Japanese woodblock prints from the late 19th century are now available to view online. Part of the Open Court Publishing Company records, these prints are from the Sino-Japanese war, and a few from families and other artists in that same time. The majority of these prints were used as war reports and propaganda to keep the public informed about the current status of the battles, as well as to build patriotism, support, and optimism. The exhibit not only highlights the prints, but the artists, parts of a woodblock print and how a print is created.  Christina Bleyer and Joseph Steinbock curated this exhibit.  A traveling exhibit will be unveiled in May 2015.  http://scrcexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/japanese-woodblock-prints

Wheeler Library, SIU Campus

Did you ever wonder what Cobden looked like in 1910? Or Anna in 1898?  The Special Collections Research Center has been digitizing old photographs and postcards depicting building and street scenes in towns across Southern Illinois for our presence on Historypin. Historypin provides an alternative way to provide access to our visual collections. The photographs and postcards are pinned to a Google map to show what the building, street scene, or landscape looked like years ago. Please see our collection homepage at:

https://www.historypin.org/channels/view/58028/#!photos/list/

“The Light That Shatters Darkness” is a special exhibit featuring coal mining poetry and photographs. The new Special Collections Research Center exhibit can be seen in the library’s Hall of Presidents and Chancellors whenever the library is open from Dec. 1, 2014, through Feb. 1, 2015.  The exhibit merges poetry by David Bond with photographs by the late C. William “Doc” Horrell.

Bond, senior library specialist for Library Affairs, worked for more than 17 years as a third-shift warehouse manager for an underground coal mine, seeing for himself what coal mines are all about. He earned his master of fine arts degree at SIU and his poetry has been published in various literary journals. He is the winner of two Illinois Arts Council Award Fellowships, a MacDowell Artist Fellowship and the Friends of Morris Library Delta Award.

Horrell came to SIU in 1949 and directed the photography services division until 1958.  He was a leader in the creation of the cinema and photography department at the university and taught there until his retirement in 1983. During the 1960s, Horrell shot more than 1,000 black and white photographs at area coal mines. He died in 1989 but his iconic collection documenting the region’s mining history is held in Morris Library’s Special Collections Research Center. Some of those pictures are included in “The Light That Shatters Darkness.”

Many years ago I wrote a poem titled “Coal,” the first of several born of my experiences working the midnight shift above an underground coal mine in southern Illinois. For seventeen years I tolerated the chronic weariness of an unnatural work schedule, the repetition of inputting transcendental ciphers and weekly tonnages into an ancient computer that stalled as stubbornly as one of the mules pulling his quota of coal up the rails decades ago. The pay was that good.

And yet there was something else, something in the strangeness of the hours, that alien landscape of endless conveyor belts snaking to the coal preparation plant where giant shakers rumbled and hoppers belched black cataracts into rusted boxcars, the unworldliness of 300 feet below in a honeycombed earth where, to quote that early poem, “the beauty of the ninety degree crosscut/and the truth of the articulating crawler are all that really matter.”

It was this Keatsian blending of the natural and supernatural that forced me to write down my nightly observations of what I believed and still believe to be a unique, almost blessed, opportunity. I imagined myself in the place of the miners, men who knew the feeling of loneliness in the impenetrable darkness, the dangers of three-ton slabs of limestone and a machine nicknamed “The Ripper,” who heard the voice of poetry but could never put it into words. They were the sons and grandsons of miners, and they too appeared to know how fortunate they were to share something far beyond the ordinary.

I hope that these poems, complemented by Doc Horrell’s photography, may give one an echo of that voice I heard during those long night shifts, as I tried to mine words hard as coal.

~David Bond

On October 30, archivists around the country, including from SIUC, will take to Twitter to answer your questions about any and all things archives! This day-long event, sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, will give you the opportunity to connect directly with archivists in your community—and around the country—to ask questions, get information, or just satisfy your curiosity.

Tweet: SCRC at SIUC #AskAnArchivist Day on Oct 30: Archivists from the Special Collections Research Center at SIUC will answer your questions about historical materials. Ask them anything! http://bit.ly/1zkBCNB

As professional experts who do the exciting work of protecting and sharing important historical materials, archivists have many stories to share about the work they do every day in preserving fascinating documents, photographs, audio and visual materials, and artifacts. Increasingly, archival work extends beyond the physical and includes digital materials. #AskAnArchivist Day will give you a chance to connect with archivists who are tackling the challenges of preserving our digital heritage for the future.

What questions can be asked?
Archivists participating in #AskAnArchivist are eager to respond to any and all questions you have about archives and archival work.
No question is too silly…
• What’s the craziest thing you’ve come across in your collections?
• If your archives had a soundtrack, what songs would be on it?
• What do archivists talk about around the water cooler?
…and no question is too practical!
• What should I do to be sure that my e-mails won’t get lost?
• I’ve got scads of digital images on my phone. How should I store them so I can access them later on?
• How do you decide which items to keep and which to weed out from a collection?
• As a teacher, how can I get my students more interested in using archives for projects?

