The Wall Street Journal lauds the undying popularity of Isaac Walton’s The Compleat Angler…

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323744604578473251929009978.html

The Grenville Haslam Sporting Book Collection in the Addlestone Library’s Special Collections contains 400 copies of this single title, including the famous second edition, and is one of the most comprehensive collections of The Compleat Angler in the world.

To learn more about the Haslam Collection click here.

Jenny Sanford’s Donated Papers Offer Poignant View of Power Couple, “Second Chance” E-book Now Available

Jenny Sanford has donated to the College of Charleston boxes of scrapbooks, emails, letters and thousands of other items kept during her marriage to Mark Sanford, a trove that sheds new light on her role as first lady and her ex-husband’s campaigns for Congress and governor.

Jenny Sanford donated the materials in the summer of 2012 to the college’s Special Collections Department. Archivists recently finished cataloguing 16 boxes of materials for what it calls the “Jenny Sanford Papers.” The documents are available to the public.
Mark Sanford’s victory in the 1st Congressional District special election two weeks ago added another chapter in his amazing political journey. “Second Chance: The Mark Sanford Story,” written by two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Tony Bartelme, reveals new twists in this saga. The book is now available for $2.99 for Nook devices at barnesandnoble.com. It also is available in Kindle format at Amazon.com. It will also soon be available on other e-reader formats. Check Evening Post Books for updates.

In a recent interview, Jenny Sanford said she was moving last August and needed to downsize. “I was either going to donate them to someone who could use them, or throw them out. ”

She said she thought the materials would be especially useful to researchers interested in election campaigns. While married, she ran her husband’s congressional and gubernatorial campaigns. They never lost an election.

Taken together, the materials provide a front-seat view of one of South Carolina’s most dynamic political couples. Some materials are surprisingly personal and include a wedding album and emails the Sanfords sent each other in April 2009 about their unraveling marriage. They divorced later that year after Mark Sanford’s public confession that he secretly left the state to visit his now-fiancee, Maria Belen Chapur, in Argentina.

The collection also contains thousands of letters, cards and emails that friends and strangers sent Jenny Sanford after the affair came to light. Many congratulated her for not standing by her husband during the news conference. Scores also wrote that they too had husbands and wives who were unfaithful. One suggested she move to Minnesota because of its good schools and wholesome values. During her book tour, a person handed her a voodoo doll with a note that said, “Don’t get mad, get even.”

She said this outpouring was one reason she decided to write a book. “Some people still email me to this day.”

She donated the materials last summer at the urging of John M. Rivers Jr., a Charleston businessman and board director with the college’s Friends of the Library group, said Harlan Greene, the library’s senior manuscript and reference archivist. Greene said some of the materials were “very poignant,” especially a scrapbook that Jenny put together for their 15th wedding anniversary with the title “15 years of bliss!”

Greene and Cara McHugh, a processing archivist with the library, organized and catalogued the materials and created a research guide. The department has a large backlog, which is common at many archives, and is why the materials weren’t ready for public inspection until this spring. The archival process took four weeks.

“I could tell she was careful about what she gave us,” McHugh said, adding that many of the materials involved her husband’s campaigns and programs she pushed as First Lady.

Some of the most revealing materials are notebooks of Jenny’s from between 2004 and 2010, when her husband was governor. They’re simple spiral notebooks that a college student might use, but inside are extensive notes that Jenny made about legislative battles and other issues.

On one page, she diagrammed a state of the state speech. On another she wrote about efforts to privatize Santee Cooper. “Santee Cooper — competitive process needed for study so no future questions arise re competitiveness of bid … Marshall wants to call number of banks and get proposals in writing.”

She scribbled notes to call Jon Lerner, a Washington, D.C., political consultant, and comments about some of her husband’s bruising battles with the Legislature. In one, she apparently paraphrased a quote from powerful state Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence: “Leatherman — ‘here b/f sanford, will remain after ms, ms will be footprints in the sand.’ ”

The notebooks also show how she juggled the affairs of state with family needs. When mold was found in the Governor’s Mansion, she waged an aggressive campaign to have it removed. On one page, she quoted Leviticus, scribbling: “If your house be contaminated with plagues, molds and leprosy, put the contents in the middle and set it aflame.” On another page was a drawing by one of her sons.

McHugh said she was impressed by Jenny Sanford’s business-like focus. “You could see how smart she was. Once she discovered that Mark was unfaithful, she flew into action.” Within months of Mark’s tearful confession on June 24, 2009, at the Statehouse, Jenny had a draft for her future bestselling book, “Staying True.” Within six months, she filed for divorce.

