Food, film and plenty of information-sharing will be brought into focus Nov. 14-19, when UC celebrates International Education Week.
UC Libraries is participating in International Education Week with the exhibit Travel the World with UC Libraries, currently on display on Langsam Library’s 4th floor and featuring guidebooks, phrase books, and websites that will aid people in their travels. More information about the exhibit is available online.
On Saturday, October 22, the 5th annual Books by the Banks: Cincinnati USA Book Festival will take place at Duke Energy Convention Center from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The day-long festival will feature over 100 regional and national authors, book signings, author panels, and activities for the entire family to enjoy. All events are free and open to the public.
People love to travel; and UC students really love to travel. According to UC International, over the past five years, between 830 and 874 students participated in the study abroad programs annually. In addition, numerous UC faculty, students, and staff travel abroad for pleasure, business, performances, community service, and other reasons.
So what makes a successful travel experience? A good guidebook. UC Libraries’ print and digital collections provide excellent resources for travelers. Travel the World with UC Libraries, an exhibit currently on display on Langsam Library’s 4th floor, features guidebooks, phrase books, and websites that will aid people in their travels.
Join UC Libraries at a talk by renowned book conservator William Minter who will display and discuss the conservation treatment he did to the historic Martyrs Mirror. Scheduled for Friday, October 28th from 1:30-3:00pm in 814 Blegen, the talk is free and open to the public. A Q&A will follow and refreshments will be served.
The fall “Life of the Mind” lecture series will kick off Tuesday, October 18 from 3:30-5pm in the Russell C. Myers Alumni Center. Free and open to the UC community and public, “Life of the Mind” features interdisciplinary conversations with UC faculty around a one-word theme followed by audience Q&A. The fall “Life of the Mind” theme is “War.”
By Elizabeth Meyer
The Terrace Plaza Hotel by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill is a Modernist masterpiece in Downtown Cincinnati. The exhibit features over 40 photographs of the hotel from its heyday in the 40s and 50s.
In addition to photos, architectural plans, letters, newspaper articles, and quotes from those involved in the project, one can also view Rookwood ashtrays, a bottle of Terrace Plaza Kentucky Bourbon, Gourmet Room and Skyline Room menus, other restaurant objects such as spoons, forks, knives, ladles, aperitif glasses, cocktail shakers all adorned with either TPs or rooster logos. Also on view is what is believed to be the only surviving piece of furniture from 1948 –a restored barstool from the cocktail lounge.
By Janice Schulz
In observance of Banned Books Week, celebrated this year from September 24 through October 1, 2011, the Archives & Rare Books Library has compiled a list of Rare Book titles that have appeared on the American Library Association’s (ALA) most challenged books lists. Each book on our list is presented with an image, challenge incidents, and reasons for challenges.
By Kevin Grace
Is there a Taft fashion cult lurking about campus? This morning saw the William Howard Taft statue outside the College of Law decked out like he was going to a Jimmy Buffet concert. Replete with hula skirt, tee shirt, shades, and beanie, Big Bill definitely looked like he was ready for an end-of-summer blowout.
The Taft statue was erected on the east side of the law school in 1992. Sculpted by William T. Moore III, the statue shows Taft in his judicial robes and clasping a law book in his hand. A graduate of Woodward High School, Yale, and the Cincinnati Law School, William Howard Taft served as dean of his law alma mater from 1896 to 1900. The Cincinnati Law School was the last remnant of the original Cincinnati College founded in 1819. As dean, Taft assisted with the 1897 merger of his school with the Law Department of the University of Cincinnati and served as dean of the combined programs, called the College of Law. Continue reading
By Janice Schulz
“We heard on every side, that of all the known places on ‘the globe called earth,’ Cincinnati was the most favourable for a young man to settle in…”
From Domestic Manners of the Americans
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Mrs. Frances Trollope
London gentlewoman Mrs. Frances Trollope had an idea. She would open a shop – a shop in America where she could offer the residents of that fast-growing country the finer things in life – unique items that they otherwise would not have the chance to purchase. Her middle son Henry could run the store, establish himself in a lucrative business, and take advantage of the opportunities that America had to offer a young man. Although possessed of the highest manners and an impressive family background, the Trollopes were not wealthy by the definition of London society, a fact that seriously interfered with Mrs. Trollope’s plans, especially for her children’s future. So she looked to America, and specifically to Cincinnati, to provide the right economic climate and market for her shop idea. In the end the venture was not a smashing success and her expectations of Cincinnati were far from confirmed, but the trip resulted in what would become Mrs. Trollope’s crowning glory, Domestic Manners of the Americans, a travel log of her adventures in the United States. While the book earned Mrs. Trollope popularity and was hailed as a triumph in her homeland, its revelations of uncultured Americans served to portray her as a snobbish villain in the States, particularly with the residents of Cincinnati. Continue reading
By Lauren Fink
Van Meter Ames (left) with John Cage.
A new collection, documenting the friendship between composer John Cage and UC professor Van Meter Ames, has just been added to the Van Meter Ames Papers in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library. Van Meter Ames was a faculty member in the UC philosophy department, beginning in 1925, and served as its head from 1959 until 1966 when he retired. Ames was a Rockefeller grantee, a fellow of the UC graduate school, and a Fulbright research professor in philosophy, University of Komozawa, Tokyo, 1958-59. Throughout his career, Ames wrote and published on a vast range of topics including aesthetics, the self, ethics, religion, science, freedom, existentialism, and Eastern philosophy. His interest in Zen paralleled Cage’s and solidified their mutual respect for one another, which is evidenced in this collection of documents.