providencepubliclibrary

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Joe DeGeorge Creative Fellow Concert

We’re less than a week away from our 2024-25 Creative Fellow Joe DeGeorge’s presentation, a performance of music he composed inspired by one of our most mysterious whaling logbooks. When third mate Marshall Keith recorded the events of the Brewster’s 1863 voyage he didn’t limit his entries to the standard stuff (location, weather, whales encountered, etc.). He also included a record of his…

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Updike Prize Reminder

Our first Updike Prize news is that it took a while, but our 2023 prize winner Clara Cayosa is finally in possession of the trophy. Clara was out of town for the award ceremony, but we made the handoff at an unofficial award presentation recently. If you’d like to be the next person receiving the trophy, now is the time to be working on your typeface. The deadline for submissions is September…

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Providence Printers Panel

You’re invited to a panel discussion on November 12th with four of the most exciting letterpress printers in Providence. The Pied Type Panel starts at 5:30 PM in the library’s 3rd floor Seminar Room. We’ll have a chance to hear from, and ask questions of: Andre Lee Bassuet, Jacques Bidon, Lois Harada, and Dan Wood. The panel accompanies the “Pied Type: Letterpress Printing in Providence,…

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Lois Harada printing exhibition opening tomorrow

Local artist and printer Lois Harada has been working on an exhibition on the history of printing in Providence, and you’re invited to the opening reception tomorrow, October 2, from 5-6:30pm. Lois has curated a fascinating batch of materials drawn from our Updike Collection on the History of Printing, as well as materials generously loaned by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, Tomaquag…

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Applications for the 2024-25 Creative Fellowship are now open!

This is always one of our favorite announcements: We’re looking for our next Creative Fellow. This year’s medium is “music or sonic expression,” and it’s always exciting to see what kind of projects people come up with. Visit our website for more information about the fellowship, or jump right to the call for papers (pdf link).

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Cetadata

Come join us at 5pm on Tuesday, May 7th to get an in-progress update on the work of our Digital Humanities Fellow, Abby Dolan. Abby has been working with the images and metadata the records of an 1887 whaling voyage undertaken by Black whaling master William Martin. Abby will be giving a demo about how the project is going so far, and attendees will have a chance to test out the site and ask…

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Whaling Season

We’re now in the season of all things whaling here at PPL. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop in to see “From Hold to Horizon,” which is not just an exhibition but also an opportunity for interaction with the curators, Becci Davis and Kei Soares Cobb. Kei and Becci have created a beautiful space in our exhibition gallery, and you can register for one or more of the activation days, on which they…

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Documenting Queer Spaces - newly available digital collection

Two men and a woman at the bar, 1983https://provlibdigital.org/islandora/object/109-03-0301-01p We are excited to announce that the Kim Deacon Collection photographs are now digitized and available to the public on provlibdigital.org! Kim donated materials in 2021 to the RI LGBTQ+ Community Archives at Providence Public Library.  Her collection documents the Kings & Queen Bar in Woonsocket,…

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The perfect undergarment for training your corvid

From a 1917 Gossard Corsets advertising brochure.

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Makerspace in the Gallery

PPL’s fantastic Makerspace staff and users have put together a really fun exhibition in the 3rd floor Joan T. Boghossian Gallery. Not only can you come in and see some amazing locally-made artwork, you can get inspiration for your own projects that you can bring to life in our workshop. (You can even make a short stop-motion film while you’re in the gallery itself.)

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Clara Cayosa is the 2023 Updike Prize Winner

Katie in front of the poster in the Trinity Rep. Theater window We had an absolutely fantastic keynote lecture by Katie Garth last week as part of our 2023 Updike Prize ceremony. If you ever get a chance to hear Katie discuss her art and her process don’t miss it. We celebrated our three excellent finalists–Emily Bluedorn, Clara Cayosa, and Tina Zhou and announced that Clara Cayosa is this…

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The sheer sensorial excess of TV220

We’ve noticed an increasing number of researchers interested in a very specific collection over the past year – specifically, a set of recordings of TV220 – a cable-access television show that aired from the late 1990s-mid 2000s produced by AS220. Maybe it’s curiosity and nostalgia for the analog VHS format, an appreciation for the grainy aesthetics inherent to the production or a sense of…

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Setting up for a class always feels building a paper buffet

Lots of books on tables

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Seems like someone needs reading glasses

From O.I. Leman (Moscow) type specimen book, 1914

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Two great opportunities to work with our collections, especially if you're into whales

We’re excited to announce that we have open calls for two fellowships at the moment. This is your chance to work with our materials to create something new. First, our long-running creative fellowship is now accepting applications. Each year we select a fellow to spend time researching in our collections and create new artwork in response to the theme of our annual exhibition and programming…

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Guest post by our Reading Room Attendant, Audrey Buhain. This new year we processed something that is the first of its kind into our Special Collections: a palm leaf manuscript!  The production of palm leaf manuscripts was most common before mass printing methods were adopted throughout South and Southeast Asia, but their production continues to this day. They consist of literary, folkloric,…

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Announcing PPL's 2023 Creative Fellow

Announcing PPL’s 2023 Creative Fellow

We’re so excited to announce the Library’s 2023 Creative Fellow, J.R. Uretsky. J.R. will be doing extensive Special Collections research and making new work about grief and mourning, in conversation with our spring 2023 exhibit Picturing the Pandemic. Photo of J.R. Uretsky by Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez J.R. Uretsky (she|they) is a Providence-based artist who weaves performance, video, puppetry,…