Category Archives: ARB Library

Posts related to the archives and rare books category

Albert Sabin: An Incredible Cincinnatian

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By:  Iman Said, Archives & Rare Books Intern for 2014-2015

Albert SabinHello again! The past few weeks, I have written about student life at UC and various aspects of campus that provide students with a well-rounded college experience. But UC is just one part of a huge community of Cincinnatians. Much of the work that is done on campus by our students, faculty, and staff have a significant impact on the entire city, and even the entire country. Being a student at UC makes it easy to forget that our CCM graduates go on to be Broadway stars, our MBA graduates are CEOs, and our medical students create new medicines and practices. These students succeed because of the outstanding faculty and staff who work for the university, many of whom actually have their own impact on the community. Continue reading →

Another Addition to Our Documentation of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music's Heritage

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By Kevin Grace

Last week we wrote about the wonderful donation of an exterior wall plaque from the Conservatory of Music when it was located in the old Shillito mansion on Highland and Oak Streets.  No sooner than that blog post run that we received a package from another person with a connection to the school.

ccm-ladies

Florence Lemke of Tucson passed along some memorabilia that had belonged to her late aunt, Rita Moore.  Moore was a Conservatory student in the early 1920s and had a classmate by the name of Minnie Leah Nobles.  Mrs. Lemke sent us the 1921 Senior Annual, which her aunt had obtained from Nobles, along with a class photo.  In the picture, Nobles is the tallest woman in the back row and Moore is in the back row as well, third from the right.  It’s a wonderful image not only in how it depicts coed fashion at the time, but in its look at the Conservatory entrance as well. Continue reading →

UC's Bearcat Celebrates Its Centennial Birthday

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By:  Kevin Grace

Bearcat at the ZooThis time of year 100 years ago, the “Bear Cat” made its first appearance in a student newspaper cartoon that celebrated a UC football victory over the University of Kentucky.  UK had its “Wildcats” but with the red and black backfield boasting the likes of Leonard “Teddy” Baehr, the cartoonist, Paddy Reece, showed a bear-like creature chasing after a wildcat.  It wasn’t until a few years after that gridiron win that the term “Bearcat” came to be commonly used as the University of Cincinnati’s mascot, but now a century later, it’s an integral part of our campus identity.

Paddy Reese Continue reading →

October is National Archives Month

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By:  Kevin Grace

Utopia 2014 Archives MonthEvery year the nation’s archivists celebrate October as National Archives Month as a way of promoting the use of original source material by students, scholars, and the general public.  The month is also dedicated to promoting the importance of historical documents and their archival preservation.  For many years now, the Society of Ohio Archivists has selected a theme to be explored and to produce a poster for distribution around the state.  This year for Ohio, we have chosen the Great Depression as our theme, with programs and exhibits having that event as a focus.  To see the photos the committee considered for the 2014 poster, please use this link: http://www.ohioarchivists.org/archives-month-in-ohio-2014-ohio-in-the-depression/.

George Bain, the chair of SOA’s Archives Month Committee, has shared this flickr exhibit of Archives Month posters, including Ohio’s: https://www.flickr.com/photos/councilofstatearchivists/page1/.

To learn more about the holdings of the Archives & Rare Books Library, including our work with the Society of Ohio Archivists, please contact us at 513.55.1959 or by email at archives@ucmail.uc.edu. To learn more about our collections, please visit our website at: http://www.libraries.uc.edu/arb.html.

 

UC Bicentennial Publishing Plans Gearing Up

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By:  Kevin Grace

Football playersIn 2019, the University of Cincinnati will celebrate its 200th birthday, and for the past two years the UC Bicentennial Commission has undertaken a number of initiatives to celebrate and commemorate this momentous event.  One aspect of the bicentennial endeavors is directed by the Spirit of History Committee.  Chaired by longtime UC benefactor and former member of the Board of Trustees, Buck Niehoff, the committee’s plans are for two complementary publications.

taft with brothers_2The first publication is a scholarly history of the university by David Stradling, professor of history.  Dr. Stradling will focus on UC’s relationship to the city of Cincinnati throughout its history.  The second volume, edited by Greg Hand, will be a collection of diverse essays that begin with a facet of University of Cincinnati history and expand it to where it has relevance and meaning to any reader, not just those who are connected to UC in some way.  To that end, Hand is soliciting ideas for essays and invites anyone to submit a proposal by linking to this web page:    http://www.uc.edu/content/dam/uc/Bicentennial/docs/6034-Spirit-of-History-Essay-form.pdf.   The form provides details on the style the essays will take.  It can also be printed out and mailed to potential authors. Continue reading →

