Devhra BennettJones joins UC Libraries as Winkler Center Archivist/Curator

On February 19, 2024 Devhra BennettJones joined the University of Cincinnati Libraries as the archivist and curator of the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions.

Devhra is a certified archivist and holds a Master of Science in Organizational & Human Resources Development from Abilene Christian University and a Master of Arts in History from our own University of Cincinnati. Previously, Devhra worked in the Cincinnati area at both the Lloyd Library & Museum and the American Jewish Archives. Devhra is actively engaged with the Society of American Archivists and the Society of Ohio Archivists and brings a wealth of knowledge to UC Libraries.

“The main thing that I am looking forward to in the new position is the opportunity to contribute to the preservation of medical history and to provide access to the rich historical collections held by the Winkler Center,” said Devhra. “It is an honor to work here!”

About the Winkler Center

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The Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions is an archive and exhibit facility chronicling the history of the health sciences primarily in the Cincinnati area. The Winkler Center’s over 35,000 volumes of rare and classic works on health history however broaden that scope to include Europe and date back almost 500 years. In addition to its archival collections, books, and medical objects, the Winkler Center also presents public and educational programming, and workshops throughout the year.  

Announcing the 2022-2023 UC Libraries Annual Report

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Beginning Anew

Announcing the 2022-2023 University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Report. My tenure as dean and university librarian began in mid-August 2023, a time of great growth at the University of Cincinnati. I’ve spent these past six months learning as much as I can about the Libraries – how our mission to “empower discovery, stimulate learning and inspire the creation of knowledge by connecting students, faculty, researchers and scholars to dynamic data, information and resources” supports the university’s NEXT Lives Here Strategic Directions. Documents such as the Annual Report have been key to my education.

In this Annual Report, we look back at the top News & Events, applaud Staff Accomplishments & Milestones and look at the Libraries By the Numbers and Financially. Under the leadership of interim dean and university librarian Lori Harris, we welcomed a significant number of new librarians and staff members who will provide essential library services and research support and help move the Libraries forward. We acquired, processed, preserved and made available collections used for research. We held events to bring people into the Libraries to interact with our facilities and collections. We created welcoming places – both virtual and in-person – for people to study, research and collaborate. And, we provided our expertise to the students, faculty and researchers who rely on UC Libraries for their academic pursuits.

Looking Forward

While we celebrate the accomplishments of the past academic year, we also continue to move forward and plan for the future. This past fall we began the process of developing an updated strategic plan with goals and initiatives that will continue to advance the mission of the University of Cincinnati. This plan will build upon the successes of UC Libraries and respond to the rapidly changing landscape of higher education, as well as the increasingly diverse needs of our students, faculty and researchers. The strategic plan will be completed this summer and will guide our work for the next three years. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, enjoy reading the 2022-2023 University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report.

Liz Kiscaden,
Dean and University Librarian

Welcome Elizabeth Kiscaden, Dean and University Librarian

Today we officially welcome our new dean and university librarian Elizabeth Kiscaden on her first day at the University of Cincinnati Libraries.

Dean Kiscaden comes to UC from Creighton University where she was university librarian and assistant vice provost of library services. While at Creighton, she worked to modernize legacy library systems and infrastructure to support an anytime, anywhere, any device philosophy and oversaw the development of a single library enterprise, bringing together campus and health sciences libraries. She has extensive experience administering large grants and library services to support academic programs, faculty teaching and student learning. Her research largely focuses on consumer health information.

Announcing “The Bone Doctor’s Concerto: Music, Surgery, and the Pieces in Between” book launch August 8

Join UC Libraries and the University of Cincinnati Press for an unforgettable afternoon with Dr. Alvin H. Crawford, MD as he launches his new book “The Bone Doctor’s Concerto: Music, Surgery, and the Pieces in Between.”

Date: Tuesday, August 8, 2023 
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Location: Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library | Stanley J. Lucas Board Room (MSB E005HA)
 
A buffet lunch will be provided. This event is free and open to all. RSVP is required.

The Book Launch is an in-person event, however, a Zoom link will be provided to maximize attendance and create a hybrid event for those interested. Please register to indicate your desire to attend in person or remotely.

About the Book

the bone doctor's concerto book cover


The story of one of Cincinnati’s most influential leaders in medicine.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1939, Dr. Alvin Crawford grew up and attended medical school in a segregated world. Beginning with his early life in Orange Mound—a self-contained community for freed slaves established in the 1890s—Crawford’s autobiography describes his flirtation with a music degree and time spent playing in jazz bands through the segregated South. In 1960, Crawford began his ground-breaking medical career with his entrance into the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, becoming the school’s first African American student. After completing his medical training and traveling the world as a surgeon for the Navy, Crawford found himself in Cincinnati, where he established the Comprehensive Pediatric Orthopedic Clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, the first in the region.

