The University of Iowa Libraries is seeking nominations for the Arthur Benton University Librarian’s Award for Excellence. Funded by a generous endowment, this award acknowledges a Libraries staff member’s professional contribution in the practice of librarianship, service to the profession, scholarship, or leadership which has had a significant impact or innovation to the operations of the Libraries or the university. The award recipient will receive $2,000 to be used for professional development activities.
Any member of the UI community may submit a nomination for the award.
Nominations are due by Friday, October 27. Please forward this message to faculty and graduate assistants in your department and encourage them to submit nominations. Thank you for your assistance.
*The University Libraries includes the Main Library, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, and the Art, Business, Engineering, Music, and Science Libraries. (Professional staff in the Law Library and other campus departmental library staff are not eligible.)
The University of Iowa Libraries are pleased to announce a Read & Publish agreement with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for 2023 that provides continued access to all RSC journal content and supports open access publishing in RSC journals. The new agreement allows corresponding authors from the University of Iowa to publish a limited number of open access articles in RSC journals for free.
The agreement purchases vouchers to cover the article processing charges (APCs) for manuscripts accepted by Dec. 31 of this year, including:
Five open access Read & Publish vouchers for RSC’s hybrid journals (all other RSC journals)
To confirm your eligibility, make sure you are listed as the corresponding author, both in the online submission system and in your manuscript. Use your university email address to submit your manuscript and state your institutional affiliation and email address in your manuscript.
When your manuscript is accepted, you will have the chance to choose a gold open access publication route, which will trigger a voucher. Authors will retain copyright and the article will be published under a Creative Commons license. Detailed instructions are available from RSC.
Sarah Keen recently completed her first academic year serving as university archivist in Special Collections and Archives in the University of Iowa Libraries
Keen recently completed her first year as university archivist.
She came to Iowa in August 2022 from upstate New York, where she served as Colgate University Libraries’ university archivist and head of Special Collections and University Archives. Previously, she was technical services archivist and American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences project archivist at Cornell University Library, and archivist for the Jane Harman Congressional Papers Project at Smith College. She earned her Master in Science Information from the University of Michigan and her Bachelor of Arts from Alma College.
Keen took some time to reflect on her first year at the UI Libraries.
How was your first academic year at the University of Iowa?
I’m thrilled at the warm welcome I’ve received and how interested the members of the campus community are in preserving and exploring the past and present of the UI.
Can you share a few of the highlights?
Creating a pop-up exhibit with colleague Liz Riordan, lead outreach and instruction librarian, for the Hawkeye Distinguished Veterans Award event and attending the awards presentation.
Meeting Hualing Nieh Engle, co-founder of the International Writing Program.
Hosting an open house for the University High School Class of 1965 reunion.
Collaborating with some students and faculty in the theatre arts to document the history and present works from that department.
Has anything really surprised you?
I would say it’s more of an ever-evolving wonder of learning all the things going on at the UI, so frequently experiencing that sense of “wow.” Recently, I’ve enjoyed learning more about the built environment on campus, the histories of various buildings, and how the campus was impacted by and recovered from the 2008 flood. Also, a Libraries colleague introduced me to the Iowa Raptor Project and their work in raising awareness about birds of prey and conserving their populations.
What do you expect to be the collecting priorities for Special Collections and Archives over the coming years?
Broadly we will focus on documenting historically underrepresented aspects of the university community, and we will be doing some assessment work over the next couple years to gather more information on what those areas might be. We will be keeping in mind the university’s bicentennial coming up in 2047 and how we can help the community share stories that give a fuller appreciation of our history.
What do you enjoy about being an archivist?
I enjoy learning about people’s lives and their experiences as individuals and with the organizations they create. It’s been fascinating learning about the university, its complex history, and its wide range of activities while collaborating with colleagues across campus.
One last question. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not digging through the archives?
I love rowing, hiking, and listening to music. I’m also a Red Sox fan and enjoy reading mystery books and watching mystery/detective shows. It has been 20 years since I last lived in the Midwest, so I look forward to continue getting reacquainted with the region.
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 to amplify their accomplishments. Both exemplify the care and dedication that all our librarians bring to an institution where the exceptional is the rule.
Donna Brooks
Program Manager, Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio
Donna Brooks describes herself as “intrinsically motivated by possibility,” and she aims to ensure that her colleagues find that kind of motivation in their work, too. As program manager at the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio, she fosters creativity within her interdisciplinary team through project management and organizational development. The result is a collaborative environment in which all varieties of expertise are valued.
