Category Archives: ARB Library

Posts related to the archives and rare books category

The Cooperative Engineer and The Great Depression

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We are taught that the Great Depression started with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 or what is called “Black Tuesday”. In The Cooperative Engineer magazine, the quarterly publication of the students and alumni of the College of Engineering with its focus on industry partnered education, the word depression was not used to describe the current circumstances of the day until the October 1931 issue.  Over the course of 4 issues, starting in October 1931 and running through to the June 1932 issue, the editors ran a series of “Faculty Articles” dealing with that they termed “Present-Day Trends in Problems of Commerce and Industry” or what we would now call The Great Depression.

The first of the four Faculty Articles is a reflective piece titled “The Fourth Great Era” by Hermann Schneider, the then-current Dean of the College of Engineering and

known widely as the founder of cooperative education.  Schneider reflects on a talk he heard at a meeting of the Institute of Politics where the speaker argued there were

three great eras throughout history, defined by equality of legal status, religious liberty, and political liberty. The fourth era would be equality of economic status where

individuals are equal in their ability to be “masters of their livelihood”. But Schneider values engineer’s deep understanding of philosophy, art, and psychology and thinks engineers must synthesize their well-rounded knowledge to lift their fellowmen. This last bit is something Schneider thinks is too often left out of the definition of what it means to  be an engineer. Continue reading →

UC Libraries seek to archive response and reactions to COVID-19 pandemic

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Libraries play an important role in preserving and archiving history — even while history is being made. As we grapple with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the University of Cincinnati Libraries seek to collect information, websites and documents related to how we are living and working during this challenging time.

The CoronArchive: Documenting the Coronavirus Pandemic

The Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions at the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library seeks to collect experiences from University of Cincinnati faculty, students and staff as they pertain to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This could take the form of journal or diary entries, photographs or other forms of media. These materials should in some way reflect how this virus is affecting individuals.

“A lot is happening surrounding the course of this pandemic and, although it affects everyone, it affects each person very differently. The Winkler Center wants to capture the diversity of experiences, document the present and preserve it for the future,” said Gino Pasi, archivist and curator at the Winkler Center. “At some point this pandemic will end, and years from now, the ways people think, talk about and study it will be done through what is left behind. This archive will be one of those resources.”

The Winkler Center asks that faculty, students and staff consider sharing their thoughts, memories, documents and media for posterity. All materials or questions can be e-mailed to the Winkler Center at chhp@uc.edu or to Pasi at gino.pasi@uc.edu, or mailed to the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions, UC Libraries, 231 Albert Sabin Way, P.O. Box 0574, Cincinnati, OH 45267.

No material should include protected health information or violate patient and student privacy laws.

Archives and Rare Books Library Preserving COVID-19 University Websites

The Archives and Rare Books Library is using Archive-It to preserve important University of Cincinnati websites. The average life span of a web page is between 44 and 100 days. Web pages are notoriously fragile documents, and many of the web resources we take for granted are at risk of disappearing.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, the library is using Archive-It to capture various UC domain web pages dedicated to the pandemic’s impact on the university community. “This kind of rapid response web archiving will ensure we preserve a historical record of this monumental event at UC for future researchers,” said Eira Tansey, digital archivist and records manager. You can view the UC COVID-19 website archive, which is being updated on a daily basis.

So far, the library has collected several gigabytes of data and more than 20 websites, including each college’s COVID-19 page. Since some pages update more frequently than others, the library can schedule crawls (i.e. the process of archiving a webpage) of pages like https://www.uc.edu/publichealth.html on a more frequent basis in order to capture all of the changes.

To suggest a website that should be included in the COVID-19 UC web archive, e-mail eira.tansey@uc.edu. Please note that at this time, the library is currently only crawling public-facing web pages directly related to the UC community of students, faculty, staff and alumni.

The University of Cincinnati Libraries are stewards of the scholarly and historical output of the university. Collecting, preserving and making available the records of how the university dealt with and was affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is one way we work to achieve our mission to empower discovery, stimulate learning and inspire the creation of knowledge by connecting students, faculty, researchers and scholars to dynamic data, information and resources.

Documenting COVID-19 in University Archives

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At the Archives and Rare Books Library, we recently began using Archive-It to preserve important university websites. The average life span of a webpage is between 44 and 100 days. Web pages are notoriously fragile documents, and many of the web resources we take for granted are at risk of disappearing.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, we are using Archive-It to capture various UC domain webpages dedicated to the pandemic’s impact on the university community. This kind of rapid response web archiving will ensure we preserve a historical record of this monumental event at UC for future researchers. You can currently view the UC COVID-19 website archive, which is being updated on a daily basis.

So far, we have collected several gigabytes of data, and over 20 websites, including each college’s COVID-19 page. Since some pages update more frequently than other, we schedule crawls (i.e. the process of archiving a webpage) of pages like https://www.uc.edu/publichealth.html on a more frequent basis in order to capture all of the changes.

The Archives and Rare Books Library is not the only archival repository documenting the experience of COVID-19. Dozens of other institutions, including many other Ohio college and university archives, are also collecting and preserving this fast-moving event. One of the largest COVID-19 collections so far is a collaboration between the International Internet Preservation Consortium and Archive-It, which has now collected more than 2,763 websites in 30 languages about the worldwide response to the pandemic.

