art; Gayle Strege, the Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection, Geraldine Schottenstein Wing at The Ohio State University; and Cordelia Robinson.
Kleibacker: New York Designer to Ohio Curator will include designs and memorabilia from Kleibacker’s more than 20 years as a designer in New York, as well as a comprehensive overview of the 11 fashion-focused exhibitions he curated. In addition to original garments, fashion illustration and photography this exhibition features photo documentation of scenes from the original installations of Kleibacker’s exhibitions.
A retrospective of curatorial and design work by nationally recognized fashion icon Charles Kleibacker, this exhibition brings together original garments, photography, illustration and memorabilia to examine Kleibacker’s long career and his contribution to the worlds of clothing design and fine art.
Before there was Project Runway, Kleibacker was taking Ohioans behind the scenes for an up-close look at the intricate world of fashion design. Over the course of two decades, he produced 11 exhibitions that informed audiences about the expert craftsmanship that goes into engineering fine clothes. He also brought attention to the many ways in which other art forms-illustration, photography and film-are used to bring clothing design into the public consciousness.
Born in Cullman, Alabama, Kleibacker earned a degree in journalism and worked as a newspaper reporter before pursuing graduate studies in retailing at New York University. A job as an assistant to the entertainer Hildegarde took him to Paris for six months in the late 1940s and introduced him to the world of couture. Determined to become a designer himself, he employed an atelier head to teach him the basics of understanding fabrics, draping and design. By 1960, he opened his KLEIBACKER studio in New York City. In 1963, he moved from a one room studio into a seven-room suite on West 73rd Street, which the KLEIBACKER label occupied until 1983.
Kleibacker first came to Columbus in 1984 as a visiting professor in the Department of Textiles and Clothing at The Ohio State University, where a year later he became designer-in-residence. Kleibacker remained at Ohio State until 1995, where his primary responsibility was to build a collection of historical clothing for the university.
As the collection grew, Kleibacker sought opportunities to raise the collection’s profile in the Columbus community and soon discovered that the best way to do this was to create exhibitions. He became a curator, developing exhibition projects both on the Ohio State campus and at other Ohio institutions to showcase the collection’s resources along with works from private and public lenders.
The Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery is located in the Vern Riffe, Center for Government and the Arts, 77 S. High St., Columbus, OH. Admission is free. Gallery hours are Tuesday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday 12-8 p.m. and Sunday 12-4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Monday and state holidays.
Visit http://www.oac.state.oh.us/riffe/exhibitions/2008/CK/Kleibacker.asp or phone 614/644-9624 for more information.
Free group tours are available Wednesday through Friday throughout the run of each exhibition. To schedule a group tour contact Riffe Gallery Director Mary Gray at mary.gray@oac.state.oh.us or 614/728-2239.
June 17th, 2008
The Cartoon Research Library will be closed June 23 and 24, in order to receive the International Museum of Cartoon Art collection.
Regular hours will resume June 25.
June 17th, 2008
Special Collectors: Featured Benefactors to Multiple Special Collections
Gladys Keller Snowden Galleries, Geraldine Schottenstein Wing
Campbell Hall, 1787 Neil Ave.
June 5 – August 30
Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
This exhibition celebrates the generosity and wide-ranging interests of collectors. The motivation to collect the objects in this exhibition varies as widely as the collectors who are represented. What unifies them is that more than one of the special collections at University Libraries was enriched by their impulse to collect. Some of the collections are the result of business activity. Others grew from the passion to save what otherwise might be lost. Still others reflect scholarly interest to learn more about each object as it was acquired. Whatever the original impetus, the resulting collections are wonderfully varied and this exhibition celebrates this variety in its many forms.
From buttons and film posters to toys and designer gowns, this exhibit highlights gifts-in-kind from the following collectors:
Bill Blackbeard
Bill Blackbeard established the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art in the late 1960s to preserve America’s newspaper comics that were being discarded due to microfilming. He later expanded his collecting mission to include all of narrative. When University Libraries acquired his collection in 1998, both the Cartoon Research Library and Rare Books and Manuscripts benefited from his effort.
John Burnham
John Burnham, PhD, specializes in the history of medicine and American social history and his particular interest is the history of psychiatry. Burnham is a Research Professor in the OSU Department of History, and is Professor of Psychiatry (by courtesy) in the OSU Department of Psychiatry. Burnham is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the OSU Medical Heritage Center.
Burnham and his wife, Marjorie, began salvaging books on the topic of sex education for the purposes of his graduate and postdoctoral research. He discovered the most of these materials were often missing and unavailable for research, even in the largest libraries. Burnham has donated an extensive amount of material that he has collected over the years to both Rare Books and Manuscript Library and also to the Medical Heritage Center.
