Black History Month

colorful graphic with the words black history monthAlthough February is now well known as Black History Month, it originally began as a week long celebration starting in 1926.  In 1969, a month long tribute was initially proposed by black educators and students at Kent State University.  When President Gerald Ford proclaimed Black History Month during the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976, recognition of it took hold across the country, particularly in educational institutions. Through the years, various themes have been chosen including recent themes such as “African Americans and the Vote,” The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity,” and this year’s theme, “Black Health and Wellness.”  This month provides us all with the chance to reflect on African American history, heritage, and culture, as well as to acknowledge accomplishments, influences, tragedies, and triumphs.

The library periodically puts together displays to highlight different areas of our collection; this month we’ve taken the opportunity to recognize Black History Month with a display featuring DVDs and mostly recent books from our collection.  You can explore the display on the first floor of the library or online; all materials are available for checkout.

For more information see:

A Proclamation on National Black History Month, 2022

Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month


John Oberdorf ArcheoSpaces Exhibit

ArcheoSpaces Exhibit

Works by John Oberdorf

The exhibition ArcheoSpaces — Organized at the Hatfield Library in collaboration with the Salem Art Association at the Bush Barn Art Center — displays a series of drawings, sketches and studies as well as an oil painting created by Salem-based artist, John Oberdorf, in the last five decades.

A graduate of Oregon State University with a degree in Art and a minor in Anthropology, John Oberdorf began his career by making illustrations — in a style that echoed closely the visual vocabulary of Frank Frazetta — for publishers, such as Ace Books, and other magazines specialized in sci-fi stories in 1970s. His imagination, however, was not fulfilled by those enterprises, given the restrictive nature of this typology of visual narratives, in which images are subordinated to the particular story the artist was working on.

Soon enough, John Oberdorf noticed that his capacity of elaborating “Worlds of the possible” — to quote the artist’s own words — reached a point of creative saturation. From that moment on, his career will take a decisive turn and more toward the elaboration of autonomous iconographies, exploring the ambiguity of natural shapes and the mystery of cultural traces in order to stimulate the viewer’s curiosity. In these conceived images, elements such as rocks and helmets symbolically evoke the ceaseless, unpredictable dialogue between Nature and History, Time, Loss and Memory.

Curator: Ricardo De Mambro Santos (Chair, Department of Art History)

Assistant Curator: Jordan DeGelia (Art History major, 2020)

Additional details at: https://willamette.edu/cla/arth/oberdorf-archeospaces/index.html

This exhibit has been partly sponsored by the Verda Karen McCracken Young Art Exhibition Funds of the Department of Art History at Willamette University. Select photos below are of the exhibit at the Hatfield Library.

 


Student Art Display

We have a new exhibit  in our Student Works Display (first floor of the library) that feature 3-D “sculptures” made of cardboard.  If you are in the neighborhood, please swing by and take a look at these! They will be up for most of spring semester.

 


Salvage Collage: A Sort of Magic

The new exhibit in the freestanding cases on the second floor of the library is courtesy of Dayna Collins, a former Hatfield Library staffer.  In this exhibit, Dayna has taken discarded books and breathed new life into them by creating wonderful collage pieces using different parts of the books. The exhibit includes books in various stages of deconstruction as well as finished art works. The exhibit will run through January 20, 2020.

 

Dayna Collins artist’s statement:

Dayna Collins has always loved old books. She hyperventilates at the sight of books which are stained, defaced, torn or marked up. She rips battered books apart, reclaiming their faded fragments, and creates collages using only materials she has excavated. Dayna’s mixed media pieces reflect the passage of time, repurposing the scraps that are worn and weathered, transforming the aged and tattered pieces into something unexpected and beautiful, celebrating their fragile decay.

Dayna J. Collins
www.alleyartstudio.com


Salvage Collage: A Sort of Magic

Image of artwork with children skatingThere is a new exhibit in the freestanding cases on the second floor of the Mark O. Hatfield Library courtesy of Dayna Collins, former Hatfield Library staffer.  In this exhibit, Collins has taken discarded books and breathed new life into them by creating wonderful collage pieces using different parts of the books. The exhibit includes books in various stages of deconstruction as well as finished art works. Below is Collins’ artist statement regarding the display:

Dayna Collins has always loved old books. She hyperventilates at the sight of books which are stained, defaced, torn or marked up. She rips battered books apart, reclaiming their faded fragments, and creates collages using only materials she has excavated. Dayna’s mixed media pieces reflect the passage of time, repurposing the scraps that are worn and weathered, transforming the aged and tattered pieces into something unexpected and beautiful, celebrating their fragile decay.

