Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio

Digital Library Services has new staff, new name

untitled by Sarah Townsend | Collaged catalog card with stitching and ink wash.

The new year brings new changes to the digital library program at Iowa. Our department, formerly known as Digital Library Services (DLS), is now Digital Research & Publishing (DRP). The title change is an outgrowth of a larger Libraries reorganization and reflects a renewed emphasis on aiding scholars at work on digital research and publishing. The move away from Digital Library Services reflects the fact that these days “digital library services” could describe any number of things the Libraries provide.

Digital Research & Publishing will still administer the Iowa Digital Library, a collection of roughly a half-million digital objects, and Iowa Research Online, the campus institutional repository. With even broader library production support from Preservation and the newly named Cataloging-Metadata department, the Libraries is able to grow its capacity to reformat and process digital objects and generate metadata.

Since the beginning of fall semester, DRP has been co-located with the new Digital Studio for Public Humanities. This synergistic arrangement is aimed at creating deepened support for digital humanities research. We are also working with our library colleagues and other campus partners to identify larger infrastructure and service needs in support of geospatial and numeric data research, data management planning, and emerging forms of web publishing.

One of the best bits of news is the arrival of new DRP staff.

Shawn Averkamp is our new Data Services Librarian. She specializes in transforming source data and metadata for online use and reuse. She will also assist researchers in a variety of digital projects. Since 2009, Shawn worked as a metadata librarian at the University of Alabama Libraries, Tuscaloosa. There she collaborated with staff and researchers on metadata planning, creation, maintenance, and migration. Prior to her stint in Alabama, Shawn was a digital librarianship fellow at Iowa and served as a temporary librarian in DLS where she worked on projects involving metadata reuse, digital humanities, and institutional repository management. We are pleased to welcome her back to the UI Libraries and to the Midwest.

Christine Tade joins DRP after leading metadata production coordination in what was the rapid-cataloging department. Her efforts to train and manage catalogers handling digital library metadata production were instrumental in helping grow the Iowa Digital Library. A 27-year veteran of the Libraries, Christine will be doing a variety of digital libraries work, including managing a growing number of crowdsourcing projects in addition to the current Civil War Diaries & Letters transcription project. She has long been a close collaborator on digital library projects and we’re very happy to have her expertise in DRP.

Matthew Butler, the new multimedia consultant in the Library Information Technology unit, is a regular contributor to DRP initiatives. He assists with projects that involve audio and video, as well as 3D imaging and web delivery of streaming media. For the past 6-plus years, Matthew was the AV Specialist at the Iowa City Public Library where he produced video, did web development, and taught classes on the use of technology in libraries. We’re excited to have his expertise on a variety of research and teaching initiatives at the Libraries.

—Nicole Saylor
Head, Digital Research & Publishing

Hawkeye yearbook, documenting 100 years of UI history, now online

The University of Iowa Libraries has recently completed a project to digitize the entire run of Hawkeye yearbooks, comprising more than 38,000 pages documenting UI history from 1892 to 1992. The digital collection, with its vast assortment of yearbook photographs and illustrations enhanced by full-text search functionality, is available at http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/yearbooks.

“We, as students, are aware that the … University of Iowa possesses many and rare advantages,” explained the student editors in the preface to the very first Hawkeye published in 1892. The stated goal of the student body was “to aid its alma mater by giving to the world an estimation of its real worth.”

“The Hawkeye is our go-to source for many, if not most, of our reference questions concerning twentieth century campus life,” says University Archivist David McCartney. “The yearbook collection is indispensable, and with online access now available it will become an even richer resource for our alumni and the general public.”

Barrett research with Libraries’ Special Collections reveals secrets of old paper

Research by a University of Iowa led team reveals new information about why paper made hundreds of years ago often holds up better over time than more modern paper.

Led by Timothy Barrett, director of papermaking facilities at the UI Center for the Book, the team analyzed 1,578 historical papers made between the 14th and the 19th centuries. Barrett and his colleagues devised methods to determine their chemical composition without requiring a sample to be destroyed in the process, which had limited past research. The results of this three-year project show that the oldest papers were often in the best condition, in part, Barrett says, due to high levels of gelatin and calcium.

“This is news to many of us in the fields of papermaking history and rare book and art conservation,” says Barrett. “The research results will impact the manufacture of modern paper intended for archival applications, and the care and conservation of historical works on paper.”

