Digitized Book of the Week

Ideals and standards : the history of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1893-1993

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:33:24 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/idealsstandardsh00alle View the PDF. View the Flip Book. Published to celebrate the centennial of the University of Illinois' Graduate School of Library and Information Science, these collected essays "reveal how much the School has always been involved in change and at the same time how much the practices of today are embedded in the work of our predecessors." Includes essays by Kathryn Luther Henderson, Terry Weech, Linda Smith, Leigh Estabrook, Selma Richardson, and F. W. Lancaster, among others, and many wonderful photos from early years at GSLIS.

Vacation on the trail; personal experiences in the higher mountain trails with complete directions for the outfitting of inexpensive expeditions (1923)

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 11:26:47 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/vacationontrailp01dave View the PDF View the Flip Book. This short, engaging book, subtitled "Personal experiences in the higher mountain trails with complete directions for the outfitting of inexpensive expeditions," was penned in 1923 by Eugene Davenport (1856-1941), dean of the College of Agriculture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1895 to1922. Need a rest? Head to the mountains, Davenport advises, for "Nowhere else is there such a succession of details to occupy the attention without mental strain as is afforded on the trail, and if it should chance to lie on the upper levels of the mountains, there is not to be found elsewhere so vast an outlay of nature's best or so changing a display of her mighty works. Altogether, there is nothing to be compared with a vacation on the trail."

Old Saint Paul's : a tale of the plague and the fire (1841)

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:37:22 -0600

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28old%20fire%20plague%29%20AND%20contributor%3A%28illinois%29 The historical back drop for William Harrison Ainsworth’s 1847 novel Old Saint Paul’s: a tale of the plague and the fire includes two events that occurred during the years 1665 and 1666 in London—the Great Plague, which broke out in 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, which effectively ended the plague but also destroyed much of the city. During the plague many of the victims, especially among the poor, were buried in communal “plague pits” like the one pictured here in an illustration by John Franklin in volume 2 of the 1847 edition of Ainsworth’s novel. (Source: Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics [Harvard University Library Open Collections Program]) See also "The history of the great plague in London in the year 1665, containing observations and memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, both public and private, during that dreadful period (1832)" digitized by the University of California Libraries.

Come visit us on Flickr! Try out Cooliris!

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:53:51 -0600

Selections from the digital image collections at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library are now available on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/47195550@N05/collections/72157623235499015/. Or browse through a selection of our Flickr photos with the Cooliris viewer below. Just click and drag!

Le Centre de l'amour : decouvert soubs divers emblesmes galans et facetieux (1680)

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:07:57 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/lecentredelamour00rol View the Flip Book. View the PDF One of the more recent additions to the University of Illinois' collection of digitized emblem books, Le Centre de l'amour : decouvert soubs divers emblesmes galans et facetieux (roughly translated "The Center of love: discovered through various emblems, gallant and facetious") is a Valentine's Day offering from us to you!

Palliser's American cottage homes (1878)

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:43:49 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/pallisersamerica00pall View the Flip Book. View the PDF. Palliser, Palliser & Company of New York was widely considered the most influential pattern book publishers of the late 19th century. For a small fee, prospective homeowners, builders, and contractors could write to Palliser and obtain a set of architectural plans with elevations and perspective views for the most popular architectural styles of the day. An example of Palliser's Cottage Home No. 35 built on 111th Place in Chicago received Chicago landmark status in 2000. You can see a picture of it at http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/P/Palliser.html.

Joe Worker and the Story of Labor (1948)

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:37:22 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/joeworkerstoryof00scha View the Flip Book. View the PDF Joe Worker and the Story of Labor, written by Nat Schachner with art by Jack Alderman, is a fascinating piece of American labor union history. Produced in 1948, it was distributed by the National Labor Service and published by Commercial Comics. "Here is the story of labor in America—dramatic! important! thrill-packed! More exciting than any adventure novel! Join the millions of Americans who have always wanted to know the real, true story of labor and labor unions in this country…All the answers—and plenty more—can be found in this color-splashed, dialoged series of comic strips, with peppy explanatory text. When you have finished this great story, you will have a new understanding and a new pride in the history of the American worker and his fight for better conditions, for a world free of intolerance and prejudice, for a world of decency and unit. A book for every American—regardless of race, color or creed." (from the foreword).

Tenement Conditions in Chicago: Report by the Investigating Committee of the City Homes Association (1901)

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:29:08 -0600

http://hdl.handle.net/10111/UIUCOCA:tenementconditio00city View the Flip Book. In the late 1800s, unscrupulous slumlords took advantage of the Chicago's lax enforcement of housing construction codes to build sub-standard and crowded housing on small lots near the factories and stockyards that employed the waves of European immigrants moving into Chicago. This 1901 study attempted to raise public awareness of the devastating living conditions in some of the worst wards of the city. It paid particular attention to the "double-decker" or "dumb-bell" buildings where front and rear tenement buildings were joined by narrow passageways without proper provision for ventilation and light. "Some apartments have no windows opening upon any other space. The sun reaches the bottom for a few moments only each day, and the lower rooms opening upon it are always dark."

The faerie qveen : The shepheards calendar : together with the other works of England's arch-poët (1609)

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:38:14 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/faerieqveensheph00spenc View the Flip Book. Holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy were among the many virtues that English poet Edmund Spenser attributed to Queen Elizabeth I in his epic poem of praise The Faerie Queen, believed to be the longest poem ever written in English. Shown here are the title page and Spenser's effusive dedication page from the 1609 edition in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois. This volume, along with several others of Spenser's work held by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, were digitized for inclusion in the Spenser Archive. When completed the Spenser Archive "will serve both as a fully searchable research tool and as a teaching tool that presents a wide range of engaging possibilities to the novice user." View other digitized books by Edmund Spenser from the University of Illinois Library.

