Jana Liebermann, chair of the MAC awards committee, said the award reflects Arnold’s accomplishments over the past few years. Liebermann praised Arnold’s involvement with the library’s move into the new Health Sciences Learning Center in 2007, the migration from print to electronic resources, and a phenomenal increase in the use of the Libraries’ electronic resources.

“Being recognized by a group of colleagues from regional institutions means a lot to me,” Arnold said. “I am really honored and humbled.”

Arnold appreciates the recognition because it affirms her role in enhancing the academic and research environments at the University. She explained that the Health Science Library excels at serving the University community because the library’s librarians and staff work closely with the Health Sciences community to determine program needs.

“The award encourages me to keep working collaboratively with our faculty and to make every effort to develop the best research resources we can,” said Arnold.

Arnold came to the WVU Hospitals in 1988 as a clinical nutrition manager and dietetic internship director. In 2001, she joined the staff of the WVU Libraries as an information services librarian at the Health Sciences Library. Arnold was named director in March 2008, after serving as interim director since June 2004.

She earned her bachelor of science in Dietetics from West Virginia Wesleyan College, a master of science in Human Nutrition & Foods from Virginia Tech, and a master of Library & Information Science from the University of South Carolina.

Arnold has been active in MAC since 2001, serving a term as secretary for the organization and co-chairing its annual meeting in Morgantown in 2008.  The Medical Library Association named her a senior member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals in 2006.

The mystery began more than 500 years ago in England.

But it surfaced in recent months in an unlikely place – the Rare Book Room in West Virginia University’s Charles C. Wise Library.

It remains unsolved.

Was Elizabeth Dacre’s poem an academic exercise in copying the style of love?

Or was the erotic poem telling her own story?

Even with these unanswered questions, the discovery goes beyond a captivating tale and points to the practical concerns of today’s research University: the need for research in every discipline, the importance of gifts to a University and the sheer surprise of what might hide around the next corner or on the next page.

But that is jumping ahead of the story.

It starts with the discovery of a mystery – during a guest lecture to WVU students last summer by Florida State University faculty member Elaine Treharne.

She and the students headed to the Rare Book Room on the sixth floor of the Downtown Library where Treharne happened to open a 1561 edition of works by Geoffrey Chaucer that includes The Canterbury Tales.

She opened it, and saw the Latin poem pasted in the back of the book.

From that moment, time works backward.

The investigation

To discover the origins of this poem, all Treharne has is the Latin, her own research experience and a name. As a medievalist, Treharne rarely studies anything more recent than 1200 C.E., but she’s interested in what the elegantly handwritten words signify.

She did what many folks in the 21^st Century do as the first step of research, even if it involves the 16^th Century. She Googled it.

She assumed what was tucked in the book was only a copy of a known poem. But it wasn’t on the Internet. None of the scholars she spoke with had heard of it.

The name in the front pages of the book and at the base of the poem is Elizabeth Dacre. And Treharne’s translation of the poem revealed another name – the person for whom the poem was written: Anthony Cooke, tutor to King Edward VI, son of King Henry VIII.

So Treharne searched for Elizabeth, from the U.S. and in England.

And the story she found is as unconventional as its heroine.

Possible. Actual. Fictional. Love.

As nearly as anyone can tell, Elizabeth would have been about 18 years old when she wrote to Cooke, a tutor to Henry VIII’s son, and father to highly educated daughters. He could have tutored Elizabeth around the time of his wife’s death, according to Treharne. It could have been around the time Elizabeth married Lord Dacre and about the time Cooke left England for Europe.

In her journal article on the find, Treharne writes, “Whether this poem records an amorous relationship, or something more akin to a display of poetic erudition (which just does not seem to do justice to the personal and tender lament here), its private nature is evinced in the poem’s hidden history, and in the touching scene it depicts.”

But on the telephone one afternoon, Treharne said she truly believes that Dacre was writing to someone she loves.

“I’ve published it in a very serious journal, as unsentimental as I possibly can be,” Treharne said. “That poem is just gorgeous. It’s beautiful and sad. It’s very ambiguous. I actually do really genuinely believe that she was really in love with her tutor.

“It has that level of intimacy and playfulness about it. At the very least it’s cheeky, and it’s much more likely to be an indicator of a very, very personal and illicit – totally illicit – relationship.”