For more information on artist Dayna Collins, visit her website.  “Salvage Collage: A Sort of Magic” will run through January 20, 2020.


New Art in Archives

We recently added a few works of art that are on display in the Archives. Four artists represent this collection of art, and their works range from the year 1946 to 1996 circa.  These artworks are on loan from the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.  To view the art, please visit the Archives and Special Collections between the hours of 9 a.m. to Noon and 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

 

Image of Art: The Dance, 1946 Artist: Carl A. Hall

Title: The Dance

Date: 1946

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Image of Art: Not by a dam site, 1959 Artists: Eunice Parsons

Title: Not a Dam Site

Date: 1959

Medium: Oil on canvas

Image of Art: Untitled horsemen, 1964 Artist: Eunice Parsons

Title: Untitled

Date: 1964

Medium: Collage on
canvas panel

Image of Art: Clover Small Vetch Seed Pods and Horsetails, 1996  

Artist: Stephan Soihl

Title: Clover, Small Vetch
Seed Pods, and Horsetails

Date:1996

Medium: Charcoal pencil
and watercolor

Image of art: ColburnJon Night Play, 2003  

 

Artist: Jon Colburn

Title: Night Play

Date: 2003

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

 

 

For comments and questions about this art, please contact Mary McRobinson (mmcrobin@willamette.edu), University Archivist at Willamette University, and Jonathan Bucci (jbucci@willamette.edu), Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.


Robert Bibler Exhibit

The Mark O. Hatfield Library has on display four pieces from the current exhibition “Robert Bibler: Works on Paper” at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. Robert Bibler lives in Salem, Oregon, and taught studio art and film studies for 30 years at Chemeketa Community College. He also helped bring classic and contemporary films to Salem for 40 years as Coordinator of the Wednesday Evening Film Series.

The art is on display on the first floor of the library throughout the summer. Read more about Robert Bibler and the exhibition at: http://willamette.edu/arts/hfma/exhibitions/library/2017-18/robert_bibler.html

 

 


Mysteries…

The inspector is in! Come investigate some of our mystery books from our collection.  Below are just a few tantalizing titles!

Crime scene chemistry for the annchair sleuth by Cathy Cobb
Call Number: HV8073 .C584 2007

Russian Pulp by Anthony Olcott
Call Number. PG3098.D46 043 2001

Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Call Number: PG3326 .P7 2014

A Night In the Cemetery by Anton Chekov; Peter Sekirin
Call Number: PG3456.A 13 S45 2008

Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel by Boris Akunln; Andrew Bromfield
Call Number: PG3478.K78 P4613 2009

The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichl by Kldo Okamoto; Ian Macdonald
Call Number. PL813.K3 H36213 2007

Out by Natsuo Kirino
Call Number: PL855.I566 08713 2005

Villain by Shuichl Yoshida
Call Number: PL865.O658 A7513 2010

Fatal Fascinations by Suzanne Bray
Call Number: PN56.C7 F38 2013

The silence of the lambs by Barry Forshaw
Call Number. PN1997.S4966 F67 2013

Crime Fiction by Richard Bradford
Call Number: PN3448.D4 B648 2015

A Moment on the Edge by Elisabeth George
Call Number: PN6120.95.D45 C75 2004

Road to perdition by Max Allan Collins
Call Number: PN6727.C573 R635 2002

Kill my mother : a graphic novel by Jules Feiffer
Call Number: PN6727.F4 K55 2014

The homeland directive by Robert Venditti
Call Number: PN6727.V455 H66 2011

Apocalypse hebe : roman by Virginie Despentes
Call Number: PQ2664.E7895 ABB 2010

The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
Call Number: PO2668.O77 C3713 2012

Possessions bv Julia Kristeva: Barbara Brav
Call Number: PO2671.R547 P67131998

Paris Nocturne by Patrick Modlano
Call Number: PQ2673.O3 A6413 2015

So You Don’t Get Lost In the Neighborhood by Patrick Mediano
can Number: PQ2673.O3 P6813 2015

Missing Person by Patrick Modiano
Call Number: PQ2673.O3 R813 2005

53 Days by David Bellos
Call Number: PQ2676.E67 A16131999

The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet
Call Number: PQ2702.157 S4713 2017

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Call Number: PQ4865.C6 N613 2014

