“Data are the new raw material.”

Look what’s new in the Fine Arts showcase!

The Fine Arts Collection, located here, has new items coming in every week. This week, we added Information Graphics by Sandra Rendgen (edited by Julius Wiedemann), published by Taschen. 

The opening essays in this oversize volume explore the history and use of charts, diagrams, and infographics, to communicate visually the massive quantities of data usually found in reports and news articles. Click on the examples below to see full-size images from the book, or stop by the Fine Arts Reference Desk on Level 2 to dive headfirst into "Information Graphics"!

If you like this book, you will probably enjoy the Marriott Library guide on Information Aesthetics  and other items in the Fine Arts showcase, like the Visual Miscellaneum.

Feeling Manipulated by the Media?

Manipulate back! The Fine Arts & Architecture Library has many tools you can use to warp, distort, and transform your multimedia projects, including:

• A media editing station which features Final Cut Pro, and can take your old VHS tapes and turn them into DVDs, or burn Blu-ray discs
• An oversize (11" x 17") scanner so you can upload and remix your images using Photoshop
• A music composition station 
• A weighted key electric piano
• A color printer
• Plus several Macs scattered throughout the Fine Arts & Architecture Library space

Note: We are not a quiet study space. Looking for a place with minimal noise? Locate quiet areas on the Marriott Library maps; also, find more media editing stations, scanners, PCs, and Macs in the Knowledge Commons. Schedule a room if your study group needs a place to discuss projects.

"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation."

Interested in architecture? Looking for inspiration? Find it at the Katherine W. Dumke Fine Arts & Architecture Library!

Browse our periodicals collection for design inspiration (or imitation, as the above quote by Voltaire tells us!). The Fine Arts & Architecture Library has current issues of architecture and design periodicals in our reference area and they are available for a 7-day check out.

Try these!

Artists Hijack the Espresso Book Machine

As this article in the Deseret News attests, you can't stop artists from manipulating the world around them for their creative outlet. The Espresso Book Machine at Marriott Library is yet another example of technology and materials repurposed to create new forms of art. The recently approved Book Arts certificate at the University of Utah, lead by the Library's Book Arts Program, will greatly benefit from this relatively inexpensive publishing tool. To get your own creative juices flowing, check out the Artists Books housed in the Dumke Fine Arts & Architecture's Showcase Collection and in the Rare Books division of Special Collections.

Vindolanda

The ancient Romans were the dominant political, military, and cultural presence in the Mediterranean and most of western Europe for thousands of years. At the height of the Roman Empire their borders reached from Spain to Armenia and England to Egypt. Their legacy is still with us today in countless ways. One of their major contributions was to language and writing. The Romans were builders. Their road systems and city designs made communication across their vast empire easy and efficient. The ease of communication paired with widespread military education for men and domestic education for women facilitated high literacy among not only citizens but the assimilated foreigners. One of the richest examples of the Roman presence is the unearthed writing from Vindolanda, an ancient fort maintained on the British Roman border between the years 90-130 AD.

The excavations at Vindolanda in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s uncovered piles of ancient tablets, papyrus and leaf books. These fragments were written by military personnel along with their wives and slaves. They wrote about everything from simple lists to complicated military orders to social invitations and personal letters. It is apparent from these finds that writing was an important and widespread practice in ancient Rome. The variety of writing and their places of origin indicate that writing was becoming standardized and formalized throughout the empire.

The Vindolanda finds also shed light on the writing material used in the ancient world. There were some papyrus fragments but the discoveries indicate that wax tablets and leaf books were the prominent writing support and format. Wax tablets were about the size of a paperback book. Wax was spread across the wood and the writing would then be impressed into the wax with a stylus. The advantage of the wax tablets was that they could easily be reused.

Fabricated by Pamela Borrios for the Book Art Program,
Special Collections, J.Willard Marriott Library,
University of Utah

The leaf books are made of very thin slices of birch, alder, and oak. These were then folded in half and may have been sewn to other folded leaves.

The writings found at Vindolanda are not only important to understanding ancient Rome; they are important examples of the Roman influence on the development and standardization of languages and writing. Wax tablets and leaf books add an important element to the history and evolution of the look and feel of the book.

Other Beginnings

Not long after the Sumerians began writing, other systems of writing were beginning to develop all over the world. Civilizations in Africa, Asia, and the Americas were using their indigenous materials to preserve their own records and thoughts.

Over 4,000 years ago along the banks of the Nile River the Egyptians began to write. They used a picture system that is now called hieroglyphics. Most of the surviving writings are religious in nature. They wrote on a material called papyrus, made from the inner fibers of a reed which grew only on the banks of the northern Nile. Papyrus was used as a support for thousands of years by many different cultures.

Arabic Papyrus, Paper and Parchment Collection, 700 C.E
Papyrus 443b
Rare Books, Special Collections,
J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

There are many examples of early writing systems throughout Asia. China was among the earliest civilizations to begin keeping records with the written word. Like other systems of writing, Chinese was a picture language that became abstracted in both meaning and appearance. The Chinese were also innovative in their writing supports. They were the first to use paper around 3,000 years ago. In other parts of Asia writing took on a different look. In Indonesia and the surrounding islands writing was a series of intricate loops impressed on the palm leaves.

Palm Leaf Book, 450 C.E.
Rare Books, Special Collections,
J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

Around 3,000 years ago Mesoamericans began developing a writing system. It was first assumed, by modern scholars, that the highly stylized and pictorial images were not a writing system. Later investigation revealed that, similar to other writing systems, Mesoamerican writing was pictorial. Images represented many things in this culture. Mesoamericans used their domestic animal and plant life to create writing supports. They used specially prepared deer skin for more formal writings. They also wrote on a paper like material called Amatl, made from the bark of fig trees. The few remaining manuscripts are generally religious and closely relate to nature, astronomy, and celestial calendars.

Mesoamerican manuscript
Rare Books, Special Collections,
J.Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

Writing is a worldwide phenomenon that developed in similar yet different ways all over the world. Human beings everywhere found it necessary to produce and preserve human thought and experience through writing and books.

The Beginning

The history of books and writing begins 5,000 years ago when the development of sustained agriculture allowed nomadic tribes to remain in one place. As agriculture grew to support larger and more diverse populations, records became necessary to keep track of resources, experiences and observations.

One of the first agricultural based civilizations was Sumer. Cuneiform, meaning wedge-shaped, is what modern scholars have named the writing system used by the Sumerians. As Sumer grew and the needs of the population became more demanding, pictographic writing symbols became more abstract to accommodate multiple and varied uses. Geography and nature played important roles in writing development.

Societies are shaped by their environment and writing is no different. Sumer was built between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Sumerians used the mud on the banks to make clay tablets as support for their writing. While the clay was soft they would make wedge-shaped impressions with a sharpened stick or stylus. As more people became dependent on writing, speed and accuracy became important. It was easier and faster to make an abstract symbol then a detailed picture.

The Marriott Library has a set of authentic Sumerian clay tablets dating to the second century B.C.E. They were found in the city of ad-Diwaniyah in modern day Iraq. Their size indicates that they are likely to be tax receipts. They were donated as part of the Louis Zucker collection in 1982.

Other records were also kept. The first pharmacopeia was written in Sumer. This list of medicinal herbs is simple and direct with no appeals to magic or superstition.

Pharmacopeia (Facsimile) Donated By Luise S. Goodman, College of Medicine, 1986 Rare Books Division, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah

Not long after a writing system was solidified, multiple uses for writing emerged. Religious text and literature appear early in the historical record. The Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance, tells the story of man’s failures and triumphs. The epic embodies themes that are found in all great literature and still, 4,ooo years later, express the human condition to the modern reader.

Writing has been central to human life, development and expression since its beginning, when mankind first brought thought, material and image together.