NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

footnotes SPRING 2008 VOLUME 33 NUMBER 1

INSIDE

2 Celebrating Deering Library’s 75th anniversary 4 From vision to Gothic reality 10 Digital university NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOARD OF GOVERNORS

William A. Gordon, chair Robert D. Avery Suzanne S. Bettman Paul A. Bodine Robert A. Brenner Julie Brock Jane A. Burke Thomas R. Butler Jean K. Carton John T. Cunningham IV Gerald E. Egan Harve A. Ferrill John S. Gates Jr. Byron L. Gregory Dwight N. Hopkins James A. Kaduk James R. Lancaster Stephen C. Mack Eloise W. Martin Judith Paine McBrien Howard M. McCue III M. Julie McKinley William W. McKittrick Rosemary Powell McLean Marjorie I. Mitchell William C. Mitchell Walter A. Netsch, life member William D. Paden Toni L. Parastie Marie A. Quinlan, life member Mitchell H. Saranow Gordon I. Segal Alan H. Silberman Eric B. Sloan John H. Stassen Stephen M. Strachan Jane Urban Taylor On the cover Carving from the Eloise W. Martin Nancy McCormick Vella Reading Room, Deering Library. Photograph by Peter Kiar.

Alex Herrera, ex officio

b footnotes SPRING 2008 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY footnotes

SPRING 2008, VOLUME 33, NUMBER 1

2 Library celebrates Deering’s 75th anniversary

4 From vision to Gothic reality An excerpt from Deering Library: An Illustrated History

8 Hidden treasures of Northwestern University Library

10 Digital university With electronic resources proliferating, the Library works harder to illuminate them

13 Endnotes

Footnotes is published three times a year by Northwestern University Library. www.library.northwestern.edu Editor: Clare Roccaforte Writer: Nina Barrett Thanks to Mary Bradley, Beth Clausen, Russ Clement, David Easterbrook, Jeff Garrett, Kay Geary, D. J. Hoek, Scott Krafft, Kevin Leonard, Tom O’Connell, Janet Olson, Roberto Sarmiento, and Allen Streicker. Northwestern University is an equal opportunity,­ affirmative action educator and employer. © 2008 Northwestern University. Produced by University Relations. 5-08/3.8M/TF-GD/11148

SPRING 2008 footnotes 1 Library celebrates Deering’s 75th anniversary

Very early in the morning of January 3, 1933 — the first day of classes after the winter break — a Northwestern student determined to complete an unfinished German assignment headed for Lunt Library. Then he remembered that this was the day the University’s newly constructed library, the Charles Deering Library, was to officially open. The first student to arrive that morning, he pushed open the big wooden front door facing on to Deering Meadow, and entered the building. As he recalled years later, with Photo by Jim Ziv still-palpable wonder: From left William A. Gordon, chair of the Library Board of Governors; Sarah M. Pritchard, Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian; and An ornate set of double swinging doors Daniel Linzer, University Provost in the center of the room caught my eye. I cautiously approached them, opened one will be honored with a series of celebratory era for the Gothic style. The narrative is of them, and after taking a peek, I stepped events and by the publication of a lavishly framed by contributions from assistant cautiously into what appeared to be the center illustrated volume, Deering Library: An University librarian for special libraries of some kind of vaulted cathedral with a Illustrated History. Jeffrey Garrett, who considers the treasures lengthy double series of long well-lighted in the Library’s collections, and by Charles tables and armchairs instead of pews to the Living history Deering McCormick University Librarian right and to the left. Yes, even many shelves The source of the opening-day anecdote Sarah M. Pritchard, who looks toward of books added to the splendor!... above, Deering Library draws heavily on the Library’s future. University President I seated myself at one of the Library a wealth of resources from University Henry S. Bienen contributes thoughts tables to the left to begin my studies, but I Archives and a stunning portfolio of origi- about Deering’s place in the Northwestern never did complete the German assignment nal color photography to tell an engaging community, and a foreword by Charles that day. For the next hour I watched mem- story in words and pictures that begins in Deering’s great-granddaughter and Library bers of the student body as they entered the the 1920s. Vibrant and full of ambitious Board of Governors member Nancy reading room through those same swinging expansion plans, the Northwestern of that McCormick Vella describes her family’s doors. I wish I could have made camera re- time was fast outgrowing the physical land- relationship to the Library over the course cordings of the variety of their expressions of scape of its not-too-distant youth — and a of many generations. awe as they first witnessed the magnificence well-timed bequest from Charles Deering An excerpt and photo spread from of this new educational environment. (1852–1927) was allocated to build a much- the book, covering the original vision needed monument to his love for books for Deering and its execution through This year, as Deering Library turns and reading. architectural, sculptural, and artistic details, 75, its long career as a treasure-house of In the book, a chapter on architect begins on page 4 of this issue of Footnotes. scholarly resources, an intellectual and social James Gamble Rogers explores the way Copies of the book can be ordered from meeting-ground for students, and an archi- the Library’s design reflected a prevail- Amazon.com, from your local bookstore, or tectural gem of the Northwestern campus ing fondness on college campuses of that directly from Northwestern­ University Press