She knows there’s not much evidence, except Elizabeth’s words, that anything ever happened.

In 14 lines, Elizabeth draws a portrait of her faithfulness, her intensity, her sadness. And she includes an epigram that is, Treharne says, “a tad rude,” in its description of her longing for Cooke.

And there’s common sense, too, that points to something more. From the historical record it seems unlikely that a tutor of women, something rare in itself, would ever ask a female student to write him an amorous poem, Treharne says.

“It’s not just that it’s a love poem, but that it’s quite suggestive and women simply didn’t write poems like that,” she said.

An unpainted portrait

Even without an affair, Elizabeth had an eventful and powerful life. For 10 years, she was married to Lord Dacre, bearing five children. Through her husband, she amassed power and land, and would have been the most influential women in the British Empire second to Queen Elizabeth I.

But Lord Dacre died, and Elizabeth was quickly remarried, possibly while pregnant, to the Queen’s close relative, the Fourth Duke of Norfolk.

There were few clues pointing to who Elizabeth was or even that she existed, Treharne said. There were also several Elizabeth Dacres at the time. But through searching places where Elizabeth would have spent time, Treharne found a description of the Queen’s discussion with the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, before his marriage to Elizabeth.

She also found a diatribe from Elizabeth’s first husband’s brother, expressing his dislike of the woman who took the lands and wealth from her first marriage into her second.

“Elizabeth Dacre shows us that women must have had a major role to play both in terms of education and in terms of politics and power,” she said.

But she has no portrait, no other papers, no grave, even.

The closest thing to a portrait of Elizabeth is the unflattering image of her daughter, Anne, Countess of Arundel in which Anne has a frown, a prominent nose and a pointed black headpiece.

It helped in Treharne’s research that Elizabeth had a well-known daughter. Anne wrote of an incident from her mother’s death in which the Duke did not allow his wife to see a priest when she died at age 30 in childbirth.

For aside from being a woman who wrote a suggestive, passionate poem in a language not many women knew, Elizabeth was also Roman Catholic at a time when that was becoming increasingly unpopular in England.

Yet, that small slice of Elizabeth’s life provides a known, sad fact to reinforce the wistfulness of her poem, made even sadder when you find that her husband was himself a closet Catholic.

“I just think that’s unforgivable,” Treharne said of Howard’s refusal to give her that last comfort.

It may be her husband’s fault that there’s no grave for Elizabeth. His first two wives share a grand tomb, but after Elizabeth died, the Duke attempted to marry Elizabeth’s cousin and avowed enemy, Mary, Queen of Scots.

Familiar with the Duke’s biography, Treharne knew that he was executed after doing something so “lunatic,” she said. It is possible that any papers surviving her were destroyed and a tomb would have been impossible for the wife of a man executed for treason.

The book moves from hand to hand to WVU

At some point, probably while the book was owned by someone named Peter Shee in 1812 – whose name is inscribed in front pages – the poem was pasted to the end papers when the book was rebound.
Sometime during the career of Shakespearean actors Edward Hugh Sothern and Julia Marlowe Sothern (both born in the second half of the 19^th century) Dacre’s Chaucer passed into their hands. It was eventually purchased by Arthur Spencer Dayton, a prominent Charleston attorney and a WVU alumnus who amassed a collection of about 7,000 books.

Upon Dayton’s death in 1948, his collection was willed to WVU, with 1,500 of the books establishing the Rare Book Room at the WVU Libraries, said associate curator Harold Forbes. One of those books was Dacre’s 1561 edition of Chaucer.

Aside from the collection by Chaucer, the father of Modern English literature, Dayton also bequeathed the University every edition from the first four folios, or editions, of Shakespeare through the editions published in Dayton’s lifetime.

The collection included the “Nuremburg Chronicle” – the first real world history book – works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and every first edition of Mark Twain’s books.

The books in the Rare Book Room are about more than preserving history and the handwritten notes of their owners. Patrick Conner, a recently retired but still very active English professor at WVU, says they are an active resource for the University’s research.

“A university that’s going to do research ought to do research in all the areas that it can,” Conner said, “because all of the disciplines work together. Physicists, for example, find themselves intrigued now with material philosophers have been thinking about for years. When researchers find they need a text from the past, they may well need to see it in specific forms preserved in rare books rooms around the world.

