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University of Iowa

University Libraries

Jul 26 2010

Flooring Project in Main Library

Work to remove the carpeting in front of the cafe and the alcove seating area between the entrance and exit at the south end starts this Friday. The first step will be to remove existing carpet and seal off the area(s) so prep work can begin.

During this two week project neither staff nor public will be allowed access through the area. The Food for Thought will be closed.  The freight elevator will be available only to the contractor.  The other south elevator (west side) is to be programmed to not stop on first floor.

The old carpet will be replaced by a hard surfaced terrazzo, one which will blend nicely with the flooring adjacent to these spaces.  This work will improve the appearance of the area and make it easier to maintain.

Dust from the grinding/polishing will be contained within the sealed off space and odor should be kept to a minimum. There will be some noise associated with the grinding/polishing part of the project. Certainly, there will be other inconveniences and so thank you for your understanding.

Jul 22 2010

LGBT Life in Iowa City, Iowa: 1967-2010 Online Exhibit Earns Honorable Mention

OutHistory.org, the award-winning website on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer U.S. history, announced the winners of its “Since Stonewall Local Histories Contest,” 41 years after the start of the rebellion that marks the beginning of the modern movement for LGBTQ rights and liberation.

“LGBT Life in Iowa City, Iowa: 1967-2010” online exhibit curated by University Archivist David McCartney and Iowa Women’s Archives Curator Karen Mason earned an honorable mention in the competition. The exhibit is a timeline featuring over 70 images chronicling the history of the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender communities in Iowa City. Content was drawn from collections in the Iowa Women’s Archives, the University Archives, and from the personal collections of several members of the community, who contributed their time to the UI Libraries’ effort.

The contest—the first of its kind—invited people from across the country to create exhibits on OutHistory.org about the history of LGBTQ life in their village, town, city, county, or state since the Stonewall riots, 40 years ago. The contest also offered five cash prizes, from $5,000 to $1,000, to the creators of the top five exhibits. The awards were provided by the Arcus Foundation, which funded OutHistory.org for four years.

OutHistory.org received over thirty exciting exhibits about LGBTQ history. One of the contest’s major goals was to draw attention to LGBTQ history in places that scholars have overlooked. Exhibits include entries about states such as Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Virginia, among others.

The “Since Stonewall” exhibits are all geographically-based, but range dramatically in subject, from one New Yorker’s memoirs, to a history of the Gay Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C., an account of a long-lived gay bar in Michigan called The Flame, and a timeline of The Lesbian Mothers National Defense Fund in Seattle. All the entries are listed on the site.

Professors and historians of homosexuality John D’Emilio and Leisa Meyer served as judges of the contest.

Jul 20 2010

ICBF Book Raffle Winner Announced: Robert Oppliger

Congratulations to Robert Oppliger. Nancy Baker, University Librarian, drew his name from the fishbowl of raffle tickets to win the collection of 75 books from Penguin Publishing.

All of the money collected for the raffle will go directly to support the Iowa City Book Festival (Penguin Publishing donated the books for the contest). Thank you to all who purchased raffle tickets.

Jul 15 2010

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

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

Lan Samantha Chang reading, Prairie Lights bookstore, Nov. 10, 2006
Listen to more audio from Live From Prairie Lights

bookfest3

Out of the girls’ room and into the night by Thisbe Nissen
Read more e-books from the Iowa Short Fiction Awards

Jun 17 2010

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.

Jun 11 2010

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.

Jun 4 2010

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.

May 14 2010

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.