Underlying this story are the systemic and very personal incidents of racism Crawford experienced throughout his career. His autobiography is a personal account of segregation, integration, ambition, hard work and taking risks. “The Bone Doctor’s Concerto” is published by the University of Cincinnati Press.

alvin crawford

Alvin Crawford is professor emeritus in the UC College of Medicine Department of Orthopaedic Surgery with more than 35 years of clinical experience in diagnosis and treatment in orthopedics. He is the recently retired founding director of the Crawford Spine Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center and a renowned expert in spinal deformities and neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder often associated with scoliosis. He is the first Black president of the Scoliosis Research Society and has been recognized in “America’s Best Doctors” since 1996.


And be sure to check out…

The Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic Surgeons traveling exhibit hosted by UC Libraries and the US National Library of Medicine.

Where:  Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library | E-Level Exhibit Gallery

July 17, 2023 – Aug 11, 2023

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Read Source for the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries

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

In this issue of Source, Lori Harris writes about some of the changes that have occurred this past year as she has served as interim dean and university librarian. We announce Elizabeth Kiscaden as the next dean and university librarian, as well as a new digital collection in honor of Dr. Lucy Orinthia Oxley, the first African American to graduate from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Student workers are a key component to UC Libraries success, which is why the UC Libraries Student Worker Scholarship Fund was established. We announce the most recent winners of this scholarship. We spotlight the College of Engineering Library and look back at the successful inaugural year of Poetry Stacked. We interview ChatGPT to get its opinions about its potential role in libraries and academia and hype the new, and very popular, library stickers.

Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

The 2023 Striker Lecture to recount the history of the UC Department of Surgery

Two centuries of surgery at the UC College of Medicine

By Richard Puff

In January 1922, George Heuer, MD, arrived in Cincinnati as the first full-time chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Well known as one of the country’s leading neurosurgeons, Heuer was recruited from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and was charged with developing a premier academic surgical program at the College of Medicine.

Later that year, Heuer established the third surgical residency program ever in the United States, based on the Halstead philosophy of surgical training. He would soon recruit several other Hopkins surgeons to Cincinnati, further strengthening the UC Department of Surgery. These included Mont Reid, MD, B. Noland Carter, MD, Bill Andress, MD, Max Zinninger, MD, and Ralph Bowers, MD.

While the Medical College of Ohio, the forerunner of the current UC College of Medicine, had numerous nationally respected professors of surgery since the 1820s, the college’s modern surgical department began with the arrival of Heuer and what is often referred to as “the Hopkins Invasion.”

Much more about the development and achievements of the college’s Department of Surgery will be explained at 5 p.m., Tuesday, April 25 during the 2023 Cecil Striker Lecture. “A History of the University of Cincinnati Department of Surgery” will be presented in Kresge Auditorium by Michael Nussbaum, MD.

Nussbaum is senior vice president professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke, Virginia. He was interim chair of the UC College of Medicine Department of Surgery from 2006-2007. Nussbaum came to Cincinnati after receiving his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981 and completed his general surgery residency at the UC College of Medicine before being appointed to the faculty in 1986.

michael nussbaum

Michael Nussbaum, MD, former interim chair of surgery at the UC College of Medicine and current senior vice president professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, will deliver the 2023 Striker Lecture April 25. Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

“Surgical history has been a passion of mine since my days as a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, our nation’s first medical school, which was steeped in historical lore and tradition,” Nussbaum said. “In 1990, Drs. David McFadden, Josef Fischer and I published a centennial tribute to Dr. Mont Reid in the Annals of Surgery and thus began my fascination with the rich history of this storied department of surgery. Since then, I have continued to study and write about surgical history in Cincinnati, as well as my home institutions in Jacksonville and Roanoke where there are many interesting overlaps.”

Nussbaum said his lecture will touch on the history of surgery at the College of Medicine since its founding in 1819. However, his talk will emphasize the last 100 years, starting with the arrival of Heuer to Cincinnati.

Following Nussbaum’s presentation, attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions and, about 6:30 p.m., can attend a reception and view an exhibit, “From Halsted to Heuer: The UC Department of Surgery and the Johns Hopkins Pipeline, 1922-1952,” in the Stanley J. Lucas, MD, Board Room (E005HA) near Kresge Auditorium.

The 14th Striker Lecture is hosted by the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions, part of UC Libraries. The lecture series is named after Cecil Striker, MD, Class of 1921, a longtime College of Medicine faculty member who was passionate about medical history and who served as the first president of the American Diabetes Association in 1940. Striker died in 1976.

Register to attend the free presentation. The presentation also will be available via Zoom. Registrants will have Zoom details provided to them.

Featured photo at top of a surgery demonstration in the UC amphitheater courtesy of the UC Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions.

Langsam Library exhibits installed in honor of Black History Month pay tribute to trailblazers and display the enormous loss in the Middle Passage

On display in the Walter C. Langsam Library are two new exhibits created and installed for Black History Month. The first pays tribute to Cincinnati African American Medical Trailblazers – Lucy Oxley and O’dell Owens. The second exhibit displays the enormous loss of life in The Middle Passage.

