The JKM Library Blog

Chatham celebrated a big edible book milestone this spring with our 10th International Edible Book Festival event! The JKM Library has been partnering with Chatham's food studies program since 2012 to host this celebration of food and literature. After a three-year hiatus during the heights of COVID-19, the tradition was revived in 2024, and on March 31st, 2025 we celebrated our 10th event!

To make this year extra special, we welcomed additional collaborators to help grow the festival. Chatham's Student Success and the Academic Success Center hosted an Essential Needs Item Drive to benefit Chatham's Essential Needs Corner. Anyone who donated to the item drive was entered into a raffle for a $100 gift certificate to Mad Mex.

The PA Hunger Free Campus Task Force hosted a silent auction (sans real money) for kitchenware kits, funded by the PA Department of Education. Students were given five tickets that they could use to bid on the specific kits they were interested in. There were five kits auctioned off.

And in addition to those amazing activities, we also had honey tasting and education provided by the Eden Hall Apiary. Attendees could taste honey from different seasons and learned a bit about how the flowers from each season alter the flavor profile of the honey created by the area bees.

This year's edible book contest was judged by our amazing volunteer faculty members: returning judges Heather McNaugher and Barbara Ann McMonigal, and new judge Laura Livingston. Thank you to our judges for their time and taste buds! 

Winners of the 10th International Edible Book Festival are:

People's Choice Award: "Pete the Cat: I Love My White Choux" submitted by Maggie Vargo and Evelyn Fay

Best Tasting: "Franks 'N' Brine" submitted by Anne St. Jean

Most Creative Literary Interpretation: "Demon Copperhead" submitted by Karin Chipman

The Rachel Carson Award: "Pete the Cat: I Love My White Choux" submitted by Maggie Vargo and Evelyn Fay

Grand Prize: "The Masque of the Red Death" submitted by Kate Emory

A huge thank you to Chatham’s food studies program, Alice Julier and Rebecca Nathan in particular, for their sponsorship and support and enthusiasm in planning. Thank you to the Academic Success Center, Chatham Student Success, the PA Hunger Free Campus Task Force, and the Essential Needs Corner for their help growing this event this year. And thanks to all of our ‘edible book’ contestants!

Do you like The Great British Bake Off? How about puns? Do books and/or food delight you? If the answer is yes to one or all of these questions, the International Edible Book Festival is for you! This time-honored tradition here at Chatham is co-sponsored by the JKM Library and Chatham's food studies department and seeks to bring people together over a shared love of books and food.

We know many of you have never had the pleasure of experiencing the International Edible Book Festival, so this post is here to answer all (or hopefully most) of your questions. Have more? Contact the library at reference@chatham.edu.

What is the International Edible Book Festival? Started in 2000, this celebration of food and reading brings communities together to share creative literature-inspired food or beverage items (the ‘edible books’ in question). Contestants sign up to bring an ‘edible book’, and on the day of the event they present their book to judges and attendees. The judges taste and evaluate each entry and award prizes, and the attendees vote on their favorites for the People’s Choice prize. A wonderful time is had by all!

What does the event look like? We set up a bunch of tables in the JKM Library’s first floor lobby. Contestants set up their ‘edible books’ for display, and the judges begin their tastings and deliberations. Once the judges have had a chance to taste all entries, the tasting is opened up to all attendees. Attendees enjoy the ‘edible books’ and vote for their favorite (the People’s Choice Award). After everyone has had a chance to taste, vote, and socialize, we then announce our winners and distribute our prizes!

Who is allowed to participate? Everyone! This event is open to all Chatham students, staff, and faculty. It’s also open to the public at large! Anyone can enter an ‘edible book’ into the festival’s contest.

How can I participate? You can attend as just a spectator and vote for your favorite ‘edible book’, or you can participate as a contestant in the festival’s contest! Either way, we ask that you register. It’s important to know how many folks are planning to show up so we can plan for how many people to feed.

What do I need to know if I’m submitting an ‘edible book’ to the contest? Register for the event on Happenings and be sure to mark that you will be submitting an ‘edible book’. You will then receive informational emails from the librarians. Your ‘edible book’ can be as simple or complicated as you’d like. It can be a food or beverage item, but it has to have some tie to literature, libraries, or reading. You should include with your ‘edible book’ a list of ingredients (for both judging and dietary restriction purposes) and a copy of the book that inspired you! You are expected to stand with your ‘edible book’ during the judging process to answer any questions, but then are are free to go sample other contestant’s ‘edible books’ and vote for your favorite.

‘Edible books’ can be as complicated as an ornate cake or as simple and low maintenance as bringing in pre-made candy or cookies. Below are some examples of ‘edible books’ submitted to our past events:

What are the prize categories? Each ‘edible book’ entry is eligible to win prizes. Prizes usually include items like water bottles, cookbooks, gift baskets, gift certificates, honey from Eden Hall, and more. Our current categories are:

• Best Tasting: This one is fairly straight forward. It’s not how good your ‘edible book’ looks, but how good it tastes.
• Most Creative Literary Interpretation: Taste is not as important in this category. Instead, it’s your creativity the judges are looking at. The most creative ‘edible book’ wins!
• People’s Choice: This is the popular vote! All attendees get to taste the ‘edible books’ and vote for their favorite.
• The Rachel Carson Award: This is awarded to the ‘edible book’ that honors sustainability and/or nature. This could mean that the ingredients are locally or ethically sourced, that the ‘edible book' was created with environmental impact in mind, or that is represents something in nature. Those who would like to be considered for this award need to indicate on their ingredients list if something is local/sustainable or if environmental concerns went into the creation of the food item.
• Grand Prize: Awarded by the judges, this prize is best in show. It is awarded to the ‘edible book’ that really knocked it out of the park in both taste, creativity, and presentation. 

