Towers
A Newsletter for Supporters of the University of Idaho Library
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Towers A Newsletter for Supporters of the University of Idaho Library
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Winter 1998
Editor: Elizabeth P. Isaacson, M.S.
Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare.-James R. Lowell
Caribou County Land to Benefit Library
Winter 1998 Issue
The University of Idaho Library recently received 280 acres of Caribou County farmland as a gift in memory of Heber and Rhea Lau of Soda Springs. David and Ann Lau of Salem, Oregon made the gift to the University of Idaho as a memorial to his parents. It is their wish that the proceeds from the land go to benefit the library. A gift of this magnitude will contribute greatly to the future heritage for the library collections.
The Lau family has deep roots in the ranching country of southeastern Idaho. David Lau’s great-grandparents were the first settlers in what is now Franklin, Idaho, the oldest town in Idaho. His great grandfather, Daniel F. Lau came from Germany in 1854 and his great- grandmother, Dorothea Zollinger Lau from Switzerland in 1862. These early pioneers would soon move from Franklin in 1871, to homestead in the Soda Springs area. On that homestead would soon grow a ranch business that their son, Daniel J. Lau focused on the sheep and wool industry.
Daniel J. Lau entered into the politics of Idaho when he ran for House of Representatives in 1920. From 1921 to 1922 he represented the interest of Caribou County in the House. He must have enjoyed Idaho politics for he soon ran for the senate. From 1923 until 1935 Daniel J. Lau was an Idaho Senator from Caribou County. His only defeat for the senate seat was in the 1935-1936 election losing to a Democrat, but he would gain the seat again for the 1937-1938 term. More biographical information on this pioneer family can be found in Byron Defenbach’s Idaho: The place and its people (1933) in the University of Idaho Library.
Heber Lau was one of seven children that Daniel J. Lau and Mary Rose Lau raised in Soda Springs. Married in 1895, Mary Rose was also from a pioneer family in Soda Springs. Heber G. Lau also represented his county serving as representative in the Idaho Legislature. His wife, Rhea Viola Soffe Lau, was a 1926 graduate from the school of education with a B.S. in Education. She served on the UI Alumni Association Board of Directors for seven years. Rhea Lau also served on the Soda Springs Library Board of Directors for twenty-five years. Heber G. Lau was also honorary member of the University of Idaho Alumni Association.
David Lau and his wife Ann Royer Lau, are both graduates from the School of Business at the University of Idaho. David Lau is a retired real estate appraiser and consultant in Salem, Oregon. The University of Idaho Library will place a memorial plaque in the Periodical Service Center honoring his father and mother and crediting him and his wife as generous donors.
From the Dean
Winter 1998 Issue
One of the unforeseen effects of the new technologies is to once again put the library in the role of publisher. Classical and mediaeval libraries usually had an associated scriptorium, and well into this century, larger libraries had a publishing arm that produced periodicals and monographs on matters bibliographic. Our own Bookmark was in that vein. Most of the more prominent publications have since been subsumed by commercial publishers due to the high cost of printing and distribution.
The Internet allows us to avoid the distribution costs and once more make the library a publisher of original information, of which the Geospatial project in this issue is just one example. We have several other major projects underway including the collection and scanning of historical Idaho air photos, the history of the McBeth sisters, missionaries to the Nez Perce and several in-house indexes which we hope to have generally available for use early in the spring.
These projects are supported by grants, and your endowments and gifts without which they would not be possible.
The Idaho Geospatial Data Center: A New Library Service
Winter 1998 Issue
The University of Idaho Library has added another building block to its cyberspace infrastructure, the Idaho Geospatial Data Center. As a visual reference center it is quite different from traditional library resources; while the functions of documenting and distributing information are the same, this reference material is now on the Internet. The Idaho Geospatial Data Center or IGDC is an on-line Idaho geographical information web site with specific data sets and links to additional geographical information. The librarians involved in bringing IGDC to the University of Idaho Library are Dr. Maria Jankowska and Professor Lily Wai. Dr. Maria Jankowska, Network Resource Librarian, designed the web page for the Geospatial Center. Professor Lily Wai, Head of the Government Documents Department, gathered the inventory of public-domain spatial digital data. To discover just what this center has to offer you can enter <http://geolibrary.uidaho.edu> on the World Wide Web on your home computer or consult with an experienced reference librarian at the library. By adding the Geospatial Data Center to the library’s resources the University of Idaho Library continues the University’s mission of research, education, and service. The creation of this visual center resulted from a collaborative research effort with the University of Idaho Library, the Department of Geography, the Lewis-Clark State College, and the Idaho Geological Survey.
