Rocky Mountain Land Library Newsletter2010

University of Colorado Begins Land Library Design Process

This past fall, the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver began designing

what will soon be the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s future home at South Park’s Buf-falo Peaks Ranch. The graduate students visited the ranch several times, analyzing the existing structures, and planning for the future ranch cam-pus. This will likely be a multi-semester process, as the UCD School of Architecture continues to refine their design,

getting more and more detailed with each future semester.Just a few months into this exciting process, the RMLL

has been delighted at the student’s enthusiasm for the Buf-falo Peaks Ranch project, and we have been continuously challenged and surprised by their thoughtful and creative designs.

The UCD Studio Class is taught by Kat Vlahos, an ar-chitect/educator passionate about the need for a compre-hensive study of ranches in their relationship to the West-ern landscape.

It is inspiring to be part of Kat Vlahos’ ongoing work, and the RMLL is extremely grateful for the chance to work side-by-side with the fol-lowing UCD students—future architects all, and there at the Land Library’s creation: Kirsten Armbruster, Fabian Baumann, Erin Card, Kirsten Coe, Thomas Davis, Abigail Filanowski, Jennifer Foss, Laura Freeman, Brandon Fruhwirth, Craig Lawrence, Natalie Martin, Jamie Stadille, and Robert Stroud. Thanks so

much for your passion, vision, and hard work!

Volunteers Transform Buffalo Peaks RanchIn the summer of 2009, Buffalo Peaks Ranch came roar-

ing back to life. Over the course of three community work-days, more than 50 volunteers fixed fence, cleared brush, and scraped, primed and painted the main ranch house. It was cer-tainly hard work, but given the glorious South Park landscape, and buoyed by the feeling of common purpose, everyone came away from Buffa-lo Peaks Ranch newly energized. Our thanks goes to all the hardy volunteers, and to our workday partners: the City of Aurora, Park County, Skid-more College, and the South Park Archaeolog-ical Project.

South Park Declared a National Heritage AreaOn March 30, 2009 President Obama declared South Park a

National Heritage Area, one of 49 such sites across the United States, all overseen by the National Park Service. A National

Heritage Area is de-fined as a “place where natural, cultural and scenic resources com-bine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape arising from human activity shaped by geography.”

Given the Land Li-brary’s focus on people and the land, we are excited that Buf-falo Peaks Ranch will be part of South Park’s heritage network. The RMLL is poised to help tell the story of this historically-rich high mountain grassland.

Park County has worked long and hard for this honor. In addition to this important recognition, the NHA provides ac-cess to as much as $10 million in federal matching funds over the next 15 years.

Land Library Opens Planning Office on Capitol Hill

Thanks to a generous bequest, the RMLL has opened a 800-volume Planning Office at the historic Barrister Building, located a half block north of Colorado’s State Capitol Building. The office walls are lined with some of the most representative volumes from the Land Library’s more than 20,000 volume collection. This warm and inviting space provides room for meetings, and for volunteers and interns to complete the cataloguing of the RMLL collection.

Special thanks goes to Chris Cowles, and Gary Garcia of the Barrister Partners for making this possible. If you would like to visit the RMLL’s Planning Office, please write jeff@landlibrary.org. But, fair warning: if you love books and the land, you may not want to leave.

For the Generations to Come: RMLL Opens a Kids & Educators Library

CU Environmental Center Donates Library to the RMLL

With limited space on the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus, the CU Environmental Center came to the difficult decision to find a new home for its 2,500 volume environmental studies library. Happily, that new home is the Rocky Mountain Land Library. This is a wonderful addition to the Land Library’s collection!

On a chilly January morning, a crew of RMLL volunteers moved both the books and shelving to temporary storage in Denver. A huge thanks goes to Dana Kelly and everyone at the CU Environmental Center, plus all the RMLL volunteer movers: Tina Jayroe, Steven Maxwell, Sam Schiller, Joanna Nelson, Antonia Gaona, Mary Donahue, Kevin Sund, Julie Carmen, David Waag, Alliana Wallace, Clark Judy, Lauren Richardson, and Toni & Bob Hembree.

With the common goal of connecting kids to nature, a powerful partnership came together in the spring of 2009. Working with Denver Water and the Thorne Ecological Institute, the RMLL established a 3,000 volume Kids and Educators Library at Denver Water’s Kassler Center, southwest of metro Denver. With ample books to enliven any young naturalist’s field discoveries, this new branch location will provide insights and inspiration for the Thorne Natural Science School’s students and teachers.

Amazingly enough, the Kassler Center is located along the banks of the South Platte River, as is Buffalo Peaks Ranch, the Land Library’s future home in South Park. Both locations should provide future RMLL programs a rich South Platte watershed focus, from the South Park’s headwaters to the metro Denver plains. For more information on the Kassler Kids and Educators Library, please write jeff@landlibrary.org.

The Authentic Underpinnings of Hope: New Books for a New WorldJean Giono wrote: “There are times in life when a person has to rush off in pursuit of hopefulness.” Well, whenever

the Rocky Mountain Land Library rushes off, it’s usually in pursuit of good land-focused titles to add to its more than 20,000 volume collection. In the interest of sharing the breadth and depth of the literature we choose from, here’s a glimpse at some of the new books lining the Land Library’s shelves. Somehow, each volume answers Wendell Berry’s call: “A part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendants is to study life and our conditions, searching for the authentic underpinnings of hope.”

