In the lastest edition of fyi, the online newsletter for UI faculty and staff, University Archivist David McCartney is profiled. Learn more about McCartney and the archives he manages.
Digitally celebrating books, reading, and writing
In honor of the upcoming Iowa City Book Festival (July 16-18, 2010), we’re featuring some of the literary collections in Iowa Digital Library and Iowa Research Online. We hope you’ll explore the content online and the book fest in real life.
Paul Engle teaching at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, The University of Iowa, ca. 1950s
View similar images from Iowa City Town and Campus Scenes
Lan Samantha Chang reading, Prairie Lights bookstore, Nov. 10, 2006
Listen to more audio from Live From Prairie Lights
Out of the girls’ room and into the night by Thisbe Nissen
Read more e-books from the Iowa Short Fiction Awards
Become a Facebook Fan of the Iowa City Book Festival
Get the inside scoop on the Iowa City Book Festival, the authors who will be attending and some special events.
Iowa City Book Festival Announces Line-up
The 2010 Iowa City Book Festival (ICBF), presented by the University of Iowa Libraries, has announced its schedule for the three-day celebration of reading, writing and books July 16-18. The Festival offers activities for the entire family: best-selling authors, hands-on book arts, kids’ activities, music and festival food.
For its second year, the ICBF has greatly expanded its schedule and has attracted some leading writers and filmmakers, including Jane Smiley, Audrey Niffenegger, Jeffrey Zaslow and Nicholas Meyer.
Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Smiley kicks off the festival with the keynote address at the Author Dinner, 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 16 in the Main Library. Tickets for the dinner must be purchased before the event, seating is limited.
On Saturday, July 17, best-selling authors Niffenegger, Zaslow, David Rhodes, and James Galvin join Smiley in the Shambaugh Auditorium Series. The Libraries Special Collections and Iowa Women’s Archives will host a series of authors: Rebecca Johns and Wendy Webb will talk about research for novelists, Hope Edelman and Carl Klaus will discuss memoirs; Ray Young Bear will read from his book, “The Rock Island Hiking Club” and Nicholas Meyer will discuss his memoir, “The View from the Bridge.” Sessions about poetry appreciation, writing children’s books and adult computer literacy round out activities in the Main Library on Saturday. For complete author biographies, see http://www.iowacitybookfestival.org/authors .
Gibson Square will be teeming with activity on Saturday, when mix of local and regional booksellers and emerging authors will be selling their books. Book artists from the UI Center for the Book will lead hands-on demonstrations in book-making. The Center for the Book’s tent is sponsored in part by a generous grant from Iowa Arts Council. Several local musicians will be playing folk, Celtic, and brass band music throughout the day in Gibson Square.
The Family Performance Tent will have puppet shows, kid’s music and clowns. Children can also meet some of their favorite book characters – Clifford, The Big Red Dog and Curious George.
Partnering with the Bijou Theatre and the Iowa City Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau, the ICBF will be presenting an Adaptation Film Series starting at noon Saturday, July 17. Join writers and filmmakers Nicholas Meyer, Max Allan Collins, and Phil Robinson for a moderated discussion of their experiences adapting their own work and the work of others, from the printed page to the big screen.
Sunday, July 18 is A Day in the City of Literature with readings and book-related activities at more than 20 venues throughout downtown Iowa City. Local authors and poets will be reading at Revival Clothing Store, RSVP, The Haunted Bookshop, AKAR Design, T’Spoons on Market, Iowa Book and Supply, M.C. Ginsberg and Prairie Lights. Participants can make their own bookmarks at Home Ec. Workshop or take a guess at the book titles and authors depicted on Dulcinea’s literary mural. The Congregational United Church of Christ of Iowa City will be hosting a series of writers who have published works about religious subjects and spirituality.
For a complete schedule of events, see http://www.iowacitybookfestival.org . For more information, contact festival co-directors Kristi Bontrager at kristi-r-bontrager@uiowa.edu and Greg Prickman at greg-prickman@uiowa.edu.