“Elaine’s work with Elizabeth Dacre puts our collection into that research network,” he said.

Forbes said most of the people coming into the book room are students led by their professors to discover the first editions of books printed 500 or more years ago.

“Books are so easily available and so widely available to us that we don’t realize how special they were a few centuries ago when there were not many available and the ones that were available were only in very limited editions and were only owned by those who could afford to own and take care of them,” Forbes said.

Elizabeth Dacre was one of those, and that’s remarkable say scholars.

Yet, it’s believable, says Conner.

“I’ve always thought Chaucer was writing for women because there’s a kind of flair, almost like Billy Crystal winking at the ladies while he’s telling a joke,” Conner said. “Nevertheless, in other ways he’s not the poet I’d expect to find in a young lady’s library. I’d have expected to find romances or moral treatises at this time.”

Elizabeth Dacre brings up an important point on politics as well considering she was a highly placed Catholic in a Protestant government.

“It’s a little bit of a game shaker, especially at the time we’re in right now where we really are so polarized politically,” Conner said. “We look back on the past and imagine that parties and groups have always been so polarized. What we’re seeing in this case is certain levels of accommodation that existed in certain situations, and it’s absolutely fascinating.

“On one hand, Queen Elizabeth had men going about actively harassing Roman Catholics, and on the other, she exhibited personal concern over this Catholic woman’s marriage.”

To Treharne, the discovery shows what was really going on at least for some women, who lived behind the scenes of a male-run world.

“I think it’s a particularly important find,” she said. “On the one hand it’s not brain surgery. It’s not a major discovery like DNA or something. But I think I’m right in saying that we don’t have any other nonreligious Latin poetry written by a woman possibly at all—and certainly in this period. So it’s the only love poem written in Latin by a woman ever until maybe the 18th century. That’s kind of astonishing really.”

To Anthony Cooke
The goodbye I tried to speak but could not utter with my tongue
By my eyes I delivered back to yours.
That sad love that haunts the countenance in parting
Contained the voice that I concealed from display,
Just as Penelope, when her husband Ulysses was present,
Was speechless—the reason is that sweet love of a gaze.
Then afterwards Ovid sends greeting muses to the absent,
Just as to you, distant, I have sent my small note.
I hope then that silent Dacre will not be scorned by you
For the mind has suffered and held fast in faithfulness to you.
Believe that among servants there is not any more faithful:
As Plancus Plotinus thus will Dacre be to you.
I remain your servant Plancus, more faithful than any;
To this servant Dacre, you remain sweet Coke.

Long enough am I now; but if your shape should swell under its grateful burden, then shall I become to you a narrow girdle.

Don’t panic. Just summon the information.

Summon, a new research tool available on the WVU Libraries’ website, www.libraries.wvu.edu, is a powerful search engine that scours a very large database covering all types of materials and every academic subject. It is sometimes called a “discovery” service because it allows library researchers to use a single search box to discover material of all sorts.

“Summon reveals what is available at the WVU Libraries and offers fast access to content such as e-journal articles and digitized information, usually with a single click,” said Penny Pugh, Head of Reference for the Downtown Campus Library.

For example, if you search “Marcellus shale,” you will find recent newspaper and journal articles, articles from trade publications, and a dissertation written this year. That’s just on the first page of results. The search netted 9,890 items.

Summon contains listings for journal articles, books, e-books, dissertations, videos, newspaper articles, government documents, archival materials, photographs, maps, conference papers, reports, and more. Summon at WVU currently contains more than 200 million items and continues to add new listings each week. This includes most, but not all, of what is available in our library system. Expand your search beyond WVU’s holdings to include nearly 600 million items.

Refining a search is easy. Check-boxes on the left side of the results page enable users to limit the parameters by type of material, by subject, by date, or by language. Results can be limited to just scholarly articles.

Keywords are the most important factor in getting good results. Searching for phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks can help make the results more relevant. Entering different terms will result in finding different results. Using more terms will find fewer results. Using fewer terms will find more results.

When done, you can save your items to a folder in Summon and then e-mail or export them at the end of your search session. Folder items are not saved after you exit, so it is important to export or e-mail before you leave the service.

“Summon can be very helpful when you are beginning research on a subject that is new to you or investigating a multidisciplinary topic,” Pugh said. “It is also good starting place when you are uncertain about which discipline-specific library databases to use.”

