SCRC adds CopiBook overhead scanner

SCRC Digital Lab GA Nicole Reynolds using the new
CopiBook scanner to digitize the Wheelwright collection.

The Special Collections Research Center Digital Lab has added a new CopiBook overhead scanner. CopiBook scanners have been long favored by SCRC imaging technicians because of the automatic cropping feature, preview screen, and quick scan times. The latest version captures 400 dpi full color scans in seven seconds and greyscale scans in 5 seconds. It also includes a book cradle to provide support for fragile bound materials. Most digital scans generated by the CopiBook will be accessible online via ExploreUK or UKnowledge.

Denise Hunter promoted

Denise Hunter has been promoted to a Library Technician Senior in Cataloging and Metadata. She has worked in Monographs since 2009 and worked at BCTCS and the public libraries prior to that.  She will begin on Monday, February 22, 2016, and her supervisor is Kathyrn Lybarger. Congratulations, Denise. 

UK Libraries marks “Year of Europe” with film series and exhibits

Dirty pretty things is part of the film series.
Original artwork by Zach Lamb.

As part of the “Year of Europe” sponsored by the UK College of Arts and Sciences, UK Libraries is hosting a festival of European films accompanied by an exhibit in William T. Young Library. Faculty members on the Year of Europe Steering Committee chose the award-winning films, each of which is introduced by a faculty member with knowledge of the featured country. The festival is sponsored jointly by UK Libraries and the College of Arts and Sciences. 

The exhibit Europe Through the Lens: A Festival of Contemporary European Films displays posters promoting the film series. The posters are the original artwork of Zach Lamb, graduate student assistant for the Late Night Student Film series and were created for this festival.  

Five films remain in the series beginning with Biutiful, screening at 6 p.m., February 11, 2016, in the UK Athletics Auditorium of Young Library.

A complete schedule of the films along with descriptions, trailers and information about the directors can be found at:   http://libguides.uky.edu/eurofilm.

In addition to the film festival, UK Libraries invites members of the UK community to try their skills as vexillogogists, and test their knowledge of the flags of European nations. The 19 flags currently on display in the atrium of Young Library represent a selection of the 38 European countries represented by the “Year of Europe.” Flag keys are available at library circulation, information services, and security desks.

Information on featured European countries and the European Union can be found at http://libguides.uky.edu/year_of_europe.

A complete listing of Year of Europe Campus activities can be found at: https://europe.as.uky.edu/. 

Historian Dr. Joseph A. Fry to speak on the American South and the Vietnam War

Historian and University Press of Kentucky Author Dr. Joseph A. Fry will visit campus to deliver a lecture sponsored by UK Libraries and UPK. Fry will speak on “Place Matters: Domestic Regionalism, the American South, and the Vietnam War.” The lecture, to be held at 4 p.m. on March 7, 2016, in the Great Hall of Margaret I. King Library, is free and open to the public.

Fry is the author of The American South and the Vietnam War: Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie, published by UPK in 2015. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Fry's other books include Henry S. Sanford: Diplomacy and Business in Nineteenth Century America (1982), John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy (1992), Dixie Looks Abroad: The South and U.S. Foreign Relations, 1789-1973 (2002), and Debating Vietnam: Fulbright, Stennis, and Their Senate Hearings (2006). He has published articles in Diplomatic History, the Pacific Historical Review, and various other journals and collections. He is the series editor for Biographies in American Foreign Policy published by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. To date, 18 volumes have appeared. Fry's current research focuses on Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. foreign relations in the 1860s.

William T. Young Library welcomes students in from the snow

William T. Young Library became a beacon for students in the snowstorm of February 8, 2016. When UK activates the Plan B snow emergency plan, Young Library remains open as much as possible to offer students a place to study and stay warm. 

Photo courtesy of The Hub at Young Library

Education Abroad Expo in Young Library

The Education Abroad Expo in Young Library
Photo by Jillian Waitkus

The UK Education Abroad Expo took place on Thursday, February 4, 2016, in the Hub of William T. Young Library. Exhibitors from colleges across campus, as well as external affiliated education abroad programs, shared information on opportunities for students to live and study abroad on long- and short-term programs.

Sponsored by the UK International Center, the event also included free pizza and t-shirts for students interested in education abroad.

UPK author wins 2016 John G. Cawelti Award

By Whitney Hale and Mack McCormick

University Press of Kentucky (UPK) author Brian Taves has been named one of the winners of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s 2016 John G. Cawelti Award for the Best Textbook/Primer in Popular Culture for his book Hollywood Presents Jules Verne: The Father of Science Fiction on Screen. The award will be presented to the author at the 2016 PCA/ACA National Conference, which will be held March 23, 2016, in Seattle, Washington.

Taves' book shares this year’s award with Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images by Finis Dunaway. The PCA/ACA is a group of scholars and enthusiasts who study popular culture. The PCA/ACA offers a venue to come together and share ideas and interests about the field or about a particular subject within the field.

In Hollywood Presents Jules Verne, Brian Taves investigates the indelible mark that the author has left on English-language cinema. Adaptations of Verne’s tales have taken many forms, including early movie shorts, serials, feature films, miniseries and television shows. They have been produced as both animated and live-action films. Taves illuminates how, as these stories have been made and remade over the years, each new adaptation looks back not only to Verne’s words but also to previous screen incarnations.

Taves also examines how generations of actors have portrayed iconic characters such as Phileas Fogg and Captain Nemo, and how these figures are treated in pastiches such as Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012). Investigating the biggest box-office hits as well as lower-budget productions, this comprehensive study broadens our understanding of this seminal figure in science fiction film.

The John G. Cawelti Award was established to honor the work of the retired University of Kentucky English professor who has been a pioneer in the study of popular and American culture. His books such as The Six-Gun Mystique and The Spy Story helped establish popular culture as a subject worthy of academic study.

Taves is the second UPK author to win the Cawelti Award. Joseph J. Foy received the award in 2008 for his book "Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through Popular Culture."

Brian Taves is a film archivist with the Library of Congress. He is the author of more than 100 articles and six books, including The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies and Thomas Ince: Hollywood’s Independent Pioneer.

Reprinted with permission from UKNow.