The Ezra Lehman Library READ poster exhibit is based on a series begun by the American Library Association (ALA) in 1985 to promote reading. Some of the world's best known celebrities have supported the simple but powerful message: READ!
Here at Shippensburg University we have been producing READ posters featuring our very own celebrities. By posing with a book that holds special significance to them, our campus celebrities demonstrate their commitment to reading and their appreciation of libraries.
Our collection of READ posters will be showcased in rotating exhibits in Lehman Library. Our first READ poster exhibit was held during National Library Week in April 2008
Dr. Bill Ruud, President, Shippensburg University
Peters, Thomas J., and Robert H. Waterman. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. New York: Harper & Row, 1982
I read this book when it first came out and I was struck by the values that are outlined as great examples to follow. This is a great book and, although it has been criticized because of the quality of some of the companies and data, its principles outlined can be used to make any organization excellent.
Peters and Waterman found eight common themes which Fsethey argued were responsible for the success of the chosen corporations:
I believe these values are ones that we can use at Shippensburg University or at any university to make us a better educational environment.
Dr. Barbara Lyman, Provost, Shippensburg University
Agee, James, and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Three Tenant Families. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960
When I first read Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans in a graduate course on literature and poverty, I was riveted. I had grown up on a small cotton farm of a few dozen acres in South Louisiana. Picking cotton was something that my brother, five sisters, parents, and grandparents all did on my grandmother's land during the years that I was growing up. James Agee and Walker Evans' book described a way of life that I knew well. For me, until Agee and Evans' book, no one had ever effectively written about the experience of working in the cotton fields. I had encountered a few depictions which never captured, for example, the drudgery and monotony and worry that accompanied this kind of work that represented not only backbreaking effort but also an often futile attempt to make a decent living. The price of cotton was often counterproductively low on a crop sometimes devastated by insects such as the boll weevil before the cotton could ever be picked. Agee and Evans' work captured these things amazingly well.
Dr. Rick E. Ruth, Vice President for Information Technologies and Services
Collins, James C. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. New York, NY: Harper Business, 2001
In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins describes the attributes exhibited by organizations that go beyond being merely good organizations to become truly great organizations. These attributes make up what might be referred to as the basic character of the organization. They are: disciplined people; disciplined thought; and disciplined action. So many lessons from childhood stories come to mind when I think of these attributes. Stories like: The Tortoise and the Hare; The Three Little Pigs; and The Ant and the Grasshopper, stories whose morals involve the concept of prevailing by being disciplined, thoughtful, and following through.
Collins goes on to list 5 additional characteristics of organizations that have moved from good to great. They are led by individuals of personal humility and professional will. The focus is on getting the right people in the right job. They look at the data and confront the (sometimes) brutal facts. The core business is defined; the goal is to be the best at it; and everyone needs to be passionate about it. And, they think differently about the role of technology. These attributes along with the disciplined character, people, thoughts, and actions--of the organization mitigate the need for hierarchy, bureaucracy; and excessive controls. Thus, the stage is set for great performance.
When I think of these attributes, I think of Shippensburg University.
Dr. Roger Serr, Vice President for Student Affairs, Shippensburg University
Norris, Kathleen. Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993
Kathleen Norris, in her beautifully written book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, provides an authentic and compelling description of the people and life on the Great Plains of northern South Dakota. She insightfully describes the contradictions and challenges of the people and the physical geography of this very rural area. But most important is the author?s insight into the pride, the optimism, and the sense of community that comprise the region. This book is well-written, intelligent, and a vivid description of the Scandinavians, Germans, and Native Americans that reside in this vast expanse of prairie. Most important, it made me proud that I was raised in this very place.
Berkley Laite, Library Department Chair 
Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
The setting for this story is Middle Earth, a land Tolkien first described in The Hobbit. The story is about Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit that gets swept into an adventure with dwarves, humans, and a wizard.
I have read this story over and over again throughout my life. I am always moved by the values or truths if you will, that Tolkien presents in his epic: beauty, honor, friendship, home, family, and heroism. After each reading, I want to be a better person and strive for the standards that the characters portray.
When I was younger (in the 1970s and 60s), I was swept up in the popular reaction to the story and easily related to the bumper stickers: Frodo Lives! and Gandalf for President!?Now I tend to reflect more and enjoy the story for its incredible detail, its language, and the world Tolkien created.
Marian B. Schultz, D.Ed.
Dean, Library and Multi-Media Services
Dean, School of Academic Programs and Services
Ambose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the opening of American West. New York: Simon & Schustr, c1996
My undergraduate degree is in history and the Lewis and Clark Expedition has been a special interest of mine ever since I had the chance as a teenager to visit Fort Clatsop in Oregon, where the Corps of Discovery wintered in 1805-06 at the mouth of the Columbia River. The depth and breadth of the discoveries resulting from this journey and the amount of effort and courage it took to successfully complete it with no loss of life (save one from medical related issues) astounds me. In the book, Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose tells the story in vivid detail and brings the history, people, and places to life.
As a result of reading the book, my husband and I make every effort to visit Lewis and Clark sites whenever we can. One site in particular is on my bucket list. According to Ambrose, Lemhi Pass (in the Beaverhead Mountains, Bitterroot Range in the Rocky Mountains) is one of the few remaining places in America where you can go and still see the same unspoiled vista that Lewis and Clark saw over 200 years ago.
Dr. Beverly Butler Faragasso
Director of the Learning Assistance Center
June 1986 - December 2002
García, Márquez G. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. New York: Knopf, 1983.
On the surface, Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez seems to have nothing to do with our normal, everyday lives. It is, after all, the story of a murder. Most of us will probably never be involved in anything murderous or violent. Yet, despite that, Marquez’s story is, under the surface, about the challenges and struggles we all collectively face: where our responsibility to ourselves and others begins and ends; how to discern truth from fiction; and what we can craft as the meaning and significance of our individual lives so we can live sanely in our larger communities and cultures. Besides, it is short (just over one hundred pages), well written and intriguing – in other words, worth the read.
Dr. Nanette Hatzes
Director of the Learning Center
This poem by Diane Wakoski titled “Meeting an Astronomer on the Buddha’s Birthday” contained, so eloquently and so succinctly, all the questions I was asking about what it meant to be fully human:
"Vanity
guards us
from introspection.
What guards us
from vanity?
To think about ourselves
like the moon.
dead and beautiful,
and of an origin no one can be sure of?"
Thus began my lifelong conversion to Buddhism.
Dr. Elnetta Jones
Dean of Special Academic Services
Responsible for the Development of the Learning Assistance Center
May 1983 - May 1986
Christie, Agatha. Witness for the Prosecution. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1983.
Agatha Christie has been my favorite mystery writer for most of my adult life. Many critics agree that Agatha Christie is the Grand Dame among English writers of mystery and detective stories. No other mystery writer has published so much for so long. Agatha Christie believes that Witness for the Prosecution is one of her best works as well as her favorite play. Christie’s fame as a playwright came in 1953 with the production of Witness for the Prosecution. I have read this book many times and also enjoyed seeing the play in Montreal, Canada in 2005. Christie used her amazing ingenuity and her intellectual gift to create a rich, fertile plot that keeps the reader from what she calls “seeing around the curve.”
This is a book that students could take to the beach in the summertime. They have spent the entire academic year mostly reading required texts. Witness for the Prosecution is entertaining, suspenseful, and intriguing. It is one of those books that, when you read the first chapter, you just keep on reading. It teaches the reader the need for perseverance, intuitiveness, and discipline – all the while stressing the importance of sound evidence.
