News from 2023
See all upcoming Libraries events — including our featured events, workshops, and exhibits — on the UMN Twin Cities Events Calendar.
Your basic Jack-O-Lantern needs a glow up. Here’s how.
Carving an artistic Jack-O-Lantern isn’t as difficult as it seems. Just ask Justin Boeser, a student supervisor at Magrath Library and part-time professional pumpkin carver.
Open Access Week 2023: Community over Commercialization
The theme of this year’s International Open Access Week is “community over commercialization”. The OA Week 2023 Advisory Committee explains this is a time to discuss “which approaches to open scholarship prioritize the best interests of the public and the academic community — and which do not.”
‘Playing Indian’: A retrospective on the YMCA’s Indian Guides program
The YMCA Indian Guides was a father-son (later parent-child) development program, intended to help stereotypical stern fathers form real, authentic bonds with their children. “Playing Indian” was the social lubricant and framework to foster those relationships, said Ryan Bean, archivist at the Kautz Family YMCA Archives.
America’s first banned book?
I was very interested to read Colleen Connolly’s essay in the Smithsonian Magazine online about the book that is widely considered the first banned book in North America: “How America’s First Banned Book Survived and Became and Anti-Authoritarian Icon.” The book in question is Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan or New Canaan, published in Amsterdam in 1637, and I was pleased to discover that the Bell Library has a copy – one of about 25 copies that have survived.
Oldest evidence of ‘curry’ outside of India
James Ford Bell Library Assistant Curator Anne Good reflects on what a recent archeological find reveals about early trade and cultural networks.
Pallas, Cats, and Pallas Cats at the James Ford Bell Library
Anne Good, Assistant Curator of the James Ford Bell Library, talks about the history of the Pallas Cat (aka otocolobus manul or, in the 18th century, felis manul).
Year of Open Science: A dose of innovation
From the first “weeds and seeds” medicines to today’s synthesized pharmaceuticals, the face of pharmacology is changing, literally.
From journals to next generation publishing
The Libraries’ statement of open access (OA) principles describes our aims for true transformation of the scholarly publishing system. We support next generation publishing models and academy-owned publishing infrastructure so that scholars and academic organizations are in control of production.
Subscribe-to-open and diamond: Equitable models of open access
The University of Minnesota Libraries is working towards an open, equitable, transparent, and sustainable scholarly publishing system. “Subscribe to Open” and other “diamond” OA models, in which everyone can read scholarly articles for free and all authors are able to publish their work at no cost to themselves, will help achieve these goals.
Using grant funding for research, not publishing
One of the Libraries’ open access (OA) principles states: “We prioritize open access publishing models through collection development strategies that are open, equitable, transparent, and sustainable.” Here we’ll talk about our belief that OA publishing models should enable researchers to preserve their funding for direct research activities, rather than for publication fees.
Geographical Works for Children in the James Ford Bell Library
Some time ago, I had the pleasure of listening to a “History Book Club” conversation between Prof. M.J. Maynes (History, U of MN – Twin Cities) and Dr. Emily Bruce (History, U of MN – Morris), concerning the latter’s new book, Revolutions at Home: The Origin of Modern Childhood and the German Middle Class. It was a great conversation about a really interesting book, and I was inspired by the discussion of geographical education for children to see what I could find on the topic in the Bell Library.
Re-post: Ten Painful Stories of the Dutch Colonial Slave Trade
This review of a traveling historical exhibition, which will be on view at the United Nations Headquarters in New York until March 30, reminded me of the work that the Bell Library has set for itself in the types of exhibits that will appear in the newly remodeled and reimagined Bell Room. These exhibits, focused on the marginalized and under-represented, must necessarily consider painful stories.