Reading Time: 4 minutes By: Amanda Boczar and Sydney Jordan March is Women’s History Month, a time to reflect on, give voice to, and celebrate the lives of women throughout history. Women of the Tampa Bay area have no shortage of stories to tell, and many …Continue Reading
Category: Collections of Interest
‘We Wanted Some Basic Human Rights: The Civil Rights Struggle in Tampa’ exhibit
Reading Time: 3 minutes The 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.
USF Curiosities: A faculty airplane?
Reading Time: 3 minutes How 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 minutes Headlines 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.
USF Curiosities: Chariot races?
Reading Time: 2 minutes When 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)
USF Curiosities: A Pablo Picasso sculpture 10 stories tall?
Reading Time: 7 minutes In 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)
Celebrating National Estuaries Week with Florida Environmental & Natural History Digital Resources
Reading Time: 6 minutes In honor of National Estuaries Week, Digital Dialogs is celebrating with a collection of digital resources related to the environmental history, conservation, and study of Florida environments and ecosystems… (Continue Reading)
USF Curiosities: The Golden Brahman?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Five years after the University of South Florida was founded and long before there was a football team, USF had no mascot. The issue had first been discussed during committee meetings convened to develop the school’s constitution, but it wouldn’t be revisited again until the University Center sponsored a contest to name the school mascot.
Celebrating Nurses: Documenting Care and Compassion in Oral History Collections
Reading Time: 7 minutes For two centuries, nurses have been the picture of care, empathy, and compassion in healthcare. They see patients through vulnerable moments, difficult decisions, hardships, and moments of joy. Day in and day out, nurses uplift, support, and diligently care for their patients, providing a positive, compassionate presence to hospital rooms, doctor’s offices, care facilities, and treatment centers. In celebration of their tremendous efforts, Digital Dialogs is celebrating Nurses Week 2021 with a look at their personal experiences, as documented in two of USF Libraries’ oral history collections… (Continue Reading)