University Libraries

Sarah Keen recently completed her first academic year serving as university archivist in Special Collections and Archives in the University of Iowa Libraries She came to Iowa in August 2022 from upstate New York, where she served as Colgate University Libraries’ university archivist and head of […]

It’s no secret that the UI Libraries boast some of the best librarians in the field. Willow Fuchs and Donna Brooks are two such standouts, bringing an impressive variety of skills—creativity, adaptability, and integrity—to their work. In this issue of BINDINGS, we’re taking an opportunity […]

In March 2023, Conservation and Collections Care at the University of Iowa Libraries welcomed Yasmeen Khan as the featured speaker for its William Anthony Conservation Lecture for Book and Paper Conservators and Bookbinders, a celebrated event for the UI book arts community and beyond. During the […]

We are pleased to welcome Rachel Poppen as our new collections archivist in Special Collections and Archives.  Rachel joined the department in mid-July. Raised in Sibley, Iowa, Rachel received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Spanish from the University of Iowa. She then went on to receive her […]

Edna Griffin, known as the Rosa Parks of Iowa, has gained deserved attention over the years for her civil rights activism, especially for her role in the effort to desegregate the lunch counter at Katz Drug Store in Des Moines. Her actions resulted in a successful suit against the store under […]

When I was setting goals at the beginning of the summer, I thought processing and uploading the entirety of the Lowell Offering’s 5-year run would be reasonable. I was so wrong. I underestimated exactly how time-consuming the data entry would be and, around the halfway point, I realized I had to […]

Coming into the Summer Fellowship, the aspect of my project that I was most worried about was the coding. While I am fairly functional, if not precisely fluent, with most technologies, delving beneath the surface level into the murky chasms of coding was a scary step to take. As I sit here […]

Integrating sculpture and multi-digital processes has been my primary research this summer and I began with sketching out designs for my chandeliers. These chandeliers are inspired by sun patterns throughout the day as the final sculpture will emulate sun rays through a light installation with […]

As I write this I have about a week left in the Digital Scholarship Fellowship. I am grateful for this time and space to work on my podcast Workshop: Writing in Progress. It has been a great learning experience to go from an idea to an actual thing that exists. Since this project involves […]

I used to love NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Her smooth calming voice paired with her insightful questions motivated me on multiple occasions to purchase the book of her guest, be it Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection about grief after his mother’s death or Michael Pollan’s tome on […]

When I first began this fellowship I had hoped that this post would be one of celebration, one that highlighted the fact that I was finished with my Omeka project. Unfortunately that is not the case. I’m not finished, and I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t reach my initial goal. I […]

This summer I have been working on a project that will test the validity of a social psychological theory in measuring human moral judgment. To facilitate my research project, I began by constructing a survey that was posted on Amazon Mechanical Turk to pilot the test. My survey presented […]

The following is written by Rich Dana, Sackner Archive Project Coordinator Librarian On June 3, 98-year-old Kirby Congdon passed away in Key West, Florida, a town that had recognized him as its first poet laureate. Although the arts community of Key West understood the importance of Congdon and his […]

This summer has allowed me to use my current skill set of basic text analysis while also improving on my flexibility and open-mindedness in research. While I have made progress on my research project, and accomplished many of the goals that I set out with at the beginning of the summer, I […]

You may have heard there are a couple of big movies coming to theaters this weekend: Barbie and Oppenheimer. Read up more on these two world-changers before you see the movies! Barbie Barbara Millicent Roberts (Barbie) was released in 1959 and invented by Ruth Handler. You can read about Handler […]

Within my current graduate research I employ light and shadow in immersive installations meant to captivate my audience in a world of my design. Throughout my degree I’ve implemented programs that utilize technical design and execute it in interesting interconnective ways. My primary material has […]

When the first generation of “mill girls,” Yankee farmers’ daughters, arrived in New England’s textile factories in the early 19th-century, they were not completely sure what they would encounter or how much work they would have to do. Two hundred years later as I begin to collect and […]

Conspiracy theories are a current and dangerous misinformation problem. Unfortunately, during the Covid-19 pandemic, many conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and 5G’s alleged link to Covid-19, spread and became mainstream. As a result, I decided to conduct a research project discussing conspiracy […]