Roerich Exhibit Reception
The College of Arts + Architecture, in partnership with Atkins Library’s Special Collections, will host a gallery reception for an exhibit of works by famed Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, part of a collection owned by UNC Charlotte. In addition to more than 6,000 paintings, Roerich (1874-1947) designed sets and costumes for theater, ballet, and opera, including Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring." The final part of his extraordinary career was spent in India in the Himalayan foothills.
- Unearthly Revelations: Himalayan Landscapes By Nicholas Roerich
- Gallery Reception
- 5-7:30 p.m., September 14
- Lower Rowe Gallery
- Rowe Arts Building
- 9119 University Rd.
Register at bit.ly/RoerichReception
Thanks to the generosity of the late Alice Tate, UNC Charlotte owns a collection of Roerich's works, and in partnership between UNC Charlotte's College of Arts + Architecture and Atkins Library Special Collections, they are exhibited in the Rowe galleries for the first time. Roerich's painted observations of the majestic Himalayan landscape are both straightforward and abstract, representing his view of nature as a truly transcendental creation beyond our complete understanding.
Atkins Fellows Wrap Projects in Seventh Year of Program
The Atkins Fellows program is a ten-week paid summer residential fellowship for students at the mid-point of their Library, Archives, or Information Science degree program, or those within one year of having completed such a program. Now in its 7th year, the program is designed to provide each fellow with a work experience that is focused on professional-level tasks, with high levels of independence and creativity, while also supporting Atkins Library's mission, goals, and initiatives.
Fellows work at Atkins Library on a specific project throughout the summer. They also have the opportunity to attend workshops, job talks, and local conferences, as well as job shadow and participate in departmental and all staff meetings. Through this experience, fellows learn about the operations of an academic library, better preparing them for work opportunities in the profession. At the end of ten weeks, the Fellows present their projects during a library-wide reception. This summer Atkins welcomed four Fellows:
Amanda Janke
Textbook Affordability Fellow
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
In her project, Amanda Janke worked to better understand how other colleges and universities are implementing Open Educational Resources (OERs) into their curriculum in the hopes that Charlotte will be able to adopt them as well. OERs allow students to have completely free textbooks, no matter the subject. UNC Charlotte is implementing First Day Complete in collaboration with Barnes and Noble this semester,
Claire Macomson
Digital Media Literacy Fellow
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Claire Macomson worked with the Research and Instruction teams to develop digital media literacy modules for instructional use, conduct an environmental scan of the current digital media literacy instruction landscape at Charlotte and elsewhere, and design social media content for the library to promote digital media literacy among the university community.
Charlotte Peterson
Collection Assessment Fellow
St. Catherine University
In Charlotte Peterson’s project, she supported the efforts of the Collection Services unit of Atkins Library to collect and analyze information that will help make decisions about continuing or canceling large journal (“Big Deal”) packages. She used library-provided resources, data, and software to help create a method to identify which journal subscriptions are important to keep.
Brigid McCreery
Open Access Fellow
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Many academic libraries host institutional repositories for the open access publications of their faculty, staff and students. Brigid’s project will help increase engagement with the UNC Charlotte institutional repository, Niner Commons, and open access publishing through research, data management, workflow development, and outreach planning. Her project will help faculty understand the open access (OA) terms of scholarly journals, take advantage of user-oriented resources on challenging topics such as copyright and OA policies, and increase the visibility of their scholarship.
Photo: 2023 Atkins Fellows: Amanda Janke, Claire Macomson, Charlotte Peterson, and Brigid McCreery
Adopt a Rare Book by L. Frank Baum
Many of us know L. Frank Baum as the author of stories that were adopted for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Did you know he was a prolific writer who is the subject of scholarship and teaching at Charlotte? Our extensive collection of early editions of Baum’s works are among the most consulted of all of our rare books. Our goal now is to fill in the most glaring gaps in our Baum holdings.
In 1911, as Baum searched for magical worlds outside of Oz, he penned the adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill in the novel The Sea Fairies; these adventures continued on in the 1912 novel Sky Island. While we do own a rare copy of the sequel Sky Island, we do not have a copy of the precursor, The Sea Fairies.
While these two books have remained largely unexplored in the world of literature and scholarship, a recent middle grade graphic novel series, Sea Sirens and Sky Island, adapted the Baum works with a Vietnamese-American twist. The authors of these graphic novel adaptations will be coming to Charlotte in 2024 for CharlOz, an interdisciplinary Oz festival.
We would love to round out our Baum collection with a rare copy of Baum's Sea Fairies in order to draw connections, further scholarship, and help illustrate the history between Baum's 1911 work and these far more recent adaptations.
A bookseller is currently offering a first edition of The Sea Fairies for $350. To make a donation to support the purchase of this one-of-a-kind item, please contact Dawn Schmitz, Associate Dean for Special Collections & University Archives at dawn.schmitz@uncc.edu. We will be happy to acknowledge your gift in the catalog record.
Starbucks Opens Long-Awaited Library Cafe
Atkins Library welcomed Starbucks to its ground level cafe space this past spring. Charlotte students, faculty and staff were eager for the opening of this coffee shop. Charlotte School of Architecture alums, Ian and Erin Patrick with Biloba Architecture, designed the space which allows access to the seating even when the restaurant portion is closed, so students have an additional space to study at all hours of the day.
“While the library is an academic space for formal study and research, we also offer social spaces where collaborative, informal learning can take place,” said Anne Moore, Dean of Atkins Library. “This coffee shop is a place where our students can go to take a break, meet with friends, or grab a drink and snack between classes and while studying.”
Photo: Atkins Library’s dean, Anne Moore, assists Norm at the Starbucks ribbon cutting on March 13