December 2000

Message from the Chair

You are all aware how the Friends of Library & Gallery fill the gaps in curriculum to give

a liberal education and culture experience to our students. So many things are happening

 everyday that it makes me wonder how our world will change before our freshmen can

 even graduate. The library's needs are great but our Executive Council is working with

the needs of the library organizing lectures and exhibitions for our students while our

Accessions committee searches for original material that makes the connection with the

past. As we go digital we also need to remember what that connection to the original is all

 about. To touch a book or photograph or other artifact is important, for that experience helps makes the digital record real.

I also am asking our faculty to remember us in supporting the Library and its "Friends" in serving our students. If your published

works are not available in the library we would welcome them. If your creative work of any kind is not here we would want you to

consider a gift to the Special Collections or Library Media so our Library can make your work available. We want faculty, who have

given many years teaching and doing creative work, not to disappear when you leave UMBC. We want part of you to stay and be an

inspiration for students yet to come.

There was an old joke that universities were centers of knowledge because every freshman comes to the school with a little knowledge

and the seniors leave without any. I would like to believe that our students take much and will someday return to help us to grow to

keep up with the flood of knowledge that is surrounding us. UMBC is growing and yet in so many ways we need to grow even bigger

and better.  We need all of you to keep us focused on the future without forgetting the past.

Jaromir Stephany

Chair, Friends Council

Library hours are posted at http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/hours/

Special Thanks

We want to thank the Friends who participated in the recent tour of the A.O.K Library & Gallery. “The tour was informative and pleasing,” says Dr. Gloria Oden. She also stated that this peek into the way the library operates showed the participants that the operation functions with smooth certainty; she feels that everyone present found this reassuring. Larry Wilt, Jessame Ferguson, Joyce Tenney, Robin Moskal and several other administrators shepherded the small delegation through the library. A special presentation of the electronic sources available was given by Uta Hussong, Science Librarian.

THE BUNTING FAMILY ENDOWMENT

Endowments are a vital force for the Special Collections, because they provide resources for acquiring materials where otherwise there would be none. Acquisition of a few recently published photography books are all that is covered by the Library materials budget, and inflation claims more and more of that amount each year. Fortunately several endowments, such as the Bunting Family Endowment, ameliorate the situation by providing support for targeted collections.

The Bunting Family Endowment was the first such support for the Special Collections. Income from the first two years was combined to acquire a small portfolio of images by African-American photographer Roland Freeman. An artist and visual anthropologist, Freeman’s color photographs of Southern quilters preserves something of the lives and works of people otherwise invisible.

In the third year, the Endowment enabled us to move the archive of Richard Jaquish from Lubbock, Texas to UMBC. Jaquish lived and worked in Baltimore for most of his career, but heart disease brought him down soon after retiring to Lubbock. His photographs, books, and audio recordings of famous image makers are a rich resource for researchers. In the fourth year, we acquired a small portfolio of images by Irving Phillips, Sr. whose career was spent working for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper. Phillips photographed prominent people in Baltimore and showed the social changes in the community. In the last two years, very rare photographic books by Brassai and Robert Frank have been acquired. A fine copy of Brassai’s Paris de Nuit, a classic about the nightlife of Paris, was acquired in 2003, and, in 2004, Robert Frank’s little-known volume New York Is, published in a small edition by the New York Times, joined the holdings. The rarity of both of these books will soon push their prices beyond our reach. We are grateful to have the resources to acquire them now.

Other endowments supporting the Special Collections include the Martin and Rita Seplowitz Saltz Endowment (science fiction), (the Richard and Alwilda Scholler Jaquish Endowment), (Jaquish Archive of photographic materials), and the Joseph L. Arnold Endowment (Maryland holdings). Whole sections of the Special Collections, such as the rare book collection, do not yet have endowment or other support. Of course, we are also grateful to the Friends of the Library & Gallery for their generous support of the Special Collections.

Tom Beck

Chief Curator

Friends Are Important!

Would You Like to Be a Friend?

Friends of the Kuhn Library & Gallery is a nonprofit, volunteer group dedicated to the support and advancement of the Library. If you wish to become a friend of the Library & Gallery, see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/admin/friends/index.php

Checks are payable to UMBC Foundation. Send to

Dr. Larry Wilt, Director
Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, Maryland 21250
If you know others we should ask to join the Friends, or if you'd like to be a volunteer in the Library & Gallery, please call us at 410-455-2356 or send E-mail to wilt@umbc.edu

For More Information about Our Library Visit our page at

http:www.umbc.edu/library

Editorial Staff

President of Friends: Jerry Stephany

Contributors: Tom Beck

Program Chair Robert Burchard

Acquisitions Chair Elisabeth Kiersarsky

Editor, Simmona E. Simmons-Hodo

Daffodils with Astronomical Chart

Artist Charles Ritchie

Check out our recent exhibits at http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/gallery/#anchor41025

Special Editions