The University of Vemont Libraries: Bailey/Howe Library

April 23, 2013, 7 pm, Special Collections Reading Room, Bailey/Howe Library, UVM

Thomas Visser, associate professor of Historic Preservation and director of the Historic Preservation at the University of Vermont, will discuss his latest book, Porches of North America. His slide presentation will explore how this well-loved building feature has evolved in the United States and Canada. He will also discuss his research into many curious social uses, traditions, customs, and special activities associated with porch life.

While porches have a long history and are a familiar feature of the landscape, Visser and his students discovered that there were relatively few real studies of porches. He has filled the gap with Porches of North America, a 304-page book that includes sections on the history of porches as well as their many forms and functions.  The book is loaded with illustrations of porches of all kinds, many from UVM Special Collections. For a preview, check out this short video.

The presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, email uvmsc@uvm.edu or call 656-2138.

Please take our library user survey now by selecting your most frequently-used library:

Bailey/Howe Library
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The University Libraries care about what you think. We want your voice to be at the heart of our planning efforts.

Every four years we run a very important, nationally-benchmarked electronic survey that helps us learn how our user community views library services, collections, and facilities.

Help us raise up to $2,000 for the Chittenden County Emergency Food Shelf by participating in this year’s survey. We’ll donate 50 cents for every response until we reach our goal. It takes approximately ten minutes to complete the survey – in that time you’ll be providing multiple meals to a hungry neighbor. Additionally, participants can enter a drawing for gift certificates to UVM’s bookstore.

Your responses will be held in confidence. No identifying links between responses and the individual responding will be retained. The survey is called LibQUAL+ (TM) and is administered by the Association of Research Libraries. If you have any difficulty in accessing or taking the survey, please contact Selene Colburn at Selene.Colburn@uvm.edu.

B/H’s Interlibrary Loan Department announces that two e-readers are available for use by patrons seeking access to electronic documents that otherwise are unavailable. Patrons using this service will receive an e-reader preloaded with their requested information. The lending period is two weeks. Click here to make a lending request.

Lecture: March 14, 5:30 pm, Special Collections Reading Room, Bailey/Howe Library

University of Vermont professor Harvey Amani Whitfield will discuss the tensions between slavery and freedom in early Vermont history.  His research indicates that the end of slavery in Vermont was messy, disorderly, and contradictory and that various forms of bondage persisted in Vermont well after the 1777 abolition of adult slavery.

Professor Whitfield’s areas of research are the black population in the Maritime colonies and Vermont. In 2006, he published Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860. His article, “African Americans in Burlington, Vermont, 1880-1900,” was published in Vermont History in 2007.

The presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, email uvmsc@uvm.edu or call 656-2138.

The UVM Libraries and the Office of Student Life and Campus Programs have teamed up to offer students, staff and faculty an opportunity (complete with refreshments) to see the outstanding documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat, “The Radiant Child,” by director Tamra Davis.

Please join us on Tuesday, March 19 at 4:30 p.m. in the Super Maple Ballroom.

Here’s what the L.A. Times reviewer had to say about the film:

“Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” is a remarkably rich documentary possessing depth, range, insight and compassion. Basquiat was born into an upper middle-class Brooklyn family. Although intermittently felled by psychiatric problems, his mother exposed him to great museum art an early age. By 17, Basquiat found refuge in the teeming lower Manhattan art and club scene of the early ’80s, and was nudged from graffiti artist to a full-fledged painter who could “paint with words.”

The current exhibit in Special Collections features postcards that document Stowe’s development as the Ski Capital of the East during the 1940s-1950s. For many years, Newport, Vermont photographer Harry Richardson traveled around Vermont and took thousands of pictures of people, places, and activities. He published many of the images as real photo postcards. The postcards in this exhibit are from a sample book that Richardson may have used to sell his cards to Stowe retailers. The cards promoted Vermont skiing with images of deep snow, downhill descents, modern facilities and traditional landscapes, and above all, happy skiers.

The exhibit is open to the public. For more information, call 656-2138 or email uvmsc@uvm.edu

At the end of August 2011, Tropical Storm Irene devastated Vermont. After the storm,Vermonters gathered stories of destruction and devastation as well as stories of the remarkable recovery efforts.  Bailey/Howe Library is collecting books and films that document how Vermont communities came together to help individuals and communities rebuild.

Wrath of Irene: Vermont’s Imperfect Storm of 2011
Accounts of the storm in the White River watershed, taken from articles and photographs that originally appeared in The Herald of Randolph.

Irene Storms Through Mendon: You Can Get There from Here
With help from the Vermont Folklife Center, the Mendon Historical Society recorded first-person accounts of the struggles town residents confronted during and after Tropical Storm Irene. The interviews form the framework for this book.

Voices from the Flood, by Jeanne Weston Cook
Black and white photos and essays record people’s experiences during the  flood devastation and then recovery in Northfield and Roxbury.