2 footnotes SPRING 2008 (www.nupress.northwestern.edu). Members of its space, storage, of the Library’s Deering Society of donors environmental, and will each receive a complimentary copy. security features.” Much of the Fulsome festivities anni­versary programming is intended to September on Deering Meadow, to which As event programming for the anniversary focus attention on the unique nature and all Northwestern University Library donors unfolds throughout the year, it will, says holdings of these special collections. Other will be invited. “We want to have a chance Pritchard, both celebrate pride in Deering’s programming focuses on the building it- to thank everyone who supports us so gen- self, such as the spring lecture featuring past and engage its community of support- erously,” Pritchard says, “including members Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Art ers in excitement about its future. “Over the of the Deering and McCormick families, Museum, a prominent architectural histo- years, Deering has come to house many of who have continued to maintain a very im- rian, and the author of the definitive book our most valuable special collections,” she portant presence in the life of this Library.” says, “and now, as we come to formalize on Deering architect James Gamble Rogers. Programming culminates in a Deering that identity, we need to evaluate the need Anniversary Celebration, to be held in for enhancements to the building in terms

A year of celebration: Calendar of Deering anniversary events

January 30 Anniversary Kick-off Open House in Deering’s Summer and fall, ongoing Guided tours of Deering lobby featured refreshments, vintage film footage of the Library and its special collections, including the Art Collec- Deering dedication ceremony in 1932, and a photo exhibit tion, Government and Geographic Information and Data documenting the building’s construction process. Services, the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, the Music Library, and University Archives. Mid-April Publication of Deering Library: An Illustrated Open to the public. History. Free to members of the Deering Society and avail- able from Amazon.com, your local bookstore, or Northwest- September 26 75th Anniversary Celebration on Deer- ern University Press (www.nupress.northwestern.edu). ing Meadow, featuring Northwestern University President Henry S. Bienen as keynote speaker. Enjoy food and drinks May 15 Annual Deering Society Dinner, with presentation on the lawn and explore Deering Library. By invitation only of the Deering Family Award. By invitation only to members to Library contributors. of the Deering Society. For more information about these events, contact Clare June 18 Lecture by Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincin- Roccaforte, director of public relations, at 847-567-5918 nati Art Museum and an expert on Deering architect James or [email protected]. For information on Gamble Rogers. Presented by the Library Board of Gover- making gifts in support of Deering’s anniversary — and nors. By invitation only to Library contributors. its future — contact Alex Herrera, director of development, at 847-467-7129 or [email protected].

SPRING 2008 footnotes 3 This excerpt from Deering Library: An Illustrated History takes up the story in 1930, when Northwestern formally announced that $1 million in gifts from Charles Deering, his widow, and their children, would be used to fund the construction of a new library to be named for him. The University Librarian, T. W. Koch, who had been lobbying for a new facility since arriving at Northwestern in 1919, leapt immediately into the plan- ning. His vision, sensibility, and passion for the project profoundly influenced even the smallest details and can still be detected in Deering’s unique stained glass windows, decorative statues, carved inscriptions, and furnishings as well as in its overall archi- tecture. Photography by Peter Kiar.

Koch’s vision for the new library While Koch stressed the practical, University Librarian T. W. Koch threw him- modern features of the design, he could self with joyful energy into planning the not resist frequent references to its aesthetic library he had dreamed of for so long. As and abstract aspects, especially the feelings architect James Gamble Rogers (1867– that the building was meant to evoke. His 1947) worked on his designs, Koch visited conception of the Library was holistic — he numerous academic libraries and consulted worked to bring out both the concrete and with additional university librarians and the metaphorical implications of the design experts by letter. The stamp of his taste at every turn. To Koch, the appeal of the and ideas was visible in every aspect of the Gothic was in its emotional and dynamic project. elements. Gothic architecture, he wrote, “is Koch expressed his vision for the new essentially emotional, whereas classic archi- structure and its functions in numerous ar- tecture is intellectual ... Gothic architecture ticles. In a two-issue newsletter, the Charles is dynamic.... If you knock out the flying Deering Library Bulletin, Koch addressed buttresses the vaults overthrow the walls.