… The UI Libraries is hosting the newly launched website http://paper.lib.uiowa.edu/ which details all the project goals, procedures and results.

View the full press release

Mourning Martin Luther King, Jr.

Convocation in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., The University of Iowa, Apr. 9, 1968 | Iowa City Town and Campus Scenes

The Daily Iowan, Apr. 5, 1968 | The Daily Iowan Historic Newspapers

The Daily Iowan, Apr. 6, 1968 | The Daily Iowan Historic Newspapers

The Daily Iowan, Apr. 10, 1968 | The Daily Iowan Historic Newspapers

Iowa Writes winter

Snow country by Adrian van Suchtelen, 1981 | University of Iowa Museum of Art Digital Collection

MICHAEL S. LEWIS-BECK
Snow Fall

The snow comes in silence,
with the wind in stillness.
Quiet white,
makes a new morning.

digital.lib.uiowa.edu/u?/dp,2799

SYNDY CONGER
Snowbirds

A bluejay drifted into the plum framed by our frosted window.
Snow dust floated to the ground as he froze, silent as the snowy dawn.
Then, counting it no crime, he snatched all the iced berries within beak’s reach
that the robins had abandoned in their haste and the cardinal has not yet claimed.
He still lingers in his winter place in Mérida with its sundrenched courtyards,
roosting by night, crooning by day, con sus primos, los pájaros de Yucatán.
Hurry home, my love.

digital.lib.uiowa.edu/u?/dp,3057

LAUREN CARMEN
Snow Day

Glittering, swirling flakes fall
delicately from periwinkle skies
so serene at the time
and yet, only students realize
just how much woe
those seemingly innocent snowflakes
will bring them come June

digital.lib.uiowa.edu/u?/dp,2934

ALLISON HEADY
Bat in the snow at the edge

of the sidewalk: brown bud, brown blossom,
not even a frozen palm’s full, lost to flight by cold
unreasonings of season, wings frost-fixed
to your diaphram, only downhills remain.

digital.lib.uiowa.edu/u?/dp,3055

KATHRYN HALL
Snow

The mitten
On the last patch
Shaded
Beside the red tulip
The clouds woolen
So little
By which to remember.

digital.lib.uiowa.edu/u?/dp,3058

THATCamp Iowa City registration now open

Registration is now open for THATCamp Iowa City! THATCamp Iowa City will run from Friday, March 30 to Sunday, April 1 at the University of Iowa. Conference sessions will be held Saturday and Sunday, with workshops on that Friday. THATCamp stands for “The Humanities and Technology Camp.” It is an unconference: an open, inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot.

The UI Libraries is a proud sponsor of THATCamp Iowa City.

—Nicole Saylor
Head, Digital Library Services

Old Baby New Years

With almost 14,000 historic editorial cartoons in Iowa Digital Library, we have no shortage of Baby New Years, a figure commonly seen in newspapers around this time of year. Early samples below of older, fully-clothed children show the symbol still in flux, but by the 1930s it had solidified into the top-hat-and-diaper-clad infant we’re familiar with today.

View more New Year cartoons from the Des Moines Register Cartoonists digital collection here.

Detail from "Well, here I am!" 1903 | Editorial Cartoons of J.N. "Ding" Darling

Detail from "The new delivery boy," 1914 | Editorial Cartoons of J.N. "Ding" Darling

Detail from "Here's wishing everyone a happy New Year," 1931 | Editorial Cartoons of J.N. "Ding" Darling

Detail from "A tip to a stranger in town," 1935 | Editorial Cartoons of Harold "Tom" Carlisle

Detail from "Yeltsin," 1991 | Editorial Cartoons of Brian Duffy

A Civil War Christmas letter

In contrast to today’s holiday letters summarizing the year’s major events, Lieut. Andrew F. Davis’ Christmas note to daughters Orrilla, age 8, and Nan, age 5, catalogs the day-to-day minutiae of life in a Civil War camp. Mixed in with holiday greetings (“I hope Santa Claus in his rambles last night did not miss the stockings of my two little girls”) are observations on camp fare (“country people sell [meals] cheap enough if they were only cooked good but they are poor people who bring them and they have to cook them by the fire in skillets as they have no cook stoves”), scenery (“there is several hundred tents in camp and all with lights in them which makes them look like big lanterns scattered all over the country”), and reactions to news from home (“Tell your ma I am glad she has got her hogs killed but I am afraid she will work so hard that she will be sick again”).

