Join us for the Annual Preservation Lab Open House, Thursday, May 1, 2-4pm, 3rd floor Langsam Library. “More than Conservation” will include tours of the lab, demonstrations of projects and treatments, cookies, bookmarks, and stickers!
Want a sneak peek of the work of the Preservation Lab? Stop by Langsam Library’s 4th floor to learn about artist’s books and book arts, Tuesday, April 15, 2-3:30pm; and Thursday, April 17, 10:30am-noon to learn about the anatomy of a book.
Formed in 2012, the Preservation Lab is a book and paper conservation lab. The Preservation Lab provides the full suite of preservation services to the University of Cincinnati Libraries and, for a fee, to other cultural heritage institutions. The Preservation 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 University of Cincinnati Libraries celebrated the International Edible Books Festival on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.
Lexi Davis – Dragons Love Tacos – Best Overall
This year, we had an impressive 24 entries from students, librarians and staff, along with family, friends and retirees. There are few restrictions in creating an edible book – namely that the creation be edible and have something to do with a book. Today’s entries covered all genres – from fiction to non-fiction, animals, food, classics, contemporary titles and more.
Popular books represented on screen and now as edible books were “Dune,” “Bridgerton,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Twilight.” Children’s books made for popular edible books. This year we had “Charlotte’s Web,” “Freckle Juice,” “Too Many Carrots,” “Black Hearts in Buttersea,” and “Matilda.” Young Adult books made a presence this year with “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “Harry Potter.”
Animals were a theme this year with “Penguin Island,” “Dragons Love Tacos” and “How to Eat Fried Worms.” Both fiction, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” “Grapes of Wrath,” “The Silver Bone” and “White Teeth,” and non-fiction, “Eyes on the Prize,” “An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits,” and “How Infrastructure Works: Inside Systems that Shape our World” were represented. Along with the 18th-century classic “De montibus, silvis, fontibus”
In addition to promoting the reading of books, we also use this event to promote and “judge” the creativity of our colleagues and friends in creating edible books. Thank you to the two esteemed judges: Brian Gray, associate dean for collections (non-edible collections), and Usha (oo-sh-uh), student staff member in the CECH Library. And the winners are…
Melissa Cox Norris – Penguin Island – Most Adorable
Sam Norris – Too Many Carrots – Most Noteworthy
Carly Fledderjohann – The Cheese Touch (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) – Most Noteworthy
Deborah Weinstein – Charlotte’s Web – Most Imaginative
Stephen Norris – The Silver Bone – Most Outrageous
Avery Rice – Pride and Prejudice – Most Checked Out
Melissa Cox Norris – Difficult Women – Most Out of this World
Aja Bettencourt-McCarthy – How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World – Most Creative
Luahna Winningham Carter – Freckle Juice – Most Gruesome
Jakob Elliott – Dune – Silliest
Jessica Ebert – Black Hearts in Battersea (“buttercream”) – Most Delicious
Josh Zack, Tim Zack, and Debbie Tenofsky – Eyes on the Prize – Most Frightening
Holly Prochaska – How to eat fried worms – Most Clever
Yu Mao – Atomic Habits – An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – Most Literary
Alex Temple – De montibus, silvis, fontibus – Most Technical
Suzanne Bratt – The Warmth of Other Suns – Most Timely
Lisa Haitz – The Grapes of Wrath – Most Fun
Clara Kelley – Harry potter sorting hat – Best Student Entry
Lexi Davis – Dragons Love Tacos – Best Overall
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 2026!
Clara Kelley – Harry potter sorting hat – Best Student Entry
At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, April 16 at 4:30pm, a celebration of both National Poetry Month and the final event of the academic year, three poets will read their work:
Paige Webb is an interdisciplinary poet-scholar. Other categorical boxes to aid legibility: they’re a queer, neurodivergent being of settler descent and a doctor untrained in basic CPR. The aim of their work is to create space for curative touch in concert with the creative vitality in all beings (thanks to Gabrielle Civil, Hortense Spillers, and CAConrad for help with this language). They are a Charles Phelps Taft Fellow at the University of Cincinnati and recipient of [accolade], [accolade], [accolade]. You can find some of their work at Anomaly, Blackbird, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, The Kenyon Review, Poets.org, Poetry Northwest, Verse Daily,Vinyl Poetry and Prose, West Branch and the chapbook Tussle.