From vision to Gothic reality Excerpt from Deering Library: An Illustrated History

topics ranging from a defense of the Gothic If you knock out the vaults the buttresses style to the configuration of the plumbing, will push the wall in.” The combination of from the meaning of the carved inscriptions the dynamic and the emotional made the to the specifications for chairs and tables, Gothic appropriate for an academic build- and from advances in library technology to ing, especially a library, because “no other anticipation of patrons’ feelings of awe and architectural style, unless it be the Greek, inspiration upon entering the reading room. has expressed more adequately the upward- reaching of man’s spirit.”

4 footnotes SPRING 2008 The site chosen for the Library, along The exterior is of Lannon stone, a very Behind the solidly medieval surfaces, the crest of a low ridge paralleling Sheridan hard limestone from Wisconsin, trimmed modern materials and building methods Road, had previously been occupied by with grey Bedford limestone from Indiana were employed, although often disguised. As Heck Hall, a yellow-brick dormitory used on the corners. The stone was shipped to Koch said, “Since . . . Gothic architecture is by the “Bibs,” as Garrett Biblical Institute Joliet, Illinois, and hand-cut (due to its a style of continual growth it is fitting that students were called. Heck Hall had burned machine-resistant density) in the workshop the Gothic now being employed at North- down in 1914. The buildings near the site of Adam Groth & Sons. (The same Lannon western University should depart somewhat were Memorial Hall to the north, which stone was used in the Women’s Quadrangle from the older forms in order to conform housed the commerce and journalism and the [Seabury-]Western Theological to the materials now being used, [and] to schools, and Annie May Swift to the south, Seminary.) Bedford limestone was also used the recent developments in construction.” home of the School of Speech (known on walls and trim on the Library’s interior, The majestic ceiling in the main reading as the School of Oratory until 1921). The varied with ocher-toned Ohio sandstone. room on the second floor was supported by book stacks of the new Library would Granite slabs for ground-level window steel and cement beams, painted to look like face the Lake Michigan shore, with the ledges and the steps leading to the main en- wood. Steel beams also supported the win- main façade fronting Sheridan Road, trance came from Cold Spring, Minnesota. dow frames and the buttresses that defined although set back about 400 feet from the The travertine marble for the inside stair- the Gothic style. street. University President Walter Dill Scott cases was quarried in Winona, Minnesota, Inside and out, every surface and saw the new Library as the centerpiece while gray marble from Tennessee was used finish was carefully chosen and embellished. and architectural keynote for a future in other parts of the building. The loggia Plastered ceilings were painted and stenciled grouping of buildings, to be designed by was paved with George Washington sand- in medieval style. Wood trim included Rogers, which would transform the Evans­ stone from Alexandria, Virginia. Buff-col- ceiling beams, linen-fold paneling on walls ton campus. Koch, whose aspirations for the ored pressed brick from Pennsylvania was and wainscoting, and bas-relief and three- new Library matched those of Presi- used on the walls of the ground floor and dimensional sculptures. Stone over the dent Scott in scope, agreed that this corridors. Concrete floors were arches on the exterior, and as corbels, pillars, site would provide the thousands overlaid with terrazzo on and trim inside, was carved with inscrip- of people passing along Sheridan the ground floor and tions or figures. Sixty-eight stained-glass Road with a “glimpse of the Romany red clay tiles medallions were set into the huge multi- Evanston campus of the future.” on the first floor (in paned windows on the first and second other places, linoleum floors of the building. Construction or rubber flooring Both René Paul Chambellan, Deering Library was built, deco- was installed). Aside the sculptor who designed the wood and rated, and trimmed with many from stone, about stone carvings, and G. Owen Bonawit, the varieties of stone and wood from 65,000 square feet designer of the stained-glass medallions, all over the country, and despite of Appalachian had worked with James Gamble Rogers its construction at the early years white oak from on other projects. The team had managed of the Great Depression, the finish- Louisville, to inject humor and fancy into the design ing touches — carvings, paneling, Kentucky, kiln- elements of their previous collaborations. and stained-glass window insets — dried and wire When it came to choosing motifs for the evoke an impression of opulence. brushed, was used for Charles Deering Library, they found an wood trim, doors, eager coconspirator in bibliophile Koch, and bookcases. whose traditional tastes and appreciation of craftsmanship were accompanied by a strong whimsical streak. Koch threw him- self, his staff, and the books in the Library’s

