• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Archive
  • Print Edition

Amy Armstrong

Deadline: 2028—Countdown to preserve audio materials

April 27, 2017 - Amy Armstrong

A wax cylinder in new housing.

We left off in part one wondering how to evaluate the Ransom Center’s unique non-commercial sound recordings, particularly when we aren’t able to access their audio content prior to preservation. Verifying written descriptions helps, but there are other considerations to keep in mind, such as a recording’s physical format—different types of material become increasingly unstable with age, but at different rates, and in different ways. [Read more…] about Deadline: 2028—Countdown to preserve audio materials

Filed Under: Conservation, Digital Collections Tagged With: Amy Armstrong, audio, audiocassettes, audiovisual materials, belts, compact disc, David Douglas Duncan, Denis Johnson, dictation discs, digitization, Ernest Lehman, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mel Gussow, microcassettes, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Recording Preservation Plan, Norman Mailer, phonograph records, preservation, Preservation Self-Assessment Program, reel to reel audio tapes, sound recording, survey, wax cylinders, wire recordings

Deadline: 2028—Time is not on our side

April 27, 2017 - Amy Armstrong

A lacquer disc.

High stakes for cultural heritage

In just 11 years, the Harry Ransom Center could reach the point of no return!

[Read more…] about Deadline: 2028—Time is not on our side

Filed Under: Conservation, Digital Collections Tagged With: Amy Armstrong, audio, audiocassettes, audiovisual materials, belts, compact disc, David Douglas Duncan, Denis Johnson, dictation discs, digitization, Ernest Lehman, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mel Gussow, microcassettes, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Recording Preservation Plan, Norman Mailer, phonograph records, preservation, Preservation Self-Assessment Program, reel to reel audio tapes, sound recording, survey, wax cylinders, wire recordings

Keep Austin Weird: McSweeney’s McMullens and everything else

June 2, 2014 - Amy Armstrong

Cover of Jordan Crane's book "Keep Our Secrets," which uses heat-sensitive ink.

The McSweeney’s archive, which the Ransom Center acquired in 2013, is now open for research. This is the final installment in a four-part series of blog posts highlighting items from this dynamic and diverse collection.

It’s 2011. Venturing into children’s literature seems like a natural evolution for McSweeney’s. The line between McSweeney’s adult and children’s books may seem blurry to some readers. You know what I mean if you’ve ever given your child one of the “board books” in Lisa Brown’s “Baby Be Of Use” series and received a blank stare and little-to-no good response. A parent might be confused by the brightly illustrated, pictorial stories that instruct your wee little one on the method for making mommy and daddy a martini or changing the oil in the car.

Or you might relate if you’ve ever delighted in handing your fifth-grader one of the encyclopedias in the Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey series. My favorite is Your Disgusting Head. Or the fuzzy (I don’t mean warm; I mean literally fuzzy) novelization of Dave Eggers’s and Spike Jonze’s screenplay, The Wild Things, based on Maurice Sendak’s classic Where the Wild Things Are. These aren’t really for kids, but they’re a lot of fun no matter how young at heart you may be!

McSweeney’s marketed its children and young adult book imprint with the tagline “For Kids Who Love Weird Books.” The books definitely have the McSweeney’s design aesthetic. Many feature dust jackets that unfold into posters, and one even features heat-sensitive ink. Frequent McSweeney’s collaborator Jordon Crane’s board book Keep Our Secrets includes this tip: “For best results read this book with a hairdryer.” The McSweeney’s collection came complete with a hairdryer and is certainly the only collection at the Ransom Center with such a tool. The series features not only amazing illustrations but amazing stories. S. S. Taylor’s The Expeditioners and the Treasure of the Drowned Man’s Canyon is the first in a series and was a Nominee for the 2014–2015 Texas Bluebonnet Award.

Since being weird is no longer a stigma, I’m anxious for my own 1-year old, Simon, to be a weird kid. You see, being different is not only OK, it’s celebrated. Everything about McSweeney’s celebrates difference. From the namesake of the company, Mr. Timothy McSweeney himself, to the experimental design of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, to publishing books like Lemon (Lawrence Krauser), Real Man Adventures (T. Cooper), It Chooses You (Miranda July), and others that bring to print stories that comfort those who’ve always felt like they’ve never “fit in.” The publishing house also shines a light on the often ignored voices captured in the Voice of Witness oral history series that highlights human rights abuses in this country and around the world.

In fact, McSweeney’s wants to help inspire the upcoming generations’ crop of McSweeney’s writers.  Dave Eggers and McSweeney’s helped establish a non-profit tutoring and writing center, 826 Valencia in San Francisco. Under the umbrella organization 826 National, seven more centers have opened in Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Washington D.C., and Boston. Many writers and artists donate their work in support of 826 National with the proceeds of many McSweeney’s books going directly to further the work of the tutoring centers.

So, read, write, and be weird!

Please click on thumbnails below to view larger images.

Front of promotional postcard for Lisa Brown's "Baby mix me a drink."
Front of promotional postcard for Lisa Brown’s “Baby mix me a drink.”
Back of promotional postcard for Lisa Brown's "Baby mix me a drink."
Back of promotional postcard for Lisa Brown’s “Baby mix me a drink.”
Cover of Lisa Brown's "Baby fix my car."
Cover of Lisa Brown’s “Baby fix my car.”
Cover of Jordan Crane's book "Keep Our Secrets," which uses heat-sensitive ink.
Cover of Jordan Crane’s book “Keep Our Secrets,” which uses heat-sensitive ink.
Jordon Crane's board book "Keep Our Secrets" includes this tip: "For best results read this book with a hairdryer." This hairdryer came with the archive. Photo by Pete Smith.
Jordon Crane’s board book “Keep Our Secrets” includes this tip: “For best results read this book with a hairdryer.” This hairdryer came with the archive. Photo by Pete Smith.
Fur samples for novelization of Dave Eggers's and Spike Jonze's screenplay, "The Wild Things," based on Maurice Sendak's classic "Where the Wild Things Are." Photo by Pete Smith.
Fur samples for novelization of Dave Eggers’s and Spike Jonze’s screenplay, “The Wild Things,” based on Maurice Sendak’s classic “Where the Wild Things Are.” Photo by Pete Smith.
Cover of Dave Eggers's "The Wild Things," based on Maurice Sendak's classic "Where the Wild Things Are." Photo by Pete Smith.
Cover of Dave Eggers’s “The Wild Things,” based on Maurice Sendak’s classic “Where the Wild Things Are.” Photo by Pete Smith.

Filed Under: Cataloging, Research + Teaching Tagged With: 826 National, 826 Valencia, Baby Be Of Use, Books, children’s literature, Dave Eggers, Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey, It Chooses You, Jordon Crane, Keep Our Secrets, Lawrence Krauser, Lemon, Lisa Brown, Maurice Sendak, McSweeney’s, Miranda July, Publishing, Real Man Adventures, S.S. Taylor, Spike Jonze, T. Cooper, The Expeditioners and the Treasure of the Drowned Man's Canyon, The Wild Things, young adult books, Your Disgusting Head

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Archive

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate What is Research? World War I

Recent Posts

  • The Knickerbocker Theatre Collapse
  • On the Record: Black Creators and the Jazz Age
  • Ransom Center experience leads to new challenge
  • Films represented in the Drawing the Motion Picture exhibition
  • Celebrate with us in 2023

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2023 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy