George A. Smathers Libraries showcase testimonies to the Holocaust
Testimony Exhibition
Open April 1 through June 14, 2013
Smathers Library (East) Gallery, 2nd floor
Hours: Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., unless otherwise specified and with occasional exceptions for maintenance.
Gallery Talk:
Thursday April 4, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Smathers Library Gallery, 2nd Floor
Join Curator Rebecca Jefferson as she discusses Testimony.
Testimony documents the impact of the Holocaust on the victims and survivors, and it gives voice to the immense aftershock felt by subsequent generations. The exhibition is inspired by recent donations to the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica. Testimony showcases primary sources that bear undeniable witness to the Holocaust. The exhibition will highlight previously unseen letters from members of the Stirt family sent from the Kovno Ghetto before they were murdered by the Nazis at Ninth Fort, as well as the papers and unpublished autobiography of the late Emanuel Merdinger, a concentration camp survivor and former Professor at the University of Florida.
Testimony also features photographic evidence of the concentration camps taken by Colonel Mitchell of the U.S. Signal Corps in 1945, together with photographs distributed to soldiers as part of General Eisenhower’s news campaign. Newspapers, pamphlets and monographs published right at the end of the Second World War, testifying to the atrocities, are shown along with memoirs and memorials produced by survivors and dispersed communities in the decades following.
Artistic responses to the Holocaust by Florida based artists, Kenneth Treister and David Crown, serve as testimony to the ways in which this unspeakable crime affected those who lived through the era.
Testimony is curated by Rebecca Jefferson, Head of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica.
All exhibitions are open to the public and free of charge.
Prelude Exhibition:
The Gathering Storm: Jewish Life in Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s
http://exhibits.uflib.ufl.edu/gatheringstorm
Only available online, The Gathering Storm features items produced by or pertaining to European Jewry before the advent of WWII. Curated by Rebecca Jefferson and designed by Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler
National Agricultural Library: A vision for preservation and accessibility of agricultural data
A talk by Dr. Simon Liu, director of the National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD
Wednesday, April 10, 3:00 p.m., Smathers Library (East) Room 1A
This talk is part of the University of Florida 150th celebration of the First Morrill Act and also the Data Management/Curation Speaker Series
Agro-ecosystem research is evolving rapidly and moving toward a more open, interdisciplinary, inter-connected and data-intensive science. This field will continue to collect huge volumes of heterogeneous data across a wide range of disciplines by individuals or research teams from around the globe. Such data, produced at great effort and expense, are only as useful as researchers’ ability to locate, access, integrate and use them.
Data is the fundamental currency of modern agro-ecosystem research. Developing a comprehensive data management framework to enable the storage, exchange, integration, analysis, visualization and discovery of massive amounts of heterogeneous data is central to future agro-ecosystem research. When data produced or published are managed with a high standard and made accessible, researchers will be able to process massive and complex data much more quickly and garner insight about the areas of their interest rapidly through software tools. Experiments will be designed with more insight which will multiple the value of past, current and future research.
In this session, Dr. Liu will first highlight the challenges and importance of effective agro-ecosystem data management. He will then discuss a data management framework which outlines approaches, practices and tools for managing voluminous amounts of data across disciplines and scales of space, time and other variables. Lastly, he will discuss the public access policy issued on February 22, 2013 by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy.
Prior to joining the National Agricultural Library, Dr. Liu was an Associate Director and Director of Information Systems at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the Acting Director of Information Management and Security at the Department of Justice, the Chief Information System Architect at the Treasury Department and a program manager in the private sector.
Free and open to the public.
Image on home page from the University of Florida Herbarium Digital Imaging Project, A collaborative project with the UF / Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, United States Department of Agriculture (Hatch Project FLAS-HRB-04170), UF Libraries Digital Library Center, Florida Center for Library Automation and the Florida Museum Associates.
What’s new at the Architecture & Fine Arts Library? Music!
Join us from 9:00-11:00 a.m. on Friday, March 29 to check out the new library venue for music collections and to meet Alan Asher, the new music librarian. Coffee and pastries will be served on the FAA/FAC Bridge, just outside AFA Library’s south entrance.
Telling Science Fiction in the 21st Century
Tuesday, March 26, 7:00 p.m.
Smathers Library (East), Room 1A
Science Fiction scholar and historian John Clute, author of several hundred articles, reviews, and book chapters on sf, and author or editor of more than twenty critical collections, reference works, and anthologies in the field (including the landmark Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, now in its third edition) will speak on the future of sf in a multilingual world. His lecture is co-sponsored by the UF Departments of English and History, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, and the George A. Smathers Libraries. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Terry Harpold.
Do you like to read or eat BOOKS?
Join the Smathers Libraries for the 11th annual ReadFest on April 9 & 10 and the 7th annual Edible Book Contest on April 11, as a kickoff to National Library Week.
Share an excerpt from a favorite book and/or listen to others read; read to children or help with crafts; or enter the Edible Book Contest.
