Library Gazette Vol

SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE LIBRARY GAZETTE Vol. XLVI 2013 One of only ten nationwide Kane Receives Award weet Briar College librarian Julie Kane and Learning and Digital Pedagogies Librarian. is one of 10 winners of the Carnegie Since 2007, she has served as head of technical Corporation of New York/New York services, charged with cataloging, acquisitions Times I Love My Librarian Award. The and serials. In July, she was promoted to full Shonor comes with a $5,000 check presented at professor. the ceremony hosted by the New York Times. In addition to her work at Sweet Briar, “It’s a little more special because it comes she is pursuing an M.A. in English from from the people we serve,” Kane explains. Lynchburg College. She earned her M.S in Indeed. Seven grateful people—including library and information science at Simmons Courtney Cunningham ’10, whom Kane and her bachelor’s at Mount Holyoke, both mentored as a student and who is now an women’s colleges—which helped draw her to academic librarian, five faculty members and Sweet Briar after nearly seven years as a serials the College’s grants officer, Kathleen Placidi— librarian at Stanford Law School. contributed to Kane’s nomination. It was Kane’s colleagues also recognized her for Placidi who coordinated the effort, along with volunteering as an advisor to first-year students associate dean for academic affairs, Jill Granger. from 2009 to 2011, for her service on numerous SBC librarian Julie Kane “I’ve been so impressed by how Julie has American Library Association committees and expanded the role of what an academic her own scholarship. Librarian is, by enthusiastically helping our “Julie Kane loves being a liberal arts college faculty incorporate digital resources into their librarian—and it shows,” Granger wrote in classrooms and research, and by working so summation of her nomination. hard to learn new techniques and skills in order Only 60 librarians nationwide have won to turn herself into a digital humanities resource the I Love My Librarian Award since it was for the college community” Placidi says. inaugurated in 2008. The American Library Integrating technology across the Association administers the program. curriculum—teaching students to be adaptable This year, more than 1,100 library patrons and at ease with change—is a cornerstone of submitted stories detailing how their librarian the College’s strategic plan. Kane served on the impacts their communities and lives. Nominees Digital Sophistication Planning Group and has work in public, school, college, community been a key mover in digital learning initiatives. college and university libraries. Writing in support of her nomination, Kane believes the award has as much do English department chair Marcia Robertson with the community she serves as anything cited Kane’s leadership on the fall 2013 she has done. “Every facet of my nomination implementation of and training on the that highlights what I’ve done or what I do Digication e-portfolio platform. The system for Sweet Briar, I can trace back to members of “has its fair share of crotchets and glitches” the staff, faculty and administration who have that make it frustrating to use, Robertson supported, encouraged and pushed me out of wrote. “Having Julie specifically there to my comfort zone to explore, travel and learn handle questions and soothe anxieties and solve new things,” she says. problems makes a qualitative difference in our “I’ve taken advantage of the incredible lives. Knowing that I can bring her into a class support here and pounced on every crumb of to help students soothes both me and them.” encouragement; I only hope that I can give Reflecting new responsibilities, Kane’s title back something of value that reflects a fraction recently changed to Director of Digital Teaching of what that does for me.” The Friends of the Mary Helen Cochran Library mourn the passing of Dr. Edward Lee Piepho, Friend Book in a Box and benefactor at the age of 71. Dr. t all started three days before scale, and over the summer and fall Piepho was the Sarah Shallenberger Christmas. We were in Manhattan they had been buying private collections Brown Professor of English at Ispending the holidays with my wife from all over the United States. The the time of his retirement in 2007 Susan’s sister, and I was as usual dashing immediate result was a kind of good- following 36 years of teaching at around the city in search of presents. I natured pandaemonium. With no time Sweet Briar. Named as Research had decided to go to a bookstore that to cost what they had, signs throughout Professor Emeritus, he was beloved I knew downtown but without much the store advised customers to bring to by students and enjoyed a worldwide hope of success. The sole survivor of a the desk any books they were interested reputation for his scholarship. His group of secondhand shops northeast in and the staff would give them a price. voluminous correspondence with of Washington Square, it had long since So be it. I dove into the chaos and to scholars throughout the world is just swollen to become a vast emporium my nephew’s delight came up with a very one way in which he lived the life of selling used books, review copies, and good set of the first edition of Evelyn a renaissance scholar in the modern the overstocks of New York’s publishers. Waugh’s famous “Sword of Honour” day. This article, “Book in a Box,” was I had in mind finding a mint-condition trilogy of novels on the Second World published in the 2006 edition of the copy of one of Evelyn Waugh’s novels, War. But the curious, unexpected thing Library Gazette and gives just a taste a British novelist my nephew collects, that turned up was a book in a box. of the wonderful voice of a profound, and thought that I wasn’t going to have All serious collectors pause over these gifted, and beloved scholar. much luck. The shop had a small rare things. It means that someone cared books department I had known since enough about the volume to protect my graduate school days. But recently it with a purpose-built container. Most the owners had expanded it and the often the reasons are personal: to protect future by no means looked bright. I a family Bible, say, or preserve the book had been there the preceding June and of a family member or friend. But there the sight was forlorn: row after row of are other reasons too. A professor at empty or half-filled shelves and very few my undergraduate college had a box customers. So it came as a shock to open made for a tattered copy he had found the door at Christmastime to piles of of the very rare first edition of Herman books and crammed shelves. What had Melville’s Moby Dick. So, like I said, happened?! When I fell on a large batch everyone takes seriously a book in a box. of first editions of Henry James’ novels I This box had clearly done its job. It knew what I was looking at. The owners had been through a fire, and the backing of the store always did things on a large was charred and water-stained. But what was inside had escaped unscathed. This was a worn, lovingly preserved copy of the first major English edition of the collected poems of John Keats. I took it to the front desk, pointed out to the man there what it was, and advised him to put it aside for safe keeping. He wondered if I was interested in buying it, and I asked if he was kidding. No, he was serious. The manager was away for the holidays, but when he returned he would price it and give me a call. What happened next isn’t altogether clear. I had been buying books from the rare books department for over thirty years. That, plus the fact that I bought several other books that day (including an expensive first edition of the Walker Evans’ photographs) I suspect led the manager to let me have the Keats volume at a more than reasonable price. Merry Christmas indeed! Along with Wordsworth John Keats is my favorite among the English Romantic poets, so I was delighted and 2 Book in a Box amazed to have a copy of this book. the result, published in 1848 as The Life transience first struck here is returned to As I looked through it, however, I and Literary Remains of John Keats, in the last poem in the edition. Modern also came to appreciate more concretely increasing by over a third the number of editions commonly print Keats’ poems the winding, sometimes tenuous ways his published poems. Nor were Milnes’ in roughly chronological order. This by which authors’ texts come down discoveries minor. Without his labors 1841 edition in contrast closes with to us. Keats died in 1821, but this, we would not, for example, have “La a poem that he wrote in his prime of the first important English edition of Belle Dame Sans Merci” and “Bright life, 1817, but a lyric that nonetheless his collected poems, was published in Star,” major lyrics absent from the 1841 foreshadows a major concern in his 1841. Why the delay? The quick answer edition. verse. The first two stanzas of “In Drear- is that he wasn’t very popular. Along Many of Keats’ major works are in this Nighted December” note that trees lose with Shelley and Blake his poetry didn’t 1841 edition: “To Autumn,” the five their leaves to bud again, streams freeze attract wide attention during the first great odes, a version of his unfinished in winter to thaw again in spring.

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