The Plastics Collection supports research in the study and understanding of plastics in modern society, including its role in chemistry, technology, industry, marketing, health, art, design, and other fields. According to Sean M. Quimby, Senior Director of Special Collections, "the website makes available to a wide public instantaneously a complete listing of all the library plastics resources." Rich metadata allows for easy searching. High-quality, zoomable images permit even small details to be examined, while biographies and company histories provide context for the individual objects.

A team of library staff from the Special Collections Research Center and Library Information Technology worked collaboratively to develop the new website, which began as a joint project of the Syracuse University Library and the Plastics History & Artifacts Committee (PHAC) of the Plastics Pioneers Association. Continuing support has been provided by SU alumnus Harry Greenwald and the Greenwald-Haupt Charitable Foundation.

Prof. Jeffrey Meikle, Stiles Professor in American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the authoritative book American Plastics, says that "while it's an entry point and guide to the collection, the new website is also a superb introduction to the history of plastics in general. Through the growing collection and the website, Syracuse has become the center of plastics history."

The Library maintains an active acquisitions program for all areas of the Plastics Center collection. Donors can support the SU Plastics Collection by making a gift to the Collection Development Fund or helping sponsor the new "version 2" website. To learn more about how to make a gift of support or give an artifact, see plastics.syr.edu/give. For more information about how to support the SU Plastics Collection, please contact Assistant Dean for Advancement Ron Thiele at rlthiele@syr.edu.

The Special Collections Research Center is a hub for primary source research located on the sixth floor of Syracuse University's Bird Library. It is devoted to collecting and preserving rare research materials in all formats and to connecting students, faculty, outside scholars and the community to its collections. For more information, visit scrc.syr.edu. Inquiries about the Plastics Collection may be directed to the curator, Samuel Gruber, at 315-443-3971 or plastics@syr.edu.

To access the collections, point your browser to:

TeachingBooks.net

For off-campus access, point your browser to:

TeachingBooks.net

For more information or to offer feedback, please contact: Natasha Cooper .

Items needed from either library may be requested through an online request form, by calling (315) 443-5727, or by stopping at the Circulation Desk on the 1st floor of Bird Library. Material will be retrieved and available for pickup at the Bird Circulation Desk or delivered to faculty offices. All summer Reserve items, including those normally held in SciTech and Math, will be available at Bird Library.

For additional information, please contact Melinda Dermody, Head of Access and Resource Sharing, at 443-5332 or mderm01@syr.edu. Your patience and understanding during this construction work is greatly appreciated.

To honor and help perpetuate Mary Hatch Marshall's scholarly standards and generous spirit, Library Associates established this annual award for the best essay written by a graduate student in the humanities at Syracuse University. Members of Library Associates, Marshall's friends and family, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Central New York Community Foundation all contributed to the endowment that has funded this annual award since 2004.

Born in 1903, Marshall graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College, received a Ph.D. from Yale University, and was later named a Guggenheim Fellow. She joined the SU faculty in 1948 and became the first woman to achieve the rank of full professor in The College of Liberal Arts. During her tenure, Marshall held the Jesse Truesdell Peck Chair in English literature; helped to establish the Honors Program, serving as its first director; and was among the founding members of Library Associates. After retiring from full-time teaching with emeritus status, Marshall continued to offer courses through the Humanistic Studies Center at University College until 1993. Among the awards and honors she received were the Post-Standard Award for Distinguished Service to the Syracuse University Library, a Chancellor's Citation, and an Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.

Full- and part-time students from African American Studies; English; Fine Arts; Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics; Latino-Latin American Studies; Religion; Philosophy; the Writing Program; and the Women's and Gender Studies Program are eligible for the $500 award. Nominations are coordinated by the respective department and program chairs. Faculty members who served on the Marshall Award Selection Committee this year were Gerry Greenberg (chair), Carol Babiracki, Joan Bryant, Rebecca Howard, and Stephanie Fetta.

Featured works by Kevin Larmon, Assistant Professor of Painting in the School of Art and Design's Department of Art at Syracuse University, include two different types of paintings. Cell or virus paintings are based on a chemical process that generates cells, a process which Larmon developed over the past 20 years. Two black paintings are regenerations of earlier works from the 1980s. In a review of Larmon's work, Arts Journalist Stephanie Buhmann says, "Kevin Larmon has received critical acclaim for creating paintings that lyrically explore the divide between abstraction and referential imagery. He aims to establish compositions that ... convey distinct moods and a strong sense of atmosphere. He combines expressive gestures with more specifically drawn details, and layers washes of paint with opaque forms. The results are compositions that often read as epic sceneries. Familiar or dazzlingly strange, these are highly associative and reminiscent of dramatic landscapes found in nature as well as of out-of-space skies."

"Inside Out" by Jude Lewis is comprised of a series of x-rays taken of Lewis' wood sculptures. Like much of her work, these particular sculptures have an interior that is only partially accessible. The x-rays provide an opportunity to see through a material that we believe, and trust, to be solid and sturdy. They underline Lewis' intention of making work that connects to common experiences, and vulnerabilities, of being human.

Lewis, a Dimensional Arts professor in the School of Art and Design's Department of Foundation at Syracuse University, has been working with wood throughout her life, both as a furniture maker and sculptor. Her work combines the sensibilities of these pursuits, resulting in highly crafted objects that point to universal experiences.

For more information about these artists, see www.kevinlarmon.com/ or judelewis.com/.

To access the collection point your browser to:

tinygaleurl.com?tm0i49x

Trial will be active until June 30, 2012

For more information or to offer feedback, please contact: Mark Weimer

The libraries of SU and SUNY-ESF will once again be participating in a "Food for Fines" amnesty day on Thursday, April 19 by collecting food for the needy and offering patrons the opportunity to reduce their overdue fines. For each healthy, nonperishable food item donated by an individual on that day, his/her overdue fines will be reduced by $1.

Participating libraries include Bird, the Science and Technology Library, the Mathematics Library, the Geology Library, the Barclay Law Library, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, the Architecture Reading Room, and ESF's Moon Library.

Donations may be brought to the Bird Library business office or the circulation desks of other affiliated libraries between the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Students, faculty, and staff without current fines may also contribute.

All food items will be donated to the Cathedral Emergency Services food pantry in downtown Syracuse and distributed to families in need throughout Onondaga County. Last semester, patrons helped stock Cathedral's shelves by donating 620 items through the "Food for Fines" program.

For more information about "Food for Fines," please contact Bevan Angier at beangier@syr.edu.

In a White House press release, speaking of these nominees, President Obama said, "These dedicated individuals bring a wealth of experience and talent to their new roles and I am proud to have them serve in this Administration. I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come."

"President Obama's nomination of Suzanne Thorin to this post reflects broad appreciation at the highest levels for her national impact," says SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor. "As libraries re-invent themselves as nerve centers of the information revolution, Suzanne continues to be recognized by her peers not only for the depth and breadth of her experience, but for her intellectual agility as an innovator. We're thrilled for her and honored by this presidential recognition of one or our own."

The National Museum and Library Services Board is the advisory body for the IMLS, which is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The institute works to create strong libraries and museums through programming at the national level, and in coordination with state and local organizations.

Ms. Thorin directs the university's libraries, including the Special Collections Research Center and the Belfer Audio Archive, as well as Syracuse University Press. The SU Library has garnered almost $1.5 million in grants since Ms. Thorin's arrival in 2006.

Between 1996 and 2005, Ms. Thorin was the Ruth Lilly University Dean of Libraries and Associate Vice President for Digital Libraries at Indiana University. Her experience also includes 16 years at the Library of Congress, where she served in numerous capacities, including Chief of Staff to the Librarian of Congress. Ms. Thorin holds a bachelor's degree in music education from North Park University in Chicago and master's degrees in music history and literature and in library science from the University of Michigan.

Jenny Doctor, the recently appointed director of the Belfer, says of the gift, "Though not rare, the newly donated discs are in excellent condition and will undoubtedly enhance the Belfer Audio Archive's collection of nearly 400,000 78-rpm recordings. This acquisition is a welcome addition to our classical collections, representing music that has been significant to the conductors and players of the Syracuse Symphony and its community, apparently since the 1940s."

The Arthur and Diane Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive, founded in 1963 and named in 1982, is among the largest collections of sound recordings in the U.S., holding over half a million items in a variety of formats, from the earliest experimental recordings on tinfoil to modern digital media. The Belfer's representation of classical music is substantive, but the archive has focused largely on popular vocal and instrumental music, including jazz, patriotic, novelty, folk, country, ethnic and experimental genres, as well as recordings of the spoken word. The late 19th and early 20th centuries are particularly well represented through a collection of over 22,000 cylinders and extensive holdings of 78-rpm discs.

