Season’s Greetings. Wishing you all a restful and restorative winter break. All UC Libraries locations are closed for Winter Season Days, December 24-January 3. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.
Category Archives: ARB Library
The University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report, 2019-2020: A Year Like No Other
What a year it’s been.
The University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report, this year completely online, covers July 2019 through June 2020, an academic year that started off normally, but in the spring would be disrupted in ways never thought possible because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fall semester was business as usual with students, faculty, researchers and staff accessing our facilities and resources for research and study, or simply to grab a cup of coffee between classes. Librarians and staff provided instruction on how to find the best research materials, offered reference assistance, collected and made our collections available and collaborated with faculty and researchers to translate information and data into knowledge. The usual activities in the library would come to a sudden halt spring semester.
This year’s report reviews how we responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also celebrates our numerous accomplishments, highlights new special collections and library exhibits, spotlights the achievements of our faculty and staff and provides usage stats and financial information.
As the semester and 2020 come to a close, we wish you warm wishes for the holiday season. May the new year bring you health, harmony and joy.
UC Libraries closed for the Thanksgiving Holiday
The University of Cincinnati Libraries will be closed Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27 for Thanksgiving, with the Walter C. Langsam Library closing early on Wednesday, November 25 at 5pm.
Beginning Monday, November 30 library hours will vary by location with some closing their facilities and offering weekly Click & Collect library material retrieval and pick up service. Library hours and information about the Click & Collect service is available on the Libraries website.
Through the Online Library portal and CHAT reference service, UC Libraries remains open and available online to provide users with access to library resources and services.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
UC Libraries closed Wednesday, Nov. 11 for Veterans Day. Health Sciences Library to remain open 9am-5pm.
UC Libraries will be closed Wednesday, Nov. 11 in observance of Veterans Day, except for the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, which will be open 9am to 5pm.
In addition, both the Click & Collect request and retrieval service and the CHAT online reference service will be unavailable Wednesday, Nov. 11.
Regular hours will resume Thursday, November 12.
To learn more about veterans at UC, check out this online exhibit from the Archives and Rare Books Library entitled “School & Country: Military Life at the University of Cincinnati.”
UC Libraries Closed Labor Day
UC Li
braries are closed Monday, September 7 for Labor Day, except for the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, which will be open 9am-5pm.
UC Libraries Announce Phased Approach to Re-Open Library Facilities
With the start of fall semester, UC Libraries will begin to re-open library facilities to the UC community in a limited, phased approach to ensure social distancing. Our priority remains to provide access to library resources to the extent possible while maintaining the health and safety of students, faculty and staff. The availability and use of locations and spaces within the libraries will be reviewed on a continual basis and updates will be posted on the Libraries website.
Beginning August 10, the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library (HSL) is open for fall semester with limited in-person accessibility to library spaces.
Beginning August 17, the UC Blue Ash College Library is open with services available in person, virtually or both.
Tues-Fri, August 18-21, the 400 level of the Walter C. Langsam Library will be open from 10am-4pm. No library services will be available during this time.
Beginning August 24, the Walter C. Langsam Library, Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library, John Miller Burnam Classics Library, Archives and Rare Books Library and UC Clermont College Library will open with limitations and protocols to ensure social distancing. Location specifics are listed at https://libraries.uc.edu/about/covid-19.html.
Other library locations remain closed at this time, but are under review for re-opening at a date to be announced. UC Libraries remains open and available online to provide users with access to library resources and services.
With limited exceptions in the Classics and CCM Libraries, there is no browsing of library materials in the stacks. The Click & Collect retrieval and pickup service allows UC users to request print library materials in the Library Catalog for pickup at designated locations. Pickup location details are available on the Click & Collect webpage.
Library users can once again request OhioLINK & Interlibrary Loan materials. Details are posted on the Libraries website.
UC Libraries launches Click & Collect service to offer phased access to library print materials
Request library materials by 9:00 am Wednesday for Thursday pickup at select locations.
Beginning immediately, the University of Cincinnati Libraries is providing users with phased access to print collection materials in order to support UC teaching and research.
