Maroon Opinions

The University of Chicago Library's suggestions and comments.

Charles Goldfinch or J.T. Canales?

You have an item by Charles Goldfinch on Juan Cortina. It is a thesis done in 1949. I did extensive research on Juan Cortina and I discovered that the thesis was written by his father-in-law, Judge J.T. Canales. Canales was a relative of Cortina and knew him.

As for Goldfinch, he never did anything else about Cortina. In fact, he never wrote anything on the thesis.

We went to our stacks and pulled the thesis - the title page lists Goldfinch as the author, although in the bibliography Goldfinch cites an interview with the Hon. J.T. Canales.

In 1974, Goldfinch and Canales published a book, Juan Cortina: Two Interpretations that reprints the thesis and also a paper by Canales on "Cortina presents his motion for a new trial."

The Library serves as a repository for finished theses and dissertations - by the time a thesis reaches us, it has already been approved by the faculty. In Goldfinch's case we would have relied on the University's History Department to judge whether the thesis meets the requirements for an M.A. degree. It's unlikely the faculty would have approved a thesis that Goldfinch didn't write, but if you think the thesis is the work of Judge Canales rather than Goldfinch, we suggest contacting the History Department.

May 05, 2009 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

American dictionaries?

I appreciate the access that the library offers to the OED. But is it true that we don't have access to Merriam Webster's Unabridged? The OED is a wonderful resource, but it can't supply spelling and meaning for American English usage. If I'm just looking in the wrong place, please let me know.

We don't have access to the M-W unabridged, but do have several other online dictionaries, including Merriam Webster's Collegiate, American Heritage Dictionary, and the New Oxford American Dictionary.

All of the above will tell you that a "chip" is first a "small piece of food" and only then in certain parts a "French fry."

April 24, 2009 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Personal Piles of Stuff in the Reg

I would like to file a complaint about the shelving procedures on the fifth floor of the Regenstein Library.

As you know, shelvers periodically collect the books left on the tables or in the carrels, even if the books are marked with a "Please do not shelve" notice. I believe this is a correct policy to pursue in order to keep the library in order.

However, the fifth floor seems to be an exception. There are several carrels, in which unchecked-out library books are piled up together with some lecture notes, coffee mugs, and all sorts of other personal items. My guess is that shelvers do not want to touch these books as they cannot be sure whether they are really checked out, or simply they don't want to interfere in the "private sphere" of another student.

This is actually what happened to me. There was one book that I needed, and I found the book in one of these piles. It was not checked out. Instead of just taking the book, I filed a search form assuming that the search services would have the authority to take the book from there. However, I have just been informed that the book could not be found anywhere, and it is marked "missing". I know that the book is there, and I will go to library tonight and take it from where it is.

By using this opportunity, I wanted to inform you about this irregularity in library procedures.

In this particular situation the shelvers did indeed see personal stuff mixed in with the library books and refrained from picking up the books.  However, the Assistant Bibliographer for Middle Eastern Studies has served notice on the worst of the piles, and these should be cleared by Monday. Either the offenders will do it, or we will.

The Suggestions Office would remind all Library users  that many people use the campus libraries every day. Staking out a table or desk as "yours" by strewing stuff all over place denies other students and faculty access to limited resources (both books and study space).

It's also extremely risky to leave anything valuable unattended, because it can and often will walk away. This includes checked-out Library books! If you leave a book checked out to you on a table, you are essentially giving someone else a free pass to take the book and leave you on the hook for it.

As an alternative, we recommend renting a locker (if you are in the Reg) or taking home the books you check out.

April 01, 2009 in Collections, Facilities | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Acme Newspictures

I don't have a question or comment, but I do have a picture from my grandfather's estate that has the words "ACME NEWSPICTURES, INC" on the back. Since my grandfather played both college and professional football in the 1930's, I presume that this picture is of him with the ball running up field. I see no numbers on the photo. Can you help me validate the origin?

As you've probably found, Acme Newspictures operated from 1923-25 until about 1952, when it was bought by United Press and eventually became the photo arm of UPI. Unfortunately without seeing the photo I can't tell you much more than that. However, we have digitized many of our archival photographs and put them online: http://photofiles.lib.uchicago.edu

You might try searching the Photofiles to see if any of the pictures look similar to yours. I tried searching for "Acme" and while you get some pics, they aren't of athletic events. I'd suggest searching "football" or "athletics."

March 27, 2009 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome

http://www1.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=DG16.P72

This site has not been working for a long time. I have found it enormously useful in research for my book. It would be great if someone could get it working again. thanks

Fixed! Feel free to search Samuel Platner's A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome to your heart's content.

March 19, 2009 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A core collection and more space for SCRC

Dear Regenstein Librarians,

I am a graduate student at the University of Chicago and one of the numerous faithful users of the Regenstein Library. I write to you today with some suggestions about how to improve the function of this immensely rich and important collection for future students and researchers.

At the moment, I conceive the library’s collection as resources for specialized references. Meanwhile, I cannot depend on it for canonical humanistic literature; complete works of major single authors; foundational texts for specific disciplines; or major books by University of Chicago faculty members. The reason is obvious: These are popular sources for which students and faculty at the university use, misplace, check out and recall liberally. While the liberal check-out policy of the library must have been installed to facilitate research for individuals, it simultaneously makes the library’s collection less dependable for the common body of researchers. I have spent weeks waiting for “always-checked-out-but-may-be-recalled” books to be available, only so that I could check one citation or photocopy one chapter. Friends of mine have resorted to reading professors’ dissertations since their books are always checked out. I burden the library with unnecessary interlibrary loan requests for canonical titles in my discipline (for example Alois Riegl’s Group Portrait of Holland) because our copy is missing. In fact, volumes of complete works of major authors are often missing, which makes research at this most basic level unnecessarily inconvenient.

