News and Events at The University of Iowa Libraries
Beginning Thursday, May 24, workers will start to replace the doors in the southwest stairwell of the Main Library. They are starting at floor five and working their way down. Please try and avoid stairwell areas during this time.
Also begining next week, the southwest elevator will be unavailable, as it is being modernized. The project will continue through the end of July.
Dragons, mandrakes, and potions have taken over the cases outside Special Collections & University Archives!
Students in Donna Parsons’ Honors Seminar titled “Harry Potter and the Quest for Enlightenment” have curated an exhibit using materials from Special Collections. The exhibit is one part of a semester long project utilizing Special Collections materials for research. The students chose one item from the collection to represent their research and worked together to fit their items into themes for display.
Parsons’ seminar has the students closely read the texts and analyze their themes as well as investigate the influences from the literary canon and the effects on popular culture in the US and Britain. She envisioned the collaboration with Special Collections as an exciting opportunity to enhance student learning. “The Harry Potter series is filled with extensive references to science, literature, mythology, and history,” Parsons says. “Partnering with Special Collections has supplied my students with the resources needed to trace a specific reference and discuss its relevance to a particular scene, character, or plotline. The partnership has also provided the context for a deeper understanding of the series and its appeal to a diverse audience.”
Greg Prickman, Head of Special Collections & University Archives, welcomed the collaboration. “The idea to have the students create an exhibition was Donna’s, and we quickly agreed to it. Rather than showing or telling, we are giving them the chance to do their own showing and telling, which results in a unique learning opportunity that can only be experienced with access to original historical documents.”
Kelsey Sheets, a student in the seminar, loved finding out how complex the world of Harry Potter really is. “In the past I have read books about how J.K. Rowling draws inspiration from a wide variety of historical and mythical sources and incorporates them into the series, but my own research [on links between the study of Potions and the muggle study of Chemistry] really solidified this point and made me appreciate the depth of the wizarding world.”
The exhibit will be on display until June 1st on the third floor of the Main Library outside Special Collections & University Archives anytime the library is open.
The Iowa City Book Festival will announce this summer’s author lineup at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 18 in a special media event in the Old Capitol Museum Senate Chamber.
In addition to the festival director and planning committee members, several local authors slated to participate in this summer’s festival will be available to the media during this event, including Larry Baker and Zach Wahls.
Baker, an adjunct assistant professor in the UI Division of Continuing Education, is the author of The Flamingo Rising (1997), Athens/America (2005) and, most recently, A Good Man (2009), which was nominated for Book of the Year by the Southeast Independent Booksellers Association in 2010.
Wahls shot to stardom as a result of a YouTube video of a speech he gave to the Iowa House Judiciary Committee in January 2011. The speech, in which the former UI engineering student detailed how he was raised by a lesbian couple and outlines his case for gay marriage, has since been viewed millions of times. He subsequently wrote a book, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family, that is being published this spring.
Coffee and pastries will be served in the rotunda during the media event, and music will be provided by emeritus librarian Ed Holtum.
Now in its fourth year, the Iowa City Book Festival will take place in Iowa City July 13-15. Presented by the University of Iowa Libraries, the festival is a celebration of books, reading, and writing and includes programs for young and old, including author readings, book arts demonstrations, panel discussions, children’s activities, and live music.
Initially a one-day event outside the Main Library, the festival now covers three days and venues throughout downtown Iowa City and attracts thousands of book lovers.
Media Contact: Kristi Bontrager (kristi-r-bontrager@uiowa.edu)
Manager, Public Relations at The University of Iowa Libraries
Director, Iowa City Book Festival
319-335-5960
Collection encompasses 100 years of material.
The University of Iowa Libraries has acquired a significant collection of pulp magazines, fanzines, and science fiction books owned by the late James L. “Rusty” Hevelin. The collection encompasses nearly one hundred years of material, documenting in great detail the development of science fiction, popular culture, and participatory fan culture in the United States during the twentieth century.
Rusty Hevelin began collecting pulp magazines in the 1930s when they were a popular item on newsstands. Pulps were cheaply produced weekly fiction magazines. They were the training ground for many of the most famous science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The collection contains thousands of pulps, ranging from the early Thrilling Wonder Stories, the eclectic Weird Tales, character titles such as The Shadow, The Spider, and Doc Savage, and many examples of mystery, western, and aviation pulps. “This vast collection of material rarely collected by traditional libraries is a goldmine for teachers and scholars,” said Corey Creekmur, UI Associate Professor of English and Film Studies. “Pulp magazines were central to mid- 20th century American popular culture, but their ephemerality has made them rare and inaccessible for later readers. The arrival of this collection makes Iowa a major archive for future research in this area.”