St. Mark and the Lion

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On the Archives & Rare Books website, we try to keep it fresh by putting up new images from time to time, especially our banner pictures.  All of them are taken from our various holdings and we often get queries about what they are exactly, what collections they’re from, what era they represent, and the like.  Lately, we’ve received several about our banner image of St. Mark.  The painting of the gospel writer is from our book of hours, what we call the Limoges Book of Hours, but is listed in UCLID as Ms. No. 37.

St. MarkCreated ca. 1475 in a monastic workshop in Limoges, France, this book of hours is written on vellum and bound in velvet.  There are exquisite illuminated pages throughout the volume illustrating events like the Conception and the Resurrection.  As with all books of hours from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, the volume contains the prayers read at the designated times of day, along with a list of saints and feast days important to the region in which the book was made.  Additionally, most books of hours contain the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  And this is where St. Mark comes in.  Continue reading →

Shillito Hall Comes Home to the UC Campus

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By:  Kevin Grace

For the past few weeks, Mr. Dennis Christine (CCM, Class of 1969), has corresponded with Sue Reller, Mark Palkovic, and me about an old bronze plaque he had.  He wished to donate it to us as a piece of University of Cincinnati heritage that he strongly felt should be preserved, and we’re very fortunate that he thought of us because the plaque that reads “Shillito Hall” is a reminder of CCM’s past and its merger with the University of Cincinnati in the 1960s.  Yesterday I met him at the gatehouse on Clifton and hauled it in to the Archives & Rare Books Library.

Shillito Hall

Continue reading →

Fall Means Election Time: A Look Back Through ARB’s Issues of the News Record

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By: Iman Said, Archives & Rare Books Intern for 2014-2015

John F. Kennedy

Kennedy campaigns in Cincinnati with local Democratic boss, John “Socko” Wiethe. Photograph by Jack Klumpe.

It’s officially Fall, which means I am writing this post with a pumpkin spice latte in hand. Last week, I wrote about a photo of the UC football team from the late 1800s. While my role is primarily focused on images and photos, I also get to work with historical documents. I love looking through old copies of the News Record, the student-run newspaper here on UC’s campus. You can find digitized copies of the newspapers from 1960 to 1970, as well as 1973 to 1976 by going to http://digital.libraries.uc.edu/newsrecord/.  The Archives & Rare Books Library’s intent is that eventually all the years of the newspaper will be digitized, from 1885 to the point where the News Record began electronic issues. Continue reading →

UC Libraries Launch Source Online

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Newsletter, first published in 2002, contains the latest news and happenings from UC Libraries.

sourceUC Libraries is transforming  technology, people, space and information resources to “become the globally engaged, intellectual commons of the university – positioning ourselves as the hub of collaboration, digital innovation and scholarly endeavor on campus.”

It is in this spirit of transformation that we are changing the way in which we deliver Source to our readers. The online newsletter will still contain the latest information about the organization, people, places and happenings in UC Libraries, but will no longer be produced in print. By moving Source online, we are able to reach a greater number of readers on various devices – computers, phones, tablets and more.

Continue reading →

ARB’s " 50 Minute Talk" in October Features Edgar Allan Poe

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By:  Kevin Grace

Last year around Halloween, the Archives & Rare Books Library’s “50 Minutes” program featured Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, looking at the book’s heritage through illustrated editions as well as viewing the novel in terms of the history of science.  It was all part of a rare books tribute to Halloween and iconic fright.

So this year, we’ll continue the tradition of classic scary stuff by discussing Edgar Allan Poe’s dark poem, “The Raven.”  How Poe and his poem have been portrayed in pop culture and American literature will be presented, along with some Poe titles from the Rare Books Collection.  And since it is all in good fun, what would a Poe program be without plenty of Halloween candy and a few door prizes?

Please join us on Friday, October 17, at noon in 814 Blegen Library.  Bring your friends, bring your lunch, bring an appetite for the awful.  Throughout October, we’ll also be posting several blogs on this master of the macabre.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”

50 Minutes October 2014