A Valentine’s Celebration: Matters of the Heart

Giovanni Anfossi, Dell’uso ed abuso della cioccolata (Venice, 1779),
the wrapper is ornamented with cocoa bean illustrations
(more on this item)

This joint exhibit features works from the History of Science Collections, the John and Mary Nichols Collection, and the Harry W. Bass Business History Collection.

Works on display celebrate:

• the science of love,
• chocolate,
• roses,
• the rituals of love,
• the anatomy of the heart,
• tales of romance from American and British Literature,
• famous scientific couples,
• and the romance of science.

No appointment is necessary; the exhibit will be available for viewing through early March. The exhibit is open during the regular hours of the History of Science Collections, which is located on the 5th floor of Bizzell Library. For accommodations on the basis of disability, call 325-2741.

The Charles Dickens Collection (download brochure)

The five Dickens volumes on display include the delightfully illustrated 1843 first edition of A Christmas Carol:

Additional images

No appointment is necessary to view the current exhibit (hours and directions).

For more information about Dickens and the bicentennial of his birth, see the Charles Dickens 2012 website. Happy birthday, Charles!

When and where: Friday, January 27, 2012, 3:30 – 5 pm, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, Harlow Room, BL 521.

Who: Dr. W. R. Laird, Mellon Fellow, University of Oklahoma, and Department of History, Carleton University, Canada

• Download flyer here.
• Directions
• History of Science Spring 2012 calendar of events (http://cas.ou.edu/hsci-calendar)
• For further information or accommodation on the basis of disabilities, please call 405/325-2741.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 32,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

“Libraries were never warehouses of books. They have been and always will be centers of learning. Their central position in the world of learning makes them ideally suited to mediate between the printed and the digital modes of communication.” – Robert Darnton, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future

Source: Thomas H. Benton, Marian the Cybrarian, The Chronicle of Higher Education 5/20/2010.

The holidays are often hectic, but with the change in pace that accompanies them, we may find unsuspected opportunities for reflection. If you are looking for some food for thought, Benton’s essay and Darnton’s book are well worth re-reading.

I do have a personal request, if you would take time to consider how the Collections might better serve as a “center of learning” for your own work. I would be delighted to receive a personal note from you describing any way that the History of Science Collections has helped you this past year, and also to hear your suggestions for how we might improve our service to you in 2012. What could we do better? How might we better assist you in your research, teaching, and academic program support? Be as specific or as general as you wish; any kind of feedback will be helpful to us.

This blog is one small part of our efforts to provide improved service; thank you for following it in 2011. Are there any posts that you particularly appreciated? What kinds of posts would you like to see made here in 2012?

Send any thoughts to kmagruder@ou.edu.

Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year!

A new exhibit, Winter Holidays, opens today. This exhibit in the lobby of the History of Science Collections offers numerous seasonal items for view, drawn from the History of Science Collections, the John and Mary Nichols Rare Books and Special Collections, and the Bizzell Bible Collection of the University of Oklahoma Libraries.

Themes include mistletoe and holly, Santa Claus and reindeer, Christmas on H.M.S. Beagle, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Stars of Winter, the Magi, the Nativity, Stories of Christmas, Snow, and Christmas scientific lectures. Featured items include first editions and rare works by Johann Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, an illuminated manuscript book of hours on vellum, early printed Bibles, celestial atlases and hand-colored herbals.

For more information about the books on display, pick up a brochure when you enter the Collections, or download the brochure here. (Instructors: consider bringing your students to see the exhibit and use the brochure as a self-guided tour.)

No appointment is necessary to view the exhibit. It will be available through the end of the semester. The exhibit is open during the regular hours of the History of Science Collections, which is located on the 5th floor of Bizzell Library. For accommodations on the basis of disability, call 405/325-2741.

For quite a while we’ve been posting announcements of an ephemeral nature to Facebook, and now there’s a Twitter feed you can follow to receive the same content. Check out the two icons in the upper right portion of this page for quick links to these pages (located just above the search box).

Follow either of these information sources for news of…

• new posts on our ouhos.org blog,
• colloquia,
• guest speakers,
• special events,
• library and technology tutorials,
• new exhibits,
• special acquisitions, and
• occasional news items from out-of-the-way sources that we think Collections researchers may find useful and interesting.

