Cool@Hoole

Happy Birthday to Alabama’s own Clarence Carter!

Posted on January 14, 2008 by | Posted in: Jessica Lacher-Feldman, Wade Hall Collection | Leave a comment

 

Patches [sound recording] / Clarence Carter. (Detail)

New York : Atlantic, c1970.

Sound disc : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo. ; 12 in.

From the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library Wade Hall Sound Recording Collection,LP 14010

January 14 is the birthday of Clarence Carter, a native of Montgomery, Alabama. Carter was educated at the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega and Alabama State College in Montgomery with a Bachelor’s Degree in music. He released his first album, This is Clarence Carter, forty years ago in 1968.

Carter’s career spans four decades, with his most known hit being th 1970 song, Patches, which reached #2 on the UK charts and #4 on the US pop charts and was nominated for a Grammy in 1972. Carter was inducted in the Alabama Music Hall of fame in 2002.

Carter recorded Patches, and several other songs in Muscle Shoals — where recording artists of all stripes – pop, jazz, rock, soul, and country, made hits using that famous Muscle Shoals sound. Carter reinvented himself for a whole new audience in the 1980s and 1990s with songs like Strokin’. His most recent album was released in 2007 entitled, The Final Stroke.

The W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library’s holdings include excellent resources for those interested in learning more about Alabama’s rich and diverse musical history. Materials from the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture, as well as our sound recording and sheet music collections and manuscript collections and of course materials from the Alabama Collection, provide a wealth of information on Alabama music.

Speaking of Sound Recordings, be sure to stop by and see Hear Hair Here: Hair Do’s and Hair Don’ts from the Hoole Special Collections Library.

Loujon Press — It catches my Heart in my Hands by Bukowski

Posted on December 4, 2007 by | Posted in: Book Arts Collection, Jessica Lacher-Feldman | Leave a comment

What you’ll see at the lecture tonight in addition to a great talk and a cool documentary —

It catches my heart in my hands, by Charles Bukowski; new and selected poems, 1955-1963. Title: It catches my heart in my hands, by Charles Bukowski; new and selected poems, 1955-1963. Introduction by John William Corrington. Designed, edited & printed by Jon Edgar Webb and Louise Webb.

Publication Information: [New Orleans] Loujon Press [1963]
[4] 97 [4] p. illus. 26 cm. Gypsy Lou series, no. 1
Illustrated by the author. “First printing, October 1963.” Edition limited to 777 copies, hand printed and hand bound on Linweave Spectra paper of various colors and widths, and signed by the author. “Errata”: p. [99]. Two inserts : one by Jon & Louise Webb, one by author. Libraries copy signed by author.

Congratulations Harper Lee!

Posted on November 15, 2007 by | Posted in: Alabama Collection, Jessica Lacher-Feldman | Tagged | Leave a comment

A very special congratulations to beloved native daughter, University of Alabama alum, and friend to the UA Libraries, Nelle Harper Lee. On November 5, 2007, Ms. Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. The image here is from a January 2006 NY Times article by Ginia Bellafante on the To Kill a Mockingbird High School Essay Contest sponsored by UA’s Honors College. The photograph was taken in the lobby of the Hoole Library (and features my arm along with Ms. Lee’s visage!). Note the Tiffany stained glass window in the background. (photo by Dana Mixer for the NY Times –http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30lee.html)

Ms. Lee was honored along with Gary S. Becker, an economist and 1992 Nobel Prize winner; Oscar Elías Bisce, a human rights advocate imprisoned in Cuba; Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute; Benjamin L. Hooks, former executive director of the NAACP; Illinois Republican Henry J. Hyde; and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, first woman elected president of an African nation.

Ms. Lee attended The University of Alabama from 1945-1949. Her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1960 and it continues to captivate the minds and hearts of people all over the world. Several editions of To Kill a Mockingbird are of course included in the Hoole Library’s Alabama Collection.

Dreams of Africa in Alabama — Two Upcoming Lectures with Dr. Sylviane Diouf 11/12 and 11/13

Posted on November 4, 2007 by | Posted in: Alabama Collection, Jessica Lacher-Feldman | Leave a comment

The UA Libraries is co-sponsoring a visit with Dr. Sylviane Diouf, curator at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture in New York, and author of Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America (Oxford University Press, 2007). Dr. Diouf will be in Tuscaloosa for two talks — the first on Monday 11/12 at 11 am in Gorgas Library room 205 where she will discuss and present a slide show on African Muslims in the Americas. This talk is based on her work, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas(NYU Press, 1999). It was named 1999 Outstanding Academic Book by the American Library Association.

Her second talk and book signing (Tuesday 11/13 @ 4 pm in Gorgas 205) is for her newest work, Dreams of Africa in Alabama which was just named co‐winner of the 2007 Wesley‐Logan prize in African Diaspora History of the American Historical Association. She will sign copies of her works after the talk and there will be a reception.

Dreams of Africa in Alabama is available at the Hoole Library as part of the Hoole Library’s Alabama Collection, long recognized as the premiere collection of Alabama materials in the world. The collection strives to be a comprehensive collection of all books by Alabamians, about Alabama, and/or published in the state of Alabama. These materials document the unique cultural and historical experience of Alabama.

Both events are of course free and open to the public! Co-sponsors of Dr. Diouf’s visit include: UA Libraries, New College, American Studies, African-American Studies, The Summersell Center for the Study of the South, Modern Languages and Classics, and Religious Studies and the generous support of Lakey and Susan Tolbert.

Please join us!!

Corolla Digital Initative

Posted on October 23, 2007 by | Posted in: Corolla, Digital Services, Jessica Lacher-Feldman | Leave a comment


Imagine over 100 years of The University of Alabama’s yearbook, the Corolla, fully searchable and accessible with the click of a mouse! The UA Libraries have launched a project that will do just that –the Corolla Digital Initiative. Yearbooks are a source of history, humor and nostalgia, and are used by scholars interested in the history and culture of higher education.

We are using this as an opportunity to allow alums, groups of alums, individuals, and others interested in the project to sponsor the digitization of a Corolla in honor of a family member or friend, or just because! For more information about the project visit the Corolla Digital Initiative page, and to see what we’ve done so far, click here. To sponsor a Corolla, contact Jody DeRidder at jlderidder@ua.edu or 205.348.0511.

Welcome to What’s Cool @ Hoole!

Posted on October 21, 2007 by | Posted in: Blog News, Jessica Lacher-Feldman | Leave a comment


We hope that the Cool@Hoole blog will serve to several purposes — to show off and highlight new items, to tie into exciting events, exhibits, happenings, initiatives, and news about the library, and to serve as a venue and forum for questions and to build a greater understanding of the who, what, when, where, and why of the special collections library!

Here is a detail of the Tiffany stained glass window you will see upon entering our library. It was installed permanently in our building, Mary Harmon Bryant Hall, in 1993. Donated by the Alabama UDC in 1926, it is a signed Tiffany window featuring several elements that Tiffany developed including confetti glass (as seen in the hydrangeas behind the knight). An excellent article on the window was published by Alabama Heritage.