Marochka (Maggie) and Charles Chatfield-Taylor
Marochka (“Maggie”) Chatfield-Taylor, born in St. Petersburg, Russia July 24, 1906, was the daughter of the well-known Russian theatre and opera designer Boris Anisfeld (1879-1873) who emigrated to the United States during the Russian revolution. Anisfeld designed for the Metropolitan Opera from 1918-1927, and then became professor of advanced painting at the Chicago Art Institute where Marochka attended school. She was an artist herself and painted murals for cafes and bars and designed high-fashion clothing. She married Otis Chatfield-Taylor in 1936. He was from a socially prominent Chicago family, and earned his living as a journalist, playwright and Broadway producer. After his death in 1948, she created her own gowns under the Maggie Taylor label, which ceased in 1954 when she moved to Washington, D.C. As Marochka Anisfeld, she had a brief career on Broadway, appearing in Eugene O’Neill’s Marco Millions (1928). Marochka donated clothing and accessories to the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection, including one of her “Maggie Taylor” designs. She and her son Charles donated oil paintings and costume sketches by Boris Anisfeld to The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
Ivan Gilbert
Ivan Gilbert, Columbus native, medical doctor, entrepreneur and 2007 inductee in the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame for fencing, has been a collector his entire life. A collector of art and artifacts, Dr. Gilbert’s greatest collecting area has been books, manuscripts and ephemera. His extensive trade catalog collection was added to Rare Books and Manuscripts in 2005. Gilbert has also donated books and materials related to his interest in local and medical history to the Medical Heritage Center.
Toni Mendez
Toni Mendez (1908-2003) was a former Rockette and choreographer who established her own licensing business in the late 1940s. She subsequently marketed products using many cartoon characters, including Bernard Kliban’s cat. In her personal life, she favored designer gowns and suits from the House of Patou. Mendez gave her papers to the Cartoon Research Library and her designer clothing to the Historic Costume and Textiles Collection.
Tom Minnick
Tom Minnick started collecting anything related to or by William Blake, and that led him to collecting prints which led to collecting paintings. Because Blake knew Wedgwood, Minnick started collecting eighteenth-century ceramics, then native American ceramics, and then folk art. The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and the Cartoon Research Library have benefited from Minnick’s wide-ranging collecting interests.
Ann and Emanuel Rudolph
Ann and Emanuel Rudolph enjoyed a living aesthetic of the Arts and Crafts movement: their house was an Arts and Crafts house; their furniture was Arts and Crafts furniture; they collected Roycrofter’s books. Ann Rudolph’s extensive button collection and their combined 53,000 plus library was bequeathed to the Ohio State University Libraries. In particular, Emanuel Rudolph’s Children’s Science Collection is a world class collection of over 8,000 items.
Philip Sills
Philip Sills (1920-1988) was a partner in the brokerage firm of Sills, Zoppa and Associates which had real estate holdings throughout the United States. He also owned Mediterranean Shipping, company, a freight line based in Switzerland. From 1947 to 1977 he operated a highly respected apparel company that featured the leathers he also imported. In 1953 Bonnie Cashin became the designer for Sills and Company. The garments created during this partnership are remarkable for their combinations of textures of mohairs, leathers, tweeds, knits, suedes, canvas and fur. Bonnie Cashin was inspired by clothing shapes from around the globe including those of ponchos and kimono; her Noh coat was a standard design. Cashin also incorporated innovative hardware closures in her garments and in the bags she designed for Coach, an accessories company she helped launch in 1962. He was a founder of the Fashion Institute of Technology (N.Y.), the Albert Einstein Medical College and an organizer of the First Women’s Bank of New York Sills donated to both the Cartoon Research Library and the Historic Costume and Textiles Collection.
Sylvia Westerman
Sylvia Westerman (1933-1995) was one of the first women to reach senior management levels in network television news, serving as vice president of three major national news organizations. As producer of The Watergate Tapes for CBS News, she received the Emmy Award in 1974. Westerman was a passionate lover of the arts whose knowledge of ballet and theatre design rivaled that of many experts. She was a knowledgeable collector of theatre design art, focusing especially on Russian and ballet designs, and she left her outstanding collection to the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute. Sylvia Westerman was also very interested in bringing together collectors and OSU collections. She was responsible for introducing to the Lawrence and Lee Institute collector Paul Stiga who has continued her legacy of theatre design donation, as well as the family of director/producer Robert Breen who donated his papers documenting the major 1950s production of Porgy and Bess which toured the United States, Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union. Westerman was also responsible for building the relationship between Marochka Chatfield-Taylor and the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute Library at OSU, the results of which are seen in this exhibition.
Westerman’s father, Harry Westerman, was the cartoonist for the Columbus Journal. She contributed a large collection of his original work to the Cartoon Research Library.
Ed Hoffman, owner of Hoffman’s Bookshop and a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, will speak on June 25, 2008, at 6 p.m. in room 252 Campbell Hall. His lecture will be preceded by refreshments at 5:30 p.m. in the Columbia Gas Lounge on the second floor of Campbell Hall. Please RSVP to 614-247-6509 if you wish to attend this public event.
May 30th, 2008
The collection of the International Museum of Cartoon Art (IMCA) is moving to The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library. The union of these two institutions will create the largest collection of original cartoon art in the world.
