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University of Iowa

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Mar 22 2011

Filmmaker Booth to speak in Iowa Women’s Archives, March 22

Award-winning filmmaker Marlene Booth will present a talk entitled “Tell Me a Story:  Making and Learning From Documentary Films” on Tuesday, March 22nd. Born and raised in Des Moines, Booth looks back – with clips from her films – on 35 years of filmmaking as a woman, a feminist, and a dyed-in-the-wool Hawkeye. 

Iowa Women’s Archives, third floor UI Main Library
March 22, 2011
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.  Reception at 4:00 p.m., followed by presentation from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

Booth, a lecturer in film at the University of Hawaii, has worked in film since 1975, both as an independent and for public television station WGBH-TV in Boston. She has produced and directed several major documentary films screened on PBS, at national and international film festivals, and in classrooms nationwide. Her most recent film, Pidgin: the voice of Hawaii (2009), examines the language spoken by over half of Hawai’i’s people, and confronts issues of language and identity, and who gets to decide what language we speak. 

Booth’s 1999 film “Yidl in the Middle: Growing Up Jewish in Iowa” (1999) explores her Iowa-Jewish roots and uses home movies, period photos, her high school reunion, and interviews, to examine the process of negotiating identity, as an American, a Jew, and a woman.  “Yidl in the Middle” will be screened at Hillel (122 E. Market St.) on Wednesday, March 23rd at 7:00 p.m., followed by a question and answer with the director.

Feb 21 2011

Today’s Hot Topic: underage drinking on campus

Do you have a speech or a paper due on a current event? You’ve come to the right place. In 15 minutes, you’ll develop your research skills and learn about a database that will be sure to add credibility to your paper or speech.  These mini-workshop are like veggies for your brain!

Topic: Underage Drinking
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
12:00-12:15 p.m.
Room 4037, Main Library

For more information, check our brainfood LibGuide.

Feb 14 2011

Walton earns NLM fellowship

Linda Walton, associate university librarian and director of the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, has been accepted for the prestigious National Library of Medicine’s 2011 fellowship program in Biomedical Informatics held at the Marine Biological Laboratory located in Woods Hole, MA. This week-long survey course is designed to familiarize individuals with the application of computer technologies and information science in biomedicine and health science. Taught by a nationally known faculty, the course prepares students to become actively involved in making informed decisions about computer-based tools in his/her organizational environment.

Jan 19 2011

UI Libraries bind 10,000-page, two-foot thick book of poetry

The University of Iowa Libraries now has a massive volume of poetry in its collection, a 100-volume work of 10,000 pages of poetry, measuring two feet thick.

The book, “Poetry City Marathon” was written by Iowa City poet Dave Morice (aka Dr. Alphabet) during a 100-day poetry marathon this summer. The marathon was a highlight of an UI Main Library exhibit from July to October 2010 about the history of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Actualist Poetry Movement.  The full text of the book and is at http://iowacitypoetrymarathon.com/index.html.

Sponsored by Sackter House Media in Iowa City, the book was made as part of the celebration of Iowa City being named a City of Literature by UNESCO. The final text of 10,119, 8 1/2 by 11-inch pages was printed out by Bu Wilson and bound by Bill Voss of the UI Libraries Preservation Department. 

Nancy Kraft, head of the Preservation Department, said it was no small task to bind a 10,000-page book. It usually takes about three hours to bind a 200-page book, but “Poetry City Marathon” took 24 hours to bind, spread over four days with a half day devoted to making a special press to put all the pages together.

“You can’t get your hands around all 10,000 pages at once so the book needs to be assembled into smaller units and then bound together using a specially constructed press to hold everything in place, nicely squared up, until the book text block is dry,” she explained.

Kraft added that the book must be supported while reading, which can be done by using blocks to support the “shorter” side and adjusted as the reader turns the page.

Now that the work is complete, Preservation staff and Morice are considering submitting “Poetry City Marathon” to the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s thickest book.
For more details and photos of the binding process, see http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/preservation/.

Jan 13 2011

Digital Collection of Portraits in Conversation with Felix de la Concha

The University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to announce the launch of its latest digital collection, Félix de la Concha’s Portraits in Conversation— http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/felixdelaconcha .

