The Daily Athenaeum, January 24, 2008

By Kathryn Gregory
Managing Editor

Harold M. Forbes slowly puts on a pair of pristine white gloves and reaches onto a dusty shelf to grab a treasure from a collection that dates back hundreds of years. He turns the treasure over in his hand and slowly opens the binding to reveal the intricate details of the pages within.

The book, which is part of Dennis Diderot’s Dictionary, is just one of the many rare finds that have a safe and well-maintained home at West Virginia University’s Downtown Library Complex.

The gloves are worn to protect the books from oils that might transfer from hands to pages, which can speed along the process of a book’s deterioration.

Forbes is the curator of rare books at WVU libraries and has been working on collecting and preserving the books since 1989.

Books are donated to the Rare Books Room, and the curator’s job is to preserve the books and hunt for any books that might be missing from a particular collection.

Stewart Plein, assistant West Virginia rare books curator, holds open “Hortus Indicus Malabaricus.” This botanical
book dates back to 1700 and is translated in four languages.
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On Sunday January 27, the WVU Physical Plant will conduct mandatory fire suppression testing at the WVU Primary Data Center from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The following applications and services will not be available during the test period: Access-A-File, AdvisorTrac, Axium, Birth Score Database, Citrix, CUFS, CyberSports, Endeavor/Voyager, eTD, Fitinfotech, Fix & Release, GroupWise, HSC Alumni Database, IDEAS, Intranet Web Servers, Kronos, Magic, MAP Test, Meeting Room Manager, MIX, Novell Administrative Network, Paciolan, Pyramed, QuickTime, ROADS Test, STAR Production, STAR Test, TicketReturn, TSM, Vista Development, Voice Mail for VOIP, WWW Web Servers, and Wimba. For more information, contact the WVU OIT Helpdesk at OITHelp@mail.wvu.edu or call 293-4444 ext. 1.

The WVU Libraries Web Team is pleased to announce the official launch of their new Libraries web site design on January 14, 2007. The Libraries are holding a contest to promote use of the new site. Two winners of the contest will be presented with an iPod. To participate, go to the WVU Libraries web site at www.libraries.wvu.edu and select “iPod Contest.” Download and fill in the form, then send it as an email attachment to beth.toren@mail.wvu.edu. There are five questions you must use the Libraries web site to answer correctly in order to be entered into the drawing for the prize. All correct responses will be entered into a drawing for the iPods. WVU Libraries employees and student workers are not eligible.

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If someone is keeping track of West Virginia’s best-kept secrets, somewhere near the top of that list is probably a line about the mountain state’s rich artistic heritage. West Virginia has been home to several acclaimed artists; its people and its rolling hills have been the subjects of thousands of paintings.

Some of those painters and their works will be the focus of a presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, in the Norman L. Fagan West Virginia State Theatre at the Cultural Center, State Capitol Complex.

“It’s a topic that has often been overlooked,” said John Cuthbert, Curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at the WVU Libraries. “Any time I talk before a group about West Virginia’s fine arts heritage, people are always shocked to learn how much significant fine art heritage this state has.”
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The latest issue of Ex Libris, the WVU Libraries’ newsletter, is now available online. It can be accessed by visiting www.libraries.wvu.edu/exlibris or clicking on this link.