Sociedad La Union Marti-Maceo Collection Now in Digital Collections

Reading Time: 4 minutes By Stephanie Mackin, Visiting Assistant Librarian, Special Collections  Since its arrival in 1983, the Sociedad la Union Marti-Maceo collection has been a popular and heavily utilized collection at the University of South Florida Libraries’ Tampa Special Collections. The uniqueness and historical significance …Continue Reading

Celebrating National Author’s Day: 2023 Reading List

Reading Time: 2 minutes In honor of National Author’s Day, Digital Dialogs wanted to share with you some of our favorite authors. The reading list below was assembled by our very own USF Libraries’ staff and faculty. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry… mystery, comedy, science fiction, fantasy, thriller… …Continue Reading

The Spotted Six or The Mystery of Calvert Hathaway

Reading Time: 4 minutes Guest Post by Richard Schmidt, Coordinator of Library Operations and Resident Dime Novel Reviewer   Warning: Spoilers Ahead I will be spoiling several of the plot twists in my review, and while I can’t recommend reading this particular dime novel, you can …Continue Reading

Picasso at USF

Reading Time: 3 minutes If you’ve ever had a tour of Tampa Campus Special Collections, then you have probably seen the mock-up of a Picasso sculpture that never came to be. Originally planned to be erected at USF in the 1970s by the sculptor Carl Nesjar, the sculpture was meant to be over 100 feet tall. Recently, additional material from the USF Archives has been digitized. These items provide another glimpse into the monumental sculpture that, if it had been erected, would have drastically changed the feel of USF’s Tampa campus from what we know it to be today.

Open Access Week 2023: Dr. Lawrence’s Translated Texts

Reading Time: 2 minutes Guest post by Jason Boczar, Digital Scholarship and Publishing Librarian As it celebrates its fifteenth year, SPARC’s International Open Access Week aims to “raise awareness” about the “importance of community control of knowledge sharing systems.” To celebrate, the team behind USF Library’s …Continue Reading

Food Conservation in the Home and Recipes in the Archives

Reading Time: 2 minutes Food is a way to understand a place and a culture. Sharing a meal is a bonding ritual that transcends many cultural boundaries. The recipes of the past can also teach us about history, with useful tips for today’s challenges. That is the case for Blanche Armwood Perkins’ Food Conservation in the Home:  A Collection of War-Time Recipes. 

Reading Challenged Books

Reading Time: 3 minutes Book challenges of the past can seem eerily similar to book challenges today. During the John’s Committee Investigations at the University of South Florida (USF) in the mid-1960s, a number of books and readings, including some written by USF faculty, came under scrutiny for vulgarity, anti-religious sentiment, communist leanings, and pornography.