FMI: contact Natalie Tagge

Most of us have old paperbacks, printouts, magazines, textbooks, or notebooks lying around that are falling apart or have generally seen better days. Instead of recycling, how about a little creative repurposing that could net you (modest) fame and (a small amount of) fortune?

In honor of National Library Week April 14-20, the Claremont Colleges Library is inviting entries for RE:BOOK 2013, our second annual repurposed paper art contest. You can be as innovative as you like with your submission, but *please note that you absolutely should not repurpose extant Library or otherwise viable books!* The idea of this contest is to give worn or cast-off pages new life.

This year will feature three Amazon gift card prizes for the best re:books: 1st - $250 | 2nd - $100 | 3rd - $50

Throw your hat in the ring at libguides.libraries.claremont.edu/rebook - RE:BOOKs must be submitted to the Library's Services Desk by 5 pm on Friday April 12. We'll have a RE:BOOK celebration, display, and prize giveaway on Tuesday April 16th at 3:30 in the Honnold/Mudd Founders Room.

To give you an idea of how all-around awesome this contest is, check out photos from RE:BOOK 2012, including our 1st prize winner 'Faire Day' by Scripps' Alexandra Pineus.

On behalf of the Joint Governance Committee, I joyfully announce that Kevin Mulroy has been appointed to serve as the A.J. McFadden Dean of The Claremont Colleges Library. He begins on July 15.

Kevin comes to The Claremont Colleges from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he has served since 2008 as the associate university librarian for academic services.

He is an academic and author with more than 25 years of experience managing some of the most esteemed research collections in the country. He is a proven leader in all facets of library management, including public services, collection management, personnel, budgeting, fundraising, and technological innovation.

Kevin was selected following a two-year national search. He will lead a library unlike any other in the country, and he arrives at a time of significant opportunity, joining a new positioning of the library within the framework of The Claremont Colleges that brings with it high aspirations and renewed institutional purpose.

In October, executive oversight of the library was assumed by the Joint Governance Committee, which is composed of the presidents and chief academic officers of the seven colleges. Leadership of the committee rotates every five years and currently rests with Claremont Graduate University.

Reporting to the lead institution, Kevin will work within this new governance model to develop and implement a strategic plan and vision for the library, ensure its integration into the fabric of each of the seven Claremont Colleges, and clarify and define the focus of its collections. He will assess the library's space, facilities and information technology needs; lead a highly-skilled library staff; and leverage the library's financial resources and pursue additional funding to improve growth and service.

The preeminent academic resource for our seven colleges, the library has a general collection of approximately 2 million volumes, ranking third in the state of California among private institutions.

During his service at UCLA, Kevin oversaw about one third of the university's vast, nationally ranked library operations. He managed a budget of more than $10 million and held oversight of more than $5 million in acquisitions funds. His portfolio included responsibility for the operations of the Charles E. Young Research Library's Collections, Research and Instructional Services; Library Special Collections; enterprise-wide Teaching and Learning and Access Services; the Powell (College) Library; the East Asian Library; the Arts Library; and the Music Library.

From 2001-08, he served at the University of Southern California (USC) as associate executive director for research collections and services and as assistant dean for contracts and grants.

Before that, Kevin worked for eight years as director of research at the Autry National Center. He also held earlier positions at the Getty Research Institute and the UCLA Library.

Kevin's areas of subject expertise include US ethnic history and American studies. He has written two books on relations between African-Americans and American Indians: The Seminole Freedmen: a History and the award-winning Freedom on the Border: the Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila and Texas. Mulroy co-edited Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California. And he edited a book based on an exhibition he curated at the Autry on international responses to the Western entitled Western Amerykański: Polish Poster Art and the Western.

Kevin has presented and published widely on various aspects of US ethnic history, popular culture, and academic librarianship. He has also curated a number of exhibitions and organized public programs and events.

He received an MA in US history and politics and a PhD in American studies from the University of Keele (England) and an MLS from Rutgers University.

In addition to leading The Claremont Colleges Library, Kevin will join the faculty at Claremont Graduate University as professor of history and cultural studies.

Please join us in welcoming him.

Debbie Freund, on behalf of the Joint Governance Committee

Alicia Bonaparte, Sociology Field Group, Pitzer College

How did childbirth, once commonly administered in the household by lay midwives for women, become the domain of the hospital and the state? During the early 20th century, it was common for older African-American women -- Granny Midwives -- to serve this function, both for rural black and white women in South Carolina and elsewhere in the American South. Professor Alicia D. Bonaparte, medical sociologist at Pitzer College, will discuss her examination of South Carolina Sanitary Codes and midwife supervisors' notes, demonstrating how local and state laws governing midwifery practice and bags , a microcosm reflecting a larger trend throughout the country, became more restrictive over time. As a result, these restrictions diminished the presence of midwives in birthing work.

FMI: Adam Rosenkranz

Jeffrey Groves, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the Faculty, and Member of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts Faculty, Harvey Mudd College |

During his sabbatical in 2011-12, Professor of Literature and HMC Dean of Faculty Jeff Groves studied a rare wooden printing press, built in 1747, as a Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA. To obtain a practical knowledge of the press, he measured the original, drew plans, gathered materials and tools, and then built a replica in his garage. While the replica is not yet finished, Prof. Groves will share what he learned about eighteenth-century press technology through this project. The talk will include an optional visit to the Special Collections Reading Room to see the press in its current state.

FMI: Adam Rosenkranz

More than half a billion years ago, Earth experienced a series of radical changes that permanently transformed the planet. These events, driven by evolutionary innovations, were of sufficient magnitude that geologists divide Earth's entire 4.6 billion year history into two fundamental parts, the Precambrian and Phanerozoic Eons. The "Cambrian Explosion" of life that defines this transition is marked by the origin and rapid expansion of complex life, the shift from an entirely microbial world to one dominated by multicellular organisms, the origin of animals, and the advent of predation and complex ecosystems. Our best record of this event comes from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia and a handful of similar geologic formations that preserve extraordinary fossil assemblages. Whereas the fossil record is almost exclusively comprised of mineralized "hard parts", primarily shells, teeth, and bones, the Burgess Shale and other deposits like it also preserve the "soft", labile tissues of the earliest animals, including guts, gills, musculature and eyes, and provide the most valuable paleontological record of the sudden rise of the animals. Pomona Geology professor Robert Gaines will provide an introduction to the Cambrian Explosion and to his ongoing field research with international teams in British Columbia, China, Morocco and elsewhere that have offered new insight into the causes of this long-enigmatic and singular transition in the history of life on Earth.

FMI: adam_rosenkranz@cuc.claremont.edu