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Imagining the Library: Books in Public Life from Late Antiquity to the Digital Age

Events in this series

‘Death and Renewal: Books and Libraries in Late Antique Egypt’ with Roger Bagnall

Death and Renewal Talk BannerDeath and Renewal: Books and Libraries in Late Antique Egypt

16 September, 7:30 pm, Smathers Library Room 1A

Roger Bagnall (NYU)

Professor Roger Bagnall is Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and is a papyrologist by training. A prolific author, he has written or co-written more than thirty books on late antique Egypt and written culture and served as the Graduate Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University.

‘Carnegie Libraries: Public Reading for the Reading Public’ with Abigail Van Slyck

Imagining Carnegie Libraries Talk BannerCarnegie Libraries: Public Reading for the Reading Public

27 September, 7 pm, Milhopper Branch of the Alachua County Library, Gainesville

Abigail Van Slyck (Connecticut College)

Abigail Van Slyck is the Dayton Professor of Art History and the Director of the Architectural Studies program at Connecticut College. She has published extensively on the Carnegie library movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the architecture of summer camps in the twentieth century.

‘The Benedictine and the Labyrinth: The Enlightenment Library and the Problem of Universal Knowledge’ with Jacob Soll

The Benedictine and the Labyrinth Talk BannerThe Benedictine and the Labyrinth: The Enlightenment Library and the Problem of Universal Knowledge

28 October, 7:30 pm, Smathers Library Room 1A, University of Florida

Jacob Soll (Rutgers, Camden)

Professor Soll is professor of history at Rutgers University, Camden, and is currently the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his research on Enlightenment libraries. He has authored books on intelligence in the court of Louis XIV and early modern political criticism; he has two more underway, one on Enlightenment libraries and the second on the history of accounting.

‘Collecting and Reading in the Early Chinese Print Age‘ with Hilde De Weerdt

Collecting and Reading Talk BannersCollecting and Reading in the Early Chinese Print Age

18 November, 7:30 pm, Smathers Library Room 1A, University of Florida

Hilde De Weerdt (Oxford)

Dr. Hilde De Weerdt is the Dr. Stanley Ho University Lecturer in Chinese History and the Official Fellow and Tutor in Chinese History at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford. She has published a book length study of civil service exams in imperial China and is now working on two monographs, one on Chinese thought and the other on the circulation of information in Song China (tenth through thirteenth centuries).

To commemorate Dr. De Weerdt’s visit to UF, C. David Hickey (Asian Studies Bibliographer) will be installing a library exhibition entitled “Chinese Printing from Typeset to Digital Access: Samples from the University of Florida Smathers Libraries Asian Studies Collections” in the lobby of Smathers Library East from November 15 – 19.

‘Google and the Future of Books’ with Siva Vaidhyanathan

Imagining Google Talk BannerGoogle and the Future of Books

1 December, 7:30 pm, 180 Holland Hall – Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom
Levin College of Law, University of Florida

Siva Vaidhyanathan (Virginia)

Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan is professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. He is well known in media circles for his public criticisms of Google, has published two books on intellectual property law, and runs a heavily subscribed blog called googlizationofeverything on Google’s disruption of commerce and culture.

‘Reaching and Teaching the 'Digital Generation': Separating Myth from Fact’ with Siva Vaidhyanathan

Imagining Reaching and Teaching Talk BannerReaching and Teaching the ‘Digital Generation’: Separating Myth from Fact

2 December, 7 pm, Milhopper Branch of the Alachua County Library, Gainesville

Siva Vaidhyanathan (Virginia)

Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan is professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. He is well known in media circles for his public criticisms of Google, has published two books on intellectual property law, and runs a heavily subscribed blog called googlizationofeverything on Google’s disruption of commerce and culture.