Brooks’ own diverse interests may factor into this creativity-first mindset. Her artistic pursuits include landscaping, making stained glass art, and carpentry—and she also has a Master of Fine Arts in nonfiction writing. Her team shares this adventurous spirit; according to Brooks, one of the Studio’s greatest strengths is that its staff is made up of creative professionals whose expertise, both professional and personal, spans many fields.
Brooks sees the Studio’s fundamental role as connective, offering support to the research and creative work of university students, faculty, and staff. A huge part of that work is fostering equity for everyone on campus regardless of their resources by offering free access to space, technology, and digital project development.
The Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio collaborates with students, faculty, and staff on the digital design and implementation of their research to encourage scholarly creativity, interdisciplinary research, and multiplatform circulation. The Studio also administers the graduate certificate in public digital humanities, runs a summer fellowship program, and offers a slate of short courses for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Willow Fuchs
Business Reference and Instruction Librarian
Willow Fuchs knows that knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the field of business information. After all, every decision requires data, and the resources that gather and store that data are always evolving. She describes much of her own role as a kind of navigator, “steering users in the right direction” to find the information they need.
Her work as a business reference and instruction librarian at the Martin A. Pomerantz Business Library requires an analytical mindset and a wide knowledge base. Users who reach out to Fuchs for help are often looking for extremely specific pieces of information, the kind of data they’ve been unable to find on their own. It’s fulfilling these requests that she finds most satisfying. With “a little digging,” every search can lead to a game-changing discovery.
Fuchs takes cross-campus collaboration seriously, and often takes on responsibilities that reach beyond her own office: chairing and co-chairing committees, collaborating with other libraries, and working alongside groups to support environments that are “safe, equitable, and inclusive” across campus.
Business Library users can reserve study rooms and Bloomberg terminals within the BizHub’s bright, colorful space on the top floors of the Pappajohn Business Building. You can also tap into the team’s knowledge online by checking out the Libraries’ YouTube channel, which hosts over 30 “how-to” videos to guide visitors through the use of databases and other informational resources.
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 hybrid lecture, Khan reflected on her career in conservation and growing with the job. She started her work in the field in 1987 and currently serves as the head of paper conservation at the Library of Congress, where she has worked in various conservation roles since 1996. Her research is focused on the characterization of bookmaking and its associated crafts in the Middle East and South Asia, and the development of techniques for the preservation of illuminated manuscripts from the same geographic area.
In conjunction with the lecture, Khan taught an Islamic bookbinding structure to UI Center for the Book graduate students and UI Libraries staff in March 2023.
According to Khan, a career takes time, not unlike finding a book. Her advice to people in the conservation field, or any field: take every opportunity to practice and apply.
“It’s better to have other people say no to you than to say no to yourself,” Khan shared with Suzanne Glémot, collections care assistant, before the lecture. “It’s a small world in book and paper, and even if you don’t think you’re fully qualified for the job yet, you should apply. The more you interview, the better you get at it. The more you learn and know about yourself, and it’s a chance to show your works and meet folks in this small enough community.”
The William Anthony Conservation Lecture Series is supported by the William Anthony Conservation Fund, established in 1989 by a generous gift from Julie Scott and James Fluck. It honors Anthony’s long-lasting legacy in the field and his service as the Libraries’ first conservator and first bookbinding instructor at the UI Center for the Book.
From the deep connections he’s forged as a student at the University of Iowa and working in the local community to his family’s longstanding ties to the Amana Colonies, Aaron Schaefer knows that having a strong foundation is crucial to being successful both personally and professionally. It’s one of the reasons he decided to become a member of the UI Libraries Advancement Council (LAC).
Paula Wiley, associate director of development, and Jane Roth, current chair of the LAC, look on as Aaron Schaefer learns about lithographs and a book purchased for Special Collections in honor of his service as chair of the Council during its fall 2023 meeting.
Schaefer recently completed his one-year term as chair of the LAC, which actively champions the Libraries and provides guidance and feedback to help the UI Center for Advancement’s effort to increase support through fundraising, advocacy, and engagement.
The group gathered on campus and virtually for hybrid meetings in November 2022 and April 2023. According to Schaefer, it’s been a privilege to work with members of the LAC and Libraries team members.
“My time as chair as well as my entire time on the Council has opened my eyes to the many ways the Libraries engage with students and faculty and what a vital resource it is not only to campus but also to the larger community and beyond,” says Schaefer.
