News & Blog

Three llamas in front of the John C HItt Library

Llama Lending Library

The UCF campus has seen tremendous growth in recent years which means longer walks to and from classes often carrying very heavy loads of books and supplies. The library has spent time looking at this problem and has come away with the only reasonable solution. Llamas. They’re cute, furry, and only spit on you 5% of the time all the time. Awesome little buggers really. Now they are not equipped to carry our students but they will gladly shoulder the burden of your books as you lead them to your class. And unlike bikes or scooters, they know the way back to the library. So once you are finished with your cuddly walking backpack, you can send them on their way, relaxed in the knowledge that they will check themselves back in to the library saving you a sizeable llama theft charge.

So stop by the library and check one out today!

Please note no llamas were harmed in the creation of this light hearted April Fool’s blog post.

Two llamas in front of the John C HItt Library
Two llamas ready for check out in front of the John C Hitt Library
Celebrate Library Awards, pictured Sara Duff, Cynthia Kisby, Tina Buck, Peggy Nuhn

Congratulations to our award winners!

Four of our UCF Librarians were recently honored with awards for their publications at this year’s Author’s Celebration held earlier this month in the Live Oak Room. The event recognizes faculty who have published books recently.

Among this year’s 47 honorees were the following librarians and their works:

Sara Duff and Tina Buck

Guidance for Librarians Transitioning to a New Environment

Cynthia Kisby

100 Books to Think About

Peggy Nuhn

Supporting transfer student success: The essential role of college and university libraries 

For more on this story, check out https://www.ucf.edu/news/faculty-honored-at-ucfs-3rd-authors-celebration/ 

Joy Postle artwork

Artist Spotlight: Joy Postle

Joy Postle was a prolific artist whose career spanned more than seventy years. Her artistic output was varied and extensive. She painted wildlife in their environment, created murals that covered entire walls and rooms, and during the Great Depression, worked for the Florida Art Project of the WPA. Besides being an accomplished painter, Postle also made block prints and hand-colored hundreds of offset prints. She worked in oils, acrylics, watercolor, pen-and-ink, and pencil. She painted landscapes and murals, made sketches of people and places, and created her own pen-and-ink cartoons. Additionally, Postle wrote poetry and then illustrated her poems with drawings, authored books on drawing, and illustrated books for other authors.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, Postle moved out west to Boise, Idaho, where she bought a ranch with her brother in the early 1920s. Postle began painting and sketching the wildlife around her in Idaho. She gained a reputation for her artwork, opening an art studio and working as an interior decorator. After marrying Robert Blackstone, a journalist who would become her publicist and manager, Postle and Blackstone lived and traveled in a modified Model-T Ford truck through the West, Southwest, and South. Postle was the primary breadwinner, selling her paintings and painting murals as they traveled. They lived the “van life” long before this nomadic lifestyle was popularized by influencers and Instagram.

The couple eventually arrived in Florida in 1934. They continued living their nomadic lifestyle, camping, hiking, and bird watching; these explorations allowed Postle to study nature closely and refine her craft. She created murals featuring birds and wildlife for many commercial sites, including Disney. In addition to painting and writing, Postle created and performed “Glamour Birds,” which featured her painting birds while accompanied by bird songs and music. Postle and Blackstone toured Florida with this one-woman show, a cross between educational talk and performance art.

After years of nomadic living, the couple eventually settled in a modest home and studio on Lake Rose at Orla Vista, near Gotha, Florida, in 1942. Postle continued as the family breadwinner, using Florida’s environment as the chief subject for art. She waded through swamps, climbed trees, endured bugs, and “stayed up all night” to observe her beloved birds and other wildlife. Postle witnessed the destruction of the Florida landscape and fought to save the environment she loved so much. Not one to sit idly by, Postle wrote letters to the local newspaper and used her art to voice her concerns about man’s impact on nature.

A fire at their home in 1968 killed Blackstone and badly injured Postle. She persevered despite severe burns and resumed her performances and exhibitions. She took commissions, exhibited her work, and sold paintings well into old age. Postle died on June 1, 1989, and her ashes were spread at her home at Lake Rose in Florida.

Joy Postle is one of the artists featured in the UCF Libraries Special Collections & University Archives’ current exhibit, “Wild at Heart: Conserving Nature Through Art & Archives.” This exhibition explores the art, artists, and activists that challenge us to think deeply about the impacts of urbanization and climate change on the world around us. The exhibit runs through May 1, 2022, in the 4th-floor gallery of the John C. Hitt Library.

Illustration caption information:

Left to right: [Industrial scene] block print, undated; Joy Postle painting by the ocean, copy photograph; “Narrow sound on bay, on road to Gule Beach, Grand Lagoon, Pensacola, Florida,” watercolor, 1931

Yellow background with three photos of handmade books and title "What are artists' books? in pink text

What Are Artists’ Books?

Join Chris Saclolo from Special Collections University Archives to learn about the craft of artists’ books (works of art in book form) and the history of the UCF Student Book Arts Competition. Students will get the opportunity to see some of the artists’ books from the Book Arts & Typography Collection.

Examples of artists’ books on display in the John C Hitt Library


Date: Monday March 21st
Time: 4:00 pm
Where: John C. Hitt Library Room 402

UCF Tab icon in upper left. Brick red background that steps down from mid right to bottom left and has cream outline on right with drop shadow. Cream text "Florida Fashions / in the 1950s and 1960s / author talk with / Dr. Kimberly Wilmot Voss". Bottom right corner yellow paper textured background with 1950s style illustration of woman at typewriter.

Author talk: Florida Fashions of the 1950s and 1960s

Join UCF Libraries and Kimberly Wilmot Voss, Nicholson School of Communication, for a Women’s History Month Author Talk titled “Florida Fashions in the 1950s and 1960s” on Friday, March 25, 2022!

For decades, most metropolitan newspapers had fashion editors in their women’s pages and some of the best of these journalists were in Florida. Areas like fashion journalism were where women were making their mark for decades – attending fashion shows, writing about local stores and guiding their readers on fashion trends. They covered changes in swimsuit regulations, the wearing of pants in the workplace and the rising of skirt-lengths. These editors served as social critics and community connectors – while also having lots of fun.

Register for this free virtual event on Zoom

For further reading, check out a copy of Dr. Voss’s book on which this presentation is based,
Newspaper Fashion Editors in the 1950s and 60s: Women Writers of the Runway, from UCF Libraries.

Other UCF Libraries’ owned books by Dr. Voss:

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