Hungry? Bite into an Edible Book with UC Libraries

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

Me Cookie

The University of Cincinnati Libraries will celebrate the International Edible Books Festival with an event scheduled from 1-2 p.m., Tuesday, April 3, in the fifth floor lobby of Langsam Library.

At the event, a record 26 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 “Dragons Love Tacos” and “How to Eat Fried Worms.” Best sellers “The Help” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” are represented along with favorite children’s books “The Poky Little Puppy,” “Humpty Dumpty” and “Curious George at the Baseball Game,” among other literary greats. This year’s event will even feature two mother-daughter teams.

Interested in creating an edible book? E-mail melissa.norris@uc.edu by Tuesday, March 27 with your name and the title of your creation.

As in past years, entries will be judged according to such categories as “Most Literary,” “Most Delicious,” “Most Adorable” and “Most Gruesome.” In addition, the “Top Student Entry” and “Best Overall Entry” will receive a special prize. 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 1 (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). You can see images of the 2017 edible books on the Libraries Facebook page.

books by the banks logo 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.”

Introducing BenchSci

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

The University of Cincinnati Libraries is pleased to present BenchSci to the UC research community.

Registration is free to all scientists with a uc.edu or affiliated institutional emails at https://www.benchsci.com

BenchSci is a online platform designed to help scientists find antibody data in publications. Their proprietary machine-learning algorithm was trained by PhD-level scientists to identify and understand the usage of commercial antibodies in the research literature.

When searching for a specific protein target, BenchSci curates published data in the form of figures to simplify the literature search process. The figures can then be filtered by specific experimental contexts cited in the paper such as techniques, tissue, cell lines, and more, to help users pinpoint antibodies that have been published under experimental conditions matching their study interest.

For more information about BenchSci, please refer to this article: https://blog.benchsci.com/7-features-to-find-antibodies

To learn how to navigate BenchSci, please watch this short video: https://youtu.be/EFaDwTtqlv4

For further inquiries or feedback, contact Maurice Shen, the Head of Academic Relations at BenchSci, at maurice@benchsci.com

Service Note: Library Catalog Unavailable 5-6am, March 15

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

Service Note: for all you early birds, on Thursday, March 15 UC Libraries will receive a software update to the Library Catalog starting at 5:00am. With this update we will encounter approximately 1 hour of down time – effecting all aspects of the Catalog (UCLID).

FREE Conference: Precision Genomics Midwest, May 11, 2018

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

From making a diagnosis to tailoring treatment to an individual to someday curing disease, precision genomics is having a profound impact on healthcare.

Cincinnati Children’s Center for Pediatric Genomics and the University of Cincinnati launched Precision Genomics Midwest last year to bring genomic education to the Midwest. Often, clinicians and researchers don’t have the time to attend large national events, but they still need to learn about how genomics will be integrated into clinical care; about genomic technologies; and ongoing research in the field.

This one-day, free event – May 11 at the Kingsgate Marriott on the University of Cincinnati campus – is packed full of education on topics relevant to clinicians, researchers, pharmacists, genetic counselors, lab managers, nurses, and students.

Highlights include:

The whole day is free, including lunch.
Two keynotes: Dan Kastner, MD, PhD, Scientific Director at the National Human Research Genome Institute, and Mike Murray, MD, Director of Clinical Genomics at Geisinger Health System.
A new Bioinformatics track, with breakouts in clinical and research genome bioinformatics
Break-out sessions including genomics in the clinic, pharmacogenomics, epigenetics, and ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics.
A panel discussion on Innovative Genomic Therapeutics: Is Gene Editing or Gene Therapy the Answer to Curing Human Disease?
The largest exhibitor fair in the Midwest, featuring more than 30 vendors and sponsors.
A networking cocktail hour to finish the day.

Precision Genomics Midwest rapidly is becoming the Midwest’s premier precision medicine conference, by attracting regional attendance and national speakers while simultaneously showcasing talent from UC and Cincinnati Children’s. The inaugural year had nearly 360 registrants from more than 25 different institutions across the Midwest.

Cincinnati Children’s and UC College of Medicine are co-sponsoring the free conference. Other contributing partners include the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, University of Cincinnati Libraries, and the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training.

PGM is free, but space is limited. For the agenda, registration, and exhibitor prospectus, go to www.cincinnatichildrens.org/pgm. For updates, follow @CincyKidsGenomX on Twitter.

Langsam Library’s Spring Break Hours. Fourth Floor to Close when The Desk@Langsam Closes.

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

Langsam Library has reduced hours during Spring Break, March 9-17. Starting Fri, March 9, Langsam Library’s 4th floor will close when The Desk@Langsam closes during Spring Break.

Langsam Spring Break Hours: March 9-17

Fri, March 9 – 7:45am-6pm
Sat, March 10 – 10am-6pm
Sun, March 11 – Closed
Mon-Fri, March 12-16 – 8am-5pm
Sat, March 17 – Closed

Langsam’s 4th floor will resume 24/7 hours on Sunday, March 18.

Most other UC Libraries have reduced hours for Spring Break. Check the Libraries website for a listing of the hours for each location.

Have a safe and restful Spring Break.

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

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

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 1-2 p.m., Tues, April 3, in the Walter C. Langsam Library’s fifth 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.

As in previous years, entries will be judged according to such categories as “Most Delicious,” “Most Creative,” “Most Checked Out” and “Most Literary.” Special prizes will be awarded for the “Best Student” entry and “Best Overall” entry.

If you are interested in creating an edible book, e-mail melissa.norris@uc.edu by Fri, March 23 with your name and the title of your creation.

books by the banks logo Looking for inspiration? Visit UC Libraries on Facebook to see photos from the 2017 festival.

Edible Books, 2018 is sponsored in part by Books by the Banks: Cincinnati Regional Book Festival.

Classical Studies: Sources

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

These new bibliographies in Classics of c. 2,000 items (many annotated) are divided into two parts: 1) Fields of Study (e.g., Archaeology, History, Literature); 2) Types of Sources (e.g., Bibliographies, Journals, Theses). Several categories are further subdivided. It is a work in progress. http://guides.libraries.uc.edu/classical-sources

Above Board, Below the Ground

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

December 12, 2013, Youngstown, Ohio. Truck crash and spill. EPA incident review conducted. Truck was a contractor hauling fracking wastewater from ChemTron in Avon, OH. Liquids went into storm sewers and Crab Creek – a tributary of Mahoning River. Image courtesy of FracTracker. Photos from Lynn Anderson, Frack Free Mahoning, & Jean Engle, Youngstown Community Bill of Rights Committee

In my recent explorations of how recordkeeping practices inform environmental policy and knowledge, an interesting trend has revealed itself in the context of state regulation of fracking in the Marcellus/Utica shale region (i.e., Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia). State agencies in these areas are far more likely to proactively disclose records concerning permits, well locations, and production volume than any other records.

This means that there is significant data on the expansion of fracking – from its geographical extent to the volume of extractive activity. What is far more difficult to obtain is information on the effects of fracking. In other words, the records that contextualize fracking’s impact on the communities where it takes place – complaints, routine inspections, and investigations – are largely absent from the available data on state oil and gas websites. Instead, citizens must file records requests to obtain this information. Pennsylvania is a notable exception in comparison to Ohio and West Virginia, as it discloses records specifically pertaining to inspections and waste production and handling. It also partially discloses complaint and investigation records (primarily related to water contamination issues).

Ohio’s inspection records are highly obscured, requiring one to go through a very confusing process to obtain records from the Department of Natural Resources website. There is no obvious way to search for specific inspection, complaint, or investigation records through either Ohio or West Virginia’s website. Ohio law requires that a database concerning major violations by oil and gas operators be made available to the public on the Division of Oil and Gas resources website. Some of this information may be available through Ohio’s RBDMS application, but due to installation difficulties, I was unable to confirm this. When I asked an agency official regarding whether this web database was available, I was told the agency was “in the process” of creating it. The law calling for such a database was passed in 2010 and amended in 2011.

According to an issue paper authored by the Natural Resources Defense Council and FracTracker, West Virginia once had an active Oil and Gas spills database that was updated at least through 2013. The database is still hosted online, but does not appear to have any records in it from the last several years, or the time period in the issue paper.

When agencies have leeway to determine the scope of their proactive information disclosure, what is shared likely reflects how the agency views it mission. It appears that Ohio and West Virginia’s regulatory agencies prioritize disclosing information about the growth of fracking far more than its potential ramifications for the environment.

Scholar@UC Upgraded to Enhance Both the Use and Access of the University’s Digital Repository

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Melissa Cox Norris

Scholar@UC, the University of Cincinnati’s digital repository, has been updated and includes enhanced submission and viewing features:

improved look & feel
content dashboard for easier management of submitted works
batch work creation and upload – upload an entire folder of works simultaneously or create multiple works at once including from folders
usage analytics of content (views and downloads)
new work-relation model allowing works to be nested and related in meaningful ways
social media sharing widgets.

All content previously in Scholar@UC was migrated from the old platform, with files validated and the metadata and relationships maintained.

Scholar@UC is a digital repository that enables the University of Cincinnati community to share its research and scholarly work with a worldwide audience. Faculty and staff can use Scholar@UC to collect their work in one location and create a durable and citeable record of papers, presentations, publications, datasets or other scholarly creations. Students, through an approval process, may contribute capstone projects such as senior design projects, theses and dissertations.

The mission of Scholar@UC is to preserve the permanent intellectual output of UC, to advance discovery and innovation, to foster scholarship and learning through the transformation of data into knowledge, to collect a corpus of works that can be used for teaching and to enhance discoverability and access to these resources.

Scholar@UC is an open source, agile development project supported in partnership by the University of Cincinnati Libraries and IT@UC. To submit or view works in Scholar@UC, visit https://scholar.uc.edu/. Contact the Scholar@UC Team (scholar@uc.edu) with any questions.

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Author Archives: Melissa Cox Norris