Visions 12, Spring-Summer 2002

Special Section: A Tribute to Kenneth E. Rowe- A special section honoring the retiring Methodist Librarian 

Drew Acquires a Scholarly Treasure Trove: Willa Cather Collection

An extraordinary treasure trove of Willa Cather materials has come to Drew thanks to the generosity and efforts of Finn Caspersen, who recently purchased the collection at a Sotheby's auction of the personal library of the late Frederick B. Adams, former director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.

Working closely with Caspersen, Library Director Andrew Scrimgeour, Professor Merrill Skaggs, and Librarian Linda Connors identified items that would enhance the Drew collection, which already included a number of first edition books donated by President Kean. Nearly all the desired items were acquired.

Professor Merrill Skaggs assessed the significance for Drew: "The Cather collection recently purchased by Finn Caspersen and donated to the Drew Library will make a substantial difference to the researches of Drew Cather scholars. The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies has produced, out of its dissertations and conferences, six hard cover books on Willa Cather's fiction. Many of these publishing Cather scholars still live near the Drew Library, where their attention is likely soon to be focused.

The rare collection has multiple copies of some Cather books, including her first volume of poems, April Twilights, and the novel long especially connected with Drew scholarship, Shadows on the Rock. The rare acquisitions also include letters, magazine features, and early editions of Cather's schoolgirl publications. It promises to feed much scholarly work in the future."

The collection will be unveiled and celebrated at a special event October 2, and will be exhibited in the Library through October. Plans for a major international conference are also underway.

Library Houses Books From Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study

by Ruth Friedman,
Reference Librarian

The Drew University Library and the Drew University Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study have entered into an agreement aimed at making the books from the Center's collection available to all Library users.

The books are fully cataloged and appear in the Library's online web-based catalog, which is searchable worldwide at https://LibraryCat.drew.edu. The Holocaust/Genocide Center retains some duplicate copies of volumes sent to the Library as well as its collection of juvenile literature, aids for teaching, and videos. The Center can be reached by telephone at (973) 408-3600 or by email at ctrholst@drew.edu.

Shelved on the Library's open stacks, with other books similar in subject, the Holocaust/Genocide Center's collection can be used by anyone visiting the Library during its regular open hours.

A user guide for finding books on the Holocaust and other genocides appears on the Drew University Library website: http://depts.drew.edu/lib/gen_guide.html. To borrow these books, those who are not Drew students, staff, or faculty may either purchase a resident borrower's card from the Drew Library or submit their requests through the interlibrary loan process at their local libraries.

A Library Better Serving Student Need

by Arielle Giegerich, C' 02

The purpose of any good university library is to provide the best service possible for its users. After all, what is a library without students of literature, humanities, and sciences studying in its carrels, reading at its tables, or searching in its stacks?

Last fall, as a part of a continuing effort to make the library as strong and utilized a resource as possible, the Drew University Library Committee, administration, and staff introduced expanded hours for studying. These hours were made effective for the last seven weeks of the semester, and extended the library's open hours five days of the week--from midnight until 2:00 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, and from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Fridays.

These extended hours were born out of student need and the expression of that need to Library Director Dr. Andrew Scrimgeour and other staff members. According to Dr. Scrimgeour, the movement to increase hours was spearheaded by the student government of the College of Liberal Arts and later supported by both the graduate and theological students. President of the Student Government Association, senior Spencer Bates [C '02] reflected, "It is a great thing. It demonstrates the responsiveness of the University Library to the student body. All of the students I have talked to about it express their gratitude and hope it will continue."

That show of gratitude has frequently been expressed by "students voting with their feet." When the idea was proposed, Dr. Scrimgeour expected the experiment to be a success if twenty students used the facility on an average night; however, the results have been astounding. The average number of students using the library during those extended hours ranged from a low during the shortened Thanksgiving week of thirty-six to a high during the week of final exams of nearly one hundred people! These statistics were far greater than even the most optimistic of library administrators could have predicted, and the student feedback has been just as resounding. CLA senior Jennifer Dolores used the library during those hours and reported, "Having the building open late was very helpful. I had a big exam and the library was a great place for me to study. While I was there, I noticed that I was not the only one taking advantage of the hours; there were people all over the building. As a library employee, I know that the extended hours are difficult for the staff, but they are really helpful for the students."

