Author Archives: kgmatheny

A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock ‘n’ Roll

When you collect Americana, you can’t help but end up with music — and books on music. In the case of Wade Hall, who focused his collecting on the South, that means a lot of country and western, jazz, blues, and rock ‘n’ … Continue reading

Fleeting Sounds

Usually when we think of ephemera — items that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles [source] — we think of documents. Paper is the medium of choice for these transitory items, from ticket … Continue reading

The Bad, Bad Girls of Pulp Art

Not a lot of rare book collections boast as many paperbacks as we have. That’s mostly for good reasons — they’re not collectible editions, and they’re much more fragile than hardback volumes. But those collections don’t know what they’re missing. … Continue reading

Dr. Wade Henry Hall, Jr. (1934-2015)

We’re sad to report the passing of our friend, Wade Hall, on Saturday. Having grown up with so little, Wade made it his mission to give as much as possible to others. Though he was born and raised in Bullock County, Alabama, … Continue reading

Indian Comic Books

Comic books have become a popular form of entertainment in India. While at first they had to content themselves with our western characters and publishers, more and more India has produced its own heroes and superheroes, such as Super Commando Dhruva, … Continue reading

Becoming Kappa

When we say goodbye to buildings, we often say hello to interesting things that finally come out of them as their inhabitants prepare for demolition. Over the summer, we got to digitize one such discovery: a scrapbook of chartering documents from the UA … Continue reading

The Year of Utopia

The College of Arts & Sciences is today kicking off a year-long event, the Year of Utopia. We wanted to get in on the action and showcase some volumes in Special Collections that help trace the literary history of the concept. Let’s … Continue reading

Recent Acquisitions, Spring-Summer 2015

What’s been going on since Amy Chen said goodbye? For one, you have two new blog managers: Chris Sawula and Kate Matheny. Chris is Director of Research & Academic Programs for the A. S. Williams III Americana Collection. Among other … Continue reading

Images from the CSS Alabama

The Confederate cruiser CSS Alabama has quite a history. Our sister blog, Cool at Hoole, has a series of posts telling the ship’s story, which — if you’ll believe it — starts with construction in secrecy in England and ends … Continue reading

The Mystic Order of the Nonsense Club

Among the Corolla yearbooks digitized and available in Acumen are the first ten volumes, covering 1893-1902. This was an eventful decade at UA: the last ten years of the campus run under military order and the first ten years as a co-ed … Continue reading