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about the library: list of exhibits.

Doris Lessing: The Works and Woman Behind the Pulitzer

On exhibit through March
Includes signed, first edition of her books and correnspondence.

Byron Reed Rare Book Collection

Exhibit dates TBA
Rare book collection donated to the Durham Western Heritage Museum; some never before shown in public.

Love Makes a Family

Exhibit dates TBA
This exhibit features 20 – 22 photos/text, assembled Family Diversity Projects. The photographs feature families and couples with at least one lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered member.

Past Exhibits

September  24 – November 18 : Homeland Morale to Homeland Security:  Original WWII Posters
Note: Includes visit from traveling exhibit bus
Co-exhibitors: Durham Western Heritage Museum, Buena Vista County Historical Society, and Omaha VFW 2503
Location: Main Gallery
Contact: Gayle Roberts at 554-3213

The Criss Library will display vintage posters from the World War II era starting today, Sept. 24, through Sunday, Nov. 18.

The exhibit, "Homeland Morale to Homeland Security: Original WWII Posters," features posters issued by the Office of War Information during the war. The posters were displayed in post offices, railroad stations and other public places to bolster morale and encourage public support.

"Several of the posters remain instantly recognizable, such as Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms," said James T. Shaw, government documents librarian at Criss Library. "Others feature images which have largely been forgotten, but they reflect concerns that viewers will recognize as resonating today as our military engages in conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq."

The exhibit is free to the public and available for viewing during regular library hours. The posters are drawn from the U.S. Documents collection of Criss Library. Additional display cabinets are filled with World War II memorabilia donated by co-exhibitors such as the Durham Western Heritage Museum, the Buena Vista County Historical Society, Lucian and Doris Russell and the Omaha VFW 2503.

"Homeland Morale to Homeland Security" compliments another World War II exhibit at the library next month. On Friday, Oct. 5, a mobile museum will be parked near the library from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. "Behind Barbed Wire: Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany" will tour the Midwest this fall.

The traveling exhibition is displayed inside a renovated school bus. Photographs and other war-related memorabilia explore the experiences of Midwest prisoners of war. Additional details about the "Behind Barbed Wire" exhibit are available.

October 5 (A ONE DAY ONLY EXHIBIT): Traveling Exhibit About Midwest Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany
Location: Bell Tower Parking Lot
Contact: Email: Jim Shaw or Phone: 554.2225

Hardly anyone alive today is aware that the first U.S. troops sent to fight in WWII came from the Upper Midwest, or that the region's 34th "Red Bull" Division served the longest uninterrupted duty in U.S. military history—about 600 days. Even fewer know that, as some 1,800 mostly Midwest soldiers were captured in one night in North Africa in February 1943, until the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 the most U.S. POWs in Nazi-German camps came, per capita, from the same region.

"Behind Barbed Wire," a new exhibit that will tour the Great Plains states in fall 2007, explores the experiences of Midwest POWs who were imprisoned in Hitler's Third Reich, and the human context in which their experiences took place. The St. Paul-based, non-profit educational organization TRACES created this exhibit. Director Michael Luick-Thrams will travel with the mobile exhibit, housed in a converted school bus, for part of the tour.

Barring unforeseen difficulties the BUS-eum will be in town ONE DAY ONLY―Friday, October 5, 2007, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The Bus will be parked by the Bell Tower in the parking lot directly east of the library.

"Behind Barbed Wire" poses five primary questions:

  1. why did some Midwest POWs survive certain conditions or experiences, while others did not,
  2. what roles did art, freetime and religion play in helping those men who did survive imprisonment by the Nazi regime,
  3. why did some Germans or Austrians assist Midwest POWs, while others did not,
  4. how did the liberated POWs later come to terms with their own experiences, and
  5. how do countries once in armed conflict reconcile with each other: how do nations and the individuals who constitute a nation get beyond war?

As the opening panel of the exhibit reminds viewers, "The prisoner of war experience is one few men or women know directly. Being taken prisoner is, in itself, neither dishonorable nor heroic. Capture is largely an accident; often, it comes as a complete surprise and is frequently accompanied by injury. Usually, the confinement is painful; too often, it is fatal. In war, not everyone is lucky: some lose. Those taken captive are part of the unlucky ones."

As the exhibit's first text explains, æThere were three main waves of Midwest POWs: those captured in North Africa in 1943, those pilots shot out of the sky during the air war over Europe, and those soldiers captured at the Battle of the Bulge, near the war's end. Each wave of Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany had its own experiences. All of the men who survived them, however, left a provocative legacy for those alive today—one involving the very nature of war itself: how does armed conflict between groups of people play out, face-to-face, when the guns are lowered; how 'should' humans treat each other and, ultimately, live together?"

The traveling exhibit compliments the Criss Library's WWII exhibit, entitled "Homeland Morale to Homeland Security: Original WWII Posters." Co-exhibitors include the Durham Western Heritage Museum, the Buena Vista County Historical Society, Lucian Russell, veteran, Doris Russell, and the Omaha VFW 2503. Exhibit is open September 24th – November 18th, during regular library hours and is free to the public.

Comments or questions may be emailed to Jim Shaw, Government Documents Librarian, or asked by phone at 554.2225 554-2225.