Update from the Classics Library

Posted on by

Welcome and welcome back! There is much (mostly) good news to report from the Library

We have new Classics Library access policies. Please see: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/classics/classics-library-policies.html

Please note that faculty, graduate students, Tytus fellows in Classics are given swipe card access to the stacks.  We are also getting lockers primarily for non-UC classicists in which to place bags.

The rare classics books in ARB have been transferred from ARB to the new “Rare Book and Manuscript Room” in the former Pal cage on S4. Please ask library staff to retrieve rare books for consultation in the Circulation area, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m, M-F.

Most of the palaeography collection has been transferred to the Scriptorium – The John Miller Burnam Palaeography Reading Room — room 414A off of the main Reading Room. Please request that the staff at the Circulation desk unlock the door for you.

The Reference collection is now located on the 4th floor opposite the Circulation desk and the current journals have been moved to the mezzanine.

Please review the Classics Library’s borrowing privileges for the collections in these and other locations: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/classics/services.html

The “New Books” have been moved to the cubby hole in the Circulation area.

We have “new” more comfortable chairs opposite the Circulation desk.

Please note that our annual supply budget of $250 cannot pay for new furniture (barely for pens). We make regular trips to UC Surplus on our own time and money to pick up discards. Much is trash, but occasionally we find decent chairs and things which was the case with the two armchairs we have put in the graduate study room to replace the tattered green one.

We currently have three new student assistants: Emily Dean and Elaine Suer (both Classicists), and Kayla Weiglein (in the German Ph.D. program).

Returning student assistants include: Brycen Carle, Kathleen Johnson, Maddie Menssen, Yo Shionoya, and Amber’Nay Wilkins. We are currently in the process of hiring additional student assistants. So far we are pleased with the applicant pool.

We are happy that Yo will be staying with us albeit in a different capacity from during the summer.  Our many projects (and calamities) have greatly benefited from Yo’s intelligence, kind and helpful manner, and hard work in the supervisory position he has held since late May. His many transformative initiatives have included a new student worker recruitment process and training procedures as well as his supervision of and active participation in the many reorganization projects and salvage efforts this summer.

The black mold from the leak in the Reading Room has been removed, so the room is again safe to use.

The leak in the stacks (under the urinal) has more or less been fixed. We are still waiting for the areas affected to be cleaned. Some 400 German dissertations are being treated by the Preservation department in Langsam.

Last but not least, the Classics Library has a new and improved website: https://libraries.uc.edu/libraries/classics.html

The website has been a major undertaking for many months because of added content but also because earlier versions kept being overlaid on newer ones, not by us). I wish to personally thank Lindsay Taylor for her invaluable help in navigating the many complexities of the different reiterations and editing modules. John Wallrodt used his Photoshopping skills to produce the composite image on the Classics Library landing page.

The moving of some 15,000 books has been quite an overwhelming effort. Most of the work – reviewing each book, changing locations and labels in the catalog and on spines, carrying, lifting, and cleaning numerous books, book cases, and shelves (we’re not quite finished yet) — has been carried out by our small Classics Library staff and student workers. An outside company moved the books from ARB to the Classics Library, but because of misshelvings and other issues, some of this work has been (and continues to be) fixed by the Library staff.

Hope you will like our new and improved library organization and welcome (back) to the John Miller Burnam Classics Library, UC’s Best Kept Secret!

From Your Classics Library

Some Photographic Equipment 1: Cameras : Notes from from the Oesper Collections, No. 57, July/August 2019

Posted on by
A circa 1948 Kodak Duaflex Camera with flash attachment made by the Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, NY.

A circa 1948 Kodak Duaflex Camera with flash
attachment made by the Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, NY.

Though the Oesper Collections do not explicitly collect photographic equipment, a few interesting items have come our way over the years and will be described in this and the succeeding two installments of museum notes.  Click here for issue no. 57.