And the resources provided by the Libraries are also something he experienced firsthand while earning a Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Business Administration from Iowa. Schaefer is currently serving as the senior vice president, investment officer lead, trust and wealth management at Hills Bank and Trust Company in North Liberty, Iowa—and he, his wife, Shana, and two boys, August and Orson, recently renovated and moved into his grandparents’ home in Amana, Iowa. Schaefer’s family has deep roots in the area dating back to the late 1800s, and he knows that learning from and celebrating the past and present, while looking towards the future, is an important component for success at any stage in life.
“The UI Libraries is place to connect and create with fellow students and colleagues. It’s also a place where one can learn about the untold stories of the university and the state of Iowa that are so critical to understanding who we are and where we came from and how much we have grown as a community,” says Schaefer. “I think it is important to support the Libraries because the resources it provides has the power to light a fire in a student or researcher. Our support is the tinder for that fire. We don’t want it to go out.”
Jane Roth from Leesburg, Virginia, is now serving as chair and Christie Krugler, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is vice-chair. Schaefer will continue as member of the LAC and says he’s looking forward to continuing to help the group advocate for the Libraries.
The Council’s next meeting is scheduled for November 2023. Current members include Virginia Eichacker, Las Vegas, Nevada; LeAnn Lemberger, Ottumwa, Iowa; Krugler; Roth; and Schaefer.
The Council thanks Susan Annett, Timothy Benson, Sandra Reuben, and Griffin Sweeney for their service as members of the LAC. The four have completed their terms and become emeritus members of the group, who are available to provide counsel to the group as needed.
Curator of Rare Books and Maps Eric Ensley explained to Schaefer and the LAC that Joseph and his son William Henry Prestele are renowned lithographers and some of the best-known documentarians of American plant life. Joseph immigrated to the Amanas from Germany where he set up his business. William Henry went on to do a very influential series of lithographs for the USDA in the late 19th century.
“It was an incredibly thoughtful gift,” says Schaefer. “There is very little more important to me than my connection to the Amana Colonies and to be honored with lithographs that are connected to the history of that community was amazing.”
The lithographs were purchased by the Friends of the University of Iowa Libraries.
A UI team uses medical technology to reveal secrets along the spine
“It was a goose bumps moment,” says Eric Ensley, curator of rare books and maps in Special Collections and Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries.
An interdisciplinary group of UI researchers had just found new layers of history beneath the surface of 16th-century books using medical CT scanning technology. The find: recycled medieval binding fragments, called “binder’s waste,” that came from a Latin Bible dating to the 11th or 12th century.
Now, the group is sharing its discoveries, which confirm that the method is a cost- and time-effective means to recover fragments hidden beneath bindings without damaging a valuable book. The full academic article, “Using computed tomography to recover hidden medieval fragments beneath early modern bindings, first results,” is available in Heritage Science.
Members of the IISICCA gather to analyze results as a volume of Historia Animalium undergoes CT scanning. Photo by Laura Moser. Volumes of Historia Animalium are prepared for scanning by Giselle Simón, university conservator, and Eric Ensley, curator of rare books and maps in Special Collections and Archives in the UI Libraries. Photo by Laura Moser. A close look at the binder’s waste examined by the IISICCA. Photo by Eric Ensley.
The UI Libraries is part of the Iowa Initiative for Scientific Imaging and Conservation of Cultural Artifacts (IISICCA). The group, composed of faculty and staff representing a range of disciplines, has been working since 2021 to learn more about the fragments found in the collections at Special Collections and Archives and the John Martin Rare Book Room in the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences.
The IISICCA’s book spines and fragments project seeks to find new methods to help uncover hidden collections in the UI Libraries and others around the country and the world. Other methods of scanning medieval books face limitations, so the team of UI researchers decided to try CT scanning to see the fragments concealed within their bindings.
The group utilized CT technologies at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics and experimented using Special Collections’ copy of Conrad Gessner’s five-volume Historia Animalium. They chose this book, an early printed attempt at a holistic encyclopedia of the world’s animal kingdom, because its binding had already come undone and revealed evidence of binder’s waste.
Ensley; Giselle Simón, university conservator; Susan Walsh, technical director of the Small Animal Imaging Core (SAIC); and Katherine H. Tachau, professor emerita of history at the UI, reflected on their involvement with the project and the impact it has on the field of librarianship and beyond.
Q: What is your role in IISICCA?
Ensley: I’m one of the current co-directors of IISICCA and one of the project leads on the book spines and fragments project. While we often hear it said about some libraries that they “don’t have medieval manuscripts” in their collections, this is often not the case—the manuscripts typically are just hiding. Though other projects around the world have made these types of texts visible, we’re excited that this project makes it cheaper and more easily available for many institutions that lack the ability to purchase expensive equipment.
