Monthly Archives: October 2008

Dr. D. Russell Bailey Leads a Day of Discussion on “The Evolving Commons Concept”

Dr. D. Russell Bailey gave a public presentation entitled “The Evolving Commons Concept: Information, Teaching, Learning, Research” and met with several task groups who are working on developing a Learning Commons in the Claire T. Carney Library at UMass Dartmouth.

The presentation focused on the history and variety of philosophies and components of Information and Learning Commons and how they are evolving. He emphasized that the Commons model is an organizing principle focused on meeting patrons needs which also serves as a framework for working with campus partners in developing a “seamlessly integrated (from the patron’s perspective) continuum of services, tools, systems and resources, in-facility and on the Web”.

Dr. D. Russell Bailey is a leader in the area of Information Commons. He is the Director of the Phillips Memorial Library at Providence College. He is co-author of the new book: Transforming Library Service through Information Commons: Case Studies for the Digital Age (American Library Association, 2008) and a contributing author to the Information Commons Handbook (Neal-Schuman Publishers 2006). He is co-author of the article, “Information Commons Redux: Concept, Evolution and Transcending the Tragedy of the Commons,” in the Journal of Academic Librarianship (2002). He has given numerous presentations on Learning Commons, most recently, in Hong Kong.

For further information on Dr. Bailey and his work, please see his faculty profile at Providence College.

CERN’s New Atom Smasher and the End of the World – A Faculty Senate & Library Brown Bag Presentation by Dr. Grant O’Rielly

Date: Wednesday, 10/29/2008
Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM
Location: Library Browsing Area

Faculty Senate & the Claire T. Carney Library Brown Bag:

Dr. Grant O’Rielly from the Department of Physics will present “CERN’s New Atom Smasher and the End of the World.” Come hear why CERN’s new Large Hadron Collider isn’t going to destroy the world, and what we will learn from the experiments now being done there.

Light refreshments will be served.

Want to Learn About Library Services and Resources? Sign Up Now!

Library InstructionInterested in learning about library services and resources?

Freshmen get an introduction to the library in first-year English classes.
This is your opportunity!

Completed! October 14 at 10 and 4; October 15 at 4; and October 22 at 10.

Please sign up for one of the upcoming sessions:

RefWorks Workshops – An easier way to organize research & format citations – RSVP NOW!

RefWorks Bibliographic Citation Management Software - Learn it!The Library is offering sessions to help beginners and advanced users. All sessions will meet in the Library’s second floor conference room (just behind the elevator). These sessions are open to both students and faculty.
Each session can have 6 participants, so RSVP quickly to get a spot!

  • It was great! – October 17th, 2pm-3pm with Kari Mofford – Beginner level
  • Completed! -October 24th, 2pm-3pm with Liz Winiarz – Advanced level
  • Completed! – October 31st, 2pm-3pm with Liz Winiarz – Beginner level

Sign up for one of the NEW Sessions Now!

  • Sign Up Now! -November 7th, 2pm-3pm with Paige Gibbs – Advanced level
  • Sign Up Now! – Nov. 14, 2 PM – Beginner – Liz Winiarz
  • Sign Up Now! – Nov. 20, 9:30 AM – Advanced, Liz Winiarz
  • Sign Up Now! – Dec. 5, 2 PM – Beginner – Paige Gibbs
Please RSVP for a session by contacting Liz Winiarz or call Liz at x8696 if you have any questions.
If you have a laptop with wireless access, please bring it!

RefWorks allows you to create your own database of references. You may then use those references in a bibliography or you may cite references in your paper and RefWorks will format your paper and bibliography in any style that you choose.

Beginners will learn:

  • How to open an account
  • Basic citation importation
  • How to create and organize folders in your account
  • How to link to your paper in MSWord
  • How to create a basic bibliography

Advanced sessions will focus on:

  • Importing from other sources (web pages, RSS feeds, and other commercial databases)
  • Editing references
  • More viewing and sorting options
  • Checking for duplicates
  • Troubleshooting problems

Carney Library Archives and Special Collections Will Be Closed Oct. 16 – Mid-November During Move to New Archives Facility

New Archives EntranceThe Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections, currently located on the fourth floor of the library, will be closed for all but emergency requests from October 16 through mid-November.

During this period, the collections and staff will be moving into the newly-renovated Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections and Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives facility on the mezzanine and lower levels of the library.

A date has not yet been set for the grand opening, but we anticipate that the Archives will be open to the public in mid-November.

The photograph shows the outside entrance to the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives/Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections. It was taken on October 7, 2008.  The new archives is currently in the final stages of construction.

 

CQ Global Researcher – A database covering global affairs with international viewpoints

The Claire T. Carney Library is pleased to announce access to the CQ Global Researcher.  Modeled after the award-winning CQ Researcher, CQ Global Researcher provides students with reports covering global affairs from a number of international viewpoints. The reports are written by journalists and cover current world issues.   CQ Global Researcher is available directly from the library’s Article’s & Databases or from within the CQ Researcher database.

