Happy Holidays from the University of Cincinnati Libraries. We wish all of our students, faculty, and staff a safe and enjoyable break. The Libraries will be closed December 24 & 25 and January 1. The remaining days, we will be on break hours through January 6, which are listed online and at each library location.
The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Super Sabin!
By Mary Kroeger Vuyk, Sabin Student Assistant
In 1983, Amanda Magary wrote Dr. Sabin to tell him “Your [sic] my hero!”
While I was aware of Dr. Sabin’s contribution, it wasn’t until I began going through the letters sent to Sabin that I started to fully understand the impact that he had on the lives of others. In one letter, Julie Harrison writes, “How much you have enriched the lives of all of us! Your oral vaccine for polio is surely one of the greatest accomplishments. We do thank you; you are truly an American hero.”[1] Continue reading
Organizing the Southwest Ohio Folklore Collection
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. 
What 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
Service Note
Supply In Demand-Acquiring Construction Resources in Post-WWI Cincinnati: Adventures in the Subway and Street Improvements Digitization Project
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.
March 1, 1921 – Photograph of a map of Cincinnati showing rapid transit loop & interurbans
ILLiad Unavailable December 14 and 17 for Maintenance
New Addition to the Cincinnati Ballet Records
By: Lauren Fink, ARB Student Assistant
The 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
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
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?
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.