The 2011-2012 UCBA Library Annual Report is now available online.

Take a moment to read about our library renovation; activities and events that we’ve participated in such as the UC Smiles Program and the Arts & Humanities Month Celebration; as well as a few of our new and improved library services which include online tutorials and library led Faculty Development workshops.

You’ll also find useful facts and figures about our library holdings, reference transactions and instruction sessions.

Missy Lodge (center), Associate State Librarian for Library Development, State Library of Ohio, awarding the grant to Jason Buydos, Assistant Director - Support Services, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County; and Holly Prochaska, Head, Preservation Services and of the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library, University of Cincinnati Libraries

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was awarded a $81,012 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant from the State Library of Ohio to establish a joint Conservation Lab with the University of Cincinnati Libraries for the preservation and protection of rare and heavily used materials.

UC Libraries and the Public Library will jointly manage and equip the expanded Conservation Lab housed in UC’s Walter C. Langsam Library. It will be staffed with well-trained individuals from both institutions. The joint model will allow the organizations to pool their resources to expand their capacity to conserve materials, to provide staff training, and to seek innovative collaborative solutions to address their preservation needs.  

“By partnering to conserve our rare holdings and heavily used collections, both institutions are ensuring future access to our materials in the most cost-effective and innovative way,” said Kimber L. Fender, executive director of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

In addition to preserving materials from the collections of the Public Library and UC Libraries, the Conservation Lab will provide consultation and conservation treatments to other organizations that lack the ability to operate their own lab. This outreach will support the conservation needs of other cultural heritage institutions in Ohio, thus helping to guarantee that their collections will also remain available for the future.

“The Conservation Lab offers a creative and collaborative solution to the conservation challenges faced by the Public Library and UC Libraries to preserve our valuable print collections,” said Victoria A. Montavon, dean and university librarian, University of Cincinnati Libraries.

The collaboration will begin this month with Public Library staff training in general collection maintenance and repair techniques at UC Libraries. Concurrently, the Public Library will hire a full-time conservator to manage the treatment and repair of unique and rare book holdings and to train staff on advanced repair techniques. Plans are to have the joint lab facility open and fully operational by January 2012.

For more information about the Conservation Lab, contact Holly Prochaska at (513)556-1389 or holly.prochaska@uc.edu or Jason Buydos at (513) 369-3193 or  jason.buydos@cincinnatilibrary.org.

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

By Janice Schulz

The Summer 2011 edition of Records Quarterly, the newsletter of University of Cincinnati Records Management, is now available on the records management website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/records_management/recordsquarterly.html. This issue features articles about managing databases as records, making electronic documents searchable and protected information.  Also included is information about the recent Ohio budget bill’s impact on public records laws.

Records Quarterly is distributed electronically via the Records Management website. Subscribers to the Records Management Listserv will receive notification of new issues automatically. You can sign up for the listserv by going to the subscription page, or by sending an email to Janice.Schulz@uc.edu. Please include your name and email address and use “listserv sign-up” in the subject line.