University Libraries

In a word, the University of Iowa Libraries is…BIG! In fact it is the largest library in Iowa and among the top 20 research libraries in the country.

While BIG means that you have access to loads of materials that you couldn’t get at a smaller library, it also means there is loads of materials. So where do you start?

With the help of library staff, we have put together a top ten list of things you should know about the UI Libraries – http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/about/top-ten.html.

What do you think the top ten things students should know about the UI Libraries? Give us some good ideas and we’ll post them here on the Library News as well as update the Top Ten list. It could even mean a coupon for a free drink from the Food for Thought.

Last fall with the help of the Arlene K. French Funds for chemistry services and biological sciences, the University of Iowa Libraries were able to answer the call of faculty and graduate students across campus with the acquisition of the Web of Science historical journals. This archive makes approximately 850,000 scientific journal articles published between 1900 and 1944 available on the Web of Science platform. This tool allows researchers to navigate through more than 100 years of journal literature in a variety of disciplines to uncover the information relevant to their research.

The Web of Science is one of the largest and most expensive databases we provide for researchers. It provides current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 8,700 of the most prestigious research journals. Last year, there were almost 39,000 visits to the database, amounting to over 172,000 searches performed by students, faculty and staff.

“This archive of scientific journal articles allows the faculty I work with to trace the scientific inquiry in their field back to the beginning of the 20th century,” says Dottie Persson, Head of Psychology Library. “Since there aren’t gaps in the information, researchers have a comprehensive picture of scientific development on which to base their own study.”

If you missed the Libraries’ sponsored speaker, Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President and Chief Strategist for the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), you can now view it online. You can also view his Powerpoint slides from the presentation online.

Dempsey spoke to UI Libraries staff and others on February 21 in the Senate chambers of the Old Capitol Museum about how the “Network is Reconfiguring the Library.” For more information about the talk, check the previous news posting.

There have been at least 18 different buildings on the site we now call the Pentacrest at the University of Iowa. A new exhibit, By Chance and By Design: A History of the Pentacrest, in the Main Library traces the history of this central part of campus. Historic photographs of and documents relating to the building of Pentacrest are on display in the North Exhibition Hall through June.

The Pentacrest is named for the five familiar and imposing structures that grace the bluff overlooking the Iowa River. Old Capitol, constructed from locally mined limestonetemp and capped by its distinctive gold dome, is surrounded by four buildings inspired by the Beaux-Arts Movement that figured so prominently in the Great White City of the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago. These stately landmarks can rightly be regarded as monuments to the persistence and vision of the uncommon men and women who shaped the University of Iowa and who recognized that the character of an institution should be mirrored in its architecture.

For those who cannot visit the Main Library, an online exhibit slideshow of early UI images can be viewed at www.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits.

The exhibit is free of charge and open to the public during regular Main Library hours.

The University of Iowa Libraries has been awarded a $20,000 grant from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to create a digital collection of British writer James Henry Leigh Hunt’s correspondence. This collaborative project draws on The University of Iowa’s collection of Hunt materials as well as the research files of Dr. David R. Cheney (1922-2006), a UI alumnus and Hunt scholar, whose papers are held at the Ward M. Canaday Center at the University of Toledo Libraries.

The UI Libraries will digitize 1,600 autograph letters from 1790-1858, transcripts and catalog records. Unlike other digitization projects that offer only the text of correspondence, this new digital collection will present images of the autograph letters, be full-text searchable and provide scholarly transcripts of the letters.  A description of the project can be found at http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/leighhunt/index.html. The digitized letters will become part of the Iowa Digital Library.

The UI Libraries acquired a substantial collection of Hunt materials in 1933 from Cedar Rapids publisher Luther Brewer. Over the ensuing years, the Libraries has continued to expand this collection.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), Romantic writer, editor, critic and contemporary of Byron, Shelley and Keats was at the center of the literary and publishing world in London during the Romantic and Victorian periods of the early 19th century. His extensive correspondence reflects his intimate knowledge of literary, artistic, political and religious spheres in these key periods of British cultural history. Hunt eagerly penned thousands of letters, many of which survive.

“It is a great honor,” Sid Huttner, Head of Special Collections said, “to bring together the Libraries’ 80 years of collecting Hunt’s letters, often one by one; Cheney’s lifetime work; and the generosity of the Delmas Foundation to create a resource that promises to enrich 19th century scholarship in fundamental ways.”

The granting agency, The Delmas Foundation emphasizes the support of research libraries, among other areas, “to improve the ability of research libraries to serve the needs of scholarship in the humanities and the performing arts, and to help make their resources more widely accessible to scholars and the general public.”

“Working with these letters has been an exciting project,” says Nana Holtsnider, project manager and Ruth Bywater Olson Fellow in Special Collections. “I’ve been able to delve into a very important collection and develop a venue to make these intriguing letters more accessible to researchers and scholars.”

Ruthann Boles McTyre is the newly elected Vice President/President Elect of the Music Library Association. McTyre is Head of the Rita Benton Music Library at the University of Iowa.  Previously at Baylor University, she was Head of the Crouch Music and Fine Arts Library from 1992 – 2000, also serving as Associate Director for Organizational Development and Planning, 1999-2000.  Earlier at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, she was the Public Services Librarian for the Music Library. She holds an M.L.S. from the University of North Texas and M.M. (Vocal Performance) and B.M. (Music Education) from Southern Methodist University.  Her publications include Library Resources for Singers, Coaches, and Accompanists: an Annotated Bibliography, 1970-1997 (Greenwood, 1998), “Source Readings,” in Music Reference and Research Materials (5th ed., Schirmer, 1997), “Music in Britain in the 1890s” in The 1890s: an Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art, and Culture (Garland, 1993). 

Among her MLA service, Ms. McTyre has been a Member-at-Large (2004-2006), chair of the Development Committee (2001-2004; 2006-2007), Program Committee (Louisville, 2000), and the Reference and Public Service Committee (1996-1999), the moderator for annual meeting open forums including “Ask MLA” (2000-2003) and “Hot Topics” (2005-2008), and a member of the Nominating Committee (2006), the Education Committee (2000-2004), and the Ad Hoc Committee for Chapter Evaluation (Plan 2001) (1997-1999). Throughout her career she has participated in regional chapters SEMLA, TEMLA, and then the Midwest, chairing local arrangements committees for all three chapters.  In past years, she was also active in the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG), most recently as Chair (2002-2004) and Past-Chair (2005).  McTyre will be Vice President/President Elect for the coming year, President for 2009-2010, and then will serve an additional year as Past President.

Brook Busey, one of the students hired for the Dada retrospective conversion project in 2000, won the Oscar for best original screenplay at Academy Awards for Juno, written under the pen name Diablo Cody. 

Although she did not explicitly mention the International Dada Archive in her acceptance speech, her supervisor, Tim Shipe, Arts & Literature Bibliographer, jokingly claims that it was her job in the University Libraries, “force-fitting chaotic Dada texts into the rigorous MARC format, that taught her the discipline needed to focus her creativity and write an entire screenplay.” 

After her work in the Libraries, she went on to make several other interesting career choices before becoming a screenwriter. Her book Candy Girl  is in the library’s collection.

Kudos to Brook!