{"id":314,"date":"2007-10-23T14:39:45","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T20:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2007\/10\/23\/ghosts-from-the-stacks-at-the-main-library\/"},"modified":"2013-10-30T10:09:01","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T15:09:01","slug":"ghosts-from-the-stacks-at-the-main-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2007\/10\/23\/ghosts-from-the-stacks-at-the-main-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts from the Stacks at the Main Library"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/weber\/id\/2782\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/files\/2007\/10\/blackangel.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"blackangel.jpg\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a>In celebration of Halloween, The University of Iowa Libraries is unlocking the archives to expose artifacts on grave-robbing, demon conjuring, local hauntings, and other spooky subjects covered in the University\u2019s collection of rare books, manuscripts, and ephemeral publications.<\/p>\n<p>Librarians from Special Collections, University Archives, and the Hardin Library for Health Sciences\u2019 John Martin Rare Book Room will discuss highlights from their collections at a presentation titled \u201cGhosts From the Stacks,\u201d which will be held in Room 2032 of the Main Library at noon on Oct. 31. Light refreshments will be served, and the event is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n<p>A corresponding online exhibit of artifacts, including the early 20th century Halloween cartoons of Pulitzer-prize-winning Iowa cartoonist Ding Darling and ghostly cover art from the teen sleuth novels of UI alumna Mildred Wirt Benson, is currently featured on the Iowa Digital Library website, <a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/\">http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu<\/a> .<\/p>\n<p>Speakers at the Oct. 31 event will present rare books \u2013 such as <em>The Discoverie of Witchcraft<\/em>, published in 1584, and <em>The Secrets of the Invisible World Laid Open<\/em> from 1770 \u2013 along with items related to local ghost stories like the origins of the Oakland Cemetery\u2019s Black Angel monument, and the fabled triple suicide and subsequent haunting of Currier Hall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVirtually all communities can boast of some ghoulish episode from the past and Iowa City is certainly no exception,\u201d says Ed Holtum, curator of the John Martin Rare Book Room, who will be discussing the 19th century grave-robbing scandal that came close to shutting down the UI\u2019s medical school in its first year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/digital.lib.uiowa.edu\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/mwb\/id\/3490\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/files\/2007\/10\/ghostgables1.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"ghostgables1.jpg\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" align=\"right\" \/><\/a>The online exhibit pulls together items from the Libraries&#8217; existing digital collections, which feature such diverse artifacts as a 17th century compendium of monsters, the papers of 1950s radio homemaker Evelyn Birkby, and the slide collection of Geosciences professor emeritus Dick Baker.<\/p>\n<p>With events like \u201cGhosts in the Stacks,\u201d the Libraries hopes to promote use of these valuable primary source materials and rare historic publications, both in person and online. \u201cOur goal for the session is to increase awareness of the Iowa Digital Library among members of the UI community,\u201d say Jen Wolfe, metadata librarian for Digital Library Services, who will be speaking on author Benson. \u201cAnd to scare them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In celebration of Halloween, The University of Iowa Libraries is unlocking the archives to expose artifacts on grave-robbing, demon conjuring, local hauntings, and other spooky subjects covered in the University\u2019s collection of rare books, manuscripts, and ephemeral publications. Librarians from Special Collections, University Archives, and the Hardin Library for Health Sciences\u2019 John Martin Rare Book<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2007\/10\/23\/ghosts-from-the-stacks-at-the-main-library\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Ghosts from the Stacks at the Main Library&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3099,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/3099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}