Tag Archives: Library News

Join us Wednesday, Feb. 1 for an afternoon of poetry

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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. 1 at 4:30pm, three poets will read original works.

feb 1 poetsSimone Savannah, PhD is the author of Uses of My Body (Barrow Street 2020), the winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize chosen by Jericho Brown. She is also the author of Like Kansas (Big Lucks 2018). Her work has been published in Apogee, The Fem, Powder Keg, GlitterMob, Shade Journal, BreakBeat Poets, and several other journals and anthologies. She has received nominations for Best New Poets and Best of the Net. Simone is originally from Columbus, Ohio. She earned her MEd and BA from Ohio University. She holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Kansas. She is currently the 2021-23 Taft Research Center Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.

Yalie Saweda Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator and researcher from Oakland, California. Selected as the 2022-23 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate (2-year term), she is the editor of the anthology What You Need to Know About Me: Young Writers on Their Experience of Immigration (The Hawkins Project, 2022) and the author of A Brief Biography of My Name (African Poetry Book Fund/Akashic Books, 2018) and When the Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017). She has been a finalist for the National Poetry Series competition and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and a semifinalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She earned a PhD in creative writing and English literature from the University of Cincinnati, an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University, Bloomington and an MA in French culture and civilization from Middlebury College. Yalie currently resides in Cincinnati where she works as the director of creative youth leadership at WordPlay Cincy and is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati. For more, visit her website: www.yaylala.com

Casey Harloe is a 4th year creative writing student at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in DIALOGIST, BRENDA, and Poets.org. She is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize. She lives in Cincinnati. Continue reading →

Lauren Reder joins UC Libraries as a cataloger focusing on Classics and Modern Greek

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lauren rederLauren Reder joined the University of Cincinnati Libraries on Monday, Jan. 9 as a cataloger focusing on Classics and Modern Greek.

Lauren has been working in the Libraries’ Content Services Team in a full-time temporary capacity since November 2021. She holds an MSLIS degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BA in classical languages and cultures from Wright State University, with minors in English and art history.

Her responsibilities in the eResources & Access team will focus on serving as the primary cataloger for the Classics/Modern Greek collection. She will additionally provide general cataloging support across all collections, complete quality control routines, participate in e-resource projects, trouble-shoot problems in discovery and access and create and manage team procedural manuals and online content that are being converted to LibGuides where appropriate.

Welcome, Lauren, to UC Libraries!

Winter Break hours for UC Libraries

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winter sceneWinter Break Hours for the University of Cincinnati Libraries began Monday, Dec. 12. All library locations will be CLOSED Friday, Dec. 23 through Monday, Jan. 2, except for the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library (HSL), which will be open noon-5pm, Dec. 27-30 and closed Dec. 23-26 and Dec. 31-Jan. 2.

A listing of all hours is available on the Libraries website as well as at each library location online and in person.

Have a relaxing and safe Winter Break. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Meni Johnson joins UC Libraries as Senior Human Resources Coordinator

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meni johnsonMeni Johnson began work Monday, December 12 in the UC Libraries Business Office as the senior human resources coordinator.

Meni joins UC after six years with Amazon. At her previous employer, she served as a senior human resources assistant and a human resources generalist. In these roles she managed day-to-day HR processes and organized employee engagement activities. Meni has additional experience working with the United States Census Bureau. In this role she trained employees, evaluated and reviewed assignments, monitored staff performance and approved payroll and leave submissions. Meni’s educational background includes a master’s degree in human resources development from Xavier University.

Welcome, Meni, to UC Libraries!

