Library News – Page 72

Historical Printing Exposition

UI Libraries Conservator Gary Frost, Larry Raid of the Working Linotype Museum and graduate library science student Bethany Templeton are hosting a historical printing exposition at the Mossman Printing Services Building today, Thursday, April 5, from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm.

You can see some of the technology that shaped early 20th-century commercial printing practices. You can actually try your hand at running a Linotype, Washington-style press and a small jobber press and make your own personalized bookmark.

The Mossman Printing Services Building is located south of downtown Iowa City on Riverside Drive. To get there by

By bus: The Iowa City Transit Westport bus leaves Old Capitol Mall at 45 minutes past each hour and stops on Riverside Drive on the hour just across the street from the Mossman Building.
By car: Drive south on Riverside Drive through the intersection of Highways 1 and 6. Stay on the main road, which turns into Old Highway 218 South (Riverside Drive splits off near the Army Reserve facility). The Mossman Building is on the left, across from Colonial Bowling Lanes and between the two Hubbard Feeds buildings.

Japanese Film Collection

Eight Below, The Magnificent Seven and Shall We Dance?. What do these titles have in common?

They are all films were first developed by Japanese filmmakers and later remade for American audiences.

Eight Below In the 1983 movie, Nankyoku Monogatari or Antarctica, two Japanese scientists, Ushioda and Ochi, develop a bond with their sled dogs while on an expedition in Antarctica. Ushioda and Ochi eventually leave Antarctica, only to return to search for the dogs inadvertently marooned there. In 2006, Walt Disney Pictures released Eight Below. Both films were loosely based on a 1958 Japanese expedition to the South Pole.

The Magnificent Seven

7 Samurai Shichinin no samurai or Seven Samurai is a 1954 film about a village of farmers that hire seven samurai warriors to combat bandits who return after the harvest to steal their crops. The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 Western with many of the same scenes and even some of the same dialogue.

Shall We Dansu? was released in Japan in 1996. It is the story of an unhappy accountant who secretly begins taking ballroom dance lessons. The film was very popular and won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Picture. The American remake Shall We Dance? did not receive as much critical acclaim.

Interested in other films that were originally created in East Asia and remade into motion pictures in the United States, check out this selected bibliography. You can also learn more about the Japanese Collections in the UI Libraries and contact the Japanese Collections Librarian.

Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Week, the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center (APACC) is hosting a number of events including a screening of the film entitled “Better Luck Tomorrow” on Thursday night in the Adler Building at 7 p.m. For more information about the events contact APACC President, Ben Mai.

Quiet and Group Study Space in Main Library

As the semester winds down, the number of people in the Main Library increases and everyone is looking for a good place to study. In an effort to help students find appropriately quiet spaces to work, the UI Libraries has designated a couple of different types of study space.

Quiet Study – when you are working in these designated spaces in the Main Library, please do not talk and turn off all audible electronic devices. You can find Quiet Study spaces on the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Floors.

Group Study – when you are working on a project with your classmates, these designated spaces provide large work areas to spread out your materials. Group Study areas are available on a first-come, first-served basis for UI students on the Second, Fourth and Fifth Floors.

These designated areas are marked with signs. You can also print a map (pdf) of the Main Library which highlights these areas. More information about undesignated space and Graduate Study Carrels is available.

Creating Study Spaces for Students

Nancy L. Baker, University Librarian

I am excited to report that the University is currently preparing to build an off-site high density archival collection facility for the Libraries. And, what exactly is that? For many years, the University Libraries have been severely overcrowded. As our collections have grown, book stacks have replaced study space. The fourth and fifth floor book stacks in the Main Library are shelved so tightly, it can be difficult to pull a book from the shelf without bringing along all of its neighbors.

All large research libraries have a certain portion of their collections that need to be preserved even though they are infrequently used. An off-site high density archival facility is designed to house these collections in a cost-effective, preservation-sensitive environment. In these kinds of facilities, books are arranged by size not by subject and are densely shelved to take full advantage of the space. The temperature and humidity is ideal for long-term preservation of print materials but is too cold for people to tolerate as a work space.