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

 

Book of the Month for September 2019

Posted on by

Your UCBA Library’s Book of the Month for September:

Money: 5000 Years of Debt and Power 

by Michel Aglietta 

Money book cover 

As the financial crisis reached its climax in September 2008, the most important figure on the planet was Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The whole financial system was collapsing, with little to stop it. When a senator asked Bernanke what would happen if the central bank did not carry out its rescue package, he replied, “If we don’t do this, we may not have an economy on Monday.” 

What saved finance, and the Western economy, was fiscal and monetary stimulus – an influx of money, created ad hoc. It was a strategy that raised questions about the unexamined nature of money itself, an object suddenly revealed as something other than a neutral signifier of value. Through its grip on finance and the debt system, money confers sovereign power on the economy. If confidence in money is not maintained, crises follow. Looking over the last 5,000 years, Michel Aglietta explores the development of money and its close connection to sovereign power. This book employs the tools of anthropology, history and political economy in order to analyse how political structures and monetary systems have transformed one another. We can thus grasp the different eras of monetary regulation and the crises capitalism has endured throughout its history. 

Is it checked out?  Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered: 

The Ascent of Money: a Financial History of the World (DVD)
HG171 .A83 2009 

Bestselling author, economist and historian Niall Ferguson takes a look at how money evolved, from the concept of credit and debt in the Renaissance to the emergence of a global economy and the subprime crisis we face today 

A History of Money (E-Book) 

A History of Money looks at how money as we know it developed through time. Starting with the barter system, the basic function of exchanging goods evolved into a monetary system based on coins made up of precious metals and, from the 1500s onwards, financial systems were established through which money became intertwined with commerce and trade, to settle by the mid-1800s into a stable system based upon Gold. This book presents its closing argument that, since the collapse of the Gold Standard, the global monetary system has undergone constant crisis and evolution continuing into the present day. 

Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money 
HG1710 .P68/ 2015

The notion of a new currency, maintained by the computers of users around the world, has been the butt of many jokes, but that has not stopped it from growing into a technology worth billions of dollars, supported by the hordes of followers who have come to view it as the most important new idea since the creation of the Internet. Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments. More than just a tech industry fad, Bitcoin has threatened to decentralize some of society’s most basic institutions. An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold charts the rise of the Bitcoin technology through the eyes of the movement’s colorful central characters, including a British anarchist, an Argentinian millionaire, a Chinese entrepreneur, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Already, Bitcoin has led to untold riches for some, and prison terms for others. 

 

by Christian Boyles

CANCELLED: Got Data?! Join Us for the Data Visualization Showcase Oct. 25

Posted on by

PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

The University of Cincinnati Libraries’ Research & Data Services is calling for virtual submissions that best demonstrate the power of visualization to present complex data.

Event

The Data Visualization Showcase will be held from 1-3 pm on Friday, Oct. 25, 2019 in the Visualization Laboratory (240H Braunstein Hall, Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library). Coffee and refreshments will be served. All are welcome.

Eligibility & Deadlines

Submissions for the showcase are open to all University of Cincinnati affiliates, but must be submitted to AskData@uc.edu by Oct. 11 to be considered for the awards. All submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges and should follow submission guidelines.

Judging

The showcase will be juried by a panel of interdisciplinary judges scoring each submission on the following four tenants of data visualization: Impact, Storytelling, Technical Aptitude and Creativity. See the rubric for more details.

Continue reading →

New Facsimile of the Month

Posted on by

Mozart Magic Flute autograph aria pageA new Facsimile of the Month is now on display in the CCM Library Atrium: a reproduction of the Mozart’s autograph manuscript of Die Zauberflöte [The Magic Flute]. Mozart’s original manuscript is kept in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. The facsimile was published by Bärenreiter in 1979 (CCM Library call no.: ML96.5. M69 Z3). You can preview a few pages from the Facsimile of the Month using the action button of the same name on the CCM Library home page.Facsimile of the Month action button

10 year anniversary STRC@Langsam YouTube site

Posted on by

10 years ago on September 1st 2009 the STRC uploaded their first video to YouTube.   The video was of a old book that was sent to UCL’s Conservation and Binding department.  They needed a quick way to show someone in California how the book would be repaired. 10 years later the STRC site has 300 videos, 400,000 views and 367 subscribers.  178 of the videos are UC student projects made at the STRC editing suites and STRC video production room.  Below is a link to the most viewed student project (Tom Cruise on Teaching Composition) with 15,000 views. And also below is a link to the first video added 10 years ago, (Conservation of book) with 7,300 views.

