New Department of Psychology Collection at ARB

By Suzanne Maggard

The Archives and Rare Books Library recently received a new collection from UC’s psychology department containing records from 1967 until 2011.  The collection includes information on faculty and graduate students, annual reports, and accreditation documentation and supplements the very small number of items that the archives already held related to the history of the psychology department.  This new collection is now available for research by faculty, student, staff, and the public.

Wayland R. Benedict

Wayland R. Benedict

The psychology department has a long history at UC.  Wayland Richardson Benedict taught the first psychology courses at UC starting in 1876 as part of the philosophy department.  Courses like Empirical Psychology covering topics in sensation, content, strength and tone of sensation continued to be offered until a separate Department of Experimental Psychology and Pedagogy was created in the Spring of 1901.  The Psychology Department endured quite a bit of instability in its early years and the first three department heads stayed for only a short time. Continue reading

Cincinnati Subway and Street Project Grant Underway

By Angela Vanderbilt

Digital Archivist, Cincinnati City Engineer Digitization Project

Angela VanderbiltAs the month of October begins, so too begins a new project for the Archives and Rare Books Library – digitizing and making available on the web the collection of negatives and prints documenting Cincinnati’s early 20th century subway development and street improvement program. New projects often require new hands to help facilitate, and it is my pleasure to join this project as Digital Archivist, marking my own beginning as I strike out on a new project in a new city. Continue reading

UC Libraries Celebrate Information Literacy Awareness Month

UC Libraries Celebrate Information Literacy Awareness MonthOctober is Information Literacy Awareness Month

On October 1, 2009, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation establishing October as National Information Literacy Awareness Month. Information literacy, or the ability to find, evaluate, and use information effectively, is key in preparing students for being actively involved in a democratic society and seeking highly skilled jobs. Information literacy skills lay a solid foundation for lifelong learning. Continue reading

UC Libraries Receive Grant to Digitize Historic Cincinnati Subway and Street Project Photographs

UC Libraries Receive Grant to Digitize Historic Cincinnati Subway and Street Project PhotographsThe University of Cincinnati Libraries were awarded a $60,669 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant from the State Library of Ohio to digitize and make freely available on the Web the photographic collection of Cincinnati’s subway and street changes archive. Continue reading

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: The Microbe Hunter

By Jeff O’Flynn, Sabin Project Student Assistant

[Sabin Archivist’s Note: This week features the first blog post on the Sabin project from Jeff O’Flynn, one of our new student assistants. Jeff is pursuing a doctoral degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He will be blogging on different Sabin-related topics as we work on the project. Please give Jeff a warm welcome by reading his posts! -SB]

The first assignment I handled when I started at the Sabin Archive nearly a month ago was to inventory a recent acquisition. Mrs. Sabin and her son sent us another large shipment of documents, photographs, awards, videos, and almost everything else imaginable. Sifting through these items served as my introduction to Albert B. Sabin’s life and legacy. This donation offered insight mainly into his later years and his posthumous honors with nearly all the items dating from 1970 forward. I learned many interesting things as I sorted through hundreds of fascinating items and I will share some of the most memorable items on this blog. First, I want to highlight an essay Dr. Sabin wrote in 1992 as an introduction to Paul de Kruif’s “Microbe Hunters” which influenced his life greatly. Continue reading

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: The Personal Side of Dr. Sabin

By Richard Jason Sookoor, Sabin Project Student Assistant

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: The Personal Side of Dr. Sabin

Dr. and Mrs. Sabin feeding deer at a temple in Japan.

I’ve been working with the Sabin Archives for a little over three months now and am still somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of material Dr. Sabin accumulated during his long career. So when we recently received a shipment of even more materials from Mrs. Sabin and her son, I was rather surprised. Not simply because there were items we didn’t have – because judging by where we store our archival collections, it seems we have everything Dr. Sabin ever touched – but because of the amount we received. Looking over the boxes, it’s hard to imagine how one person could amass this amount of materials. Dr. Sabin kept himself quite busy, it seems. Continue reading