The digital version of the fall 2023 edition of Ex Libris is now available. This issue covers several exciting developments, initiatives and acquisitions that occurred over the 2022-2023 academic year.
Let’s begin by saying WVU Libraries librarians and staff are
proud of what they accomplished this past year. It is especially gratifying
when your hard work garners the attention and support of the National Endowment
for the Humanities, who awarded two grants to WVU Libraries.
Take some time to read about the West Virginia and
Regional History Center receiving a $162,155 NEH grant – its sixth from the agency
– to continue digitizing newspapers published in West Virginia from 1791 to
1927.
The award is part of the National
Digital Newspaper Program, a collaboration between the NEH and the Library of Congress to enlist libraries
and institutions from around the country to create a digital database of
historical U.S. newspapers. This grant brings the NEH’s total funding of the
WVRHC’s efforts to $1,293,568.29.
The second NEH grant – nearly $350,000 – went to WVRHC’s
effort to expand the American
Congress Digital Archives Portal, the first-ever online portal bringing
together congressional archives from repositories throughout the United States.
In 2021, the NEH awarded WVU Libraries the initial grant to launch the project
and create the portal.
WVU Libraries also focused on a major and positive change –
in fall 2022, the WVU Humanities Center moved under the umbrella of the
Libraries. Center Director Renee Nicholson has brought a great deal of expertise
for collaborating across campus to the Libraries. Highlights for their
inaugural year included “From WV to NY: Hip-Hop Geography,” a panel discussion
around hip-hop, Black culture and place, that featured hip-hop artist Deep
Jackson and novelist Steven Dunn, both West Virginia natives; an event to honor
Marc Harshman on his 10th anniversary as West Virginia’s Poet
Laureate; and a program for author and WVU alumna Valerie Neiman.
Also in the spring, the campus
and Morgantown community filled the Downtown Library’s Robinson Reading Room to
celebrate Kittie Blakemore, WVU’s first women’s basketball coach and Title IX
champion. Blakemore was the subject of WVU Libraries’ second painting in the
Inclusive Portrait Project series.
Her portrait is an inspiration for current and future
students, and her papers reside in the West Virginia and Regional History
Center for future researchers to discover how her accomplishments affected
women’s sports.
Celebrations continued this summer when several groups came
together cut the ribbon on the Rahall Congressional Archives House at the WVU
Institute of Technology in Beckley. Former West Virginia Congressman Nick Joe
Rahall II donated his papers to WVU Libraries and the WVRHC in 2015. These
materials are important to future generations to understand how Congress and
our democratic system work.