Western Lands & Lives

• No Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life by Linda M. Hasselstrom

• The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana by Rick Bass

• The Nation’s Largest Landlord: the Bureau of Land Management in the American West by James Skillen

• The Trail of Gold and Silver: Mining in Colorado 1859-2009 by Duane A. Smith

Running Waters

• River Basins of the American West edited by Char Miller

• Aqua Shock: the Water Crisis in America by Susan J. Marks

• American Trout-Stream Insects by Louis Rhead

• Fishing Huts: The Angler’s Sanctuary by Jo Orchard-Lisle

Real Food

• Wisdom of the Last Farmer: Harvesting Legacies from the Land by David Mas Masumoto

• Public Produce: the New Urban Agriculture by Darrin Nordahl

• Handbook of Indian Foods and Fibers of Arid America by Walter Ebeling

• A Tortilla is Like Life: Food & Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado by Carole Counihan

Vocabulary of the Land

• A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms edited by Paul W. Thrush

• Horsewords: the Equine Dictionary by Maria Belknap

• The Sibley Guide to Trees by David Allen Sibley

• A Guide to the Nests, Eggs & Nestlings of North American Birds by Paul Baicich, et al

Wild Lives

• Fauna of the National Parks (2 volumes) by George Melendez Wright, et al

• A Naturalist in Alaska by Adolph Murie

• Cougar: Ecology and Conservation by Maurice Hornocker, et al

• Wildlife in American Art by Adam Duncan Harris

One Century, Two Roosevelts

• The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan

• Hunting Tales of the West/The Winning of the West (10 volume set, 1907) by Theodore Roosevelt

• The Conservation Diaries of Gifford Pinchot edited by Harold K. Steen

• Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation 1911-1945 (2 volume set) edited by Edgar Nixon

• Righteous Pilgrim: the Life and Times of Harold Ickes by T.H. Watkins

• The Tree Army: a Pictorial History of the Civilian Conservation Corps by Stan Cohen

Low Cost, No Cost Ways to Support the Rocky Mountain Land Library

• sign up for RMLL updates and event alerts by emailing jeff@landlibrary.org.

• attend FREE Rocky Mountain Land Series programs at the Tattered Cover Book Store—a chance to hear from authors forging vital connections between land and community.

• donate books, and help the Land Library grow!

• donate what you can, whenever you can. Every single dollar will be an enormous help to the Land Library’s grassroots effort to establish a land-study center for the southern Rockies.

Land Library Honor RollWhenever I pick up a good book, I always turn to the

acknowledgment page. There is a real comfort in dwelling on the network of friends, family and colleagues that nurture any good work. Now it’s the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s turn to gratefully acknowledge the community of supporters, advisors, and volunteers that have propelled the Land Library forward:

Mike Adams, Linda Balough, Julene Bair, Jill Baron & Dennis Ojima, Robert Baron, Conger Beasley, Jr., Mark Beardsley, Audrey & Jim Benedict, Susan Bender, Karl Brummert, Laurie Wagner Buyer, John Calderazzo, SueEllen Campbell, Evan Cantor, Hank Cerwonka, Karen Chamberlain, Craig Childs & Regan Choi, Matt Cowles, Chris Cowles, Richard & Suzanne Cowles, Bert & Jackie Cushing, Peter Decker, Terri Doolittle, Michael Dowling, Alex Drummond, Alyson Duffey, Bruce Ducker, Carol Ekarius, Dieter Erdmann, John Fielder, Ozi Friedrich, Gary Garcia, Joyce Gellhorn, Jerome Greene, Karen Hardesty, Bob Henson, Lyman Ho, Gregory Hobbs, Tina Jayroe & Steve Maxwell, Anders Jeffrey, James Jeffrey, Brad Johnson, Dana Kelley, Kathy Kitzmann, Gerry Knapp, Rick & Heather Knight, Larry Kueter, Kathy Lane, Lucy Lippard, Jeffrey Lockwood, Barry Lopez, Karin Martin, Rune & Jan Martin, Susan Marks, John Maclean, Sarah MacDonald, Ellis McFadden, Mike McHugh, Char Miller, Matt & Patty Miller, Gary Nichols, Carl Norbeck, Erin O’Neill, Cody Oreck, Eric Paddock, Raymond Plank, Laura Pritchett, Gene & Polly Reetz, Connie Rogers, Pattiann & John Rogers, Sam Schiller, Grace Scott, Ted Schultz, George Sibley, Neil Sperandeo, John & Carol Stansfield, Jim Steinberg, George F. Thompson, Kat Vlahos, David Waag, Kevin Waterbury & the Waterbury Philanthropic Trust, Paul Wehr, Beth Wood, and Tom Wylie.

R O C K y M O U N T A I NL A N D L I B R A R y

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Something So SimpleThe RMLL was recently surprised with the donation of an

extremely thoughtful, and brilliantly conceived collection of books. This anonymous bequest celebrates the natural and cultural history of something so simple, yet so vital -- the grasses of the world. Among the collection’s highlights: the vivid illustrations of the neglected classic Pasture and Range Plants, the comprehensive heft of Grasses of Colorado, and the eye-opening span of Grass: In Search of Human Habitat, plus many books on the rich variety of grassland cultures across the globe - from the wild rice waterways of Minnesota to the wind swept steppes of Mongolia. Many, many volumes focus on grassland fauna (especially grasshoppers!), and two distinctive volumes look at one of our most unique grasses: The Book of Bamboo, and the documentary film Trout Grass, which follows the evolution of the bamboo fishing rod, from the forests of China to the workshop of a Montana rod maker.

With this one-of-a-kind donation in mind, if you have a particular area of interest (such as Women in the West, the history of conservation, Native American studies, ranching & mining history, etc.) please consider making a donation to the RMLL. If you don’t happen to have the books on hand, pick your passion and we will work with you to find the essential books to add to the Land Library’s permanent collection!