PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Yelena Luckert
(301)405-9365
yluckert@umd.edu

Library Events Explore War and Representation of War

Exhibits

College Park, MD - Four College Park libraries will unveil exhibits October 13 as contributions to the University of Maryland’s special Fall 2008 “Semester on War and the Representation of War”:

Art Library: "Art and War"

Depictions of war in art are as old and enduring as art itself, from Neolithic cave paintings, Trajan’s column, Mathew Brady’s landmark Civil War photographs and Picasso’s iconic Guernica, to filmmakers in Vietnam. The Art Library’s display includes images of war selected from books in its collections.
Art-Sociology Building, 2nd Floor Atrium

Engineering and Physical Sciences Library: “The Manhattan Project: Materials from the EPSL Collections”

The Manhattan Project was a joint secret project of the US, the UK and Canada during World War II, to develop the first nuclear weapon, the atomic bomb. This exhibit highlights the innovations and contributions to science, engineering, and technology of the tens of thousands of people who were part of the project.
Room 1403 Math Building

Hornbake Library: "Images of War and Torture in Renaissance Books"

Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries often was the scene of brutal warfare and widespread suffering, as shown in a selection of publications from the University’s Rare Books Collection that include woodcut illustrations of war and torture.
Hornbake Library, Maryland Room

McKeldin Library: “America at War: Maps and Imagery of World War II”

The posters in this exhibit commemorate significant campaigns or events from the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. The posters were first displayed on Memorial Day 2004 at the dedication of the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall.
McKeldin Library, Footnotes Café

All exhibits will be on display through December 24, 2008. For library hours, check http://www.lib.umd.edu/PEBSERV/hours_all.html

Other Events

The University Libraries will also host “War in Literature: Public Readings,” Veterans Day, November 11, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. in Room 6137 McKeldin Library. The public reading of war literature will commemorate and re-live the experiences of war for other people or other times. Members of the University of Maryland community will read favorite war poems or short stories or excerpts from novels, plays or memoirs.

The capstone event for the Libraries will be a day-long conference: “Books, Libraries, and Modern Wars,” December 5, also in Room 6137 McKeldin Library. Wars destroy libraries but they also fill libraries, as they stimulate writing, publishing and reading. In this day-long symposium, scholars will consider how war has both destroyed and created books and libraries from World War I to the present.

See the campus Web site for more information on the many events, resources, courses and subtopics surrounding “A Semester on War and the Representation of War, Fall 2008” at http://www.war.umd.edu

The University of Maryland is the only nationally ranked public university in the Baltimore/Washington area. With a total student enrollment approaching 40,000, the University is supported in its academic endeavors by the University of Maryland Libraries, comprised of eight libraries and more than 3.5 million volumes. The UM Libraries are the largest library system in the state.