The third and fourth floors of the AOK Library are Quiet areas.  These are good places to study if you don’t mind the occasional whisper or vibrating phone. The fifth and sixth floors of the AOK Library are designated Absolute Quiet areas at all times.  

If you need an environment free from talking, cell phones, or any other noise sources, these are the floors for you!  Library staff walk through the area periodically to enforce quiet rules, but you can also report violations to the Security Desk at 410-455-2331 or Circulation Department staff at 410-455-2354.

This Veteran’s Day marked the one hundred year anniversary of the armistice signed between Allied and Central Powers of World War I at Compiègne, France to end fighting on the Western front. The conflict resulted in an unprecedented level of death and destruction as the products of industrialization–airplanes, tanks, submarines, machine guns, and poison gas–were deployed as modern machines of war. Alongside these new technologies photography played a more central role than ever before in documenting the war. The Photography Collections at UMBC include a large group of photographs from World War I that were distributed as press images by the news bureau Underwood and Underwood. Documenting every aspect of the conflict, from training drills to life in the trenches, from explosions on the front to the burial of fallen soldiers, this archive provides valuable historical evidence, and demonstrates how photography brought the realities of the battlefield into people’s homes.  

Whereas photography had been present at conflicts during the nineteenth century, including the Mexican-American War, Crimean War, U. S. Civil War, and Paris Commune, slow exposure times and cumbersome equipment meant that the action of battle evaded capture by the camera. Instead, portraits of soldiers and views of the aftermath of battlefields stood in for the events of combat. Due to the high cost of photographic printing, the images that circulated in newspapers and magazines hewed to traditional methods of illustration, and artists translated photographs into woodcuts or lithographs that could be more easily reproduced. With the development of halftone printing in 1881 and later advancements in film speed and more portable cameras, the action of battle was captured in photographs for the first time during World War I and distributed quickly on a global scale through news agencies and the press.

Soldiers carried small and easy-to-use Kodak brownie and vest pocket cameras with them to the front, sending home pictures that documented an individual experience of the war. Meanwhile, armies employed staff photographers who provided documentation for military use. For example, the American photographer Edward Steichen served as chief of the Photographic Section of the American Expeditionary Forces and produced aerial photographs of the Western Front from a birds’ eye view. His photographs served as reconnaissance for strategic positioning and tracked German movements. Most nations did not allow press photographers embedded on the battlefield, so the photographs disseminated through news media came directly from the military. Many of the photographs distributed by Underwood and Underwood bear stamps indicating the date that they passed review by government censors. Published images were also accompanied by explanatory captions, which can also be found on the verso of many of the photographs in UMBC’s collection. The information received by readers back home was thus shaped by the military’s official point of view along with that of the news source.

The World War I photographs in UMBC’s Special Collections encompass a wide variety of subjects, including scenes from the trenches and more light-hearted moments of camaraderie among troops. While many of the images are visually striking, their ability to convey clear information about the events of the war often rests on the text that accompanies them. It can be difficult to tell the difference, for example, between a training maneuver and the heat of battle. What do we make of a portrait of a man wearing a strange knitted balaclava or a glamorous woman in nurse’s uniform holding up a sash covered in military insignia? In the case of the former, the caption informs us that this man is a sailor wearing woolens knitted by women volunteers from throughout the United States, who supplied their own yarn and their time to the war effort. In the latter image, Detroit society girl and New York concert singer Marjorie Kay displays the 154 decorations that she collected while serving as a nurse in the U. S. Army Ambulance Corps. The stories told by these photographs—and about the “war to end all wars”—are manifold.

-- Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections & Library Gallery

To view these World War I photographs and others from the Underwood and Underwood archive in person, stop by the Special Collections Reading Room in the Albin O. Kuhn Library, open Monday to Friday 1:00-4:00pm and Thursday 1:00-8:00pm.        

It's right around the corner, folks!

Early voting is officially over. If you're registered to vote in Maryland and would like some guidance for election day, take a look at what we've compiled with some help from Hannah Wilcove at the Women's Center and David Hoffman at the Center for Democracy and Civic Life.

Inform your vote with research:

• Look up your ballot and polling location here.

• Consider the research methods and tips listed here.

• Use nonpartisan voter guides that round up information about who/what is on your ballot, like this one or this one.

• Check out the Baltimore Sun's voter guide and articles relevant to the election here.

• Read the official election day rules/info here.

...and connect with what we're doing on campus!

Are you #allintovote? UMBC has joined the ALL-IN Campus Democracy Challenge, a nonpartisan national effort to promote voter engagement. Please pledge to cast your vote on Election Day. Take the pledge, and help UMBC rise on the campus leaderboard.

Finally, the Student Government Association, College Democrats, College Republicans, (seb), Resident Student Association, Women's Center, Political Science Department, and other campus partners are coordinating a series of programs to support students in getting engaged and voting. Check out the full schedule here. The programs include:

Election Night Extravaganza

Join the Election Night Extravaganza group on MyUMBC for more programs and updates.

Did you know that you can read major newspapers for free online using the Library's databases?

Keep informed by bookmarking or using a feed-reader app (like Feedly) to access:

● New York Times

● Wall Street Journal

● Washington Post

We’ve got the paper versions too!  Head up to the 2nd floor for current newspapers such as: the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Le Monde, the New York Times, The Times (London), the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.