Photos and all signups are at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/readfest
Children’s ReadFest
Tuesday, April 9, 10:00 am-noon on the Plaza of the Americas
Volunteer to read to young children or help with crafts
ReadFest for students, faculty, staff & community
Wednesday, April 10, 11:00 am-2:00 pm under the canopy on the Plaza of the Americas
Like reading for pleasure? Sign up to share a 10-minute excerpt from a favorite book, short story, etc., to listeners. ReadFest is a lively, casual, fast-paced celebration of reading. Whether you want to read or not, stop by to listen.
Edible Book Contest
Thursday, April 11 on the Library West walkway; view entries 11:00 am-noon; winners announced @ 12:15. Enter an edible book and you may win one of five categories: best children’s book, best non-cake entry, best non-fiction, best pun and best overall. The Best Overall winner will be voted on by the public and four others by a panel of judges. Prizes and trophies awarded to all winners! Last year’s entries.
The ReadFest is co-sponsored by:
University Press of Florida
Publix
Firehouse Subs
Burrito Bros. Taco Co.
Red Onion Neighborhood Grill
Children's ReadFest
ReadFestEdible Book Contest
Trading on Identity: Jewish Merchants in the Medieval Islamic World
A talk by Jessica Goldberg (University of Pennsylvania)
Monday, March 18, 2013 — 6:00-7:00 p.m.
Smathers Library (East), Room 1A
Professor Goldberg’s research focuses on the history of merchants in the Islamic and Italian eastern Mediterranean of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Her recent research interests have led her to study the practical minutiae of how business, manufacturing, and trade worked; and ideas and practices of both religious and secular law; merchants’ ideas of region, regional identity and market spaces. She has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Stanford Humanities Fellows Program, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and she was a 2012 Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. Goldberg’s book, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Busines World, was recently published by Cambridge University Press.
· Made possible by the Bruce I. Greenberg Endowment in Jewish Studies and co-sponsored by The Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica.
· See the postcard http://www.jst.ufl.edu/images/goldberg_postcard.jpg for this event
· For more information please contact Rutecleia Zarin at The Center for Jewish Studies: rpz@ufl.edu<mailto:rpz@ufl.edu
Free and open to the public.
Collaborating with Strangers on Books and Objects of Study
WHEN: Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Smathers Library (East), Room1A
WHO: Open to all UF grad & undergrad students, post-docs, faculty, staff & administrators
Refreshments will be served.
To register go to http://apps.uflib.ufl.edu/Registration/ and click on Schedule then Collaborating with Strangers and Register. Space is limited.
Collaborating with Strangers website: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/communications/colab/home.html
Hey Stranger,
Looking for a way to combine forces with others on campus interested in the study of books, manuscripts, illustration and design, archives and special collections of all types? Are you engrossed in the details of what can be learned from primary sources? Do you love working with books and other objects of study, such as archives — which record decisions, actions and memories that can be passed on from one generation to another?
Collaborating with Strangers workshops connect students, faculty and researchers on campus during 3-minute speed-meetings. You’ll walk away with more resources, solutions and creative ideas than you ever imagined!
As an added bonus activity, you will have the opportunity to make a group book together with all workshop participants. Ellen Knudson, book artist and designer who produces handmade books will lead this activity. Your take-away group book will help you get to know more about viewpoints and values of other participants. (See photos at the end.)
According to Louis Pasteur, “Chance favors only the prepared mind…” So prepare yourself for a future full of creative possibilities. Regardless of your field of study, your research and projects can benefit greatly by knowing more people working in other disciplines. It might otherwise take you years to meet the 15 people you’ll connect with during one-on-one conversations at the next Collaborating with Strangers Workshop.
Results from over 200 participants attending last year’s Stangers’ workshops at UF:
90.6% indicated they would attend another CoLAB workshop and 96.4% indicated they would recommend the workshop to another student or faculty member.
What people said about Collaborating with Strangers…
“I made contacts (with) people who are from particular places I am interested in and who possess skills that will be useful for future projects. Journalism, video tutorials, Columbia and Iran.”
“I met people from different disciplines, and some of them provided me with useful information in my area, such as useful websites and related people they know.”
“…On a larger scale, it’s easy to see how an exercise such as this can help facilitate communication and generate interest across disciplinary lines.”
CoLAB Planning Series® was invented in 2002 by Bess de Farber, certified professional facilitator and the UF Libraries’ grants manager. CoLAB processes used in Collaborating with Strangers workshops have served over 1,400 participants at libraries, universities, United Ways and Community Foundations throughout Florida, Arizona and Maryland.
For more information, contact lib-CoLAB@uflib.ufl.edu
Sponsored by the Creative Campus Committee Catalyst Fund and the George A. Smathers Libraries.
Co-sponsored by I-Cubed, College of Engineering, College of Fine Arts, Honors Program, the UF Graduate School, Florida Opportunities Scholars Program and Women in Science and Engineering.