As with other online resources, Summon is available off-campus. To access full articles and other online content from off-campus locations, log in by clicking on the black banner at the top of your results screen.

Summon is a great resources because it searches everything. But, if you are searching for a single known item, you may want to use other library resources.  To check for a book title, use the Mountainlynx catalog. To locate a copy of an article, use the Find it @ WVU application, which allows you to enter the article citation and then retrieves a copy of the article for you. To determine if the Libraries subscribe to a particular e-journal, use the E-Journals search page.  Links to all of these tools are on the Libraries’ website, www.libraries.wvu.edu.

 If you need help or want to report problems with Summon, links are located in the upper right corner of the Summon page. Use the feedback form to report a problem by email.  For live help, use the Libraries’ Ask a Librarian chat service, available from any library web page or the main page at www.libraries.wvu.edu/ask.

Robert Frevel, from Baltimore, won an iPad, Katelyn Amato, from East Liverpool, OH, went home with a Sony Reader, and Jayshawn Thomas, from Annapolis, MD, is now listening to music on an iPod Shuffle.

Their names were picked in a drawing of students who participated in “Discover! WVU Libraries,” part of the 2011 First Year Academy. The Libraries sponsored the event to introduce students to the library in order to assist them through their academic endeavors at WVU.

Depending on their major, students visited the Downtown Campus Library, the Evansdale Library, or the Health Sciences Library to learn about the array of available resources and services and to meet the librarians and staff who can guide them when writing a paper or doing research.

The visit changed Frevel’s perspective. He admits that he was less than excited about walking around the Downtown Campus Library when he first heard about the activity. Now, his favorite spot in the building is the Milano Reading Room.

“It was a good thing,” Frevel said. “The library is really nice.”

Thomas enjoyed exploring the Evansdale Library. She said she feels more confident starting the semester off knowing where to go when she has an assignment or needs to study.

Amato found the experience informative and helpful. As a transplant to the Mountain State, she found the West Virginia & Regional History Collection interesting and a great tool to learn about her new home.

She appreciated being able to tour the building and to get a glimpse of what’s there. She’s eager to return to work on a project.

“It was fun,” Amato said. “You got to meet the staff and a lot of other students. You got to get your first experience with the library with people who hadn’t been to the library yet.”

“I was thrilled to hear that we received this grant because it represents an opportunity for us to take our unique holdings in this area and transform them into a resource that’s easy to use,” said John Cuthbert, Curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection.

The WVU Libraries’ effort will be part of the National Digital Newspaper Program. The NEH and the Library of Congress are partnering with libraries and institutions from around the country to provide enhanced access to historical United States newspapers.

The Libraries are collaborating with the Library of Virginia, the historical research library in Richmond, Va. It is a unique partnership because newspaper publishing in Virginia and West Virginia is intertwined. As West Virginia did not achieve statehood until 1863, the project includes newspapers that were published when West Virginia was still part of Virginia.

A previous NEH grant enabled the Libraries to identify, catalog, and microfilm historic newspapers from all over the state. Harold Forbes, Associate Curator of the WVRHC, directed that effort and assisted in preparing the current grant application.

The Library of Congress hopes to one day unveil a website consisting of cataloged papers from every state. The WVU Libraries and all other partner institutions will each maintain a database of the papers they contributed. All sites will be freely accessible to the public.

Cuthbert expects the searchable databases to be a boon to researchers who will be able to dig more easily into these rich resources.

“Newspapers are one of the most important means of studying history,” Cuthbert said. “They give the perspectives of the people of the time, and they’re packed with content that’s of historical interest.”

One of NEH’s focuses is Civil War coverage from both Northern and Southern perspectives. The NEH also wants to spotlight rapidly growing industrial towns, labor-management struggles in the coal fields, and towns affected economically and culturally during and after World War I. Other areas of emphasis include foreign language newspapers for newly arrived immigrants and black-owned newspapers.

West Virginia papers address all of those areas. The state played center stage both in the Civil War and in coal field clashes. For coverage of the oil industry in the 1870s, there was the Volcano Lubricator. During the early 20^th century, socialists spread their message through the Labor Argus in Charleston and the Socialist and Labor Star in Huntington.

