Women in History

Women’s History Month

March 2012

“During Women’s History Month, we recall that the pioneering legacy of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers is revealed not only in our museums and history books, but also in the fierce determination and limitless potentials of our daughters and grandmothers.  As we make headway on the crucial issues of our time, let the courageous vision championed by women of past generations inspire us to defend the dreams and opportunities of those to come.”

Presidential Proclamation -- Womens History Month, 2012. Lanham: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc, 2012. OxResearch; ProQuest Central. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.

Head over to the Proquest Database for the  complete text: Women's History Month 2012 

Visit the library to scan a display of current titles that document the history of women in America.

Hunting for Digital Books, the 24/7 Library Collection

In addition to direct eBrary access, many of the digital ebooks in the eBrary database can also be found through the library catalog. Once a title is located in the catalog as an electronic resource, click on the blue title bar and on the next screen locate the link for NHTI. Select the link and you will be taken directly to eBrary and the full text book.  

The following link to the eBrary Quick Start Guide will explain the many features available.

http://www.ebrary.com/corp/collateral/en/Quick_Guides/Quick_Guide.pdf

Book Review - Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored

Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored

Tom Lubbock (2011)

ND1143.L933 2011

“How does the flatness of Mickey Mouse's ears illuminate the 'non-specific bodies' of Klimt's Water Nymphs? Why was Vuillard's genius confined to the decade when he worked at home? What was it that made Ingres such an exciting weirdo? …Here are 50 great essays on paintings by Tom Lubbock, first published in the passionately argued and much-loved 'Great Works' series he wrote weekly for the UK’s Independent. Always inventive and authoritative, each piece is devoted to a single painting. This is a book of surprises: Giotto's Vices as 'studies in self-destruction'; Hitchcock's lighting tricks on Suspicion compared to the luminosity of a Zurbaran still life; how the figure in Gwen John's Girl in a Blue Dress 'withdraws from life, fading into its surface, pressed like a flower'; Gericault's Study of Truncated Limbs, as 'a good painting, simply, of sex'.

Collecting his best writing together for the first time Tom Lubbock explores his thinking about art with great intelligence and humour. Spanning 800 years of western art, this book is simply the cleverest, funniest, most moving and most original art book you are likely to see.” From the Inside Flap – Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored

If Art (with a capital “A”) challenges us, among other things, to see our world and ourselves differently, then the late Tom Lubbock, critic, reviewer, essayist and winner of the Hawthornden Prize for Art Criticism, challenges – no, shakes – us to look at the art and the standard criticism (and our relationship to accepted criticism) again in ways that perhaps might just bring a smile to a semiologist.

In his obituary, which appeared in the UK’s The Guardian of January 10, 2011, it was said of him that “…apart from his keen eye and his wide range of reference, Tom's virtues included bracing clarity (he never used art-speak or any other kind of higher waffle), utter honesty (he was never intimidated by reputations), and originality (even if you thought you knew his tastes, he could surprise you). He could also be howlingly funny. His essay about conceptual art, based on various things you might do with a toaster, should be mounted in every modern art gallery as a contribution to public sanity.” What survives Tom are the "…exquisitely crafted ‘pieces’ addressing the world in many different registers – sardonic, caustic, erudite and celebratory, with instinct, intelligence and wit".

Lubbock’s challenge, as it were, is both simultaneously all the more pronounced and retreating as we see old art as new and are, consequently, more directly part of the art. His insights lead us to acknowledge the art differently putting us in touch, perhaps not comfortably, with our humanity. Lubbock’s thoughts on Vermeer’s View of Delft or Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Lark are but two examples in the collection that cause us to see these works with fresh insight and, in his own way, gives us permission to ask and face the most basic questions of living and dying.  How to properly read a painting – abstract to representational – is the legacy and gift of a man too soon gone. 

Art and Crime

Experts consider art crime as the little known but lucrative side of the art business but it is also the third highest-grossing annual criminal trade in the world. Museum theft, forgery, the illegal sale of artifacts and wartime looting comprise this fascinating part of the art business.  Perhaps you remember the theft of paintings from the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1999; it remains a mystery today because the paintings have not been discovered or returned.  Here are books and database links, from the NHTI Library, about these true art crime stories:

Baser, Ulrich. The Gardner Heist: the True Story of the World’s Largest Unsolved Art Theft. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. N8795.3 .M4 B67 2009

An account of the March 18, 1999 break in and robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that became the largest art heist in history; it remains unsolved to this day.

