Tag Archives: Expand Our Impact

Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries

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Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

In this issue of Source, Liz Kiscaden, dean and university librarian, writes about a new global library collaboration with the library at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. We announce the opening of two renovated library spaces: the Science Library and the CECH Library Reading Room as we bid a fond farewell to Crosley Tower. We highlight library services in the CECH Library to improve accessibility and our expanding Evidence Synthesis group. Library collections are on display in the Chem Bio building renovation featuring the Oesper Collection and online in a new exhibit by the Archives and Rare Books Library about the Bronson v. the Cincinnati Board of Education. Spring is events season in UC Libraries, and we feature those currently on the calendar.

Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

Celebrate the grand opening of the Science Library Monday, Feb. 16, 2-4pm

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science library invite

During the summer and fall semesters of 2025, a significant university investment fueled the vibrant formation of a combined Science Library in Braunstein Hall. This thoughtfully transformed space creates a united hub of services, spaces, technology and specialized collections dedicated to supporting the teaching and research needs of the Natural Sciences departments within the College of Arts & Sciences. Although its collections focus on the sciences, the Science Library invites ALL to come and enjoy and make use of the revitalized space in the heart of UC’s campus.

Celebrate Our Grand Opening!
We invite you to join us on Monday, February 16 from 2:00-4:00pm for the Science Library’s Grand Opening Reception! Enjoy refreshments, learn about our new spaces and services, be inspired by our special collections displays, explore science through demonstrations and more!

The Science Library boasts a new service desk, new carpeting, expanded and improved lighting, updated stair treads and a remarkable selection of contemporary furniture. Seating capacity has greatly increased, and over 230 seats are available for individual study, computing, group collaboration and a wide range of special events. The interior design – highlighted by innovative fabrics and wall graphics – draws inspiration from scientific disciplines and the natural world, including works by Cincinnati-based artist Charley Harper. A soothing palette of blues and greens invites students and other visitors alike to experience focus and tranquility.

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Explaining Academic Librarianship to 3rd and 4th Graders

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I recently had the unique opportunity to visit my child’s classroom on Career Day to talk about academic librarianship. The audience was a pod of nearly 100 third and fourth graders, and I had 15 minutes to make an impression.

To start, I shared a short time-lapse video of our library building, highlighting collaborative spaces, art installations, and our massive stacks. The kids seemed genuinely engaged. I talked about student employment opportunities in university libraries, which caught the attention of a few of the fourth-grade girls. From there, I moved into an age-appropriate lesson on information literacy—how to recognize fake information in (my son’s favorite) YouTube videos and across the internet more broadly.

I introduced Special Collections and explained just how old some of our materials are, hundreds of years old, in fact, which managed to impress even the hardest-to-impress third and fourth graders. My one misstep was mentioning the artist of our very cool Tricercopter: The Hope for the Obsolescence of War sculpture, requested that their ashes be placed inside the piece after their death. I immediately knew I’d gone too far when a student raised their hand to ask, “What are ashes?”

In all honesty, this was a challenging presentation. Academic librarianship is incredibly broad; how do you choose what to share when your goal is to inspire future librarians? With the rapid introduction of new technologies like artificial intelligence, our work is becoming even more critical. We’re facing yet another overwhelming flood of information and are tasked with understanding how it’s created, building ethical and moral guardrails for its use, and, of course, identifying what’s fake. If current trends are any indication, we are going to be drowning in AI-generated content very soon, if we aren’t already.

This is core librarian work. We have been organizing, evaluating, and understanding information since the dawn of recorded knowledge. To keep up, we must continually adapt our foundational frameworks to meet challenges we haven’t yet experienced or even imagined.

This is an exciting, and some might say transformational, time for librarianship and higher education. I hope I was able to convey that excitement to those bright third and fourth graders, because we’re going to need their help.

Join us Feb. 18 for an afternoon of poetry at the next Poetry Stacked event

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The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next roster of poets for Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library.

At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:

poets Richard Hague, Chelsea Whitton and Emma Johnson-Rivard
  • Richard Hague is author or editor of 23 volumes, including, with Sherry Cook Stanforth and Michael Thompson, Tributaria: Poetry, Prose, & Art Inspired by Tributaries of the Ohio River Watershed, the poetry collection Continued Cases, and the essay collection Earnest Occupations: Teaching, Writing, Gardening, & Other Local Work. He was named Co-Poet of the Year in 1984 by the Ohio Poetry Association, received the Appalachian Poetry Book of the Year in 2003, and the Weatherford Award in Poetry in 2013. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee in both poetry and nonfiction and has received several Individual Artist Fellowships in poetry and creative nonfiction from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Katherine Bakeless Scholarship in Creative Nonfiction to Bread Loaf. He is 2025-2027 Poet Laureate of Cincinnati & The Mercantile Library and was 2021-2022 President of the Literary Club of Cincinnati. He has taught writing in Cincinnati and elsewhere for 56 years.
  • Chelsea Whitton is the author of Bear Trap and Wonder Wheel, forthcoming in March of 2026. She holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in Poetry from The New School. Her poetry and prose have appeared in many of print and online publications, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, Cream City Review, Poetry Ireland, The Atlanta Review, and Forklift-Ohio. Her work has been a finalist for the Gearhart Prize and the Frost Place and Adrienne Richard awards for poetry. She is the recipient of the 2018 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize. Since 2021 she has been a staff member for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Raised in North Carolina, she spent her twenties in New York, and now lives in Cincinnati with her husband, Matthew, their twin sons, and their cat, Dolly. She teaches creative writing and literature at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. 
  • Emma Johnson-Rivard is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Tales to Terrify, Red Flag Poetry, and others. She can be found @blackcattales on Bluesky and at emmajohnson-rivard.com. 
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Learning 3D imaging in the Preservation Lab

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On a cold, snowy Friday at the end of the semester,The Preservation Lab hosted a 3D imaging workshop where two professors from UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art & Planning (DAAP) taught 3D imaging techniques to a small group of imaging colleagues from Ohio and Michigan labs.

jordan tate demonstrating 3d imaging

The instructors, Jordan Tate and John-David Richardson, both teach photography in DAAP. Previously, Jordan cross-collaborated with Jessica Ebert from the Preservation Lab on imaging the Assyrian Cornerstone, found in the collection of the Archives and Rare Books Library. Jordan demonstrated 3D imaging techniques and Jessica demonstrated how to do Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI).

Participants in the Friday, Dec.12th workshop were:

  • Jessica Ebert – UC Libraries, Preservation Lab
  • Catarina Figueirinhas – UC Libraries, Preservation Lab
  • Erin Wilson – Ohio University Libraries, Preservation & Digital Initiatives
  • Matt Carissimi – The Ohio State University Libraries, Digitization
  • Sidney Gao – UC Libraries, Digital Initiatives Team
  • Biz Gallo – Library of Michigan, Digitization Initiatives
  • Dustin Wood – New South Associates/Veterans Affairs History Office (Dayton), Digital Archives & Museum Imaging Specialist
The Yoruba, Luba or Luluwa/Lulua Statue (circa 1800—1900)

The object photographed came from the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions.

The Yoruba, Luba or Luluwa/Lulua Statue (circa 1800—1900) was presented by “the Interns & Residents Wives Club, 1974” to the University of Cincinnati Hospital. The statue’s distinct shapes and facial features match most closely to the sculpture style of the Yoruba, Luba or Luluwa/Lulua. The figure appears to be working with a mortar and pestle, and was made for sale, rather than ceremonial or cultural use.

The Preservation Lab provides the full suite of preservation services to the University of Cincinnati Libraries. The Lab’s expertise is in book and paper conservation, with services available in general circulating materials repair, single-item conservation treatment, housing, exhibition prep and preservation consulting.

The use of 3D imaging in preservation is crucial as it creates an accurate visual record of an object before and after treatment. It allows conservators to examine often fragile objects in close detail without touching, and possibly damaging, the structure. In addition, 3D imaging provides a visual record for students and researchers to view and study.

Join us Nov. 19 for an afternoon of poetry at the next Poetry Stacked event

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The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next roster of poets for Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library.

At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:



Kim Jacobs-Beck is the author of Luminaries and a chapbook, Torch. Her poems can be seen in Museum of Americana, Great Lakes Review, West Trestle Review, Nixes Mate, Gyroscope, SWWIM, and Apple Valley Review, among other journals. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Milk & Cake Press. Kim is professor of English at UC Clermont College.

Matt Hart is the author of 12 books of poetry, including most recently FALLING FINE: Selected & New Poems. His poems, reviews and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous print and online journals, including American Poetry Review, Big Bell, The Kenyon Review and Poetry, among others. From 1993-2019, he was a co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety. Currently, he lives in Cincinnati where he plays in the post-punk/indie rock band NEVERNEW and edits, solders, and publishes the poetry journal SOLID STATE.

Bella Gordo is a creative writing student at UC, where she is an intern for Short Vine Literary Journal and the vice president of Cincinnati Poetry Collective. She edits the zine Cincinnati Girlfriend with her roommate in hopes to spread awareness of the revolutionary potential of bug life in the Queen City. 

In addition to reading their poetry, each poet will speak briefly on their experience as an editor.

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Check out two new exhibits on display in Langsam Library

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Two new exhibits have been installed in the Walter C. Langsam Library.