Making Artist Book
New online exhibition presents documents of Jewish life in the period immediately before the Second World War
The George A. Smathers Libraries have released a new online only exhibition entitled The Gathering Storm: Jewish Life in Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s. The exhibition features rarely seen items produced by European Jewry before the advent of the Second World War. While the subject of Jewish experience during the war has been widely explored, life for Jewish people in the period immediately before the war is less well known (partly due to the scarcity of available material).
The exhibition showcases 20 items held in the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, relating to the idea of a “Gathering Storm” for European Jewry. These publications originate from some of the major centers of Jewish life before the Second World War, such as Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Rare German and Yiddish newspapers and periodicals, as well as ephemeral publications such as calendars, yearbooks and other communally inspired commemorative works illustrate the deteriorating conditions for Eastern European Jews before the war.
Included in The Gathering Storm is a rare and interesting document which bears witness to its survival of the Nazi destruction of Jewish books. Aus Vergilbten Akten (of yellowed documents) was written in 1931. The Library’s copy of this work features a stamp on the front cover which reads “Offenbach Archival Depot.” At the end of the war, millions of looted books were uncovered by the Allies. The books were carefully sorted at the Offenbach Archival Depot by the U.S. book restitution task force and returned to their country of origin. The remaining items that could not be identified were found a home in centers of Judaism and Jewish learning throughout the United States and Israel. The Price Library’s copy of Aus Vergilbten Akten was among these, and today it is one of just three copies known to be held in libraries around the world.
The selected materials form part of a much larger collection of un-cataloged items held in the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica. This larger collection comprising scarce publications from the 20th century consists of approximately 500 pieces.
Curated by Rebecca Jefferson and designed by Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler, The Gathering Storm is a prelude to the upcoming exhibition Testimony (April 2 – June 14, 2013 in the Smathers Library Gallery) featuring primary sources relating to the Holocaust.
Exhibition available online at http://exhibits.uflib.ufl.edu/gatheringstorm
Source: Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler, (352) 273-2564, l.s.wheeler@ufl.edu
Joel Buchanan receives Meritorious Service Award
Joseph M. (Joel) Buchanan was presented the University of Florida Meritorious Service Award for dedicated service to the George A. Smathers Libraries from 1985-1994 and 2004-2010. Dean of University Libraries Judith Russell presented the framed certificate on Sunday, February 10, 2013, at the 75th celebration of the Visionaires, held in Smathers Library. Buchanan was an honored guest at the celebration of Gainesville’s first formal organization for African-American women.
The certificate was signed by University of Florida President J. Bernard Machen, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Joseph Glover and Vice President for Human Resource Services Paula V. Fussell.
FDR and the Holocaust: A talk by Richard Breitman
Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.
Smathers Library Grand Reading Room (2nd floor)
Richard Breitman, American University, is the author of The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution, Official Secrets: What the Germans Planned, What the British and Americans Knew and American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945.
Made possible by the Norman and Irma Braman Chair for Holocaust Studies and The Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at the George A. Smathers Libraries
Free and open to the public.
The talk is a prelude to the exhibit Testimony in Smathers Library’s 2nd floor gallery from April 2-June 14, 2013.
Inspired by recent donations to the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, Testimony showcases primary sources that bear undeniable witness to the fact of the Holocaust. Featuring the last letters from victims of the Nazi terror before they were murdered, the papers and autobiography of a concentration camp survivor, photographic evidence of the camps taken by the U.S. Signal Corps in 1945, newspapers published during the Second World War, memoirs produced by survivors and dispersed communities in the decades following, as well as unique responses to the Holocaust manifested in later works of art. Testimony documents the impact of the Holocaust on the victims and survivors, and it gives voice to the immense aftershock felt by subsequent generations.
Curated by Rebecca Jefferson, who will present a gallery talk highlighting items in the exhibit, on Thursday, April 4, 3013 from 6:00-7:00 p.m. in the gallery.
RELATED EVENT:
The ACCENT Speaker’s Bureau and Jewish Awareness Month at the University of Florida will bring Nobel Prize winner and writer Elie Wiesel to campus on March 12.
Wiesel, who was taken to Auschwitz by the Nazis during World War II at the age of 15, retells his Holocaust story in his internationally acclaimed memoir “Night.”
Using his experiences as a foundation, Wiesel has become an internationally known advocate for Israel and an advocate for other persecuted groups, including the Kurds and victims of genocide in Africa. President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel as the chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, and he later became the founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Author of more than 50 books, including “A Beggar in Jerusalem,” Wiesel has received various awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and, the most prestigious of all, the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Wiesel will be talking telling UF students about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, his Jewish identity and his writing career.
The program starts at 8 p.m. at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Doors open at 7 p.m., and admission is free and open to the public. Photography will not be allowed during the program, but press may record and photograph during the first five minutes of the remarks.