Organizing the Southwest Ohio Folklore Collection

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By:  Molly Gullet

Work on The South West Ohio Folklore Collection has been underway for a little over two months now, and the organization of the collection is developing well. Folklore LexiconWhat began as five somewhat disheveled boxes filled with folkloric writings, pictures, cartoons and cassette tapes has finally been organized by genre.

The first step in the process of organizing the collection was sifting through what we now know to be over six hundred folklore papers and almost ninety audio materials. The papers were sorted according to the following 15 categories: Miscellaneous Proverbs, Miscellaneous Stories, Urban Legends, Ethnic, Specific Topic, Literary Analysis, Humor, Children’s Lore, Graffiti, Local Festivals and Events, Songs and Ballads, Uncanny, Food Lore and Remedies, Female and Gaming lore. The collected pieces were written as assignments given by professor emeritus Edgar Slotkin who is also the donor of the collection and because of this, common themes are found throughout. Continue reading →

Supply In Demand-Acquiring Construction Resources in Post-WWI Cincinnati: Adventures in the Subway and Street Improvements Digitization Project

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By: Angela Vanderbilt

In the spring of 1916, the citizens of Cincinnati voted in favor of the $6 million bond issue approved by City Council for construction of the “Pearl Street Belt Line,” a rapid transit loop that was to provide a solution to the congested traffic patterns in-and-out of downtown Cincinnati at the turn of the 20th century.

Map of Subway Construction area

March 1, 1921 – Photograph of a map of Cincinnati showing rapid transit loop & interurbans

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New Addition to the Cincinnati Ballet Records

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By:  Lauren Fink, ARB Student Assistant

Billboard advertising NutcrackerThe Archives and Rare Books Library has recently processed a collection from the Cincinnati Ballet spanning the years 1970-2008.  This collection, full of photographs, contact sheets, sketches, and notes, makes an excellent addition to our already extensive Cincinnati Ballet Records.

The new collection mainly includes visual materials related to The Nutcracker.  Professional photographs, advertising campaigns, and community outreach programs are all documented. Above is a billboard advertisement, “One Size Fits All: This Year Give The Nutcracker.”  Below is “Nut Man” who was very active in the Cincinnati community circa 1988.  Contact sheets and action prints, as seen below, comprise an entire box of the collection. Continue reading →

Accidents Happen: Adventures in the Subway and Street Improvements Digitization Project

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By Angela Vanderbilt

Sometimes, in order to build up you must tear down. Sometimes, progress comes with a price. In the case of the Cincinnati subway construction project, that price was the removal of several homes and businesses located along the proposed subway route. The razing of these buildings was due in part to their location, some lay in the direct path of the subway route, but also due to structural damage caused by the construction process.

All buildings were photographed as part of the subway project, including those which sustained damage due to construction of the subway. In some locations, vibration from blasting and digging resulted in cracked walls and ceilings. Below are images from 1921, the beginning of construction, that show cracks in foundations of structures located along the old canal bed, the new Central Parkway. Such photographs would be used to support property owner damage claims made to the city. It is reported that the city paid out over a quarter-million dollars in property damage reparations. Continue reading →

Open-i: a New Source for Biomedical Images

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Check out Open-i (http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/), the National Library of Medicine’s new image retrieval project. Still in Beta, this new service “aims to provide next generation information retrieval services for biomedical articles from the full text collections such as PubMed Central.” Powered by the search engine Essie (that supports ClinicalTrials.gov) a search is able to retrieve both the text and images in the articles.

Other features include viewing search results in a citation list or image grid, limiting by image type (CT Scan, MRI, Photographs, etc), by subsets such as basic science, clinical journals, ethics or systematic reviews, by specialties, and more.

For more information go to http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/about.php or visit the Frequently Asked Questions page.

To find other health sciences image sources go to the UC Libraries Media guide http://guides.libraries.uc.edu/healthsciences

Need Even More Time to Study in the Library?

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During exams, UC students can study in Langsam Library until 2am.

In response to student requests to President Santa Ono and Dean and University Librarian Xuemao Wang for adequate, safe study space on campus for the current exam period, UC Libraries has made arrangements to immediately expand exam hours in Langsam Library beginning today, December 7 and continuing until December 13.

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Urban Appalachian Council Records Available in ARB

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By Suzanne Maggard

Appalachian Festival

Music at an Appalachian Festival

After World War II and through the 1960s and 1970s, millions of people fled Appalachia in search of jobs and a better life.  Cincinnati’s proximity to Appalachian counties in Kentucky and Ohio and its industries encouraged many migrants to settle in this area.  The migrants brought unique music, cultural traditions, and stories.  The experiences of Cincinnati’s Appalachian migrants varied. Continue reading →

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: More to Check Out!

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This fall, the Albert B. Sabin digitization project has been featured in several different places. I wanted to share all of them with you so you can check them out!

If you would like to see the slides from my presentation on the Sabin digitization project, please feel free to email the Winkler Center at chhp@uc.edu.

First, I want to tell you about my recent presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) Fall 2012 Meeting in October. My presentation, “The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Reconstructing a Collection on the Web while Balancing Privacy, Restrictions, and Access,” was part of the session called, “Student Paper Session: Digital Reconstructions.” This was a great opportunity to discuss how Sabin project staff are dealing with sensitive issues, such as privacy and classified government information, in a digital collection. It was great sharing the project with the group at MARAC, and I even received a couple of questions at the end of the session. (MARAC plans to have all of their presentations from this meeting, including mine, available on their digital repository soon. Be sure to check it out!) Continue reading →