Simón: As university conservator, my role is to ensure that our collection materials are safe and cared for during the imaging process. It is all about preserving our collections. These materials are greatly affected by temperature and humidity, so when they get transported to a different location, I need to be aware of those factors. I’m also responsible for packing things for transport, making sure that transport is safe and items are insured, and overseeing their use during the imaging process.
Q: What value do you think these IISICCA projects have to your field and beyond?
Ensley: I think they offer a variety of positive impacts. From my perspective as a curator interested in the Middle Ages, our project is among the first that offers a solution to some of the expenses associated with working to recover fragments. I think the second important point is that this sort of work shows what can happen when humanities, sciences, and information professionals work together—we each bring different expertise to the table and think about problems in new ways.
Simón: Conservators are interested in using imaging techniques to inform treatment decisions. If we know chemical makeup, we can make better decisions about what materials we need to use in repairing an item. Imaging techniques also help conservators understand exactly what is causing damage or to determine the best long-term storage needs of an object, whether it be a book or a painting. It’s about knowing the facts about an object’s physicality to help make decisions. I’ll never be an expert in CT scanning, so collaboration with our science colleagues is critical.
Tachau: People have been writing and reading books for three or four thousand years, and most of the time we readers tend to think of a book’s text when we think of the information that the book contains. As material objects made by individual human beings, however, books give us much more knowledge. We were thrilled to see that technology, in this case CT scanning, is revealing there is a lot more information to be learned from the books themselves than merely what is written between its covers. Even if fragments found in books are not lost texts, they still offer glimpses of early forms of writing, clues to where the book was bound or who did the binding, and even hints of ownership.
Walsh: Having non-biological samples to image allows a bit of creativity to be included within the scientific method. This creative step can span answering a simple question as to how to coordinate transportation of the materials with the curator’s oversight to securing the sample while imaging and applying data analysis techniques to the images. Anytime the circle of collaboration is increased, the depth of understanding one’s own field of research deepens.
Q: What have you learned from your on-campus collaborators while working in IISICCA?
Ensley: The number one thing I’ve learned is that we should be asking each other for help more often. Not only do we all have different technical expertise, but we often think about things differently. For example, it may come as a surprise, but when fragments are wrapped around a spine, they’re not flat. So how do we read a fragment that’s not flat? Luckily, one of our researchers immediately compared this to CT scanning a human eyeball—there the CT needs to read the surface of the eye, which is, of course, curved. Our team used software used to help CTs read these curved surfaces to help read our curved fragments.
Simón: It’s great to understand, even just a little, the vastness of types of research that go on here at the UI. I have loved learning about what my colleagues from across campus are doing and what they are passionate about.
Tachau: It’s exciting to learn what technologies are available to bring to light evidence for historians to use that we could not otherwise discover; this evidence allows us to ask (and try to answer) new questions about the past.
Walsh: I remember the day we were using the human-sized CT scanner to scan the three manuscripts. Everyone was crowded around the control console of the CT scanner watching in real time as the data from the bindings was processed. The moment the first letter was visible to the eye and my IISICCA colleagues were able to see their hypothesis become reality was quite special.
Q: What is next?
Ensley: We’ll be continuing to work together. I think this research is a good example of how libraries have a central role to play in “crossing the river” between the humanities and the sciences. In many ways, librarians sit at the center, with some background in scientific inquiry and some background in humanistic inquiry. Here, our collections and knowledge helped inflect the project and create research that will help other libraries across the world better understand their collections and what lies just below the surface.
Simón: The potential for further research of our artifacts using noninvasive techniques is at the core of how it could be of value going forward. As a conservator, this idea speaks to me. Scholars continue to dig deeper, so to speak, to understand the material culture of the book, and the need to investigate the physical object will always be somewhat of a conundrum for preservation. In a library, the book is meant to be used. How can we accommodate that use and also find hidden elements in more investigative ways without doing harm? I think we are on the right track.
Walsh: Taking the long view, having this collaboration provides many avenues of study for students. As this approach to understanding library materials is gaining ground worldwide, it will be a benefit for UI students spanning departments, which is invaluable.
The IISICCA brings together UI faculty, staff, and researchers from the UI Libraries; Center for the Book; College of Engineering; departments of Art History, Classics, History, Religious Studies; Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging; Small Animal Imaging Core; the Iowa Initiative for Artificial Intelligence; and the Stanley Museum of Art.