De la Concha is a painter who creates multidimensional portrayals of his subjects while conducting and recording interviews about their life, work, and views on art. The collection features Spanish-language interviews with some of the leading cultural figures in Spain, as well as English-language interviews recorded in the U.S., including with writers at The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.

Spanish-born de la Concha studied at the Facultad de Bellas Artes in Madrid, where he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome. His work has been exhibited in museums around the world, with solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. De la Concha lives in Madrid and Iowa City with his wife, poet and University of Iowa professor Ana Merino. The two are close collaborators, with Merino frequently drawing upon de la Concha’s work in her scholarship on the choreography of storytelling.

In 2005 de la Concha embarked on a project to record his portrait sittings with writers and artists. “This series started as a kind of experiment: I wanted to see what kind of portrait would come about if, while I was painting the model, the focus was kept on conversation, and the model’s pose was constrained for only two hours,” he explains. “Each portrait was an unpredictable adventure, both in its conversation and in the painting that resulted.”  In 2007 de la Concha began a similar project creating portraits of Holocaust survivors. He has exhibited these works at museums such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.

This collection of de la Concha’s interviews and portraits is the latest edition to the Iowa Digital Library ( http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu ), which features more than 300,000 digital objects created from the holdings of The University of Iowa Libraries and its campus partners. Included are illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, fine art, political cartoons, scholarly works, and more. The University of Iowa Libraries is a staunch supporter of new forms of scholarly publishing, digital humanities, data curation, and open/linked data.

Jan 6 2011

UICB @ 25 Exhibit in Main Library

The new exhibition in the North Hall of the Main Library celebrates the 25th anniversary of the UI Center for the Book, UICB @ 25: The Future of a Legacy (www.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits).

The UICB is a unique program that conjoins training in the technique and artistry of bookmaking with research into the history and culture of books. The first twenty-five years of the UICB reach back to the University’s distinctive programs in art practice at the graduate level, while looking forward to the new media world we find ourselves in today.

Trace the history of the UICB through the work of current and former students, faculty and staff. Remarkable works held in the Libraries Special Collections as well as beautiful pieces loaned from alumni bookartists. Learn about the disciplines studied in the UICB – papermaking, letterpress printing, calligraphy and book binding – and view the tools book artists use.

The exhibit is free and open to the public in the University of Iowa Main Library during regular library hours through the end of February.

Jan 3 2011

Iowa Geological Survey Annual Reports online

The University of Iowa Libraries has recently posted the Iowa Geological Survey Annual Report (1893-1941) online.  The annual reports contain information on the topography and geological formations of all of Iowa’s counties, assessments of Iowa’s mineral resources, and reports on Iowa’s water resources.  Whether being used to grow crops in the field, livestock in the pasture, or to harvest minerals from the ground, the physical environment of Iowa has been the lifeblood of Iowa’s economy.  These reports were the first detailed, organized reports on the geology and natural history of Iowa and sometimes included other information like the plant species of the time.  

We anticipate this material will be most useful to educators and other individuals in Iowa and surrounding states.  This digital collection features the full volumes, complete with scans of both the color and the oversized plates.  Some images in this publication may be of lower quality, but there is a collection of exceptional photographs of many parts of Iowa by one of IGSAR’s frequent authors (and former State Geologist), Samuel Calvin.

Dec 10 2010

Hardin Library participates in pipeline education project

Saba Rasheed Ali, an associate professor in the University of Iowa Counseling Psychology Department in the College of Education, received a Roy J. Carver charitable trust grant of more than $11,000 to expand a career education program called Project HOPE (Healthcare, Occupations, Preparation, Exploration): Pipeline Education for Underserved Rural Students.The initiative will allow middle school students to explore future job opportunities in the health science field. The project focuses on rural areas in Iowa that include a large Mexican immigrant population.

In addition to the UI College of Education, other areas collaborating on this project with the West Liberty and Columbus Community Middle Schools include the UI health science colleges (Medicine, Public Health, Pharmacy, Nursing and Dentistry), the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, the State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Iowa and the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC).