Friends of the UNCG Libraries

When the anonymous author of Commercial Bookbindings , a historical sketch and description of an exhibition at the Grolier Club, New York, wrote in 1894, “Nobody thought of expecting the publisher to throw in a fine suit of clothes with the book,” he was commenting on the early years of what was to be the golden age of American book cover design.  The period from 1880-1920 saw the rise and decline in the use of artist/designers, and the astonishing results they could achieve with colored cloth, a few colors of ink, gold and silver, and a canvas the size of a book cover.  The Charles Adams American Trade Binding Collection at the University Libraries has a large selection of bindings concentrating on this period and particularly its zenith, from 1890-1910. To celebrate its collection and to accompany the new exhibit entitled "A Fine Suit of Clothes: American Publishers' Bindings, 1880-1920: A Progressive Exhibition,"   the University Libraries are sponsoring a pre...

When native Georgian Kathryn Stripling Byer came to UNCG to embark on her MFA in Creative Writing, she recalls being somewhat anxious in the presence of those who became her teachers, and her father was somewhat suspicious of his daughter going so far away. Byer is now a poet deeply rooted in North Carolina, having adopted the state as her home years ago.   On April 10 at 4 p.m. in the Hodges Reading Room on the second floor of Jackson Library, she will return to UNCG as one of the luminaries of American poetry to discuss and read from her new book Descent .  The event is free and open to the public. Of UNCG, Byer said upon her recent induction into the NC Literary Hall of Fame, “I realized I was where I needed to be, surrounded by mentors like Robert Watson, Fred Chappell, and the venerable Allan Tate, not to mention the young writers who became my friends.  William Pitt Root, Bertha Harris, Patricia Peters, Lawrence Judson Reynolds, Kelly Cherry, to name a few...