More than 800 votes cast in “chair fair”

More than 800 votes, both online and on paper ballots, were cast in our Learning Commons “Chair Fair,” which ended on September 29. We received lots of thoughtful and helpful comments as well. We’re tallying the results and will report back soon with details about the winning chairs. Thanks for your participation!

For more information about the Learning Commons, please visit the site.

Speakers at the Universal Access Digital Library Summit Call for Action to Protect the Public Domain

Boston, MAAt a gathering organized by the Boston Library Consortium, Inc. (BLC) in cooperation with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, leaders from the academic and research communities voiced concerns about restrictions on use of public domain works that are being scanned for commercial purposes from library collections. The Universal Access Digital Library Summit, held on September 24 and 25 at the Boston Public Library, was framed as a call for new approaches to the digitization of library collections that will unleash their full potential and turn back erosion of the public’s rights.

Co-conveners Dr. Mark Huddleston, President, University of New Hampshire, Dr. Peter Nicholls, Provost, University of Connecticut, and Dr. Jack Wilson, President, University of Massachusetts challenged their fellow university and library administrators, educators, and public interest advocates to join with the nonprofit world, the government, and business partners to ensure that the fruits of human knowledge and human culture are freely available to people everywhere.

Issues that have emerged as library scanning has scaled up in recent years are laid out in “Free Our Libraries! Why We Need a New Approach to Putting Library Collections Online,” a white paper by Richard K. Johnson, senior advisor to the Association of Research Libraries, that was commissioned by BLC for the summit. Johnson challenges libraries to devise new funding strategies, coordinate their action, and adopt forward-looking principles to guide their digitization. He suggests, “It’s time to sort out the right roles and responsibilities for companies, libraries, governments, and private funders and to get about the work of building an Internet public library that puts the public first.” The paper is available at www.blc.org.

Speakers contrasted two major digitization projects. The Internet Archive, working in cooperation with the Open Content Alliance, has digitized 500,000 works from library collections at an approximate cost of $30 per volume (or 10 cents/page), making these materials accessible universally. The Google Book Project has digitized at least one million items that are available only through the Google search engine.

Keynote speakers at the event included: Senator Chris Dodd (Connecticut) who transmitted his remarks in a video recording from Washington; Maura Marx, Executive Director of the newly formed Open Knowledge Commons; Dr. Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library, Harvard University; and Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor Media Studies and Law, University of Virginia. Other speakers included representatives from the Internet Archive, the Google Book Project, HarperCollins, Oxford University Press, Science Commons, Columbia University, American University, NASULGC, and Berkeley Electronic Press.

The BLC, the first large-scale library consortium to self-fund digitization of its member’s collections, announced that it has pledged an additional million dollars to the project, bringing the total BLC funding to two million dollars since it began in 2007.

A groundbreaking partnership between two BLC members, the State Library of Massachusetts and the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Healy Library, was also announced at the summit. The two libraries will scan and electronically preserve 250,000 pages of Massachusetts state laws from 1620 to the present, making it easier for students, legislators, historians, genealogists, policy researchers, and interested citizens to have access to the vast wealth contained in these volumes.

Materials from both BLC projects are being scanned by the Internet Archive (https://www.archive.org) at the Boston Public Library under the Open Content Alliance Principles (https://www.opencontentalliance.org/participate.html).

Brinley Franklin, Vice Provost, University of Connecticut Libraries and President, Boston Library Consortium, noted: “What was once seemingly impossible is now attainable, given today’s technologies. The twenty BLC members, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Internet Archive, the Boston Public Library and the Open Content Alliance have blazed a trail for other libraries, museums, and cultural institutions to follow as we work collectively and collaboratively to make the world’s knowledge accessible to everyone, unrestricted by choice of technology, geographic location, or socio-economic status.”

For more information, contact Barbara G. Preece, Executive Director, Boston Library Consortium, Inc., 617.262.6244, bpreece@blc.org, or Brinley Franklin, (860) 486-0497, brinley.franklin@uconn.edu.

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Boston Library Consortium (BLC), an association of 20 academic and research libraries located in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The Consortium is dedicated to sharing human and information resources to advance the research and learning of its constituency. Members of the Consortium include: Amherst College, Boston College, Boston Public Library, Boston University, Brandeis University, Brown University, the Marine Biological Laboratory & Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MIT, Northeastern University, the State Library of Massachusetts, Tufts University, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of Massachusetts Medical Center, University of New Hampshire, Wellesley College, and Williams College. Founded in 1970, the Consortium supports resource sharing and enhancement of services to users through programs in cooperative collecting, access to electronic resources and physical collections, and enhanced interlibrary loan and document delivery. Visit BLC on the Web at https://www.blc.org.