New Books in Oesper (history of chemistry collection)

New acquisitions have been added to the Oesper book collection.  Click here to see those titles in the January-February 2019 list.

For more information about Oesper and the apparatus museum, click here.

If you have any questions about this collection, contact Ted Baldwin, Director of Science and Engineering Libraries, at Ted.Baldwin@uc.edu.

 

Hungry? Bite into an Edible Book with UC Libraries on April 1

2018’s Most Deadly – “Life Cycles” from Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World by Tania Paine

Celebrate books good enough to eat at the International Edible Books Festival set for 1 p.m., Monday, April 1.

The University of Cincinnati Libraries will celebrate the International Edible Books Festival with an event scheduled from 1-2 p.m. on Monday, April 1, in the fifth floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library.

At the event, over 20 participants will present their edible creations that represent a book in some form. There are few restrictions in creating an edible book – namely that the creation be edible and have something to do with a book. Submitted entries include edible titles such as Food: A Love Story and A Series of Unfortunate Cupcakes. Best sellers The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and The Giving Tree are represented alongside classics like Middlemarch, Where the Red Fern Grows and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, among other literary greats.

t-shirtAs in past years, entries will be judged according to such categories as “Most Literary,” “Most Delicious,” “Most Hilarious” and “Most Gruesome.” In addition, the winners of “Top Student Entry” and “Best Overall Entry” will receive a limited edition UC Libraries t-shirt. After the entries are judged they will be consumed and enjoyed by all in attendance.

According to the International Edible Book Festival website, the edible book was initiated by librarian and artist Judith A. Hoffberg during a 1999 Thanksgiving celebration with book artists. It became an international celebration in 2000 when artist Béatrice Coron launched the Books2Eat website. Traditionally, the event is celebrated on April 1st (April Fools’ Day) to mark the birthday of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), a French lawyer and politician who became famous for his book, Physiologie du gout (The Physiology of Taste). To view images of the 2018 edible books, visit the Libraries Facebook page.

The Libraries International Edible Books Festival is free and open to the public. It is sponsored in part by Books by the Banks: Cincinnati Regional Book Festival.

Come to celebrate (and eat) “books good enough to eat!”

“An Evening with Aristophanes” in the Classics Library March 28

evening with AristophanesJoin the John Miller Burnam Classics Library, Thursday, March 28 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., in celebrating the life and work of the Greek comedy playwright Aristophanes.

The evening will include remarks by Rebecka Lindau, head of the Classics Library; a brief presentation of Aristophanes’ life and work by Susan Prince, associate professor of classics; and a reading of the play Lysistrata in Jeffrey Henderson’s Loeb translation, under the direction of Brant Russell, assistant professor of acting. The play will feature students from both UC’s Classics Department and from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). True to ancient Greek drama, music will further accompany the entrances and exits of the chorus and interludes, under the direction of Yo Shionoya, a graduate student in CCM.

The evening will conclude with a reception including Greek food.

The event will be presided over by the Greek god Dionysus who will greet all revelers at the door. The Classics Library will also feature a book exhibition with works of Aristophanes, including rare editions.

Please RSVP to Cade Stevens at stevencd@ucmail.uc.edu or (513) 556-1314 by Monday, March 25.

UPDATED: Interlibrary Loan Service Unavailable Monday, March 18, 8am-5pm because of Maintenance

UPDATE TWO:   Correct link to Illiad: https://illiad.uc.edu/illiad/index.html

If you have problems logging into Illiad, please use the above link to login.

We are working to correct all links now.

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Thank you!

UPDATE: the scheduled maintenance is taking longer than anticipated. Please note we’ve changed the estimated up time to 5pm. Thank you for understanding.

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The Libraries Interlibrary Loan (Illiad) server will be offline for maintenance Monday, March 18 from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. During that time, Interlibrary Loan will be unavailable.

Thank you for your patience.

Flora McDonald: A Heroine of the Jacobites

By McKenna Corey, ARB InternHandwritten text that says Flora McDonald

A Heroine of the Jacobites

“Had it not been that her prudence and energies were called forth by the important and critical part which she was instrumental in achieving, she might have lived and died unknown to the world.”

