Author Archives: Melissa Cox Norris

And the Winners are…Results of the 2019 UC Libraries International Edible Books Festival

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cupcakes

Best Overall – A Series of Unfortunate Cupcakes by the Warren Family

The University of Cincinnati Libraries celebrated the International Edible Books Festival on April 1, 2019.

Twenty edible books were created by students, faculty, staff, librarians, friends and family. The entries ranged from children’s books to literary classics to popular fiction and self-help books. The edible books were made of cakes, cookies, candy, deviled eggs and even carrots. Each entry was judged by our esteemed judges Debbie Tenofsky and Mary Anne McMillan and awarded a bookmark.

Created by librarian Judith A. Hoffberg and artist Béatrice Coron, the International Edible Books Festival is held worldwide annually on or around April 1st to mark the birthday of Jean Brillat-Savarin, author of The Physiology of Taste.  The global event has been celebrated since 2000 in various parts of the world, including in Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, The Netherlands, Russia and Hong Kong.

UC Libraries has participated in the International Edible Books Festival since 2001. The 2019 winners ares:

  • Most Humorous – After the Party by Olya Hart
  • Most Whimsical – The Monster at the End of This Book by Melissa Cox Norris
  • Most Literary – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Ben Kline and Aaron Libby
  • Most Creative – The Giving Tree by Jessica Ebert
  • Most Magical – Good Night Moon by Michelle Matevia
  • Most Adorable – Owl Moon by Debbie Weinstein
  • Most Clever – The Amazing Spider-Man by Sam Norris
  • Most Delicious – All New Square Foot Gardening by Luahna Winningham Carter
  • Most Deadly – Where the Red Fern Grows by Jack Norris
  • Most Checked Out – Green Eggs and Ham by Sami Scheidler
  • Most Fun – Middlemarch by Steve Norris
  • Most Taboo – Human Resources or was it Human Remains by Aja Hickman
  • Scariest – Ring by Holly Prochaska
  • Most Imaginative – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Jenny Mackiewicz
  • Silliest – Too Many Carrots by Melissa Cox Norris
  • Most Outrageous – A Dance with Dragons by Sam Kane
  • Best Overall – A Series of Unfortunate Cupcakes by the Warren Family
  • Best Student Entry – The Little Prince by Emma Duhamel and Eli Seidman-Deutsch

Congratulations to all the edible books creators! View the entries and the winners on the UC Libraries Facebook page. See you next year for Edible Books 2020!

Hungry? Bite into an Edible Book with UC Libraries on April 1

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2018’s Most Deadly – “Life Cycles” from Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World by Tania Paine

Celebrate books good enough to eat at the International Edible Books Festival set for 1 p.m., Monday, April 1.

The University of Cincinnati Libraries will celebrate the International Edible Books Festival with an event scheduled from 1-2 p.m. on Monday, April 1, in the fifth floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library.

At the event, over 20 participants will present their edible creations that represent a book in some form. There are few restrictions in creating an edible book – namely that the creation be edible and have something to do with a book. Submitted entries include edible titles such as Food: A Love Story and A Series of Unfortunate Cupcakes. Best sellers The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and The Giving Tree are represented alongside classics like Middlemarch, Where the Red Fern Grows and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, among other literary greats.

t-shirtAs in past years, entries will be judged according to such categories as “Most Literary,” “Most Delicious,” “Most Hilarious” and “Most Gruesome.” In addition, the winners of “Top Student Entry” and “Best Overall Entry” will receive a limited edition UC Libraries t-shirt. After the entries are judged they will be consumed and enjoyed by all in attendance.

According to the International Edible Book Festival website, the edible book was initiated by librarian and artist Judith A. Hoffberg during a 1999 Thanksgiving celebration with book artists. It became an international celebration in 2000 when artist Béatrice Coron launched the Books2Eat website. Traditionally, the event is celebrated on April 1st (April Fools’ Day) to mark the birthday of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), a French lawyer and politician who became famous for his book, Physiologie du gout (The Physiology of Taste). To view images of the 2018 edible books, visit the Libraries Facebook page.

The Libraries International Edible Books Festival is free and open to the public. It is sponsored in part by Books by the Banks: Cincinnati Regional Book Festival.

Come to celebrate (and eat) “books good enough to eat!”

“An Evening with Aristophanes” in the Classics Library March 28

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evening with AristophanesJoin the John Miller Burnam Classics Library, Thursday, March 28 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., in celebrating the life and work of the Greek comedy playwright Aristophanes.

The evening will include remarks by Rebecka Lindau, head of the Classics Library; a brief presentation of Aristophanes’ life and work by Susan Prince, associate professor of classics; and a reading of the play Lysistrata in Jeffrey Henderson’s Loeb translation, under the direction of Brant Russell, assistant professor of acting. The play will feature students from both UC’s Classics Department and from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). True to ancient Greek drama, music will further accompany the entrances and exits of the chorus and interludes, under the direction of Yo Shionoya, a graduate student in CCM.

The evening will conclude with a reception including Greek food.

The event will be presided over by the Greek god Dionysus who will greet all revelers at the door. The Classics Library will also feature a book exhibition with works of Aristophanes, including rare editions.

Please RSVP to Cade Stevens at stevencd@ucmail.uc.edu or (513) 556-1314 by Monday, March 25.

UPDATED: Interlibrary Loan Service Unavailable Monday, March 18, 8am-5pm because of Maintenance

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UPDATE TWO:   Correct link to Illiad: https://illiad.uc.edu/illiad/index.html

If you have problems logging into Illiad, please use the above link to login.

We are working to correct all links now.

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Thank you!

UPDATE: the scheduled maintenance is taking longer than anticipated. Please note we’ve changed the estimated up time to 5pm. Thank you for understanding.

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The Libraries Interlibrary Loan (Illiad) server will be offline for maintenance Monday, March 18 from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. During that time, Interlibrary Loan will be unavailable.

Thank you for your patience.

Three Recent Articles Highlight Work being done in the Digital Scholarship Center

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Three recent articles from faculty and staff working in or with the university’s Digital Scholarship Center demonstrate the transdisciplinary, enterprise-wide research mission of the center. In these three articles, topics include information science, new media and communications, and digital scholarship/digital humanities:

“Embracing semantic ambiguity to enhance interpretability of complex unstructured machine learning problems.” – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pra2.2018.14505501144

“Tweeting for social justice in #Ferguson: Affective discourse in Twitter hashtags” – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444819827030?casa_token=mSwlsllzyaQAAAAA:o8PzOiTUUyS1zCblmTKMvkE1HBromRj1bXExxvk8qiZVg0LItZlr9Ne5y9EW10EqqpWPqi4KwvDI

“Epic social networks and Eve’s centrality in Milton’s Paradise Lost” – https://academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/llc/fqz001/5365481?guestAccessKey=71453a56-cfdb-48f2-a5bc-ae279bf4b0ac

The University of Cincinnati’s Digital Scholarship Center, located in the Walter C. Langsam Library, is a joint venture between the College of Arts and Sciences and the Libraries.

On campus and in the community, the DSC serves as a catalyst for hybrid forms of research and teaching, bringing together humanistic methods with technical innovations to test paradigms and to create new knowledge at the boundary between disciplines as they are conventionally imagined in humanities.

For more about the DSC, visit their website at http://dsc.uc.edu/

DAAP Library Exhibit-Emil Robinson

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Come see Assistant Professor of Design, Emil Robinson’s paintings in the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP). On display across from the circulation desk are: Tulips 1, Broken Bumper, Tulips 2–all three paintings are oil on panel and painted in 2019. He has paired them with books, which give clues to his technique/process. It’s a sneak peek of the spring we are all desiring. 

New Langsam Library Exhibit – “Animals in Antiquity” as Reflected through Books and Artifacts in the John Miller Burnam Classics Library

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animals in antiquityOn the fifth floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library is the exhibit “Animals in Antiquity: An exhibition from the collections of the John Miller Burnam Classics Library.”

Curated by Rebecka Lindau, head of the John Miller Burnam Classics Library, and Michael Braunlin, assistant head of the  Classics Library, and designed by Michelle Matevia, library communication design co-op student, the exhibit highlights the role and importance of animals in Antiquity.

Bastet the Cat

Cats were sacred in ancient Egypt. There was even a cat goddess, Bastet.

Animals were divinities, especially in Egypt.  In Ancient Greece and Rome they were the companions or theomorphic stand-ins for gods and goddesses. Many animals were considered sacred to the ancient Greeks and Romans. However, as humans went from a nomadic existence to one of settlers and farmers, they began taming and using animals for their own purposes and so the status of animals began to decline.

After their domestication, bulls, cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, sheep and goats were used to plow fields, to provide milk and meat, transportation, and clothing. Wild boars were hunted for food and for “displays of manhood” by well-to-do young men as were various birds, deer, hares and even lizards.  Some animals were made companions or pets such as sparrows, pigeons, doves, dogs, cats, monkeys and even wild animals, gazelles and cheetahs. Animals in Greece, rabbits, dogs, roosters and doves, were given as presents, also in courtship as “love gifts.”

Foxes were wild and often considered a nuisance for wine growers because they liked eating the vines.

Various kinds of fish were eaten in antiquity, but they, too, could be pets and were sacred to the gods. Animals such as horses and elephants were used in war and as entertainment, for example, among the Romans at the Colosseum where lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, bears, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, wild donkeys, hyenas and ostriches were forced to fight to their deaths. Greek and Roman authors such as Plutarch, Aelian and Pliny the Elder wrote about animals in works on ethics, morals and natural history and prose, poetry and history writers such as Homer, Aesop’s Fables, Lucretius, Ovid, Seneca, Dio Cassius, Diodorus Siculus frequently used animals to tell stories and to illustrate the human experience.

Sections of the exhibit inform how animals were used as entertainment, as companions, for ritual sacrifice, even in war. In addition, the exhibit features animals in art, displayed on coins, vases and statues. A bibliography of resources used in the creation of the exhibit is available on site and online as a PDF.

To learn more about Animals in Antiquity, read about or visit the Classics Library located on the fourth floor of Blegen Library where the books and artifacts featuring the texts and images in this exhibition are housed and where the librarian is happy to answer questions and offer research advice on this or any other topic concerning classical antiquity.

UC Libraries Seeks Books Good Enough to Eat for the International Edible Books Festival

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

2018 Best Overall – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jessica Ebert

Know of a good book to eat?! Create an Edible Book for UC Libraries International Edible Books Festival!

It’s time once again for the fan-favorite International Edible Books Festival scheduled for Monday, April 1, 2019, from 1-2:00pm in the Walter C. Langsam Library’s 5th floor lobby. UC Libraries is seeking people interested in creating an edible book for the enjoyment (and consumption) of all in attendance. There are few restrictions – namely that your creation be edible and have something to do with a book – so you may let your creativity run wild.

t-shirtAs in previous years, entries will be judged according to such categories as “Most Delicious,” “Most Creative,” “Most Checked Out” and “Most Literary.” Those awarded “Best Student Entry” and “Best Overall” will win a limited-edition UC Libraries t-shirt.

If you are interested in creating an edible book, please e-mail melissa.norris@uc.edu by Friday, March 22 with your name and the title of your creation.

Looking for inspiration? Visit UC Libraries on Facebook to see photos from the 2018 festival.

Read Source to learn more about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

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source graphicRead Source, the online newsletter, to learn more about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

In this edition of Source, Dean Xuemao Wang writes about the university’s Bicentennial and we announce an exhibit of books from the libraries that document the university’s 200 years.  We interview Brad Warren, associate dean of library services, and focus on the Visualization Lab located in the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library.

An article from Rich Puff, assistant vice president of public relations & communications, Academic Health Center, honors Lucy Oxley, MD, ‘a pioneer and a servant leader.’ University archivist and head of the Archives and Rare Books Library Kevin Grace writes about James Landy’s 1876 images celebrating William Shakespeare

Lastly, we promote to upcoming events: Hidden Treasures: An Adopt-A-Book Evening on March 14 and the Cecil Striker Society Annual Lecture on May 15.

Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the web at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/source/ and via e-mail. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

New UC VPN by March 1, 2019

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UC is transitioning to the new VPN software Cisco AnyConnect by March 1, 2019.  For UC students, faculty and staff who use the VPN to access library resources from off-campus will need to download and install the new VPN software by March 1st.  Both AnyConnect and Pulse Secure will work until March 1, 2019.  After March 1st, only AnyConnect will work.

New to the SSL VPN?

The Secure Sockets Layer Virtual Private Network (SSL VPN) provides authorized users to access UC Library resources from off-campus and is ideal for longer research sessions.

VPN AnyConnect Software Installation

Go to vpn.uc.edu to access the UC AnyConnect client application installers.

Step-by-step setup instructions for downloading and installing the UC AnyConnect VPN software

After installation, log into the VPN software on your computer/device using your UC central login and then open a browser window to start your research session.

Both AnyConnect and Pulse Secure will work until March 1, 2019.  After March 1st, only AnyConnect will work.

Questions?  Contact IT@UC

  • Phone: 513-556-4357
  • Toll Free: 866-397-3382