University of Iowa Extends Its Collaboration with Accessible Archives, Inc.
Content Expansion Will Bring New Material to Civil War Collection
The University of Iowa Libraries has signed an agreement with Accessible Archives, an electronic publisher of primary source full-text historical databases, to preserve in digital format a number of primary source publications from the Civil War era. The Libraries’ holdings include various Civil War memoirs, pamphlets, and regimental histories, which up to now have been available only for those with access to its Special Collections Department. Once the materials have been digitized and made fully searchable, they will become a new portion – an additional part – of The Civil War, a collection from Accessible Archives that has been well received by university and public libraries.
The Libraries has already contributed missing issues of Godey’s Lady’s Book to the digital collection. Among the Civil War books soon to be preserved and made searchable are: One Year’s Soldiering, Embracing the Battles of Fort Donelson and Shiloh, written by the chaplain of the Fourteenth Iowa Infantry and published in 1863; Sketches of the War, 2nd Edition, by Charles Henry Nott, published in 1865; and The Twenty-First Regiment of the Iowa Infantry, by George Crooke, published in 1891. Full-page images will be included, giving researchers access to the text, photographs, portraits, maps, and illustrations found in the original print format.
“We are delighted to extend the collaboration begun with Godey’s Lady’s Book and provide material from the University of Iowa Special Collections to enhance Accessible Archives’ The Civil War. Iowa provided more troops per capita than any other state in the Union, and Iowa men fought in nearly all the campaigns and major battles, were captured and imprisoned in the South, and after the war wrote about their experiences and came together frequently in reunions. All of this is documented in the University of Iowa contribution,” said Edward Shreeves, Director of Collections and Scholarly Communication and Associate University Librarian.
“I think the publications from Iowa will be a great addition and enhancement to the material that we already have. Many times, the Midwest is overlooked as far as Civil War coverage and I think this collection will help to improve that,” added Tom Nagy, Accessible Archives COO.
The Iowa publications will complement the Civil War newspapers and memoirs that are already online, which were obtained from the Godfrey Memorial Library and Vincennes University.
The Libraries announce the 2010 Creative Scholarship Innovation Award winners
The University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to announce the two winners of Creative Scholarship Innovation Awards, aimed at supporting significant digital humanities projects with the potential for national recognition. The award will fund hardware, software, and personnel; additionally, awardees will be paired with a team of librarians and technologists who will work as collaborators to develop the projects. Winners are:
- Julie Hochstrasser, School of Art & Art History—$8,585 toward hiring a graduate assistant with subject matter expertise to work on a collection of documentary text, bibliography, photographs, and video accumulated during research, including travel to key sites of 17th century global Dutch trade and colonization.
- William Davies, Linguistics –$2,080 to supplement other award monies toward hiring a graduate assistant with subject matter expertise to caption videos of Madurese storytellers and create a digital collection that includes Davies’ transcription of Madurese with interlinear English and Indonesian translations.
“University of Iowa librarians have a long history of close collaboration to support faculty who incorporate technology into their teaching and research, reaching as far back as the 1992 launch of the Information Arcade®,” said Library Director Nancy Baker. “This award is a continuation of our commitment to supporting digital scholarship.”
In late 2008, the Council on Library and Information Resources released “No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century.” In this report, Rick Luce, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries at Emory University, notes that the e-research developments initially seen in the science, engineering, technology, and medicine disciplines are now penetrating the social sciences and the humanities. Luce describes how e-research will profoundly shape the research libraries of tomorrow: “Instead of simply storing objects of assorted types, researchers need libraries that reflect a Web 2.0 service environment in which communication is continuous and synchronous. This reality introduces significantly greater complexity to digital capture, curation, and preservation.”
