A Brief Introduction of Dr. William A. Altemeier

Posted on by

I’ve already introduced myself, but it’s occurred to me that I haven’t introduced Dr. Altemeier, who is, after all, the reason I’m here.  I apologize for the delay; his full and eventful life has been a lot to sort through.  While processing Dr. Altermeier’s collection,I’ve become very familiar with his work, activities, and influence. I’m amazed at how much someone can accomplish in one lifetime!

William Arthur Altemeier was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 6, 1910 to William Arthur Altemeier, Sr. and Carrie Moore Altemeier. He graduated cum laude from Walnut Hills High School in 1927, and went on to the University of Cincinnati, earning his Bachelor of Science degree in 1930.  He continued at the University of Cincinnati, earning his Doctorate of Medicine in 1933.  While working on his residency at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI, he earned a Master of Surgery degree from the University of Michigan in 1938.

He immediately began his teaching career while still in Detroit, as Associate Surgeon at the Henry Ford Hospital from 1939-1940, and then returned to the University of Cincinnati as Instructor in Surgery in 1940. Twelve years later in 1952, he was named the Christian R. Holmes Professor of Surgery and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Cincinnati, a position he held for over 25 years, until 1978.

In addition to his educational appointments, he was the Director of Surgical Services at Cincinnati General Hospital (1952 – 1978) and Christ Hospital (1976 – 1978); Surgeon-in-Chief at Children’s and Holmes Hospitals (1952 – 1978); Consulting Surgeon at Dunham, Drake, and the V.A. Hospitals; and Assistant Chief of Staff at Holmes Hospital.

Beyond teaching and hospital administration, he was also a prominent researcher on topics such as wounds, burns, Gas Gangrene, Shock, Trauma, and Staphylococcal Infections. He performed research for the University of Cincinnati as well as the United States Surgeon General, and served on the National Research Council in the Division of Medical Sciences and United States Public Health Service. He was also very active in the medical professions community, serving as president of the American Surgical Association, president and one of the founders of the Surgical Infection Society, vice chairman of the American Board of Surgery, editorial board for American Surgeon, Annals of Surgery, and Journal of Surgical Research, and surgical consultant to the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service and to the United States Army in Japan and Korea.

As I continue working on this collection, I’m looking forward to sharing with you some of the items in the collection that demonstrate some of these contributions and achievements, and expanding in more detail their significance.  Contact me at templea@mail.uc.edu with any questions and insights.

-Alex Temple (Winkler Center Temporary Archivist)

UCBA Faculty Share Research at 2nd Lightning Talks

Posted on by

by Lauren Wahman

The UCBA Library hosted its 2nd Faculty Research Lightning Talks on Thursday March 28.  This year’s event showcased a variety of research projects via short, 15 minute presentations.  UCBA faculty and staff enjoyed light refreshments, had the opportunity to learn about research outside of their disciplines, and ask thoughtful questions during the Q&A’s.

Faculty Lighting Talk presenters

(L-R) Ruth Benander, Ornaith O’Dowd, Amy Miller, Patrick Owen

Lighting Talk Presentations

Ruth Benander | Professor | English & Communication
Barriers and Supports: Demographic Patterns and Student Perceptions in Comp and Comm Courses

Ornaith O’Dowd | Assistant Professor | History, Philosophy & Political Science
The Ethics of Microaggressions

Amy Miller & Patrick Owen | Associate Professors | Biology
Blending Ecological, Microbiological, and Molecular Techniques to Create Multifaceted Undergraduate Research Projects

 

“An Evening with Aristophanes”: Talk and Performances in the John Miller Burnam Classics Library