Iowa has hosted two international conferences on closely related topics regarding manuscripts: the 2016-18 Mellon-Sawyer seminar and the 2020 “More Than Meets the Eye” Conference.
This remarkable facility boasts towering shelves, millions of volumes, and a satellite—and that’s just the beginning.
The shelves at the Annex are a towering 22 feet tall, stacked high with materials.
The University of Iowa Libraries Annex sits on the outskirts of Iowa City, tucked between warehouses and against train tracks. Inside the 60,000-square-foot facility, long aisles extend into darkness—but when the motion-activated lights click on, they illuminate 22-foot shelves stacked floor-to-ceiling with trays of materials. The effect is kaleidoscopic, books of every color neatly in place.
This impressive space currently stores about 1.8 million volumes—not including thousands of Special Collections and Archives materials—but has capacity for up to 4.8 million. It’s the only facility of its kind in the state, and a critical component of the UI Libraries’ strategy, streamlining management, preservation, and access to physical book collections.
Hoberg and Halterman-Dess both cite this plasma detection package as their favorite item, adding that it has been sent into orbit twice.
Items from the UI Libraries can end up in the Annex for multiple reasons. Age and the rate of circulation are the most common deciding factors, but some materials also are ill-suited for the bookstacks due to their size or shape; others require the particular atmospheric conditions of the facility. Materials in the Annex are organized by size rather than the classification numbers used in the stacks. A separate room for cold storage contains dozens of delicate film reels, kept at an optimal chill by an HVAC system with air conditioner and dehumidifier units.
Library Annex Coordinator Maggie Halterman-Dess and Library Annex Assistant Madde Hoberg had no trouble identifying their favorite item stored at the Annex: an instrument called a plasma detection package. It’s a few feet tall, covered in solar panels, and has been to space twice. It was transferred from the Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2013, becoming part of the Space Exploration Artifacts Collection in the UI Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives. It played a significant role in the history of space exploration, becoming the first object to be picked up and maneuvered by the remote manipulator arm of a shuttle.
Though the Annex is a repository of physical items, it has played a key role in the modernization of the UI Libraries. One beneficiary has been the Pomerantz Business Library, which is located in the BizHub at the Tippie College of Business. It’s been able to keep pace with a changing industry landscape by moving the contents of its former stacks to the Annex. Students and faculty can still request any book from the collection or the UI Libraries as a whole, but their physical space on campus has been transformed. In place of bookstacks, the BizHub is now able to host collaborative workspaces, a tutoring center, Bloomberg terminals, and a café.
“The UI Libraries Annex is an important resource for the preservation of materials,” says Jack B. King University Librarian John Culshaw. “It not only allows us to be discerning about which items remain in the on-campus bookstacks, but it also opens up possibilities for the use of space, which is always a consideration for us.”
One of the most promising—and daunting—projects for libraries worldwide is the digitization of vast collections. A team from the UI Libraries has been working alongside the Big Ten Academic Alliance and other peer institutions to send collections for digitization in partnership with Google Books.
The Annex plays a crucial role in this partnership, storing the physical copies of books from the UI Libraries after they have been digitized. This allows libraries to design spaces that keep up with technological progress. It also simplifies the discovery of electronic copies, many of which are instantly accessible to borrowers. The Google Books Project also serves a larger goal: the creation of a more connected and collaborative library landscape.
Books are placed in trays and then added to a cart before being loaded onto the cherry picker for shelving.
“As library collections include more born-digital content, there is less need to have immediate access to material on campus,” says Halterman-Dess. “The Annex fits into a larger library ecosystem of distributed storage and retention agreements, ensuring that items are committed for safekeeping and fast fulfillment of patron needs on a more regional basis, rather than every library needing to attempt to collect everything.”
The current Annex first opened in 2016, replacing a temporary storage space first used in a significant stacks-reorganization project necessitated by the flood of 2008. This first iteration was a standard-issue warehouse, effective as a stopgap measure but lacking the intentionality of its successor. Still, UI Libraries staff found that the first Annex met a need that persisted even under ordinary circumstances. One of the Annex’s primary benefits was that it created space for books that hadn’t circulated in years but still had something to offer.
Today’s UI Libraries Annex is a cavernous space with a controlled climate: always 65 degrees Fahrenheit, always 50% humidity. Workers step in from the summer heat and don sweaters. They navigate the aisles in a cherry picker, a piece of industrial equipment that requires operators to wear a full-body harness in case of falls. Full-time staff need training in the operation of heavy machinery. It’s a unique professional environment, and each day’s to-do list requires some improvisation.
