Welcome! ... to Jannes Library's little corner of the KCAI campus - both physically AND digitally!
Whether this is your first time here with us, or your last... our library's intentions (read: vibe) stem from a personal interpretation of the intersections of art, information, education & learning, empathy, and creativity -- redefining 'research' as exploration, within a comfortable, homey, and inviting space that encourages people to just be themselves; a safe-space that values perspective, creative thinking, and problem-solving, without the pomp & circumstance occasionally experienced within academica... but I want to be more accessible than that. SO... how do we do that at the library?
I'd love to get your thoughts on it -- don't hesitate to reach out to me directly. I hope you've enjoyed browsing our online nook ... we can't wait to see you at the library! --Megan
Auto/ethnography: rewriting the self and the social by 
On Tyranny Graphic Edition by 
Friedensreich Hundertwasser 1928-2000 by 
Emotional Design by 
: What is Embedded Librarianship? ...within an academic art library -- we work with faculty to outline the research component of a course; assisting in research-related activities that support course learning objectives but also inspire long-term creative research discovery. Advancing this model of information literacy through targeted library research classes, creating research guides with course specific resources (EX: Pathfinders), offering space for mediated class discussions that encourage critical thinking, and providing 1:1 research assistance appointments with a librarian.
: What is 1:1 Research Discovery? 
Hello! My name is Naphtali Faris and I am the Assistant Director for the Jannes Library. I have a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from William Jewell College and a Masters of Library and Information Science from Dominican University. I am currently working on my PhD in Information Studies also from Dominican University. My dissertation will focus on the language of professional reviews of folk and fairy tale retellings published for youth and how that language reflects professional attitudes in regards to race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and culture.
Prior to the Kansas City Art Institute, I've worked primarily in public libraries. I have worked as a Children's Librarian for the St Louis Public Library, an Early Literacy Manager for the Kansas City Public Library, a Branch Manager for Mid-Continent Public Library, and the Youth and Literacy Services Consultant for the Missouri State Library.
I am a great appreciator of children's literature particularly illustration (of which I have a small collection in my office). I have served on the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz selection committees. When not working on my dissertation, I love to travel, spend time with my goddaughters, and practice my crochet and cross stitch. I am also a collector of useless trivia. I have a particular fondness for popular culture and Disney.
The Struggle for Recognition by 
The Dark Fantastic by 
A Theory of Adaptation by 
The Queens of Animation by 
The Book of Bill by 
Picture This: How Pictures Work by 
Tuesday by 
They All Saw a Cat by 
Saint George and the Dragon (Caldecott Medal Winner) by 
Leave Me Alone! by 
Most of my creative pursuits involve textiles. I like to crochet, cross stitch, and quilt, all of which are skills my grandma and great-grandma taught me.
Mostly, I am an appreciator of art. I am fortunate enough to own some pieces from children's book illustrators. The piece pictured is Ce n'est pas un lapin by LeUyen Pham. She is one of my favorite illustrators and worked on many books including creating the illustrations for Lunar New Year Love Story which was written by Gene Luen Yang.
I have a few other pieces from children's book illustrators, a collection which only grew after I was on the Caldecott Award selection committee.
Hello! I'm Zack Neuman (He/Him), and I am the Visual and Archival Resources Assistant here in Jannes Library. I handle any archives request or scanning requests we might receive, I maintain our serials collection, and I also handle requests for Interlibrary Loans.
My background is in photography and moving image preservation, though I don't shoot as often as I would like. Most of my time is preoccupied with reading or watching movies. When I'm not doing that, I'm typically hanging out with my wife and our dog.
The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by 
La jetée [videorecording] ; Sans soleil. by 
The Solitude of Ravens by 
Cherry orchard : a play in four acts / by Anton Chekov ; translated by Tyrone Guthrie and Leonid Kipnis by 
I love photography and film most, but I am interested in all mediums! I enjoy printmaking and alternative processes in relation to photography, but I also have a deep admiration for ceramics and sculpture. My own personal artistic work deals thematically with memory and time – people and places and how our connection with them shifts over time.
Hi! I'm Sienna (she/her), and I am a 2020 KCAI graduate with a dual degree in Art History and Painting. I am the Library Assistant here in Jannes Library as of Fall 2023. I currently serve on the IDEAS Council and on the MOBIUS courier-circulation committee. In my role, I mainly handle library work study, displays, paging and holds for OpenRS/MOBIUS, and assist with various odds and ends around the Library! I am hoping to be more involved with mending/book repairs and cataloging in the near future.
I spend a majority of my free time with my best friend and partner Diego, our baby girl, and our dogs. We love cooking, going on walks, and binge watching tv shows!
