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Colleagues Honor Jim Danky

On April 13 and 14, 2007, the Society hosts a symposium, "Alternative Print Culture: Social History and Libraries," in honor of newspaper and periodicals librarian Jim Danky. Organized by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for the History of Print Culture, all sessions are free and will be held in the Society's auditorium (see details below). Danky is nationally known for identifying, preserving and sharing the newspapers and magazines produced by American women, African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, extremist political organizations and other marginalized groups. To do this, he raised more then $3 million in grants during his 35-year career. While working at the Society he also taught journalism courses at the University of Wisconsin, won a Fulbright Fellowship to teach for a year in London, produced reference books for major scholarly publishers such as a Harvard University Press and G.K. Hall, and added more than 30,000 periodical titles to the Society's collection.

No historian does serious research in American women's or minority history without using Jim's bibliographies and the primary sources he gathered and preserved.

Friends, staff and visitors may not know that Jim also is largely responsible for much of the current look and feel of the Society headquarters. All the beautiful mahogany tables and lovely oak furniture prominent throughout the building were painted charcoal gray 25 years ago; Jim led the effort to restore them. Similarly, the oil paintings and ornate light sconces that grace the hallways and stairwells were in storage until Jim campaigned for their resurrection and pubic display.

In addition to the conference sessions described below, a small exhibit on Jim's career (which includes a few bizarre icons from his office and odd pictures of him in his younger days, as well as examples of his scholarly work) is on display this weekend in the first-floor lobby.

Alternative Print Culture: Social History and Libraries — A Symposium in Honor of James P. Danky

Friday, April 13, 1-5 p.m.

• "'Tactile Inebriations and Predatory Propensities': The Joy of Finding African American Periodicals Not in Danky," Randall K. Burkett, curator of African American Collections at the University Libraries, Emory University
• "The Write Stuff: U.S. Print Culture from Conservatives Out to Neonazis," Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates (Boston-area think tank), where he has studied and written about right-wing social movements for more than 25 years
• "Internationalizing Working-Class History Since the 1970s: Nation-State Archivists' and Historians' Approach to Transculturally Mobile Workers," Christiane Harzig, associate professor of migration history at Arizona State University, and Dirk Hoerder, visiting professor of history at Arizona State University (on leave from the University of Bremen Department of Social Sciences)
• "Collecting the Wretched Refuse: Lifting a Lamp to Bulldogs on Five, Eighteen-Wheel Singles, and The Trapper and Predator Caller," Chris Dodge, librarian at large in northwestern Montana, who also indexes books and writes for Utne Reader and other magazines

Saturday April 14, 9 a.m.-1.30 p.m.

• "An Alternative Vision of Librarianship: James Danky and the Socio-cultural Politics of Collection Development," Juris Dilevko, associate professor at the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto (presented by Wayne Wiegand)
• "'The Native American Press in Wisconsin and the Nation,' 1982 to the Present" Daniel F. Littlefield, professor of English and director of the American Native Press Archives at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, and James W. Parins, professor of English and associate director of the Sequoyah Research Center and American Native Press Archives
• "From Margins to Mainstream: Tracing Women's Studies in Print Culture," Honor Sachs, Cassius Marcellus Clay postdoctoral fellow with the Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale University
• "'Those Odd Periodicals and Books': A Center for a Diverse Print Culture History in Modern America," Christine Pawley, associate professor in Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America
• "When CNN meant Collectors' Network News: The Early Days of the Alternative Press and Libraries," Elliott Shore, chief information officer, Constance A. Jones director of libraries, and professor of history at Bryn Mawr College (Dr. Elliott's talk is sponsored through a Beta Phi Mu-Mary Jo Lynch Distinguished Research Lectureship)

:: Posted April 13, 2007