Exhibits in 2005

More from the Fry Collection: Italian History 1450-1900

"More from the Fry Collection: Italian History 1450-1900" includes manuscripts, printed ephemera and books from the extensive collection assembled by William F. "Jack" Fry, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "It is the microhistory that's interesting," as Fry describes his collecting, "not the big things.

The common life captured in letters, small town government, the bread baker and shoemaker." This exhibit, showcasing aspects of Italian "micro history" before Mussolini's rise to power, complements an earlier exhibit of the Fry Collection titled "Italian Life Under Fascism" (1998), now available online. The current exhibit was organized by Robin Rider and Cindy Lundey of Special Collections with help from Jack Fry and installation assistance from Susan Stravinski of Special Collections.

Birds in Books

The much-heralded sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker in spring 2005 prompted this exhibit of "Birds in Books" featuring books with illustrations, most hand-colored, of birds both familiar and exotic, extinct and otherwise. The books on display, largely from the Thordarson Collection in the Department of Special Collections, dated from the 16th through the 20th century and included the Library's magnificent copy of Audubon's Birds of America. The exhibit was curated by Ann Myers of Special Collections and the School of Library and Information Studies.

Shown here is the "Pigeon of Passage" (passenger pigeon, now extinct) from Mark Catesby, The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1754), part of the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/DLDecArts/DLDecArtsHome.html.

Paragraphs on Typography

Inspired by typographer Bruce Rogers' classic treatise Paragraphs on printing, this exhibit featured significant works in the history of typography and book printing with an emphasis on exemplary uses of letterforms. The exhibit drew from Special Collections materials on the history of the book and printing types and pressroom tools from the Silver Buckle Press. The exhibit was co-curated by William Reeder, president of the Friends; Tracy Honn, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison's Silver Buckle Press; and Robin Rider, curator of Special Collections.

Exhibits in 2004

Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature

Developed by the American Library Association and the National Library of Medicine , this traveling exhibit visited 80 libraries across the country by 2005. The display was made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Library of Medicine. An exhibit of books and manuscripts from Special Collections supplemented the traveling exhibit throughout the semester, as did a parallel exhibit, "Creating Life at the Ebling Library," which focused on medical issues raised by Mary Shelley's famous novel Frankenstein .

Chivalry

Chivalry encompasses both "the knightly system of feudal times" and "the brave, honourable, and courteous character attributed to the ideal knight," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. This exhibit highlighted various forms of chivalry from the medieval period through the twenty-first century with manuscripts, musicals, illustrations, and more. Curated by Kelley Osborne. Held in conjunction with the Eleventh Triennial Congress of The International Courtly Literature Society, July 29 - August 4, 2004.

Layers of Knowledge: Illustrated Books from the Historical Collections, Health Sciences Libraries and Special Collections, Memorial Library

Layers, especially exposed layers, inform the visual language of discovery in a wide array of subjects. Drawing on the resources of the Historical Collections at the Middleton (now Ebling) Health Sciences Library and the Department of Special Collections in Memorial Library, this exhibit cut across a variety of medical and scientific fields in exploring the depiction of layers in book illustrations. Examples ranged from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, and included printed flaps in anatomical illustrations, representations of geological strata, results of Roentgen rays and nature-printing, and parallel visual metaphors in widely differing subjects.

The exhibit, designed by Micaela Sullivan-Fowler, Curator of the Historical Collections, Ebling Health Sciences Library, and Robin Rider, Curator of Special Collections, Memorial Library, was installed in conjunction with the annual meetings of the American Association for the History of Medicine and the Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences.

Carl Rakosi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Carl Rakosi first gained fame as a poet in the 1930s. Rakosi attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned an M.A. in educational psychology. His first book, ironically titled Selected Poems, was published in 1941. Because of his association with the Communist party, Rakosi stopped writing poetry during the height of the McCarthy era and dedicated himself to social work. He would not return to poetry until his retirement in 1965. In 1969 Rakosi returned to Madison as writer-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin. Among Rakosi's many awards was a lifetime achievement award from the National Poetry Foundation.

This exhibit was created in conjunction with Felix: A Series of New Writing, a series devoted to providing an audience for new literary works by young writers.