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Nov 30 2009

Help Us Fold 1,000 Paper Cranes for Peace: Dec 3

The exhibition committee (Chiaki Sakai, Japanese Studies Librarian; Marianne Mason, Federal Documents Librarian and Duncan Stewart, Cataloging Librarian) will be hosting paper crane making session on Thursday, December 3 from 2-4 p.m. in Main Library, North Exhibition Hall, with the goal of sending a thousand paper cranes to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. In modern times the thousand origami cranes has become a symbol of world peace. After they are donated to temples or other peace organizations, the cranes often are left exposed to the elements, slowly dissolving and becoming tattered as the wish is released.

Sakai will be providing demonstrations of origami paper crane folding, but you can watch a video online http://www.metacafe.com/watch/387698/how_to_fold_an_origami_paper_crane_orizuru/ .

Nov 30 2009

Material Witness: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki exhibit in UI Main Library

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the world changed. An atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. These two cities witnessed first-hand how devastating the effects of nuclear weaponry would be. The cities were destroyed instantly and many lives were lost.

The current exhibit in the Main Library Exhibition Hall, Material Witness: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, features a Hiroshima-Nagasaki poster collection donated to the Libraries by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The exhibit covers the history of the atomic bombings in Japan up to present day peace activism.

The Hiroshima Peace Foundation organized a U.S. national poster exhibition tour of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from September 2007 through December 2008. The purpose of the traveling exhibition was to convey the reality of the damages and horrors of those events, as well as extend the Foundation’s efforts for the abolition of nuclear weapons and calls for peace. Organizers from 103 cities in 44 states hosted the same exhibition and now the UI Libraries is joining them.

The exhibition was organized by Chiaki Sakai, Japanese Studies Librarian; Marianne Mason, Federal Documents Librarian and Duncan Stewart, Cataloging Librarian.

To learn more about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the exhibition committee put together an online resource guide at http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/Hiroshima-Nagasaki.

The exhibit will be on display in the North Exhibition Hall of the UI Main Library through February 28, 2010. If you would like to schedule a tour of the exhibit for your group, please contact Kristi Bontrager (kristi-r-bontrager@uiowa.edu or 319-335-5960) to make arrangements.

Nov 30 2009

The Yellow Wall-Paper Brown-Bag Discussion: Dec 2

A brown-bag lunch discussion of the short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” will take place from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2, in Room 2032 of the University of Iowa Main Library.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a 19th century writer, was discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health and wrote the story as a challenge to the medical profession and the relationship between science and society.

Mary Trachsel, associate professor of rhetoric, will lead the free, public discussion.

In addition, a related National Library of Medicine exhibit, “The Literature of Prescription: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper,'” is on display Nov. 30 to Jan. 9 at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences.

Copies of the short story are available on reserve at the Main Library and Hardin Library. The story also is online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/literatureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.

For more information, contact Ed Holtum at 319-335-9154 or edwin-holtum@uiowa.edu, or Kären Mason at 319-335-5068 or karen-mason@uiowa.edu.

Nov 19 2009

National History Day Workshop: Nov 19

The UI Libraries welcome National History Day students from across Eastern Iowa to a research workshop. These students prepare projects around a theme and present them at an annual competition.

Reference, Special Collections and Iowa Women’s Archives library staff put together a special library guide webpage for these students: http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/nhd .

Students will be visiting the Main Library on Thursday, November 19. If you have any questions, please contact Janalyn Moss, Reference & Instruction Librarian, 335-5698.

Nov 18 2009

Iowa Doctors and the Germ Theory of Disease, Nov 18

The History of Medicine Society has invited Matt Schaefer, Archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library to speak on the topic, “Iowa Doctors and the Germ Theory of Disease.”  

Wednesday, November 18
5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Main Library, Second Floor Conference Room (2032)

The widely accepted notion that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases was very controversial when first proposed and doctors and scientists from different schools of thought and different countries reacted to the notion with varying degrees of skepticism.  Matt will examine the reception received by the germ theory in the Hawkeye State.

As always, light refreshments will be served.  Contact Ed Holtum for more information.

Nov 16 2009

Memories of a Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor: Nov 17

“Memories of a Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor” screening with introduction by Prof. Stephen Vlastos
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
3:30-5:00 pm
Main Library 2nd Floor Conference Room

Ms. Yoshiko Kajimoto was a student directed to work in an airplane parts factory 2.3 kilometers from the epicenter of where the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. She toured across the Midwest as part of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation’s goal to warn about the future destructive use of nuclear weapons in September, 2008.

Ms. Kajimoto came to UI campus to speak about her A-bomb experience and we received more than 200 attendees both from the university and Iowa City community at the event. We heard from people that her story was the one of most powerful A-bomb stories they have ever heard. If you have missed the opportunity, UITV recording of the event will be shown again at the Main Library 2nd Floor Conference Room on November 17th with introduction by Prof. Stephen Vlastos from the Department of History.

Nov 5 2009

Iowa Research Online in Smart Search

Iowa Research Online (IRO) preserves and provides open access to the scholarly and creative work of the University of Iowa. 

We are pleased to announce that over 1500 records for items found in the IRO are now available in Smart Search.  Additional records will be added to Smart Search on a monthly basis.

Nov 4 2009

A “Notorious Affair” Highlighted Special Collections Exhibition

Between October 1943 and March 1944 the German Embassy in Ankara had access to documents from the British Embassy. These included documents relating to the Teheran, Cairo and Casablanca conferences, at which Allied strategies were discussed, including Operation Overlord and the disposition of Europe after the war in the event of an Allied victory.

The German Embassy received this information from a very unlikely source: not a trained spy but an unscrupulous Albanian servant with a chip on his shoulder. This exhibit, “The Singing Spy,” examines some of resources at the University of Iowa relating to this incident, drawing from almost every department in the Library (Special Collections, Media Services, Maps, Government Documents, and online collections) and provides a glimpse into this “notorious affair.”