Bees and Wasps and Ants, Oh My!

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:32:24 -0600

Nouvelle méthode de classer les hyménoptères et les diptères. Avec figures (1807) View the Flip Book. View the PDF. Last year, the University of Illinois Library and the Chicago Field Museum submitted a successful grant application to The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) to digitize approximately 175 volumes on the taxonomy and biology of Hymenoptera, the third largest order of insects that includes over 108,000 species of bees, wasps and ants. Biodiversity researchers from several institutions in Illinois are working on Hymenoptera, including the Field Museum, Illinois Natural History Survey, Northern Illinois University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Western Illinois University. Easier access to what is already known about these insects can only improve their ability to understand hymenopteran biodiversity. Some of these books contain very attractive hand-colored plates and so traditionally have been locked up to preserve them from theft. Digitized copies of these volumes, which will also be contributed to the Biodiversity Heritage Library Project, will make these images much more useable and discoverable. Follow these links for more titles: Hymenoptera, Bees, Wasps, Ants.

Thirty-eight woodcuts illustrating the life of Christ (ca. 1815)

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:31:34 -0600

http://libsysdigi.library.uiuc.edu/ilharvest/Unica/Books2008-08/anon0001thieig/ Depiction of the infant Jesus from Thirty-eight Woodcuts Illustrating the Life of Christ. Project Unica is an initiative of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to produce high quality digital facsimiles of printed books that exist in only one copy. The concept of a "unicum" is difficult for the average library user to understand, since printed books, by their very nature, exist in more than one copy—that's the genius of Gutenberg's invention, after all. But fate and circumstance has sometime led to the destruction of every copy, save one, of a printed book, and the University of Illinois has quite a number of absolutely unique printed books. The aim of Project Unica is to digitize these supremely rare items and to provide a simple and efficient way of getting this valuable and unique information to scholars when and where they need it.

The Illinois Technograph -- University of Illinois College of Engineering

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:24:00 -0600

http://illinois.edu/goto/technograph The Illinois Technograph is the University of Ilinois' award-winning student-produced engineering magazine. Here we step back 47 years into the Technograph's archives where, tucked in among the articles on magnetohydrodynamic generators and the ads for deep strength asphalt pavement materials, you can find the monthly "Technocutie" column featuring a cheerful co-ed eager to share her phone number and measurements (no, we're NOT talking mass, force, pressure, or density here) with the boys in Engineering Hall. The enrollment of women in the University of Illinois College of Engineering has increased from less than 1% in 1967 to slightly over 16% in 2008 and the Technocutie column is no more. We recently digitized the entire backrun of the Illinois Technograph; issues from 1960 - 1984 are now available in IDEALS. View the complete run.

Chicago Architectural Club Annual (1914)

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:35:45 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/4751664_1 View the Flip Book. "In the early 1880's . . . James H. Carpenter, a 42-year-old English born itinerant "draughtsman" in Chicago . . .realized that the need for trained men to finalize designs and produce the working drawings needed for the construction of Chicago's buildings had reached a critical stage. Just what Carpenter's motives were have never before been defined, but it was he who brought eighteen "draughtsman" colleagues together to form The Chicago Architectural Sketch Club in the spring of 1885. This organization, later renamed The Chicago Architectural Club, was responsible for the evolution and development of the Chicago School of Architecture more than any other individual, firm, or professional society. It was through the efforts of this Club that young men, and a few young women, learned the history, the styles, and the functions of architecture to a degree whereby they were able to translate first their employers and later their own clients' needs into buildings." [excerpted from the preface to The Chicago Architectural Club, Prelude to the Modern, by Wilbert R. Hasbrouck (2005). The University of Illinois Library has recently digitized from microfilm the early volumes of the Chicago Architectural Club Annual.

Forbidden to Marry, by Isabella Banks

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:05:09 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/forbiddentomarry01bank View the Flip Book. View the PDF. Forbidden to Marry by Isabella Varley Banks (1821-1897) typifies the "triple-decker" novel, which was a standard form of publishing for British fiction from the early 1800s until the 1890s. The market for this form of fiction was closely tied to commercial "circulating libraries," such as Mudie’s and W. H. Smith. Unlike free public libraries, these circulating libraries charged patrons to borrow books, much like video rental stores do today. Publishing longer works of fiction was quite expensive, and by releasing them in multiple parts publishers captured an audience who eagerly awaited the next installment while proceeds from the first volumes paid for the printing of later volumes. Often sensational in subject matter, the genre was populated by heroines in danger, misdirected letters, amazing coincidences, characters in disguise, potions and poisons. This copy of Forbidden to Marry contains an autographed photograph of and inscription by the author. The University of Illinois Library holds one of the largest collections of triple-decker novels and will be digitizing many of them over the coming year. To see more titles as they are added, visit http://illinois.edu/goto/triple_deckers

Trumpet of Freedom

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:23:36 -0600

http://www.archive.org/details/trumpetoffreedom00oliv View the PDF. View the Flip Book. In anticipation of the 2009 bicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birth, we recently digitized a small collection of Civil War era sheet music from the University of Illinois Music Library. View the entire collection here.