Kristi Maxwell is the author of nine books of poems, including Wide Ass of Night (Saturnalia Books, 2025); Goners (Green Linden Press, 2023), winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize; Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta Press, 2008), editor’s choice for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series; and Hush Sessions (Saturnalia,2009), editor’s choice for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She’s the director of creative writing and an associate professor of English at the University of Louisville. Kristi holds a PhD in literature & creative writing from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona.
Dior J. Stephens is a Black, Queer poet, writer and the co-editor-in-chief of Foglifter Journal and Press. They are currently in the final year of their PhD in philosophy with a focus on creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Dior’s debut full-length poetry collection, CRUEL/CRUEL (2023), was nominated for the 2024 Ohioana Book Award, and their collection Atomic I is forthcoming from Nightboat Books. A Cave Canem, Sewanee and Lambda Literary fellow, Dior has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. Their work critically engages with themes of language, identity, and resistance, contributing to the broader conversations in poetics and the Black/Diasporic experience.
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 how UC Libraries is taking advantage of funding opportunities to Invest in Strategic Priorities. The Archives and Rare Books Library announces receipt of a national grant to process historic Cincinnati schools desegregation case records.The Carl Solway Gallery Archive in the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) Library is featured. Ted Baldwin, head of the Sciences Libraries, writes about how the razing of the iconic Crosley Tower will necessitate the move of the current Chemistry-Biology Library space to Braunstein Hall where it will merge with the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library to become the Science Library opening fall semester.
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.
At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:
Aditi Machado is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Material Witness from Nightboat; a novel translation from the French; and several pamphlets of nonfiction prose and poetry. Soon-to-be published works include a book-length translation of Swiss poet Baptiste Gaillard’s In the Realm of Motes and the collaborative mistranslation project Ancient Algorithms headed by Katrine Øgaard Jensen. Machado is an Associate Professor at UC and an Advisory Poetry Editor at The Paris Review.
Abigail Rudibaugh is a writer and teacher. Her writing has been published in Pensworth Literary Journal, Noble Pursuit Magazine, and Fathom Magazine. Abigail holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching through the Ohio Writing Project at Miami University as well as a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry through Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. She calls Cincinnati, Ohio home with her husband and two daughters.
Whitney Hendrix is an undergraduate senior at the University of Cincinnati. Raised in a small conservative town in Northeast Ohio, she much enjoys the Cincinnati student lifestyle. She will graduate this Spring with degrees in English Creative Writing and Film and Media Studies. Whitney mainly writes poetry but is inspired by all genres and forms of storytelling. Her work explores themes of identity, the mundane every day, memory, and childhood. Most of Whitney’s literary inspiration comes from her dream journal and her favorite fiction novelist Ottessa Moshfegh.
Join UC Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room for a hands-on discussion and workshop about creating Cento poetry.
Thursday, Nov. 14, 6:30pm
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Katie Foran-Mulcahy, librarian and head of the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services Library, will begin the event with an overview of library collections. She will instruct how to navigate the stacks and then give directions on how to proceed with a scavenger hunt to find resources to collect lines from various texts.
Dior Stephens, poet and PhD graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, will then lead participants in a workshop to create their own Cento poem. Dior will introduce the Cento form, its history and creative potential, and explain that participants can use lines from any genre of books they find in the stacks to create their own poems.
The event is free and open to all to attend. Come to learn about and create a Cento poem.
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, announces UC Libraries Strategic Plan, 2024-2027. This participatory and data-informed process to draft a Strategic Plan resulted in a renewed mission, Values and four Strategic Directions: Enrich Our Collections, Expand Our Impact, Strengthen Our Organization and Support Our Students.
This special issue of Source includes examples of how we’re already working to achieve the goals articulated in our Strategic Directions:
Enrich Our Collections. Social Activist with a press showcases recently acquired work of Amos Kennedy to the collections of the Archives and Rare Books Library.
Expand Our Impact. Read about Mac-Anthony Cobblah‘s, university librarian for the Sam Jonah Library at the University of Cape Coast, summer visit to UC Libraries, as well as an article about how three librarians from the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library launched a pilot 15-week Systematic Review cohort.
Support Our Students. Two recent UC collaborations – one with the UC Learning Commons to provide student and tutoring opportunities in Langsam Library and another with the Accessibility Resources Offices to revamp the Accessible Technology Space – are prime examples of how UC Libraries is working for students.
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.
