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DAAP Library exhibit celebrates Renaissance painter Catharina van Hemessen
By Christopher Platts, assistant professor of art history On display from March 8 through April 8 in the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP), the exhibition, Rediscovering Catharina van Hemmessen’s Scourging of Christ: Women Artists, Patrons and Rulers in Renaissance Europe, features paintings, woodcuts, engravings, illuminated manuscripts, and illustrated printed books from the special collections of UC Libraries as well as a local private collection. Catharina van Hemessen was arguably the most important woman artist in Northern Europe during the 16th century, and her paintings are currently the highlights of numerous exhibitions and installations worldwide. Museums everywhere are actively trying to…
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Supporting Library Student Workers
By Jenny Mackiewicz, Coordinator, Special Projects & Programs In 2014, the University of Cincinnati Libraries created a new fund to benefit our student workers, the UC Libraries Student Worker Scholarship Fund. The scholarship was established by then Library Faculty & Staff Campaign co-chairs Susan Banoun and Mikaila Corday. “We were looking for a way to reinvigorate giving by introducing a new fund everyone would be excited about donating to, our student workers,” says Mikaila. Students are a key component to UC Libraries success. Libraries have long been a top student employer on campus, and student workers are essential in keeping libraries up and running, the stacks filled with books and…
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Celebrate Preservation Week with a Sneak Peek into the Preservation Lab
In celebration of the American Library Association’s Preservation Week, join Preservation Lab staff as they chat about preservation, conservation and what the Lab does for the libraries. There will be materials and models on hand. Thursday, April 21, 10-11am & 2-3pm, Walter C. Langsam Library 4th floor, next to the Desk@Langsam.
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The New Way(s) of Work
With the start of fall semester, UC Libraries re-opened library facilities to the UC community in a limited, phased approach to ensure social distancing. The priority remains to provide access to library resources to the extent possible while maintaining the health and safety of students, faculty and staff. At this time, all library locations but one are open; however, use and access looks very different from past semesters. With limited exceptions, there is no browsing of library materials in the stacks. The Click & Collect retrieval and pickup service, which allows users to request print library materials in the Library Catalog for pickup at designated locations, has been a well-used…
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Working with Library Student Workers in a Remote Environment
When UC Libraries closed its physical locations in mid-March in response to COVID-19, student supervisors transitioned quickly not just their own work online, but that of their library student workers. All interested and available library student workers were given the opportunity to finish spring semester working remotely. This provided them the opportunity to continue to earn an income, remain engaged with coworkers and to provide essential library services while they and learned new skills. The tasks the library student workers performed varied across departments depending on unit needs, priorities and opportunities. From shelving books to repairing books to helping users find the right books in the collection, library student work…
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Photo Documentation in the Preservation Lab
By Jessica Ebert, Conservation Technician in the Preservation Lab As the lead photographic documentation technician for the Preservation Lab, one of my primary responsibilities is creating visual representations of the conservation treatments performed, and housing created, in the Lab. This generally means capturing the condition of the object before treatment, anticipating how it will change once treatment is completed, and then capturing that transformation. We refer to this as before/after photography. The goal is to represent the object, with all its imperfections, accurately. Therefore, little modification is made to the captured before/after (and sometimes during) images. This allows the transition between the before image and its corresponding after image to…
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Preserving Taft
The mission of the Preservation Lab is to preserve and conserve the collections of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and the University of Cincinnati Libraries – a collaboration begun in January 2012 to provide conservation and preservation treatments in an equally managed, staffed and equipped preservation lab on the University of Cincinnati’s campus. A recent collaboration with the Archives and Rare Books Library on a collection of letters and artifacts pertaining to William Howard Taft demonstrates the valuable role the Lab takes in both preserving a collection for posterity while also making it available for study today. The work of the Preservation Lab varies depending on the…
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Langsam Library Exhibit Marks the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation
In 1517, Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses criticizing the practice of indulgences of the Catholic church. He was disturbed by the fact that the faithful were allowed to offer money as penance for their sins. The publication of the 95 theses is considered as the starting point of the Reformation, which marks its 500th anniversary on October 31, 1517, the date long assumed that Luther nailed his theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. A new exhibit on display on the 4th floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library, as well as on the 4th floor of the library, highlights the complex and multifaceted legacy…