There has been growing interest over the last several years in developing ethical frameworks around documenting crises within the archives profession. In response, the Society of American Archivists created a Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force that has developed a comprehensive set of guidelines based on archivists’ professional ethics and values. Previous examples of online archiving projects of crises and traumatic events include the September 11 Digital Archive, Hurricane Katrina Digital Memory Bank, and Documenting Ferguson. Given the global reach of COVID-19 and the advances in web archiving and digital projects, the pandemic is likely to become one of the most well-documented global events in recent history.

Would you like to suggest a website that we should include in our COVID-19 UC web archive? Please email us to suggest new UC sites to preserve in our COVID-19 web archives. Please note that at this time, we are currently only crawling public-facing webpages directly related to the UC community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Welcome Back Online from UC Libraries

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Welcome back from Spring Break! While all library physical locations are closed, the University of Cincinnati Libraries remains open online and ready to support teaching, learning and research.

During this time of social isolation, libraries play an important role as a provider of resources and information expertise. UC Libraries’ online presence provides access to the services, resources and people to enable research and scholarly work.

Today, we are pleased to launch a new, specially designed landing page – https://libraries.uc.edu/online.html. This page serves as a portal to access key online library resources such as databases, e-journals and research guides, as well as to free information resources from global cultural and heritage organizations. Users can ask reference or research questions through Chat, e-mail or direct contact to a subject librarian or staff member. The page also offers direct search of the library catalog, and links to key online services such as Interlibrary Loan to request e-resources and how to connect from off campus. We will update this portal page as we continue to transform many of our services into the online environment.

As the library locations remain closed, users are encouraged to keep all library materials. Due dates have been extended and fines will not be incurred for UC, OhioLINK or Interlibrary Loan items. Please do not leave items outside of the library.

The University of Cincinnati Libraries continue to work toward our mission to empower discovery, stimulate learning and inspire the creation of knowledge by connecting students, faculty, researchers and scholars to dynamic data, information and resources.

Take care and stay well. We look forward to the day when we can work with you all in person again, but in the meantime, please work with UC Libraries online.

Xuemao Wang,
Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship and Dean and University Librarian

UC Libraries Closing at 5pm, Monday, March 16 until Further Notice

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In consultation with university administration, and with the knowledge that diligent social distancing is critical in slowing and stopping the spread of COVID-19, we have made the difficult decision to close all UC Libraries locations effective 5pm, Monday, March 16 until further notice. The only exception to this will be the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library (HSL), which at this moment will remain open ONLY for College of Medicine students participating in testing; however the situation remains fluid, so there may be changes to HSL hours and availability.

Library users are encouraged to keep library materials. Fines will not be incurred for UC, OhioLINK or Interlibrary Loan items.

For service updates and links to online library resources, check https://libraries.uc.edu/about/covid-19.html. Library faculty and staff are committed to serving our users online as best we can.

For information regarding the availability of UC jurisdictional libraries:

University of Cincinnati COVID-19 information can be found online at https://www.uc.edu/publichealth.html.

 

UC Libraries Information Regarding COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) available online

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Effective Saturday, March 14, 2020, UC will suspend face-to-face instruction, lectures, discussion sessions, seminars and other similar classroom settings, and move to remote instruction. This includes face-to-face library instruction. Face-to-face instruction will resume Monday, April 13, 2020.

Library users are encouraged to keep library materials. Fines will not be incurred for UC, OhioLINK or Interlibrary Loan items.

The Libraries have created a web page to provide library service updates and links to online resources – https://libraries.uc.edu/about/covid-19.html.

For up-to-date university information regarding coronavirus – https://www.uc.edu/publichealth.html

 

Using the libraries from off campus:

Off Campus Access  |  View All Library Hours |  Access My Library Record | Contact The Libraries  |

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

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

In this issue of Source, Dean Xuemao Wang writes about how a digital core is part of a 21st-century liberal education.

Two exhibits that highlight women who fought for equality are featured in this issue along with an article by Kevin Grace, university archivist and head of the Archives and Rare Books Library, who writes of Mark Twain’s relationship with Cincinnati, including that quote attributed to Twain about where he hopes to be when the world ends.

This issue announces the exciting comeback of the former popular Authors, Editors & Composers exhibit that will combine with the current Life of the Mind lecture to form one event that will celebrate the achievements of UC’s artists, authors, editors & composers. We announce the 5th University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report – A Year of Reflection.

Lastly, we announce two upcoming events – the second Hidden Treasures: An Adopt-A-Book Evening on March 12 and the upcoming annual Cecil Striker Lecture to focus on Dr. Christian R. Holmes and scheduled for May 7.

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.

Preserving University Websites through Web Archiving

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All of us have experienced clicking on a link and receiving an error, or 404 notice. Web pages are notoriously fragile documents, and many of the web resources we take for granted are at risk of disappearing. In one case study, archivists who were preserving the hashtags related to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris found that just a few months later, between 7 and 10% of tweets had been deleted. The average life span of a webpage is between 44 and 100 days. And even if you think that we won’t really lose much in the long run if we don’t get every website of interest preserved – the issue of “link rot” is a big deal, as half of all URLs in Supreme Court opinion citations are now dead.