Posted on by

On March 28, 2019, faculty and students from CCM and Classics as well as from UCL gathered for an evening of fun, celebrating the life and work of the great Greek comedy playwright Aristophanes (ca. 446-386 BCE), especially his play Lysistrata about a strong and intelligent Athenian woman who hatches an ingenious plan to end the Peloponnesian War. The evening included an engaging expert talk by Susan Prince, Associate Professor of Classics, a recital, masterfully directed by Brant Russell, Assistant Professor of Acting at CCM, and brilliantly acted by graduate students from CCM and Classics, accompanied by superbly played “ancient Greek Dionysian” music, arranged by Yo Shionoya, graduate student at CCM and interim Student, Circulation, and Stack Supervisor in the Classics Library. The evening celebrating not only Aristophanes but also Dionysus, (Modern) Greek Independence Day, the Annunciation of the Theotokos, and the recent accomplishments of American female politicians(!) concluded with a delectable feast of Greek food and “wine”. To enjoy a video recording of the evening, see the link at the bottom of the page.

aristophanesflyer

aristophanes_program

Tweet by Neville G. Pinto, President of the University of Cincinnati:

https://twitter.com/Prez_Pinto/status/1110219524249477123

Theater in Ancient Athens was performed during festivals to honor Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility, theater, ecstatic dance and music. His attributes included grapes, pine cones, wine cups, vines, ivy, leopard skin.  Continue reading →

Workshop on Research Reproducibility and Data Visualization using R.

Posted on by

Join UCLibraries and IT@UC for a workshop on Research Reproducibility and Data Visualization using R (part of the Data and Computational Science Series (funded by the Provost Office through a universal provider grant).

 

On April 16th, Dr. Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Associate Professor at Duke University and Data Scientist & Professional Educator at RStudio will be on campus to give a presentation about Reproducible Research and conduct a workshop on Data Visualization in R.

The day’s schedule is below.  The venue will be the Data Visualization Space in the Geology-Math-Physics Library – 240H Braunstein Hall.

10:00 am to 11:00 am  Presentation – Reproducible Research

11:00 am to 12:00 pm  Meet and Greet with Dr. Cetinkaya-Rundel  (Lunch provided)

12:00 pm to 2:00 pm  Workshop – Data Visualization in R with ggplot2 and gganimate

 

These events are free and open to all.

Visit the Faculty One Stop website to register.

More information about the DCSS 2019 series can be found on the DCSS website .

Flyer: DCS2 Word flyer_Rstudio

Help Config the Refig! Langsam 4th Floor East Remodel

Posted on by

4th floor reno graphicWhy do you come to the library? What kind of furniture do you want? What inspires you? These are some of the questions UC Libraries is asking users to consider as they provide input on possible changes to a large area within the library.

This summer, the Walter C. Langsam Library’s 4th floor east will be remodeled. UC Libraries is seeking input on what is desired for the space. The project encompasses approximately 13,000 square feet. One of the main objectives of the project is to add more user space (referred to as seats). Some library collections will remain, while others will be relocated. The project will begin in summer 2019 with completion during the fall semester.

To provide input, library visitors are encouraged to draw, write or tell their ideas on one of two large blackboards positioned at the entrance to the library as well as in the 4th floor east space. In addition, there is a handout(PDF) that can be filled out and either returned to the Desk@Langsam or emailed to libfacilityfeedback@uc.edu.

Get creative!

April Book of the Month

Posted on by

by Christian Boyles

Lab Rats book cover

Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us

by Dan Lyons

HD58.7 .L96 2018 | This title is also available electronically

At a time of soaring corporate profits and plenty of HR lip service about “wellness,” millions of workers–in virtually every industry–are deeply unhappy. Why did work become so miserable? Who is responsible? And does any company have a model for doing it right?

For two years, Lyons ventured in search of answers. From the innovation-crazed headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, to a cult-like “Holocracy” workshop in San Francisco, and to corporate trainers who specialize in … Legos, Lyons immersed himself in the often half-baked and frequently lucrative world of what passes for management science today. He shows how new tools, workplace practices, and business models championed by tech’s empathy-impaired power brokers have shattered the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees. These dystopian beliefs–often masked by pithy slogans like “We’re a Team, Not a Family”–have dire consequences: millions of workers who are subject to constant change, dehumanizing technologies–even health risks.

A few companies, however, get it right. With Lab Rats, Lyons makes a passionate plea for business leaders to understand this dangerous transformation, showing how profit and happy employees can indeed coexist.

