Library News & Events

Everyone knows of the mysterious secret agent "James Bond" who goes by the code number , but did you know that James Bond set foot on UF's campus?

Unfortunately, this is a different Bond from the one you know in the films! In February 1970, Dr. James Bond (head of student affairs at Bowling Green State University) visited Findlay College to speak to the Board of Trustees. He gave a speech that highlighted the importance of adapting to change in the world of higher education. Even though this speech was given over 50 years ago, it is still applicable today. Higher education has always had to adapt to change so that students are prepared upon graduation. Check out the photos below to read a brief article from The Obelisk (Findlay College's student newspaper before The Pulse) about Dr. Bond's visit to campus.

You can also click here for a short article about Dr. Bond from BGSU's newspaper, The B-G News from November 14, 1967. The first 007 films were also released in the 1960s, so it is ironic that Dr. Bond and agent 007 share the same name!

Article, "J. Bond Visits Campus" The Obelisk (February 13, 1970)

"J. Bond Visits Campus" Page 2

Today we feature a slightly different resource available for student and faculty use: the Internet Archive!

Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. With a mission to "provide Universal Access to All Knowledge, the archive began in  archiving the Internet in 1996, when the internet itself was just beginning to come into its own. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - "but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it" as the Internet Archive website says.  They do this using their Wayback Machine, which uses web crawlers to collect digital media. As a library itself, the Internet archive prioritizes book preservation and digitization. Many books published prior to 1927 are available for download, and countless modern books through its Open Library site. They also try to make their digitized books are available to people with print disabilities. They have also been recording T.V. media since 2000, and have been working on making newscasts searchable by captions since 2009.

As of today, the Internet Archive houses

• 625 billion web pages
• 38 million books and texts
• 14 million audio recordings (including 240,000 live concerts)
• 7 million videos (including 2 million Television News programs)
• 4 million images
• 790,000 software programs

You can also find video games stored on their servers! 

Also, as of October 11, 2022 the Internet Archive has launched a COVID-19 Web Archive. This archive curates web archive collections, including the Athens Regional Library System’s Athens, Georgia Area COVID-19 Response collection, New York University’s Tamiment Wagner: NYC COVID-19 Web Activism collection, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s COVID-19 Collection and more.

While a varied and incredibly useful source, the Internet Archive has had to face many battles over copyright, most recently against book publishers over issues of digital book access. 

So whether you're doing research on internet culture in 2003 or simply want to watch Nosferatu (1922), we recommend taking a trip through the Wayback Machine!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our "Magic of Writing" event last month! We enjoyed watching everyone's adventures unfold and seeing them on Instagram. We would like to feature the winner of our event, Emily Minh Huynh! Emily is currently a senior at UF, and we asked her to share a bit about her experience with the event. She was glad to have found out about the event because it aligns with her personal interests.

"I'm a commuter, so I'm not on campus all the time," Minh Huynh said. "I do a lot of fantasy writing, so actually having a reference for a setting kind of really helped guide my writing, almost like a template."

We were curious as to how she began the story writing process, so she shared her experience with us despite a few roadblocks encountered along the way!

"I walked around with a group, but the story I wrote by myself. I started at the Ritz Auditorium, then I came to the Writer's Den, the Witches' Den, the gazebo next, and then the basement of the asylum. The Writer's Den was very open-ended, and I had no idea where the Japanese Garden was!"

Despite the difficulty of some of the locations, Emily was "very impressed with all the props in the Writer's Den." She hopes to see this event happen in the future, with the possibility for more students, faculty, and staff to participate.

To read Emily's story, click here.

Brigitte Galauner (College Librarian for Business, Education, & Social Sciences) presents a commemorative copy of Neil Gaiman's novel The Graveyard Book to Emily (right), as the winner of "The Magic of Writing" event.

Everyone has heard of the "Cola wars" between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but many have not heard about UF athletics getting featured on a Coca-Cola can!

Through the University's contract with Coca-Cola in Fall 1999, they began a promotion to honor Dick Strahm, the Oilers' retired football coach. The promotion consisted of commemorative Coca-Cola cans with the UF logo and information about Dick Strahm's legacy. There were only about 5,000 cases of these cans ever made, so they were very much a "limited edition" item for the time! The cans were first sold at UF home games, then sold at grocery stores in the area. Check out the photos below to see what the cans looked like!

Coca-Cola UF Commemorative Can (1999)

The front of the can features UF football players along with the tagline "Always a Champion" which is a reference to coach Strahm's many accomplishments. The backside of the can highlights his accomplishments as the Oilers' football coach. How does this compare to the Coca-Cola cans you might have at home?

The Pulse vol. 14 no. 4 (September 23, 1999)

UF's student newspaper (The Pulse) wrote an article about the promotional Coca-Cola cans on September 23, 1999. The article was titled "Strahm honored with commemorative Coca-Cola cans."