In the Spotlight

Exhibit Spotlights Frances Willard and Evanston

By the time she died in 1898, Frances Willard was world-famous as a charismatic speaker, author, and the leader of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest and most powerful women's organization of its era. And yet she is reported to have insisted "When I get to Heaven, register me from Evanston."

As a new Northwestern University Library exhibit shows, no matter how vast her horizons became, Willard continued to maintain deep and complex ties to what she deemed her "Classic Town." Radical Woman in a Classic Town: Frances Willard of Evanston uses materials from Northwestern University Archives and from Evanston's Frances Willard House museum to examine those ties, as well as Willard's connections with Northwestern, where she was the first Dean of Women and later served on the board of trustees. The exhibit is free and open to the public in the Main Library, 1970 Campus Drive in Evanston, now through March 19.

"The 'Classic Town' reference comes from the title of one of her dozen or so books," says exhibit curator Janet Olson, who is assistant University Archivist and also volunteer archivist at the Willard House. "It's a somewhat impressionistic history of Evanston, based partly on her own experiences but also on her conversations with others. What comes through very clearly is her affection for Evanston and how the town, and especially its remarkable women, influenced her." It was these influences that made Willard a radical advocate of suffrage, economic equality, and world peace.

Another book showcased in the exhibit is Willard's A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, her memoir about learning to ride a bike for the first time at the age of 53, hoping to improve her failing health. "It was a literal and a metaphorical experience for her," Olson says. "In the 1890s the bicycle offered women in particular a safe way to get around independently. And her struggle to master the machine became a meaningful lesson about how you should always be willing to learn something new."

Among the exhibit's fascinating and quirky artifacts are a 36" by 26" souvenir scarf printed by the WCTU in 1939 for the centennial of Willard's birth. It catalogs almost 300 schools, fountains, monuments, settlement houses, and other U.S. memorials to Frances Willard and plots their locations on a map "representing thirty-eight States and the District of Columbia." There's also a ceramic liquor flask in the shape of Frances Willard, who is holding a bottle of liquor and whose bonnet is the cork. "Those who opposed Prohibition very often chose to make fun of Frances Willard," Olson says, "which shows how well-known she was, and how personally she was identified with the WCTU."

In conjunction with the exhibit, Willard scholar Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford will give a talk at the Evanston Public Library on March 6 at 2 p.m. on Willard as a radical woman.

For more information on the exhibit, call 847-491-7641.

Bloomsbury in the Northwestern Collections

We know them by the name of the London neighborhood where, at the turn of the last century, they often gathered at the home of Virginia (later Woolf), Vanessa (later Bell), and Adrian Stephen: the Bloomsbury group. But, says Scott Krafft, curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections at Northwestern University Library, it's really only retrospectively that a group identity has come to define them.

Krafft introduces the new exhibit Only Connect: Bloomsbury Families and Friends by pointing out that "in contrast to a group such as the Surrealists, Bloomsbury lacked a leader, a manifesto, a collective intention or an agreed-upon membership. Instead it was principally just a fluid ménage of friends, lovers, siblings, and cousins (at times some of these simultaneously) who provided one another criticism and support."

Using rare materials from the McCormick Library, Only Connect illuminates the complexity and depth of the work and personal connections binding together this extraordinary circle, which also included Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, Clive Bell, and David Garnett. It also shows material from some of the group's distinguished family members. An 1888 letter from Sir Leslie Stephen, for instance, invites Richard Garnett to contribute to the Dictionary of National Biography he was editing; nearby is a Stephen family tree beginning with the early 1700s and leading through the 1940s, when Richard Garnett's grandson David married Angelica Bell, Sir Leslie Stephen's granddaughter (and daughter of Vanessa Bell).

A 1927 invitation to a show of paintings by Duncan Grant is signed by John Maynard Keynes, one of the show's sponsors—and also Grant's former lover. A selection of first editions from Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press includes the Press's first venture, Two Stories—with one story by each Woolf. And the exhibit includes a copy of E.M. Forster's novel A Room With a View, signed by the author for Edward Garnett. Forster was the first of the Bloomsbury set to attain popular recognition and success as an author.

Located on the third floor of Deering Library (enter through the Main Library at 1970 Campus Drive, Evanston), the exhibit runs now through April 30. It complements a current exhibit at the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art, A Room of Their Own: The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections, running now through March 14.

