Month: June 2014

2014-06-26

The Library will be ending its pilot of the Primo discovery system this summer. Public access will end on July 15. If you set up an account within Primo’s E-Shelf service and need assistance migrating saved information (saved searches, citations, RSS alerts, etc.), contact the Library at http://illinois.edu/fb/sec/3694576 . For alternatives to Primo, the Library’s Gateway’s ( www.library.illinois.edu ) provides other available systems and services.

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).

2014-06-10

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library is concerned about the fading art of reading and writing cursive. Cursive is no longer taught in most grade schools, and the Library is discovering that many of its undergraduates cannot read or write cursive. Think about the ability to read historical documents. Students who cannot read cursive are locked out of doing research on such notable figures in the Library’s collections such as Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anthony Trollope or George Washington simply because they cannot read cursive. Soon, children won’t even be able to read their parents’ love letters!

To work against this trend, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library is holding its first ever Camp Cursive for 8-11 year olds on Wednesday, June 11 from 9-5. Children will learn how to write and read in cursive, of course, but will also hear about the history of writing implements, study handwriting analysis, see some rare books, bind their own book, learn about spies and handwriting, and even participate in a Cursed Cursive Contest.

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).

2014-06-06

News release courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library :

The Biodiversity Heritage Library, headquartered at the Smithsonian Libraries , welcomes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a new member. The 16th member of the BHL consortium, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will help identify and digitize historical science literature from its collections and add these to the BHL’s online holdings, where all materials may be accessed free by the public. More…

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).

2014-06-05

Fire Burne & Cauldron Bubble: Witchcraft at the Dawn of Modernity , a new exhibition in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library curated by Graduate Assistant David Anthony Morris, presents 21 items from the 15 to the 18th centuries, chronicling the rise and fall of the witch hunt in late-medieval/early-modern Europe.

Feared for their sorcery and devil worship, witches were the embodiment of all that Christian society reviled. Across Europe, authorities executed tens of thousands of people who were allegedly part of this vast satanic conspiracy. Several cultural trends from the Middle Ages—including hostility to magic and institutionalized persecution of heretics—coalesced in a theory of witchcraft that became the locus of profound societal anxieties. These apprehensions climaxed during the Reformation, as Catholic and Protestant communities alike strove for identity through the turmoil of the period.

A parallel web exhibition is available at http://go.library.illinois.edu/fireburne .

“I am deeply grateful to my colleagues at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and to the conservators, digitization specialists, and printers, who together made this exhibition possible, both on-site and online,” Morris said.

Among the largest repositories of early printed books in the country, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library is home to a rich collection that chronicles the European witch hunt—which still perplexes and captivates people centuries later.

Fire Burne & Cauldron Bubble: Witchcraft at the Dawn of Modernity runs through August 8, 2014. Morris, a Ph.D. candidate in medieval history at the University of Notre Dame, is available to give scheduled tours to individuals or groups this summer. For more information, visit www.library.illinois.edu/rbx .

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).