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
Category: Collections of Interest
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.
2023 Virtual Undergraduate Research Conference
Reading Time: 2 minutes This year, the 2023 Virtual Undergraduate Research Conference takes place on April 13th. It is the second year the library has worked with the Office of High Impact Practices and Undergraduate Research (HIPUR) to host the virtual event. For the 2022 Virtual …Continue Reading
Pets in the Archives: Cats and Dogs and Alligators… Oh my!
Reading Time: 4 minutes From cats and dogs to lizards and snakes, pets enrich our lives and bring us happiness on a daily basis. Nothing is better than coming home after a long day and being met at the door by an excited pet, ready to give you snuggles. As proud pet moms, the authors of Digital Dialogs would like to celebrate National Pet Day with a look at beloved pets as seen through our USF Libraries’ Digital Collections.
Celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month with Spencer Williams
Reading Time: 5 minutes You may not know Spencer Williams by name, but I bet you know “Everybody Loves My Baby, but My Baby Don’t Love Nobody but Me,” or maybe “Basin Street Blues.” Perhaps you can even sing a few lines of “I Ain’t Got Nobody.” Spencer Williams composed from 200-500 songs, many of which were imbued with a deep sense of nostalgia for the New Orleans he knew in the 1910s (Edwards, n.d.; Chilla, 2022). He was known for being an original, and though some might warmly critique his ideas as ‘shortwinded’ and his harmonies as ‘modest,’ they would still agree “he could write a tune that got to the subject” (“Quite a Moment,” 1965).
Celebrating Women’s History Month with the Burn Bosses of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
Reading Time: 8 minutes Beginning in 2021 Dr. Ann Hodgson, scientist, ornithologist, and affiliated faculty at USF sat down with a number of Audubon employees, researchers, and volunteers to discuss their efforts within and beyond the organization to support environmental conservation and restoration in Florida. As …Continue Reading