For more information, call 847-491-7641.

Now the Library Goes Where You Go!

Finding all kinds of research materials at Northwestern University Library has just gotten dramatically easier and faster for smartphone and other mobile device users. The just-launched Northwestern Mobile app makes it possible to explore the Library’s vast collections with a brand-new unified search tool.

"Until now, our users trying to find resources for teaching, learning, and research had to go to three or four different web sites depending on whether they were looking for print, electronic or digital resources," says Stu Baker, Associate University Librarian for Library Technology. "Now for the first time they can locate all of those materials and more from a single interface."

The Northwestern Mobile Library app previews the new unified search tool even before it officially debuts on the Library web site. "We know the majority of students now expect access from mobile devices like iPhones and BlackBerries, when they're riding the shuttle or they're over at a friend's house," says Claire Stewart, head of Digital Collections. "The simplified interface lets users find out quickly whether we have something or not, even if they're just going to save the information to look at later on a bigger screen."

The app lets you search both the Library's internal and external resources, including books, periodicals, journals, databases, music, video, and digital collections. You can access electronic resources in full-text form. A part of the Northwestern Mobile application, "Images," showcases more than 10,000 images from the Library's extensive portfolio of unique digital collections, including such internationally renowned collections as Rare African Maps, with maps of Africa dating back to the sixteenth century; Edward S. Curtis's North American Indian photographs; World War II Posters; and Transportation Menus, with hundreds of historical menus from airlines, trains, and ocean liners. "Images" also features 33 beautiful photographs of the Northwestern campus, in all its moods and seasons.

The new app, which is free, is available from the iPhone App Store and on iTunes. To access it, simply go to the App Store or iTunes and search under the name “Northwestern University” and then download the application onto your iPhone. The application is currently available for the iPhone and the iTouch. A less robust version that will work with any web-enabled (WAP) mobile device is also available and work is nearly complete for a beefed-up version for the Blackberry

The unified search tool will be rolled out to the Library's website in the coming months. Says Baker, "We're looking forward to getting feedback from our mobile users. This preview release will help us put the finishing touches on the more robust user interface."

Assessing Open Access

Northwestern faculty members share their experiences

The Open Access (OA) movement, which promotes the principle that all scholarly research should be freely accessible online immediately after publication, has gained enormous international momentum in the seven years since it was first articulated in the Budapest Open Access Initiative. This year, the first international Open Access Week, from October 19 to October 23, is intended to extend awareness and understanding of OA publishing among scholars and the general public.

One of the greatest advantages of OA journals is that their online format generally enables them to publish faster than traditional print journals—an advantage especially in the sciences. Since they are freely accessible online, they also potentially offer a wider readership—often a particular advantage in interdisciplinary studies. And the technology offers another advantage traditional print journals don't: the possibility to publish work that is multi-media in nature.

Because the impact of OA publishing varies from discipline to discipline, we asked a range of Northwestern faculty members to answer a few questions about their experiences. Our respondents include William Halperin, a physicist; Jeffrey Ely, an economist; and John Bresland, a multi-media artist. Halperin and Ely serve as editors of OA journals in addition to having published work in them.

William Halperin is John Evans Professor of Physics. His research is focused on low-temperature physics, NMR studies of high-temperature superconductors, and fluid transport in porous media. He's one of two regional editors of the New Journal of Physics, an open access journal that has just celebrated its 10th anniversary. "Along with the editor-in-chief, Eberhard Bodenschatz," he says, "we have specific geographic responsibilities for Europe, Asia, and North America and are joined by 46 professional colleagues to make up the editorial board. When I was asked to participate in NJP seven years ago, open access for scientific journals was in its infancy and I had no prior experience with this publication medium myself."

Q: It seems like the technology of OA publishing--the fact that it facilitates speed and interactivity--makes it especially well suited to the needs of scientists (as opposed to, say, novelists).

A: Certainly you have identified one of the important aspects of most OA publications, which is speed, provided there is no print copy. NJP is solely distributed on-line; however, it is in principle possible to have both open access and print copies. An example of a print journal with open access is the "free to read" articles in the Physical Review journals published by the American Physical Society. However another important result of online OA publication is the symbiotic relationship with preprint repositories. OA publications can be directly linked to a preprint posted on a general access server such that the benefit of early announcement of scientific results in preprint form can be complemented by the final revised, refereed and published article, equally accessible to the reader.

