University Library News Release
Date: March 16, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
Archivist Martha Andrews' Book Receives Caliente Award
The Whole Damned World: New Mexico Aggies at War 1941-1945 has been awarded the first ever Caliente Award for an Outstanding Book by Reading New Mexico. The book was edited by archivist Martha Shipman Andrews of the New Mexico State University Library, with an introduction by Richard Melzer, President of the Historical Society of New Mexico.
The book, published in 2008 by the NMSU Library in collaboration with Rio Grande Books, uses the letters and photos in the University Archives to show the personal correspondence of Engineering Dean Daniel Jett with his students during World War II.
Jett's energy and enthusiasm boosted morale among those serving as soldiers or nurses, as well as those at home fighting to keep the school going during hard times. His students wrote to him as well. The letters provide indelible insights into the lives of the young people involved in cataclysmic world events, and reveal nostalgia for the college mingled with hope for returning to school when the war ended.
Sabra Brown Steinsiek, the editor of Reading New Mexico, said that the book "makes history compelling, real and readable. It gives faces to those who served and captures a history that fewer and fewer remember as time goes by."
Reading New Mexico is an online site at http://www.readingnewmexico.com/caliente.html that reviews books with a New Mexico connection. Its Caliente Award is given to books about New Mexico that are "hot," meaning that they are must-reads for the public and must-haves for libraries.
The Whole Damned World is available at http://www.nmsantos.com.
The NMSU Library has mounted an exhibit of the historical WWII letters on the fourth floor of Branson Library. The exhibit may be viewed until October.
For more information, contact Andrews at (575) 646-5028 or mandrews@lib.nmsu.edu.
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