Karla Simcikova, GSA representative on the University Library Committee, reflects the feeling of graduate students, who welcomed the extended hours, particularly on Friday evenings and during the month of January, when the Library is generally closed on weekends. "Dr. Scrimgeour, upon the request from graduate students, made the library available on Sunday afternoons so that students working on their research, dissertations, or preparing for comprehensive exams could use the library facilities. What has been helpful is that during the extended hours, graduate students have access to their carrels. In addition, Dr. Scrimgeour has made real efforts to accommodate an ongoing need at Drew for additional study space." Recently, 40 lockers were installed that will serve graduate and other students.

Staffing the Library during the extra hours has been a large concern for Dr. Scrimgeour and the rest of the library staff. Because the entire facility is open, not merely one room or area as has been tried in previous years, proper supervision of the building was essential. Last fall the program was monitored by Public Safety officers after the circulation and reference staff left at midnight. In the spring, library personnel oversaw the extra hours. Funding the extended hours in the future has not been entirely resolved. Despite this difficulty, though, the library staff is determined to continue to better serve student needs. "We want this place used," says Dr. Scrimgeour, and in answer to the current issue of funding, he says that a proposal has been submitted to adapt the next budget to accommodate a continuation of these services. Until then, however, the director says, "We will be open when the need is real. We don't know how, but we'll do it."

That attitude is a relief to the hundreds of students from all three of Drew's schools who consistently use the library, and it is refreshing to see such collaboration between each school of Drew University and the University Library. This move towards extended hours is a generous and responsive way to better serve the Drew community and the members of the community have responded resoundingly.[

One of my favorite areas of the library has been giving me grief. For years I have stolen away to this spot during the course of the week. It has been a place to enjoy a conversation with a thoughtful author, even for a few minutes. But no longer. I begin an article and within a few pages, I am interrupted. Sometimes my reading is disturbed as many as three or four times in the course of a mere half-hour. My troubled sanctuary is "current periodicals," the zone that gathers the most recent journals, magazines, and newspapers into a high-rise neighborhood of tidy compartments. It houses many of my favorite magazines such as Atlantic, Rolling Stone, New York Times Magazine, and the New York Review of Books. Yet reading some of them increasingly requires Zen-like concentration or stoic resolve.

The disturbers of my peace are not the usual suspects, people stopping by to visit or cell phones summoning students to chat. My intruders are far more forward and flamboyant. They are the printed ads. Advertisements have long been a mainstay of national magazines, but in recent years they have become brazen hucksters, jostling the text of the articles, elbowing their way onto almost every page, intimidating authors so that they seem to cower on the page. Essays are even chopped apart and interlaced with ads as well as other articles. What chance is there for the reader to give undivided attention to the text? After all, ads are the unabashed descendants of the Sirens, cunning allurements strategically placed to redirect the attention of the reader.

The electronic page fares no better. More cluttered than those of the magazines, it appears as a small window in a technological cockpit surrounded by dozens of clickable gadgets. Ads co-mingle with the interactive knobs and levers, blinking, scrolling, and beckoning along the borders of the page. They even appear without warning, completely obliterating the page in the fashion of network television, capsizing the attention of the reader.

The commercial bombardment of these pages has renewed my affection for their much-older cousins, the pages of printed books, especially the pages of the academic book. Typically, its pages are austere-black ink on white pages, empty margins, no adornments, no illustrations, and no advertisements. These Shaker-simple leaves possess true elegance-furrows of uniform black letters, tacking back and forth, a precise pattern of parallel print traversing a snow white landscape.

To eyes and minds weary of disruptive glitz, these simple pages are a haven for extended reading. Their design conveys a single message--nothing is more important than the text that sits before you.

I am almost afraid to observe out loud that the typical book from a university press is without advertisement, save perhaps for the dust jacket, for I do not want to jinx the situation. Even popular books, the so-called trade books, rarely disrupt their texts with ads. Some now place a few at the end of volumes, but the text flows without interruption. For the moment, books are a port safe from the hucksters. Is it naïve to hope that they will always be free from commercial harassment?

