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oin us Tues. April 12 at 5:00 PM in the Gorno Library for a concert of 20th and 21st-century music for piano performed by members of the Piano Repertoire Class. View program (pdf).
Jonesing for Some Good Illustrations
By: Sydney Vollmer, ARB Intern
It’s always a surprise what you’ll find when you go up to the rare books room. Last week, Kevin (our head here in the Archives & Rare Books Library) asked me to go find half-a-dozen beautiful Shakespeare volumes for a presentation given to the dean’s advisory committee. I went upstairs. There were the Charles Knight editions. They’re nice, but we’ve done so much with those already. I pulled the Rackham, Dulac, and Thompson volumes, because they’re classic illustrations that everyone enjoys seeing. I still needed at least three volumes…
View the Winners from the 2016 International Edible Books Festival
The University of Cincinnati Libraries celebrated the International Edible Books Festival for the 14th year on April 1, 2016. Fifteen UC students, librarians and staff submitted entries that included edible books made of cakes, cookies, candy and Peeps.
For more information about the participants and the International Edible Books Festival, read the News Record article. View the entries and the winners on the Libraries Facebook page.
New Exhibit, “Poems of UC’s Past,” Combines Original Works with Historic Photographs
One of the images from the Archives and Rare Books Library collections used in the exhibit.
A new exhibit on display on the 5th floor lobby of Langsam Library features original poetry describing historic images from the collections of UC’s Archives and Rare Books Library.
Referred to as “Ekphrastic poems,” they use “vivid descriptions of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the ‘action’ of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.” (Poetry Foundation.org)
In this exhibit, six graduate-student poets in the McMicken College of Arts and Science’s English department do not aim to simply “amplify and expand” the meaning of the images, but rather through their words, these pictures come more vibrantly to life. Continue reading
Poetry at Clermont: A Guide to Writing Poetry
Did you know Clermont College Library
has a Poetry at Clermont research guide for students?
What’s on the guide?
- links to poems
- databases that connect to a variety of poetic information
- a list of books available for check out
- reference sources
- websites that aid in writing and understanding poetry
- information about the annual haiku contest
- proper citations
The guide also gives the poet a source for inspiration from other writers’ work as well as links to poetry associations.
Happy Poetry Month!
Penny McGinnis
Technical Services Manager
New Book by CCM Alumna Susan Moore Jordan
New book from CCM graduate Susan Moore Jordan More Fog, Please documents her 31 years as director and producer of high school and community musical theater in Pennsylvania. Sue is also the author of 3 novels, one of which (Eli’s Heart) is takes place in part at 1950s CCM. All of her books are available in the CCM Library.
UCBA Fun Facts: Personal Lending Policy
Question: What is your policy on book lending?
Heather Maloney, Library Director: I share! Unless it’s a library book then I’m a little more protective. 😉
Michelle McKinney, Reference/Web Services Librarian: It depends on the book and who I’m lending it to…I’ve lost a few faves over the years and those folks can’t borrow from my anymore.
Kellie Tilton, Instructional Technologies Librarian: I am an advocate of book lending! But only if I know the person well enough to know the book is coming back at some point.
Lauren Wahman, Instruction Librarian: No policy. All of my books come from the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County.
Julie Robinson, Library Operations Manager: Hardly ever. Streamlined my collection to keep mainly my absolute favorite hardcovers and first editions which I NEVER lend and the rest I borrow from the library.
Pam Adler, Public Services Assistant: Depends on the book. I rarely loan my hardcovers but if I have an ebook it’s yours to borrow.
Exploring the UC Libraries
by Kellie Tilton
As many may know, the University of Cincinnati contains 13 awesome libraries amongst the three campuses of Uptown, Clermont and Blue Ash. As a librarian at the UCBA Library on the Blue Ash campus, I’ve been to Langsam Library numerous times and have visited a few others due to various meetings. In the two and half years I’ve worked for UC, however, I hadn’t really had the opportunity to really explore many of these collections. Over spring break, I had the chance to get the behind-the-scenes tour in eight of the 13 libraries.
By walking ten minutes across (and up!) the Uptown campus, I went from delighting over the DAAP Library’s vast snowglobe collection to admiring one of the Archive and Rare Books Library’s pre-printing press manuscripts. The resources available to all UC students, faculty and staff in the UC collections are vast, fascinating and one of the many great things about the University of Cincinnati.