Longer messages, or information of more lasting value, will still be posted to this blog, but we have decided that there is a place for more compact notices, particularly of imminent opportunities, links and events.

Last week, as we were taking steps to clean up following the much-publicized Oklahoma earthquakes, we felt that we missed the opportunity to use a Twitter account to notify you when the stacks were re-opened. That experience prompted us to finally enter the Twitter universe with the moniker @ouhoscurator.

If you already follow us on Facebook, we expect the content to be identical – all tweets are automatically posted to our Facebook page – so just follow whichever method is most convenient for you.

Also of special interest: Follow @OULibrarian for additional notices regarding the University of Oklahoma Libraries (also: website, Facebook).

Berlin Declaration on Open Access

(Source)

The Berlin Declaration is a guiding document for the Editions Open Access and the Digital HPS initiatives mentioned on this blog before. The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, which has played a leading role in crafting and disseminating the open access principles of the Berlin Declaration, is also the sponsor of The Archimedes Project, one of the leading digital libraries for the history of the scientific revolution.

To see how these books touch the present, watch the “Books and Early Modern Culture” video which shows how undergraduate students at Georgetown University similarly use the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

Save the date: We’re excited to announce that Prof. Sarah Werner, the Georgetown instructor featured in this video, will be visiting OU on Monday, October 24. Details will be forthcoming at the “news” page of the History of Science Department website.

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• Undergraduate page at the History of Science Department website.
• See a recent post about Classics students pursuing undergraduate research using the Collections.

The range of interests displayed by Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) is staggering, even in a century renowned for universal scholarship. Despite failed attempts to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, he was a master of a dozen European and Oriental languages. His forty-odd works include studies of the tower of Babel, ancient Egypt, China, mathematics, music, cosmology, optics, magnetism, and medicine. Both highly praised and an object of ridicule, these works served many seventeenth-century scholars as a ready-reference library on virtually any scientific topic.

A Jesuit at the Collegio Romano, Kircher became curator of the university’s museum which housed natural history objects sent to Rome from missionaries around the world. The lavish illustrations of Kircher’s works made each volume a virtual museum, an iconographic encyclopedia of creation designed to aid the reader’s contemplation and devotion as well as understanding.

Two richly-embellished global sections in the Mundus subterraneus depicted the interlaced systems of air, fire, and water within the Earth. Here’s one of the two:

Executed in an exuberant Baroque style, the dramatic sections manifest Kircher’s global vision in a uniquely memorable way. Yet the sections were not printed at the front of the two folio volumes, nor were they displayed in an unusually prominent position; rather, they are found in the midst of a miscellany of regional marvels known through a combination of classical reports, travel accounts, and Kircher’s own observations during field expeditions to nearby sites in southern Italy. Numerous small-scale sketches throughout Mundus subterraneus illustrate particular surface features and geographical configurations of interest, such as the appearance of hot springs and cold springs in close proximity, or the accounts of the Andes received from missionaries in South America.

Kircher’s global sections are composites of these regional marvels. Both the regional sketches and the global sections suggest the kinds of underground structures one might suppose in order to explain the surface phenomena observed in particular places around the world.

In the Phlegraen Fields (below), Monte Nuovo had formed overnight in 1538, giving vivid demonstration of the power of subterranean fire.

Kircher emphasized investigations on a regional scale, suggesting that every aspect of the geocosm depicted in the sections was manifest in this single specific region of the Earth:

“Having a very earnest desire, a long time, to understand the Miracles of Subterraneous Nature…. I found such a Theater of Nature, displaying herself under wonderful variety of things, as I had with so many desires wished for. [Seeing] what ever thing occurs, in the whole body of the Earth that is wonderfull, rare, unusual, and worthy of Admiration, I found contracted here, as it were, in an Epitomie, by a certain industry of wise and sagacious Nature.”

Kircher included sketches of active volcanos such as Etna, Vesuvius, and Stromboli described on the basis of first-hand observations. During a sea-voyage to Naples in 1638, Kircher witnessed smoke plumes, tidal waves, and the tragic loss of the city of San Eufémia. From the simultaneity of volcanic eruptions, Kircher inferred a network of subterranean communications. A personal account of this experience appears in the “Praefatio” of Mundus subterraneus. Thus, the first double-folio illustration in Mundus subterraneus is not one of the global sections, which are the most dramatic and memorable illustrations, but a huge depiction of Vesuvius included in the same preface:

With Vesuvius still smoldering, Kircher hired a local guide to ascend with him to the top for the sake of first-hand investigation, and dared to have himself lowered into the crater in a harness to take temperature measurements. It is no wonder that Kircher used Vesuvius as his Typus Montis.

