Library Gazette

Friday Night Live at ZSR debuted on April 11th at 6pm. Sophomore Thomas Kozak sang and played acoustic guitar. He was periodically accompanied by a violinist, a keyboardist, drummer, and female backing vocals. Most of the songs were his own, but he did manage to throw in a few covers. He did a fantastic job! I was really impressed with the professionalism of his singing and guitar playing. At it’s peak, the audience reached 48 people all of which seemed very focused on the performance. Interestingly enough, Carol Cramer reported that she could hardly hear a thing in the study room across the hall or inside the library.

Many thanks to Carol Cramer and Chris Burris for helping me in re-organizing the study room furniture afterwards. Also, many thanks to Wanda Brown, Erik Mitchell, and Mary Beth Lock for attending the show! Hopefully, this series will become a permanent fixture in the Fall. I look forward to seeing other performances such as dancing, poetry slams, stand-up comedy, and student made films.

As a Staff Development activity, on Thursday, January 24th, Chris Burris, Joe Harrington, Mary Horton, Mary Beth Lock, Lauren Pressley, Lynn Sutton, and I went on a tour of 88.5 WFDD. Greg Keener, Membership Operations Coordinator for the station, was kind enough to volunteer to show us all around.

The station is located inside a renovated house so the interior is rather crowded in some areas, but everything was well laid out and professional looking. WFDD is staffed by 12 members and has three studios. The station also has three bandwidths on HD Radio: WFDD 1 which plays the regular WFDD format, WFDD 2 plays classical and opera music, and WFDD 3 (which is scheduled to launch in February) plays an eclectic blend of music ranging from bluegrass to ambient.

We sat in one of the conference rooms and Greg shared some interesting facts about the station:

1946: WFDD was “born” as a 5 watt station on the campus of Wake Forest College

1948: Officially accepted by the FCC. Thus, this is the year they consider to be their radio debut. The goal for the first pledge drive of that year was $200!

1967: Became the first non-commercial FM station in Winston-Salem

1971: Charter member of NPR (yes, even before WUNC!)

1989: Hurricane Hugo caused the radio tower to collapse

1991: Moved into current location. Prior to that they were located in Reynolda Hall

After Greg fielded some questions from all of us, we went into a studio with one of the Producers and Hosts of WFDD programming, Bradley George. We were able to watch him push some buttons and announce on-air traffic and weather. He also took a few questions from us. It was very brief, but very interesting.

Our time at WFDD was very pleasant and informative. Greg was also kind enough to send us all off with an 88.5 WFDD flower pot coffee mug. WFDD will be having their Winter fundraiser during the week of February 8th-13th. Tune in and give if you can!

Billy Brown, a Senior Art major from Nashville, Tennessee is using the ZSR Library as a template for his art work. Billy’s piece is called, Sunken, and it’s his final project for his Public Art class. Each night, from 9pm-12am (somedays it starts at 6pm), Billy is projecting moving images onto the outside back wall of the library just above the awning on the loading dock. The 19 minute loop of moving images consists of 13 different objects found on the Wake campus slowly being pushed up out of the water by his hand. The object is then slowly rotated by his hand and then sunk back into the water. Billy filmed all of this using a tripod set up over a fish tank filled with blue water. He says that the objects coming out of the water could represent vices, but he says it’s definitely open to interpretation.

When I asked Billy why he chose to use the library, he said it was mainly because of the darkness of the location and that it is a busy area for foot traffic. It’s also close to where the shuttle picks up and drops off students. He also added that he felt more comfortable asking the library for the space because we seem to be more open to supporting this kind of creativity.

The project will end on December 9th. So if you are around campus after dark, come take a look. You can also see more of Billy’s work at: www.robobilly.com.

On Tuesday, September 17th, Mike Causey, an organic farmer with Lodge Dodge Farm, spoke to several staff members of the library about organic farming as sustainable agriculture. The talk was hosted by the Staff Development Committee.

Mr. Causey discussed how he came to be an organic farmer and about the products that he grows and sells at the Greensboro Farmer’s Curb Market. He also discussed the requirements for food to be qualified as “organic.” As some of you might already know, it is food that is grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, growth hormones, or genetic modification.

At the end of his talk, Mr. Causey showed us some of the organic products that he sells at the Curb Market such as yams, figs, and pepper jelly. He even brought several purple potatoes for us all to take home!