Dreaming of Books in the Archives and Rare Books Library

By Lauren Fink, ARB Intern, 2011-2012

Though sayings like, “you can sleep when you’re dead,” abound in American, and especially college, culture, sleep is a crucial activity for maintaining health, conserving energy, and learning. During sleep, the body decreases its temperature by about 1-2 degrees Celsius, rests its muscles, rebuilds proteins, and reorganizing synapses. Increased brain activity occurs in the same areas of the brain that were activated by the learning of a new task during the day and correlates with improved performance on the same task the following day.

Humans spend 1/3 of their lives asleep, with about 1/5 of that time in Rapid-Eye-Movement (REM) sleep. A typical nightly sleep cycle occurs in about 90 minutes with a pattern of stages 1-2-3-4-3-2-REM. Though the exact function of REM sleep remains a mystery, it is known that REM deprivation results in increased time spent in REM when no longer REM-deprived. Dreams, which also remain elusive in terms of function, if not meaning, occur mainly during REM sleep but can also occur during other stages. Continue reading →

Ireland Trip Launches an International Research Network With Key Ties to UC

By: Dawn Fuller

Photos By: Provided by the Archives & Rare Books Library

Re-posted from UC News: http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=15817

A UC Libraries collection – and efforts to make it available to scholars around the world – will be presented this month at an international conference.

Irish theatre critic William John Lawrence (1862-1940) was considered a major figure in documenting the history of Irish theatre.

William J. Lawrence

Yet, dozens of his notebooks on Irish theatre history from the 17th-to-20th centuries were never published. Efforts and outreach to make collections stored at the University of Cincinnati and at other institutions accessible worldwide will be presented at the 4th International Conference on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries. The conference takes place May 22-25 in Limerick, Ireland, and brings together librarians from around the world as they explore best practices on making their resources available for research.

Kevin Grace, head of the UC Archives and Rare Books Library, will present at the conference. Grace says 99 of Lawrence’s unpublished notebooks are stored in UC’s Archives & Rare Books Library. They were purchased from the estate of William Smith Clark II, a former UC English professor and theatre historian, who acquired the notebooks in the 1940s. The notebooks have been housed in the Archives & Rare Books Library since the late 1960s. Continue reading →

Travel Writings in the Archives and Rare Books Library

By Janice Schulz

Among the strengths in our Rare Books collection is our diverse assortment of travel writings ranging from the reports of explorers to stories of leisure travel. Travel writings can offer unique perspectives to historical research about a region, providing accounts of outsiders without local views, agendas, and prejudices. They can also be valuable for comparative histories, showing change over time and varying cultural viewpoints. Among the many research areas that travel writings can support are social, ethnographic, geological, botanical, and architectural issues. Continue reading →

City Reports Offer Wealth of Information for Cincinnati Researchers

In 1912 the Department of Charities and Correction launched a crusade against loan sharks who were targeting the poor of Cincinnati

By Janice Schulz

The Archives & Rare Books Library holds City of Cincinnati Annual Reports from 1853-1870, 1875-1876, 1905-1914, and 1926-1958. These reports contain valuable information for anyone researching the history of Cincinnati, its departments, its people, and its issues.

While reports included in each volume vary, the Mayor’s report is always available. Also available may be various city financial reports and reports from City Council, schools, the Health Department and health care facilities, the House of Refuge, the Fire Department, the Police Department, Public Works, the City Engineer, jails, Civil Service Commission, City Solicitor, Parks Department, the University of Cincinnati, and other city commissions. Until 1914, each individual annual report is published in full, but after that time the reports take on more of a summarized format under the title Municipal Activities. Continue reading →

Love and Romance

By Janice Schulz

In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, the Archives & Rare Books Library is highlighting some of our holdings related to love, romance, and marriage. Like the course of romance itself, our material can run the gamut from wonderful, to bittersweet, to downright tragic.

Basil and Isabel March rest in the Boston ticket office before continuing Their Wedding Journey.

Their Wedding Journey, written by William Dean Howells in 1871, chronicles the expedition of newlyweds Basil and Isabel March, a European couple taking their honeymoon in North America. The March’s are beyond the “standard,” age of newlyweds, having had some fits and starts in their relationship before finally tying the knot, and as such, they wish to behave with a bit more maturity than the average honeymooners. Disembarking in Boston (where, on a local note, conversation from the ticket counter leads them to believe that “it is easy enough to buy a ticket in Cincinnati, but it is somewhat harder to arrive there”) their plans take them through New York, to Niagara, Montreal, and finally Quebec. The story is one of a truly contented couple. Upon arriving home, “Their holiday was over to be sure, but their bliss had but begun; they had entered upon that long life of holidays which is happy marriage.” The book is available in the ARB Rare Books collection, cataloged as PS2025 .T58 1871.