Q: As an editor, can you provide some insight into the peer review process at OA journals? Is it comparable to the traditional journal process?

A: Peer review is managed very differently by different journals, but is essentially unrelated to whether the journal is open access or not. The main differences from one journal to another are the degree of editorial oversight in managing the refereeing process and whether the editorial board members are involved in this process or not. The NJP model is that the cadre of editors, who are active professional scientists, are all intimately involved in this process and are responsible for making the publication decisions.

Q: As OA continues to establish itself in the scholarly community, what challenges does it face?

A: The main difficulty facing open access journals today is to find an appropriate business plan. A high-quality journal has substantial overhead costs in handling all aspects of publishing articles, including the staff involved in refereeing, editing, 'typesetting,' and printing, digital or otherwise. For OA these costs are generally, but not uniquely, born by the authors in the form of article charges. For standard print copy journals, however, these costs are paid for by subscription, which means to a large extent by the libraries of the institutions that can afford it. Transferring cost to authors will always be problematic, except for the highest profile journals with a high impact factor.

Jeffrey C. Ely is Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Economics. He is co-editor of Theoretical Economics, an open access journal, and he co-writes the economics blog Cheap Talk.

Q: Where do you think OA journals stand relative to traditional journals in your field, in terms of professional acceptance, power, and prestige?

A: I know of only one prominent OA journal in economics and that is our journal, Theoretical Economics. In just a few years it has established a reputation as one of the top journals in the field of economic theory. As evidence of this, the journal has just recently come under the umbrella of one of the leading academic societies in economics, the Econometric Society, and a sister journal, Quantitative Economics, is being launched. QE will also be open access.

Q: And in your experience, does the OA format alter the standard peer review process for scholarly work?

A: In economics the peer-review process is characterized by long delays, intensive editing and evaluation by referees, and multiple revisions. At Theoretical Economics, the editorial process is essentially the same, yet the problems have been greatly reduced. I attribute this in large part to the sense of ownership of the journal that editors and referees feel. Most of the mainstream journals in economics have very high price tags and referees are rarely compensated for their work. This naturally tends to alienate referees and editors from the journal's mission. Our referees seem to value contributing their hard work to a journal whose undiluted objective is to maximize dissemination of research.

Q: In a field such as economics, which has so many interdisciplinary components, does OA offer particular advantages over traditional journals?

A: Pay-for-access journals put a barrier between researchers and others' research. This barrier is highest for those investigating new areas in other disciplines. Consequently a large benefit of open access will be in lowering interdisciplinary barriers.

John Bresland is an artist-in-residence in the creative writing program, where he teaches creative writing and new media. His essays have aired on public radio, and his video essays can be seen online at Ninth Letter and Blackbird. His print essays can be read in North American Review, Hotel Amerika, Minnesota Monthly and elsewhere.

Q: While scholars in other fields may be subsidized by their teaching positions, artists traditionally hope to support themselves by selling their work--and even that's a hard goal to achieve. How can artists ever hope to support themselves if they make their work available for free online?

A: It’s hard for me to imagine any artist of any calibre earning a living by posting her work online for free. Even big film studios with built-in audiences numbering in the millions, with their vast economic resources, haven’t yet figured out how to turn their millions of YouTube viewers into revenue (though I suspect they will soon enough — content deals are being signed as we speak). In any case, if Hollywood can’t figure out how to make money online, I can’t see myself cashing in my YouTube ad-word profits anytime soon and buying a sweet Bayliner with waterproof speakers. To my lights, the concept of FREE ONLINE for the artist is roughly the same as it is for a car dealership offering a free test drive: Get inside the product. Smell the smell. See how it handles. And either buy it or don’t. My point is, either way, whether you’re an artist or a car dealer, you must always be closing. Free is a means to an end.

Incidentally, there are plenty of happy instances of artists working hard for free, getting noticed for their toil, and turning that notoriety into a paying career. I’m thinking now of that Canadian kid who created the website Stuff White People Like, for free, and signed a book deal with Random House for three or four hundred thousand dollars. Or that woman who cooked all of Julia Child’s recipes, blogged about it — free — and then sold a book, and then came the movie. Both of these folks leveraged the viral nature of the internet. For a virus to be effective, it must also be free.