Kircher supposed that chambers within the cavernous Earth called geophylacia were created when the dry land was raised above the sea on the third day of creation. Three types of geophylacia imprison air, water, or fire within the Earth; he called these air-houses, water-houses, and fire-houses respectively aerophylacia, hydrophylacia, and pyrophylacia, which are often found in various relations. Another kind of storehouse contains seminal principles responsible for the growth of minerals and earths in passages beneath the ground.

The second global section (below) depicts the subterranean circulation of fire through various fire-houses or pyrophylacia. The Earth is shown as a furnace of activity, pulsing with subterranean drama beneath the surface world of human habitation. Volcanic plumes embroil the borders with a vivid demonstration of the powerful effects of fire. Thick, turbulent smoke overflows the crust of the Earth, which is shown with a greatly exaggerated vertical scale. Fire is “the life of the Macrocosm, as spiritous blood is of the Microcosm.” The largest pyrophylacium at the center of the Earth (A) is hell, in Kircher’s geocentric cosmos the farthest point from heaven and the prison-house of sinners. Purgatory might be a lesser one nearer the surface (B). In the sulfurous environs of the Phlegraen Fields, monks living in a monastery reportedly heard beneath their feet the groans of sufferers in Purgatory. Were pyrophylacia not providentially circumscribed by water, the entire sublunar realm would burn.

The fire-ducts (C) give rise to hot springs and minerals. Volcanos provide air to the geocosmic circulation and, like alchemical spiracles or chimney furnaces, offer an outlet for fumes rising from the fires. The mountains like bones of the Earth provide a secure skeletal structure. Kircher even suggested that the geographical orientation of mountain chains was ordered, in that they tend to run north-south and east-west.

According to Kircher, hydrophylacia lie at the cavernous roots of mountains such as the Alps (below) and the Andes (shown earlier) where they provide the source of springs and rivers.

Many rivers flow in subterranean channels for all or some portion of their course to the sea.

Ocean whirlpools, such as the marvelous Norwegian maelstrom, mark the submarine entrances of passages which siphon water from the sea back to the mountainous hydrophylacia.

Polar views depict the two greatest whirlpools through which water descends into the Earth (note the mountain chains depicted as running east-west in the northern continents). All of these features are represented in the first composite global section shown above, depicting the circulation of water.

Myriad subterranean channels keep the water in constant circulation through the Earth, nourishing the growth of minerals and communicating with surface seas and lakes. Water descends to hydrophylacia near the fiery core, providing needed fuel to sustain the subterranean fires. By means of the pumping of the tides which acts like bellows, water in the channels ascends to reservoirs in high mountains. From these it emerges as rivers and springs and returns to the ocean once again.

Fiery exhalations create the winds that keep the seas in motion. Thus

“Water, Fire; Fire, Water; mutually, as it were, cherish one another; and by a certain unanimous consent, conspire to the Conservation of the Geocosm, or Terrestrial World.”

Prompted by his first-hand observation of volcanic phenomena, interpreted in correlation with travel accounts and literary reports, Kircher’s Theory of the Earth (for so it was regarded by many later writers) was a natural expression of his Jesuit instincts for the integration of new observations within the framework of ancient texts. Kircher’s work shows that Theories of the Earth were not uniformly Cartesian in their cosmology nor simply an outgrowth of the mechanical philosophy. Kircher’s Theory of the Earth was nurtured by his geocentrism because Kircher viewed the Earth as a noble object of study: in defense of Jesuit tradition, the best complement to his enthusiastic tour of the Tychonic heavens in Itinerarivm Exstaticvm was an equally rewarding and more extended sojourn through the subterranean world.

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• This essay is excerpted and adapted from: Kerry V. Magruder, “Theories of the Earth from Descartes to Cuvier: Natural Order and Historical Contingency in a Contested Textual Tradition” (University of Oklahoma dissertation, 2000), pp. 527-538.
• These are just a few of the images in Mundus subterraneus; we’ve just scratched the surface. See Kircher’s complete Mundus Subterraneus (1665) in the Online Galleries.

