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The John Miller Burnam Classical Library

The Burnam Classics Library is the most significant resource of the Department. The library contains nearly 229,000 items, including 15,000 unbound dissertations and pamphlets. It is growing at the rate of about 5,000 books annually and receives some 2,500 periodicals, serials, and continuations. All branches of classical learning have significant representation, but the Library is especially strong in archaeology (including a microfiche copy of the photograph collection of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome), Greek and Latin languages and literatures, palaeography and papyrology, ancient history and epigraphy, and Byzantine  and modern Greek history and literature. Because of our endowment, we are able to buy comprehensively in the areas we cover. We also have an extensive slide library, over 30,000 slides, which we are in process of making available locally as a full-featured digital image database (IRIS: already accessible and largely complete).

It would be difficult to find better essential conditions for study and research. Two graduate reading rooms on either side of the main reading room house graduate carrels, a terrifically convenient and productive arrangement. The books, periodicals, and dissertations of Burnam Library, graduate reading rooms, faculty offices, seminar rooms, catalogues and files, and a collection of slides are housed as a unit on the second and third floors of the Blegen Library. And while it forms an integral part of the general library, the Burnam Library has three full-time library staff, all with degrees in Classics, who, with their assistants, supervise its many uses and assist users.

For more information concerning the Burnam Classics Library, contact Jacquelene Riley (jacquelene.riley@uc.edu) or Michael Braunlin (michael.braunlin@uc.edu).

Departmental Computer Facilities

In recognition of the growing importance of digital access and analysis, particularly in archaeology but also in philology and history, we have provided superb computer facilities. On the fourth floor of Blegen Library we have recently installed a student computer lab with workstations, printers, scanners, and digitizing tablet, and a comprehensive set of relevant databases and software, including Computer Aided Design (CAD), Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and Statistical Analysis software. Students and faculty can connect to the internet via our wireless network from anywhere within the building, including the student desks in the library and all classrooms. We have multiple data projectors and computers for classroom use. Our department maintains our own file and web servers. Our internal servers host a variety of web sites and computer projects, including MRAP (The Mallaskastra Regional Archaeological Project), Nestor (bibliographical journal for Aegean prehistory), IRIS (database for our 30,000 slides), the site of the American Society of Papyrologists, an ancient Greek music site, the departmental web site, and others. Core to the continuing excellence of these facilities is the fact that we fund our own full-time computer expert (John Wallrodt, Senior Research Associate) who assists students and faculty in all aspects of computer use and problem solving. There is also a student aide to help maintain the computers and to assist students and faculty.

Archive and Study Collection

A special resource in the department is the archive collection. Eighty years of archaeological fieldwork sponsored by the department have resulted in the accumulation of a massive archive of photographs, drawings, and notebooks from some thirty excavations and surveys. Recently reorganized, our archive has been hailed by the chief archivist of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens as a model for other American universities. The existence of such a resource in the department provides countless research opportunities for advanced graduate students: the results of older excavations are being reexamined and in many instances finds are being republished.  Graduate students also gain valuable experience in modern methods of archival management. By maintaining a well-organized archive the department not only protects the massive financial investment that it has made in archaeology; it also ensures that our students will find opportunities for original resource in the years to come. More and more, scholars are finding it appropriate to revisit the discoveries of earlier generations, particularly in Greece where it is now difficult to obtain permission to organize new field research.

Hand in hand with the archive collection is the Study Collection, which includes several thousand ancient artifacts, including pot sherds, whole vases, ancient glass, coins (electrotypes; originals presently being moved into the Study Collection), epigraphical squeezes, plaster casts of Linear B inscriptions. We are also currently in the process of arranging a revolving loan of papyri for study by our graduate students. All of these artifacts and copies of artifacts are essential elements of our graduate training.

Local AIA Society

The Cincinnati Society of the Archaeological Association of America was founded in 1905. The AIA hosts several lectures each year and now has their own web page.