The press also gave minorities a voice. The McDowell Times was a black-owned paper in southern West Virginia. Wheeling had at least three newspapers written in German. Thomas had the Italian-written La Sentinella del West Virginia.

 This tremendous wealth of content, however, has gone relatively untapped because the newspapers lack an index.

Cuthbert possesses a first-hand understanding of the difficulty of searching through hundreds of yards of microfilm. While studying American music history in graduate school, he spent a year searching through newspaper microfilm looking for music references. He later repeated the process in a search for art references.

“Over several years I looked at just about every newspaper published in West Virginia during the 19^th century,” Cuthbert said. “The only way to do this is to put microfilm on a reel and go page by page. One can spend a year doing that with a small quantity of newspapers.”

Once the newspapers become searchable online, one could accomplish in an hour what it took him months to do.

“That will be an incredible step forward. It will be tremendously valuable to every type of researcher we have here,” Cuthbert said.

For example, a common request in the WVRHC is for help in locating obituaries. Often, someone knows only a time frame, not a date.  Currently, such a search could take months if one is fortunate enough to find it at all. Being able to search by name could reduce the hunt to minutes.

Digitization will enhance the experience and results for historians, researchers, genealogist, and students.

“Professors often expect their students to go to original sources and draw their own conclusions rather than rehash what somebody else has written and adopt someone else’s conclusion,” Cuthbert said. “I anticipate students will get a great deal of use out of the results of this project.”

Cuthbert estimates the finished website will launch in 2013.

Fans aren’t the only ones counting on the WVU football team to put a lot of points on the scoreboard this season: The University’s libraries are banking on the Mountaineers as well.

Frances O’Brien, dean of the WVU Libraries, and WVU sports marketing director Matt Wells unveiled the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge, a joint initiative between the WVU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and the libraries, on Tuesday. The program allows fans to pledge a donation for every touchdown the Mountaineers score this season, with all of the proceeds going directly to WVU’s libraries.

“A great university needs a great library,” O’Brien said. “And it made sense to us that when fans cheer for the Mountaineers and support the team, they could put some of that energy into supporting every school, every academic department, every student, every faculty member and every researcher here on campus.”

O’Brien said she came up with the idea for the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge in June, while reading about WVU athletic director Oliver Luck’s “100 percent Mountaineer” initiative in The Dominion Post.

Luck’s plan challenges every sport in the athletic department to strive for a Top 25 finish and achieve a graduation rate of at least 75 percent.

O’Brien liked the challenge of linking academic and athletic goals and thought the buzz about the football program provided an excellent opportunity for WVU’s libraries to capitalize.

“Mountaineer fans have great spirit,” O’Brien said. “They’re going to be anticipating the success of a new coach and a new offense. There is a lot of excitement for the start of a new football season and I hope they’ll put some of that good energy into investing in the library.”

Funds raised from the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge will go directly to the library system, but won’t be earmarked for any specific projects. Instead, O’Brien said she hoped to use the money to address the libraries’ ever-changing needs, such as buying books and new computer equipment, or updating the study space.

Wells said tying the fundraiser into the debut of WVU head football coach Dana Holgorsen’s new offense was a natural fit. Fans are excited to see Holgorsen’s scheme in action and Wells hopes the libraries can benefit from that enthusiasm.

“We’re very offensive-minded around here right now, and that was a great way to tie into what we have going on with our football program with a university initiative,” Wells said. “That’s what we’re hoping and that’s one of the things that was so attractive to coach Holgorsen. It made a lot of sense to us.”

Pledges will be based on every offensive touchdown the Mountaineers score this season, including in a potential bowl game. Defensive touchdowns will not count toward the total. Holgorsen’s offense scored 62 touchdowns at Oklahoma State last year and averaged 69 touchdowns in his previous two seasons, at Houston. WVU scored 42 offensive touchdowns in 2010.

“I’ve heard him say that he doesn’t take his foot off the pedal; I assume that’s directed to help the library. That’s the only reason I can think of him doing that,” Wells joked.

Info: libraries.wvu.edu or 304-293-0306.

The West Virginia University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics is teaming up with the WVU Libraries to launch a fundraising campaign to benefit the Libraries.

The Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge is a new initiative that enables alumni and fans to support the Libraries while cheering for the Gold and Blue.