SPRING 2008 footnotes 5 collections into the task of selecting design mice crept into stone books, impish reading to write something worth being read”). motifs that reflected — sometimes in a figures served as corbels to support beams, At the top of the staircase on the second humorous way — the educational aspect and three-dimensional wooden animals, floor, researchers were reminded of the of the building, with references to cul- inspired by Aesop’s fables, guarded the doors time-consuming process of sifting through ture, literature, history, and the academic into the reading rooms. sources and discerning the best ones, with tradition. Koch gave much time and thought the inscriptions Inter folia fructus (“Among to selecting the inscriptions carved at stra- the leaves, fruit”), and Non multa, sed bona Carvings, statues, and inscriptions tegic points throughout the building. For (“Not many, but good”). Even the fireplace American sculptor René Paul Chambellan the cornerstone, he chose a phrase found in the University Librarian’s office had (1893–1955) studied at the Ecole des on Roman libraries: Nutrimentum spiritus its motto: “Old wood to burn, old books Beaux-Arts and at the Académie Julian in — “Food for the mind.” The north and to read.” Paris. A leading practitioner of what was south exterior arches feature the proverbs called the French modern style, he special- “The fountain of wisdom flows through Stained glass ized in architectural sculpture. books” and “Happy is the man that findeth G. Owen Bonawit (1891–1971) appren- For his work on Deering Library, wisdom.” Inside, carved mottos defined ticed in his uncle’s stained-glass workshop, Chambellan created plaster models for the purpose of the Library and described and by1918 had established his own firm the carvings, sent them to Rogers for the work of the scholar. Framing the inte- in New York. His commissions included approval, and then commissioned the arti- rior entrance was the injunction Aut legere windows and medallions at Yale and Duke sans at Groth & Sons to carve the stone in scribenda: aut scribere legenda (“Either to read Universities and in churches, office build- Joliet. Additional carving and finishing was something worthy of being written, or ings, and homes. done on site in Evanston. Carved motifs included symbols of knowledge: an owl, a lamp, a pen, books, a scroll, an hourglass. Stone or wood borders of carved vines, fruit, and flowers were used liberally. Of Chambellan’s many creations, the ones most fondly associated with Deering Library were the largest — the three-dimensional figures of a monk and an Arab scholar that are seated at the turns of the staircases lead- ing up to the second level of the building, statues representing the spread of religious and scientific knowledge in medieval times. Bas-relief portraits of Charles Deering, T. W. Koch, and Walter Dill Scott, and the seals of the State of Illinois and Northwestern Uni- versity, were also prominently placed. Stone

6 footnotes SPRING 2008 In some cases, the stained- glass images reflected the spe- Donor spotlight cific purpose of the room. In Donald and Dorothy Hall the Commerce Reading Room on planned giving on the south side of the main level, imagery was drawn from Don and Dorothy Hall (both ’59) transportation and industry, with met at Northwestern. He was in the an emphasis on the Midwest: undergraduate School of Business, medallions depicted an Indian and she was a psychology major fur-trader, a Conestoga wagon, a locomotive, a Great Lakes in the Weinberg College of Arts steamer, and an airplane, in addition to a binder, harvester, and thresher — produced by the Deering-McCormick family company. Images of medieval copyists were placed in the librarians’ workroom on the south side of the second floor. Appropriately for the window Bonawit’s designs for the 68 stained- in the order department, a medieval biblio- and Sciences. “The fraternity and glass medallions in the Deering windows phile perched on a massive pile of books. sorority houses were noisy,” Don On the north side of the second floor, were based on suggestions made by Koch recalls, “and senior year you had a and Library staff, using books and manu- Don Quixote watched over the secretary’s lot of papers to write. Dorothy and I scripts from the Library’s collections, as well desk in the administrative offices. spent a lot of time together in Deer- as from the artist’s own knowledge and The medallions in the windows of imagination. The result was an eclectic as- the great Reading Room were meant to ing Library.” sortment of subjects drawn from literature, inspire the students who studied there. The Now retired and living in North fable, philosophy, world religions, and his- philosopher Lao-Tzu stood beside the gods Carolina, the Halls have been mem- tory. Most of the medallions were done in Brahma and Vishnu, the goddess Artemis, bers of the Deering Society since subdued monochromatic tones, since Koch the Angel Gabriel, and French hero Roland. it was established in 1997. “Giving felt that excessive use of colored stained Also depicted were scenes from the Arabian to the Library made sense to us glass would be garish. Nights, Hans Christian Andersen, Shake- Medallion images were grouped in the speare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and because we were alumni of two Library’s rooms by theme. The windows The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Symbols different schools, and this was one in the reading room on the north side of of the medieval trivium (Logic, Grammar, Northwestern institution we could the main level pictured the history of the and Rhetoric) represented the foundations both support,” he says. of a medieval university education. And the Midwest, with portraits of Native Ameri- In terms of estate planning, cans, French explorers, and Lincoln. Figures elusive Holy Grail was placed in one of Don says their goal was to take representing ancient Hindu, Roman, Greek, the windows of the Treasure (Rare Books) care of their two children and then Hebrew, Assyrian, Chinese, and Egyptian Room. Cards identifying the medallion im- culture were placed in the windows on the ages, and the sources from which they were leave a tax-free estate by support- on the northeast end. The seminar room drawn, were originally placed in holders ing nonprofits that are important to windows along the south wall held printers’ beside each of the windows; sadly, all but a them. “Northwestern is important marks and seals from American and Brit- few of these have disappeared over the years. to both of us,” he says. “I took ish universities — including King’s College Melville Herskovits’s anthropology Chapel, Cambridge, the inspiration for Copies of Deering Library: An Illustrated class and William Montgomery Deering Library’s design. History can be ordered from your local book­store, Amazon.com, or Northwestern University Press McGovern’s political science class, (www.nupress.northwestern.edu). and Dorothy took Bergen Evans’s English class. College was fun in those days.”