-- Andrew D. Scrimgeour[

Recent Gifts to the University Library

Lucille Becker, Professor of French, Emerita, continued her generous support of the Library with a donation.

A much appreciated contribution to the Book Endowment Fund has been received from Frank Deodene.

Miss Julia La Falce remembered the Library with a generous gift.

The Library gratefully received a collection of books from Alice Hoon, adding significantly to the holdings on prayer and other theological disciplines. Many of the 53 volumes were out of print.

Jacob Landau, New Jersey artist, donated copies of the books that he has illustrated, as well as ephemera documenting his distinguished career.

Books from the personal library of the late Professor Emeritus Roger Wescott, have been received through the kindness of Mrs. Hilja Wescott.

Linda and Frank Connors Establish Endowment

Dr. Linda E. Connors and her husband, Frank, have established the Linda and Frank Connors Endowment to support ongoing acquisitions for library collections and growth in the Book Endowment Fund. The endowment was established using a Charitable Remainder Unitrust funded through a generous gift of real estate. Dr. Connors is an alumna of the College, class of 1964, and Associate Librarian for Collection Management at Drew.

Illustrated Bible Given by President Kean

President Tom Kean recently obtained for the University the handsome, large folio, two-volume illustrated Bible, pictured below: The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments according to the Authorized Version, published by the Illustrated Bible Society, with 98 plates by noted "modern" artists: autotypes engraved and printed by Lemercier and Co., Paris, 1900.

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Drew Says Farewell to Robert L. Chapman

Internationally known scholar, Professor of English, Emeritus, Robert L. Chapman died February 2, 2001, in Morristown. Among his many interests was the University Library, where he was a frequent visitor during his Drew career and later in retirement. He served on the Friends of the Library Advisory Board as one of its founding members. He is survived by his wife Sarah, three sons, and a brother. Below are some excerpts from a eulogy given by Professor Charles Courtney at a memorial service held in Great Hall March 9.John Bicknell, a friend from Cornell days, invited him to join the Drew faculty in 1966 . . . and all around here he had a glorious last chapter in his career, retiring in 1986. His many honors included the Baldwin Chair in Humanities, the Will Herberg Distinguished Professor Award, and election to the New Jersey Hall of Fame. . . . 

Roget and the slang dictionary are arguably the most important scholarly works produced at Drew in the last thirty years. . . . Chap's successor as editor of Roget calls him one of the greatest American lexicographers. . . . 

Chap . . . so obviously loved his subject and thinking that he modeled for students and colleagues the life of the mind. Everyone remembers his humor, and several say that he was the wittiest person they ever knew. So it won't do just to say that he salted his speech with humor; whatever he served came in a zesty sauce. 

Finally, the peak of free activity is seen in Chap's poetry. Here learning, observation, wit, imagination, feeling, and craft come together to yield delightful transformations of our world. 

Sloane Drayson-Knigge: Graduate Research Gives Voice to the Response of Women in the Nazi Ghetto of Theresienstadt

by Bruce Lancaster, Reference Associate

Suddenly all the pieces fell into place following years of graduate study. The Holocaust, theater and acting, women's history, and urgently needed oral history work all presented themselves neatly wrapped in one complex subject, "Hitler's gift to the Jews," the "model ghetto" of Theresienstadt.

Sloane Drayson-Knigge had come to Drew for a "two-year working vacation" from her theatrical career to build up her knowledge of the rapidly emerging field of women's studies. Drew seemed a logical choice, not only because of family connections (father and brother alums) but for the opportunity to work with professors Karen McCarthy Brown, Catherine Keller, and Delores Willams in a small school that encouraged inter- disciplinary work. Drew's individually structured Master of Theological Studies program offered a likely center for academic exploration.

The M.T.S. led into teaching interpretive speech and then theater and religion in the Theological School when Dr. Harold Brack died suddenly. Progression into the Ph.D. Religion and Society Program was so natural and inevitable that it was never really considered--the decision to go on in school simply popped out of her mouth in a revelatory moment at a Drew Choir concert, recalls Sloane.