Dr. Jankowska describes the center as a unique reference tool for geographical information. This information can be downloaded to a ready-to-use Geographic Information System (GIS) format. The GIS is an interactive World Wide Web Geographic Information System where data points from maps and tables can be displayed in a visual format. An example would be a forest map showing the effect of different forest fires on vegetation and regrowth.
The new Geospatial Data Center supplies quick visual references for librarians. Professor Lily Wai reports, "just the other day a student phoned needing the location of a small town in Idaho, I quickly entered the Geospatial Center and found the information in the Tiger/Line data set." She uses the system daily for various queries regarding Idaho geographical information. For the engineering and geography and geology students and their faculty this Geospatial Center brings instant visual reference materials for their Idaho queries.
Both the Library and the Department of Geography support the IGDC as an instrument for information, which provides a large variety of Idaho geographical data to the general public. The reason for placing this information on the Internet was to save time, money, and computer resources. The Idaho Geospatial Data Center is ready to help students, faculty, and the general public retrieve any information pertaining to geographical areas in Idaho.
The funding for the project was provided through the Idaho Board of Education’s Technology Incentive Program. The other team members involved in the IGDC’s development, in addition to Professor Lily Wai and Dr. Maria Janskowska, were Dr. Piotr Jankoski, Associate Professor in Geography, the project coordinator and designer of the GeoLibrary. Dr. William Heins, an Assistant Professor from Lewis Clark State College, classified the geospatial data and developed an interactive on-line tutorial service. London Stanford, the production manager at the Idaho Geological Survey Laboratory, was responsible for quality control of the digital cartography and data collection. Milosz Stasik, a Ph.D. candidate in geography, and Matt Williamson, a computer consultant for Iota Systems in Moscow, helped implement the geographical data sets.
Can’t Find it? Try the Research Assistance Program
Winter 1998 Issue
"Research is the art of seeing what everyone else has seen,
and doing what no one else has done."Anonymous
The University of Idaho Library recently added a new form of support for students called the Library Research Assistance Program. Nancy Young, a reference librarian, coordinates the service which was started by Diane Prorak, instruction librarian, after researching similar programs at universities throughout the country. The goal of the program is to assist students in finding relevant information for research papers or projects. To introduce the service to students, the two librarians collaborated with the English Department; the instructors teaching English Composition courses in sections 101 and 102 were pleased to assist. In addition to giving each class section a tour of the library’s resources, the two librarians also explained the benefits of the research assistance program. The students then received a paper version of the scheduling form, which they need to start the process. Any student can easily obtain the scheduling form online at </library/rapform.html > or pick up a paper version from the information/reference desk at the library.
The research assistance program gives students one hour of one-on-one time with a librarian. To aid Nancy Young with this teaching program, she issued a request for volunteers from the University of Idaho Library faculty. She received a swift reply from a variety of departments within the library. Mrs. Young’s focus is to coordinate the expertise of each librarian volunteer with the topic of the student’s research project. She believes this technique also expedites the search process, making efficient use of time for both participants.
To start the process students must take the initiative by filling out the scheduling form. Mrs. Young has only one request for students who are interested in using this service, to please plan ahead and schedule an appointment weeks in advance of the paper or project’s due date. An assigned volunteer librarian will then contact the student through email or by telephone.
All too often, many first year students lack skills in searching for
information and end up wasting time with material not relevant to their
topics. With this new assistance program students narrow their search time
by receiving specific suggestions that are sure to be pertinent. Nancy
Young reports, "it is rewarding to assist students with projects knowing
you have a specific block of time set aside for them." She
also adds, "it’s such a wonderful feeling when a student you have been
helping realizes that maybe their research paper could even be fun!"
Return to Towers Home
Spring 1998
Editor: Katherine Cozine, University of Idaho student
Formal education applies its patterns to the mind; but only through books does the mind itself enrich, deepen, apply, modify, and develop those patterns in individual fulfillment.-Helen E. Haines
Letters from the Past
Spring 1998 Issue
As we look back, we seem to have lost everything dear in our life. Our family life was disrupted; our businesses and professions were gone; our savings and securities were lost; our rights and privileges were denied. We have learned much of sorrow and suffering. We have witnessed more of tragedy and sacrifice. We wonder if any other group would have taken such a beating as gracefully as we did with little complaints and without deviating from loyalty to our country.