Challenge participants pledge a certain dollar figure per touchdown the Mountaineers score during the 2011 season and in any subsequent bowl game. Funds raised will go to establish the Mountaineer Athletics Library Fund, which will benefit students.

“We are all anticipating an exciting football season as the Mountaineers transform under head coach Dana Holgorsen’s high-speed offense,” said Athletic Director Oliver Luck. “Making a pledge in the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge is a great way to show one’s support for all of WVU.”

Earlier this summer, Libraries Dean Frances O’Brien approached Luck with the idea. Luck, who spent long hours in the library when he was a student-athlete, likes the concept of the team’s success benefiting all students on campus.

“Over the past year, we’ve focused on enhancing the experience for fans at our events. The Touchdown Challenge enables all of us – WVU staff, athletes, alumni and fans – to play a part in enhancing the academic experience for our students,” Luck said. “As a former student-athlete, I know how a good library helped me in my academic pursuits.”

Holgorsen, who begins his first season as head coach, believes the Touchdown Challenge will help all groups to remember the student aspect of athletes at WVU.

“We emphasize the importance of academics to all of our players,” Holgorsen said. “For them and all students, it’s essential to have great library resources and knowledgeable librarians to guide them when they’re doing research.”

O’Brien believes the Touchdown Challenge is a great opportunity for athletics to partner with academics. She explained that the Libraries serve all students, faculty and staff at the University.

“Mountaineer fans have great spirit,” O’Brien said. “When they cheer for and support the Mountaineers, they could also support every school, every academic department, and every student at WVU.”

If you’re up for the Touchdown Challenge, a link is located on the Libraries’ website, www.libraries.wvu.edu, or go to www.mountaineerconnection.com/touchdownchallenge.

Now, imagine what it would take for a student to get off to a good start on his or her academic voyage.

The West Virginia University Libraries want to help. As part of the 2011 First Year Academy, the Libraries are sponsoring “Discover! WVU Libraries” to support the University’s initiative to enhance the First Year Experience program.

The event, to be held from 1:30-5 p.m. August 20, invites the incoming class of Mountaineers into the Libraries before they even jot one note or listen to one lecture.

The goal is to introduce them to the library that will assist them through their academic endeavors at WVU. If students can casually explore the library, they will feel more comfortable and confident when they return with an assignment in hand.

Depending on their major, students will visit the Downtown Campus Library, the Evansdale Library, or the Health Sciences Library to learn about the array of available resources and services and to meet the librarians and staff who can guide them when writing a paper or doing research.

To make the experience fun, as well as instructive, the Libraries have planned a series of activities throughout the buildings. Students will receive incentives to participate. Each library will give out prizes, and students will be entered into a drawing for an iPad and Sony Reader.

An assessment form for the event will serve as the drawing entry form. Their responses will allow the Libraries to gauge student reactions to their discoveries and improve the program next year.

LYRASIS, an organization for librarians and information professionals that serves more than 6,000 institutions, has named Pugh its Excellence Award winner for 2011 based on her dedication to libraries of all kinds and for her work with the statewide database program, as well as her enthusiasm, vision and dedication to forwarding the success of libraries.

“One of the reasons we selected Ms. Pugh is the breadth of the impact she has had and the transformational work she has done,” said Kate Nevins, LYRASIS chief executive officer. “We were able to see the positive effects she has had at WVU and statewide.”

Penny Pugh

Nevins commended Pugh for staying at the forefront of library innovation, from playing a role in creating the WVU Libraries’ first website to working to ensure faculty and student access to cutting-edge eResources.

Pugh has also demonstrated leadership at the state level. Through her work with the West Virginia Library Association, she earned the respect of librarians throughout the state. Her stint as WVLA president for 2004-2005 is especially noteworthy.

Her term was marked by increased membership and outstanding fall and spring conferences. She also served as the organization’s spokesperson when interacting with the media and elected officials in Charleston. She previously served as chair of WVLA’s Academic Division and as a member of the Executive Board. She was on the committee that initiated discussions and conducted early planning for what later grew into West Virginia Info Depot, a collection of online library resources.

“Librarians throughout the state are smarter and more effective in their professional roles because of their interaction with her,” Nevins said. “These are not theoretical impacts. These are tangible results for real people serving real library users.”

Receiving an award for excellence is a bit intimidating for Pugh, who believes she was only doing her part to serve the University community and her fellow West Virginians.