-Alexander Macgregor, The Life of Flora Macdonald

Portrait of Flora MacDonaldIn every piece of history, there is a powerful woman, sometimes hidden or obscured from the record, that made all of the difference. This is true of the Jacobite movement as well, and though there are many incredible women that contributed to the movement, today’s post will focus on an incredibly special one. Flora Macdonald, with her bravery and commitment, saved a man’s life. What is even more incredible is that she not only saved a man’s life, but one that is integral to Scottish history.

I realized when I stumbled upon this portrait in the Virginius C. Hall Jacobite Collection, what struck me first was the poise and grace with which Flora poses. I was so enamored with the portrait that I decided to look into its subject, and after some research within the collection, I realized how important to the history of the Jacobite movements she really was. Continue reading

Three Recent Articles Highlight Work being done in the Digital Scholarship Center

Three recent articles from faculty and staff working in or with the university’s Digital Scholarship Center demonstrate the transdisciplinary, enterprise-wide research mission of the center. In these three articles, topics include information science, new media and communications, and digital scholarship/digital humanities:

“Embracing semantic ambiguity to enhance interpretability of complex unstructured machine learning problems.” – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pra2.2018.14505501144

“Tweeting for social justice in #Ferguson: Affective discourse in Twitter hashtags” – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444819827030?casa_token=mSwlsllzyaQAAAAA:o8PzOiTUUyS1zCblmTKMvkE1HBromRj1bXExxvk8qiZVg0LItZlr9Ne5y9EW10EqqpWPqi4KwvDI

“Epic social networks and Eve’s centrality in Milton’s Paradise Lost” – https://academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/llc/fqz001/5365481?guestAccessKey=71453a56-cfdb-48f2-a5bc-ae279bf4b0ac

The University of Cincinnati’s Digital Scholarship Center, located in the Walter C. Langsam Library, is a joint venture between the College of Arts and Sciences and the Libraries.

On campus and in the community, the DSC serves as a catalyst for hybrid forms of research and teaching, bringing together humanistic methods with technical innovations to test paradigms and to create new knowledge at the boundary between disciplines as they are conventionally imagined in humanities.

For more about the DSC, visit their website at http://dsc.uc.edu/

The Wonderful World of Miniature Books

By:  Savannah Gulick, Archives & Rare Books Library Student Assistant

Five minature books from the Archives and Rare Books Library collectionsToday at work, while I was thinking about what topic I might want to write my blog post about, I helped Sue Reller look for a miniature book that members of Cincinnati Book Arts Society visiting the Archives & Rare Books Library wanted to see. From taking Kevin Grace’s honors seminar on the Culture of Books & Reading I had learned that ARB owns the smallest book in the world – only legible by using a magnifying glass!!!  But I never realized the entire collection of miniatures that the library owned is around 250 books. Needless to say, I was inspired by the number and the fact that not many people know the archives houses such a large collection of them or that miniature books existed – a world of its own! The attention to detail in all the books astounds me, from the beautifully marbled end papers to exquisite drawings and illustrated covers. Continue reading

Hans Landolt and the Conservation of Mass : Notes from the Oesper Collections, No. 55, March/April 2019

A highly stippled photo of Landolt’s balance with two of his counterpoised reaction tubes (7) – the one on the left before reaction and the one on the right after reaction.

A highly stippled photo of Landolt’s balance with two of his counterpoised reaction tubes (7) – the one on the left before reaction and the one on the right after reaction.

Issue 55 summarizes, using the resources of the Oesper Collections, the work of the Swiss-German physical chemist, Hans Landolt, on the experimental verification of the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions. 

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

DAAP Library Exhibit-Emil Robinson

Come see Assistant Professor of Design, Emil Robinson’s paintings in the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP). On display across from the circulation desk are: Tulips 1, Broken Bumper, Tulips 2–all three paintings are oil on panel and painted in 2019. He has paired them with books, which give clues to his technique/process. It’s a sneak peek of the spring we are all desiring.