Language skills, the influence of Dr. Michael Ryan's seminal work on Holocaust theology, and the growth of interest in women in Holocaust history led her at first into research on the Holocaust in Italy. She began to find intriguing fragmentary information on music, drama, and cabaret in the camps. Amazingly, bits of art and creativity and normal humanity had somehow survived in the face of industrialized annihilation.

The maintenance of life became life itself in the Potemkin Village of the model ghetto, and this unusual dissertation is ultimately a celebration of life.

A chance meeting at Oxford with Dr. Susan Cernyak-Spatz made the final connection, pulling all the bits of Sloane's interests into one subject and connecting her with the women whose stories were to anchor the dissertation. Susan had been a clandestine jazz singer in the Theresienstadt ghetto, part of a lively and varied artistic community that somehow flourished in the camp even as actors and audiences alike were repeatedly decimated by continual transports to the extermination camps further East.

The meeting with this lively, outspoken performer and scholar connected Sloane to a whole group of women survivors of Theresienstadt. The rapid dwindling of this group-their average age is now about 80-illustrates the urgency of primary research to Sloane and other scholars. The people who can tell us what really happened, how history moved, and how ordinary people carried on through the horror, are almost gone, and work with them must happen right now.

Sloane's dissertation, "Theatre as a Response to Everyday Life in the Nazi Ghetto Theresienstadt: Women's Contributions to 'Scenes of Resistance, Acts of Survival'" focuses on the lives of these women, giving them voice and bringing to bear the tools of sociology and theater to explain how art and the refusal to abandon normalcy in the face of the Shoah helped maintain life and hope in a situation seemingly made entirely of death and despair.

The maintenance of life became life itself in the Potemkin Village of the model ghetto, and this unusual dissertation is ultimately a celebration of life.

[Sloane Drayson-Knigge received her Ph.D. at Commencement on May 19, 2002.]

2002 Bela Kornitzer Prize

Drew faculty and alumni/ae are eligible for an award and a cash prize up to a maximum of $1,000 in recognition of a nonfiction book published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2001.

Books for consideration, and reviews, if available, should be sent by October 1, to:

Office of the Director
Drew University Library
Madison, NJ 07940

The award will be presented at the Friends of the Library gala, January 25, 2003.

First awarded in 1995, the Bela Kornitzer Award was established in 1992, by Alicia and George Karpati to honor the memory of Mrs. Karpati's brother, Bela Kornitzer, and to recognize his achievements as a journalist and author in Hungary and the United States.

Electronic Resources Push New Paradigms

by Jody L. Caldwell
Reference Librarian

Literary Pay-Per-View?

Libraries buy books and journals. We catalog them, bind them for durability, and arrange them so they may be relatively easily found, and then, we hope as many people as possible seek them out among the stacks.

We keep the books and journals as long as we think anyone could possibly want them, and as long as we have room. The volumes themselves don't change; they don't keep track of the number of people who've read them, suddenly misplace parts of themselves, or vanish in the lean years. Once we buy a book, we don't worry about charging for every time it's taken out, like a literary pay-per-view.

A Changing Universe

But the universe of electronic resources, copyright law, and licensing agreements are moving all libraries and their communities away from the old paradigms and rules of print.

The universe of electronic resources, copyright law, and licensing agreements are moving all libraries and their communities away from the old paradigms and rules of print.

Some electronic publishers, for example, offer subscriptions that charge libraries only for articles that are actually viewed or delivered. This works effectively for some services, particularly specialized ones, but final costs can be tricky to predict when we're making financial decisions. Libraries are sometimes forced to pass costs along to users, putting at a disadvantage those who are unable to pay for accessing materials. The Drew Library is committed to offering equal access for all our students; we have consistently opted for subscriptions that do not entail charges for individual articles.

Cooperative Networks

In the United States, libraries have developed cooperative networks that permit borrowing from each other, linking users' specific needs with libraries that hold the material. If Drew owns a journal, we will photocopy articles for users in other libraries. But these days, what does "own" mean? If someone requests an article from us that we only have available electronically, our licensing agreements with the publisher generally prevent us from sending that article to another library. At this point in time, this isn't a huge problem--most items available electronically are still widely available in paper or microform.