Fludd, a London physician, produced this work with hope that he would thereby be invited to join the Rosicrucians. In the plate above, Integrae Naturae, Fludd represents the alchemist as the ape of nature, simulating the creation of the macrocosm (universe) and the microcosm (the Earth) – click the images on this page to see more detail. The alchemist grasps a great chain reaching from the deity down to him through nature (the female figure).

The title page plate reproduced here indicates that the human body is also a microcosm, proclaiming that alchemy holds the key to medicine as well as creation.

Read the OU Daily article.

Our thanks to Prof. Huskey and his undergraduate students who are working on this project.

Fludd’s book, along with other rare works in chemistry and alchemy, were on display in the Collections’ lobby last spring as part of a tribute to the International Year of Chemistry and the OU programs of chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering (see exhibit info and brochure).

See the Collections’ Online Galleries for more images of Fludd here and here.

Undergraduate research in the History of Science Collections from a number of disciplines, spanning the humanities, fine arts and the natural sciences, represents a multitude of interests and perspectives. For more information about pursuing undergraduate research in the Collections, contact us.

The freely accessible Manuscriptorium digital library, the designated platform for the European Digital Library of Written Cultural Heritage, provides access to more than 5 million images, at present, of manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books, maps, deeds, charters and more, up to the year 1800. These historical resources, otherwise scattered in various digital libraries around the world, are now accessible under a single digital library interface.

“The [Manuscriptorium] user interface is designed for easy searching and viewing of documents and it enables the creation of personal collections and virtual documents. This means users and contributors of content can create their own virtual libraries from the aggregated content and share the results of their work with students, colleagues and other users.”
(more)

Sponsored by the National Library of the Czech Republic and ENRICH (European Networking Resources and Information concerning Cultural Heritage), the Manuscriptorium project coordinates access to digitized resources produced by collaborating partners at many renowned institutions, extending beyond the countries of the European Union.

Libraries Website: EBSCO Discovery Service

Now it is even easier for us at OU to find and access items in the Manuscriptorium project. Items from Manuscriptorium are now accessible by searching the Libraries website. The metadata that makes Manuscriptorium items turn up in the OU Libraries online catalog is provided by the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). Nor is Manuscriptorium the only resource included in catalog searching, courtesy of EDS:

“The Manuscriptorium joins a long list of key information sources available to EBSCO Discovery Service users including: British Library, Baker & Taylor, NewsBank, Readex, LexisNexis, Alexander Street Press, Oxford University Press, American Psychological Association, ABC-CLIO, ingentaconnect, Government Printing Office, ECONIS, Mergent Inc., arXiv, Credo Reference, IGI Global, World Book and Accessible Archives. In addition, Web of Science & H.W. Wilson provide access for mutual customers. The EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers (and growing) in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers, representing far more content providers and publishers than any other discovery service.

EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.” (more)

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the University Libraries website, and log-in with your 4×4.

2. Click in the Articles field and enter your search text (for example, “De revolutionibus”).

3. Click “Go.” In the resulting hit list, provided by the EBSCO Discovery Service, you will see “View this record from Manuscriptorium” links within the EBSCOhost interface.

4. Click the link to go to that item in Manuscriptorium.

For help, see the Searching Databases tutorial at the Libraries website, or come in and ask us for a demonstration.

So take your pick: If you wish, access Manuscriptorium directly, or by searching the Libraries online catalog.

Related post: Searching the Libraries catalog.

It is not necessary to make a reservation to view the lobby exhibit. This calendar is offered as a convenience to instructors to help you avoid scheduling a class visit at the same day and time as another class. No group has an exclusive right to the exhibit area, and small groups are welcome without contacting us in advance, but this calendar may help prevent unanticipated crowding due to multiple larger classes. To notify others via this calendar that you are planning a self-guided visit by your class, call 325-2741 or send an email to the Curator or Librarian of the History of Science Collections.

To plan your trip, check out directions, parking tips, and other information on our Contact us – Visit page.

For more information about the current exhibit, browse the History of Science Collections’ blog: ouhos.org/.

• Charles Darwin, Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms, 1881; F1357

The last work Darwin published is one of his least-known, but his study of mold and earthworms drew upon his broad interests. Far from being small and insignificant creatures, Darwin argued, earthworms turn over the soil in vast quantities, creating a suitable habitat for the growth of plants. Drawing upon some of his early geological work in the production of soils, this work represents a founding exemplar of quantitative ecology.