Q: Is your multi-media work better suited by nature for OA publication than, say, a traditional book or essay? Or do you think that even traditional print will eventually all give way to electronic publication?

A: I don’t know. And I don’t think anybody knows. That’s what’s so scary and strange about this shift from print to the screen, from books to iPhones and Kindles. Fifteen years ago, everybody rented videos at the video store, but we all knew that the neighborhood Blockbuster was doomed. We all knew that, soon enough, our entertainments would be downloaded. And sure enough, now they are — even though Netflix’s dominance in the marketplace reminds us that the lure of high-technology is nothing compared to the ease and simplicity of a dedicated device: a DVD player. Whatever it is that ends up partially replacing the book or magazine doesn’t exist today. But you get the feeling it’s on the horizon, don’t you? Still, books aren’t going anywhere — they’re good technology: tactile, simple, reliable. But they will yield shelf-space to another medium, and already have. When Elisabeth Sifton wrote about the book business a couple months ago in The Nation, she argued that a new kind of writing would likely emerge. She wrote that teachers and writing instructors are reporting big changes in their students' habits of attention and modes of expression: “This is why we must still ask, of the possibilities that 'books' could be offered in other formats or sold in new ways, what kind of imaginative energy, what kind of reading—or readers—will Scribd, Kindle, Sony Reader or other electronic devices attract in the years to come? And what kind of writing?” I agree completely.

Q: Do you continue to find it important to publish in traditional print publications?
Absolutely! And I believe “traditional” print publications will continue to behave less traditionally by building up their presence online, by featuring new works in different forms. You see this already with Blackbird, the online literary journal. Ten years ago, some folks might have considered it a lesser journal because it existed only online. You don’t hear that anymore. The Internet is a sensory-rich medium — it handles text quite well, and equally so with images and sound. The days of Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry as the holy trinity of literature are nearly over, and I think most editors of print journals are mindful of that. If they’re not, well, they’re just whistling in the dark.

Northwestern, Evanston Public Library Collaborate on Exhibit of Imaginary Children's Books

October 12, 2009--Northwestern University Library and Evanston Public Library have teamed up to bring a unique exhibit of original children’s book art to the Chicago area. “An Imaginary Library: Children's Books That Don't Exist (Yet)” brings together 75 original paintings, sketches, and drawings by children's book artists from thirty different countries. Among them are many of the world's most successful and best-known artists for children, including Americans Peter Sis, David Wiesner, and Vladimir Radunsky. These artists were invited by the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, to create an original book cover for a book that does not exist—but which someday the artist would like to create. In addition to the original artwork, the artists have supplied enough context or plot to provoke both child and adult visitors to the exhibit to use their imagination—and co-create the book, with the artists as their partners.

"An Imaginary Library" opened Friday, October 9 at the Evanston Public Library for a three-month run.

"We are so excited to partner with Northwestern in bringing this stellar exhibit to the Evanston community," says Evanston Public Library Director Mary Johns. "The international flavor captures the imagination and reaffirms the common appeal of children's literature and art."

The exhibit, which has already been staged in Japan, Greece, and Iran, had its American debut earlier in October in St. Charles. It was featured at the 8th annual regional conference of USBBY—the United States Board on Books for Young People—which brought together 250 children's librarians, authors, publishers, and other professionals from around the world to discuss international children's books. Regional sponsors of the conference included National Louis University and Dominican University's Butler Center for Children's Literature, and the Northwestern University Library.

Illustration: Too Proud a Snail, by French artist Eric Battut

Check Out Our CDs!

Beginning this week, members of the Northwestern community are invited to check out items from the Music Library's extensive holdings of nearly 30,000 CDs. The collection is especially strong in classical recordings, and also includes jazz, world music, musical theatre and some pop recordings. Previously available for use only in the library's listening room, these CDs can now be borrowed for up to two weeks. Students, faculty, and staff can borrow up to five CDs at a time. (Faculty can request delivery directly to their offices.) More information about the new policy is available on the Music Library's website.

Library Jobs for Students

Hiring for work/study positions at the Library begins on Monday, September 14 and continues until all jobs are filled. Information about these positions is available online. Apply between 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. at the Library Personnel Office.