“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.

Unlike traditional desktop scanners and copiers, KIC’s unique design uses a V-cradle scanning bed so documents remain completely untouched by the scanner’s image capturing lens. The V-cradle preserves book bindings and is excellent for older, fragile books. The scanner is capable of scans up to 17 X 24 inches, or as small as a postage stamp, and scans in vibrant color or black & white. It’s ten times faster than a traditional copier and four times faster than a desktop scanner. Documents are saved in a multiple formats (including searchable PDF, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and MP3 audio files) in a matter of seconds. The KIC scanner is a UDSA compliant digitization system. It will be available for use starting Monday, March 11^th, 2013.

Rachel Carson’s 1962 blockbuster Silent Spring helped inspire the contemporary environmental movement and warned us of the dangers of the misuse of pesticides. But fifty years later the book is still as hotly debated as it was when it was published and Carson herself has been both maligned and mythologized. The Friends of the Addlestone Library are pleased to welcome Linda Lear, author of the acclaimed biography Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, for a discussion of Carson’s life and legacy.

Date/Time: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 6:00pm
Where: Addlestone Library, Room 227

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Stephanie Alexander at alexandersd@cofc.edu.