When the River Rose
When the River Rose presents stories of “flood, recovery, and rebirth” in Waterbury, one of the towns hit hardest by Tropical Storm Irene. Edited by journalist David Goodman, with photographs by Gordon Miller. Published by the Children’s Literacy Foundation.

Higher Ground, by Kevin Fitton
Higher Ground is a children’s book about a flooded dairy farm, with illustrations by Mary Azarian.

Flood Bound
Filmmaker Marion Abrams and 36 other Pittsfield residents tell the amazing story of how the townspeople responded to the destruction and isolation that resulted from the August storm.

Strength of the Storm
Strength of the Storm is a film about Tropical Storm Irene’s devastating affect on Vermont’s mobile home parks and how the residents came together after the storm to make their voices heard and get their needs met. Produced by the Vermont Worker’s Center and directed by Rob Koier.

The Bailey/Howe Library hosts the exhibit Jean Michel Basquiat: An Intimate Portrait January – March of 2013. Check out our new research guide to learn more.

Basquiat was a prolific painter who rose to stardom in the 1980′s, out of the New York graffiti and downtown music scenes. He created over a thousand artworks before his death at the age of 27 in 1988. His often colorful works incorporated symbols, text, portraiture and images from popular culture. He once claimed to have used words, “like brush strokes.” Artnet describes Basquiat as “one of the first African-American artists to reach international stature and wealth in the art world.”

Sarah Paige, of the Libraries’ Information and Instruction Department, has created a research guide with tips about how to find resources about Basquiat, in the Libraries and beyond. From there you can locate books, movies, websites, and music about Basquiat and his contemporaries.

Music was an important force in the life and work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He was an active participant in the hip hop/graffiti movement of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and in the intersecting downtown New York art rock scene that made its headquarters at the Mudd Club.

Basquiat was a founding member of the band Gray, with Nicholas Taylor, the photographer who created the exhibit Jean Michel Basquiat: An Intimate Portrait [on display at the Bailey/Howe Library, January – March 2013].

We’ve created a Spotify playlist to highlight some relevant music.

Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force

Afrika Bambaataa grew up in the South Bronx and was instrumental in the development of New York hip hop in the early 1980’s.

Rapture by Blondie

Jean Michel Basquiat appears as a DJ in the video for Blondie’s Rapture, a song that also gives a shout out to hip hop artist Fab 5 Freddy.

Bird Feathers by Charlie Parker

Basquiat referenced Charlie Parker and a number of jazz legends in his painting, often bestowing them with one of his signature symbols — a crown.

Change the Beat by Fab 5 Freddy

Graffiti artist and hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy intersected in numerous ways with Basquiat. Freddy co-curated the seminal Beyond Words show at the Mudd Club, featuring graffiti artists such as Basquiat, Rammellzee, and Keith Haring.

Fab 5 Freddy with Basquiat

Lust for Life by Iggy Pop

In Jean Michel Basquiat: An Intimate Portrait, Nicholas Taylor describes dancing with Basquiat to protopunk Iggy Pop’s Bowie-produced 1977 solo release.

Where Were You by the Lounge Lizards

This jazz/no wave/punk combo formed by brothers Evan and John Lurie (the latter also appearing as an actor in Jim Jarmusch films) featured a rotating cast of musicians that included Arto Lindsay and Marc Ribot.

Blue in Green by Miles Davis

“I never know how to describe my work. It’s not always the same thing. It’s like asking Miles, ‘How does your horn sound?’” – Jean Michel Basquiat

Rammellzee and Shockdell at the Ampitheater from the Wild Style soundtrack

Rammellzee was a visual/graffiti/performance artist, sculptor, and early hip hop musician with an eccentric style all his own. “Beat Bop,” Rammellzee’s influential 1983 single (with K-Rob) was produced by Basquiat, who also created the cover art.

Rammellzee and Basquiat

Life During Wartime by Talking Heads

This early Talking Heads hit proclaims, “This ain’t no party; this ain’t no disco…this ain’t no Mudd Club, or CBGB,” referencing the iconic New York music venues frequented by the band.

When by Vincent Gallo

Like Jean Michel Basquiat and many of their contemporaries, Vincent Gallo (a sometime member of Basquiat’s band Gray) has produced creative work across a wide array of disciplines, as an actor, painter, director, model, and musician.

Burning Up by Madonna

Before Madonna became one of the world’s most successful recording artists, she was a Mudd Club provocateur, who once dated Basquiat.

Madonna & Basquiat

On exhibit, January-March 2013, in the lobby of Bailey/Howe Library, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: An Intimate Portrait,” offers a portal into the life of an artist on the threshold of taking the art world by storm. As photographed by Nicholas Taylor, these images of a 19-year-old Basquiat capture his emotions and personality, which, in turn, reflect his struggle for fame and respect. The accompanying text panels, written by Taylor, document the friendship the two shared and also serve to contextualize the historical significance of Basquiat in the early eighties.

This exhibition is on loan from the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University, and was curated by Michael J. Beam, Curator of Exhibitions at the Castellani Art Museum.