Because these books do not have to be retrieved frequently, the facility can be off-campus, leaving prime campus real estate to other uses. There are now at least 34 such facilities used by research libraries around the country because they are considerably less expensive than a traditional library addition and can house many more collections under better conditions in a smaller footprint. Service is clearly an important element. Books will be brought to campus as requested and whenever possible, individual articles will be digitized at the facility for electronic delivery to the requestor’s desktop.

By moving lesser used materials to this facility, the Libraries will free up badly needed space for users. The number of available seats in the University Libraries falls well below acceptable standards. It has been difficult to accommodate user needs for different types of work space, such as quiet areas, group study areas, and individual studies. During especially busy times in the semester, I have often seen small groups of students huddled in a circle on the floor of the Main Library so they can work as a group without disturbing others. Students regularly complain about the lack of quiet study space, void of cell phones, computers and conversation. The number of individual graduate studies has had to be severely reduced over the years, much to the dismay of graduate students.

So most important of all, this facility is a critical first step in the improvement of user spaces which is why this is such an exciting development for the UI Libraries.

Iowa Women: From Homemakers to Activists (Event Rescheduled)

The University of Iowa Libraries is celebrating Women’s History Month by highlighting archival collections about rural women and civil rights activists from the Iowa Women’s Archives (IWA). A selection of digitized photographs, correspondence, audio recordings and other artifacts documenting the lives of Iowa women is currently featured on the University’s Iowa Digital Library .

In addition to the online collections, two public events are scheduled in March to celebrate the history of women in Iowa. The Mujeres Latinas Project will be featured during a brown bag lunch “Latinas and the Emergence of a Grassroots Civil Rights Movement in Iowa” on Tuesday, March 27 at 12 p.m. in the Main Library as part of the campus-wide Latinos in Action Week: Honoring Cesar Chavez.

An event highlighting the African American Women in Iowa collections will be Wednesday, March 28 at 7 p.m. in the Afro American Cultural Center at 303 Melrose Avenue (this event has been rescheduled from March 20).

“Every month is a celebration of women’s history in the Iowa Women’s Archives,” says Kären Mason, Curator of IWA. “We’re happy to take part in the celebration of Women’s History Month, which gives us a chance to highlight some of the many exceptional women who have changed the course of Iowa history in ways large and small.”

The Iowa Digital Library, an online repository of the University’s locally created digital collections, is featuring the following digitized selections from IWA in honor of Women’s History Month:

Evelyn Birkby Collection of Radio Homemaker Materials
Wife, mother, homemaker, newspaper columnist, and radio personality, Birkby is a journalist with a passion for rural history.

Noble Photograph Collection
Mary Noble, a librarian at the University for over three decades, has collected thousands of historic photographs, postcards, glass plate negatives and other images of and by Iowa women.

Virginia Harper Papers
As a student at the University of Iowa, Harper helped integrate Currier residence hall in 1946; after graduation, she went on to become president of her local branch of the NAACP.

Shirley Sandage Papers
Activist Sandage managed a variety of social programs to help migrant farm workers, impoverished children, and people with disabilities.

Skhal Appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor

Kathy Skhal, Clinical Education Librarian at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, has been appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Carver College of Medicine. This is a three-year appointment with the department of Internal Medicine.

Skhal will tailor her education sessions specifically to medicine students and faculty; she will coordinate and lead small group sessions on specific related topics; she will have lecturing responsibilities and she will help provide information resources.

“Kathy plays a valuable role within the medical school as a Clinical Education Librarian. She provides Course Directors with numerous resources that will be helpful to our students on a variety of topics,” says Dee Dee Stafford, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine FCP IV Course Director. Kathy is extremely enthusiastic about medical education and in the dissemination of knowledge. She has the knowledge and commitment to trouble-shoot problems extremely well. She is very committed to helping out learners at all levels.”