Is it checked out? Don’t worry about it. Here are some other titles on the subject.

The High-Speed Company : Creating Urgency and Growth in a Nanosecond Culture
HD30.28 .J458 2015

No one knows the ins and outs of successful companies better than bestselling author Jason Jennings. Back in 2001, with It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small, It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow, Jennings proved that speed was the ultimate competitive advantage. But in 2015, companies of all sizes still struggle to adapt quickly. They know it’s crucial to their future but need help to get everyone implementing speed and urgency at all levels.

Jennings and his researchers have spent years up close and personal with thousands of organizations around the world—figuring out what makes them successful in both the short and long term. He understands the real challenges that keep more than eleven thousand CEOs, business owners, and executives up at night. And he knows how the best of the best combine speed and growth to deliver five times the average returns to shareholders.

The High-Speed Company reveals the unique practices of businesses that have proven records of urgency and growth. The key distinction is that they’ve created extraordinary cultures with a strong purpose, more trust, and relentless follow-through. These companies burn less energy, beat the competition, and have a lot of fun along the way.

Bad Blood : Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
HD9995.H423 U627 2018

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.

A riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.

The Know-It-Alls : the Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball  HD9696.2.U62 C64 2017

In The Know-It-Alls former New York Times technology columnist Noam Cohen chronicles the rise of Silicon Valley as a political and intellectual force in American life. Beginning nearly a century ago and showcasing the role of Stanford University as the incubator of this new class of super geeks, Cohen shows how smart guys like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg fell in love with a radically individualistic ideal and then mainstreamed it. With these very rich men leading the way, unions, libraries, public schools, common courtesy, and even government itself have been pushed aside to make way for supposedly efficient market-based encounters via the Internet.

Donald Trump’s election victory was an inadvertent triumph of the “disruption” that Silicon Valley has been pushing: Facebook and Twitter, eager to entertain their users, turned a blind eye to the fake news and the hateful ideas proliferating there. The Rust Belt states that shifted to Trump are the ones being left behind by a “meritocratic” Silicon Valley ideology that promotes an economy where, in the words of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, each of us is our own start-up. A society that belittles civility, empathy, and collaboration can easily be led astray. The Know-It-Alls explains how these self-proclaimed geniuses failed this most important test of democracy.

UCBA Library is Hiring!

Posted on by

by Elizabeth Sullivan

Now Hiring Student Workers with 3 people icons

Are you a positive, service-oriented, and reliable person?  Do you love books, technology, and helping others?  Are you looking for student employment for summer and fall semesters?  Then, a job at the library may be for you!

The UCBA Library is seeking enthusiastic student workers to join Continue reading →

And the Winners are…Results of the 2019 UC Libraries International Edible Books Festival

Posted on by
cupcakes

Best Overall – A Series of Unfortunate Cupcakes by the Warren Family

The University of Cincinnati Libraries celebrated the International Edible Books Festival on April 1, 2019.

Twenty edible books were created by students, faculty, staff, librarians, friends and family. The entries ranged from children’s books to literary classics to popular fiction and self-help books. The edible books were made of cakes, cookies, candy, deviled eggs and even carrots. Each entry was judged by our esteemed judges Debbie Tenofsky and Mary Anne McMillan and awarded a bookmark.

Created by librarian Judith A. Hoffberg and artist Béatrice Coron, the International Edible Books Festival is held worldwide annually on or around April 1st to mark the birthday of Jean Brillat-Savarin, author of The Physiology of Taste.  The global event has been celebrated since 2000 in various parts of the world, including in Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, The Netherlands, Russia and Hong Kong.