SPRING 2008 footnotes 7 HIDDENHIDDEN TREASURESTREASURES OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

What is it? Original program from the premiere of John Cage’s famous “silent” piece 4´33˝, performed by pianist David Tudor on August 29, 1952, at Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York. 4´33˝ asks performers to remain silent and play not a single note during the time specified, encouraging listeners to become aware of the natural sounds all around them. This became Cage’s best- known work, and it remains one of the most controversial musical compositions of the 20th century. Where is it? Music Library Why do we have it? Cage began donat- ing materials to the Library in the early 1970s, and today Cage’s manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials What are they? Six issues of a South African make up the John Cage Collection. comic book series documenting and dra- Who uses it? The Cage Collection is matizing the life of Nelson Mandela, pub- used by scholars from around the world. lished by the Nelson Mandela Foundation­ with the goal of “draw[ing] the memory resources around Mr. Mandela’s life, values, What are they? Twenty-two issues of to make 3,000 gowns — more than and work into a dynamic African centre the official program of the Chicago Auto 20,000 yards — as well as 10,000 yards of excellence.” The comic book format is Show dating from 1953 to 1983. They of other materials such as voile, velour, a frequent educational medium in Africa contain both factual information, such as and sheetings.” This year marks the Chicago because it can reach out widely to a popu- exhibitor lists and specifications for the Auto Show’s 100th anniversary. Only one lation with minimal literacy skills. Such year’s new models, and irresistible bits of other library appears to hold a collection of comics are commonly distributed free in historical color. For instance, the 1953 show its programs, so this one is extremely rare. schools, public libraries, and community — “Stars of Motordom” — involved two Where are they? Transportation Library centers. revolving stages, a color scheme of marine Why do we have them? The programs came Where are they? Melville J. Herskovits blue and shell pink, and, according to that to the library as a gift. Library of African Studies year’s program, “enough satin and sateen Why do we have them? Individual issues have been given to the Library by contacts in South Africa or collected by Herskovits Library staff on visits there. The Library makes a point of collecting materials in the wide range of nonbook formats (e.g., comic books, textiles, posters, buttons) that reflect the popular communication channels most often used in African societies.

8 footnotes SPRING 2008 HIDDENHIDDEN TREASURESTREASURES OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