“Flexibility is a big must for work at the Annex,” says Hoberg. “We often have to make do with what we have, come up with new shelving solutions for unique materials, and so on. It’s definitely not your ‘typical’ library job.”
Some items, like these reels, require storage at lower temperatures and are placed in a cold storage room.
Though faculty members and researchers sometimes ask to visit the facility in person, scans are also available. Halterman-Dess and Hoberg take pride in their ability to hunt down esoteric knowledge upon request. They work directly with borrowers to discern what kind of information they’re seeking in order to target the right materials, which they then scan and share electronically. The UI Libraries Annex team is able to provide these high-quality scans within a “pretty rapid” time frame, according to Halterman-Dess.
“There might be an assumption that if it’s not on-shelf at one of the campus libraries, there will be a lot of hassle from the user’s point of view to put in a request and receive it, but it’s really pretty slick,” says Halterman-Dess.
Physical items take longer to receive because they must be checked out and delivered, but this process, too, has been streamlined. Before the pandemic, the Annex restricted the delivery of items to campus addresses or locations farther than 25 miles from Iowa City. In 2020, the pandemic called for a reevaluation of that policy. The delivery radius was extended to include Iowa City and surrounding communities, regardless of proximity to the UI campus, allowing borrowers to receive materials at home. This option remains in effect. Items belonging to Special Collections and Archives and vinyl records from the Rita Benton Music Library can also be requested through the Aeon system, though they can’t be checked out.
“I think the scale of what we do out here surprises people. Even after the day-to-day tasks are done, we’re never without stuff to do.”
Madde Hoberg
The UI Libraries Annex is a vital resource, and its collection has room to grow. Other Iowa institutions have taken notice. Negotiations are in the works to collaborate with Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, making materials from the Annex available for borrowers from any of the three institutions.
So much of the work that goes into maintaining an efficient library system is accomplished quietly, behind the scenes—and in this case, at an off-site location. Halterman-Dess and Hoberg happened upon this area of librarianship by coincidence, but they both expressed gratitude for the paths their careers have taken. Hoberg describes it as “satisfying and meaningful” work. Halterman-Dess agrees.
“As I often say, I’m pretty sure nobody plans to go into library storage work. There’s almost certainly no coursework that’s tailored directly to it,” says Halterman-Dess. But, she added, that’s part of what makes it so rewarding. “It’s very fulfilling to be able to work with so many other Libraries staff across the many departments and branches. I feel like we really manage to harness our efforts and synergize very well.”
The first 100-title collection centered on gender and sexuality studies is now published. The works included in the collection have all been previously published in print by the partnering university presses and are now being made openly available in digital form to read and reuse at no cost.
The Big Ten Academic Alliance continues its advocacy for a sustainable and open ecosystem ofpublication. Collectively, member institutions’ more than 50,000 faculty are supported by over $11 billion in research funding, and each has invested significantly in the BTAA’s capacity to further the research mission by advancing public knowledge through open publishing. Together, the BTAA produce roughly 15% of the research publications in the United States.
About the Big Ten Academic Alliance
The Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For more than half a century, these world-class institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed and funded by the provosts of the member universities, Big Ten Academic Alliance mandates are coordinated by a staff from its Champaign, Illinois headquarters. The 15 world-class libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance members include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University–New Brunswick, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Chicago.
Welcome to the University of Iowa Libraries’ virtual New Book Shelf. Here we will present new titles for you to browse and check out. Titles listed here will be monographs published in the current year. If you see a title you would like to borrow, please click the link below the item and sign in with your Hawk ID and Password to request a loan.
Rhyme’s Rooms: The Architecture of Poetry
We treasure our greatest poetry, Brad Leithauser reminds us in these pages, “not for its what but its how.” In chapters on everything from iambic pentameter to how stanzas are put together to “rhyme and the way we really talk,” Leithauser takes a deep dive into that how—the very architecture of poetry. He explains how meter and rhyme work in fruitful opposition (“Meter is prospective; rhyme is retrospective”); how the weirdnesses of spelling in English are a boon to the poet; why an off rhyme will often succeed where a perfect rhyme would not; why Shakespeare and Frost can sound so similar, despite the centuries separating them. And Leithauser is just as likely to invoke Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, or Boz Scaggs as he is Chaucer or Milton, Bishop or Swenson, providing enlightening play-by-plays of their memorable lines.
