Western Libraries' Heritage Resources starts speaker series to highlight research

Western Libraries Heritage Resources will host its first annual speaker series for the 2014-2015 academic year starting on Wednesday, Nov. 12.

Featured presenters are authorities in their respective fields who have used Heritage Resources collections significantly in their research. The series will include two presentations per quarter for a total of six throughout the year. The presentations will alternate between the Special Collections space on the sixth floor of the Wilson Library and the Goltz-Murray Archives Building at 808 25th St.

The programs are free and open to the public. Please email Heritage.Resources@wwu.edu or phone 360-650-7534 for more information.

The 2014-2015 Heritage Resources Speaker Series lineup:

Speaker: Sylvia Tag, WWU librarian and associate professor, curator of the Children’s Literature Interdisciplinary Collection

Description: What are the aims, ideals, and desires that we impart upon our children and youth? This presentation will explore the language, illustration, and composition of early readers, primers, and historical textbooks over the last one hundred and fifty years to explore how we might answer this question. Tag’s research has focused on a unique collection of educational texts, dating from 1866-1973, which are housed in Special Collections.

Time and Day: 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12.

Location: Special Collections (sixth floor Wilson Library)

Speaker: Helen Morgan Parmett, WWU Communication Studies professor and 2013-2014 James W. Scott Research Fellow

Description: This presentation will examine the ways in which KVOS – Bellingham’s first local radio and television station – helped constitute a sense of “local” identity and culture in the 1930s-1970s, as well as broader debates over what it means for media to serve the public interest. Morgan Parmett’s research draws extensively on the Rogan Jones and KVOS collections housed at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies.

Time and Day: 4 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3.

Location: Goltz-Murray Archives Building

Speaker: Michael Vendiola, doctoral student in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington

Description: The presenter has focused his research on the College of Ethnic Studies at Western Washington State College (now Western Washington University), relying heavily on information contained in institutional records housed at the University Archives.

Time and Day: 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Location: Goltz-Murray Archives Building

Speaker: Seth Norman, Pulitzer-nominated author and renowned fly fisherman

Description: Fly fishers have been consummate readers for centuries – people of like mind who are fascinated by art, craft, wildness, and ideas. The presenter, who has written extensively for Gray’s Sporting Journal and Fly Rod and Reel, will discuss writing about fly fishing and treasures from Special Collections’ Fly Fishing Collection will be on display.

Time and Day: 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Location: Special Collections (sixth floor Wilson Library)

Speaker: Sandra Kroupa, Book Arts and Rare Book curator, University of Washington Special Collections

Description: Artists’ books are meant to be consumed fully with every element savored, but most people experience them as visual images or through exhibition. How does that impact the reception of the work? What is the difference between artists’ books experienced in still or moving images, or in a vitrine, with books in the hand? These are questions, perhaps without answers, that Kroupa will discuss in her presentation.

Time and Day: 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 7.

Location: Special Collections (sixth floor Wilson Library)

Speaker: Ron Judd, Seattle Times reporter and WWU Journalism instructor

Description: Expanding on research for his History master’s thesis, Judd will examine the successful campaign to remove Western Washington College of Education (now Western Washington University) President Charles H. Fisher from office. Drawing extensively on information found in archival collections at all three Heritage Resources programs, Judd will provide a glimpse into the prolonged, bitter political war between New Deal liberals and old-guard conservatives in Bellingham during the mid-1930s “Red Scare.”

Time and Day: 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 5.

Location: Wilson 4 Central Reading Room

Heritage Resources is a division of Western Libraries which includes Special Collections, the University Archives and the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies. Together the three programs provide for responsible stewardship of unique and archival materials in support teaching, learning, and research.