What are they? A pair of small late-19th century portraits painted on cobwebs. One depicts Phillipine Welser, a celebrated beauty who secretly married Arch- duke Ferdinand II of the Tyrol; the other is of a Tyrolean peasant. Painting on cobwebs seems to have been a practice that originated in the Tyrolean Alps in the 16th century. Such pictures were often marketed to the tourist trade. Ingenious, unnecessary eccentricities, they are perfect examples of the occasional triumph of whimsy over practical- ity and of the survival in a modern university library of the heritage of the Kunst­kammer: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Where are they? Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections What is it? A note from Theodore Roosevelt (below) to Charles Deering, dated August 2, 1897, when Roosevelt was assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. Deering was an 1873 graduate of Annapolis and served in the Navy What is it? The official souvenir sheet until 1881. The note succinctly summarizes music for “Any Bonds Today?” — the 1941 Roosevelt’s ambition to project American theme song written by Irving Berlin for power across the globe through the agency the National Defense Savings Program. The of the Navy. chorus goes: “Any bonds today?/Bonds of Where is it? University Archives freedom that’s what I’m selling/Any bonds Why do we have it? The note is from a today?/Scrape up the most you can/Here collection of papers left to the Library by comes the freedom man/Asking you to buy William Deering and his descendants. a share of freedom today.” Stamped by the Morale Committee of the Chicago Area’s Office of Civilian Defense, the publication serves as a vivid reminder of how everyone — including the famous — was involved in supporting the World War II effort. Where is it? Government and Geographic Data and Information Services Why do we have it? Northwestern Univer­sity Library was a War Key Infor­ mation Center­ and received thousands of World War II–related publications from many sources.

SPRING 2008 footnotes 9 Digital university

With electronic resources proliferating, the Library works harder to illuminate them

News flash from our students: The college lecture is, like, dead. The old ritual that in- volved the professor standing at the podium for an hour consulting pages of typewritten notes and maybe — if you were lucky — at least showing a couple of slides is as out of date now as the notion of going to find a phone booth when you need to make a call. The cool professors have PowerPoints as professionally polished as Pepsi ads, and they utilize “personal response systems,” electronic clickers that let their students instant message answers to polls and quiz questions directly to a screen at the front of the classroom. Rick Gaber And by the way, that other old aca- demic tradition — publishing the results of your research as a book — that too is just so Northwestern community grapple with or revising a course curriculum to take 20th century. The most cutting-edge work these questions. “It’s another way the revo- advantage of the latest technologies. today gets published as a nonlinear, multi- lution in electronic information has caused The week includes demos and lectures media, audiovisual, interactive web site. us to redefine what we do and who we — equally informational and inspirational While this is a world that undergradu- are,” says Charles Deering McCormick — as well as hands-on training sessions. ates — who were practically born wired — University Librarian Sarah M. Pritchard. “It seem to navigate with great ease, it doesn’t didn’t used to be part of the mission of a Genetic material come so naturally to everyone on campus. research library to train its users in how to On the first day of the most recent TLT For much of the faculty and many graduate use a book, because everyone knew how workshop in August 2007, Rick Gaber, students, whose own educational experi- to open it and start reading. But now we’re professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, ence has been mainly lecture based, the providing the community with all sorts of and cell biology in the Judd A. and Marjorie digitization of academia poses some urgent information in formats for which they may Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, had questions: How do you create an engaging need substantial education just to find the been invited to demo his use of PowerPoint. lecture using all this new technology? How content and use the new technical tools A geneticist specializing in biochemistry, do you make sure the technology actually — whether they need to teach, pursue re- molecular biology, and cell biology, Gaber fosters your learning objectives? How do search, or publish.” acknowledged that the course content he you make your research interesting in One of the best examples is the annual needs to present is highly technical and a nonlinear, multimedia, audiovisual, inter- Teaching, Learning and Technology (TLT) tough. “This class is taught entirely out of active way (as though finishing your disser- Workshop, which the Library sponsors with primary research literature, and that scares tation wasn’t overwhelming enough)? the University’s Searle Center for Teaching the bejeezus out of the students for the As a major sponsor of learning tech- Excellence and Academic Technologies. first two or three weeks,” he told faculty nology on campus, the Library has assumed The program enables a dozen Northwestern colleagues gathered in the Library’s an increasingly active role in helping the faculty members to spend a week designing Ver Steeg Lounge.