But libraries are starting to consider the possible impact of the coming shift of a majority of journal subscriptions to electronic format. How will libraries work with publishers to maintain the level of service we provide now?

The Drew Library is committed to offering equal access for all our students; we have consistently opted for subscriptions that do not entail charges for individual articles.

Let's go back to the book on the shelf, losing its pages only through contact with the occasional misguided user. Well, there aren't the same guarantees with an electronic publication. Not only can databases drop publications from their lists when agreements break down, but individual journals may pull articles, as well.

Supreme Court Decision

A significant 2001 Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v Tasini declared that publication of a freelance writer's work in electronic format constitutes republication and requires a fresh contract. Rather than renegotiate myriad freelance contracts, many major publications, including Time Magazine and the New York Times, have pulled a number of past freelance articles from their electronic files. Articles that we could find in databases last spring are simply no longer there. The ease with which the articles were deleted gives librarians, at least, considerable pause!

How will libraries work with publishers to maintain the level of service we provide now?

New Challenges

The proliferation of online resources certainly presents librarians with a new and volatile set of challenges. These valuable resources give our users ready access to the information they need, when and where they need it, and that keeps us committed to working closely with publishers to develop an optimal environment for Drew's researchers.

Library Faculty News

Jody Caldwell will be on half-time sabbatical leave from September 2002, through July 2003. The sabbatical will enable her to complete a year of full-time course work towards a Ph.D. in Religion and Society at Drew.

Ruth Friedman will retire, July 31, 2002, after 22 years of service as Reference Librarian at Drew University. In September, she will launch her new business, STARS, Star Tutoring and Research Services.

Woodruff Appointed Methodist Librarian

Jennifer Lynn Woodruff has been appointed Methodist Librarian effective January 2, 2003. Currently she is completing course work and prelims at Duke University in the doctoral program. Her area of study is Methodist history with special interest in worship.

Ms. Woodruff has a B.A. in English from Augustana College, an M.A. and M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary, and an M.S. in L.I.S. from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has worked in several special collections and archives as preservation and research assistant. In addition to articles and reviews, her publications include numerous poems.

Parents Fund Provides Comfortable Chairs, Study Areas

Thank you, Parents!

Members of the Senior Class of 2002, Arielle Giegerich and Spencer Bates, test one of the newly delivered overstuffed, custom chairs purchased with donations to the Drew Parents Fund.

The students helped choose the chairs as part of their goal of creating comfortable, quiet study nooks in the Library.

Several chairs have been added to the main floor public areas, while some older pieces have been dispersed to quiet corners in the stacks; additional chairs will be purchased later in the year. The location shown is in the 100's section overlooking the Mead Hall lawn.

Library Gallery Exhibits

May 31-June 21, 2002
When Hate Becomes Law: Lesson from the Holocaust. Preview exhibit of Holocaust documents and artifacts collected by Andrew L. Liput, C'84; exhibit curated by architect Gerald Gurland of the Drew
Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study. A more extensive exhibit will be mounted in 2003.

June 28-August 21
Local Artists from the Drew Art Association. Curated by Sandy DeCristofaro, C'83

August 23- September 27
Recent Library Acquisitions 

October 2-31
A Celebration of the Willa Cather Collection 

November 8 - January 31, 2003s
Faculty Publications, 2001-2002 

Save the Date!  Friends' Dinner, January 25

The Friends of the Library will hold their biennial Living Library Benefit Dinner on January 25, 2003, in historic Mead Hall.

About Visions

VISIONS
NEWSLETTER OF THE DREW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Dr. Andrew D. Scrimgeour, Director
Drew University Library, Madison, NJ 07940
(973) 408-3322 ascrimge@drew.edu

EDITOR: Anna S. Magnell

PHOTOGRAPHS: Drew University Special Collections, A. Magnell
THIS ON-LINE EDITION: Jennifer Heise

A complete online archive of past issues of Visions
can be viewed at:https://uknow.drew.edu/confluence/display/Library/Visions+Library+Newsletter+Archive

VISIONS is a semi-annual publication.
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