Posts by Juli McLoone

Researcher Mark Bocek will join us this Thursday, June 8th at 4:00pm in the Hatcher Gallery for a lecture focusing on actress, puppeteer, and U-M alumna Ellen Van Volkenburg and her role in co-founding Cornish College of the Arts’ Theater Department at Cornish College of the Arts.

The Michigan Theater will be showing Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent next Tuesday, May 30 (4:15pm, 7:00pm, 9:15pm) and Wednesday, May 31 (4:15pm, 7:00pm, 9:15pm). Arrive early, and you may catch a peek at a slideshow of menus from Jeremiah Tower’s personal menu collection, housed here at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive.

Although the University of Michigan was founded in 1817, it was not until the University re-located to Ann Arbor in the late 1830s that the University began working towards the establishment of a University Library. The first “official” purchase for the library was made in February 1838, just a few months before Asa Gray set out on his European book-buying voyage.

In January of 2016, Professor Susan Siegfried reached out to Pablo Alvarez and myself with a proposal: a class focused on 19th century color plate books, tightly focused on the use of original materials, with weekly meetings in Special Collections and out-of-class assignments, drawing heavily on the private collection of Dr. James Ravin, MD, of Toledo. Would we facilitate such an endeavor? Could we?

The Special Collections Library is pleased to announce a new online exhibit: Jane Austen 1817-2017: A Bicentennial Exhibit. This exhibit honoring the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death was curated during Winter Term 2017 by students in English 313, taught by Professor Adela Pinch, Department of English, with exhibition assistance by Juli McLoone, Outreach Librarian and Curator, Special Collections Library, and Sigrid Anderson Cordell, Librarian for English Language and Literature.

For the past two years, the Special Collections Library has celebrated Pi Day (3/14) by sharing pie recipes from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA). This year, we bring you a pair of pies from The new cyclopaedia of domestic economy and practical housekeeper...(1872), edited by Elizabeth Fries Ellet.

Today we celebrate the final day of Picture Book Month and also the 349th birthday of Jonathan Swift, English satirist and poet, most famous for his authorship of Gulliver’s Travels. In honor of both, this post highlights two picture book editions for children from the Hubbard Collection of Imaginary Voyages.

Last Friday, I was privileged to welcome students from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit to the Special Collections Library. As part of a class on exploring the book, attendees were preparing for an assignment to create a one-of-a-kind artists’ book. The instructor had asked me to find examples of unusual artists’ books with interesting structures, offering me an opportunity to explore new dimensions of Special Collections’ artists’ book holdings.

First published in 1789, Gilbert White’s The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne describes the history and environment of the parish in eastern Hampshire where he lived for much of his life. The book offers gently reflective accounts of White's observations, structured as 110 letters to two friends - zoologist Thomas Pennant and amateur naturalist Daines Barrington. An immensely popular and influential work in the genre of nature writing, White's writings continue to inspire today.

The Special Collections Library is pleased to announce a new online exhibit: "Curiouser and Curiouser!": Exploring Wonderland with Alice. This exhibit features a selection of materials from the physical exhibit celebrating 150 years of Alice, which was on display in the 7th floor Exhibit Space of Hatcher Graduate Library, August 25, 2015 - December 17, 2015.