How does it work?
#AskAnArchivist is open to everyone—all you need is a Twitter account! To participate, just tweet a question and include the hashtag #AskAnArchivist in your tweet. Your question will be seen instantly by archivists around the country who are standing by to respond directly to you.

Have a question for a specific archives or archivist? Include their Twitter handle with your question. They may not know every answer right away, but they will get back to you after they’ve had the chance to do some digging.
Don’t have a question right away? Search Twitter for #AskAnArchivist and follow along as questions and answers are shared!

So get ready!  Twitter to answer your questions all day long on October 30 at SCRC at SIUC #AskAnArchivist.

The Society of American Archivists is a professional organization that represents one of today’s most exciting professions. Archivists have the expertise to protect and share important historical material and to save today’s vital records for our future needs.

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. Check out the frequently challenged books section to explore the issues and controversies around book challenges and book banning. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted with removal or restrictions in libraries and schools. While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.

Come to SCRC and see our 1st Amendment collection.  While you are there, read a banned book!!

The Special Collections Research Center in Morris Library presents “Fifty Summers Ago: SIU Students in Mississippi,” on exhibit in the first floor rotunda through September 12. Using contemporary articles from the Daily Egyptian and other archival material the exhibit documents the role that SIU Carbondale students played in the Mississippi Summer Project, or Freedom Summer.

In the summer of 1964 a small group of SIU students joined their peers from across the nation in Mississippi. Working alongside African-Americans across the state, college students taught in Freedom Schools, established community centers and registered voters despite harassment and threats of violence.

With experience in civil rights struggles on campus and in southern Illinois communities from Carbondale to Cairo, SIU students contributed energy and leadership to Freedom Summer. Kay Prickett’s time in Greenville was chronicled in Redbook magazine. Brothers Charles, Carver and Cortez Neblett worked with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Charles Neblett, one of SNCC’s Freedom Singers, wrote the lyrics to “If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus,” a civil rights anthem. John O’Neal founded the Free Southern Theater. Jane Adams chaired SIU’s effort and taught in the Freedom School in tiny Harmony. Her brother Jim Adams registered voters in the country around Greenville. Sue Nichols taught in Mileston. Ed Hamlett served as SNCC field secretary. Back in Carbondale friends and family raised money to support the volunteers and collected books and supplies for the Freedom Schools.

In conjunction with “Fifty Summers Ago” the library will hold a public discussion and reception in the rotunda on Friday, September 5, from 3:30 to 5. Speakers will include Father Joseph A. Brown, Professor of Africana Studies, and Carbondale City Councilwoman Jane Adams, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology.  This exhibit and event were curated by Aaron Lisec.

Civil War 150 is coming to Morris Library’s Hall of Presidents April 28 to May 16, 2014. This traveling exhibit traces major events during the Civil War through the eyes of soldiers, presidents, freedmen, and families. The Special Collections Research Center will host several public programs for the exhibit, including talks on April 28, May 2, and May 9. A companion exhibit in the Hall of Presidents will depict the war in southern Illinois, showcasing local Civil War letters in Special Collections. For more information, please contact the Special Collections Research Center at 453-2516. Civil War 150 is a national traveling panel exhibition organized by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in partnership with The Library of America. The project, Civil War 150: Exploring the War and Its Meaning through the Words of Those Who Lived It, has been made possible in part through a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.

The Carbondale Remembered Oral History Project is a joint effort between Special Collections Research Center of Southern Illinois University Carbondale and the Carbondale, Illinois Preservation Commission. Interviews were conducted by Dede Lingle Ittner, who interviewed individuals with ties to the Carbondale, Illinois community. This ongoing project began in 2004 and currently consists of 37 oral history interviews. All of the interviews were originally recorded on audio cassettes. These have been digitized and are now available as mp3 files.

The oral histories concentrate on twentieth century Carbondale, Illinois history with an emphasis on political history, architecture, and education. Other topics include Black history, Southern Illinois Normal University (later Southern Illinois University Carbondale) history, business history, the Great Depression, natural disasters, World War II and Vietnam.   Interviews will be added as they become available.

To listen or read these interviews, visit: http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm4/index_sic_oralhis.php?CISOROOT=/sic_oralhis

The oral histories can also be accessed in Special Collections Research Center, as well as at the Carbondale Public Library

SCRC hosted its first “Science, Religion and Philosophy: A Commemoration of the World’s Parliament of Religions” conference last weekend in La Salle, IL at the Hegeler Carus Mansion. The keynote speaker was Cornelis de Waal, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Indiana and recipient of the 2013 Alwin C. Carus Research Award, who spoke on “The Marriage of Religion and Science Reconsidered: Taking Cues from Pierce.” Other speakers included: Suyan Moodley (South Africa), Roger Adams (Connecticut), Ewoud Halewijn (Delft University, Netherlands), Liz Hartman (SIUC), Avik Mukherjee (India) and Saboura Hajiali (Visiting Scholar from Iran, SIUC) and Pangratios Papacosta (Columbia College Chicago). Christina Bleyer and Blouke Carus also participated. Great discussion was also a present. Special thanks to the staff of the Hegeler Carus Mansion, the Hegeler Carus Foundation and the Alwin C. Carus Mineral Trust for making this conference such a success.