In the late spring of 1942, over 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, most of whom were American citizens, were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses on the West Coast and were herded into assembly centers. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt approved a plan to relocate those of Japanese descent from the West Coast to the interior. Sites for ten concentration camps were selected and construction was soon underway.
A patch of desert near Hunt, Idaho, was chosen as one of the sites for a concentration camp. The Minidoka Relocation Center housed over 9,000 internees from August 1942 to October 1945. Internees spent an average of 1,100 days at the various camps. The Shitamae family, owners of a Seattle bottling business and hotel, were to become residents at Minidoka for over two years.
Following Pearl Harbor, George Shitamae and many other men were seized and held without trial for being "enemy aliens," merely because they were community leaders. The men were sent to enemy alien internment camps in Montana, and the next year were transferred to New Mexico, where many would live for the duration of the war. Other family members were left to take care of their homes, businesses, and finances.
On May 1, 1942, the remaining Shitamaes were bused under guard to the state fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington, where they waited for four months before being transferred to Minidoka. With other Seattle residents, the family was ordered from the green, moist climate of Seattle to the hot sagebrush desert of southern Idaho. Separated by wartime exigencies, the Shitamaes kept in touch through numerous letters during their internment.
The Special Collections department at the UI Library has acquired the wartime Shitamae family correspondence. The majority of the letters are from family members in Camp Minidoka at Hunt, Idaho, written to an uncle, George Shitamae, interned in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The letters, written in English, paint a vivid picture of daily life in an Idaho concentration camp during World War II.
The letters date from February 1942 to August 1944, and discuss conditions of the respective internment camps and pass on news of family and friends. Also included in the collection is George Shitamae’s handwritten diary in Japanese from the camp at Fort Missoula, Montana. There is also evidence of his efforts to learn English usage.
The acquisition of the George Shitamae papers covering the wartime internment of Japanese Americans was made possible by generous funds from the Library Associates of the University of Idaho Library. These detailed letters open a window into the past so that we may seek to understand the experiences, however disturbing, of those who came before us.
From the Dean
Spring 1998 Issue
The articles in this edition of Towers illustrate how the library preserves our heritage while building the future through its teaching and service functions. Professor Boemhke is perhaps being too modest when she says that the library is engaged in "providing resources that support the curriculum." In reality, she, and her colleagues, are one of the most important resources we offer to the campus. Collectively, the library faculty has accumulated hundreds of person-years of education and professional experience that is put to use every day in furthering the mission of the university. Whether in selecting and acquiring items to add to the collections, consulting with faculty on new programs of teaching and research, or introducing a new student to the riches of the library, the librarians are the foundation of an effective educational institution. However, this foundation is effectively being undermined as a result of ongoing holdbacks, cutbacks, and revenue shortfalls. During the last five years the library has lost two and a half librarian positions (11%) limiting the pool of experienced information professionals available to students at the University of Idaho.
A Librarian’s Mission
Spring 1998 Issue
The University of Idaho Library is much more than just a home for tens of thousands of books and periodicals. Librarians at the University of Idaho Library do more than just check out books and issue fines. The library and its employees support the University’s mission of research, the granting of degrees, and service, and do so by providing access to a variety of sources of information.
The library is dedicated to providing up-to-date materials to support students, faculty members, and staff for their researching needs. University librarians are responsible for the acquisition of materials that support the various colleges and departments at the University of Idaho. For some disciplines, researchers may require very recent information, and it is critical that these resources are available.
When considering if a new major or minor program should be offered at the University, it must be determined whether the library has significant materials and other resources to support the new discipline. Librarians are responsible for acquiring materials to add to the current collection to support these specialized disciplines or subjects of interest.
Recently, an academic minor in Aging Studies was developed as a part of the curriculum of the School of Family and Consumer Sciences. Reference librarian Maryann Boehmke assisted the Aging Minor Committee in obtaining reference books, journals, and other materials to support the program. Boehmke’s background in Food and Consumer Sciences made her a natural choice to aid the committee.