10 footnotes SPRING 2008 Digital university

Then he launched into his demo, which was as close to a July Fourth fire- works display as a lecture on genetics will possibly ever get. A click of his remote, and up popped the journal article he intended to discuss. Click: There was a photo of the scientist who did the research, which Gaber found online and included because he thought it would humanize the research to the students. Click: The journal article was magnified, so that a paragraph, or a page, or Above A page from Robert Gjerdingen’s web site, Monuments of Partimenti a diagram became easily readable from the Below Brian Nielsen back of a lecture hall. Click: A list of im- portant vocabulary terms appeared on the screen. That would stay there throughout looked down at a set of lecture notes, through the use of the technology that the class, he said, with the term he was cur- demonstrating that everything both he could not have been achieved — or at rently discussing highlighted but the others and the students need was up there on least, achieved as well — through old- still visible, so he could refer back to them the screen. That allowed him to stay con- fashioned methods. The articles on Gaber’s and bold them again as he began to tie the tinuously engaged with his TLT colleagues, PowerPoint slides come from journals important terms and concepts together. who peppered him with questions as he he and the students can access instantly Click, click, click. The information went along. He made the discussion of his through the Library’s subscription databases. on the screen kept changing; he never subject — which is itself so technical and They contain up-to-the-minute research, as once turned his back to the audience to scientific that it wasn’t always clear what opposed to what Nielsen refers to as “the write something down on a blackboard or the actual subject was — so entertain- greatest hits of the last decade” or the predi- ing that at the end, his colleagues gested forms of research that tend to appear burst into a round of spontaneous in textbooks, so they challenge students to applause. do their own digesting. “Rick is a perfect model for “That gets students to a level of confi- what we want the participants in dence about making sense of something for this program to achieve,” says Brian themselves — which is what scientists really Nielsen, the Academic Technolo- do — rather than having something poured gies facilitator for the program. into their brains,” Nielsen says. “It’s not just that he knows how to use this technology in a way Multimedia scholars that’s both entertaining and engag- Besides getting faculty comfortable with ing for students in this generation. the technology, the other goal of the TLT It’s also that he’s also making the workshop is to help them design classes that best possible pedagogic use of the will encourage their students to “practice technology.” scholarship.” Nielsen says one of best proj- By this Nielsen means that ects he’s seen come out of the workshop in a learning goal is being achieved the past few years was a curriculum by

SPRING 2008 footnotes 11 A session for music students, for methods of many of these maestros but, instance, was team taught by D. J. Hoek, being multimedia, allows the user to click head of the Music Library, and Robert on any given partimenti and hear what Gjerdingen, professor of music studies. it sounds like. (The site can be found at Hoek introduced the Library’s resources, http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/ reminding students that not everything music/gjerdingen/partimenti/index.htm.) worth looking at is available online — yet. Ericka Trevino, a School of Com- “Only a handful of libraries in the country munication PhD student who attended Robert Gjerdingen collect music manuscripts extensively,” he several sessions of the Electronic Resources told them, “and we’re one of them. And Forum, said the day was valuable for her in a professor of social policy who went on the reason for collecting them is that — introducing “the to have her class create a wiki about the especially if it’s a messy manuscript, with a knowledge that Supreme Court. lot of corrections — it tells us a lot about certain resources “This wasn’t some very basic use of how a work was created.” exist.” But more technology, like having students write pa- Then Gjerdingen took over, lead- important, perhaps, pers and then turn them in over the web,” ing the students on a whirlwind tour of was her introduc- Nielsen says. “This was actually creating the the web site Monuments of Partimenti, tion to the physi- web. This was a site with sound, with pic- which he created with support from the cal layout of the tures, with text. So then your students aren’t National Endowment for the Humanities. Library and to the just readers — they’re authors.” The multimedia capability of the web al- staff. Months later, This is important training, since more lowed Gjerdingen to reconstruct a chapter Harriet Lightman she says, when she and more of the really interesting scholarly of music history that had slipped largely came back to research a paper and couldn’t work is being published in web formats that into obscurity. As he told the students, find the information she needed, she knew offer multimedia dimensions. For North- partimenti — something like tiny sound- exactly whom to ask for help — and she western’s incoming graduate students, this bites of music — were central to the way got it. development creates two urgent needs: to be European court musicians were trained “That’s certainly part of our agenda in able to find the most important resources in from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. The sponsoring the program in the first place,” their respective fields, and also to understand Italian conservatories of that era originated says Harriet Lightman, head of academic how multimedia formats and other tech- as orphanages, where children were taught liaison services, who has been organizing nological innovations have the potential to singing and then rented out to opera com- the Electronic Resources Forum since its shape the work they will go on to publish. panies to make money for the institution. inception in 2001 in collaboration with Meeting those needs is the goal of Students not only learned to read music; Ruth Reingold, assistant dean for com- the Electronic Resources Forum, a daylong their training also involved rote memoriza- puting technology in Weinberg College. program sponsored by the Library just be- tion of these small snippets of sound, so that “No matter how sophisticated information fore the start of each academic year. Last later, in the manner of an improvisation, technology becomes, we don’t want the September about 100 new graduate stu- they could reassemble these building blocks technology to obscure the human face of dents chose from among two dozen sessions to create compositions in the Italian style. the Library.” on topics like “Finding Primary Sources Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart studied “If anything,” Lightman observes, “the Online: The Marriage of Technology and or taught partimenti — as did many other more these electronic resources proliferate, Archives” and “Religion in Cyberspace,” great maestros who were equally famous in the greater the need for librarians to reach most of them cotaught by a member of the the 18th century but have since faded from out to the community as professionals who Library’s staff in partnership with a faculty history. The web site Gjerdingen created not can help our users make sense of it all.” member. only collects and explains the instructional