Like Darwin’s other books, it also contains interesting visual representations — for example, a tower of earthworm casts and diagrams showing the importance of mold in forming soil.

Read more about this book at Wikipedia.

Darwin@the Library info | Exhibit brochure (pdf)

Charles Darwin regarded natural selection as a “universal law of nature.” Its comprehensive scope led him to investigate the natural world with a breadth of vision that encompassed both plants and animals. Darwin’s last several books were detailed botanical studies, as the immense variety and complexity of the plant world offered Darwin ideal opportunities to extend his theory of natural selection.

• Insectivorous Plants, 1875; F1218

In a pioneering study of insectivorous plants, Darwin explored the adaptations by which plants are nourished in impoverished soils. He pointed out that the Sundew secretes a digestive fluid similar to an animal’s.

• The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, 1875; F836

Darwin’s study of the movement of climbing plants, first published in the Linnean Society journal in 1865, appeared in book form in 1875. Darwin experimented with a variety of factors affecting plant growth and the movement of roots, vines and flowers. He demon-strated the importance of light sensitivity, which enabled a plant to move by elongating the stem on the side farthest from the light.

• The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, 1876; F1249
• The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, 1877; F1277

Darwin published two books on plant fertilization and the different forms of flowers that appear on the same species. These studies suggested that cross-fertilization produces more vigorous offspring than self-fertilization.

• The Power of Movement in Plants, 1880; F1325

In 1880 Darwin continued his investigation of plant movements. As was his custom, he employed a wide variety of visual diagrams throughout the book. In the image below left, Darwin plotted the motion of a single leaflet — one of nearly a hundred such depictions in this work. In the chart below center, one line shows a change in temperature and the other shows the angular movement of a leaflet. In the illustration below right, the Cassia plant extends its leaves during the day and folds them up at night.

Come see these works and others in the current exhibit, Darwin@theLibrary!

Darwin@the Library info | Exhibit brochure (pdf)

• Charles Darwin, Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), F1142.

In 1872, to illustrate continuities between humans and animals, Charles Darwin explored the expression of the emotions. Dogs have an amazing ability to convey emotions.

Cats, also, can be affectionate or savage.

Darwin described a chimpanzee as disappointed and sulky.

Darwin showed that the intricate muscles of the face enable humans and animals to express an astonishing variety of emotions.

For example, the following heliotype (an early form of photography) from a psychiatric hospital in France showed how the expression of emotion could be imitated by applying electrodes to the facial muscles.

Darwin@the Library info | Exhibit brochure (pdf)

• Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to Sex, 2 vols. (1871), vol. 1, F937.1.; and vol. 2, F937.2.

In 1871 Charles Darwin published a two-volume work which followed up on the brief aside in the Origin that his theory might throw light upon the origin of humans. In the Descent of Man he explored embryological resemblances between humans and other animals.

Darwin also offered sexual selection as an additional form of natural selection to account for pronounced differences between the male and female (sexual dimorphism).

Darwin admitted that the beautiful feather of the peacock gave him a headache. But with sexual selection, one might account for fancy tail feathers, after all, that seemed to be more for show than for function.

Darwin@the Library info | Exhibit brochure (pdf)

• Darwin, Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols. (1868), vol. 1, F878.1 and vol. 2, F878.2.

In a two-volume work, Darwin investigated the degree of variation evident in domesticated animals. For example, the Rock pigeon was the parent form of all domesticated pigeons. It had given rise to the pouter pigeon, carrier pigeon, fantail pigeon, African owl pigeon and the short-faced tumbler pigeon.

Rock pigeon

English pouter pigeon

English fantail pigeon

Domestic breeding illustrated Darwin’s argument that the variation present in nature provides ample material upon which natural selection might work.

Darwin@the Library info | Exhibit brochure (pdf)

• Darwin, On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects (1862), F800.

After publishing the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin spent the remainder of his life exploring the ramifications of his theory of evolution by descent with modification. Darwin’s next work explored the immense degree of variation present in nature, using orchids as the prime example.

A beautiful gilt inlaid depiction of an orchid adorns the cover.

Darwin@the Library info | Exhibit brochure (pdf)