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Now Open: Shakespeare and the Queen City
As first announced in the last issue of Source, the Archives and Rare Books Library’s Shakespearean collection is prominently featured in the current Cincinnati Museum Center’s exhibition, “Shakespeare in the Queen City,” on display now through October 29. The free exhibition has as its focal point one of 82 First Folios belonging to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., each containing 36 of the playwright’s published works. Visitors to the exhibit will also see works from the collections of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County that show how Shakespeare’s works were performed and celebrated in Cincinnati’s libraries, schools, homes and theaters. One…
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Cincinnati and Shakespeare: The Bard Abides
By Kevin Grace. Enoch Carson was enthralled with William Shakespeare. While the 19th century Cincinnati entrepreneur and civil servant made his fortune in the lamp and gas business, he considered his real wealth to be the hundreds of Shakespeare volumes that he accumulated. For the most part Carson was a self-educated man, attributing his intellectual development to his years spent reading the plays. So, he devoted his life to building a library of as many editions of the bard as he could afford. At one point Carson took his volumes of the prominent Charles Knight 1839 London edition of the plays and disbound them so he could insert the huge…
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A Note from the Dean: Creating a Culture of Transformational Change
Previously in Source, I discussed the importance of building strategic staffing capacity in order to create new positions and opportunities within UC Libraries both to meet the organization’s growing needs and to attract new talent. While finding new talent is important to the success of UC Libraries and the implementation of our Strategic Plan, developing and retaining the talent we already have is equally important. One of the main objectives of the Strategic Plan’s People pillar is to “cultivate and empower a well-trained and technologically savvy workforce that embraces a culture of continuous learning, creative thinking and the pursuance of excellence.” The concept of embracing a new culture is one…
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eLearning and Digital Literacy
Digital Technologies and Innovation, the first pillar of the UC Libraries Strategic Plan, states that the Libraries will “develop innovative technologies and services that transform and generate new modes of inquiry, access, scholarship, learning and creative ways of working together. UC Libraries will be a leader in creating and utilizing digital technologies and innovation for the provision of learning tools and research platforms essential for transforming the user experience and the creation of new knowledge. We will create an agile and innovative information environment of ongoing inquiry, analysis, research and discovery.” eLearning and Digital Literacy are key to making those goals a reality, and as such was named a Strategic…
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Update on Digital Scholarship Activities
In September 2016, the University of Cincinnati Libraries, in partnership with the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), announced the establishment of UC’s first Digital Scholarship Center. Located in the Walter C. Langsam Library, the Digital Scholarship Center is a collaborative, technology-enabled space for faculty and group work with hardware, software, and tools to support digital scholarship and pedagogy. On campus and in the community, the Digital Scholarship Center serves as a catalyst for creative hybrid forms of research and teaching, bringing together humanistic methods with technical innovations to test paradigms and to create new knowledge at the boundary between disciplines as they are conventionally imagined in the humanities. Methods…
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Welcoming the Newest Bearcats to UC Libraries
This summer, the Walter C. Langsam Library is a busy place as over 5,000 incoming students participating in UC’s New Student Orientation visit and learn about the spaces, places and people of UC Libraries. While in Langsam, they engage in activities designed to be both engaging and informative about the various research resources, assistance and services students can utilize when they begin classes in the fall, including the Starbucks café, the various group study rooms and quiet study areas, the Desk@Langsam, the classrooms and more. The students are participating in entertaining and interactive activities such as writing on the Information Chalkboard as they learn about how to find and evaluate…
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Discovering the Cohen Enrichment Collection
By Jenny Mackiewicz. On the fifth floor of the Walter C. Langsam Library, nestled away in a prominent alcove on the library’s north end, you will find an eclectic collection of fiction and nonfiction books to browse from in The A.B., Dolly, and Ralph Cohen Enrichment Collection. The red and black banner heralding its location makes this collection difficult to miss, but the space feels intimate; a library within a library. This comfortable nook is a favorite spot for serious scholars and pleasure readers alike. The contents of the Cohen Collection reinforce this welcoming appearance with works on a myriad of subjects ranging from astronomy to zoology. The bust of…
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Have You Seen Beethoven’s “Life Mask” in the CCM Library?
By Paul Cauthen. The Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library is delighted that a woodcut, dating from December 18, 1920, of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Life Mask” by August Becker (1878–1942), German artist and Holzschneider (woodcutter), now hangs in the north end of the Reading Room. This work was presumably prepared in celebration of Beethoven’s 150th birthday celebrations, which had occurred two days before its creation. As professor emeritus Edward Nowacki observes: “The image is Beethoven’s life mask surrounded with laurel leaves painted in gold with the motto of the Fifth Symphony across the bottom and Becker’s monogram, AB, at the top. The story of the mask is well known in the…