The University of Cincinnati seeks the next dean and university librarian

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The University of Cincinnati seeks a visionary and dynamic leader to serve as dean and university librarian. Reporting directly to the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, the dean is the chief administrator over numerous venues, facilities, collections, and oversees a diverse faculty and staff. The dean is also a member of the Council of Deans and actively participates in the governance of the university. As the intellectual and administrative leader of the Libraries, the next dean will play a key role in developing new ideas and forging consensus among stakeholders to build upon current and past successes and further strengthen the Libraries’ presence on campus.  Continue reading →

‘Indigenous Dispossession.’ UC Libraries exhibit highlights laws, treaties and policies that resulted in mass Indian Removal

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In honor of Native American Heritage Month, the University of Cincinnati Libraries’ RESPECT (Racial Equity Support Programming to Educate the Community Team), presents the exhibit “Indigenous Dispossession: U.S. laws & policies promoting European settlement and Western Expansion resulting in Indian Removal from tribal, ancestral lands.”

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Rant Che Wai Me. From the McKenney and Hall digital collection.

On display on the 4th floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library, the exhibit begins by listing the justification for European Settlement on Native American lands through the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny, the ideas that the United States is destined to expand its dominion and to spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. The exhibit then goes on to list laws and acts such as the Northwest Ordinance, Indian Removal Act and the General Allotment Act that all contributed to the removal of Native American peoples from their tribal homes. It also includes information on the Indian Civilization Act, which aimed to “civilize” and “Christianize” Native children. What resulted was a loss of their culture and identity and a system of abuse.

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Ne Sou A Quoit – A Fox Chief. From McKenney and Hall digital collection.

The second part of the exhibit, on display on the 5th floor lobby, outlines steps to rectify the early treatment of Native Americans by granting citizenship and ending allotment of tribal lands with such policies as the Indian Citizenship Act, the Indian Reorganization Act and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. It is noted, however, that while legislation around self-determination and self-governance offers a certain degree of independence and protection under the law, the legacy of displacement, oppression and neglect in American public policy affects Native communities and families to this day.

The exhibit highlights the collections of UC Libraries by featuring prominently illustrations from George Catlin who traveled the North American continent from 1830-1838 to chronicle the people, customs and traditions of Native American tribes and from Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall’s “History of the Indian Tribes of North America.”

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From George Catlin’s “The Printed Works.”

To learn more, a bibliography of works from the collections of UC Libraries is available in print at the exhibit and online as a PDF.

The exhibit helps the RESPECT group in their mission to draw awareness of Systemic Racism, defined as “policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued, unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.”

Announcing the poets for the Nov. 30 Poetry Stacked

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The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next set 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. 30 at 4:30pm, three poets will read original works.

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  • Rebecca Lindenberg is the author of Love, an Index (McSweeney’s) and The Logan Notebooks (Mountain West Poetry Series), winner of the 2015 Utah Book Award. She’s the recipient of an Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Fellowship, an NEA Literature Grant, and a seven-month fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, among other awards and honors. Her work appears in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Tin House, The Believer, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Missouri Review, Best American Poetry 2019 and elsewhere. She’s a member of the poetry faculty at the University of Cincinnati, where she also serves as poetry editor of the Cincinnati Review.
  • Manuel Iris. Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Cincinnati, Ohio (2018-2020). He received the “Merida” National award of poetry (Mexico, 2009) for his book Notebook of Dreams, and the Rodulfo Figueroa Regional award of poetry for his book The Disguises of Fire (Mexico, 2014). In 2016 two different anthologies of his poetic work were published: The Naked Light, in Venezuela; and Before the Mystery, in El Salvador. His first bilingual anthology of poems, Traducir el silencio/Translating Silence, was published in New York in 2018. This book won two different awards in the International Latino Book Awards in Los Angeles, California, in that same year. In 2021, he became a member of the prestigious System of Art Creators of Mexico (Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte). His latest book The Parting Present/Lo que se ira received the Reader’s choice award from the Ohioana Library Association, and was also recognized at the 2022 International Latino Book Awards.
  • Rome Hernández Morgan is a second-year doctoral student in English, Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati where she is a Provost Fellow. She received her MFA from the University of Arkansas. She translates from Spanish and Portuguese and her poetry has appeared in Blackbird, The Journal and New Ohio Review.