UC Libraries has participated in the International Edible Books Festival since 2001. The 2019 winners ares:

  • Most Humorous – After the Party by Olya Hart
  • Most Whimsical – The Monster at the End of This Book by Melissa Cox Norris
  • Most Literary – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Ben Kline and Aaron Libby
  • Most Creative – The Giving Tree by Jessica Ebert
  • Most Magical – Good Night Moon by Michelle Matevia
  • Most Adorable – Owl Moon by Debbie Weinstein
  • Most Clever – The Amazing Spider-Man by Sam Norris
  • Most Delicious – All New Square Foot Gardening by Luahna Winningham Carter
  • Most Deadly – Where the Red Fern Grows by Jack Norris
  • Most Checked Out – Green Eggs and Ham by Sami Scheidler
  • Most Fun – Middlemarch by Steve Norris
  • Most Taboo – Human Resources or was it Human Remains by Aja Hickman
  • Scariest – Ring by Holly Prochaska
  • Most Imaginative – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Jenny Mackiewicz
  • Silliest – Too Many Carrots by Melissa Cox Norris
  • Most Outrageous – A Dance with Dragons by Sam Kane
  • Best Overall – A Series of Unfortunate Cupcakes by the Warren Family
  • Best Student Entry – The Little Prince by Emma Duhamel and Eli Seidman-Deutsch

Congratulations to all the edible books creators! View the entries and the winners on the UC Libraries Facebook page. See you next year for Edible Books 2020!

Our Favorite Aristophanes Quotes

Posted on by

In connection with an event in the Classics Library’s Reading Room on March 28 to celebrate the life and works of the Greek comedy playwright Aristophanes (with lecture, recital of Lysistrata, “Dionysian” music, and Greek food), here are some of our favorite Aristophanes quotes.

“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something witty” (Knights 95-96).

“Always keep the people on your side by sweetening them with gourmet bons mots” (Knights 215-16).

“By words the mind is winged”  (Birds 1447-48).

“Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy” (Assemblywomen 206-208).

 “Let each man exercise the art he knows” (Wasps 1431).

“High thoughts must have high language” (Frogs 1058-59).

“[Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing” (Knights 217-219).

“You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it’s only in troublous times that you line your pockets” (Knights 864-67).

“It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls” (Birds 378-79).

“What matters that I was born a woman, if I can cure your misfortunes? I pay my share of tolls and taxes, by giving men to the State. But you, you miserable greybeards, you contribute nothing to the public charges; on the contrary, you have wasted the treasure of our forefathers, as it was called, the treasure amassed in the days of the Persian Wars. You pay nothing at all in return; and into the bargain you endanger our lives and liberties by your mistakes. Have you one word to say for yourselves?… Ah! don’t irritate me, you there, or I’ll lay my slipper across your jaws; and it’s pretty heavy” (Lysistrata 649-657).

 “[Y]ou [man] are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with [woman=] me, when for your faithful ally you might win me easily” (Lysistrata 1016-17).

“Under every stone lurks a politician”  (Thesmophoriazusae  529-30).

“A man can learn wisdom even from a foe” (Birds 375).

 “Politics, these days, is no occupation for an educated man, a man of character.
Ignorance and total lousiness are better”  (Knights 191-93) — Rebecka’s favorite quote.

“Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties” (Birds 375-80).

“Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right” (Acharnians 500).

“Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don’t believe in the gods. What’s your argument? Where’s your proof” (Knights 32-33)?

“Have you ever looked up and seen a cloud resembling a centaur, or a leopard, or a wolf, or a bull” (Clouds 346-47) — Mike’s favorite quote 1.

“Socrates: No, I just want to ask you a few questions. For instance, do you have a good memory?

Strepsiades: Yes and no, by Zeus: if I’m owed something, it’s good, but if I’m the hapless debtor, it’s bad” (Clouds 482-85).

“… and it is my heart’s desire, after many a long season, to embrace the fig trees that I planted myself when I was young” (Peace 558-59).

“Well, in our opinion it’s possible to hear them out first; a wise person can in fact learn something beneficial even from his enemies” (Birds 381-82).

“Ah democracy, what will you bring us to in the end, if the gods can elect this person ambassador” (Birds 1570-71)?

“One’s country is wherever one does well” (Wealth 1151).

“When I’m in the audience and see one of those clever bits, I go home a whole year older” (Frogs 16-18) – Angelica’s favorite quote.

“…brekekekex koax koax!” (Frogs 210) — Mike’s favorite quote 2.