Continue reading →

Charles Dickens in Cincinnati

By Kevin Grace

As we continue to celebrate Dickens’ birth (he turned 200 this past Tuesday, and still seems robust), we should note his visit to Cincinnati in 1842. The visit was part of Dickens’ itinerary on his first journey to America, with initial stops in Boston, New York, Washington, and Pittsburgh.

Accompanied by his wife, Catherine, Dickens thoroughly enjoyed Boston, was not so enthralled by the nation’s capitol with all the necessary politics, and had quite a negative impression of Pittsburgh. Cincinnati in springtime, however, he found to be “a beautiful city, cheerful, thriving, and animated.” Dickens documented his trip to the United States in American Notes for General Circulation, published in October after his return to England. In Cincinnati, he was very complimentary about the orderly streets and houses, so it is apparent that he wasn’t walking about during one of the regular hog-drives to the slaughterhouses! He enjoyed the view from Mt. Auburn, complimented the city’s system of free schools, and sat in on a nuisance trial in the courts. In American Notes, he stated: “The society with which I mingled was intelligent, courteous, and agreeable.” Continue reading →

Charles Dickens, the Serial Man

By Kevin Grace

Part of Charles Dickens’ immense success as an author in the 19^th century was due in no small measure to the changes in book production and readership brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Steam printing increased book production. Cheap availability of books, along with the development of libraries and public schooling, led to increased readership. Coming into his own in writing his novels, Dickens took advantage of a growing demand on the part of readers for fiction. And, as the consummate marketer of his works, Dickens had his finger on the pulse of all of this.

By 1836, he had compiled his writings that formed Sketches by Boz into a single volume, realizing that he could build his popularity and create a market for his fiction by publishing serial chapters. The next year, 1837, Dickens became the editor for Bentley’s Miscellany and began issuing chapters of Oliver Twist. Acutely aware of his reputation and the acclaim given him by the reading public, Dickens made at least four separate arrangements with publishers to serialize his work. Continue reading →

A Charles Dickens February

By Kevin Grace

In our Dickens scene for today, young Oliver watches the Dodger pickpocket a gentleman at a newsstand, an image drawn by London caricaturist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank penned scathing cartoons in which he lampooned the well-heeled set of London as well as the denizens of despair, and it is these drawings which have made his lasting reputation for 19^th century English social and political commentary. Cruikshank also illustrated several books by Dickens and, in fact, toward the end of his life he claimed that it was he who devised the plot of Oliver Twist. Dickens, as one would expect, viewed these literary matters quite differently and was rather miffed at Cruickshank anyway because the artist gave up a life of mild debauchery to reject the drink and to squelch discussion of his numerous illegitimate offspring with his mistress, Adelaide Attree. Dickens thought imbibing in moderation was quite all right. We shan’t say whether it was for alcohol or keeping paramours. Continue reading →

Please Sir, I Want Some More, or, a Dickens of a Celebration

By Kevin Grace

This month marks the 200^th birthday of Charles Dickens, a man who once remarked on an 1842 visit to Cincinnati that the Irish marchers in a temperance parade behaved quite nicely. Of course, that visit was in January so the St. Patrick’s Day parade was still two months away. Dickens’ bicentennial is February 7, and throughout the month the Archives & Rare Books Library will be commemorating this notable event. “Why?” is the question we hear being whispered across campus. It is because ARB holds a very fine collection of Dickens – Dickens in parts, Dickens first editions in single and multiple volumes, Dickens in collected works, Dickens, Dickens, Dickens. It is the Dickens, we say. Continue reading →

50 Minutes-1 Book

By Kevin Grace

The next “50 Minutes-1Book” lunchtime talk in the Archives & Rare Books Library will be Thursday, January 19, at noon. Jerry Newman has graciously agreed to talk about his favorite book, Don Quixote. Originally published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha), is one of the cornerstones of Western literature. Jerry has spent decades exploring Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece, reading and re-reading it, and studying its history. His informal talk will look at the novel as a cultural event and its lasting influence. He’ll discuss the personalities and relationship of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, as well as the book’s publication history, some of the unusual and unique attributes of it, as well as the lasting fame and adventures of Don Quixote’s characters, and their influence in Western culture. Continue reading →