Numero zero by Umberto Eco
Call Number: PQ4865.C6 N8613 2015

Iberian crime fiction by Nancy Vosburg
Call Number: PQ6147.D47 124 2011

El secreto de la modelo extravlada by Eduardo Mendoza
Call Number: PQ6663.E54 S43 2015

The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Call Number: PQ6666.E765 T3313 2004

La marca del meridlano by Lorenzo Silva
Call Number: PQ6669.I3877 M37 2012

Artful Assassins by Fernando Fabio Sanchez
Call Number: PQ7207.O48 S36 2010

The Black Minutes by Martin Solares
Call Number: PQ7298.429.O43 863 2010

Adl6s Hemingway ; &, La cola de la serpiente : novela by Leonardo Padura
Call Number: PQ7390.P32 A65 2001

Rosaura A las Diez by Marco DeNevi
Call Number: PQ7797.O394 RB 2006

Ripper by Isabel Allende
Call Number: PQ8098.1.L54 D47132014

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
Call Number: PR4453.C4 M4 2007

The Body In the Ubrary by Agatha Christle
Call Number: PR6005.H66 86 2011

Dorothy L Sayers: the Complete Stories by Dorothy L Sayers
Call Number: PR6037.A95 C65 2013

Not to disturb by Muriel Spark
Call Number: PR6037.P29 N6 2010

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Call Number: PR6063.C4 E53 1998

Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor
Call Number: PR6065.C558 S73 2003

The golden house : a novel by Salman Rushdie
Call Number: PR6068.U757 G65 2017

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
Call Number: PR6111.E524 P54 2011

Detecting Canada by Jeannette Sloniowski
Call Number: PR9197.35.D48 048 2014

The book of memory by Petina Gappah
Call Number: PR9390.9.G37 B66 2016

The White Tiger by Aravind Adlga
Call Number: PR9619.4.A35 W47 2008

Murder on the Reservation by Ray B. Browne J
Call Number: PS374.O4 B765 2004

Sleuthing Ethnicity by Dorothea Fischer Homung (Editor); Monika Mueller
Call Number: PS374.D4 S58 2003

New Orleans Nolr by Julie Smith
Call Number: PS558.L8 N49 2007

The Hunter and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett
Call Number: PS3515.A4347 A6 2013

A father’s law by Richard Wright
Call Number: PS3545.R815 F38 2008

Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber
Call Number. PS3551.B895 074 2007

Those Bones Are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara
Call Number. PS3552.A473 T471999

Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle
Call Number: PS3552.O932 T35 2006

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Call Number. PS3552.R685434 03 2003

The Hot Country by Robert Olen Butler
Call Number: PS3552.U8278 H68 2012

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Call Number: PS3553.H15 Y54 2007

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Call Number. PS3553.H27165 S33 2007

The Big Seven by Jim Harrison
Call Number: PS3558.A67 854 2015

Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades by Oakley M. Hall
Call Number: PS3558.A373 A84 1998

Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Call Number. PS3558.1366 A6 1999

The tremor of forgery by Patricia Highsmith
Call Number: PS3558.I366 T7 2011

Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates
Call Number: PS3565.A8 G58 2010


Bookmarks: An Eclectic Collection

Visit the Hatfield Library and enjoy the diverse assortment of bookmarks currently on display in the glass cases on the second floor.  This collection spans many decades and includes bookmarks from various places and made out of a wide assortment of materials such as wood, leather, canvas, fabric, metal, plastic, and paper.  There are bookmarks from bookstores across the United States, including ones from stores that are no longer with us; there are also numerous bookmarks from libraries and publishers as well as ones promoting reading and literacy.  Viewers will find bookmarks depicting frogs, cats, animals of all sorts, nature, museums, national parks, historic sites and figures, art and artists, and much more.  Some of the bookmarks were purchased or picked up at bookstores, conferences or other events, but many were found in used books or materials donated/returned to the library.  Check out this whimsical exhibit next time you are in the library!

–Bookmarks on display are from the collection of Joni Roberts, Librarian


Faculty Works Display

The 2018 Faculty Works Display is now on exhibit on the first floor of the library.  We encourage you to come browse the many articles written by faculty, explore what they have been researching recently, and discover more about their interests.  We also have a selection of art works from our art faculty, as well as creative productions by faculty from our Theatre Department.  These will all be on display throughout the end of the semester.

For comments and questions about this display, please contact Charity Braceros-Simon (cbracerossimon@willamette.edu)