Cincinnati African American Medical Trailblazers

On display on the 4th floor lobby of Langsam Library, this exhibit features materials from the collections of UC Libraries about Lucy Oxley, MD, the first person of color to receive a medical degree from the UC College of Medicine, and O’dell Owens, renowned physician, former Hamilton County coroner and the first African American to sit on the board of the University of Cincinnati.

cincinnati african american medical trailblazers

The Middle Passage

On the 5th floor lobby of Langsam Library is a large map depicting the Middle Passage, which commonly refers to the experience of enslaved African people as they traveled across the Atlantic Basin to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. Illness, insanity, hunger, dehydration, torture, revolt, suicide and ship wreck led to the death of ~1.8 million Africans at sea during their Middle Passage.

The exhibit corresponds with the Uncommon Read of the book “Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage” by Sowande’ M. Mustakeem. A Lunch and Learn with the author is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 23 from 12:30-2pm in the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library’s Stanley J. Lucas M.D. Boardroom (E005HA). Register to attend the Lunch and Learn.

the middle passage graphic

Both exhibits were curated by UC Libraries faculty and staff: Meshia Anderson, Susan Banoun, Sidney Gao, Tiffany Grant, Gino Pasi and June Taylor-Slaughter. It was designed by UC Libraries communications design co-op Jakob Elliott.

Announcing the 2021/22 UC Libraries Annual Progress Report: A Year of New Beginnings…

annual progress report header

Announcing the 2021-22 University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report: A Year of New Beginnings…a year that saw the broad return of students, faculty and staff to campus for fall semester. The transition from virtual to in-person was an extensive process as library spaces were re-evaluated to allow for a safe return to working and studying on campus. We welcomed students, faculty and staff back to campus with refreshed spaces, enhanced safety protocols for social distancing and a revived appreciation for working together in person.

The year also saw the announcement of our renewed Strategic Framework: NEXT Directions. The University of Cincinnati’s NEXT Lives Here Strategic Directions focus on the core areas of Academic Excellence, Urban Impact and the Innovation Agenda in order to engage people and ideas – and to transform the world. The University of Cincinnati Libraries is key to what’s NEXT.

In this Annual Report, we look back at the top News & Events, applaud Staff Accomplishments & Milestones and look at the Libraries By the Numbers and Financially.

While we celebrate the accomplishments of the past academic year, we also continue to move forward in pursuit of our vision of being the globally engaged, intellectual commons of the university – positioning ourselves as the hub of collaboration, digital innovation and scholarly endeavor on campus and beyond. I invite you to be a part of our journey – a journey led by our Guiding Principles of Investment in our People; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; and Digital Transformation.

The Annual Progress Report is available online via Sway. Happy Reading!

Join UC Libraries’ RESPECT group in reading and discussing “Slavery at Sea”

slavery at sea book coverThe University of Cincinnati Libraries Racial Equity Support & Programming to Educate the Community Team (RESPECT) and the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library are hosting a book discussion and Lunch and Learn with Sowande’ M. Mustakeem, author of “Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage” on Thursday, Feb. 23 from 12:30-2pm in the Health Sciences Library’s Stanley J. Lucas M.D. Boardroom (E005HA). Register to attend the Lunch and Learn.

How to get the book:

“Slavery at Sea” Book Giveaway

RESPECT has purchased 20 copies of “Slavery at Sea” to give away free to the first 20 individuals who request a copy via the form.

OR Unlimited e-book access to “Slavery at Sea”

UC Libraries has acquired unlimited e-book access to “Slavery at Sea” for those wishing to read the book online. It can be accessed via the Library Catalog.

Join us for weekly Book Discussion Chats

RESPECT will sponsor weekly opportunities to discuss “Slavery at Sea.” These discussions will take place virtually via Zoom and will be held Thursday, February 2nd, 9th and 16th from 11am – noon. Register to attend one or more of the sessions.

RESPECT’s “Slavery and Sea” book discussions and Lunch and Learn are part of a larger Un-Common Read event being held throughout the university in celebration of Black History Month.

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Upcoming Lunch & Learn to explore the painting The Crucible of God: Art and Science in the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

the garden of earthly delights paintingThe Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions announces its next Lunch and Learn scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 19 from 12-1 PM in the Stanley J. Lucas MD Boardroom (E005HA), Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library. The Lunch & Learn will also be live streamed via Zoom for those who cannot attend in person.

The lecture, titled, The Crucible of God: Art and Science in the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch will be presented by Laurinda Dixon, PhD, a specialist in northern European Renaissance art. Currently retired, she served as the William F. Tolley Distinguished Professor of Teaching in the Humanities at Syracuse University. Her scholarship considers the intersection of art and science – particularly alchemy, medicine, astrology and music – from the 15th though the 19th centuries. She has lectured widely in both the USA and Europe, and is the author of many articles, reviews and 11 books, including Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine (1995), Bosch (2003) and The Dark Side of Genius: The Melancholic Persona in Art, ca.1500-1700 (2013). Laurinda holds a PhD in art history from Boston University, as well as a degree in piano performance from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She currently resides in Cincinnati.

Hieronymus Bosch (c1450-1516) was a Dutch artist whose paintings contain fantastical illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. His most acclaimed works consist of triptych altarpieces, including The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Please register for this event. For those attending in-person, light refreshments will be available.