University Libraries

By Maureen Schlangen

In celebration of Open Access Week (Oct. 19-25), check out some of the newest collections in eCommons, UD’s open-access institutional repository.

Dunbar Music Archive: Dialect Glossary

Minnita Daniel-Cox, associate professor of music and creator of the Dunbar Music Archive, has debuted a new resource for researchers of the dialect poetry of the renowned Dayton poet Paul Laurence Dunbar: a Glossary of Dialect Terms. Each entry contains the word as it appears in the poem; a translation; an audio recording of the pronunciation; and a passage in which the word appears. This fall, Daniel-Cox began adding phonetic notation to the entries using the International Phonetic Alphabet; almost 300 of the 686 words in the glossary now have the IPA notation.

COVID-19 in the Curriculum

As the pandemic brought about a metamorphosis in learning and teaching, Misty Thomas-Trout, assistant professor of art and design, seized the opportunity to incorporate the evolving circumstances into her lessons on data visualization and visual culture. Browse this gallery of her students’ work from the spring term. One highlight: Emily Cordonnier’s riff on El Lissitzky’s Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, a 1920 Soviet propaganda poster.

Rare Books

The Book of Hours was a popular form of private devotion for lay Catholics in the medieval era. Some, which were richly illustrated and illuminated, were luxury items and a symbol of status. Heures a l'usage de Rouen, a Book of Hours from 1503, digitized by digital projects manager Ryan O’Grady, contains 19 woodcut and metal-cut full-page illustrations; borders illustrating religious and secular subjects with captions in French; and initials and line endings in gold on red or blue backgrounds. University Libraries special collections cataloger Joan Milligan provided the narrative with research support from Henry Handley, an assistant professor and collections librarian in the Marian Library. Explore more rare books in eCommons.

DPT Annual Research Symposium

Every spring since 2009, students in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program have presented their clinical research in a symposium for peers, faculty and professionals in the community. Completed in cooperation with faculty mentors, the projects often form the basis of publishable research submitted to professional conferences and reputable scholarly journals. View the research presented virtually in May 2020. One highlight from Harold Merriman and Kurt Jackson, associate professors of physical therapy: a new test to predict falling in older adults. Spoiler: It’s still unpredictable (no surprise to the fallers among us) … but the test shows promise for other applications.

Winning Essays on Women’s and Gender Studies

New to eCommons are 15 years of winning essays and honorable mentions in the Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women’s And Gender Studies. The spring 2020 winner: Mary McLoughlin’s “(In)security: Gendered and Bordered.”

Basic Communication Course Annual

This peer-reviewed journal, now in its 33rd year, has been a fully online, open-access publication since 2017, when the University of Dayton acquired publishing rights and back content. Its articles have been downloaded almost 120,000 times since being added to eCommons. The next volume is due out in January.

Block Talk

This newsletter, published by the Off Campus Center (later known as the McGinnis Center Office of Community Relations) from 1979 to 1990, was distributed to residents of the neighborhood just south of campus, known at the time as the off-campus area. The area consisted largely of privately owned homes, some of which were occupied by the owners and many of which were rented to students. As such, a continuing theme is being a good neighbor in a shared community of mixed residential composition. Some issues had interesting profiles on long-term residents such as Clara Hirsch of 427 Stonemill Road. Her uncle owned the former Hirsch's Grocery, which was at 304 Kiefaber St. 

Books and Book Chapters

Faculty across the University have been publishing their research in books. See the latest.  

Just for Fun: Letters from long ago

This collection of decorative letters and illuminations comes from selected rare books in the Marian Library and the University Archives and Special Collections. They were printed on collectible cards and distributed free in the University of Dayton Libraries in October 2019 in honor of American Archives Month.

More Information

For more information about eCommons or to submit research, email eCommons@udayton.edu.

— Maureen Schlangen is e-scholarship and communications manager in the University Libraries.