On August 28, Janell Huyck began work at the University of Cincinnati Libraries as a software applications developer in the Application Development Unit.
Janell will work with the rest of the Application Development Unit to develop and enhance custom applications and to support other library hosted applications and sites. This additional developer position provides more resources to keep up with increased cybersecurity requirements and to explore more innovative solutions.
Bringing over two-and-a-half years of software development experience to the role, Janell is eager to contribute to the team’s initiatives. A Cincinnati native, Janell attended Sycamore High School before heading to the University of Wyoming for her college education. She returned to Cincinnati in 2018 to be closer to her family. Outside of work, Janell enjoys the company of her two cats and immerses herself in the worlds of sci-fi and fantasy literature. Excited about her new role, she is looking forward to meeting new people and making meaningful contributions to the UC community.
All University of Cincinnati Libraries locations are closed Monday, Sept. 4 for Labor Day. The Libraries will reopen as scheduled Tuesday, Sept. 5. Have a safe and relaxing holiday.
On August 7, Marcia Johnson began work for the University of Cincinnati Libraries in the role of library services supervisor for the Geology-Mathematics-Physics (GMP) Library.
Marcia will be responsible for overseeing core library operations for the GMP Library. This work includes managing the service desk, responding to user questions and requests for library materials and overseeing the routine maintenance of library collection and spaces. She will supervise student assistants at the GMP Library and assist with the overall supervision of students at the other Science & Engineering Library locations.
Ms. Johnson graduated from Northern Kentucky University (NKU) with a degree in communications and minored in biology and sociology. Prior to accepting this position, she served the past seven years as the library specialist III/ FDLP & ASERL coordinator – government documents/intellectual property & copyright (USPTRC – United States Patent & Trade Resource Center) at the W. Frank Steely Library at NKU. For 16 years, she was also the coordinating manager of the Steely Library Media Collections and SWON Media Specialist, managing the daily operations, access and circulation of Steely’s media library and SWON’s media collection. Marcia brings extensive experience in library operations and student supervision, as well as several library related certifications.
Welcome, Marcia, to the Science & Engineering Library, UC Libraries and all of UC!
There is growing interest and development in Virtual Reality (VR) for use in immersive education and training, collaboration and communication, as well as for enhancing teaching and learning. Within the University of Cincinnati there are VR activities found throughout campus, including in the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP), the College of Medicine and in Game Design, as well as in UC’s Digital Futures facility.
To showcase some of these VR activities, UC Libraries is holding a series of open sessions with distinguished speakers from UC’s Digital Futures who will share their work, research and innovations in VR. There are three sessions open to all.
The Cincinnati chapter of the “Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America” has raised funds to replace the famous She-Wolf, which was stolen from Eden Park on June 16, 2022. A workshop connected to the University of Florence, Italy, has created a replica which was shipped to the United States and arrived in Cincinnati on Friday, August 25, 2023 (see the first three images below, taken by Joe Mastruserio, president of the Cincinnati lodge of OSDIA). The statue will be returned to Eden Park at a dedication ceremony on October 20, 2023, at 10:00 am.
The story of the Lupa (Latin for female wolf) is well-known and can be easily found on Wikipedia, so I won’t repeat it here, just to say that the statue that was stolen and vandalized after criminals had removed it from its base by cutting it off from the paws, leaving the twins and base intact, was originally gifted in 1931 (dedicated in 1932) by the City of Rome, Italy, under the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. He donated wolf statues also to other towns in the U.S. with some connection to Rome, however faint, such as a town in Georgia by the name of Rome. The Cincinnati “connection” was the name of the city and the Roman military leader Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. The statue was modeled after the so-called Capitoline Wolf thus named as the original is housed in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Italy (see the last image below). The date of the original statue is uncertain. Some scholars claim it to be Etruscan from the 5th-4th centuries BCE; others that it is early medieval from the 10th-11th centuries. Other dates have also been suggested. What seems clear is that the nursing twins are additions from the Renaissance (probably late 15th c.).
In connection with the dedication ceremony on October 20, a book exhibition devoted to the She-Wolf and Romulus and Remus will be on display in the Reading Room of the John Miller Burnam Classics Library at UC, featuring texts describing the story of the Wolf’s role in the Founding of ancient Rome, and original Roman coins, such as a silver denarius dating from the Roman Republic; other coins from the time of emperors Antoninus Pius and Constantine, representing the wolf nursing the twins. Interestingly, the depictions are of a wolf looking down at the twins, not at the viewer as in the Capitoline Wolf which, as I mentioned, did not originally include the twins. The relief of the Lupa and twins on the parapet of the façade of the Blegen Library building, housing the Burnam Classics Library, can be viewed at any time (see fourth image below).
As UC is a public university, the exhibition will be open to all. If you can, please attend both events, especially the dedication ceremony in Eden Park to convey the message that Cincinnatians will not allow theft or vandalism of their historic monuments and that we as law-abiding residents are reclaiming our parks as safe and clean spaces for families, wildlife, plant life — and for history!
Hosted by the University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room, the Data & Poetry | Poetry & Data Workshop: Attributes of the Code & the Line will explore how data and poetry inform and influence each other, the impact of emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs on poetry and literature, as well as the implications this presents for copyright.
Join us Tuesday, Sept. 12, 3-5pm in the Elliston Poetry Room (6th floor of the Walter C. Langsam Library) for a panel discussion and Q&A led by poets, data professionals, AI researchers and a legal expert. While you may not leave with answers, you will leave with thoughts, resources and more questions.
The panelists are:
Ben Kline is the assistant department head for research, teaching and services at UC Libraries. A poet in his non-library life, Ben believes poets should be empowered to harness data, data tools and our collective knowledge to create work that invigorates and challenges ideas about art and technology.
Amy Koshoffer – as the assistant director of research and data services, Amy promotes data literacy skills particularly data sharing and data management.
Kay Bancroft – a poet, editor, educator and artist, Kay merges creative writing with pre-existing structures, data and more.
Mark Chalmers – science and engineering librarian. Among his other areas of expertise, Mark manages the CEAS Library’s coding workshops and is an AI enthusiast.
Tim Armstrong – a lawyer and technologist, Professor Armstrong studies the intersection of advanced communications technologies and intellectual property law.
The workshop is part of Poetry Stacked programming and the Data and Computational Series. It is sponsored by a Universal Provider Award from the Provost Office.
Please see a very brief overview of the John Miller Burnam Classics Library to prepare for the much more extensive in person orientation on August 18. See you soon!
