Rocky Mountain Land Library NewsletterWinter 2008/2009

Land Library Book Wins Colorado Book AwardHome Land: Ranching and a West

That Works (one of the RMLL’s first three published titles) was awarded the 2008 Colorado Book Award for Best Anthology. Edited by Laura Pritchett, Rick Knight, and Jeff Lee, this book asked 18 authors to consider questions of land conservation, food security, and the shifting urban/rural divide in the West. A second RMLL title was also up for the same award: Pulse of the

River: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre, edited by Gary Wockner and Laura Pritchett.

Weaving Studio Donated to RMLLSusan Hess, long-time friend of the Land Library,

has donated a full array of weaving tools and supplies to the RMLL, including looms, a spinning wheel, carding equipment, natural dye materials -- not to mention many, many books.

This generous donation lays the cornerstone for future craft workshops at the RMLL’s residential land-study center in South Park. Considering the Rockies heritage of sheep ranching, the Land Library is extremely happy to have a home for a craft so closely tied to both people and the land.

Generous Bequest Boosts RMLL’s Native American, Hispanic Collection

Thanks to an anonymous bequest, the Land Library has been asked to significantly increase its already strong collection of books on Native American culture, and the Hispanic settlement of the West. Among our new acquisitions:

The Architecture and Art of Early Hispanic Colorado by Robert Adams

Spanish Textile Traditions of New Mexico and Colorado by Nora Fisher

Where the Ox Does Not Plow: A Mexican American Ballad by Manuel Pena

Hispano Folklife of New Mexico: The Lorin W. Brown Federal Writer’s Manuscripts

Early Days Among the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians by John Seger

Plains Apache Ethnobotany by Julia Jordan

People of the Wind River: The Eastern Shoshones by Henry Stamm

Speak Like Singing: Classics of Native American Literature by Kenneth Lincoln

If you have particular areas of interest (such as Women in the West, the history of conservation, nature education for children, ranching and mining history, etc, etc), please consider making a donation to the Land Library. Pick your passion, and the RMLL will work with you to find the essential books that we can add to the Land Library’s permanent collection.

Low Cost, No Cost Ways to Support the Rocky Mountain Land Library

sign up for RMLL updates and event alerts by emailing jeff@landlibrary.org.

attend FREE Rocky Mountain Land Series programs at the Tattered Cover Book Store -- a chance to hear from authors forging vital connections between land and community.

donate books, and help the Land Library grow!

find out more about the RMLL’s monthly Book Clubs, a terrific way to join with others in lively conversation.

donate what you can, whenever you can. Every single dollar will be an enormous help to the Land Library’s grassroots effort to establish a land-study center for the southern Rockies!

Launch of DU Library Science School Internship a Great Success

The Rocky Mountain Land Library’s eternal thanks goes to Tina Jayroe, graduate student at the University of Denver’s School of Library Science. For the past several months, Tina has donated her internship hours to the RMLL, helping us to locate funding sources, research needed library services, and determine the best cataloguing system to make our 18,000 volumes accessible to future users.

And if that good fortune isn’t enough, Tina’s husband Steve Maxwell, joined with a three-man RMLL team for a truly back-breaking day, as we moved the RMLL’s dismantled bookshelves to a new donated storage space. That space? Believe it or not, the Land Library’s shelves are now safely stacked in Tina and Steve’s basement.

R o C K y M o U N T A I NL A N D L I B R A R y

A Resource Linking Land and Community

www.landlibrary.org

The Authentic Underpinnings of Hope: New Books for a New WorldJean Giono wrote: “There are times in life when a person has to rush off in pursuit of hopefulness.” Well, whenever

the Rocky Mountain Land Library rushes off, it’s usually in pursuit of good land-focused titles to add to its 18,000 volume collection. In the interest of sharing the breadth and depth of the literature we choose from, here’s a glimpse at some of the new books lining the Land Library’s shelves as we begin the new year. Somehow, each volume answers Wendell Berry’s call: “A part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendents is to study life and our conditions, searching for the authentic underpinnings of hope.”

Learning from Our Past

Liberty Hyde Bailey: Essential Agrarian and Environmental Writings

The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles: Archie Carr and the Origins of Conservation Biology by Frederick Davis

Nature’s Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir’s Botanical Legacy by Bonnie Gisell

Writings & Images that Inspire

The Mad Farmer Poems by Wendell Berry

Becoming Good Ancestors: How We Balance Nature, Community, and Technology by David Ehrenfeld

Ominous Hush: The Thunderstorm Paintings of Martin Johnson Heade by Sarah Cash

Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip Through the Land Art of the West by Erin Hogan

The Agile Rabbit Book of Historical and Curious Maps

The Truro Bear and Other Adventures by Mary oliver

Historic Traces on the Land

So Much to be Done: Women Settlers and the Mining and Ranching Frontier by Ruth Moynihan

Growing up with the Country: Childhood on the Far Western Frontier by Elliott West

Rabbit Creek Country: Three Ranching Lives in the Heart of the Mountain West by Jon Thiem and Deborah Dimon

The Likes of Us: America in the Eyes of the Farm Security Administration by Stu Cohen

With Picks, Shovels and Hope: The CCC and its Legacy on the Colorado Plateau by Wayne Hinton

Challenges for our Day

Protecting Wild Nature in Native Lands by Julie Cajune

Our Place: People and Conservation in the Roaring Fork & Colorado River Valleys by Harlamert & Cochran

Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls by Dunnett & Kingsbury

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

Books about Kids & Nature

Children’s Special Places: Exploring the Role of Forts, Dens and Bush Houses in Middle Childhood by David Sobel

Schoolyard-Enhanced Learning: Using the Outdoors as an Instructional Tool by Herbert Broda

I Love Dirt! 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature by Jennifer Ward

Books FOR Kids!

Native American Horsemanship by Clarissa Aykroyd

The Prairie Builders: Reconstructing America’s Lost Grasslands by Sneed Collard III

A Life in the Wild: George Schaller’s Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts by Pamela Turner

Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy: Alaska’s First Naturalist, Georg Wilhelm Steller by Ann Arnold