As the University of Cincinnati Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library welcomes the 2024-25 College of Medicine students and faculty back to the academic calendar, they are greeted by the new installation of MEDSTEPS. The sculpture is the work of renowned artist and scientist Wolfgang Ritschel (1933-2010). It is located on the G-level of the Health Sciences Library.
Dr. Ritschel described MEDSTEPS as:
Stairs may have different purposes and meanings. Essentially, they are a means to reaching different levels, both literally and figuratively speaking. This sculpture uses stairs or, rather steps on a ladder, as a metaphorical form of expression in paying tribute to the development and advancement of medicine from its beginnings at the dawn of time – including Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Native American medicine with their symbols as shown in the stained-glass panels – to computerized medicine, along with corresponding “step-by-step” technological progress in diagnosis and therapy. Medicine and the arts were always intertwined, as is suggested by the common expression “medical arts.” In fact, in 15th-century Europe, physicians, pharmacists and artists all belonged to the same guild, a development which presumably originated with the use of mortar and pestle as a grinding tool for both pharmaceutical substances and pigments. I like to think of this as part of my personal and artistic statement in sculptures with a medical theme.
The sculpture is composed of stainless steel, gold leaf, stained glass, lead, polymer, paint, wood and measures 91” x 51” x 22”.
UC Clermont students have requested more access to digital resources in their fields of study and the library is here to help! This summer, the Frederick A. Marcotte Library at UC Clermont has established perpetual access to a new collection of Health and Business eBooks through Taylor and Francis. You can follow this link to check out the whole digital collection here.
Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list
Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list
Announcing the 2022-2023 University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Report. My tenure as dean and university librarian began in mid-August 2023, a time of great growth at the University of Cincinnati. I’ve spent these past six months learning as much as I can about the Libraries – how 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” supports the university’s NEXT Lives Here Strategic Directions. Documents such as the Annual Report have been key to my education.
In this Annual Report, we look back at the top News & Events, applaud Staff Accomplishments & Milestones and look at the Libraries By the Numbers and Financially. Under the leadership of interim dean and university librarian Lori Harris, we welcomed a significant number of new librarians and staff members who will provide essential library services and research support and help move the Libraries forward. We acquired, processed, preserved and made available collections used for research. We held events to bring people into the Libraries to interact with our facilities and collections. We created welcoming places – both virtual and in-person – for people to study, research and collaborate. And, we provided our expertise to the students, faculty and researchers who rely on UC Libraries for their academic pursuits.
Looking Forward
While we celebrate the accomplishments of the past academic year, we also continue to move forward and plan for the future. This past fall we began the process of developing an updated strategic plan with goals and initiatives that will continue to advance the mission of the University of Cincinnati. This plan will build upon the successes of UC Libraries and respond to the rapidly changing landscape of higher education, as well as the increasingly diverse needs of our students, faculty and researchers. The strategic plan will be completed this summer and will guide our work for the next three years. Stay tuned.
An exhibit on display at the entrance to the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) features 20 items of woodcuts, engravings, etchings and illuminated manuscript leaves and scrolls from the UC Art Collection and DAAP Library Special Collections. Featuring intricately designed prints and lavishly illuminated manuscripts, the exhibit explores late medieval and early modern European art in a global perspective. It focuses on the visual and material traces of social and political connections between Europe and Africa, Asia and the Americas from the 15th to 17th centuries.
The installation was curated by Aaron Cowan, director of the UC Art Collections, Galleries and Museum Studies Program, Elizabeth Meyer, head of the DAAP Library, and Christopher Platts, assistant professor of art history in the School of Art at DAAP.
For the past six months, the Preservation Lab’s Jessica Ebert and Catarina Figueirinhas have been working with the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) on housing their Teaching art collection, including prior acquisition and newly acquired items. This collection consists of different art prints on paper, print plates and manuscript parchment leaves in need of long-term housing. In addition to housing, this collection is used for teaching in a classroom setting and for exhibition.
Most of the collection only requires simple matting systems, but some require more intricate matting systems such as the copper plate along with its print, a project mentioned in a previous blog post entitled How many magnets is too many magnets!?.
As some of the items of this collection were being prepared to go on exhibit, we had the opportunity to create mounts for other items, such as two parchment scrolls that were included in the exhibit. This was a fun project to work on, as it required us to create a support that would secure both scrolls, while providing an elegant solution for display.
Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.
In this issue of Source, Liz Kiscaden, dean and university librarian, writes about Creating a shared vision for UC Libraries, and in an interview we learn more about her professional background, immediate goals for the new position and her early impressions of UC Libraries, as well as how she is having fun exploring Cincinnati.
Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.
A power outage is scheduled for UC’s primary Data Center beginning at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, October 6, and lasting as late as 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 8. Electrical maintenance will be performed in the Data Center during this time.
More information, and a list of UC services that will be affected during the outage, can be found in this news post.
The University of Cincinnati Libraries website (libraries.uc.edu) will remain up and available during the outage; however, some parts of the website will be unavailable.
The parts of the site that will be unavailable during the outage are:
• Browzine integration with Summon
• The staff directory
• The student employment application
• Some Contact Us forms
• The “Journals” and “Books” search tabs on homepage
• My Library Record
In addition, the following library sites/services will be unavailable during the outage:
Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.
