Library Blogs

We are very pleased to invite you all to the third session of a series of virtual encounters on various aspects of book history. On this occasion,
our webinar is devoted to textual editing and criticism. Our speakers will discuss innovative approaches to digital technology and scholarship in the edition of literary texts, ranging from Chaucer to James Joyce.

The Computer & Video Game Archive (CVGA) has a dual mission of providing users access to our game collection, and the preservation of games for future research and scholarship. Since the CVGA has been temporarily closed to the public due to the pandemic, we have used this time to shift our focus from user access to the preservation portion of our mission, and have been discussing how to digitally image and archive our game collection.

I am very excited to announce the publication of the first volume of a two-volume catalog describing the extensive collection of Greek manuscripts at the University of Michigan Library. Authored by Dr. Nadezhda Kavrus-Hoffmann, this fully illustrated catalog describes the largest collection of Greek manuscripts in America, which consists of 110 codices (bound manuscripts) and fragments ranging from the fourth to the nineteenth century.

The Burning Chambers is an epic historical novel set in 16th century France during the wars between the Catholics and the Huguenots. The daughter of a Catholic bookseller falls in love with a Huguenot soldier who wants peace between the two sides. But too many people wish to continue the fighting, and the lives of the hero and heroine are endangered. There is also a mystery about the heroine's origins, and a murderous noblewoman wants to have her killed. Author Kate Mosse has a great love for the area of southern France where the novel takes place, and it shows through in her writing.

Monday January 18th is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Learn more and reflect on the life and work of Dr. King by exploring writings and words by the man himself.

Institutional data, collected by campus units to assist with decision making and organizational direction, can inform scope and provide context to library assessment and research projects.

This young adult novel, set during a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793, seems especially timely today. Young Mattie Cook struggles to survive in the fever-stricken city after her mother gets sick. With the help of Eliza, a freed slave, Mattie learns to nurse the sick and help the children orphaned by the fever, and becomes a stronger person. The novel is filled with details of life during the epidemic, some of them quite similar to today's pandemic.

We are very excited to re-launch online our open houses in the Special Collections Research Center! As part of the After Hours series, we have arranged an extraordinary line-up of events for the Winter Semester. Before the pandemic, on the second Tuesday of each month during the academic year, we organized physical displays of themed selections from our collections. Now we are committed to continue this tradition of open houses in the virtual world. All are welcome to join us from the comfort of your home or office to chat with a curator and learn about our collections.

The Shadow of the Wind is a complex, multi-layered novel set in Barcelona in the 1940s and 1950s. A young boy, Daniel, the son of a bookseller, visits the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, an enormous labyrinthine building filled with books. His father tells him to choose one book and adopt it. Daniel becomes so fascinated by the book that he decides to read everything by the author, Julián Carax, only to find out that someone is systematically destroying every copy of Carax's books. Daniel decides to learn as much about the author as possible, and the story of Julián Carax's life becomes a second narrative, with parallels to Daniel's own life. This is a book for all book-lovers!

If your only experience with A Tale of Two Cities was of being forced to read it in high school, it's definitely worth re-reading. It's a wonderful novel set during the French Revolution (unusual for Dickens), with unforgettable characters such as the good-natured rogue Sydney Carton and the bloodthirsty, villainous Madame Defarge.