Hereis both an indispensable learning tool and a delightful journey into the art of the poem—a chance for new poets and readers of poetry to grasp the fundamentals, and for experienced poets and readers to rediscover excellent works in all their fascinating detail.
Portions of this book have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The New York Review of Books.
Adrian C. Louis’s previously unpublished early novel has given us “the unsayable said” of the Native American reservation. A realistic look at reservation life, The Ghost Dancers explores—very candidly—many issues, including tribal differences, “urban Indians” versus “rez Indians,” relationships among Blacks, Whites, and Indians, police tactics on and off the rez, pipe ceremonies and sweat-lodge ceremonies, alcoholism and violence on the rez, visitations of the supernatural, poetry and popular music, the Sixties and the Vietnam War, the aims and responsibilities of journalism, and, most prominently, interracial sexual relationships. Readers familiar with Louis’s life and other works will note interesting connections between the protagonist, Bean, and Louis himself, as well as a connection between The Ghost Dancers and other Louis writings—especially his sensational novel Skins.
It’s 1988, and Lyman “Bean” Wilson, a Nevada Indian and middle-aged professor of journalism at Lakota University in South Dakota, is reassessing his life. Although Bean is the great-grandson of Wovoka, the Paiute leader who initiated the Ghost Dance religion, he is not a full-blood Indian and he endures the scorn of the Pine Ridge Sioux, whose definition of Indian identity is much narrower. A man with many flaws, Bean wrestles with his own worst urges, his usually ineffectual efforts to help his family, and his determination to establish his identity as an Indian. The result is a string of family reconnections, sexual adventures, crises at work, pipe and sweat-lodge ceremonies, and—through his membership in the secret Ghost Dancers Society—political activism, culminating in a successful plot to blow the nose off George Washington’s face on Mount Rushmore.
Quintessentially Louis, this raw, angry, at times comical, at times heartbreaking novel provides an unflinching look at reservation life and serves as an unyielding tribute to a generation without many choices.
533 Days (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
Though a tireless explorer of distant cultures, Cees Nooteboom has been returning for more than forty years to the Spanish island of Menorca. It is in his house on this “island of the wind,” with a study full of books and a garden taken over by cacti and many insects, that the 533 days of writing take place. The result is neither a diary nor a set of movements of the soul organized by dates but rather a “book of days,” with Nooteboom’s observations about what is immediately around him, his love for Menorca, and his thoughts on the world, on life and death, on literature and oblivion. Every impression opens windows onto vast horizons: The Divine Comedy and the books it generated, Borges’s contempt for Gombrowicz, the death of David Bowie, the endless flight of the Voyagers, the repetition of history as tragedy but never as farce. Nooteboom resists the noise of current events yet he must return to them several times, skeptically contemplating the threat of a disintegrating Europe. Reading 533 Days is like having a conversation with an extraordinary mind.
At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince.
Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster——Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston; Sara, a mother haunted by the ghosts of her children in an IDP camp; her husband, Olivier, an accountant forced to abandon the wife he loves; their son, Jonas, who haunts them both; and Ma Lou, the old woman selling produce in the market who remembers them all. Artfully weaving together these lives, this gripping story gives witness to the desolation wreaked by nature and by man.
Brilliantly crafted, fiercely imagined, and deeply haunting, What Storm, What Thunder is a singular, stunning record, a reckoning of the heartbreaking trauma of disaster, and——at the same time——an unforgettable testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit.
Fashioning Spanish Cinema: Costume, Identity, and Stardom
Costume design is a crucial, but frequently overlooked, aspect of film that fosters an appreciation of the diverse ways in which film and fashion enrich each other. These influential industries offer representations of ideas, values, and beliefs that shape and construct cultural identities. In Fashioning Spanish Cinema, Jorge Pérez analyses the use of clothing and fashion as costumes within Spanish cinema, paying particular attention to the significance of those costumes in relation to the visual styles and the narratives of the films. The author examines the links between costume analysis and other fields and theoretical frameworks such as fashion studies, the history of dress, celebrity studies, and gender and feminist studies.
Fashioning Spanish Cinema looks at instances in which costumes are essential to shaping the public image of stars, such as Conchita Montenegro, Sara Montiel, Victoria Abril, and Penélope Cruz. Focusing on examples in which costumes have discursive autonomy, it explores how costumes engage with broader issues of identity and, relatedly, how costumes impact everyday practices and fashion trends beyond cinema. Drawing on case studies from multiple periods, films by contemporary directors and genres, and red-carpet events such as the Oscars and Goya Awards, Fashioning Spanish Cinema contributes a pivotal Spanish perspective to expanding interdisciplinary work on the intersections between film and fashion.
