Join Us for Poetry at a Glance “Black History through Poetry”

phillis wheatleyIn celebration of Black History Month, UC Libraries is holding an event featuring poetry and poet Phillis Wheatley, the first published African-American poet.

February 22, 2:00 – 3:30pm

462 Langsam Library

At the event, Kevin Grace, head of the Archives and Rare Books Library and university archivist, will present the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Book, part of the library’s rare books collection. Following, there will be poetry readings by UC students, staff and guests. Those in attendance can also enjoy a taste of cultural cuisine. The event is free and open to all.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) is the first African American, and one of the first women, to publish a book of poetry in the colonies in 1773. At the age of eight, she was kidnapped from West Africa, enslaved and sold to a family in Boston where her owner’s wife and children taught her to read and write English, Greek and Latin.  She published her first poem at the age of 12.

A table display featuring African-American poets and poetry is on display on the 4th floor of Langsam. A bibliography of the works on display is available online.

UC Libraries Offering LabArchives Electronic Lab Notebook to UC Research Community

The University of Cincinnati Libraries, with funding from the Office of the Provost, is pleased to present the LabArchives Electronic Lab Notebook to the UC research community.

An enterprise-wide license with LabArchives has been obtained for UC and will last until June 30, 2018.*

LabArchives is the leading secure and intuitive cloud-based Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) application enabling researchers to easily create, store, share and manage their research data. Far more than an ELN, LabArchives provides a flexible, extensible platform that can be easily customized to match your lab’s workflow providing benefits to Principal Investigators, lab managers’ staff, post doctoral fellows and grad students. LabArchives can be integrated seamlessly with GraphPad Prism, MS-Office, PubMed, BOX, Learning Management Systems and a number of other software tools that are used extensively by researchers of the Academic Health Center and university wide. Additionally, the LA ELN works on multiple platforms and devices including Mac, Windows, Android and iPad devices, allowing researchers to store and access their data from virtually anywhere with Internet access.

For more information about LabArchives: http://www.labarchives.com/.

To sign up for a LabArchives account: https://mynotebook.labarchives.com/. Continue reading

Registration Now Open for Third Annual UC DATA Day Scheduled for March 6

The University of Cincinnati Libraries and IT@UC announce the third annual UC DATA Day. Scheduled for 8:30 a.m.-4:15 p.m., Tuesday, March 6 in Nippert Stadium West Pavilion on UC’s Main Campus (see directions), UC DATA Day 2018 offers a full schedule of engaging events that will reveal solutions to data challenges and foster a community of best practices around improved data management. All events are free and include lunch. The public is welcome.

Registration is now open at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/blogs/dataday/registration/. Seats are limited, so register early.

Patricia Flatley Brennan

Patricia Flatley Brennan

The UC DATA Day 2018 keynote speaker is Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD, director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The NLM is the world’s largest biomedical library and the producer of digital information services used by scientists, health professionals and members of the public worldwide. Prior to her work at the NLM, she was the Lillian L. Moehlman Bascom Professor, School of Nursing and College of Engineering, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The day will include panel discussions on “Game Changing Data: How Data is being used to Affect Change,” “Big Data” and “Data Solutions: Your Questions Answered.” In addition, attendees can participate in two technical sessions on data analysis and data visualization with Python. During lunch, service providers will speak on how they support researchers and research data management.

For more information on UC DATA Day 2018, contact Tiffany Grant, interim assistant director for research and informatics, at (513) 558-9153 or tiffany.grant@uc.edu.

UC Libraries Closed Monday, Jan. 15 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. from LIFE Magazine

UC Libraries will be closed Monday, Jan. 15 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. 16.

This closing includes the 4th floor of Langsam Library, which will close at 11pm on Sunday, Jan 14 and re-open at 7:45am on Tues, Jan. 16.

Check out these library resources about Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recent Instrument Acquisitions, Notes from the Oesper Collections, No. 48, January/February 2018

A circa 1950 Spencer colorimeter.

A circa 1950 Spencer colorimeter

Issue 48 updates the reader on recent additions to the instruments covered in our booklet series on the history of chemical apparatus.

Click here for all other issues of Notes from the Oesper Collections and to explore the Jensen-Thomas Apparatus Collection.

 

 

 

 

Found! House of Refuge Records at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

House of Refuge Main EntranceAs anyone who has done historical research can tell you, locating old records is not always easy.  Sometimes records simply were not kept.  Other times, they were destroyed by fire, water damage, or pests.  The House of Refuge records at UC is one collection in which the records are incomplete.  The collection consists of five volumes and include inmate registers, employee registers, and a financial ledger.  There are two volumes of inmate registers in the collection, which cover the years 1869-1882 and 1891-1902.  Missing from the collection at UC are the years 1850-1869, 1883-1890, and 1902-1912.

This fall while conducting some general research related to the House of Refuge, I started searching local libraries for items connected to the history of the House of Refuge.  Through a simple catalog search, I discovered that the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (PLCH) had three volumes of House of Refuge records! Even more exciting was how well these records complimented the collections at UC.  Although registers at the University of Cincinnati list the name of the children who were admitted to the House of Refuge, their offense (or reason for being sent to the House of Refuge), and some general family information, there really is not much detail on the specifics of each child’s case or information on what happened to them after they left the House of Refuge.  The records at PLCH do provide specific information on inmates’ family history, offense, and the details of their release from the House of Refuge. Continue reading

In Times Like These

By:  Kevin Grace

Puppets from Ridley Walker PlayOne of the most in-the-news phrases of this past year has been “fake news.”  Every political point of view has employed it to the point where the first reactions among readers and listeners to current events has a question in mind, “Is this real information?”  And in times of political or social stress, there is a mounting trepidation over who controls information, or, who preserves it.  Librarians are often in the forefront of acquiring information, protecting it from those who would alter or destroy it, and preserving it for now and for the future.  The sources of information, of knowledge, continue to grow exponentially and in our rapidly changing technological world, much of it disappears.  As websites continue to grow – and to disappear through political exigencies – the expertise of librarians and archivists are called upon, a recent example of which is illustrated in a science article on web discovery and preservation: https://apps.sciencefriday.com/data/librarians.html. Continue reading