IMCA was established in 1973 by Mort Walker, the creative force behind Beetle Bailey, as the first museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting cartoons. IMCA’s collection consists of approximately 200,000 works, including original drawings from all genres of cartoon art (comic strips, comic books, animation, editorial, advertising, sport, caricature, greeting cards, graphic novels, and illustrations), display figures, toys and collectibles, and works on film and tape, CDs, and DVDs.
IMCA’s operating history spanned nearly 30 years. The museum originally opened in 1974 in a converted mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Two years later, the museum relocated to a renovated castle in Rye Brook, New York, where the collection was displayed until 1992. At that time, the city of Boca Raton, Florida invited the museum to construct a 52,000 square foot facility as part of an effort to attract cultural institutions to Palm Beach County. The museum was a very popular attraction with critically acclaimed exhibitions and events and programs for the public. Unfortunately, in 2002, after six years of highly successful operation and the expectation of a long and similarly successful future, the inability of several major donors to fulfill pledges forced the museum to close.
Lucy Shelton Caswell, professor and curator of the Cartoon Research Library, said, “We are honored that the IMCA’s board has placed its treasures in our care.” Efforts are underway to provide increased space for the Cartoon Research Library that will include museum-quality galleries. “It is critical that we have state-of-the-art gallery space to display IMCA’s collection appropriately,” notes Caswell. A gallery in the new facility will be named in honor of IMCA founder Mort Walker.
Joe Branin, Director of The Ohio State University Libraries, issued the following statement: “Special Collections, original manuscripts, photographs, and other rare or unique items so necessary for scholarship, are one of the critical identifiers of any research library. Universities point to their special collections as distinctive points of pride, those things that make their libraries unique. In receiving the collection of the International Museum of Cartoon Art, the Cartoon Research Library has substantially enhanced its standing as one of the premier research libraries. We are excited to make this outstanding collection available for scholarly study and for general appreciation in exhibits and other public programs.”
May 22nd, 2008
Jeff Smith: Before Bone
May 1-September 5
Cartoon Research Library’s Reading Room Gallery
27 West 17th Ave. Mall
Monday-Friday: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
To celebrate the opening of this exhibit and its companion exhibition Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond at the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Cartoon Research Library will be open Saturday, May 10, from 1-5 p.m. This is the only Saturday the exhibit will be open.
Jeff Smith brought a much more polished feature to the campus newspaper than most student cartoonists. From its inception, Thorn, the title of Smith’s Lantern strip which was named after its female protagonist, exhibited an unusual level of sophistication. The strip demonstrated very capable manipulation of layout and design coupled with time-honored comic strip narrative techniques. It is interesting to note that by his early twenties, Smith clearly grasped the power of epic narrative, even though the storyline of Thorn, while sophisticated and entertaining, was not linear.
The vantage point of a quarter century and the phenomenal international success of Bone make us see Jeff Smith’s college cartoons in a different perspective than we did when they first ran in The Lantern. At Ohio State University, the student newspaper describes itself as a “laboratory newspaper,” and it served that purpose very successfully for Smith. He used Thorn both to hone his artistic skills and to experiment with several types of storytelling. From a sketchbook page to finished comic strips, this exhibition celebrates the education of a young man.
A signed and numbered catalogue limited to 500 copies is available. It reprints all of the Thorn comic strips in this exhibit and has an introduction by Jeff Smith, a foreword by his colleague Jim Kammerud and an essay by Lucy Shelton Caswell. The volume is available from the library for $25 per copy. All proceeds from the sale of this catalogue will benefit the Cartoon Research Library.
May 5th, 2008
Use the library without leaving your car…try out the drive-thru window service at the Ackerman Library, 600 Ackerman Road. You can drop off materials you need to return, or pick up materials that you reserved, without having to park.
Window hours:
*Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.
*Saturdays & Sundays, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
You’ll need either a valid (non-blocked) BUCK ID card or another picture ID, such as your driver’s license.
You can also use the book drop, located near the drive-through window, when the Library or the window is closed. Of course, we’re still happy to see you at the Circulation Desk–whichever option is most convenient for you.
So drive up and ring the bell!
April 30th, 2008
Frederic Tuten
Selected Readings
OSU Faculty Club, 181 S. Oval Dr.
Tuesday, May 6, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Frederic Tuten is the author of the novels The Adventures of Mao on the Long March, Tallien: A Brief Romance, Tintin in the New World, Van Gogh’s Bad Cafe and The Green Door, in addition to many stories and essays. Tuten is a professor in the graduate fiction-writing program at the City College of New York and guest lecturer at The New School. Tuten is also executive editor of Smyles & Fish. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing and was given the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mr. Tuten’s literary archives are part of the Contemporary American Literary Manuscripts of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.
The reading will begin at 7 p.m. in the Faculty Club Alphabet Rooms. For more information, call (614) 292-5938.
April 28th, 2008
