Special Collections Research Center receives Leab Award for exhibition catalogue on cartooning career of Boris Drucker

Special Collections Research Center receives Leab Award for exhibition catalogue on cartooning career of Boris DruckerMay 03, 2006Mary Beth Hintonmbhinton@syr.edu

Syracuse University Library’s Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) was named the 2006 recipient of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Award (Division Two) for its exhibition catalogue titled “‘Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s 90% water’: The Cartooning Career of Boris Drucker.”

Syracuse University Press has copies of the book available for purchase by telephone at (800) 365-8929, or online at www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.

There were five winners of the 2006 Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Awards. These awards, funded by an endowment established by Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab, editors of American Book Prices Current, recognize outstanding exhibition catalogues issued by American or Canadian institutions in conjunction with library exhibitions as well as electronic exhibition catalogues of outstanding merit issued within the digital/Web environment.

“The signature quote on the cover sets an appropriate tone for this collection catalogue on an ephemeral genre of popular art and commercial design,” says Marcia Reed, chair of the RBMS awards committee. “With an introductory essay by the artist’s daughter, artist and writer Johanna Drucker, the catalogue chronicles the life and works of a mid-century American artist and illustrator.”

The catalogue was designed in house and overseen through production by William La Moy, curator of rare books and printed materials, and, since February 2006, interim director of the Special Collections Research Center.

“When SCRC received the final installment of the papers of the cartoonist and illustrator Boris Drucker — whose work is recognizable from its regular appearance in such publications as Look, the New Yorker and the Saturday Evening Post — we concluded that it would be highly appropriate to exhibit a sampling from his lifetime of creative work,” La Moy says. “The only difficulty was that we have more than 12,000 of his drawings in our collections. Fortunately, we were able to solicit Drucker’s own selection advice as well as that of his daughter, Johanna. Moreover, we felt that we had the perfect venue for this exhibition, the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery at the Joseph I. Lubin House in Manhattan, SU’s center in New York City.”

The exhibition was held at Lubin House in March and April 2005.

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association, representing 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.