The University at Buffalo Libraries are proud to announce the availability of a new tool that will vastly improve access to finding aids for our unique archival collections. The database stores finding aids from University Archives, the Poetry Collection, the Law Library, and the Music Library. It operates using the eXtensible Text Framework (XTF) system developed by the California Digital Library.

The database can be accessed directly at http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu:8080/xtf/search. Associated pages contain information about UB’s archival collections, Encoded Archival Description as a format, and the structure of UB’s EAD finding aids. The database has also been added to the UB Libraries list of Databases by Title under “Finding Aids at the University at Buffalo Libraries“.

What are finding aids?  Finding aids are guides to archival records, personal papers, or manuscripts. They describe a collection’s origins, contents, and organization in more detail than the library catalog describes books. They are tools to help researchers determine if a collection contains useful information and where that information is located.  Visit About UB Finding Aids for more information.

Road Vultures and Rumbles: A Career Retrospective of Buffalo’s Spain Rodriguez, Underground Comix Pioneer.

Exhibit opening with program and reception

DATE: October 23, 2009 from 4PM-7PM

LOCATION  Special Collections Research Room
420 Capen Hall, North Campus

The exhibit and its opening program/reception are free and open to the public.

Buffalo native Spain Rodriguez is a pioneering underground comix giant,  known for his explicit and politically explosive art. Best known for his anarchistic comic character, Trashman, a superhero of the working classes, his work portrays a dystopian future America. The exhibit features extensive original artwork loaned by the artist, photographs of the Road Vultures motorcycle gang in 1960s Buffalo, and a retrospective of his underground comix.

Exhibit Opening Program:

4:00PM – Presentations:

• “Big Bitch and Wonder Woman Mudwrestle in Heaven: Graphic Femininity and the Rhetoric of Sexual Liberation.” Cait Keegan, Ph.D. candidate,  American Studies.
• “A Tragic Overview of Underground Comix.” Tim Bryant, Ph.D. candidate,  English.

5:15PM – Introduction by Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor.

5:30PM – Question & Answer session with Spain Rodriguez moderated by Michael R. Lavin, University Libraries.

A reception will follow lasting until 7:00PM.

For more information see the News Release from the UB News Center or contact Michael Lavin.

A new online resource on the Love Canal Collections in the University Archives is now available online.

This resource includes links to the Love Canal collections finding aids, an image gallery, a clipping database, and an introduction to the history and background of the events that occurred at Love Canal.

In April 2008 Acheson Hall was renamed Kapoor Hall after noted Pharmacy alumnus, John N. Kapoor. The new facilities in Kapoor Hall will be new home for the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and include associated research and teaching laboratories, vivarium, classrooms, a working hospital pharmacy, pharmacological care clinic, and office spaces. The renovation is expected to cost $65 million and to be completed by August 2011.

See the Development of the UB campuses: South Campus buildings — Kapoor Hall for more information.

Introducing a brand new online resource available for searching the University Archives’ Biographical File.

The Biographical File is contained in forty file drawers and includes newspaper and periodical articles, photographs, and other material about the lives, careers, and deaths of UB faculty and staff, illustrious alumni, famous visitors, and benefactors of the University. Millard Fillmore, the first Chancellor of the University, has a file as does the current President John B. Simpson.