Updated Finding Aids Lists on ARB's website

By Suzanne Maggard

Did you know that the Archives and Rare Books Library holds thousands of linear feet of archival material? ARB has material relating to Urban Studies, German-Americana, University Archives and local government records including things like UC Board of Trustees minutes, wills for Hamilton County, Ohio, photographs of Cincinnati’s never completed subway, theater programs, labor newspapers, sheet music and much, much more. We are constantly in the process of organizing these materials and creating finding aids to help you locate them. We’ve recently updated the finding aids lists on our website to show you even more of what we have. We’ve also added links to our finding aids available through the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository. Take a look and see if there is anything that interests you. For more information, call the Archives and Rare Books Library at 513-556-1959 or send an email to archives@ucmail.uc.edu.

New Education Resources Webpage

Have you wondered what new books and teaching resources CECH Library has acquired? Continue reading →

ARB's Historical Textbook Collection

By Jameson Tyler, Archives & Rare Books Intern

One of the most recent collecting areas in the Archives & Rare Books Library is the Historical Textbook Collection, transferred from the Curriculum Resources Center (now the CECH Library). Created by former CRC librarian Gary Lare, the Historical Textbook Collection is comprised of American textbooks from the 19^th century to the end of the 20^th. As part of the 2010-2011 ARB intern project, the collection will be organized and fully inventoried, and a collection development policy will be developed. An online exhibit has been initiated (http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/exhibits/historic-textbooks/index.html) to showcase select volumes as well as to provide a “textbook timeline” in the United States and to give a brief history of textbook publishing in Cincinnati. There are, of course, McGuffey readers, along with spellers, science books, history texts, social studies volumes, and the entire range of K-12 education textbooks. It is the aim of this project to position the collection for full cataloging and formal naming. Continue reading →

Dale Warland Singers Concert Program Archive

Dale Warland

The Dale Warland Singers Concert Program Archive is available on the Digital Resource Commons.

Eminent conductor and composer Dale Warland has made an indelible impression on the landscape of contemporary choral music. In 1972, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis asked him to assemble a group of singers to present a concert of new music, and thus the Dale Warland Singers, a professional mixed chorus, was born. The Dale Warland Singers commissioned 270 choral works, presented over 400 concerts and produced 27 highly acclaimed recordings. Notable composers who worked with the Dale Warland Singers include Grammy winners Dominick Argento, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, Aaron Jay Kernis, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, Peter Schickele, and Eric Whitacre, among many others. The group received numerous awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Following the conductor’s decision to retire, the Dale Warland Singers performed their final concert on May 30, 2004.

The archival and other materials of the Dale Warland Singers were given to the University of Cincinnati Libraries and the College-Conservatory of Music in 2004. For additional information about the complete archive, visit the Dale Warland Singers Archive page.

Update on William Morris Project

By Lilia Walsh

A wood-engraved portrait of Morris by John Depol, from the book William Morris Master-Printer by Frank Colebrook.

William Morris was a designer of stained glass, tapestries, wallpaper, chintzes, furniture, books, and typefaces. He was also a preservationist, socialist, poet, novelist, lecturer, calligrapher, translator of classic Icelandic and early English sagas, and founder of the Kelmscott press. He was born in 1834, and died at 62 in 1896, due to (according to his physician); “simply being William Morris, and having done more work than most ten men.” Morris became involved with socialist causes in the late 1870s. He found it impossible to separate esthetic issues from social and political ones, to him social reform was simply an extension of his arts and crafts production. Continue reading →

UC Faculty-Submit Your 2010 Published Works to Authors, Editors & Composers

On Tuesday, April 12, 2011, the University of Cincinnati Libraries will once again recognize the publishing and creative accomplishments of UC’s faculty at the annual “Authors, Editors & Composers” event. Scheduled for 3:30pm in the Russell C. Myers Alumni Center at UC, “Authors, Editors & Composers” will pay tribute to the 2010 scholarly and creative works of UC’s faculty with a reception, presentation of selected works, a printed bibliography, and an exhibit.

To submit your 2010 published works for inclusion in “Authors, Editors & Composers,” complete the online form.

Continue reading →

Notes from the Oesper Collections

Snap-shot of Thomas Evans (standing on right) found tucked in the pages of the 1906 edition of Alexander Smith’s <em>Introduction to General Inorganic Chemistry</em>.

Snap-shot of Thomas Evans (standing on right) found tucked in the pages of the 1906 edition of Alexander Smith’s Introduction to General Inorganic Chemistry.

Notes from the Oesper Collections are occasional publications highlighting items and topics of interest in the Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry. The first three issues cover topics including:

the discovery of previously unknown photographs of notable American chemists,
Ralph Edward Oesper’s 1947 introduction of an oxidimetric standard now known as “Oesper’s Salt,”
and the recent acquisition of a rare 30-cell Craig Countercurrent Distribution Train, driven across country for donation to the Oesper Collections by a former student of Dr. Lyman C. Craig.

Introducing Images, a New Database of Images in Biomedical Literature from the National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduces Images, a new resource of images in Biomedical Literature. This collection of more than 2.5 million images and figures are from medical and life sciences journals contained in NCBI’s PubMed Central full-text digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

The Images database is expected to have a wide range of uses for a variety of user groups. These include the clinician looking for the visual representation of a disease or condition, the researcher searching for studies with certain types of analyses, the student seeking diagrams that elucidate complex processes such as DNA replication, the professional or educator looking for an image for a presentation, and the patient wanting to better understand his disease.

The Images database is available at <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/images>. There is also a link to it on the Health Sciences Library “Online Images” page at http://libraries.uc.edu/hsl/reference/elec/digitalimages.cfm.

See the NIH News Release at http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2010/nlm-28.htm.

Are You Looking for Some Primary Sources?

If you are looking some primary sources, try searching the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository. The site contains descriptions for over 700 archival collections at 46 institutions in Ohio including large universities, small colleges, community colleges, museums, historical societies, public libraries, and special libraries. Guides to over 200 collections at the University of Cincinnati’s Archives and Rare Books Library and the Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions are also available through this database. Additional finding aids are added every day. Continue reading →

RefWorks, a Bibliographic Management Tool, Adds RefShare, a New Sharing Module

RefWorks is a Web-based personal bibliographic management service that enables users to electronically collect, manage, and organize bibliographic information and full-text articles. RefWorks also facilitates the research report and manuscript composition process by automatically creating in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies in nearly 2,000 different output styles. In short, RefWorks can save countless hours of time spent on resources management and manuscript or report production.

Continue reading →