Bastard Out of Carolina, Allison’s first novel, won the Ferro Grumley prize and an ALA Award for Lesbian and Gay Writing. The novel became a best seller and an award-winning movie. Her second novel, Cavedweller, also became a national bestseller, New York Times Notable Book of the Year and an ALA prize winner. A third novel, She Who, is forthcoming.

The UT Libraries is conducting an online service quality survey of UT students, faculty, and staff beginning October 26. The survey is part of an effort led by the Association of Research Libraries to measure library service quality and identify best practices. The University of Tennessee is one of 200 academic libraries selected to participate in a library survey on services. This survey is important because it will:

• Help us better understand how the UT community rates library services

• Allow us to benchmark UT results against other libraries to determine best practices

• Let us know where we can concentrate service improvements for UT users

The UT Libraries conducted this survey in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Past results inspired the creation of the Commons and designated quiet floors, and the addition of more group study rooms.

If you are part of the random sample who receives the survey invitation, we hope you will take the time to complete it. Responses are completely anonymous and you will contribute to improvement of University of Tennessee library services by participating.

During study days and final exams, all of Hodges Library will be open 24 hours. The entire building will be open continuously from noon, Sunday, November 29, until midnight, Thursday, December 10.

Hilda Raz is the Luschei editor of Prairie Schooner, and professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her most recent books are All Odd and Splendid, poetry from Wesleyan University Press, 2008; What Becomes You, memoir with Aaron Raz Link, published in the American Lives series by the University of Nebraska Press; and What Happens, Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Previous books include Trans (Wesleyan), Divine Honors (Wesleyan), Living on the Margins (Persea), among others.

An informal chat with the author will be held at 3:30 p.m., Monday, October 26, in 1210-1211 McClung Tower. Both events are free and open to the public.

The reading is sponsored by the UT Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund and Writers in the Library. For more information on this event: mkallet@utk.edu.

The Open Publishing Support Fund, sponsored by the UT Office of Research and University Libraries, made available $20,000 to cover publishing in open-access journals that charge fees. At the end of the trial period, a total of $14,361 was allocated, an average of $1,105 per article. Open Access publishing makes content available via internet with no charge to the end user.

“Goals of the Open Publishing Support Fund are being met,” said Linda Phillips, head of scholarly communication at University Libraries. “The concept is gaining traction and will become better understood as we roll out Trace, the digital showcase for the campus’ creative and scholarly work.”

The program required faculty to negotiate for lower publishing fees, if possible.

Phillips and Greg Reed, associate vice chancellor for research, coordinated the program. On the basis of the trial year, the Office of Research has allocated $20,000 to continue UT’s open-access awareness program in FY 2010.

More information

The screening will take place Wednesday, October 21, 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Hodges Library auditorium. Please come out to support students at UT who created short videos to illustrate the value of information sharing. There will be a People’s Choice award for the video receiving the most votes from the audience on screening night.

If you have questions about the screening, contact Ann Viera at the Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine Library, 974-9015 or annviera@utk.edu.

More information about the Sparky Awards video contest: www.lib.utk.edu/studio/sparky/

More about the student role in Open Access: www.openstudents.org/

Aaron Purcell is an associate professor and director of special collections at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and was formerly head of university archives at the University of Tennessee Libraries.

About White Collar Radicals:

They came from all corners of the country — fifteen young, idealistic, educated men and women drawn to Knoxville, Tennessee, to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the first of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal projects. Mostly holding entry-level jobs, these young people became friends and lovers, connecting to one another at work and through other social and political networks.

What the fifteen failed to realize was that these activities — union organizing and, for most, membership in the Communist Party — would plunge them into a maelstrom that would endanger, and for some, destroy their livelihoods, social standing, and careers. White Collar Radicals follows their lives from New Deal activism in the 1930s through the 1940s and 1950s government investigations into what were perceived as subversive deeds.

Aaron D. Purcell shows how this small group of TVA idealists was unwillingly thrust from obscurity into the national spotlight, victims and participants of the second Red Scare in the years following World War II. The author brings into sharp focus the determination of the government to target and expose alleged radicals of the 1930s during the early Cold War period. The book also demonstrates how the national hysteria affected individual lives.

White Collar Radicals is both a historical study and a cautionary tale. The Knoxville Fifteen, who endured the dark days of the McCarthy Era, now have their story told for the first time — a story that offers modern-day lessons on freedom, civil liberties, and the authority of the government.

Join us Thursday, October 1, at 1:30 in the Mary Greer Room (258 Hodges Library) for a panel discussion of these topics and of other issues facing Native Americans today. The goal is to gain a better understanding of Native American culture.

• Sign Your Constitution. Sign an oversized copy of the Constitution on the Pedestrian Walkway, south side of Hodges Library, Wednesday, Sept. 16. Begins at 11:00 a.m. (Rain location: outside Starbucks, 2nd floor, Hodges Library)

• “What’s Fair on the Air?” — An interactive Constitution Day Forum, 4:00 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 17, Hodges Library, 1st floor galleria.

Should broadcasters be required to air contrasting views on controversial issues of public interest? Would reinstating the Fairness Doctrine raise the level of public discourse? Or foster government control of content on the airwaves?

Introduced originally in 1949 and more formally adopted in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcast stations to devote airtime to different sides of controversial issues. Gradually repealed over the ‘80s, there has been conversation among many (specifically) Democratic leaders (such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid) about its resurrection. While President Obama officially does not support the Doctrine, this issue seems to come up every few years. However, as recently as this year, a “Broadcaster Freedom Act” was proposed and passed to block the reinstatement of the Doctrine. How does this impact the freedom of speech? Does a democracy need to ensure that mass media communicates all sides of an argument?

Participants are invited to explore this idea with each other. Community members, students, faculty, and staff are all invited to engage in this topic with the guidance of several invited faculty members. The faculty members are meant to jump-start the conversation, while audience members are meant to keep it going.

Panel members include:

Barbara Moore, College of Communications and Information

Matt Shafer Powell, WUOT

Otis Stephens, College of Law

Events are sponsored by the Baker Center for Public Policy and the UT Libraries.