The Click & Collect retrieval and pickup service allows UC users to request printed library materials in the Library Catalog for pickup at designated locations. Requests made by 9:00 AM Wednesdays will be available for pickup between noon – 4:00 PM on Thursdays. Due dates have been automatically set for August 10.
At this time, Click & Collect is available for print collections in the Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library, the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP), the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library and to some degree the Archives and Rare Books Library (see details below).
Plans to expand the Click & Collect library collection retrieval service are underway for other library locations and will be announced soon. Continue reading
Standing in solidarity against systemic racism
The University of Cincinnati Libraries supports our colleagues from the American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries in their statements and actions against racism and violence perpetrated against black men and women and all people of color. We agree with President Neville Pinto’s message “that the time to act is now.” As libraries, we provide access to resources and information professionals so that citizens can educate themselves on how to contribute to meaningful change and combat systemic racism.
Below is a short list of UC Libraries resources. While some do require UC affiliation, there are others that are open access. It contains a mix of current and historical perspectives as this is not a new issue our country is confronting, but the time to listen and to learn is now. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, but a starting point for education and conversation.
- Stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in America / Ibram X. Kendi [electronic resource – requires login with UC Credentials]
- White fragility : why it’s so hard for White people to talk about racism Robin DiAngelo [temporary electronic resource through Hathi Trust – requires login with UC credentials]
- Between the World and Me [temporary electronic resource through Hathi Trust – requires login with UC credentials] / Ta-Nehisi Coates –
- The night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union : A Transatlantic Story of Antiracist Protest / Stephen Tuck with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
- The Souls of Black Folk [temporary electronic resource through Hathi Trust – requires login with UC credentials] / W.E.B. Du Bois
- Mourning in America [electronic resource] : race and the politics of loss / David W. McIvor
- 1919, the year of racial violence [electronic resource] : how African Americans fought back / David F. Krugler, University of Wisconsin, Platteville
Videos
- Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland
- TEDTalks: Kimberlé Crenshaw: The Urgency of Intersectionality
- Moyers & Company: Incarceration Nation (Michelle Alexander, the author of “The New Jim Crow” being interviewed)
Current exhibit on display in the Walter C. Langsam Library
- Women of the Movement: Leaders for Civil Rights and Voting Rights (with link to PDF that gives short bios of the women featured in the exhibit) – https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/BHMhandout_onlineversion.pdf
The Urban Studies Collection of the Archives and Rare Books Library holds information on two of the women featured in the exhibit, Louise Shropshire, originator of the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” and Marian Spencer, local Civil Rights icon, as well as Theodore “Ted” Berry, the first African American mayor of Cincinnati.
The University of Cincinnati Press
- Issues in Race and Society, biannual journal distinguishes itself as an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and global examination of the increasingly racial and racialized world that connects us all.
UC Libraries planning to begin offering access to print collection materials
While all UC Libraries’ physical locations remain closed until further notice, we are finalizing plans to provide users with access to print collection materials in order to support UC teaching and research.
A print collection retrieval and pickup service is being planned to begin soon after June 8. Once all preparatory activities are completed, we will announce an official start date of the service. Library users will not be allowed inside library spaces, but will be able to request and pick up library materials in designated locations.
Details on exact timing and how to utilize the retrieval and pickup service will be forthcoming. For updated information, please visit https://libraries.uc.edu/about/covid-19.html.
In the meantime, the University of Cincinnati Libraries remains open and available online to provide users with access to library resources and services.
Working for a Living. New online exhibit features Labor Collections in the Archives and Rare Books Library.
Labor history concerns the lives of workers and their various and diverse struggles for workplace democracy, improved working conditions, collective bargaining, and their relationship to changing forms of work and economic production. A new online exhibit features the University of Cincinnati’s Archives and Rare Books Library labor collections. Part of the Urban Studies Collection, the labor collections include records from Cincinnati’s AFL-CIO Labor Council, the Regional Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers, the Barbers’ Union Local 49, International Brotherhood of Painters & Allied Trades Local 308, and others.
The Working for a Living exhibit was curated by Eira Tansey, digital archivist and records manager in the Archives and Rare Books Library. It was designed by Emily Young, library communication design co-op student, and Melissa Cox Norris, director of library communication.