Winners from our 2019 event:

We hope this piques your interest and that you’ll enter an ‘edible book’ creation of your own in one of our upcoming International Edible Book Festivals. You can also visit the JKM Library's International Edible Book Festival virtual display for book more delicious literary fun!

January 2016

You’re probably familiar with the Song Contest as one of the longest-running and most cherished of all the Chatham traditions, but have you heard any of the vintage recordings of these tunes in the University Archives? You’ll have a chance this weekend as Chatham’s Archivist Molly Tighe joins the hosts of WESA’s Rhythm Sweet &
Hot for a chat and a spin around the vinyl grooves cut by PCW singers all the way back in 1947.
During this week’s live broadcast, which airs from 6:00 until 8:00 pm on 90.5 FM, Molly will chat with hosts and hepcats Mike Plaskett and Dale Abraham about a recently discovered recording of the Class of 1947 singing classic Song Contest tunes We Sing Hi-Ho, Charm Girl of PCW and PCW Progress. Since these swingy tunes
are sure to make you slap-happy and to blow your wig (21st century translation= become very excited), we decided to dig around in the University Archives and pull out some Song Contest treasures to get everyone prepped and ready for the big show.
First, a little bit of history. Chatham’s Song Contest dates back to 1921, when a competition between the classes was enjoyed so much that it became one of the most hotly anticipated traditions of every school year.
Competitive Sing in the June 1921 issue of Sorosis
Read the full June 1921 issue of The Sorosis here: http://tinyurl.com/jl896qc
For many years the Song Contest was held in combination with Color Day and together the two traditions generated a whirl of class spirit. The two events would occur during the fall semester after the first-year students had successfully completed their first round of exams and had sufficiently settled into college life (including learning all the favorite school songs!).
Selected pages from the 1927-1928 Student Handbook including mention of Color Day, Song
Contest, and song lyrics.
In 1928, song lyrics and music were compiled by the Song Book Committee into a song book.
Copy of the Chatham Song Book from the University Archives and Photo of the 1959 Song
Contest Leaders
The rules for the contest were a little different back then. Each class was responsible for presenting three songs: one with original lyrics and music, one with original lyrics set to an existing tune, and one song selected by the judges just prior to the contest.
Chatham Song Contest, 1957
According to an article in The Arrow on November 22, 1944, each class would practice their songs daily, sometimes sending a secret operative to spy on the other classes to try to discover the competing classes’ performance plans. On the day of the contest…
…there was a mad checker game struggle for the right seats for the right voices. After everything was under control except Bertha Butterfly in our stomachs, we sat through a hymn, through the announcement of the Freshman Commission, through Hail to PCW, the presentation of the colors and the reception of the new
Freshman. All the time we wondered- whether our class Rachmaninoff had remembered to fetch along her music. (Read the whole article here: http://tinyurl.com/homkedn)
Awaiting results of the Song Contest, 1959
In the early years, the winning class was awarded a five pound box of candy.
Song Contest Winners, 1959
Later, the candy box was replaced with a silver cup.
Song Contest, 1980s
There’s no mention of recording any Chatham songs until 1946, when a contributor to the student newspaper implored her classmates to join forces to document their musical history. She writes, “Without old college songs to sing while in the shower, PCW graduates can probably hold their job competently or cheer hubby after his hard
day at the office, but it might be nice to have something specific to help them reminisce once in a while.”
Editorial in a 1946 issue of The Arrow
Chatham University Archives maintains a healthy collection of LP recordings of Song Contest, no song recordings predate the late-1950s. We couldn’t be sure if this 1946 editorial had spurred any action- until now!
LP covers of Song Contest recordings
A recently unearthed 1947 recording was produced at George Heid Productions & Transcription Services in downtown Pittsburgh and features the same three songs performed at the Senior Dinner for the Class of 1947. Could it be that the 1946 editorial inspired the creation of this recording? Could it be that the students took a trip
downtown on a streetcar to cut record of the winning songs from the Song Contest? Could it be that this is one of those very recordings? We think so!
The recording, which you can hear when you tune your radio dial to WESA 90.5 from 6:00 until 8:00 pm this Saturday night, may very well be our earliest recording of a campus tradition that spans decades and even continues through to today (Click here for a video of the 2014 song contest). We hope you’ll tune in!
Can’t wait for the show? Want to prepare for a sing-along? Here’s the music and lyrics to a couple classic Chatham tunes.
We Sing Hi-O, words and music by members of the Class of 1929
Chatham Charm Girl
Still hungry for more? Come by the University Archives in the JKM Library on Monday from 1-5 or Thursday from 1:30-3:30 to chat with Chatham Archivist Molly
Tighe about the Song Contest or any of your favorite Chatham traditions!
 

April 2015

Yesterday’s celebration of the International Edible Books Festival was a rousing success! Thanks to everyone who participated.
Thank you also to our three wonderful judges for their hard work in selecting the prizewinning edible books:
Dr. Heather McNaugher, Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing
Malik Hamilton, Food Studies student
Amy Lee Heinlen, Librarian and Poet
Serious deliberation was required to select the prizewinners.
And a big congratulations, of course, to our fantastic prizewinners:
Most Creative Literary Interpretation:
Molly Tighe for Tender is the Night Most Creative Ingredients / Use of
Ingredients:
Shuai Lu for Ancient Egypt: The Land and its Legacy
Most Sustainable:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Most Popular Vote:
Rachel Geffrey for Curious George
Grand Prize:
Tiffany Waltenbaugh, Teresa Scibilia, & Lorraine Yanjtovich for The Very Hungry Caterpillar