Edward Livingston Youmans’ The Chemical Atlas was recently returned to its home in the Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry library after receiving conservation treatment from UC Libraries’ Preservation Lab. Youmans’ famous book features eye-catching illustrated and hand-colored plates that frequently motivate myself and others to display the item and engage visitors of the Oesper Collections with stunning visual depictions of the unseen world of chemical processes.
Edward Youmans was a renowned science communicator and popularizer in the 19th century United States. In the 1850’s, a reviewer called his Chemical Atlas “without exception, the best popular work in the English language” (Miles, 1964). When he was a young teen, he was afflicted by a disease of the eyes which grew more severe with time, leaving him nearly blind and suffering from frequent eye inflammation between the ages of 13 and 35. During these years, Youmans was unable to read, and learned as much as he could through the second-hand teaching of his sister, Eliza Youmans. His second-hand learning caused him to imagine and visualize chemistry concepts. As he overcame his misconceptions and worked to make his understanding more definite, he wanted to share his scheme for picturing atoms and their combinations. This led to him creating chemical charts which visually depicted atoms of different elements, binary compounds, and more as well as an accompanying book, Classbook of Chemisty. The Classbook of Chemistry was a huge success. “Brief, clear, and devoid of technicalities, it has an astounding and continuous sale; it was revised and sold more than 144,000 copies in its three editions. This was truly a remarkable record and would be envied even in these days of widespread chemical instruction” (Oesper, 1957). Continue reading
As of Monday, Feb. 27, Edward Snyder is now a full-time member of the UC Libraries staff as an endpoint specialist in LibraryIT Services.
Did you know UC Libraries is comprised of 10 locations? In addition to the Walter C. Langsam Library, there are libraries located throughout campus with collections and resources customized to the various colleges and departments.
As in previous years, entries will be judged according to such categories as “Most Delicious,” “Most Creative,” “Most Checked Out” and “Most Literary.” Those awarded “Best Student Entry” and “Best Overall” will win UC swag.
Nimisha Bhat joined the University of Cincinnati Libraries on Monday, Feb. 27, 2023 as assistant librarian and liaison to the departments of History, Anthropology, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Students.
Felicia Zamora is the author of six books of poetry including, I Always Carry My Bones, winner of the 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize (University of Iowa Press, 2021) and the 2022 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, and Body of Render, Benjamin Saltman Award winner (Red Hen Press, 2020). She won the 2022 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize from The Georgia Review, a 2022 Tin House Next Book Residency, and a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, AGNI, The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2022, Boston Review, Georgia Review, Guernica, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Orion, Poetry Magazine, The Nation and others. She is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review.
Aja Bettencourt-McCarthy joined the University of Cincinnati Libraries on February 1, 2023 as the science & engineering global services librarian.