April 14, 2006 Source: :
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/060414-2197.asp What a life: Great stories on display at Robarts Inspirational reading exhibit runs till the end of August
Apr 14/06 (updated Apr 21)
by W.D. Lighthall Looking for a good book to read on your summer holidays? Look no further than the second-floor exhibition space in Robarts Library where you’ll find a display of this year’s collection of books recommended by U of T library staff. This is the fourth annual exhibit of "staff picks" and this year’s theme is biographies and autobiographies that current and former members of the library staff have found to be inspired reading. Entitled Life Stories: An Exhibition of Auto/biographies Recommended by U of T Library Staff, the 108 selections in the exhibition comprise a diverse range of books, including one originally written in Spanish, two in Chinese and two audio books. "We have a whole range of books, from A to Z," says Carole Moore, chief librarian. "We have Maya Angelou to Frank Zappa and everything in between." The books are displayed with a one-page description written by the staff member who contributed the selection. In some cases, the display includes artifacts or items with a connection to the life story told in the book. "There was more of a personal connection to the books this year. I think the subject matter just lent itself to that in a particular way," says Maureen Morin, a graphic designer with the library’s Scotiabank Information Commons and chief organizer of Life Stories, which is on display at Robarts until the end of August. Morin’s contribution is The Day They Took the Children by Ben Wicks. The book is a collection of accounts by those who, as children growing up during the Second World War, were evacuated from their homes in England’s cities to the countryside — and in some cases, to other countries, including Canada and Australia. Morin has a personal connection to the book. Her own mother was evacuated during the war to the English countryside from her home in Newcastle-on-Tyne. "We still live in a world of upheaval. Wherever there’s political unrest or war, children get caught up in it," says Morin of the book’s relevance today. One book in the exhibition with a U of T connection is A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada, the Journals of Anne Langton, by H.H. Langton. Contributed by Robert Blackburn, the retired university chief librarian, the book contains the journals of Anne Langton who chronicled life on her brother John’s rural home near Fenelon Falls in the mid-1800s. John Langton was elected vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto in 1856 and his son H.H. Langton, who originally edited A Gentlewoman, was also the university’s librarian from 1892 until 1923
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