For more information, please contact Jenny Doctor, Director of the Belfer Audio Archive, at 315.443.3477 or jrdoctor@syr.edu.

Vera House's White Ribbon Campaign is led primarily by concerned men who encourage and invite all members of the community -- men and women, young and old--to pin on a ribbon and join them in raising awareness and funds to end domestic and sexual violence. This male leadership helps to acknowledge the important contributions men have made to this effort and invites others to play a role.

Speaker Chauncey D. Brown is Men's Outreach Program Coordinator at Vera House. He has ten years of experience in the field of domestic violence prevention. Using the "12 Men Model" launched in 2009, the Vera House program is designed to challenge the beliefs and attitudes of men who have been abusive in their relationships.

International victims advocate Monira Alozaime has worked with Vera House for about three years. Her specialty is working with people from countries outside the United States who have been victims of domestic violence. Monira not only helps people through their particular domestic violence situation, but also assists them in obtaining green cards, citizenship, or other issues pertaining to their current status in the United States.

During the week of March 5 - 9, Bird Library will also provide a resource section adjacent to the new book area to showcase the Library's wealth of resources on domestic violence. Handouts from Vera House, the LGBT Center, and other campus outreach programs will also be available in the Learning Commons.

The creation of the website and digitization of archival materials created prior to 1955 were funded by a 2009 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Library is currently working to secure funding for the second phase of the project, which will allow the remainder of Breuer's papers to be digitized.

Rich metadata allows for easy searching and enables researchers to make connections across media and among geographically dispersed materials. High-quality, zoomable images permit even the faintest pencil sketch to be examined in detail, while project descriptions and biographies provide context for the individual objects and for Breuer's career.

Born in Pécs, Hungary, in 1902, Marcel Lajos Breuer achieved remarkable success as a student in the furniture workshop of the Bauhaus, leading Walter Gropius to offer him a faculty position in 1925. That same year, he earned widespread critical acclaim for his tubular steel "Wassily" chair, which incorporated the radical simplicity of form and interest in industrial materials often espoused by the Bauhaus. After a brief but productive sojourn in England, Breuer followed Gropius to the United States and Harvard University in 1937. The two maintained a joint architectural firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts until 1941, when Breuer founded his own office.

Breuer helped to redefine post-war American domestic architecture through projects like the "bi-nuclear" house and the demonstration house in the garden of New York's Museum of Modern Art (1949). He designed some sixty private residences by the mid-1950s, all of which are represented in the Marcel Breuer Digital Archive. The ensuing two decades witnessed some of his most well-known governmental and institutional projects, including the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1958) and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City (1966); the records related to these later projects will be digitized during the second phase of the project.

Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, offered this assessment of Breuer's influence and the potential impact of the digital archive: The project "is an essential one if one of the most valuable yet consistently under-tapped resources of twentieth-century architectural history, and of American art, social and urban history is to be rendered fully accessible. The Breuer project could open not only a new generation of Breuer scholarship, it could open a whole new set of questions about the profile and issues of American modernism from the 1930s through the late 1970s."

The Special Collections Research Center is a hub for primary source research located on the 6th floor of Syracuse University's Bird Library. It is devoted to collecting and preserving rare research materials in all formats and to connecting students, faculty, outside scholars, and the community to its collections. For more information about SCRC, please visit scrc.syr.edu. Inquiries about the Marcel Breuer Digital Archive may be directed to the project coordinator, Teresa Harris, at 315-443-2916 or tmharr01@syr.edu.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings. According to curator Kyle, "The Power and the Piety highlights the world that shaped our own--from religious martyrdom, to the politics of Machiavelli and the extraordinary prose of Shakespeare, this exhibition brings to life the rich and vibrant eras of Medieval and Renaissance Europe."

The exhibition and reception is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the 2011-12 Ray Smith Symposium "Sex and Power from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment." Based in Syracuse University's College of Arts in Sciences, the symposium features seminars given by prominent visiting scholars. For more information please visit raysmithsymposium.syr.edu.

The Special Collections Research Center is a hub for primary source research at Syracuse University Library. It is devoted to collecting and preserving rare research materials in all formats and to connecting students, faculty, outside scholars and the community to its collections. For more information, visit scrc.syr.edu.

For more information, contact Melinda Dermody, head of Access and Resource Sharing.