My Brilliant Friend by
The novel begins in the 1950s, in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, where the narrator Elena meets Lila, her best friend, her mirror, and at times her fiercest critic. They become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their meeting as six-year-olds through their school years and adolescence, until Lila's marriage at the age of sixteen.
A Court of Mist and Fury by
A Court of Thorns and Roses is a fantasy romance series by American author Sarah J. Maas, which follows the journey of 19-year-old Feyre Archeron after she is brought into the faerie lands of Prythian. The first book of the series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, was released in May 2015. The series centers on Feyre's adventures across Prythian and the faerie courts, following the epic love story and fierce struggle that ensues after she enters the fae lands. There are currently five novels in the series, and a sixth installment, confirmed by Maas, in the works.
Tomb Sweeping by
"Compelling and perceptive, Tomb Sweeping probes the loyalties we hold: to relatives, to strangers, and to ourselves. In stories set across the US and Asia, Alexandra Chang immerses us in the lives of immigrant families, grocery store employees, expecting parents, and guileless lab assistants."
Monsters by
"From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, Monsters is “part memoir, part treatise, and all treat” (The New York Times). This unflinching, deeply personal book expands on Claire Dederer’s instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?"
Can we love the work of artists such as Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Miles Davis, Polanski, or Picasso? Should we? Dederer explores the audience's relationship with artists from Michael Jackson to Virginia Woolf, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. Does genius deserve special dispensation? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss?"
The Goldfinch by
The Goldfinch is a novel by the American author Donna Tartt. It won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among other honors.[1] Published in 2013, it was Tartt's first novel since The Little Friend in 2002.[2]
The Goldfinch centers on 13-year-old Theodore Decker, and the dramatic changes his life undergoes after he survives a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that kills his mother and results in him coming into possession of Carel Fabritius's painting The Goldfinch.
The Secret History by
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.
Educated by
Educated is a 2018 memoir by American author Tara Westover. Westover recounts overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college and emphasizes the importance of education in enlarging her world. She details her journey from her isolated life in the mountains of Idaho to completing a PhD program in history at Cambridge University. She started college at the age of 17 having had no formal education. She explores her struggle to reconcile her desire to learn with the world she inhabited with her father.
The Ebony Tower by
". . . Comprising a novella, three stories, and a translation of a medieval French tale, echoes themes from John Fowles's internationally celebrated novels as it probes the fitful relations between love and hate, pleasure and pain, fantasy and reality."
Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by
"Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees chronicles three decades of extraordinary conversation between Weschler and Light and Space master Irwin, taking us into the heart of what it can mean to be an artist." "The original dialogues extend from the surf and cars of Irwin's L.A. youth through his passion for abstract expressionism, past his decision to abandon studio work altogether, up to and including the 1977 Whitney Museum of American Art retrospective. This lavishly expanded new edition surveys many of Irwin's subsequent site-conditioned projects - in particular the spectacularly realized Central Garden at the Getty Museum (the subject of an epic battle with the site's principal architect, Richard Meier) and the path-breaking design that transformed an abandoned Hudson Valley factory into Dia's stellar new Beacon campus - enhancing what many had already considered the best-ever book on an artist."--BOOK JACKET.
Persepolis by
"In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study for a better life. However, this change proves an equally difficult trial with the young woman finding herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs."
An Artist and a Mother by
"An Artist and a Mother is a book of visual artworks and essays that speak to the diverse ways artists balance creative life with the demands of mothering. It includes thirty seven essays describing the work of thirty-nine international artists and an art collective, as well as a resource guide with books, journals, magazines, organizations, and other resources. This book seeks to highlight the growing body of artist mothers who are making visually and conceptually interesting artwork not just despite their status as mothers, but often because of the inspiration and challenges that come with motherhood."
Chapter 25 is written by Eleanor Lim-Midyett (KCAI Faculty, Liberal Arts) about Laura Crehuet Berman (KCAI Faculty, Printmaking).
Like Breath on Glass by
"Through an innovative manner of handling paint, a group of American artists around 1900 created deceptively simple canvases that convey images of shimmering transience, visions suggested rather than delineated. Focusing on this singular aesthetic characteristic - softness - this book explores this painterly phenomenon."
My art historical interests are relatively all-encompassing. I am particularly interested in minimalism, expressionism, cubism, and the California light and space movement.
My personal practice is indebted to everyday phenomena. There is an emphasis on looking, analyses, and emotion within my work.
I gravitate towards cataloging architectural forms and aspects of the interior landscape. Cast light, the ceilings and floors of interiors, as well as recurring forms such as blinds and vents are primary subjects because of their neutrality.
These sources have the ability to remain familiar once abstracted through digital and analog processes, layering, and mark making, with material dictating the outcome.
It is important to me that I preserve what is recognizable for myself and others to find accidental clarity within abstraction.