 

videos STRC

 

Welcome, Melissa Previtera, Health Sciences Library/Winkler Center Academic & Research Services Specialist

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Sept. 3, Melissa Previtera began her position at the University of Cincinnati Libraries as the academic and research services specialist for the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library (HSL) and the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions (Winkler Center).

Melissa is a familiar face in UC Libraries having worked previously in the HSL/Winkler Center, College of Engineering and Applied Science Library, and most recently at the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services Library. In this new role, she will work closely with HSL and Winkler Center faculty as well as members of the Winkler Center Board, College of Medicine, College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy and Allied Health faculty, researchers, staff and students.

Welcome (back), Melissa!

Most UC Libraries Closed Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 2

Posted on by

labor dayUC Libraries will be closed Monday, September 2 for Labor Day, except for the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, which will be open 9am-5pm. This closing includes the Walter C. Langsam Library 4th floor space, which will close Sunday, September 1 at 11pm and re-open Tuesday, September 3 at 7:45am.

A complete listing of library hours can be found online at www.libraries.uc.edu/about/hours.html.

Enjoy the long holiday weekend.

A needle in a PDF haystack

Posted on by

One of my research areas is examining the role of recordkeeping and documentation in environmental regulations. A research tactic I frequently use is to sift through hundreds of PDFs at once. Large numbers of PDFs are posted on many environmental regulatory websites, but there isn’t a lot of information about what’s in them or how big they are, or where the juicy stuff is. If this sounds daunting – well, it is! But I’ve come up with a few tricks to help me sort out what is useful and what isn’t.

Step 1: Download

The first thing is figuring out how to download a zillion PDFs at once. For this, I recommend getting a bulk downloader add-on for your browser (here is an example). This will scan through every URL on a page that ends with .pdf, which indicates that the URL is likely a downloadable PDF. A bulk downloader prevents the need from clicking on every single link, which can be a lot when you’re on a page with dozens of PDFs like this one from the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Step 2: Text Recognition

Once you download all the files you want, I like to place them into a dedicated folder. This is because even though theoretically most government agency PDFs should have optical character recognition (OCR), the actual practice is very inconsistent. OCRed text is critical for PDF searching because it allows you to do a keyword search within a single file or across multiple files at once. Currently, there is not widely-available OCR functionality for cursive or handwriting, just typeface.

Adobe Acrobat has a useful function (under Tools > Text Recognition > In Multiple Files) where you can run the OCR function across everything in a specific folder. This can take a while, but at least there is a progress bar that’ll show you how long it takes – which could be a while, considering that many government environmental regulation records can be a hundred pages for each file. Using the Adobe Acrobat tool also allows you to keep or modify original file names. I like to downsample the files to 600 dpi – it takes longer than the lower dpi measures, but I think it enables better keyword searches later on.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3: Dig into the PDF files!

There is a free software program called PDF-XChange Viewer, which you can use to do keyword searches over large amounts of PDFs. You can also run a similar search within Adobe Acrobat, but I find that the searching takes far longer and the results are presented less tidily than with PDF-XChange Viewer. Supposedly you can also run batch OCR with this program, but I haven’t tried it.

The example demonstrates how I wanted to find PDFs from coal mine inspection safety reports that mention the word “map.” The results show me that of the dozens of documents I searched in my dedicated folder, there were 187 hits for the word “map” across 14 of the documents. I can get an idea from the left-hand preview pane what the keyword is like in context, and then click on that to see the actual PDF in the right-hand window.

This step helps me pull out the PDFs that I need to analyze more deeply, thus saving me the headache of opening up every single PDF in case it might have something of interest.