UC Libraries To Celebrate 3 Millionth Book

University of Cincinnati Libraries will mark the acquisition of their three-millionth volume, the opera Paoletta, with a celebration at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16, in the Russell C. Myers Alumni Center (adjacent to the UC Faculty Club). At the event, keynote speaker Robert C. Vitz, professor of history at Northern Kentucky University and author of The Queen and the Arts: Cultural Life in Nineteenth-Century Cincinnati, will present “Fairs, Festivals, and Operas: A Look at Some Cincinnati Traditions.” In addition, celebration volumes 3,000,001 through 3,000,004 will also be presented.

“The University of Cincinnati Libraries acquisition of primary source materials relating to Paoletta promises to enrich our knowledge of this slice of Cincinnati’s musical history,” said bruce mcclung, UC associate professor of musicology. Mcclung’s research indicates that Paoletta was commissioned by Cincinnati for the 1910 Ohio Valley exposition, held on 14 acres from Elm Street to Washington Park, and was reportedly the first opera commissioned by an American city. The opera’s story of love and sorcery was based on an unpublished novel titled The Sacred Mirror by Paul Jones, a Cincinnati artist. The volume includes the musical score for the opera, 124 original watercolor costume designs by Will R. Barnes, and a belt that had been worn by one of the cast members.

The formal beginnings of UC’s Libraries can be traced back to the 1901 opening of the Van Wormer Library, the first library building on campus, although prior to that many college and departments held library materials. In 1904, the library collection contained approximately 40,000 volumes. The UC Libraries reached one million volumes in 1967. It would take another 28 years to reach the two million-volume achievement in 1995. UC’s renewed commitment in the early ‘90s to build research library collections at a level commensurate with its research agenda, however, made it possible for the UC Libraries to reach the three-millionth mark in only nine years, even during an age of tight budgets.

“Acquiring three million volumes is a major effort and one that involved significant collaboration among all UC Libraries, as well as great support from the UC administration and faculty,” said University Librarian and Dean Victoria A. Montavon. “The attainment of three million volumes, as well as UC’s current number 45 ranking by the Association of Research Libraries, are two important benchmarks in realizing two major goals of the UC|21 Strategic Plan: to grow UC’s research excellence, and to achieve academic excellence.”

The University of Cincinnati Libraries span 14 locations, including Langsam Library and the nine college and departmental libraries of University Libraries, the Health Sciences Libraries, the Robert S. Marx Law Library, the Clermont College Library, and the Raymond Walters College Library.

UC Libraries are also home to:

• The German-Americana Collection – One of the largest collections of its kind, the collection celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.
• The Urban Studies Collection, located in Archives and Rare Books, documents Cincinnati’s development in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
• The Digital Press publishes rare collections of Western Americana on CD-ROM, making them available to collectors and researchers around the world.
• The Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry – The research-level collection encompasses a rare book and journal collection, photo and print collection, and an apparatus museum. A complete 19th Century laboratory is inside.
• The Cincinnati Medical Heritage Center (CMHC) – The library houses over 35,000 rare and classical works in the history of medicine dating from 1500 to 1920 and a modern circulating history of medicine collection. A collection of over 2,000 medical artifacts ranging from Civil War field surgery kits, a gold IUD, busts and paintings of past faculty and an iron lung are part of displays in the Center.