Library Blogs

Guest post from Allison Donnelly, a 2016 U-M graduate and student intern at the library's conservation lab, describing her work on a recently acquired seventeenth-century Latin phrasebook!

In 1824, Mary Randolph poured a lifetime's worth of experience as manager of a grand estate into a single unassuming volume of recipes and household hints. Arguably America's first regional cookbook, The Virginia House-wife represents decades of changing fortunes and evolving palates for the Randolphs, and indeed the whole country, in the years immediately proceeding the Revolutionary War.

DCU has a new, A1-sized V-cradle scanner for digitizing tightly bound books. This post examines the need, research, and choice of scanner we purchased.

Around 1511, the Dutch Catholic humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), began working on an edition and Latin translation of the Greek New Testament, for which he thoroughly compared the text of several Greek manuscripts with Jerome's fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible, the so-called Vulgate.

This Wednesday's watermark feature: grape motifs in watermarked papers from our Islamic Manuscripts Collection.

This unusual historical novel tells the story of the 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the first women to have a successful career as an artist. The author intersperses Artemisia's story with her own experiences in Florence during World War II, and creates a dialogue between herself and Artemisia.

The Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA) at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library documents American culinary history, defined broadly to include both influences upon American foodways and the influence of American culinary practices elsewhere. The recent acquisition of a small cookbook collection formerly belonging to Colonel Karnig “Carl” Mahakian (1926-2015) contributes to JBLCA's strength in immigrant culinary traditions and charity cookbooks.

Have you noticed more people than usual walking around town while looking at their phones? This is thanks to last week’s U.S. release of Pokémon Go. Pokémon Go is currently the most-popular augmented reality (AR) game available on Apple and Android mobile devices, and it’s getting people to go outside and get active.

In this mystery set in ancient Rome, private informer Flavia Albia is called to the scene when a dead body is found in a chest which is being put up for auction. At the same time, she helps the man she loves, Manlius Faustus, with his friend's political campaign. When a second body turns up in the chest, she realizes there might be a connection between the murders and the election.

We have several new games in the CVGA (and yes, Overwatch is among them).
Since we got several new dance games, we thought we'd highlight them here for your viewing pleasure. If you haven't gotten a chance to try out a dance game, now you have four additional choices to choose from and get started!