A related concern is the poor conservation of books in this library. Precious livres d’art from the early twentieth century are found squashed beneath other hard-covered books in the stacks, while18th- and 19th-century texts sit accumulating pressure on their covers and spines. It is perhaps part and parcel of the ethos of luxury and waste in this country to prefer replacement of abused objects by new ones. However, with the downturn of the economy, I wonder if this policy could be reconsidered. Much of the library’s precious collection, after all, contains irreplaceable items.

My exposure to a variety of libraries led me to the following two suggestions for the Regenstein Library. First, the expansion of reference section or founding of a core collection consisting of canonical, foundational items with restricted building use and limited check-out hours, whose availability to all researchers at our institution can be more or less guaranteed. Works to be reserved in this category should be complete works of major authors (from the classics such as Homer and Shakespeare to influential thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze, etc.) Meanwhile, books by University of Chicago faculty members should also have a place in the permanent reference collection so that students are guaranteed access to them.

Second, expansion of the Special Collection where dated materials can be conserved properly. This would mean the shrinking of the open stacks and the establishment of a more extensive system of books to be requested and brought out by library personnel (like the Special Collection or the Art Institute Ryerson library). However, it seems to me that the advantages are various: the collection will be better preserved, and workload will decrease book-scouters looking for missing/hidden books in the library.

I write as someone who depends on the Regenstein Library and is grateful for its resources. It is precisely out of respect for the materials that it provides that I wish to see more attention given to their conservation and proper circulation. I believe that the Regenstein would better serve its patrons by being more protective of its collection and not letting books get checked out, misplaced or simply stolen so easily, as they are now. I sincerely hope that my concerns will at least be taken into consideration as the library undergoes major changes in the near future.


Thank you for your extensive suggestion. In general we prefer to add additional circulating copies of titles in high demand. We understand that some books are more often off the shelves than on them, and last year instituted a system that automatically notifies bibliographers when an item has multiple recall requests. Many bibliographers use this system to trigger the purchase of additional copies.

We also actively work to replace the truly missing books. If a title you need is "missing" in the catalog, don't hesitate to use the Purchase Request Form to tell us you need it ASAP.

The Special Collections Research Center maintains an Archival Monographs collection that includes works by faculty authors. I'm not sure if our holdings are comprehensive - it's difficult to keep up with our faculty's output - but feel free to use them in SCRC if you can't find the bookstacks copy.

Regarding your second suggestion, space is at a premium in Regenstein until the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library opens -but Mansueto will provide a significant increase in space and allow us to store materials in an optimal preservation environment. Because Mansueto will provided controlled storage for both regular and special collections, we can also transfer additional material (such as oversize newspapers) into SCRC storage.

February 16, 2009 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Barack Obama Collection

The Special Collections area already plans to have a Barack Obama collection, but this collection could become too large. There is much out there that could be donated. A room, building or more could be filled. One of the problems contributors have is that some of their materials might have value. Contributors like myself do not want to give away materials that might help them pay a bill or rent or a credit card debt.


Our colleagues in the Special Collections Research Center do only have a finite amount of storage, although they work wonders in maximizing the amount of collections housed in it. We closely monitor the intake of materials to ensure we do not run out of space.

January 21, 2009 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Alumni Access to E-Journals

Alumni should have access to e-journals!


Unfortunately our present licensing agreements with the journal publishers limit access to current University faculty, students, and staff.

Some of the larger platforms, such as Elsevier Science Direct and JSTOR, do offer a "pay per view" option for independent researchers, which may be of interest.

January 14, 2009 in Collections, E-Resources | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Gerontology Journals

Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences and The Gerontologist are two of the most commonly read journals in the field of social gerontology. However, U of C library has full-text access only after 2000. It would be great if the library subscribes to <Proquest research library> database which covers these journals. Thanks.


Thank you for the purchase request -- we have forwarded it to our friends in Acquisitions for review.

[Readers: you can also request that the Library purchase a book or ejournal subscription:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/using/purchaserequest.html

January 07, 2009 in Collections, Purchase Requests | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Works by Alumni

I am a 1989 graduate of the U of Chicago. A song I wrote the lyrics for Historical Christmas appears on Hilltop Records record Glories of Christmas. You have hundreds of alum songs and songwriters, but I thought you might be interested in purchasing just because an alumnus song. Also a poem by me appeared in Collected Whispers an anthology of poems. I just do not know your policy on buying third party works by alumni. An article by me "Designing with Failure in Mind-Multiple Responses to System Failure Perihelion and Earthquakes appeared in Proceedings of Earth and Space 2008. You can see that purchasing alumni work gets kind of expensive????


University of Chicago alumni have been very prolific over the years, which is good prestige for the University but creates problems for a library trying to acquire all alumni-authored items. As a result, we don't have a policy of acquiring works by alums.

(The one exception is the Law Library, which does purchase certain non-law works by Law School alumni.)

December 22, 2008 in Collections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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