“It certainly is encouraging, and it gives me a sense of satisfaction that my contributions have been noticed,” Pugh said. “I’m honored and humbled to know that I was even nominated.”

A driving force behind Pugh stepping beyond campus to serve is a strongly held belief in the value of free public libraries providing their communities with places where anyone can go to read, to think, to write, to engage in literacy and educational efforts, and to be able to check out an armload of books.

Pugh smiles as she talks about the great feeling kids get when they can take home a stack of books. She was one of those kids. A book mobile made regularly stops at her elementary school, and she selected several titles on every visit.

While it has required long hours and dedication, she enjoys the opportunities she has had to work alongside librarians from around the state and speaks enthusiastically about her love for public libraries and librarians.

“I got a lot more back than I ever gave because I learned so much and have developed so many wonderful friendships,” Pugh said. “The award is the icing on the cake.”

Pugh also finds the award especially gratifying because the nomination came from Libraries Dean Frances O’Brien.

“I told Frances that winning the award is absolutely wonderful, but knowing that she thinks I deserve it is priceless,” Pugh said. “It means a great deal to know that you have the support of your leader.”

Thanks to WVU, the telegrams exchanged between generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee prior to the surrender that led to the end of the Civil War can be viewed online.

“I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Va on the following terms to with Rolls of the all officers and men to be made in duplicate,” Union Gen. Grant telegrammed Confederate Gen. Lee hours before the Appomattox, Va., surrender.

Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post Civil War-era telegrams and a telegraph machine are on display in WVU’s downtown library. The telegrams have been uploaded to a public website.

He continued, “One copy to be given to an officer designated by me the others to be retained by such officer or officers do you may designate — the officers to give their individual paroles not to carry arms against the Govt of the United States until property exchanged and each Co or Regt commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands — The Army’s artillery and public property to be packed and stacked and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them — This will not embrace the side arms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage — This done — such officers and men will be allowed — to return to their homes not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside.”

In response Lee wrote: “I have read your letter of this date containing the terms of surrender of Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you — as they are substantially the same as those proposed in your letter of the 8th Inst they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.”

Soon after the exchange, the surrender occurred. The nation became one again.

Only a few copies of the telegrams were made. WVU is one of the lucky organizations to have them in its possession. The exchange is one of hundreds of Civil War-era telegrams in WVU’s collection that recently were uploaded to a public website.

West Virginia and Regional History Collection Curator John Cuthbert said the telegrams are almost a day-by-day account of the war’s early years.

One of the more stunning exchanges is the one between Grant and Lee, Cuthbert said.

Gov. Francis H. Pierpont received a copy of the exchange, Cuthbert said. Pierpont was the head of the Reorganized Government of Virginia and helped create West Virginia. He received a copy because the surrender happened in neighboring Virginia.

The Pierpont family donated the telegrams to WVU.

Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post Telegrams between Union General Ulysses S. Grant (top) and Confederate General Robert E. Lee (bottom) are part of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at WVU.

Governors were often contacted during the Civil War because they had the ability to raise an army or provide supplies, Cuthbert said.

The telegrams allow someone to personally experience history, he said.

“If you want to know about your history you don’t have to, and you probably shouldn’t, just rely on what someone wrote recently,” Cuthbert said.

The telegrams were uploaded because in today’s digital age people have grown accustomed to accessing items remotely, Cuthbert said.

He added that when they have the resources to do it, they take advantage.

Aaron Sheehan-Dean, a WVU history professor and adviser to the West Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, said it is a nice site and he is excited it is up. He said there are other sites like this but nothing specifically for West Virginia.

The site will be a great resource for students and the public, Sheehan-Dean said.

Some of the more interesting information was from early in the series detailing Pierpont’s handling of succession, Sheehan-Dean said.

Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post West Virginia and Regional History Collection Curator John Cuthbert holds up one of the Civil War-era telegrams that have been put on a public website.

In the future, Cuthbert said they would like to continue to digitize items.

WVU is in a unique position because the Mountain State doesn’t have much of a state historical society, Cuthbert said.

In the 1920s, a WVU professor began collecting the items. When the library was built, he asked for space to store the documents.

Cuthbert added, “We have an unusually strong regional history collection that would be the envy of institutions across the state.”