A dual exhibition will celebrate two new student-curated collections at KU Libraries focused on contemporary Indigenous literature and human connection to the flora and fauna of China and Japan.
Between the two collections, the curators, Isabel López and Xinyu (Lavender) Wang, added more than 35 print and digital materials in multiple languages to the KU Libraries system.
López’s collection focuses on contemporary Indigenous literature and includes folklore, poetry, fiction and children’s books.
“I kept being amazed by how large the world of literature is, and how large librarian work can be, and even how large the libraries storage is,” López said in a KU news release. “The experience has really deepened my critical thinking skills and has made me reevaluate some of my previous thoughts and biases and overall improve my cultural awareness.”
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Wang’s collection focuses on the ways humans connect with flora and fauna, especially in China and Japan. Wang “added books in English and Chinese on topics that span mythical dragons to the panda’s cultural and political significance, tea culture in China and Japan, plants and mixology, animals in art over five centuries, Indigenous knowledge, natural disasters and more,” according to the release.
“I understand more about how much it means for a library to exist in the world for the public and for our students,” Wang said in the release as a reflection on the experience.
KU librarian Amalia Monroe-Gulick said some of the books for the collections are still on the way, as many of them are printed by small presses, published in different countries or are out of print.
The exhibition will last for two months and will kick off with an opening reception from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5 at the Watson Library’s Haricombe Gallery, 1425 Jayhawk Blvd.
The event is free and open to the public and will include talks from library faculty and the student curators.
If local news matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat — get the latest news from the Times delivered to your inbox:
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.
If you have news tips, questions, comments, concerns, compliments or corrections for our team, please reach out and let us know what’s on your mind. Email us at Hello@LawrenceKSTimes.com (don’t forget the KS!), or find more contact info and a quick contact form at LawrenceKSTimes.com/contact.
Follow us so you won’t miss the local news that matters most to you:
Latest Lawrence news:
Jeanine Michna-Bales
Contributed photo