Striking Anatomical Illustrations on Display at Hardin Library

The University of Iowa Libraries and the UI History of Medicine Society will sponsor an open house of one of the finest collections of notable anatomical illustrations in the United States from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 20, in the John Martin Rare Book Room of the UI Hardin Library for the Health Sciences.

The exhibit, “So Divinely Built a Mansion: Six Centuries of Human Anatomical Illustration,” highlights the largest and most exquisite anatomical atlas ever produced — the rare work “Anatomia Universa” completed by Italian scholar Paolo Mascogni in 1823. The atlas is one of only five copies owned by libraries in the United States. Recently, the UI Libraries Conservation Unit painstakingly remounted 44 hand-colored lithograph plates into acid-free panels to protect Mascogni’s work and provide easier access.

The exhibit will also feature the groundbreaking book that revolutionized the study of anatomy during the Renaissance, “De humani corporis fabrica” (Fabric of the Human Body), produced by Andreas Vesalius in 1543.

The exhibit is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served at the open house. The event is part of a series of presentations sponsored by the UI History of Medicine Society.

For more information, contact Ed Holtum at 319-335-9154 or Susan Lawrence at 319-353-4681.

Happy Birthday William York Tindall

According to The Writer’s Almanac, today is the birthday of literary critic and James Joyce scholar William York Tindall, born in Williamstown, Vermont (1903). He was a literature student when he discovered James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (1922) while traveling in Paris. He became obsessed with Joyce, and read all of his works.

When he returned to the U.S., Tindall started teaching a course in modern literature at New York University, and he was one of the first professors in the United States to assign Ulysses to his students. The book was still banned in the U.S. at the time, so his students had to read a bootlegged copy that was chained to a desk in the library.

He may be interested to see the current exhibit in the Main Library, “Making No Compromise with the Public Taste,” which centers around the obscenity trials of Ulysses and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. The title of the exhibit comes from a tagline used by Margaret Anderson on her literary magazine The Little Review. Ulysses was serialized in The Little Review until difficulties with obscenity distribution issues forced it to cease publishing.

Tindall later taught English at Columbia University in New York City where his papers are now archived. He died in 1981.

Find more of William York Tindall’s work on James Joyce.

Ask.com Director to Speak about Relevance in Web Searching

After email, searching for information is the second most popular activity on the Internet. Search has become central means to discover products, services, information and entertainment on the Web.

Kaushal Kurapati, Director of Search Relevance & Quality at Ask.com will present “Search Engine Internals” in the Department of Computer Science Colloquim Series on Friday, March 9 at 4 p.m. in 140 Schaeffer Hall.

There are four major general purpose search engines on the Web today: Ask.com, Google, MSN and Yahoo. Kurapati will talk about how search engines work in general and discuss the challenges search engines face today. He will focus on various aspects of relevance in general and especially on one of the interesting and unique features at Ask.com, “related search.”

Reception, with refreshments, takes place 3:30-4:00 in Muhly Lounge right before the presentation.

Former Peacemaker of the Year to Speak in Shambaugh

Frank LaMere, a Winnebago activist, will discuss “The People, Empowerment, and Change” at 10 a.m. Friday, March 9 in the Shambaugh Auditorium in the Main Library on the University of Iowa campus. The lecture is sponsored by Opportunity of Iowa and Support Service Programs and is free and open to the public.

LaMere has had extensive involvement with empowerment efforts of Native People throughout the United States. In 2001, he was named Peacemaker of the Year by the Nebraskans for peace for his work to stop the illegal flow of alcohol on to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He has been active in state and national politics since 1987 and chaired the Native American Caucus at the 2000 and 2004 Democratic conventions. He is former vice chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and is currently a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee. Frank has also been extensively involved in the ongoing Community Initiative for Native Children and Families (CINCF) and he was instrumental in the passage and implementation of the Iowa Indian Children Welfare Act of 2003.

For more information or special accommodations to attend this lecture, contact Marisa Moore, Opportunity at Iowa, at 319-335-3555.