If you have a chance, be sure to go seek out the many gems in the UC Libraries! To see some of my adventure, check out the photos below!
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- Seek and ye shall find the legend of the Holy Grail in the Archives and Rare Books Library!
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- One of the Archives and Rare Books’ pre-printing press manuscripts. This one is titled “Spurious and Doubtful Works.” Sounds really uplifting.
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- In the CCM Library, you will find thousands of scores. Tens of thousands. All the scores. Or, at least, a good number of them.
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- Is vinyl more your style? Check out CCM’s vinyl collection!
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- The CCM Library holds drawers and drawers of cast recordings, orchestras and symphonies. Hours upon hours of happiness.
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- The Chemistry-Biology Library’s current display is a fascinating one about historic synthetic dyes. Don’t let the glare from the case fool you, this rainbow of thread and dye is both gorgeous and like something from Harry Potter.
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- Deep in the basements of the Classics Library sit these gorgeously bound editions on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
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- The DAAP Library hosts a variety of unique items, including the snow globe collection and the Material Connexion collection.
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- The DAAP Library has a number of sewing machines available to use, you just have to B.Y.O.T. (Bring your own thread.)
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- This amazing Armstrong Collection display just went up at the Engineering and Applied Science Library.
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- SCIENCE! The Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library’s redesigned space is filled with fascinating maps, globes and books.
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- The Geological-Mathematics-Physics Library also has some crazy fascinating books. (See also the Geo-Math-Phys book “Magic at Home!”)
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- The CECH Library is currently under construction, but the amazing resources (teaching kits! poster printing! ellison dye cuts!) are still available! (And are still awesome.)
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- Classics Library
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- The Engineering and Applied Science reading room isn’t only an amazing place to study, it also has absolutely gorgeous murals and a great view of the Uptown Campus.
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- Books in the Oesper Collection are not only super old (the bottom book was written in the 17th century) but incredibly intriguing.
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- The Oesper Collection also holds a number of historical Chemistry equipment and chemicals!
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- Okay, this isn’t from inside a library. But it is from outside Blegen, which houses Classics, CCM and ARB. And who am I to deny you a squirrel eating pizza?!?
“Reading Around the World” Spotlight of the Month: “Fatelessness” by Imre Kertesz (1929-2016)
Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian novelist and a Nazi concentration camp survivor, died on March 31, 2016, at age 86. In 2002 Kertesz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2002 “for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history”. He was the first Hungarian writer to receive the award.
In his Nobel lecture Imre Kertesz shared that as he was preparing for the lecture he received a letter the director of the Buchenwald Memorial Center.
“The envelope contained a copy of the original daily report on the camp’s prisoners for February 18, 1945. In the “Abgänge”, that is, the “Decrement” column, I learned about the death of Prisoner #64,921 – Imre Kertész, factory worker, born in 1927. The two false data: the year of my birth and my occupation were entered in the official registry when I was brought to Buchenwald. I had made myself two years older so I wouldn’t be classified as a child, and had said worker rather than student to appear more useful to them.
In short, I died once, so I could live. Perhaps that is my real story.”
UC Libraries’ collection has a number of works by Imre Kertesz in the English translation. Fatelessness (1975) is the author’s best known book. It describes the experience of a teenage boy in three concentration camps. A film based on the novel was released in 2005. The film is available through OhioLINK. Kertesz continued the Holocaust theme in his novels Fiasco (1988) and Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990).
The book by Imre Kertesz is featured in our online Guide Reading Around the World at UC Libraries. The Guide provides samples of books from various countries of the world in English translations held by UC Libraries and OhioLINK member libraries. You are welcome to suggest books to be included into the Guide and/or be featured on the Guide’s home page.
Hunting the Bard
By: Sydney Vollmer
Do you like games? Are you good at finding things? (We’re looking at you, Hufflepuffs!) Know any Shakespeare? GREAT! Join us in our Shakespeare Quote Scavenger Hunt!
On Tuesday, March 29th, we hid 5 Shakespeare Quotes around campus. They could be anywhere! Here’s the idea: You follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the most up-to-date clues. You find one of the quotes we hid. You bring it to the Archives and Rare Books Library on the 8th floor of Blegen. You tell us the Shakespearean work the quote is from. We give you a prize! (And these are good prizes. You want it. Yes. YOU.)
Here are the clues we’ve given so far…Each number corresponds to a different quote and location. Continue reading