Friends of the UNCG Libraries

"North Carolina’s Oldest Roads" will be presented by Tom Magnuson, founder and president of the Trading Path Association on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 4 p.m. in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room on the 2nd floor of Jackson Library at UNC Greensboro. This presentation is made possible in part by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room at UNCG’s Jackson Library displays two early and historic maps of North Carolina, the Collet map of 1770 and the Mouzon map of 1775. These maps indicate the presence of the Trading Path from the Eno River near present-day Durham to the Yadkin River west of present-day Winston-Salem. Tom Magnuson, president of the Trading Path Association, has spent much time mapping and documenting the course of the Trading Path from its historical remains in the landscape of the Piedmont. He will discuss colonial and ea...

For the second year, the University Libraries are collaborating with the Art Department to host an exhibit of student art in the Reading Room on the first floor of Jackson Library. UNCG Art Department students collaborated on this installation that explores the history of the university. While enrolled in the courses of Design II (taught by Bryan Ellis), Alternative Photographic Process (taught by Leah Sobsey) and Books and Images (taught by Belinda Haikes), the students delved into the materials housed in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives. By incorporating photographs, historical objects, letters, documents and oral history, the students’ art re-imagines the history of the campus and connects it to the present day. The artwork pictured here is entitled "To Lula, from Charles," by student Bennie Robinson. Robinson, using an alternative photographic process, captured the deathmask of Charles McIver, founder of what is now UNCG, and overlai...

Perhaps one of the most devastating aspects of the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti is that for well over a century, cholera is a disease that has been understood by scientists, a disease that can be managed, and a disease that can be cured. And yet, as of December 6, 2010, over 91,000 Haitians have been sickened and more than 2,000 people have died. When we selected The Ghost Map as our January 24, 2011 Friends of the Library Book Discussion read, we did not anticipate that this book, which traces the beginning of scientific knowledge about cholera in the wake of the 1854 London epidemic, would be so relevant. Professors Rob and Janne Cannon will discuss the book with us at 7 pm on Monday, January 24 in the Hodges Reading Room . To learn more about the book and about how cholera spreads, please visit the book's website . The short video on the website provides a good introduction to this distressing subject. Professor Janne Cannon also suggests the following websites for those ...

November 15-December 22, 2010, Monday-Friday, 8-5 p.m.: “Bound to Please: The Custom Bookbindings of Don Etherington & Monique Lallier.” Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room, Jackson Library, 2nd Floor. The exhibit opens with a talk by the bookbinders at 4 p.m. on Monday November 15. Don Etherington and Monique Lallier are two of the world’s most respected and honored bookbinders. Born in England and Montreal, respectively, they have undertaken projects for clients around the globe, and they have spent much of their careers teaching others the art and craft of what they do. They now live in Summerfield, a short drive from the UNCG campus, where Don’s reference library and papers are in the Special Collections of the University’s Library. From November 15 through December 22, some of their custom bindings will be on display in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room on the second floor of UNCG’s Jackson Library. On opening day, Monday, November 15, at 4 p.m. they will talk about t...

Barchester Towers , by Anthony Trollope, is a classic Victorian novel and well worth reading and re-reading, but at nearly 500 pages, it takes some time. Whether you finish the tome or not, we hope you join us on Monday, December 6 at 4 pm in the Hodges Reading Room of Jackson Library , when we discuss the book with Dr. Hephzibah Roskelly. In the meantime, check out the website devoted to all things Trollope. Here you will find fun facts about Trollope (did you know he was a senior civil servant in the post office?) and learn how he managed to write forty-seven novels, many of which are still in print. His secret? He paid a servant an additional five pounds a year to wake him up with a cup of coffee so that he could write between 5 and 8 am each day. The website also includes many quotes from Trollope on all aspects of relationships and politics. I will leave you with one from Barchester Towers : "Consolation from the world's deceit is very common. Mothers obtain it from thei...

While the pirate in the popular imagination tends to look like Johnny Depp and inhabit rowdy port cities in the Caribbean, pirates have pillaged and plundered from ancient times to the present day in all corners of the world. Join the History Club and the Friends of the UNCG Libraries in the EUC Auditorium at 7pm on Thursday, October 28th, as we host a panel designed to extend our understanding of pirates and their impact on law, society, and culture. Four experts from UNCG will discuss the pirates they have encountered in their very different fields of study. Dr. Omar Ali , African American Studies, will talk about a 14th Century Morrocan explorer who was beset by pirates off the coast of Sri Lanka and lived to tell the tale. Dr. James Anderson , History, will examine the intersection between smuggling, piracy and patriotism in the career of the Sino-Japanese pirate and Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (1624-1662). Jason Cooke, a doctoral candidate in English, will look at the intersect...