The Archives and Rare Books Library has made available a collection of records from University Communications covering the University’s conversion to semesters in 2012. The collection concentrates on the comprehensive communication plan developed to educate students and other stakeholders about the conversion and includes communication plans, planning documents, research, publications, and clippings. Also included are some promotional items such as t-shirts, protective hats, and sandwich boards declaring that the world will END – not really, just convert to semesters – in 2012.

A complete finding aid for the collection can be found on the OhioLink Finding Aid Repository at http://rave.ohiolink.edu/archives/ead/OhCiUAR0367. For further information on the Archives & Rare Books Library and its holdings, please call 513.556.1959, email archives@ucmail.uc.edu, or visit our website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/index.html.

If you were dropped in the wild unexpectedly, could you survive? Would you know what to do?

Join us for: Survivor, Library Edition

• What: Test your survival skills and compete to see who can create the best survival strategy! Don’t worry – you won’t have to scavenge for food because PIZZA and DRINKS will be provided!
• When: Friday, October 5^th @ 4pm
• Where: Langsam Library at the Triceracopter
• Who: YOU!  (And Barb the Librarian)
• How: http://webcentral.uc.edu/hslclass/
• ?s: Pamela.bach@uc.edu

The approximate 8,000 negatives and prints, which date from 1920 to 1956, include both interior and exterior shots of private residences and city scenes. They were taken as part of a failed subway development project in Cincinnati and also as documentation during various street projects.

The interior images offer an in-depth look at how a typical Ohio family lived. The products in their kitchens and the furnishings in their living rooms, with such things as player pianos and photographs on the wall, are all captured in the negatives and prints. The exterior shots show the layout of city streets and neighborhoods, stores and businesses, as well as the traffic and bustle of everyday life, not to mention the damage done by subway construction. Beyond the years of the subway project, the images of street renovations into the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s eloquently illustrate the changing urban landscape.

“In this collection of historically significant materials, we have the opportunity to see how one Ohio city functioned in the first half of the 20th century,” said Kevin Grace, project co-director, university archivist, and head of the Archives and Rare Books Library where the collection resides. “Ohio residents, city planners, researchers, and scholars worldwide engaged in research in social, political, urban, and transportation history, as well as genealogical and family history research, will find much value in this collection.”

The photographic negatives and prints are part of the Archives and Rare Books Library’s Ohio Network Collection in the state’s Local Government Records Program, a diverse body of materials that document official government activity from the 18th to the 21st centuries. The Cincinnati subway and street changes archive, which also includes construction reports, householders’ damage claims, blueprints, minutes, and correspondence, in addition to the negatives and prints, is used by researchers and students studying urban planning and development, the history of Cincinnati, American history, civil engineering, and political science. Faculty and independent scholars avail themselves of the collection for in-depth research on neighborhood decline and revitalization, America’s transportation heritage, and urban political reform movements. Additionally, in the past three years, journalists, City of Cincinnati planning officials, and neighborhood activists have consulted the documents in order to provide input for street and housing renovations and for reviving interest in downtown Cincinnati tourism.

The project to digitize the negatives and prints is slated for completion in October 2013 at which time the collection will be fully available for research and study on the Web. “This collection will be a significant addition to collections of Cincinnati historical documents already digitized by UC Libraries and available to anyone anywhere via the digital collections website at http://digitalprojects.libraries.uc.edu/,” added Linda Newman, project co-director and head of UC Libraries’ digital collections.

“By making it a priority to digitize our unique collections such as the negatives and prints from the Cincinnati and subway street changes archive, we not only broaden the availability of such materials, but we also fulfill our mission to provide outstanding research collections in order to enable the University of Cincinnati to achieve its comprehensive mission of teaching, learning, research, health care, and community engagement,” said Xuemao Wang, dean and university librarian. “I want to express my appreciation to the State Library of Ohio for awarding UC Libraries this LSTA grant.”

The LSTA program is funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered through the State Library of Ohio.

In this issue:

• Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), online journal publishing biological, medical, chemical, and physical research in video format.
• IET Digital Library, an ebooks collection of over 300 titles spanning topics including manufacturing, electrical engineering, and telecommunications
• IEEE-Wiley eBooks Library, over 500 ebook titles covering bioengineering, computer engineering, energy, geoscience, and more
• International Bibliography of Art, the definitive resource for scholarly literature on Western art
• Ebrary ebooks, nearly 2,000 new titles in the subject areas of education, business, and economics
• UC Libraries Facebook page for the latest on library news, events, and general information.

Read UCLibraryLINKS online.

Cincinnati in 1819 from “Centennial History of Cincinnati,” 1904

The Archives & Rare Books Library holds a unique collection of local government records vital to the understanding of Cincinnati’s growth from a small walking city into the expansive metropolitan area that exists today. Acquired in 1996 from the Cincinnati Clerk of Council and through the Ohio Network of American History Research Centers program, the Cincinnati Annexation Collection includes annexation records generated by the City and the villages from 1869 to 1939 as well as former village records acquired by Cincinnati at the time of annexation, some dating back to 1829. These records are an excellent resource for researching the history of Cincinnati’s neighborhoods.

Minutes of Fulton Township, April 13, 1829

When Cincinnati was incorporated as a city in 1819, it encompassed an area of approximately four square miles, extending from the Ohio River on the south and east, to Liberty Street on the north and the Mill Creek on the west. While the boundaries remained unchanged by 1840, population and industry grew exponentially in those two decades as the population in that small area swelled to nearly five times the 1820 number of 9,642 people to 46,338 people in 1840.* Meanwhile, the heart of the walking city, where people lived, worked, and socialized all in the same space, became increasingly more commercial and industrial, and subsequently polluted, creating unsuitable living conditions. Cincinnati’s strategic location on the banks of the Ohio River was a huge contributor to the population growth but it provided a negative impact on the city’s ability to expand physically. Cincinnati was not the only incorporated area in Hamilton County at the time; it was basically landlocked, with neighbors to its west (Price Hill) and its north (Millcreek Township and Fulton).  Since the Ohio River and the Kentucky border prevented expansion to the south, it became obvious that in order for the City to grow and for the citizens and businesses to get relief from the overcrowded, unhealthy environment, Cincinnati had to spread out into the neighboring areas.

Cincinnati City Council first looked north for their desired new territory, to the southern district of Millcreek Township and Fulton, an expanse that included land within the boundaries of the present day Over-the-Rhine, Mt. Auburn, and Walnut Hills neighborhoods from Liberty Street up to McMillan Street, as well as part of the East End bordering the river reaching almost to Delta Avenue. The annexation of these first areas began in 1849 and was completed by January 1, 1855, increasing the City’s area to approximately eight square miles. The next project was much more aggressive, expanding Cincinnati into the areas of Price Hill, Camp Washington, Walnut Hills, Mt Auburn, Woodburn, Mt. Lookout and Columbia and snaking down the banks of the Ohio River, adding another seventeen square miles by 1873.

Annexation Proceedings, Agreement & Report for the Village of Kennedy Heights, 1914

By 1890, Cincinnati consisted of approximately twenty-five square miles and had a population of 296,908. Cincinnati was now faced with another issue – the loss of wealthy residents that had previously resided within the city limits. Advancements in transportation had allowed those with means to flee the city’s basin and settle in suburban areas, such as Clifton and Avondale, causing Cincinnati to lose a good chunk of its income. Again the City solved its problems with annexation, taking on another aggressive project in 1895 to acquire Clifton, Avondale, Linwood, Riverside, and Westwood. More major acquisitions happened in 1903, and 1911. The last village annexed was Kennedy Heights on July 23, 1914, by which time Cincinnati sat on a total area of just over seventy square miles created through the annexation of fifty-five districts. Norwood and St. Bernard remain the holdouts, both independent cities locked within the boundaries of Cincinnati. While the number of annexations remained steady in the following decades, the amount of property annexed was limited to slivers of land adjacent to that already owned by the City. Today the total land area of Cincinnati is seventy-seven square miles and the population is 333,012 (2009 estimation). **

The collection of annexation records held by ARB is accessioned as number ON-96-01 and consists of 235 volumes and six boxes of material. The annexation process created several types of documents, including resolutions and ordinances, petitions, reports of votes, maps, meeting minutes, notices, inventories and audits, and protests. When the city annexed a village or township, they also acquired historic records of those districts, which can include resolutions and ordinances, minutes, street improvements, board records, and financials. Additionally, this collection includes volumes from the Cincinnati Clerk of Council that are not annexation specific but that contain information during the time of the major annexations. A complete inventory can be found on ARB’s Ohio Network webpage.

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* Unless otherwise noted, population statistics are from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Area statistics are from records of the former Cincinnati Department of Public Works, Division of Highways, now part of the Department of Transportation & Engineering.

** City of Cincinnati 2011/1012 Approved Biennial Budget: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cmgr/downloads/cmgr_pdf42333.pdf (accessed May 16, 2011)

Statistics are from the Profile section: area pg. 700, pop. pg. 701