By Mike Templeton
The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition is home to a local research library devoted to Appalachian culture. The Frank Foster Memorial Library is a crucial resource for Appalachian research in greater Cincinnati, and it has continually grown and evolved over the years. When last we profiled the library, volunteers has just digitized the collection. We are returning to the library with even more great news. Our library now has an onsite librarian. Anna Curvin has stepped up to volunteer as our first part-time onsite librarian, and access to the Frank Foster Library has become even easier and more open for everyone.
The development of the Frank Foster Memorial Library has been one of the most important features of UACC’s collection of resources. Housed on the third floor of the Community Matters offices at 2104 Saint Michael Street in Lower Price Hill, the library has gone from being a small collection of books and other materials known only to UACC insiders to a serious research library tied in with a network of other libraries and research associations. With the addition of Anna Curvin as librarian, we take another leap in being able to offer the people of greater Cincinnati access to what is arguably the only research center devoted to urban Appalachian life, history, and culture in the area. Anna Curvin brings a lifetime of experience and learning to this position as few others could.
In many ways, we may characterize Anna Curvin as a quintessential urban Appalachian. Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee and later Chattanooga, Curvin’s childhood involved moving around due to family necessity that took her from a rural Georgia school to Fort Wayne, Indiana where she encountered many of the conditions that came to define the urban Appalachian experience. She told me that her family moved “for me to have access to better educational opportunities. But in Fort Wayne, I was made fun of because of the way I spoke.” These kinds of things are part of an almost baseline of urban Appalachian life, but things actually became more serious when the school system went so far as to recommend Curvin for remedial classes because of her background. “My parents had to intervene and explain that it was not an inherent problem that I had come from a rural Georgia school system,” she explained. Curvin said that these kinds of experiences make it possible for her to directly identify with Appalachian migrant experiences.
After some years of working as a stockbroker, Anna Curvin embarked on a career change after she took care of her elderly mother. “I became exposed to geriatric physical therapy during this time, and decided to go back to college in my 40s to pursue this as a profession,” she said. A laudable choice, it would appear. Curvin practiced physical therapy for some years until her own health issues forced her to take time from her profession. She explained, “I have been on home dialysis for three years now, and this prevents me from working as a physical therapist.” Anna Curvin is in line for a kidney donation. If you are able and would like to help, here is the website.
After some career changes and several jobs, Curvin ended up in Oxford, Ohio where she met Dale Farmer, well known to UACC as a musician, currently the “Farmer” in the band The Farmer and the Crow. This association led to UACC, and this is how we became lucky enough to have our first librarian at the Foster Memorial Library.
Anna Curvin brings to UACC this kind of life experience, along with a professional background in her capacity as our first librarian. Curvin said she will be available to help folks with the library on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month from 1:00-3:00 pm. She is well-qualified to provide guidance and assistance with the library. Curvin explains that the library is a research library, and there are collections pertaining to Appalachian Studies more generally, personal ancestry, and Appalachian music and movies. “There is a section specifically about urban Appalachians and the Appalachian migration,” she said. Core UACC member Michael Maloney’s collection, for example, is all about urban Appalachian life and history and the migration history. These things are obviously of interest to people in greater Cincinnati, but there are scholars who do work in these fields from all over the world. The Frank Foster Memorial Library is a powerful resource of global scholarship in the areas of Appalachian studies and urban Appalachian culture.
Right now, Anna Curvin said she is primarily focused on “getting all the ducks in a row with the library and the online catalogue.” The library catalogue is fully online and is tied in with the Appalachian Studies Association, and other small research libraries. Ours forms part of a network of institutions and access to what are often extremely rare research materials. The Frank Foster Memorial Library is a precious resource on this score, and everyone is urged to get some use out of the library. And keep in mind, you do not need to be a professional historian or scholar of Appalachian history. Anna Curvin said the library holds an impressive collection of periodicals to thumb through. The ancestry section is an exciting resource to begin finding your own Appalachian connections, and if you are a Cincinnatian, it’s a good bet you have some connections to Appalachia. In any case, our library continues to grow, and Anna Curvin is a welcome addition to a local treasure.
The Frank Foster Memorial Library forms a crucial part of the research resources at the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition. We encourage you to stop by and take full advantage of this magnificent resource with volunteer librarian Anna Curvin on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month from 1:00-3:00 pm on the third floor of the Community Matters offices at 2104 Saint Michael Street in Lower Price Hill. We are genuinely grateful to Anna Curvin for stepping up as our first librarian at the Frank Foster Memorial Library. If you would like to search the library and gain some familiarity, here is the link for the UACC online catalog: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/18541/TinyCat.
Michael Templeton is a writer, and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, forthcoming from Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications and the awaiting of awaiting: a novella, with Nut Hole Publishing. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio with his wife who is an artist.