Continue reading →

Prominent civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein donates papers to the University of Cincinnati

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Al Gerhardstein, noted Cincinnati civil rights attorney, has donated to the University of Cincinnati Libraries’ Archives and Rare Books Library, papers documenting his nearly 50-year career in civil rights litigation and advocacy, with focuses in reproductive rights, prisoner’s rights, policing, employment discrimination, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

Material to be found in the extensive collection includes briefs, pleadings, depositions, trial transcriptions, newspaper, magazine and journal articles, as well as correspondence and speeches spanning Gerhardstein’s career and notable legal cases. There are 184 boxes available for research, with 45 more boxes sealed under court order.

supreme court letter

Excerpt from letter notifying Mr. Gerhardstein that his case was entered into the Supreme Court.

Prominent cases in the collection include:

  • Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case establishing marriage equality for same-sex couples in all 50 states. Gerhardstein represented Jim Obergefell in this fight to be recognized as the husband of John Arthur.
  • Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati v. Project Jericho, et al., which was a lawsuit against anti-abortion groups for their continued harassment of women seeking abortion and their providers, after a member of one of the groups firebombed the Margaret Sanger Center abortion clinic in 1985.
  • Prisoner rights lawsuit in response to the 1993 Lucasville Prison riots, where Gerhardstein represented inmates against prison officials for failure to protect them during the riot and the forces that caused the riot.
  • Litigation to declare unconstitutional Article XII, which was voted into the Cincinnati City Charter in 1993 and actively prohibited Cincinnati from protecting LGBT people from discrimination.
  • Creation of the Collaborative Agreement as a partnership between the ACLU, Black United Front, the city of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police, which re-oriented the philosophy of policing in Cincinnati towards a Community Problem Oriented Policing (CPOP) model. It was the result of a civil rights action filed on behalf of a class of African American citizens of Cincinnati based on discriminatory policing including racial profiling, excessive force and disproportionate arrests of African Americans. The success of the Collaborative Agreement made Cincinnati a national role model for police reform.

Continue reading →

Read Source for the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries

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

In this issue of Source, we document the record number of students visiting and studying in the Walter C. Langsam Library this fall and feature the services and resources available in the Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library. We spotlight Hannah Harper, a student worker in the Science and Engineering Libraries and the generous support of retired University of Cincinnati professors Laura and Richard Kretschmer.

Fall semester is a busy time for events in the Libraries. The Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) are displaying selections from the library’s collection about hair. Our upcoming Poetry Stacked series, scheduled for Oct. 19, will raise awareness of the collections of both UC Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room by engaging students and others in attendance with UC and community poets, including a student poet. On Thursday, Oct. 20 the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services (CECH) Library is hosting a talk by Dr. Debbie Reese, noted children’s literature scholar, former classroom teacher, and founder/co-editor of the American Indians in Children’s Literature blog.

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.

Selecting Books and Materials About Native Peoples for Your Library or Classroom with Dr. Debbie Reese — Free Zoom lecture

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Societal changes in recent years have been unsettling to people who seek accurate and authentic materials for their libraries and classrooms. What should be added to the shelves? And, what should be set aside?

Join the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services (CECH) Library for an evening with Dr. Debbie Reese, noted children’s literature scholar, former classroom teacher, and founder/co-editor of the American Indians in Children’s Literature blog. Dr. Reese will offer suggestions on how to move forward — with confidence. This dynamic lecture will be centered on children’s and young adult books and materials about Native peoples.

Tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo, Dr. Debbie Reese has studied representations of Native peoples in children’s and young adult books for over 30 years. Her book chapters, journal articles, and professional writings are taught in education, library science, and English courses across the United States and Canada. Her blog is widely recognized as a go-to resource for writers, reviewers, editors, teachers, librarians, and parents.

Date/time: Thursday, October 20th @ 6:30pm via Zoom

Use our RSVP form to register today!

This lecture is sponsored by the Kretschmer Fund for Native American Children’s Literature.