Reading Time: 3 minutesThe USF Libraries host several exhibits that highlight a variety of collections, providing context to material that is often only publicly accessed via a finding aid. The exhibits come from many different sources. Some come from grant funded research, some from library personnel or library partnerships, and some from student work under the guidance of USF faculty. The exhibit: ‘We Wanted Some Basic Human Rights: The Civil Rights Struggle in Tampa’ was created during a Spring seminar on the Civil Rights Movement taught by Dr. K. Stephen Prince of the USF History Department in 2016. Students of the seminar worked with Special Collections personnel and consulted fifteen archival collections housed in USF Tampa Special Collections.
Digital Dialogs
Latest Posts
Celebrating the Public Domain in 2022
Reading Time: 4 minutesJoin the USF Libraries in our fourth year of celebrating the public domain through digitization! Once again, we asked the USF community what it would like to see digitized for the 2022 celebration. 414 votes decided the 22 titles that would be selected from a curated list drawn from the USF Libraries collections. The digitized materials fall into four existing Digital Collections foci: Florida Studies, Environmental Collections, Sheet Music, and Children’s Literature.
USF Curiosities: A faculty airplane?
Reading Time: 3 minutesHow do you normally get to campus? A car, a bicycle, a bus, or walk…
What about an airplane? Well, that’s just what USF faculty members did in the early 1980s. While the Tampa campus had permanent faculty members, its sister campus at Ft. Myers did not. Initially, Tampa campus faculty members would make a 24 to 48 hour round trip in a car just to teach a three hour class… (Continue Reading)
“Banned and Burned: Why Worry? It’s Just Kiddie Lit”
Reading Time: 5 minutesHeadlines reporting a movement to pass massive book bans have been making the news across the United States. This is not the first time book banning and book burning have made headlines in recent years. USF professor of Literacy Studies, Dr. Jenifer Schneider’s ‘The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children’s Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge’ tackles the history, content, beliefs, and layers of cultural issues that are incorporated in banning books in her chapter “Banned and Burned: Why Worry? It’s Just Kiddie Lit.” In the chapter Dr. Schneider discusses several books that are held in USF Special Collections.
Digitization and Strange Stipulations in Donation Agreements
Reading Time: 3 minutesA donation agreement can smooth the way for future digitization of a collection or hinder future uses of collection material. With all of the variables possible in donation agreements, it shouldn’t be surprising that some donor stipulations on older collections can take an archive or special collections by surprise.
Linked-In Learning
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHave a new class or assignment that requires a software you have never used before? Do you want to improve your skills in research, communication, and design? Linked-in Learning is an excellent place to augment the skills you have begun to develop in your courses or career.
Preserving Media: The Sam Gibbons Collection
Reading Time: 2 minutesUSF Libraries – Tampa Special Collections is home to all types of exciting resources from historic documents to rare books, vintage photographs, and digital recordings. Preserving and providing access to these materials requires periodic evaluation of the collections, media types, and their …Continue Reading
USF Curiosities: Chariot races?
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhen you think of student activities on our campuses, what comes to mind? Basketball games, charity drives, bake sales, jogging, walking with friends, maybe lunches on the lawn… But…. what about chariot races?
In 1966, the Tampa Times reported that the opening of Greek Week, the “Festival of Dionysus,” was full of last-minute preparations for the chariot race, including lighthearted “sabotage” attempts by rival participants… (Continue Reading)
Open Access Week 2021
Reading Time: 2 minutesThis year Open Access Week is from Oct. 25-31, 2021. The theme is “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity.” SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, organizes Open Access Week each year. It started as Open Access Day in 2007 and has …Continue Reading
USF Curiosities: A Pablo Picasso sculpture 10 stories tall?
Reading Time: 7 minutesIn 1971, a small-scale model of a Pablo Picasso sculpture, “Bust of a Woman,” was donated to the University of South Florida. Fifty years later, it received new attention from researchers after it was spotted on a shelf in the Tampa Library in 2018. Afterwards, Special Collections staff dug into the sculpture’s history and the intriguing story behind the model resurfaced… (Continue Reading)