Thursday May 2, 2013 was the date that the library celebrated students and undergraduate research.  The 9^th annual Library Prize for Undergraduate Research and the 3^rd annual Library Prize on Sustainability & the Environment were awarded on that afternoon with a welcome by the Interim Dean of University Libraries, Carol Lang; and Peter Jones, the Senior Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies at Temple University.  A Temple alumnus, John H. Livingstone, Jr. a 1949 graduate of the SBM, has supported this undergraduate prize since its founding.  Gale, a part of the Cengage Learning family of research products, has provided funding for the prize for sustainability and the environment.

The scholarship introduced to us that day continues the heritage of our earlier prizes, each award reminding us about what research is: the language of new knowledge.  Please take the time to visit the Research Guide for the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research. If you are interested in the sustainability prize visit the Research Guide for Undergraduate Research on Sustainability & the Environment. At both these sites you will find information about the prize itself, and also the winners and their entries.  Amongst these, there might be an entry to inspire you to apply next year, or perhaps discover a new area of interest for you to pursue! The Libraries, the resources we provide and our staff are here to help you in either case!

On Thursday February 21, 2013 Temple professor Miles Orvell and photographer Sandy Sorlein discussed the American Main Street.  The presentation began first with some of Ms. Sorlein’s photographs of main streets from all across the country taken on road trips over a number of years.  Professor Orvell followed with some commentary about main streets.  Main Street as sacred space and as utopian space were two of his points, but then he spun these positive thoughts by speaking of the polar opposite of these as main streets  dark at night filled with scary impressions: think Rod Serling and some of his episodes of the Twilight Zone television series!  Additional remarks were made concerning the main street as (or in) history and as facsimile. Have the values of the small town main street translated into the city center? Who owns the city and the street – Wall Street or Main Street?  Needless to say, lots of audience participation joined the conversation as we listened to questions and discussion on the larger picture of new urbanism, the meaning of place,  and the tighter focus on local places right here in Philadelphia.

If these comments piqued your interest you might be interested in reading Death and life of Main Street: Small Towns in American Memory, Space and Community by Miles Orvell, or Sandy Sorlien’s work entitled:Fifty Houses: Images from the American Road.