Save Iowa History 3

The President and Executive Director of the American Historical Association (AHA), the leading professional organization of historians in the United States, sent the above letter on June 16, 2015 to Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and the leadership of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs to protest further cuts in funding for staff, services, and research collections at the State Historical Society of Iowa.

For further information, see earlier Common Curator posts: Save Iowa History (with petition and contact information) and Save Iowa History 2 (with survey).

R.I.P. Ornette Coleman

Jazz great Ornette Coleman [1930-2015] died today at age 85 in Manhattan. In an interview in the above BBC program excerpt, Coleman states: "I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody. I want to be as human as I can get. Believe me. There's nothing I'm trying to hide. There's nothing I'm trying to climb above. There's nothing I'm trying to destroy." His obituaries can be read in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, and elsewhere.

A Good Stamp Is Hard to Find

The United States Postal Service is honoring the author, Flannery O'Connor [1925-1964], with the issuance of its 30th stamp in the Literary Arts series. First Day Covers of the commemorative will be available June 5, 2015. The watercolor portrait of O'Connor is based on a black-and-white photograph taken while she was a student at the Georgia State College for Women.

O'Connor subsequently earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop in 1947. One of her acerbic observations--about academia--is recorded on a plaque along Iowa City's Literary Walk: "Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."

Among O'Connor's major works are the novels Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, as well as the short story collections A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, for which she was posthumously awarded the National Book Award for Fiction in 1972.

Save Iowa History 2

The State Historical Society of Iowa is presently soliciting public input about its collections and services via an online survey, as described below:

WHAT: The State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) wants your input about what and how you use our historical collections to conduct research.

WHO: The survey is open to the public. We encourage all Iowans interested in history and other researchers to participate - from students to scholarly to general interest.

WHEN: The survey will be open through Tuesday, June 30, 2015. You may complete it only once.

HOW: Take the survey here. It will take approximately 10 minutes or less to complete.

WHY: This survey is an important step in the SHSI Collections Planning process currently underway. It will help SHSI plan for how Iowa's history is best managed, preserved, and accessed by Iowans and researchers.

Your input is valuable as SHSI sets priorities for future care of its historical collections. We will continue to serve those already invested in Iowa history--and want to inspire new generations of historians across Iowa's 99 counties.

NEXT STEPS: To receive news about SHSI, please sign up for the Iowa Historian, the Society's newsletter.

More information about the Society's resources and activities can be found at the SHSI website.