Triumph Over Containment: American Films in the 1950’s
The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America, as the media worked to reinforce traditional family values and suspected communist sympathizers were blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Yet some brave filmmakers and actors still challenged the status quo to produce indelible and imaginative work that delivered uncomfortable truths to Cold War audiences.
Triumph Over Containment offers an uncompromising look at some of the era’s greatest films and directors, from household names like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick to lesser-known iconoclasts like Samuel Fuller and Ida Lupino. Taking in everything from The Thing from Another World (1951) to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), acclaimed film scholar Robert P. Kolker scours a variety of different genres to find pockets of resistance to the repressive and oppressive norms of Cold War culture. He devotes special attention to two quintessential 1950s genres—the melodrama and the science fiction film—that might seem like polar opposites, but each offered pointed responses to containment culture.
This book takes a fresh look at such directors as Nicholas Ray, John Ford, and Orson Welles, while giving readers a new appreciation for the depth and artistry of 1950s Hollywood films.
Like most recent college graduates, Jonah Winters is unsure of what’s next. A young black American raised in France and living in New York City, he tries on a couple of careers only to find that nothing feels right. And as Jonah struggles to envision his future, he feels pressured by his friends and family to put the struggles of his community before his search for self.
But then a chance encounter with an ex-NBA player with his own regrets, inspires Jonah to take his life into his own hands. Deciding to leave the country entirely, he sets off for Brazil. And as he makes and breaks friendships on the way, reflects on his past relationships, and learns to rely on himself, Jonah slowly forms an understanding of self, community, and freedom that is rarely afforded to young black men.
Wendy Doe is a woman with no past and no future. Without any memory of who she is, she’s diagnosed with dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment—or never at all—and invited by Dr. Benjamin Strauss to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research. With few better options, Wendy feels she has no choice.
To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’s ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become?
To Alice, the daughter she left behind, Wendy Doe is an absence so present it threatens to tear Alice’s world apart. Through their attempts to untangle Wendy’s identity—as well as her struggle to construct a new self—Wasserman has crafted an “artful meditation on memory and identity” (TheNew York Times Book Review) and a journey of discovery, reckoning, and reclamation. “A timely examination of memory, womanhood and power,” (Time) Mother Daughter Widow Wife will leave you “utterly riveted” (BuzzFeed).
For acclaimed British-Guyanese writer Fred D’Aguiar, 2020 was a year of personal and global crisis. The world around him was shattered by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the United States, California burned, and D’Aguiar was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
Year of Plagues is an intimate, multifaceted exploration of these seismic events. Combining personal reminiscence and philosophy, D’Aguiar confronts profound questions about the purpose of pursuing a life of writing and teaching in the face of overwhelming upheavals; the imaginative and artistic strategies a writer can bring to bear as his sense of self and community are severely tested; and the quest for strength and solace necessary to help forge a better future. Drawn from two cultural perspectives—his Caribbean upbringing and his American lifestyle—D’Aguiar’s beautiful and challenging memoir is a paean of resistance to despotic authority and life-threatening disease.
In his first work of nonfiction, D’Aguiar subverts the traditional memoir with highly charged language that shifts from the lyrical to the quotidian, from the metaphysical to the personal. While his experience could not be darker, its rendering is tinged with light and joy, captured in prose that unfolds in wonderful, unexpected ways. Both tender and ferocious, Year of Plagues is a harrowing yet uplifting genre-bending memoir of existence, protest, and survival.
Marco Carrera is “the hummingbird,” a man with an almost supernatural ability to remain still amid the chaos of an ever-changing world. Though his life is rife with emotional challenges—suffering the death of his sister and the absence of his brother; caring for his elderly parents; raising his granddaughter when her mother, Marco’s own child, is no longer capable; loving an enigmatic woman—Marco carries on with a noble stoicism that belies an intensity for living. As the years pass and the arc of his life bends, Marco finds himself filled with joy for the future as the baton passes from him to the next generation.
A beautiful and compelling journey through time told in myriad narrative styles, The Hummingbird is a story of suffering, happiness, loss, love, and hope—of a man who embodies the quiet heroism that defines daily life for countless ordinary folk. A thrilling novel about the need to look to the future with hope and live with intensity to the very end, Sandro Veronesi’s masterpiece—eminently readable, rich in insight, and filled with interesting twists and revelations—is a portrait of human existence, the vicissitudes and vagaries that propel and ultimately define us.
