Libraries.iub.edu News

Dean Patricia Steele To Depart

Patricia Steele today announced her intention to leave Indiana University to become dean of university libraries at the University of Maryland. She begins her new position on Sept. 1.

Steele, who has served IU as the Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries since 2005, is widely admired for her leadership and vision and for moving libraries forward at a time when they are extending their mission to meet the demands of the digital age.

Recognized for positioning the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries to anticipate emergent priorities, Dean Steele has been particularly successful in building partnerships to support the research and learning needs of the of the academic community. Working with University Information Technology Services and other campus departments, she has grown IUScholarWorks to foster the dissemination of scholarship and has developed plans for a Research Commons to meet the changing expectations of faculty and graduate students.

Representing the university in the national library community, Dean Steele currently serves on the team to renegotiate an agreement between Google and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which first entered into a partnership in 2007. She is a co-founder and executive committee member of HathiTrust, a shared digital library of the nation’s leading research libraries.

Her association with the IU Libraries spans many decades, beginning in the early 1960s when she was a student assistant in the Biology Library. “I have had the joy of being part of one of the most exciting libraries in the country at one of the premier universities,” she wrote to her colleagues. “The friendships and the working relationships I have enjoyed will be part of my life always. Any successes I have had can be attributed to the library team as a whole and to our many partnerships.”

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Celebrate the Fourth

Learn more about the United States' struggle for independence by viewing important documents at the IU Libraries.

An online exhibition features American history documents housed at the Lilly Library. As the university's library for rare books and manuscripts, the Lilly Library contains one of 21 remaining copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the original letter from George Washington accepting the presidency of the United States.

IU Bloomington has served as a Federal Depository Library since 1881, receiving publications from the U.S. government to make them broadly available to the nation's citizens.

Any Indiana citizen may check out materials from the university's libraries. Rare historic documents do not circulate, but citizens may request and view them in the library.

For more information about researching government information, visit Government Information and Kent Cooper Services on the Web.

Hoosier Cartoons On Display

From fat-cat Garfield to the homespun humor of Brown County's Abe Martin, the creations of Hoosier cartoonists are highlighted in a colorful traveling exhibit prepared by and on loan from the Indiana Historical Society.

The freestanding exhibit is display through August 3 in the Herman B Wells Library (East Tower, first floor).

From the comic page to the editorial page, Indiana artists have entertained and informed, thanks to syndication, millions of newspaper subscribers across the country.The exhibit also explores comic strips such as "Chic" Jackson's "Roger Bean," which featured the lives of a typical Hoosier family, and the editorial musings of Pulitzer Prize-winning artist John T. McCutcheon, a fierce opponent of America's entry into World War II.

Visitors may view the exhibition any time the East Tower is open. See hours.

Are We There Yet?

To kick off the summer traveling season, the Lilly Library opens an exhibition today featuring collections relating to early automobiles and motor cars. Are We There Yet? The Age of the Automobile showcases vintage catalogs, books, and materials featuring topics ranging from luxury roadsters to the first Indianapolis 500.

The exhibition opens Tuesday, May 26, and runs through September 5.

Lavish catalogs aimed at Gatsby-like customers come from the collection of Thomas T. Solley. Solley was director of the Indiana University Art Museum from 1971 to 1986 and a grand-nephew of J. K. Lilly, Jr., early benefactor of the library that bears his family name.

Solley’s collection shows how luxury-car catalogs blossomed as an art form at the turn of the twentieth century. Faced with growing competition to sell automobiles, manufacturers introduced lithography, photo-mechanical reproduction, and special leather-tooled bindings to lure prospective buyers.

“The automobile is such a part of our national identity,” says Becky Cape, head of public services at the Lilly Library, “and yet the industry is in crisis. It’s especially interesting to revisit auto history not only in Indiana but also around the world.”

In the early twentieth century, Cape says, Indiana was at the center of the automobile industry, rivaling Michigan as the country’s automobile manufacturing giant. In all, more than 250 makes of cars were produced in more than 40 Indiana cities and towns.

Although the Great Depression brought the downfall of most Hoosier automakers, Indiana’s automobile legacy continues through one of the best-known auto races, the Indianapolis 500, first run in 1911.

Some of Cape’s favorite parts of the exhibition describe how women influenced the industry and the market. Electricity powered some of the earliest cars, Cape says, and women were encouraged to drive them because they were slower and cleaner.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the famed French auto-maker Peugeot manufactured crinoline dresses, which required steel rods, before producing umbrella frames, wire wheels, bicycles, and finally, cars.

The exhibition was curated by Madeleine Thompson assisted by Cape.

The Lilly Library is Indiana University's library for rare books and special collections and one of the 18 libraries of the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries. It is located on Seventh Street south of Showalter Fountain on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. Hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00-6:00, and Saturday, 9:00-1:00. For more information call (812) 855-2452. Free and open to the public.