Newspapers covered the 20^th anniversary of the robbery in the following articles:

Maria, Puente.  “Thieves' frames a theft masterpiece." USA Today , 12 Mar., 2010 Newspaper Source. Web. 14 February 2012.

Another theory about what happened to the stolen paintings.

https://ezproxy.nhti.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=nfh&AN=J0E071056786510&site=ehost-live

"'Hey, I've seen that painting!'." Irish Times 20 Mar. 2010: Newspaper Source. Web. 14 Feb. 2012.

Around the 20^th anniversary of the $500 million heist the FBI used billboards in Boston to remind people of the thefts.

https://ezproxy.nhti.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=nfh&AN=9FY3388772193&site=ehost-live

Amore, Anthony M. and Tom Mashberg. Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Story of Notorious Art Heists.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. N8795 .A46 2011

The masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn are the most frequently stolen art in the world.  Amore, an art security expert, and investigative reporter, Mashberg, reveal the players behind the major Rembrandt thefts in the last century but are unable to explain the heist of 3 Rembrandts and a Vermeer from the Gardner Museum, Boston.

Charney, Noah, ed. Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. 2009.  N8795 .A78 2009

Charney, an art historian by training, compiled this collection of essays about art theft and security ranging from vandalism to art napping to explain the criminal side of the art world.   Art crime receives little attention but funds other enterprises such as the drug trade.  Charney founded a think tank and consultant group, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.  

Dolnick, Edward. The Rescue Artist: a True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece. New York: Harper Perennial. 2006.  N8795 .D65 2005

An Edgar Award winner for best factual crime book, Dolnick retells the story of the theft of Edward Munch’s The Scream from the National Gallery. Thieves placed a ladder against the wall of the National Gallery in Oslo and in one minute a painting valued at $72 million was gone.  

New DVDs

Birds, Birds Birds! An Indoor Birdwatching Field Trip  DVD QL682 .B57 2005

Boardwalk Empire – First Season  DVD PN1992.77 .B6373 2011

Get Low: A True Tall Tale   DVD PN1997.2 .G485 G485 2011

Guitar Aerobics: Intermediate  DVD MT580 .G85 2005

Moneyball  DVD PN 1997.2 .M654 2012

People Against O’Hara  DVD 1997 .P467 2011

Piranha DVD PN1997 .P57 2010

Princess Mononoke DVD PN1997.5 .M65 M65 1999

Rango  DVD PN1997.2 .R3646 2011

The Social Network  DVD HM742 .M49 2010

Steambath  DVD PN1997 .S74363384 2002

A Tale of Two Cities: The Circuit City Story  DVD HF1008 .T35 2011

Teacher's Pet   DVD PN1995.9 .C55 T43 2005

The Tillman Story  DVD GV939 .T49 T55 2011

Tomorrow  DVD PN1997 .T656 T656 2004

Una Mejor Vida (A Better Life)  DVD PN1997.2 .B4875 B4875 2011 

New Quick Search Feature

Visit the NHTI Library home page to use the newest search feature, Quick Search.  

Notice that the library has updated the home page to include a single search box, that offers the user Boolean searching capability, and links to the library catalog,  E journals and over 75 databases. Here is an easy, yet powerful way to access the library’s holdings and databases from a single search box. 

To use this feature effectively, combine your keyword(s) with a Boolean operator as shown below:

AND to narrow the search, make the results smaller, more specific

            Ex. poverty and crime; jazz and blues

OR to expand the search, search for similar terms

Ex. capital punishment or death penalty; weight lifting or body building

NOT to select one term but not the other; exclude a subject

            Ex. cloning not animals; dolphins not football

As always, be sure to visit the reference librarians for tips and search help.

Presentation- What Do You Stand For?

Over the last year, we have seen a steady breakdown of trust and confidence in both institutions and individuals through a variety of ethics scandals.

How did we get in this mess? How do we restore trust in our leaders and our institutions? More importantly, how do we get back America’s integrity?

In his book, What Do You Stand For?, writer and ethics specialist Jim Lichtman details six core ethical values along with stories told by people who have done it right, including former Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti, former Johnson & Johnson CEO James Burke, as well as those who would call themselves “ordinary” citizens. All provide insight and inspiration to encourage each of us to live up to our highest aspirations.

* * *

Jim Lichtman has been writing and speaking on ethics for ten years. Feature stories and appearances include USA TODAY, the Weekend Today Show in New York, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and New York-1. Jim’s commentaries have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times.

On Tuesday January 17, 2012, join Jim for a Q & A discussion on ethics and his book. The event will be held in the NHTI Library’s Living Room at 7 pm and is free and open to the public.