The University of Kansas Libraries

AIDS awareness exhibit to open at KU Libraries on September 10

KU Libraries will unveil a new interdisciplinary exhibit, "Reach Out: Scholarly and Visual Communication to Promote AIDS Awareness," in its multimedia Library Gallery space with an opening on September 10, 2009. The opening will be held from 5-7 p.m. in the third floor gallery area of Watson Library. The event is free and open to the public; please RSVP to Courtney Foat, cfoat@ku.edu or 785-864-0970.

The exhibit will feature scholarly work by faculty and students from departments across KU, including Journalism and Mass Communication, Anthropology, Speech Language and Hearing, as well as the KU Medical Center, the Kansas AIDS Education and Training Center (KAETC) at the KU School of Medicine/Wichita, and KU Libraries.

“One new HIV infection occurs every six seconds of every minute of every day,” said Kathryn Rhine, an assistant professor of anthropology at KU whose work appears in the exhibit. “Epidemics, however, are social processes, not biological events. As globally engaged scholars, our response must be guided not only by biomedical advances, but also by understandings of the political, economic, and cultural forces that shape patterns of suffering and disease in local contexts.”

The exhibit also includes a selection of AIDS awareness posters collected by KU Libraries employee Richard Crank. Crank began gathering the posters in 1994 and has shown them in multiple exhibits over the past 15 years, dedicating each exhibition to the memory of Benet Hanlon, a former Benedictine priest and KU faculty member in the Kansas School of Religion, now the Department of Religious Studies, in the early 1970’s who died of AIDS in 1992.

Crank, who has worked for KU Libraries for 30 years, recently donated the collection of more than 150 posters to Spencer Research Library, also in memory of Hanlon. Every continent is represented except Antarctica, and the posters’ origins range from the United States to China, from England to Brazil, from Australia to Uganda.

The multimedia exhibit will include print and electronic materials from KU Libraries collections selected by librarians Tami Albin, Shiferaw Assefa, and Julie Petr.

“KU Libraries have long supported research and awareness of the continuing global AIDS crisis, as well as responses to that crisis, whether medical, scientific, humanitarian, or artistic,” said Lorraine J. Haricombe, dean of Libraries. “We are proud to sponsor this exhibit, and we are pleased that Richard Crank has chosen to entrust his significant collection of AIDS awareness posters to Spencer Research Library.”

Contributors include:

KU Students:
Kellen Huet-Cox, Anthropology
Hannah Nusz, African American Studies

KU Faculty:
Tami Albin, KU Libraries
Barbara Barnett, Journalism and Mass Communications
Shilpa Buch, KU Med Center
Susan Craig, KU Libraries
Rich Crank, KU Libraries
Kathy Graves, KU Libraries
John  Janzen, Anthropology
Mary Leenerts, KU Med Center
Natabhona Marianne Mabachi, KU Med Center
Jill Peltzer, KU Med Center
Kathryn Rhine, Anthropology 
Mabel Rice, Speech Language and Hearing
Shiferaw Assefa, KU Libraries
Julie Petr, KU Libraries
Kansas AIDS Education and Training Center (KAETC) at the KU School of Medicine/Wichita
KU Med Center
Spencer Museum of Art

The exhibit, which was organized by the KU Librarian Sarah Goodwin Thiel and the KU Libraries Exhibit Committee, will run through November 10, 2009.

Contact: Rebecca Smith, KU Libraries, (785) 864-1761.