12 footnotes SPRING 2008 endnotes

TECHNOLOGY COLLECTIONS Online Arabic manuscript catalog debuts Rare manuscript discovered In January the Library launched an online One of the rare volumes in catalog to the collection of more than 5,000 the McCormick Library of Arabic manuscripts and printed books Special Collections — a work from West Africa held in the Melville J. in Latin on gynecology and Herskovits Library of African Studies. This obstetrics that was printed in collection includes rare and valuable works 1566 — recently delivered of Islamic learning and mysticism, science, a big surprise. It had been theology, literature, jurisprudence, and med- bound with a document even icine. Most of the writings date from the older and rarer than the book 19th and 20th centuries, but there are much itself: a manuscript fragment older holdings, including a handwritten dating back to the ninth cen- 1595 work by a Timbuktu jurist dictated to tury that may well be one of his Moroccan students. the oldest specimens of Euro- David Easterbrook, the George pean writing held in the United States. manuscript to three experts on the Caro- and Mary LeCron Foster Curator of the The book belonged to a collection lingian period. “None of the three knew Herskovits Library, says the launch produced acquired by the Library in 1869 and had what the others reported,” Lerner says, e-mail queries from scholars all over the been shelved in a protective box for at least “but they all concluded the same thing: world. “The one that impressed me most,” the last 20 years — its binding concealed — The writing dated from roughly the second he says, “was from a Northwestern under- when a faculty member requested the vol- quarter of the ninth century or slightly ear- graduate who wasn’t an Africanist at all, but ume and the box was opened. Sigrid Perry, lier. In other words, it probably originated who was studying Arabic and was really in- a longtime special collections assistant with in the reign of Charlemagne’s son Louis the terested in the works from a language point a background both in medieval literature Pious, or perhaps even in the reign of Char- of view. I’m always glad to see our materials and medieval handwriting, did a double lemagne himself.” Charlemagne died in 814. supporting learning on campus beyond our take when she first saw the binding. Lerner says modern handwriting connection with African studies.” “It’s not that unusual for books of that started with the Carolingians, who made Library staff collaborated with the period to be bound in manuscripts,” says great efforts to develop legible script for Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought Perry. “Once printing was invented, the old the purposes of standardized communica- in Africa, part of the University’s Program manuscripts became disposable, but they tion. “It’s remarkable how readable it still is of African Studies, to create the catalog, worked well for bindings because vellum is today.” Lerner adds that very few compara- which was funded by grants from the so durable, and the lettering was probably ble manuscript fragments are held in North National Endowment for the Humanities considered decorative.” The Library owns American libraries, “and Northwestern’s and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. about a dozen other books bound in manu- appears to be in a better state of preserva- To browse the catalog, go to http:// scripts, Perry says, but those date mostly to tion than many of these others.” digital.library.northwestern.edu/arbmss. the 13th and 14th centuries, and this one Jeff Garrett, assistant University librar- struck her immediately as being much older. ian for special libraries, says the discovery Perry contacted Robert E. Lerner, the is an example of “the treasures that can be Peter B. Ritzma Professor of the Humani- found even in a fully cataloged collection.” ties in Weinberg College and a medieval “Not only books,” he adds, “but the bind- historian, and he in turn sent a scan of the ings of books, can tell incredible stories.”

SPRING 2008 footnotes 13 The Library Board of Governors present “Pragmatic Lessons: Learning from James Gamble Rogers” A lecture by Aaron Betsky

Wednesday, June 18, 2008, 6 p.m. McCormick Tribune Center Forum 1870 Campus Drive, Evanston, Illinois

Aaron Betsky is director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and author of James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism (MIT Press, 1994). His lecture traces the development of Rogers’s architecture and asks what we can learn from the translation of pragmatism into the stone and brick façades of elite institutions.

For more information, contact Clare Roccaforte at 847-467-5918 or [email protected].

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION footnotes U.S. POSTAGE P A I D NORTHWESTERN SPRING 2008, VOLUME 33, NUMBER 1 UNIVERSITY

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1970 CAMPUS DRIVE EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 60208-2300