See the full text below, courtesy of the tireless volunteers from our Civil War Transcription project; view more of Davis’ correspondence here; read other holiday letters at our Civil War transcripts Twitter account.

Andrew F. Davis letter to daughters, Dec. 25, 1861 | Civil War Diaries and Letters

Camp Wycliff Ky.
December 25th 1861

Miss Orrilla Davis and Nan Davis

My dear little daughters,

This is Christmas night and no doubt while I am setting in my tent in a war camp, you are enjoying yourselves at the Christmas Supper which I understand you are having at the Court House. No doubt you are enjoying yourselves over your Christmas presents and I hope Santa Claus in his rambles last night did not miss the Stockings of my two little girls but put something nice in them to make them happy. I got a Christmas present this evening which was nothing more than a letter from my dear little girl, and I now hasten to answer it. I was very sorry to hear that our sweet little babe was so sick but I hope it is getting well before this time and no doubt but what I will next hear that you and Nan will both have the measels and if you do you must be patient and you will soon get well again. I was surprised that you could write so good a letter & I read it to some of the boys and they said it contained more news than one half of the letters that they got from Liberty.

We did not have to drill today consequently I do not feel as tired as I do some nights. I will tell you what we had to eat today as you no doubt would like to know. Well we had roast chicken, oysters, peach pie, dried beef, molasses, brisket, butter, crackers, milk, sweet potatoes, rice, eggs &c. So you see we did not starve. It was not cooked as nice as your mother could cook it but it was very good. We bought most of it from country people and they sell them cheap enough if they were only cooked good but they are poor people who bring them and they have to cook them by the fire in skillets as they have no cook stoves. Stuffed chickens ready cooked are worth 20 & 25 cts, pies 10 cts, cabbage 5 cts apples 6 for 5 cts. milk 10 cts pr qt. roast turkies 75 and 80 cts. Sweet potatoes 75 cts per bushel, and many other things about the same. Jo Miller is in my tent while I am writing and almost cried when he read your letter. George [Rinehart?] come back from the Hospital today and is nearly well again. All of the Liberty boys are well now and none of them are at Louisville now.

I send with this letter 2 papers which I want you to take to Mr Thomas for him to publish in the Herald. I want to know if you are going to go to School this winter I gave $2.50 for the picture I sent home to your mother and the one I sent to your Grandpa, Tell mother if she can get the two big pictures framed for $5.00 to get it done but not to give any more than that. It is the prettyest sight I ever saw to go out of out tents after night before the lights are put out as our camp is on hilly ground and there is several hundred tents in camp and all with lights in them which makes them look like big lanterns scattered all over the country. Tell your ma I am glad she has got her hogs killed but I am afraid she will work so hard that she will be sick again. I got weighed today and weighed 167 lbs without my coat on so you see I am well and getting fat. Tell Nan I mean this letter for you and her both and I want her to get in some sly corner and write me one some of these days. Tell ma and uncle Newton that I have not got a newspaper from them since I have been Kentucky. Wm Appleton got last weeks Herald tonight and I got to read it. The darkie I had to cook for me went home today and one of the soldiers is cooking for me now. Ab. Bennett was to see me this evening and is going home in the morning. I am glad to hear that Wally Smith has been promoted to Sergeant as it proves that he has been a good soldier. Mans Crist is Sergeant in our company now.

The drums are now beating for us to put out the lights so I must stop for this time but will write to some of you again this week. You must write to me often as that is the way to learn, and you don’t know how glad it makes me to get a letter from my dear little girls.

No more this time from your affectionate father,
A.F. Davis

Around the Christmas tree

Children around Christmas tree, University of Iowa elementary school, 1920s | Iowa City Town and Campus Scenes

WAVES carolling at naval air station, Ottumwa, Iowa, 1943 | WWII Iowa Press Clippings

Toy store trade card, 1880s | Victorian Trade Cards

We will have Christmas by Grandma Moses, 1945 | University of Iowa Museum of Art

Happy birthday, Alabama

America the beautiful: Alabama, 1966 | U.S. Government Posters

Today in 1819, Alabama became the 22nd state to join the Union.

Alabama moon by Elsie Baker and Olive Kline, 1920 | Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the 20th Century

Black Barn, Alabama, by William Christenberry, 1979 | University of Iowa Museum of Art

5 cent Demopolis, Alabama, by William Christenberry, 1980 | University of Iowa Museum of Art

The Alabama Jubilee Quartet, 1920s | Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the 20th Century