Web archiving overcomes these issues of obsolescence through thoughtful planning and curation of organizationally and historically valuable web content. Most web archiving today takes place through third-party services such as WebRecorder or Archive-It. To archive a website, you have to supply the URL of the website and give the web archiving service instructions about what you want to capture, and how many links below the main page you want the service to “crawl”. Web archiving is not simply “saving as a PDF” or taking a screenshot of a website. Because of the dynamic nature of most modern websites, their embedded media, interactive options, and rapidly changing nature, adequately capturing a website so that a user can interact with the archival file requires creating a WARC file. Web archiving services created files known as WARCs, which is a standardized file format for creating archival web content. Implementing web archiving services addresses several critical archives and records use cases.

A web archiving subscription service such as Archive-It offers both a preservation tool and collection development tool in one: the archivist can use the service to “crawl” a website in order to create a WARC file, and then the service also allows the archivist to present these resources to the public for research through the Internet Archive’s Archive-It website, which is currently used by over 60 ARL research libraries.

At the Archives and Rare Books Library, we have started using Archive-It to begin preserving important university websites. We’re just getting started, but so far we are prioritizing preserving the websites for the Board of Trustees, President, and Provost. All of these websites host important minutes, reports, documents, and other information that is important to retain for university archives. We are also capturing copies of “endangered” websites on the uc.edu – websites that may be going offline in the near future, but which have important university history embedded in them (you can see an example here).

Down the road, we’ll be expanding last year’s pilot project to collect websites from student organizations in order to fill in some of our archival gaps reflecting the student experience. You can see our pilot project collection here.

Do you have any ideas about important university websites that ought to be crawled? If so, contact Eira Tansey, ARB’s Digital Archivist via email at eira.tansey@uc.edu or 513-556-1958.

 

Women of the Movement: Leaders for Civil Rights and Voting Rights

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The exhibit, Women of the Movement: Leaders for Civil Rights and Voting Rights, currently on display on the 4th floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library, profiles female leaders of the fight for civil and voting rights. Beginning with Sojourner Truth, former slave and abolitionist, and including contemporaries Diane Nash, a key player in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Cincinnati’s Marian Spencer, a champion for Civil Rights both locally and nationally, the exhibit spans history into current times.

Included in the exhibit are women instrumental to the Suffrage fight – Sojourner Truth who worked closely with Susan B. Anthony; Mary Church Terrell, founder of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 as part of the Suffrage Movement after black women were excluded from the Women’s Suffrage Movement; and Mary McLeod Bethune who led voter registration drives following passing of the 19th Amendment.

Civil Rights activists on display include Fannie Lou Hamer, who famously said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired;” Daisy Bates, an integrated schools advocate; and Ida B. Wells, a journalist, educator and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The exhibit’s design is inspired by a recently created ArtWorks mural in Cincinnati’s Avondale neighborhood honoring Louise Shropshire, composer of the hymn, “If My Jesus Wills,” that became the well-known mantra “We Shall Overcome” during the Civil Rights Movement. Louise Shropshire’s papers are located in the Archives and Rare Books Library.

Women of the Movement: Leaders for Civil Rights and Voting Rights was curated by June Taylor-Slaughter, public services supervisor in the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library, and was designed by Michelle Matevia, UC Libraries communication design co-op student. A handout is available at the exhibit with more information on the women featured in the exhibit.

Bibliography:

  • Alexander, Shawn Leigh. An Army of Lions : The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Print. LANGSAM; CLERMONT E185.61 .A437 2012
  • Bracey, Earnest N. Fannie Lou Hamer: The Life of a Civil Rights Icon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011. Print. LANGSAM E 185.97.H35 B73 2011
  • Brooks, Maegan Parker. A Voice That Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom
    Movement. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. Print. LANGSAM E 185.97.H35 B76 2014
  • Harwell, Debbie Z. Wednesdays in Mississippi: Proper Ladies Working for Radical Change, Freedom Summer 1964. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. Print. LANGSAM E185.93.M6 H37 2014
  • Christenson, Dorothy H, Keep on fighting: the life and civil rights legacy of Marian A. Spencer. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2015. LANGSAM  F499.C553 S643 2015
  • Frontline feminism 1975-1995 : essays from Sojourner’s first 20 years / edited by Karen Kahn ; foreword by Robin Morgan. San Francisco : Aunt Lute Books, c1995. LANGSAM. HQ1402 .F76 1995

UC Libraries Closed Monday, Jan. 20 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. from LIFE Magazine

UC Libraries will be closed Monday, Jan. 20 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with the exception of the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, which will be open 9am-5pm. The libraries will resume normal hours on Tuesday, Jan. 21.

This closing includes the 4th floor of the Walter C. Langsam Library, which will close at 11pm on Sunday, Jan. 19 and re-open at 7:45am on Tues, Jan. 21.

Want to read up on Martin Luther King, Jr., his impact and legacy? Check out these library resources.