Introducing Visible Body, a new interactive database available to the university community

What makes Visible Body unique? Not only is it the largest online database of accurate medical visualizations across seven different languages, the models are three-dimensional. Students and faculty now have access to more than 4,000 medically accurate anatomical structures developed by leading medically trained illustrators and vetted by leading anatomists. Pretty cool, right?

If that wasn’t enough, instructors can even assign self-grading lab activities and other exercises from Visible Body to students, making life easier for both faculty and TAs. Professors can make notes in the system and have the ability to download and “mark up” the images for lectures and presentations. Visible Body also saves browsing history and allows professors to link images to textbooks, making access easy for students. Students can also use the hundreds of quizzes found in the database to reinforce the material from their classes and help them retain information.

Visible Body includes specialty modules for the following sections:

• Human Anatomy Atlas
• Physiology Animations
• Heart and Circulatory System
• Muscles
• Anatomy and Physiology
• Anatomy and Function

Access to Visible Body is made possible by the University of Nebraska Consortium of Libraries (UNCL).  

Visit visiblebody.com to take advantage of this powerful database today. 

Life-Sized Replicas of Terracotta Soldiers in the Engineering Library

In celebration of its 10^th anniversary, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Confucius Institute has “stationed” life-sized replicas of two life-sized  figures in the Engineering Library. The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. For centuries, occasional reports mentioned pieces of terracotta figures and fragments of the Qin necropolis – roofing tiles, bricks and chunks of masonry. This discovery prompted Chinese archaeologists to investigate, revealing the largest pottery figurine group ever found in China. Be sure to stop by and see the replicas in the Engineering Library.

UNL Librarians Chosen For ATG Media’s Up and Comer Award

Congratulations to University of Nebraska–Lincoln librarians Kiyomi Deards and Jennifer Thoegersen for receiving the Up and Comer Award from Against the Grain Media. Twenty recipients of the brand-new award were nominated and selected from across the United States for being rising stars in the library and information profession.

A faculty member of University Libraries since 2010, Deards is an innovative thinker and creative who makes partnership a priority in order to benefit as many people as possible –students, faculty, community, and professional colleagues. Coming from a chemistry and environmental science background, she co-created the SciPop talks in the Adele Hall Learning Commons in 2014. Since then, the talks have evolved to supply speakers for the Nebraska State Science Olympiad. 

Deards credits her colleagues for their support in her endeavors. “You can’t do something like SciPop by yourself,” she said. “You need a great group of people and I’ve been fortunate enough to have dozens of great collaborators.” 

Thoegersen came to the University Libraries in 2014. Among many other things, she has since helped implement the Rosetta digital preservation system and developed workflows for depositing digital materials into Rosetta for long-term preservation. Thoegersen also worked to develop educational escape rooms at both the Nebraska City Public Library and at the C. Y. Thompson Library on UNL’s East Campus.

From showing people how to manage their digital information, to preserving and providing access to content in varied digital formats, to finding new ways to connect communities with vital information, Thoegersen is passionate about her career and optimistic for the future.  

“At their core, libraries are about access to information, and I'm excited about the possibilities and challenges that we are encountering,” said Thoegersen. “It's an energizing time to be working in libraries.”

Against the Grain organizes the Charleston Conference, an annual gathering of professionals in the library industry in Charleston, SC. Deards and Thoegersen will receive their awards at the conference in November 2017.