Introducing new staff members Gisella De La Portilla and Roberto Torres-Torres
This semester the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library welcomes two new colleagues, Library Supervisor Gisella De La Portilla and Library Manager Roberto Torres-Torres.
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Houston, Roberto is a graduate of the University of Houston, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art/Painting with a minor in Art History. He worked previously at the MD Anderson Library and the UH Graduate School. Roberto has shown his art in solo and group shows and continues to draw and paint. At our library, Roberto will be managing our service desk, facility maintenance, training the staff and student workers, interlibrary loan and paging, supplies, and budgeting.
Like all members of the department, Gisella and Roberto’s primary tasks will be helping our patrons access information and master research methods.
Provost Chase interviews students Alex and Dave Schuman in the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room
The William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library was pleased to welcome Provost Diane Z. Chase to the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, where she interviewed students of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design in the latest installment of her Provost Profiles series. The students, Alex and Dave Schuman, are also a father and son. Click here to listen to the interview.
MD Anderson Library Service Desk Hours
University of Houston Libraries welcomes new and returning Coogs for the start of a spirited fall 2024 semester. This academic year, effective Monday, August 19, MD Anderson Library will offer new Service Desk hours. The new schedule is:
Monday – Thursday: 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Saturday: Closed
Sunday: 12:00 noon to 8:00 p.m.
The new hours pertain only to the Service Desk on MD Anderson Library floor 1. Building hours will remain the same as in previous semesters.
During times when MD Anderson Library is open and the Service Desk is closed, Coogs have the following self-service options:
- Self-checkout machines on MD Anderson Library floor 1, located across from the Service Desk, enable users to check out books. The self-checkout machines require an active Cougar Card to borrow books.
- Group study rooms in the Red and Brown wings on floors 3, 4, and 5 are open on a first-come-first-served basis. No reservation or room keys are required to use these rooms during hours when the Service Desk is closed.
- Individual study carrels in the Blue wing on floors 3, 5, and 6 and in the Brown wing on floors 2 – 5 are open on a first-come-first-served basis. No reservation or carrel keys are required to use these carrels during hours when the Service Desk is closed.
- Printing, scanning, and copying options are available for those with active Cougar Cards.
Hours of operation for special libraries and service points are as follows:
Special Collections
Monday – Friday: 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Digital Research Commons
Monday: 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Tuesday: 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday: 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Thursday: 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Architecture, Design, and Art Library
*Re-opening on Monday, August 26* Monday – Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Health Sciences Library
Monday – Thursday: 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday – Sunday: 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.
Medical Library
Monday – Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (staffed); the space is open 24 hours for medical students
Music Library
Monday – Thursday: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Questions? Contact us.
Selections from the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room on Display
Featured Artist Adrienne Simmons
The Architecture, Design, and Art Library proudly presents the work of featured artist ‘23-24 Adrienne Simmons. Her exhibit, A Landscape, Shifted, will be on view until July 2024.
Statement
Do you ever feel a distinct type of pain when reflecting on a place in your past? The Welsh have a word for this feeling called hiraeth, which translates to “distance pain.” It’s not quite a nostalgic yearning, but the true pain of loving a place. Having moved frequently around the US, I often experience this sense of place-pain.
My work responds to the landscapes I visit. I’m drawn to the way the land shapes our personal histories and memories. I collect the fragments of our lives—domestic textiles, collected water, crushed seashells, clumps of earth, and vines to make homemade charcoal. These found materials are collaged with satellite imagery, cyanotype, and acrylic mediums in an intuitive and alchemical practice. This multimedia exploration allows me to establish a sense of place, map ideas of collective memory, and attempt to embed the landscape into the surface of my work. Ultimately, the connection made with the land and the resulting work reconciles my hiraeth.
Bio
Adrienne Simmons is a multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Houston, TX. She explores ideas of cartography and memory with found materials to untangle the relationship between people and their environments. Drawn to real and imagined landscapes, she uses printmaking, cyanotype, found objects, textiles, and abstract imagery in an attempt to understand how memories are embedded into spaces and places. Her work has been collected by UTMB and MD Anderson, and she has shown at the Houston Center for Photography, the Print Museum, and the Blaffer Art Museum, while pursuing her MFA at the University of Houston (2024).
Interview with Retiring Interior Architecture James B. Thomas, Available in UH Libraries’ Audio/Video Repository
Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s Digital Rare Books Archive Linked to Resources Page
Tracy Xavia Karner will Speak on April 17th for Books + Bytes, a Library Series on Book Publishing
Books and Bytes is a series of talks by local authors who discuss the research, writing, and publication of their art, architecture, or design book. Our community of scholars is invited to participate in discussions afterward, so they may learn from one another’s experiences. Books and Bytes is co-sponsored by the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design and the University of Houston Libraries.
This conversation will take place on Wednesday, April 17th, at 6 pm in the Architecture, Art, and Design Library on the first floor of the College of Architecture Building.
Making a Scene! is the story of how visionary individuals created an international art world around photography. A classic Texas tale of seemingly quixotic ideas, audacious goals, oil booms and busts, generous philanthropists, southern sensibilities, grandiosity, and resolve, this book documents the social history of ‘who did what and when’ to create an international photography scene in such an unlikely place as Houston.
Tracy Xavia Karner is a visual sociologist who writes about photography in fine art venues and everyday life. She is the chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Houston where she teaches courses in Visual Sociology, Sociology of Art, and Visual Culture.
Rare Diego Rivera Books Now on View
Four books on the works of Diego Rivera from the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room are now on display in the William R. Jenkins Architecture, Design, and Art Library. The bound books and portfolios are liberally illustrated with reproductions of frescoes, watercolors, portraiture, as well as other genre and media. All were published in Mexico between 1934 and 1967. Rivera was arguably the most important figure in the Mexican mural movement. His style featured “a new iconography based on socialist ideas and exalted the indigenous and popular heritage in Mexican culture.” (O’Connor, F. (2003). Rivera (y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez), Diego. Grove Art Online.)
The works on view are:
12 reproductions in color of Mexican frescoes by Diego Rivera
Acuarelas, 1935-1945: Colección Frida Kahlo
El genial muralista mundialmente discutido maestro: Diego Rivera
Pop-Up Art Library + FFAT 4/5
Pop-Up Art Library + First Friday Art Tours
Come find us during First Friday Art Tours at Blaffer Art Museum. We’ll have a selection of books thematically related to the museum’s current exhibition available for check out. Lunch will be provided after the tour.