To align with emerging e-research trends and the Libraries’ current strategic goals, the Libraries is transforming the Information Arcade space to reflect a renewed focus on faculty support for e-research, including but not limited to support for new forms of scholarly publishing, digital humanities, data curation, and open/linked data. Toward that end, Digital Library Services (DLS), in collaboration with ITS and the VPR’s office, hosted a series of AHI grant preparation workshops in January. DLS has also begun new collaborations with humanists and social scientists on projects ranging from capturing Twitter feeds in support of political science research to hosting peer-reviewed online journals such as the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review.
For more information, please contact Digital Library Services at lib-digital@uiowa.edu or call (319) 335-9275.
The University’s “Diary” now online in Iowa Digital Library
It may be called the University of Iowa’s diary: magazines catering to its alumni. Starting with The Iowa Alumnus in 1903 and continuing today as Iowa Alumni Magazine, these publications chronicle the life and events of the University and its people on many fronts: research breakthroughs, innovations in teaching, graduates’ milestonetemps, political and social movements, and memorable football games.
This indispensable source of University of Iowa history, spanning over a century, is now available online as part of the Iowa Digital Library, managed by the University of Iowa Libraries. The University of Iowa Alumni Publications Collection, based on holdings in the University Archives, includes every issue of The Iowa Alumnus (1903-1925), Iowa Alumni Review (1947-1993), Iowa Alumni Quarterly (1993-1999), and Iowa Alumni Magazine (2000-2004). Except for a 22-year interruption from 1925 to 1947 when there was no alumni publication, these magazines tell the stories of faculty, staff, students, alumni and others associated with the University.
When it premiered on December 15, 1903, The Iowa Alumnus made a modest promise to its readers in the foreword: “[The Alumnus] will not be a mere news-gatherer, a gossip-monger, or a hobby-horse. It will, however, aim to be of interest to alumni and other friends of the University, and to the University itself; but by what precise process these two things are to be worked out, will be disclosed in successive numbers.” Since its first issue, the alumni magazine has been published by the University of Iowa Alumni Association.
The more than 80 volumes of alumni publications are full-text searchable or can be browsed by year. More recent issues – those published within the last five years – will be available exclusively to members of the University of Iowa Alumni Association as a benefit of membership.
To access the University of Iowa Alumni Publications Collection, go to http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/uap.
Don’t Struggle with Research Next Semester
During the last couple days of the semester, you’re tired, you’re frustrated and you’re spending WAY too much time searching for information for your paper.
The end of next semester can be better! You can learn how to Find the Good Stuff Fast!
- Learn how to DO MORE than just Google for information
- Find information resources your professors want
- Save yourself the headache of searching – do more finding
- Feel more confident in your information/research skills
If this sounds like a better end to the semester, add the course 417:001 Library Research in Context to your fall schedule. In this class, you’ll actually be able to use the information you learn for assignments and projects that you’ll be doing in your major courses. Two for one – now that’s something the University rarely offers you!
So log-on to ISIS and register for one of the following sections of 417:001 before the course closes!
417:001:003 Library Research in Context
Subtitle: Find the Good Stuff Fast
Instructors: Kristi A Robinson-Bontrager, Ericka A Raber
Time & Location: 10:30A – 11:20A W 4037 LIB
417:001:005 Library Research in Context
Subtitle: Find the Good Stuff Fast
Instructor: Steven F Ostrem
Time & Location: 1:30P – 2:20P T 4037 LIB
Or one of the online courses offered this fall:
417:001:EXU Library Research in Context
Subtitle: Find the Good Stuff Fast
Instructor: Daniel P Gall
Time & Location: ARR World Wide Web
417:001:EXV Library Research in Context
Subtitle: Find the Good Stuff Fast
Instructor: Dave Martin
Time & Location: ARR World Wide Web
417:001:EXW Library Research in Context
Subtitle: Find the Good Stuff Fast
Instructor: Christopher A Childs
Time & Location: ARR World Wide Web
Transitions: scholarly communication news for the UI Community (May 2010)
May 2010
Issue 2.10
Welcome to the spring issue of Transitions.
The purpose of this irregular electronic newsletter is to bring to readers’ attention some of the many new projects and developments informing the current system of scholarly communication, with emphasis on new products and programs, the open access movement, and other alternative publishing models. Scholarly communication refers to the full range of formal and informal means by which scholars and researchers communicate, from email discussion lists to peer-reviewed publication. In general, authors are seeking to document and share new discoveries with their colleagues, while readers–researchers, students, librarians and others–want access to all the literature relevant to their work.
While the system of scholarly communication exists for the benefit of the world’s research and educational community and the public at large, it faces a multitude of challenges and is undergoing rapid change brought on by technology. To help interested members of the UI community keep up on these challenges and changes we plan to put out 4 issues per year of this newsletter. Please visit our web site, Transforming Scholarly Communication, to find out more about this topic.
This newsletter is designed to reflect the interests of its readers so please forward comments, suggestions and entries to include to karen-fischer@uiowa.edu.
Read these articles in our May newsletter:
Federal Research Public Access Act: Updates and Commentaries
Open Access to Scientific Publications: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Opening the Doors to Research: Open Access is changing the way we learn about research
NYTimes OpEd on copyright: The End of History (Books)
Wikipedia Lets You Order Printed Books
Lessig: “For the Love of Culture: Google, Copyright, and Our Future”
Google Starts Grant Program for Scholars of Digitized Books
Peer review: What is it good for?
Publisher seeks patent related online peer review and publishing process
Commercial Publisher Financial Results
Open Science: some new developments
Harvard Business School approves open access policy
Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: report on faculty values and needs
Niffenegger and Rhodes at Iowa City Book Festival
The Iowa City Book Festival presented by the University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to welcome Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, and David Rhodes, author of Driftless, to this summer’s book festival July 16-18 in Iowa City.
In The Time Traveler’s Wife (MacAdam/Cage, 2003), Niffenegger initially conceived of the story of a time traveler and his wife as a graphic novel, however as the story progressed the issues of time shifting turned the format into a novel. It is an international best seller, and has been made into a movie starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. Niffenegger’s second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry (Scribner, 2009) opens with twins inheriting their aunt’s London flat adjacent to a cemetery where they find their aunt’s spirit lives on. It is a haunting tale about the complications of love, identity, and sibling rivalry. Niffenegger is currently working on her third novel, The Chinchilla Girl in Exile. She teaches at Columbia College in Chicago.
David Rhodes is a Midwest native. He received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1971. Five years later, a motorcycle accident left Rhodes paralyzed from the chest down, bringing his writing career to a temporary halt. In Driftless (Milkweed Editions, 2008), Rhodes returns to the Midwestern landscape he knows so well, offering a fascinating and entirely unsentimental portrait of a town apparently left behind by the march of time. Home to a few hundred people yet absent from state maps, Words, Wisconsin comes richly to life by way of an extraordinary cast of characters.
The Iowa City Book Festival is a three-day celebration of reading, writing and books. The University of Iowa Libraries will host a ticketed pre-festival author dinner on Friday in the North Exhibition Hall of the Main Library. On Saturday, festival activities will be held in Gibson Square outside the UI Main Library’s south entrance on the university campus. It will be a mix of booksellers, a music stage, children’s activities, food vendors, book arts demonstrations and readings and panel discussions. The festival wraps up on Sunday with “A Day in the City of Literature” which will feature authors and book-related activities in businesses throughout Iowa City.
Niffenegger and Rhodes will be part of the Shambaugh Author Series during the festival on Saturday.
For more information on authors and events, volunteering, or participating in the festival go online at http://www.iowacitybookfestival.org/. Any specific questions or comments can be sent to the Iowa City Book Festival’s director, Kristi Bontrager, at kristi-r-bontrager@uiowa.edu.