Hardin News

Don’t Forget!

Hardin’s hours change over Spring Break!

Have trouble citing?  EndNote can help!  Come to the free workshop on Monday, March 30, 2009 from 3-4pm.  The class will provide a hands-on introduction on how to use EndNote to gather, organize, and insert formatted citations into papers.  No prior experience with EndNote is needed.

Although the class is free of charge, pre-registration is required.

The Hardin Scholarly Communication News, which has been published for the University of Iowa health science campus over the past 4 1/2 years, is being discontinued.  It has now merged with Transitions: scholarly communication news for the UI community, a newsletter which serves the entire UI campus.  Although Transitions is not completely dedicated to the health sciences, it will still carry many health field-related articles.

To see the spring edition of Transitions, or to set up an RSS feed, please visit: http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/transitions/

Activities of Daily Living–

While fads and fancies in health and medicine come and go, the underlying essentials of wellbeing, including, rest, nutrition, exercise, and moderation have gone unchallenged for millennia.

One of the more popular works outlining keys to basic fitness is the Tacuini sanitatis by the eleventh century Iraq physician, Ibn Butlān (d. ca. 1068). Before the age of printing, Ibn Butlān’s writings were incorporated into stunning illuminated manuscripts.  However, the early printed editions are attractive in their own way.

This 1531 edition, for instance, shows the early use of tabular formatting to codify items such as trees, foods, and flowers. However, its most charming feature is the fanciful set of miniature woodcuts showing everyday activities involved in the maintenance of health.

Ibn Bultān practiced in Mossul, Egypt, Constantinople and Antioch where he entered a monastery and converted to Christianity.

The John Martin Rare Book Room also includes facsimiles of early brilliantly colored codices based on Ibn Butlān’s texts.

The University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to announce that the Iowa City Flood Digital Collection is now available for viewing online.

The collection uses mixed multimedia, including photographs and audio interviews, to document the flood that many on campus are still feeling the effect of today, over six months later.

The collection can be viewed at: http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/flood