Fanzines push science fiction genre
Readers of pulps began communicating with one another through the letter columns in each issue, and this back-and-forth exchange soon developed into fanzines, which fans produced on home mimeograph or other printers, and distributed through the mail and at conventions. The collection is particularly rich in the early years of science fiction fanzines, including several titles that Hevelin produced.
Science fiction grew out of the pulps and into mainstream publishing, and the Hevelin collection documents this process in thousands of hardcover and paperback science fiction books. First editions of Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and other writers are included, along with many paperback novels. Together, these materials depict the great diversity of styles in science fiction as the genre evolved.
“The Hevelin collection presents a rare opportunity to study the development of this genre, as seen in many of its most important formats, through the lens of a single collector,” says Greg Prickman, Head of Special Collections & University Archives. “Fans like Rusty weren’t just fanzine writers, or pulp collectors, or science fiction readers, they were all of these things, and Rusty’s collection shows how these materials interact with one another.”
The University of Iowa Libraries is home to internationally significant science fiction collections. Holdings include the Horvat Collection of Science Fiction Fanzines, the Ming Wathne Fanzine Archive Collection, and a growing body of materials resulting from the Fan Culture Preservation Project, a partnership with the Organization for Transformative Works.
We encourage faculty, students and staff to take a look at Scopus, a database currently under consideration by the Libraries.
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, with flexible tools to track, analyze and visualize research. Strong in all areas of the sciences, Scopus also covers hundreds of titles in the social sciences and humanities. Updated daily, it indexes over 18,000 peer-reviewed journals.
Send comments to Edward Shreeves (edward-shreeves@uiowa.edu).
NOTE: If you are accessing Scopus with IE9, compatibility mode is required. IE8 and Firefox work without problem.
Jennifer DeBerg, Clinical Education Librarian at Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, was awarded the Arthur Benton Excellence in Reference Services Professional Development Award for 2012. Jennifer received kudos from nursing students, research colleagues, faculty and staff in her nomination letter
The award is given biennially to a University Libraries professional staff member who has demonstrated outstanding commitment in providing reference services for the University community. The $1,000 award, made possible by a generous endowment from Dr. Arthur Benton, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Neurology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, will support a professional development activity related to the advancement of library reference services.
Jennifer is a librarian liaison to Communication Sciences & Disorders, Family Medicine, College of Nursing, Nursing Services and Patient Care, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation, Otolaryngology, Pediatrics, Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, and Rehab Therapies & Rehab Counseling.
The University of Iowa History of Medicine Society announces the R. Palmer Howard Dinner for 2012, Friday, April 13, 2012, 6:00-9:30.
Lynda Payne, prof. in Medical Humanities & Bioethics, and History, University of Missouri Kansas City will speak on “Spot Ward, Crazy Sally, and the Chevalier Taylor: Three Medical Quacks in Eighteenth-Century Britain”.
Reception, dinner and lecture will be at the Sheraton Hotel. Make your reservations now but no later than April 6 with Donna Sabin, 319-335-6706, donna-sabin@uiowa.edu Online form (print & mail): http://hosted.lib.uiowa.edu/histmed/index.html. Seats for the lecture only will be available.
UBorrow will be temporarily unavailable Wed, March 21 from 6-7a for scheduled maintenance.
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Women’s Resource and Action Center with a piece of cake and a lively discussion of the early days of WRAC and the women’s liberation movement in Iowa City. Panelists will include Sondra Smith, Gayle Sand, Sandy Pickup, Jill Jack, with Laurie Haag moderating.
Friday, March 23, 2012
4:00-6:00 p.m.
Iowa Women’s Archives
3rd floor, Main Library, University of Iowa
Pi, Greek letter, is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535…. Pi is used in many different fields and can be seen in our everyday lives. It may be seen in art, structural design, body mobility, navigation, and probability. To celebrate the versatility of this number, the various campus libraries will celebrate at the same time, showing how pi is used in their subject areas.
Due to March 14th being during spring break, the celebration will take place next Monday, March 19th at 3:14 p.m.
Events will be held at the following libraries: Art, Pomerantz Business, Lichtenberger Engineering, Hardin, Main (near the Information Desk), Music, and Sciences. Join us at any of these locations to learn more about pi and have some apple pie bites.
