Month: July 2015

quick kills @ Bancroft blog

Posted on by dorner

Lara Michels, an Archivist at the Bancroft Library, has a blog on tumblr that will update you on recent collections that have been processed.

As described on the blog, the “quick kills” project “is a three-year venture, funded by the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, to increase access to legacy collections at the Bancroft Library. Building on a recent survey of the institution’s manuscript holdings, archivists Lara Michels and Mario H. Ramirez are swiftly processing approximately 160 high priority collections, opening them up to a new generation of researchers.”

Recent collections featured include:
– Stud Cards from the Cooper-Molera Family Papers
– the Paul Seabury papers
– records of Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc.
– records of the Indian Defense Association of Central and Northern California

If you are not a tumblr user, another option is to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed.

PhiloBiblon 2015 n. 3 (julio)

Posted on by Charles Faulhaber

Nos es muy grato anunciar que PhiloBiblon 2015, número 3, correspondiente al mes de julio, ya está en la web.

En los próximos días daremos cuenta de las novedades en esta entrega, principal de las cuales es el I Seminario Internacional de PhiloBiblon, que se desarrolló la semana del 16 de junio en CiLengua, San Millán de la Cogolla. en La Rioja.

Nuestro agradecimiento más profundo a Almudena Martínez, Coordinadora General de Cilengua, y Carlos Alvar, Director de su Instituto de Literatura y Traducción, por su entusiasta acogida del Seminario; y a los colegas Gemma Avenoza, Vicenç Beltrán, Álvaro Bustos, Antonio Carpallo, Charles Faulhaber, Ángel Gómez Moreno, José Luis Gonzalo, J. Antoni Iglesias-Fonseca,  Óscar Perea, Josefina Planas y Lourdes Soriano por su intervención docente.

En los próximos días daremos cuenta detallada del seminario.

BETA

Charles B. Faulhaber
Ángel Gómez Moreno
Nicasio Salvador Miguel
Antonio Cortijo
María Morrás
Óscar Perea Rodríguez
Álvaro Bustos Táuler

BITAGAP

Arthur L-F. Askins
Harvey L. Sharrer
Martha E. Schaffer
Cristina Sobral
Pedro Pinto
Filipe Alves Moreira
Mariña Arbor Aldea

BITECA

Vicenç Beltran
Gemma Avenoza
Lourdes Soriano

Winter 2015 Fiat Lux newsletter

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

The winter 2015 issue of Fiat Lux, the Library’s newsletter, is now available online. You will find in it a story about an exhibit of California art; Tom Leonard’s reflections on his tenure; and a profile of Sidharth Goel ’17, who won an honorable mention in the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research for his paper on the sharing economy. Enjoy!

Summer Reading List: Citizen: An American Lyric

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.

This week we take a closer look at

“Citizen: An American Lyric” Claudia Rankine, Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014

“In my opinion, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric was the most important book of poetry published last year, and probably in the past several years; it is at once an accessible and complex and challenging engagement with contemporary racism.”

— EVAN KLAVON, PhD Candidate, Department of English

This post was contributed by

Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs

Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library

Jonathan Garrett Site designer, Doe & Moffitt Libraries

Spring 2015 Fiat Lux newsletter

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

The Spring 2015 issue of Fiat Lux, the Library’s newsletter, is now available online. You will find in it a story about the books most often checked out in 2014, profiles of five new staff members, and snapshots from the Luncheon in the Library, which featured famed actress Rita Moreno.

Enjoy!

Moffitt Library Renovations

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

Photo by Steve McConnell / UCB

The Moffitt Library’s fourth and fifth floors are now closed for an extensive renovation to accommodate new styles of learning and studying. Since this area will be under construction, students are not permitted, and we ask that staff avoid the area during this work. Both Moffitt Library elevators will also be replaced during the summer and fall of 2015.

While the renovations are taking place, the first three floors and the Free Speech Movement Cafe will stay open for student use. Additional tables were added to the first floor of Moffitt to increase the seating capacity of that study space.

The full project is set to be completed by Fall 2016. The renovated floors will include seating for more than 500, new meeting and conference spaces, and open-air balconies. Both floors will be accessible 24 hours a day and food and drink will be allowed.

Read more about the renovation project in the Daily Californian.

We apologize for any noise or dust this work will cause, but we hope the new space will be well worth the inconvenience.

Please contact Cory Welch, Facilities & Building Coordinator, if you have questions.

Greek takes over

Posted on by Paul Burnett

In the study of papyri and ancient history Egypt is usually referred to as Graeco-Roman Egypt for the period going from the third century BC to approximately the third century AD, during which time the country was first under the Ptolemies (III-I BC) and then under the Romans (AD I-III). The phrase Graeco-Roman Egypt, the significance of which has been long debated, simply points to the existence of a multi-cultural society where Egyptian, Greek and, later on, Roman customs and traditions met and intermingled. Various elements of Greek culture found their way into Egypt with the arrival of the Ptolemies; some kept their original form and nature, some others underwent a more or less deep transformation and acquired a somehow hybrid connotation. Religion was of course one of these elements (see post http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/tebtunis-papyri.php/what-is-greek-in-tebtunis), but not the only one.

The most representative element to mark the encounter between the Greeks and the Egyptians is certainly the language. Greek penetrated into Egypt in the third century BC as the language of the rulers, and for a time was used only by Greek settlers. But this state of things was bound to change soon. With Egypt quickly becoming a multi-cultural society, Greek became increasingly more popular. And not only among the Hellenic strata of the population. Greek also started to be used by many Egyptians in private correspondence and business documents, a phenomenon that seems to have increased in the Roman period. Under the Ptolemies both demotic-Egyptian and Greek were adopted in the administration, but around 146 BC a royal decree was imposed whereby Egyptian contracts (that is contracts written in demotic) required Greek subscriptions in order to be valid. This seeminlgy simple requirement was the beginning of a big social and cultural change in the life of the Egyptians. Towards the end of the first century AD, as a result of a Roman policy, demotic completely disappeared from administration and legal documents, making Greek the official language of Egypt.

Here are two examples of demotic documents dated to the Ptolemaic period (II BC) with Greek subscriptions, from the Tebtunis collection at CTP.

P.Tebt. III 982 P.Tebt. II 571

Summer Reading List: The Beauty Bias

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.

This week we take a closer look at

“The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law”

Deborah Rhode

New York: Oxford University Press, 2010

“My student, Tien Nguyen, says: ‘What I like about the book The Beauty Bias by Deborah Rhode is the way Rhode covers all the social issues related to beauty and appearance in American culture. It explains the threat of widespread lookism in our society. The writing is easy to read and it is helpful to use as a reference or source for research.’

I couldn’t agree more with Nguyen. Indeed, Deborah Rhode provides a salient study of why looks matter and she does it in the most engaging way, blending great scholarship with keen personal observations. Truly, a must read for those who know that beauty is more than skin deep and wish to further understand how its politics prevails in every aspect of our society, including the justice system.”

— SIM CHIANG, Lecturer, College Writing Programs

This post was contributed by Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs

Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library

Jonathan Garrett Site designer, Doe & Moffitt Libraries

New resource: Incidence and Prevalence Database (IPD)

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

The Library recently subscribed to the Incidence and Prevalence Database (IPD), which covers over 4,500 diseases, procedures, symptoms and other health issues for incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, comorbidity, treated or diagnosed rates, costs, market size for drug development, and more. Data is fully sourced and is broken down by U.S. and international data. Statistical summaries include all prevalence and incidence data found in the IPD for a particular disease or procedure.