Category Archives: UC Libraries

UC’s First Thesis Comes Home to UC Libraries

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Dean Wang and Eaton Family

Dean Xuemao Wang accepts gift from the Eaton Family.

Eaton family gives historic documents, including letter from Thomas Jefferson, to UC Libraries

CINCINNATI – Thursday, July 21, 2016 – The University of Cincinnati Libraries today received the thesis of John Hough James, the first graduate of Cincinnati College, now the University of Cincinnati. In addition to the thesis, UC Libraries also received associated research materials, including an 1820 letter from Thomas Jefferson. The rare gift comes from siblings Russell Eaton III, James M. Eaton and Frances Eaton Millhouser, the great-great-grandchildren of John Hough James.

“My siblings and I are pleased to present to the University of Cincinnati our cherished family possessions of John Hough James (JHJ), our great, great, grandfather, the valedictorian of the university’s first class. These possessions include an 1820 letter from Thomas Jefferson to JHJ containing requested source material for his senior thesis, his hand written thesis booklet and his membership in a local volunteer fire company,” Russell said. Continue reading →

From The Desk Of….Kellie Tilton, UCBA Librarian

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The UC Blue Ash Library is kicking off a new series called From The Desk Of… which gives you a chance to peer into our work spaces to see where the magic happens.

Instructional Technologies Librarian, Kellie Tilton has graciously opened her doors to share her workspace and favorite office items with us.

 

Library Staffer, Ben Kline, among Next Group of Cincy StoryTellers Aug. 3

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Haven’t we all made mistakes? Hopefully, we learn from them and move on. Come out August 3 to support UC Libraries’ Ben Kline, assistant director of research, teaching, and services, as he participates in Cincy StoryTellers and talks about his mistake “The Sound of the Holler in My Mouth.”

Hosted by Carol Montsinger, Ben will join five others in talking about My Biggest Mistake. The other StoryTellers include:

  • Kelly Collette, stand-up comedian
  • Brenda Hunda, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Cincinnati
    Museum Center
  • Kick Lee, music producer, sound designer and composer
  • Eric Schwetschenau, ear, nose and throat specialist at TriHealth
  • Chris Varias, writer

Cincy StoryTellers will be held in the grand ballroom at The Phoenix, 812 8th St. in downtown. Doors and the cash bar open on the 3rd floor at 6 p.m. Storytelling begins at 7 p.m.

There is no fee to hear the stories, but you must reserve tickets at tickets.cincinnati.com.

The Enquirer and Cincinnati.com launched these nights in January 2015 as a way to bring storytelling to life and to give voice to some of the most interesting people in our community. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/467315460120688/?ti=cl.

Scholar@UC 2.0 is here.

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Scholar 2.0 is here!   It includes two new work types, Theses and Dissertations and Student Works, increasing the support in Scholar@UC for exemplar student content.  Also included in today’s Scholar 2.0 release are major enhancements such as improved collection searchability and management, email notifications, and catalog discovery and sort options (in particular a new ‘date created’ facet, and the ability to sort the catalog browse by title).  For a complete list of features and bug fixes see our change log.

With the deployment of this version, we are beginning work on the next major release, Scholar 3.0.  Our work for Scholar 3.0 will begin in a sandbox (test) environment where we will build upon substantial new code contributions from the Project Hydra community (to be technical, upgrades to Fedora 4, Solr 5 and a new implementation of Hydra named ‘Sufia 7′).   When we have merged our code with the code from the Hydra community, we will reach out to early adopters and others to help us evaluate this major release with substantial additional functionality.

While we are beginning work on Scholar 3.0, at the same time we will continue with improvements and point releases to Scholar 2.x.  There will be a decrease in the deployment schedule for Scholar 2.x, with our development cycles now devoted to multiple projects.   This does not mean that deployment will stop.  An additional College and Department facet, and integrations with Kaltura, Research Directory, and ORCID are still on an estimated 3 month road map.  Efforts will also be devoted to increasing the overall performance of the application.

Please continue to contact the Scholar@UC Team with any questions or comments.


Source: Scholar@UC

Jacobean-Jacobite? Dated and Confused

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Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern

The Works of Benjamin Johson, title pageI was so confused.  For weeks, Kevin and I have been talking about the Jacobites.  –Before I get into this conversation, it’s extremely important for me to note that neither my grade school nor high school spent very much time on the subject of history.  We excelled in language arts, but not so much the stuff I would one day have to write about.—  So, Kevin recently showed me a collection we received from Virginius C. Hall on the Jacobites.  Not having any idea who they were, I looked them up.  The internet gave me the gist of information I would need to know, so between that and our collection I have been able to piece some things together—until today.

Continue reading →

Notes on Some Jacobite Beheadings

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By:  Sydney Vollmer

Among the items recently received from the Virginius C. Hall Jacobite Collection in the Archives & Rare Books Library is a watercolor of the “Beheading of the Rebel Lords on Great Tower Hill.”  Unfortunately, the image is not one-of-a-kind.  It is an incredible work, though.  Depicted in this scene is an endless crowd surrounding a scaffold.  On the platform, one man has his head down on the chopping block as an ax is raised over his neck.  This execution took place in 1746 after the Jacobite Rising in 1745.

Jacobite Beheading Continue reading →

UCBA Librarians Attend ALA Annual Conference

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by Heather Maloney and Kellie Tilton

UCBA Library Director, Heather Maloney and Instructional Technologies Librarian, Kellie Tilton headed to Orlando, Florida for the American Library Association Annual Conference.

Heather Maloney attended a pre-conference session on Transforming the Contributions of Student Employees in Your Library and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the passionate opening session speaker, Michael Eric Dyson. The exhibit floor was filled with the familiar and the new and probably a few too many giveaways…but how do you say no to a free book?!

Kellie Tilton spent a good chunk of time at ALA sitting in a, thankfully, air-conditioned hotel conference room for her super-secret Alex Committee meetings. She also managed to check out the fireworks at Epcot (sorry, IllumiNations) and had a blast wandering the exhibit hall. Swag she was most excited about? The Ruth Bader Ginsburg tote bag she will add to her collection.

 

Dealt a Similar Hand: An Analysis Between Macbeth and House of Cards

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By:  Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern

With our political choices today, we wish we could pretend that what’s going on is some twisted, comedic version of House of Cards.  Unfortunately for all of us, it’s completely real.  There’s no use in dwelling on it, so let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist by diving back into House of Cards while we (patiently) await the fifth season.

Macbeth and Frank Underwood

I’m not a big HOC buff, but I saw the majority of episodes each time my dad monopolized the couch after every season’s release.  The series magnifies brutality and corruption, somehow getting its audience to root for unlikeable characters.  Truly, there is no one on the show that you can look at as the underdog, or the person who deserves their prize.  When you think about it, the show is a complete extension of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, if his characters hadn’t died at the end.  I’m certainly not the first person to make this comparison—not by a long stretch—but I did come up with this realization without external influences.  That means that the comparisons are so strong that multiple people individually have stood up and said “Frank Underwood is the modern-day American Macbeth.”  And there is plenty of evidence to back this up; I’ll show you what I mean. Continue reading →

Check Out the Latest Issue of Source

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

This latest issue of Source includes an article announcing the new UC academic press, a Q&A about a new position in the Office of Research, and A Note from the Dean: IFLA Coming to Cincinnati. Updates to library websites are showcased in A New Look at Digital Collections and in an article about the Neil A. Armstrong display and website. There are two articles about recent awards –  the Provost Technology Innovation Awards and Recognizing Library Student Workers. Read these articles and more.

Source is available 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.