Acquiring new materials for the library involves analysis of the needs of the program’s faculty. Boehmke, a UI faculty member since 1991, researched the courses that were offered in the discipline to determine what materials were needed to support students and faculty. After analyzing the current collection, Boehmke ordered numerous books and journals to supplement areas where the current collection was weak.
Boehmke, like other reference librarians at the University of Idaho Library, focuses on keeping collections current, providing timely sources of information to researchers. In choosing what information is included in the collection, Boehmke uses numerous reviews, such as Library Journal, Choice, and New York Times Book Review. She also takes suggestions from faculty members.
Two publications that Boehmke strongly recommends in support of the Aging Studies program are The Clock of Ages: Why we age—how we age—winding back the clock (1996), by John J. Medina, and Why We Age (1997), by University of Idaho professor of zoology Steven N. Austad.
Librarians at the University of Idaho Library support the University’s mission of research, teaching, and service in providing access to information. Boehmke states, "The library tries to support research that faculty and students are engaged in by providing resources that support the curriculum." In 1996/97, the library added over 32,000 books and serial volumes.
The Great Moscow Circus Robbery
Spring 1998 Issue
One day a newspaper come to our ranch that told about Forepaugh's Circus coming to Moscow, Idaho on a certain date. By this time we was well established in that country as cattlemen and believed it would be safe to pull a robbery if it was far enough away from the ranch. "The conditions is just right," says Bill. "It's a long ways down there through a wild, heavy timbered country. We can cover our trails both ways so no one can follow or trace us. The circus will gather all the money in that part of the country. It will be a big haul. Let's go." We left Rose and Hans and Fritz on the ranch and pulled out in the night for Moscow, Idaho.
So begins Matt Warner's story of the time he and the infamous McCarty Brothers, Bill and Tom - all veterans of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch - left their hideout near present-day Ephrata, Washington, to rob Forepaugh's Circus at Moscow in 1888 or so. But Tom stopped on the way to fish trout with a stranger at an attractive little stream and spilled the beans on their foray to Moscow. As a result, the stranger, by the name of Hildreth, is invited to join in the robbery. Within a couple of hours he is a regular member of the gang, making suggestions on how to pull it off and otherwise being helpful.
But just as they ride up toward the ticket wagon they discover Hildreth has disappeared. He must have been a detective and reported their plans, they think. "Too conceited, vainglorious, and reckless to take defeat," the Invincible Three - as they had become known in the newspapers - planned to move on ahead of schedule and take everybody by surprise.
We are almost up to the ticket wagon and are ready to pull our guns. "Gawd almighty! Look at them windows!" Bill McCarty sort of gasps in my ear. I look quick and see a sight that makes my blood run cold. Every last window bristles with rifle barrels and murderous faces. The memory of it is like a nightmare to me even today. The surprise is so complete and horrible and all them loaded, cocked, and leveled Winchesters is so close up against us, we are plumb paralyzed for a second. We feel sure in the next second a blast will come that will tear us to pieces.
Realizing after a moment that no shots would be fired as long as they are still among the circus crowd, the "Invincible Three" edge through the crowd out of rifle range and on to the edge of town. From there they decide to go on to Enterprise, Oregon and rob a bank rather than risk going back to central Washington. Outwitting a posse, they make a mad dash for the ferry at Lewiston to cross the river and head for Enterprise.
Matt's story of his outlaw career first appeared in 1938 in Cosmopolitan, a much different magazine than it is today. In 1940 it was published as a book, Last of the Bandit Riders, by Caxton Printers, in Caldwell, Idaho. Caxton's file copy of that book is in the University of Idaho's Caxton Collection, along with at least one copy of every book published by Caxton, many of which are like Matt's, on Pacific Northwest history.
Matt eventually gave up on outlawry, served time in Utah on a trumped-up charge, was pardoned by the governor, and settled in Price, Utah, where he served as Deputy Sheriff, Justice of the Peace, Detective and Night Policeman. As the manner of Butch Cassidy's death has been questioned (by, among others, Spokane reporter Larry Pointer), it is possible that he and Matt met once or twice, but Matt asserts in his book that Cassidy died in South America. Of the McCarty's, well, two were killed in action: Bill and his son, Fred, were shot during a bank robbery in Delta, Colorado, in 1893. Matt reports that Tom, who escaped at Delta, was killed during a gun battle in the Bitterroots of Montana. Others say he lived a long and obscurely peaceful life in Los Angeles.
Reprinted from The Bookmark, (Spring 1987)33-34.
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