University Libraries

University of Iowa Libraries and the University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA) will present a series of free public lectures to be held in the museum in conjunction with “From Monks to Masters: The Medieval Manuscript and the Early Printed Book,” an exhibition that will be on display at the museum through Oct. 7.

The exhibition of more than 50 objects explores the transition from a time when books were hand copied by a select group of literate and often religious scribes to the era of mass-produced books created by master printers using the latest 15th-century technology — the hand-operated wooden printing press.

The lectures, presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday evenings in the UIMA Carver Gallery, will provide insight into the medieval world in which the books and manuscripts were created. Subjects range from techniques of bookbinding, to religious and musical practice, to the knowledge of anatomy and medicine in the middle ages.

UI faculty and staff will present the lectures. The dates, topics and speakers are listed below.

— July 26: Gary Frost, “Medieval Bookbinding”

— Aug.  2: Raymond A. Mentzer, “Medieval Religious Texts”

— Aug.  9: Edwin A. Holtum, “Breaking With Galen: Anatomy and Medicine in the Early Days of Printing”

— Aug.  16: Cheryl D. Jacobsen, “They Did That All by Hand? The Dedicated Task of the Medieval Scribe”

— Aug.  23: Timothy D. Barrett, “On the Invention of Imitation Parchment: Papermaking in Europe 1300-1500”

— Aug.  30: Sara T. Sauers, “Early Modern Typography”

— Sept. 6: Elizabeth Aubrey, “From Singer’s Lips to Scribe’s Pen: Music in Medieval Manuscripts”

— Sept. 13: Denise Filios, “Constructing Power: Illuminated Manuscripts in Medieval and Golden Age Spain”

— Sept. 20: Jonathan Wilcox, “Questions of Authenticity: Medieval Charters, Medieval Manuscripts, and Modern Facsimiles”

— Sept. 27: Glenn Ehrstine, “Medieval Studies in Iowa”

— Oct. 4: Matthew P. Brown, “The Persistence of the Medieval in Early American Book Culture”

The exhibition is a collaboration of UI Libraries Special Collections, the Hardin Library’s Martin Rare Book Room and the UIMA. It was organized by David Schoonover and Gregory Prickman of Special Collections & University Archives at the UI Libraries, and Kathleen Kamerick of the UI Department of History.

This exhibition is open to the public free of charge.

The UI Museum of Art, located on North Riverside Drive in Iowa City, is open noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and noon to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Admission is free.

For more information on the UI Museum of Art visit http://www.uiowa.edu/uima. Learn more about UI Libraries Special Collections at http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has announced that the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) has received $881,692 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to recruit and educate librarians.

The SLIS will use these funds to recruit two groups of 20 students who already have teaching certificates for its master’s degree program in library and information science. They will receive fellowships to fund their master’s degrees. Iowa Area Education Agencies, the State Library of Iowa and the Iowa Association of School Librarians will assist in the recruitment process. These funds will also help SLIS revise and refine its curriculum and delivery systems.

“I hope that with these funds, the University of Iowa will be able to make its excellent School of Library and Information Science even stronger,” Harkin said. “Libraries play a crucial role in both preserving past discoveries and facilitating future scholarship. With decreasing numbers of librarians across the country, it is important to draw new professionals to this field and give them opportunities to excel.”

An independent grant-making agency of the federal government, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has a defined, focused mission: to lead the effort to create and sustain a “nation of learners.” Harkin is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations panel that funds library and education initiatives.

James Elmborg, director of the UI SLIS program, said the grant was written in response to recent state legislation requiring all Iowa school districts to have a licensed teacher librarian on staff.  He estimates that there could be up to 75 to 100 openings for school librarians in Iowa in the next two to three years.

“While we feel we’re already very effective at educating information professionals, this grant will give us a chance to focus on our curriculum for teacher librarians in ways appropriate for the Internet age.  This means more and better use of information technology and more focus on helping students to be more effective users of information resources,” Elmborg said. “Even very young students are often very technically savvy, but they really don’t understand how information is produced or how to evaluate its usefulness in practical contexts.  We hope to educate librarians to be effective teachers of these skills.”

The grant relies heavily on partnerships with the Iowa Area Education Agencies who will help the UI manage distance education resources for delivery of the degree across the state of Iowa, he added.

A collection of rare books and manuscripts from UI Libraries will go on public display for the first time at the UI Museum of Art (UIMA) in the exhibition “From Monks to Masters: The Medieval Manuscript and the Early Printed Book,” June 23-Oct. 7.The exhibition is a collaboration of UI Libraries Special Collections, the Hardin Library’s Martin Rare Book Room and the UIMA. It was organized by David Schoonover and Gregory Prickman of Special Collections & University Archives at the UI Libraries, and Kathleen Kamerick of the UI Department of History.

The exhibition of more than 50 objects explores the transition from a time when books were hand copied by a select group of literate and often religious scribes to the era of mass-produced books created by master printers using the latest 15th-century technology — the hand-operated wooden printing press.

“The university has a very good sampling of the kinds of books that were printed during this early period and we wanted to give the public a chance to see them,” Prickman said.

Among the books and manuscripts to be put on display are beautiful and intriguing illuminated manuscripts and fine examples of incunabula (books printed before 1500). Together, these books illustrate a pivotal moment in history and demonstrate the relevance of historical materials to modern times.

Individual objects in the exhibition include a 15th-century “Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” a homily of Pope Gregory the Great from around 1450 and two copies of the “Nuremberg Chronicle.”

“We would like to emphasize the teaching function of these collections,” said Schoonover, who is curator of rare books at the UI libraries. “Instructors at this university across the humanities have used these books in the classrooms, from medieval history and art history to the language arts, religious studies and music.”

This exhibition is open to the public free of charge.

The UI Museum of Art, located on North Riverside Drive in Iowa City, is open noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and noon to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Admission is free. Public metered parking is available in UI parking lots west and north of the museum.

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)–a consortium of 12 research universities, including The University of Iowa–is announcing that its members have entered into an agreement with Google to become partners in the Google Book Search project. This means that Google will work with the libraries at all of the CIC institutions to digitize distinctive portions of their collections, making those works searchable and easier to access, and preserving many materials that are fragile or deteriorating.

Over the next several years, Google will scan up to 10 million volumes from the CIC libraries, including public domain and in-copyright works, within the guidelines of copyright law. Public domain materials will be viewable, searchable, and downloadable in their entirety. For materials under copyright protection, a search will result in basic information (such as book title and author’s name), plus a snippet of text surrounding the search term. Users seeking further information from the text will be directed to avenues for library access or purchase.

This agreement anticipates the CIC’s intention to create a shared digital repository, so that each university can “deposit” its digitized public domain files into a commonly funded and managed data storage system. Eventually, this will give students and faculty convenient, desktop access to a vast array of public domain materials from across our 12 institutions.

Access to information and research materials is crucial to the teaching and research missions of a public research university like The University of Iowa, and making those materials available to the public is a very important part of our service mission. This partnership with Google and with our fellow CIC institutions represents an exciting opportunity to take a giant step forward in all of those areas.

We encourage you to learn more about the CIC and about today’s announcement by visiting the CIC web site at http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/digitalbooks.