Also included are letters from Mark to Jenny when he was in Congress. “They were very sweet,” McHugh said. “It seemed like he was really trying, but once he got to the Statehouse, those letters trailed off.”

Jenny Sanford donated the papers months before U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint stepped down, which in turn prompted Gov. Nikki Haley to appoint Rep. Tim Scott, R-Charleston, to the Senate. This created a vacancy for the 1st District Congressional seat, which Mark Sanford filled two weeks ago when he won a special election.

The “Jenny Sanford Papers” is among the more than 500 separate manuscript collections at the college’s Special Collections Department. Inside the department’s fireproof and climate-controlled vaults are documents about the city’s rich Jewish heritage and original notes and manuscripts from James Rigney, who under the pen name Robert Jordan wrote worldwide bestselling science fiction novels. Rigney died in 2007.

Jenny Sanford said the college was a much safer place to keep items than a house on a barrier island such as Sullivan’s. She said her sons might someday be interested in the materials, and because of her donation to the college, they will always have access to them, but “I was starting a fresh chapter.”

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130521/PC16/130529866/1165/jenny-sanford-donates-items-to-college-of-charleston-second-chance-e-book-now-available

“This unique partnership formed when the Historical Society recognized the opportunity to move the vast majority of its collection from the historic Fireproof Building to a twenty-first century research facility,” says John White, interim dean of libraries. “In housing the collection in the state-of-the-art Addlestone Library, the Society will ensure the safety of the thousands of fragile maps, letters, photographs and books in its possession, and will guarantee the space for continued collection growth.”

“This partnership will enable the College to make the South Carolina Historical Society’s repository of historic resources more accessible to a much larger audience,” says College of Charleston President P. George Benson. “As a hub for research and intellectual discovery, the College’s Addlestone Library is the ideal place to house such an important collection.”

Dr. Faye Jensen, Executive Director of the South Carolina Historical Society, is equally pleased by the partnership. “The holdings of the South Carolina Historical Society have long been acknowledged by scholars and students as an irreplaceable and inexhaustible resource of state, regional, and national culture,” she said. “We are pleased that these resources will be in close proximity to the College’s own invaluable collections.”

The Society will retain ownership of its materials.  Its staff will be intricately involved in the collection’s future maintenance, and have access to the College’s innovative digitization initiatives and best practices in traditional archiving.

The Addlestone Library is the recent recipient of a most special award: The College of Charleston REACH Program’s Business Partnership Award… and the Library is doling awards right back! Matt Raczka, a second year REACH student from Middleton, CT, was the Library’s Student Employee of the Month Award for March 2013.

Matt worked at the circulation desk during the Spring 2013 semester, and all Library staff were impressed with his strong work ethic and attention to detail. He had a special knack for finding misplaced books and returning them to their proper place on the shelves. Matt has some advice for his fellow students: “Students need to know that when they remove a book from the shelves, it should be returned through the circulation desk in order to make sure it gets back to the right spot. Students mean well, but they usually don’t put the books back properly, and then no one can find them!”

As an out-of-state student, Matt did a lot of research into academic programs, and he felt that the College’s REACH program outshone its competition. “And there’s no winter!” says Matt. An added plus coming from Connecticut!

Matt especially enjoyed his public health courses and hopes to become an x-ray technician, a job, he says, that will both “fill the pocket and fill the heart.” He’ll take the skills he learned at the Addlestone Library with him on the path to making that dream a reality.

According to Sherry Gadsden, Head of Circulation, “The Addlestone library has a well-established climate within its walls that allows all students an opportunity to achieve academic and career success.  Working with REACH students in the library has been an amazingly gratifying experience.   Also, this experience has taught me that if
we are to achieve optimal success we must remain open-minded to those that are
different.”

The College of Charleston’s Realizing Educational and Career Hopes (REACH) program is a four-year inclusive program designed to provide students with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities the opportunity to participate in the academic, residential, social and professional experiences offered by the College, with appropriate support for success. REACH students  participate in regular classes and a career development program and receive a certificate upon program completion.

Congrats to Matt on a successful semester, and kudos to Sherry and the rest of the Library staff for providing him a great opportunity in a socially and academically enriching environment!

You can view photos from this great event on the FOL Facebook page.

If you’d like to join us for next year’s Roundtable, or any of our other events, contact Stephanie Alexander at alexandersd@cofc.edu for more information.

The Halsey Institute has commissioned world renowned artist, Long-Bin Chen, to create a site-specific sculptural work that will be on view in the Sanders Rotunda of the Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library concurrent with the Rebound exhibition within the Halsey Institute galleries, May 23 – July 6, 2013. Chen will create the work during a residency May 1 – 23.

Long-Bin Chen’s artwork seeks to combine cultural meaning and belief systems from the East with those of the West. He works with local printed material from the communities in which he is an artist-in-residence, including telephone books, magazines, and other cultural debris of our information society. At first glance, the sculptures appear to be stonework, and most viewers are surprised to learn that Chen’s sculptures made from paper, and hence soft and relatively delicate.

For the installation at the Addlestone Library, Chen will create a Zen Garden using books from the Charleston community.

Increasingly, contemporary artists are exploring the interplay between the function, structure, and format of books. Curated by Halsey Institute assistant director, Karen Ann Myers, Rebound: Dissections and Excavations in Book Art brings together the work of five mixed-media artists from around the world who sculpt, scrape, bend, and carve books into astonishing compositions. Doug Beube, Long-Bin Chen, Brian Dettmer, Guy Laramée, and Francesca Pastine transform various types of printed material through sculptural intervention. Despite the individual perspective of each artist, there are remarkable connections in the themes and ideas they respectively mourn and celebrate. The fascinating range of examples, as diverse as books themselves, offers eloquent proof that,  despite the advances of digital media, the book’s legacy as a carrier of ideas and communication is being expanded today.

For more information about Rebound or Long-Bin Chen’s work at the College of Charleston, please contact Stephanie Alexander at alexandersd@cofc.edu.

On Wednesday, April 10th, The Friends of the Addlestone Library will host Lisa Foster and Mary Lou Coombs in a discussion of their book, Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook: An Ex-slave’s Recipes for Living.

A non-fiction account of an ex-slave’s life, this story gives a snapshot view of Charleston from 1862-1931 through the eyes of Janie Mitchell based on her own writings. Marie Lou Coombs, whose family employed Janie in her later years, grew up hearing stories of Janie and reading her journal. Lisa Foster crafted Janie’s journal into a compelling story, told in the diarist’s own voice.

Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook: An Ex-Slaves Recipe for Living chronicles Janie’s life as well as her relationship with her owners, the Rutledge family, and her later employment with other Charleston families.

When: Wednesday, April 10th, 6:00pm
Where: Addlestone Library, Room 227

The Addlestone Library is currently hosting an unique exhibit on South Carolina Jewish history in Special Collections. The Jewish Family Roadshow (March 29th-May 19th) is a collection of photos, books, diaries, paintings and other materials on loan from Jewish families with deep roots in South Carolina.

The Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina will hold its annual conference at the College in May, culminating with a reception held against the backdrop of several hundred years of history on display in Special Collections.

Click here to hear the Fisk Jublilee Singers performing at Carnegie Hall.

The concert is held in conjunction with the Jubilee Projects, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

A reception will follow the concert. Tickets can be purchased online at alumni.cofc.edu/jubilee, for $25.00.

Why Do We Continue To Read Holocaust Journals? The Case of Helene Berr, Theodore Rosengarten
Addlestone Library, Room 227 Tuesday, March 12, 6pm

In 1942, at age 21, Helene Berr began writing a journal describing a world that brutally ostracized her for being a Jew. She wrote in her journal every day until March 1944 when she was deported to Auschwitz. Berr died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945, just days before the camp was liberated, yet her journal surfaced seven years ago. Dr. Rosengarten will consider Berr’s life and journal in the context of contemporary Holocaust representation. Co-sponsored with the College of Charleston’s Friends of the Library, Jewish Heritage Collection, Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program and the Zucker/Goldberg Holocaust Education Initiative.

Helene Berr: The Exhibition
Addlestone Library Rotunda March 1-27

Helene Berr, A Stolen Life gives life anew to its subject, a budding French scholar of English and literature whose life was brutally cut short in the Holocaust. Berr left behind a journal of extraordinary beauty and value both as literature and history, one that provides a rare view of how French Jews perceived persecution. Through texts and photographs, the exhibition, organized by Memorial de le Shoah, in Paris, vividly narrates the life story of an accidental author and the afterlife of her inestimable journal.

This exhibition, curated by Karen Taïeb and Sophie Nagiscarde, was designed, created, and circulated by the Mémorial de la Shoah (Paris, France) and made possible through the generous support of the SNCF. Co-sponsored with the College of Charleston’s Friends of the Library, Jewish Heritage Collection, Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program and the Zucker/Goldberg Holocaust Education Initiative.