On display on the 4th floor lobby, Bronson v. Board of Education: Cincinnati Desegregation Efforts in the 1960s and 1970s chronicles the work of project archivist Julianna Witt as she completed the archival processing of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s, Bronson v. Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati records. This collection contains material related to the class-action lawsuit Bronson v. Board from 1974-1984 and consists of legal documents created for court submission and records that originated from the Cincinnati Board of Education. The collection itself, housed in the Archives and Rare Books (ARB) Library, provides a detailed history of race relations in Cincinnati. A finding aid is available for more information.

Last November, the University of Cincinnati Libraries announced the award of an Archives Grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to ARB.

bronson v board of education: Cincinnati desegration efforts in the 1960s and 1970s

On display on the 5th floor lobby is an exhibit promoting The Libraries of UC. The exhibit includes images and descriptions of each of the nine University of Cincinnati Libraries, along with the fan-favorite Triceracopter. A map of the libraries is available for take away at the exhibit.

the libraries of UC. come learn about all nine of our amazing libraries and their spaces

Both exhibits were designed by UC Libraries design co-op student Ashleigh Stout.

Poetry Stacked presents the workshop: Masques & Personas, Thursday, Oct. 30

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Join Poetry Stacked for the fall workshop: Masques & Personas, led by Kristyn Garza, Poetry Stacked alumna and PhD student in poetry at the University of Cincinnati. 

Thursday, Oct. 30, 6:30pm ~ Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Learn about persona poetry over spooky snacks. Come in a costume and compete to win fun prizes!

poetry stacked workshop flyer

A semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library, the mission of Poetry Stacked is to celebrate poetry and raise awareness of the collections of both UC Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room.

Pharmacy Education in the Queen City: Cecil Striker Annual Lecture

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The Henry R. Winkler Center for the Health Professions and the Cecil Striker Society present the Annual Cecil Striker Lecture.

cecil striker lecture

The lecture, “Pharmacy Education in the Queen City: 1850-2025” presented by Dennis B. Worthen, PhD, is in celebration of the James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy’s 175th anniversary.

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 5-7pm
Kowalewski Hall Auditorium, room 140

The event is open to all. RSVP by Sept. 30. Can’t attend in person? The lecture will be streamed live via Zoom.

After the event, visit the University of Cincinnati Pharmacy Education exhibit in the Stanley J. Lucas, MD, Board Room in the UC Medical Sciences Building. The exhibit will feature images and artifacts held by the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions. The exhibit will feature biographical information about Dr. Dennis B. Worthen, an 1815 downtown Cincinnati map, the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy Charter and various buildings, the Queen City College of Pharmacy, Cincinnati College of Pharmacy Students, the esteemed Dr. Joseph Kowalewski and information about the College of Pharmacy Cosmetic Science program. The images will be accompanied by pharmaceutical artifacts.

Originally formed in 1976, the Cecil Striker Society for the History of Medicine was called the Medical History Society. One month after its first meeting Dr. Striker died, prompting members to rename the organization the Cecil Striker Society. Its purpose was straightforward: to promote and perpetuate an interest in the history of medicine and all related disciplines in the health care field.

Continued support of the Winkler Center

Dennis B. and Patricia L. Worthen have generously funded an annual travel grant/scholarship (award not to exceed $5000 per year) to underwrite the expenses related to visiting and researching materials held at the University of Cincinnati’s Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions. Located within the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, the Center is home to over 100 archival collections including those from physicians, scientists, inventors, nurses, pharmacists and artists. Also included are histories of Cincinnati hospitals, the development of medical equipment and/or now-standard protocols, as well as letters and drawings from the Civil War.

The grant will be made to individuals whose permanent address is more than 150 miles from the University.  Applicants who are graduate students, non-tenured faculty and/or independent scholars will be given first consideration.

All travel grants require a scholarly product such as a manuscript or a presentation.

Grants will be administered by a Grant Committee comprised of the Director of the Health Sciences Library, the Archivist/Curator of the Winkler Center and the donors or their proxy.

The 2025/26 call for applications will take place in the fall. Stay tuned!

Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

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Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

In this issue of Source, Liz Kiscaden, dean and university librarian, welcomes Bearcats to campus and we highlight what we did over the summer. We announce a new digital collection, The Daniel S. Young Archives of Medical Illustrations, as well as a collaboration to digitize rare manuscripts. We invite readers to the upcoming Cecil Striker Annual Lecture, “Pharmacy Education in the Queen City,” and to learn more about other Library Events. Chris Platts, assistant professor of art history and frequent collaborator with the Libraries, talks about some of his projects and research interests. And Katie Foran-Mulcahy writes about efforts to re-make the MakerLab in the CECH Library.

Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.