Recognizing the complexity of the developing academic information environment at Stanford (as elsewhere), I have decided the time has come to name Jerry Persons, hitherto now head of the Library Systems Office, to the new position of Chief Information Architect for SUL/AIR, effective immediately. In this role, which reports directly to me, he will be able to continue and intensify the conceptual and development work necessary to make the SUL/AIR environment even more responsive to the needs of Stanford students, faculty, and staff.

The Library Systems Office staff will for now report to Associate University Librarian Catherine Tierney. She and they will assure that the close and effective cooperation that has characterized the interaction between the Library Systems Office and other SUL/AIR units will continue and grow.

Please join me in congratulating Jerry on his assuming this challenging and critical new role.

Following the reorganization of Learning, Technology and Extended Education (LTEE)at Stanford, the Web and courseware group of Media Solutions has joined the Academic Computing group of Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SUL/AIR).

Media Solutions is a fee-for-service group that remains fully available to the Stanford community to address multimedia communication needs. In addition to their award-winning Web design and development, they offer a full range of services with expertise in a variety of areas including information design, instructional design, usability testing, ADA compliance, graphic design, Flash animation, site production, CGI, JavaScript, and database programming and integration.

Media Solutions has moved to 1450 Page Mill Road, behind the HighWire Press building and next to the Stanford Credit Union. All staff phone numbers and email addresses remain the same, as does their PO Box address: P.O. Box 20532, Stanford CA 94309-0532.

The Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections, is pleased to present the exhibit, Fuller/Sadao: Partners in Design. This dynamic exhibition documents the creative partnership between two architectural visionaries: R. Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao. With an emphasis on collaborations from the 1950s through the late 1980s, the exhibit will feature a variety of objects including three-dimensional models, maps, globes, prints, photographs, and posters illustrating projects ranging from the geodesic dome to the Dymaxion car. Fuller/Sadao: Partners in Design will be on view from December 2, 2001 through March 18, 2002 at Stanford Universityıs Cecil H. Green Library, Peterson Gallery, second floor of the Bing Wing. A opening reception will take place in the exhibit space on Wednesday, January 16, 2002, from 5:30 to 7 pm. The reception will be preceded by a conversation with Shoji Sadao, the first of a series (see below) from 3 to 5 pm in the Albert M. Bender Room, 5th Floor of the Bing Wing, Green Library. The exhibit, opening reception, and conversation with Shoji Sadao are free and open to the public, although seating for the conversation series is limited (please see below).

The architect, inventor, engineer, poet, mathematician, and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) is widely regarded as one of the 20th centuryıs most original thinkers. Fullerıs ideas and structures, sometimes fanciful but firmly rooted in social, mathematic and ecological principles, have had a major impact on 20th century design and aesthetics.

Fuller is perhaps best known as the patent-holder of the geodesic dome. Yet his projects were quite varied and touched upon many principles of creative scientific inquiry. In the late 1920s Fuller experimented with the factory-assembled Dymaxion (dynamic+maximum+tension) House and three-wheeled Dymaxion Car. His Dymaxion projects grew out of desire to help the aircraft industry and its workers navigate post-WWII life and times. Fullerıs model for the Yomiuri Tower, a structure that at 2 miles tall, would have rivaled the former World Trade Center Towers, sought to provide an observation point higher than that of Mount Fuji, and his single-cell jitterbug tensegrity (tension + integrity), named after the popular dance, is a kinetic sculpture capable of being transformed from a 8-faced to a 20-faced structure revealing the balance between radial and circumferential forces.

Shoji Sadao (b. 1927) is a principal at Buckminster Fuller, Sadao, and Zung Architects (established in the 1970s). In the early 1950s, Sadao studied architecture at Cornell University, and it is there where he met Fuller, one of his instructors. The two began to collaborate in 1954, and their first project was the massive geodesic dome for the U.S. Pavilion at Expo ı67 in Montreal. Other collaborative projects included the Dymaxion World Map, the design and fabrication of the tensegrity (tension + integrity) mast, and the Student Religious Center at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Sadao is also Executive Director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Inc. in Long Island City, New York, and had worked closely with Noguchi on many public art projects, gardens, and playgrounds, blending sculpture, innovative materials, and landscape architecture and designs into functional environments. After Noguchiıs death in 1988, Sadao oversaw his projects to their completion.

Fuller/Sadao: Partners in Design highlights the nature of the creative collaborations between two visionaries. Curated by Russell Flinchum at the Century Association in New York, the exhibition traveled to Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, before arriving at Stanford. The exhibition at Stanford will feature objects loaned from private collections and galleries and from the R. Buckminster Fuller archive, acquired by the Department of Special Collections at the Stanford University Libraries in 2000.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Stanford University Libraries, the Stanford Humanities Laboratory, and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts are hosting an informal conversation series featuring some of Fullerıs most recognized collaborators. In addition to the conversation with Shoji Sadao on January 16, other special guests of the series include: E. J. Applewhite at the Albert M. Bender Room, January 30; Thomas T. K. Zung at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts Auditorium, February 13; Stuart Brand at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts Auditorium, February 27; and Arthur L. Loeb at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts Auditorium on March 13. All conversations will take place between 3 and 5 pm. The conversation series is open to the public and free but seating capacity is limited. Persons who wish to attend any or all of the conversation series should send e-mail, two days prior to the event, to dfrank@stanford.edu to reserve a seat.

PLEASE NOTE: Images to accompany this press release are available upon request. Please contact Vanessa Kam at 650-723-9523 or via e-mail at vanessa.kam@stanford.edu

LOCATION:
Peterson Gallery, Green Library
Bing Wing, Second Floor
Stanford University, Stanford, CA

HOURS:
Gallery hours through December 14, 2001 are: M-Sat. 10 am ­ 6 pm; Sun. 1 ­ 6 pm.
Gallery hours from December 15 through January 7 are: M-Fri 10am ­ 6 pm; Saturday 10 am to 5 pm; closed on Sundays.
For gallery hours after January 7, or for more information about the exhibition, please call Elizabeth Fischbach at 650-725-1020.

Cathy Aster
Cathy Aster, Head, Media Preservation, moved to SUL from the Hoover Institution, where she was Head of Preservation, responsible for managing an in-house microfilming operation and numerous additional activities in support of the preservation program. Cathy has extensive experience in preservation and conservation gathered from her tenure in previous positions at the University of Texas at Austin, Brigham Young University, and Yale University. We look forward to her contributions to SUL. Welcome, Cathy.

Hannah Frost
Hannah Frost, Media Preservation Librarian, joined SUL directly after receiving her MLIS from the Preservation and Conservation Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin. During her graduate studies, Hannah obtained a grant on behalf of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center to facilitate preservation reformatting of deteriorating films in the Norman Bel Geddes collection. She also conducted a comprehensive collection survey of the Center's sound recordings materials. Welcome, Hannah.

SUL/AIR has no new position this week.

For a complete description of other open positions within SUL/AIR, visit the Human Resources Web site at: