Patrick Oberholtzer, Instruction & Reference Librarian
When I was growing up, there was a kid down the block who kept a pet black widow spider in an aquarium in his uncle’s garage. Sometimes after school, we’d wander over to visit the incarcerated arachnid. Eventually, one of us would find a long stick and explore the gray area between investigating, studying, and of course, teasing the spider. It’s a wonder one of us didn’t get bit. One morning at school, we learned that the spider had escaped. After that, every time we went into his uncle’s dark garage, we’d look around nervously, expecting the spider to race out of the shadows and suddenly drop on one of us, seeking revenge for time spent in the glass prison.
To the best of my knowledge, we don’t have any black widow spiders around the library. But I do know about another, much friendlier kind of spider that will help you with your research. Put this “search” spider to work for you!
Current awareness tools, such as Google Alerts, help you keep tabs on breaking news stories by sending you an e-mail with content designed around criteria you pick. The criteria you select instructs the spider to race around the Web, restlessly searching “terminator style” for the latest news stories, sports team updates, and must-know celebrity gossip. Check out Google Alerts and see what it can do for you.
The Gallaudet Library offers a second current awareness tool, called RefAware. It employs a more powerful spider (really a tarantula) that never sleeps, and is constantly on the hunt for current research. RefAware is more academic and research-oriented than Google Alerts. Not only does it find references and information sources, but also keeps an eye out for research data and links to full text articles. Like Google Alerts, it spins out e-mail alerts too. RefAware offers a variety of searching options that make this sources especially perfect for scholarly research.
Look for “create alert” or “set up alert” in many of the Library’s databases such as Ebscohost Academic Complete and ProQuest Research Library. The alert you create will only crawl in the database you select and push you e-mail alerts from the information found in that database. Take advantage of them!
HINT: Be as precise in your search terms as possible.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
An argument for open access
Sarah Hamrick, Library Director
Scholarly Communication has been a hot topic in academic libraries for several years. And why do we care? Because in 1985 a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology cost a library $1,950. Does that sound expensive? It was a real bargain! Today a subscription would cost us $30,860. That is not a typo. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! That’s more than most librarians spend on a new car. It’s more than some houses cost in Selma, Alabama. And it’s more than a 2012 Nationals season ticket in the President’s Club -- 81 games, right behind home plate.
I confess that Gallaudet University Library does not now, nor have we ever, held a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology. But it’s just many librarians’ favorite example of how crazy academic journal publishing has become. Journal prices have skyrocketed in the last 20 years. According to Ebsco, a library vendor, the average cost of college library journal subscriptions rose 31.7% between 2006 and 2010. That figure is just for journals published in the United States. If you include international publications, the increase was 36.24%.
So libraries, Gallaudet University Library included, are spending more every year on subscriptions. Many started canceling subscriptions in the early ‘90s because budget increases weren’t keeping up with subscription costs. And that was before the economy tanked. Since 2008, college librarians who only had their budgets frozen instead of cut are the envy of their colleagues, most of whom are trying to figure out what subscriptions they can hold onto in spite of their slashed budgets.
We librarians are a creative bunch, and we take a uniquely geeky pride in providing our constituents with the information they want and need. So we’ve banded together in consortia (like the fabulous Washington Research Library Consortium) and created systems (like our Consortium Loan Service) so we can get you the scholarly articles you need even if we can’t subscribe to the journals.
But alas, we’ve been thwarted again by the proliferation of electronic journals. Don’t get me wrong -- we love them, and we know you do too! But electronic journals come with license agreements, and publishers won’t allow us to access their e-journals unless we sign their license agreements. While there’s some room for negotiation, many publishers aren’t willing to grant libraries interlibrary loan rights to electronic journal articles. So we’re stuck once more with another obstacle to get over, around, or under. And you thought librarians just read all day long!
The irony to all of this is that much of the content in academic journals is produced by faculty and researchers at colleges and universities around the country. Faculty write articles documenting their research, work hard to get them published in peer-reviewed journals, and then sign away the rights to their own work.
Let’s say, for example, Gallaudet biology professor Peter Pan writes an article reporting on his research project in which he proved that it is, in fact, possible to never grow up. Professor Pan is thrilled when the editorial board of The Journal of Lost Boys chooses his article for the January 2012 issue. He receives his publication agreement, signs and returns it, and eagerly awaits publication. The next fall his colleague, Professor Wendy Darling, wants the article to be required reading for her class and asks Professor Pan for a copy to scan and post on Blackboard. Both are dismayed to learn that the publication agreement assigns copyright ownership of the article to The Journal of Lost Boys. If Professor Darling wants to post the article on Blackboard a fee will be charged. Those fees vary, but can range from just a few dollars to almost $200 for one semester use. So Gallaudet students don’t have free access to an article published by a Gallaudet faculty member, who received support from Gallaudet to do the research on which the article was based. It may sound outrageous, but it happens all the time!
Most scholars want their research disseminated widely. They want other scholars to have access to their work. They aren’t seeking great wealth for their work. They simply want to contribute to the greater good. But publishers are in business. And of course business involves making a profit. So publishers profit from the work scholars are doing. Does that make sense?
What’s the solution? How can students, faculty, and researchers access the scholarly material they need without breaking the bank? How can scholars publish their research in peer-reviewed sources, share their discoveries and their knowledge, and do so in a way that’s affordable to their audience? Scholars may negotiate to maintain some rights to their work (the right to reproduce on their own campus, for example) as part of their publication agreements. And they may elect to publish in open access journals, which are available to all without charge on the web. They may choose to publish their work with a Creative Commons license, which will allow them to stipulate what others may (and may not) do with their work. Librarians believe open access is the answer.The ever-growing list of open access journals provide scholars with a great platform to publish their work while allowing other scholars free access.
Just this week, we’ve started looking at how we can make open-access databases and other electronic resources available more easily through our catalog and database listing. The Directory of Open Access Journals, for instance, has been available on a journal-by-journal basis through our e-Journal search for some titles, but we’re now adding greater access to the directory itself. We’re also looking at publicly-available out-of-copyright e-books on the Web that we can offer through the catalog, like Project Gutenberg. You should stay tuned; we’re always working on something new!
Scholarly Communication has been a hot topic in academic libraries for several years. And why do we care? Because in 1985 a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology cost a library $1,950. Does that sound expensive? It was a real bargain! Today a subscription would cost us $30,860. That is not a typo. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! That’s more than most librarians spend on a new car. It’s more than some houses cost in Selma, Alabama. And it’s more than a 2012 Nationals season ticket in the President’s Club -- 81 games, right behind home plate.
I confess that Gallaudet University Library does not now, nor have we ever, held a subscription to The Journal of Comparative Neurology. But it’s just many librarians’ favorite example of how crazy academic journal publishing has become. Journal prices have skyrocketed in the last 20 years. According to Ebsco, a library vendor, the average cost of college library journal subscriptions rose 31.7% between 2006 and 2010. That figure is just for journals published in the United States. If you include international publications, the increase was 36.24%.
So libraries, Gallaudet University Library included, are spending more every year on subscriptions. Many started canceling subscriptions in the early ‘90s because budget increases weren’t keeping up with subscription costs. And that was before the economy tanked. Since 2008, college librarians who only had their budgets frozen instead of cut are the envy of their colleagues, most of whom are trying to figure out what subscriptions they can hold onto in spite of their slashed budgets.
We librarians are a creative bunch, and we take a uniquely geeky pride in providing our constituents with the information they want and need. So we’ve banded together in consortia (like the fabulous Washington Research Library Consortium) and created systems (like our Consortium Loan Service) so we can get you the scholarly articles you need even if we can’t subscribe to the journals.
But alas, we’ve been thwarted again by the proliferation of electronic journals. Don’t get me wrong -- we love them, and we know you do too! But electronic journals come with license agreements, and publishers won’t allow us to access their e-journals unless we sign their license agreements. While there’s some room for negotiation, many publishers aren’t willing to grant libraries interlibrary loan rights to electronic journal articles. So we’re stuck once more with another obstacle to get over, around, or under. And you thought librarians just read all day long!
The irony to all of this is that much of the content in academic journals is produced by faculty and researchers at colleges and universities around the country. Faculty write articles documenting their research, work hard to get them published in peer-reviewed journals, and then sign away the rights to their own work.
Let’s say, for example, Gallaudet biology professor Peter Pan writes an article reporting on his research project in which he proved that it is, in fact, possible to never grow up. Professor Pan is thrilled when the editorial board of The Journal of Lost Boys chooses his article for the January 2012 issue. He receives his publication agreement, signs and returns it, and eagerly awaits publication. The next fall his colleague, Professor Wendy Darling, wants the article to be required reading for her class and asks Professor Pan for a copy to scan and post on Blackboard. Both are dismayed to learn that the publication agreement assigns copyright ownership of the article to The Journal of Lost Boys. If Professor Darling wants to post the article on Blackboard a fee will be charged. Those fees vary, but can range from just a few dollars to almost $200 for one semester use. So Gallaudet students don’t have free access to an article published by a Gallaudet faculty member, who received support from Gallaudet to do the research on which the article was based. It may sound outrageous, but it happens all the time!
Most scholars want their research disseminated widely. They want other scholars to have access to their work. They aren’t seeking great wealth for their work. They simply want to contribute to the greater good. But publishers are in business. And of course business involves making a profit. So publishers profit from the work scholars are doing. Does that make sense?
What’s the solution? How can students, faculty, and researchers access the scholarly material they need without breaking the bank? How can scholars publish their research in peer-reviewed sources, share their discoveries and their knowledge, and do so in a way that’s affordable to their audience? Scholars may negotiate to maintain some rights to their work (the right to reproduce on their own campus, for example) as part of their publication agreements. And they may elect to publish in open access journals, which are available to all without charge on the web. They may choose to publish their work with a Creative Commons license, which will allow them to stipulate what others may (and may not) do with their work. Librarians believe open access is the answer.The ever-growing list of open access journals provide scholars with a great platform to publish their work while allowing other scholars free access.
Just this week, we’ve started looking at how we can make open-access databases and other electronic resources available more easily through our catalog and database listing. The Directory of Open Access Journals, for instance, has been available on a journal-by-journal basis through our e-Journal search for some titles, but we’re now adding greater access to the directory itself. We’re also looking at publicly-available out-of-copyright e-books on the Web that we can offer through the catalog, like Project Gutenberg. You should stay tuned; we’re always working on something new!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Why e-books are neat
Elizabeth Henry, E-Resources/Instruction & Reference Librarian
The nice thing about e-books is that you can access them anytime, anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection and a laptop, computer, or iPad. For example, suppose you’re frantically trying to complete an assignment at 3:00 AM that’s due at 9:00 AM and you realize you need just one more source, but alas, the Library’s closed. That’s when the Library’s e-books can come in handy—they’re online, ready to be discovered and used by you for your assignment!
If you’re wondering how many e-books the Library has, my honest answer is: I don’t know. Why? Because there are so many e-books that I lost count and gave up trying to keep track of it. The reason for the incredibly huge amount of e-books is because we both subscribe to, and purchase from four – yes, four – different companies. Each company provides a place online, known as platforms, for us to read the e-books. The platform and how you can interact with the e-book will vary, but they all are essentially the same: books in electronic format and available online via the Library’s catalog. Our e-book platforms are:
So you must be thinking, Perfect! Now all I have to do is find the book I want, and then download it onto my Kindle or iPad! Right? Well, I honestly wish I could say, “Yup! Go ahead and download it!” but unfortunately, no, the majority of the e-books we have (as in about 98%) are offered through platforms that aren’t able to make the e-books downloadable. The only exception is EBL, a platform we’re working on getting up and running right now.
However, in some hot-off-the-presses news, we just learned that Ebrary will allow us to be able to download e-books onto Kindles, Nooks, and iPads! So once we figure out how to do that, we’ll have the download option up and running. Stay tuned for updates.
If you have any further questions about e-books here at the Library, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail.
Happy reading!
The nice thing about e-books is that you can access them anytime, anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection and a laptop, computer, or iPad. For example, suppose you’re frantically trying to complete an assignment at 3:00 AM that’s due at 9:00 AM and you realize you need just one more source, but alas, the Library’s closed. That’s when the Library’s e-books can come in handy—they’re online, ready to be discovered and used by you for your assignment!
If you’re wondering how many e-books the Library has, my honest answer is: I don’t know. Why? Because there are so many e-books that I lost count and gave up trying to keep track of it. The reason for the incredibly huge amount of e-books is because we both subscribe to, and purchase from four – yes, four – different companies. Each company provides a place online, known as platforms, for us to read the e-books. The platform and how you can interact with the e-book will vary, but they all are essentially the same: books in electronic format and available online via the Library’s catalog. Our e-book platforms are:
- eBook Collection, owned by EBSCO
- Ebrary
- PsycBooks (the platform is provided by Ovid)
- Safari Books Online, owned by ProQuest
- A table of contents (TOC) that you can click on to jump from one chapter to the next
- The ability to search within the e-book for specific words
- Being able to zoom in or out of the page so you can read the text easily
- The option to print a limited number of pages.
- Searchability within the full text of an e-book.
So you must be thinking, Perfect! Now all I have to do is find the book I want, and then download it onto my Kindle or iPad! Right? Well, I honestly wish I could say, “Yup! Go ahead and download it!” but unfortunately, no, the majority of the e-books we have (as in about 98%) are offered through platforms that aren’t able to make the e-books downloadable. The only exception is EBL, a platform we’re working on getting up and running right now.
However, in some hot-off-the-presses news, we just learned that Ebrary will allow us to be able to download e-books onto Kindles, Nooks, and iPads! So once we figure out how to do that, we’ll have the download option up and running. Stay tuned for updates.
If you have any further questions about e-books here at the Library, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail.
Happy reading!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Children's books!
Hmm. A little more than two weeks since my last post. This ain't good.
Truth is, I've been so busy juggling various duties in addition to the usual behind-the-scenes work that I haven't been able to devote time to the blog or vlogging book reviews.
I had been planning for a while to bring my colleagues in on this -- Patrick and Sarah's ALA reports from July started it -- and figured now was a great time for it.
We're kicking off with a great post about our children's books from Laura Jacobi!
One of the pleasures of being responsible for the Education collection is buying books to support the Children’s Literature curriculum. They’re short, so you can actually read them! And they’re often really cute. Here are three winners:
Being a traditionalist, I was prepared to turn my nose up at Rubia and the Three Osos by Susan Middleton Elya and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. How could anyone improve on Goldilocks and the Three Bears? But this is such a jaunty, lighthearted, little bilingual girl:
April and Esme, Tooth Fairies by Bob Graham recounts the adventures of two kid fairies on their first foray through modern England. They fly through the night skies, into Daniel’s house and to his bedroom. Oh, no! Daniel has put his tooth in a glass of water, just as Grandma does with her teeth! Then he wakes up! What to do? Text Mommy Fairy for help! Once the mission’s accomplished, will they avoid the temptation of taking Grandma’s teeth too? Find out!
If you don’t have your own, borrow a first or second grader and read We are in a Book by Mo Willems. Piggie the pig and Gerald the elephant (who contradicts everything you’ve read about pachyderm intelligence) sense someone looking at them and realize, “A reader is reading us!” They then have barrels of laughs making the reader say words -- until the book ends. Totally silly.
You can find these and lots of other picture books in the Library General Stacks in the number 800. Don’t let the Children’s Lit. students have all the fun.
Truth is, I've been so busy juggling various duties in addition to the usual behind-the-scenes work that I haven't been able to devote time to the blog or vlogging book reviews.
I had been planning for a while to bring my colleagues in on this -- Patrick and Sarah's ALA reports from July started it -- and figured now was a great time for it.
We're kicking off with a great post about our children's books from Laura Jacobi!
One of the pleasures of being responsible for the Education collection is buying books to support the Children’s Literature curriculum. They’re short, so you can actually read them! And they’re often really cute. Here are three winners:
Being a traditionalist, I was prepared to turn my nose up at Rubia and the Three Osos by Susan Middleton Elya and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. How could anyone improve on Goldilocks and the Three Bears? But this is such a jaunty, lighthearted, little bilingual girl:
Little Miss Rubia, curls made of oro.And the end has a charming twist in which Rubia departs from the selfish toad character of Goldilocks. You’ll love it!
“A tiny casita, for me? ¡La adoro!”
April and Esme, Tooth Fairies by Bob Graham recounts the adventures of two kid fairies on their first foray through modern England. They fly through the night skies, into Daniel’s house and to his bedroom. Oh, no! Daniel has put his tooth in a glass of water, just as Grandma does with her teeth! Then he wakes up! What to do? Text Mommy Fairy for help! Once the mission’s accomplished, will they avoid the temptation of taking Grandma’s teeth too? Find out!
If you don’t have your own, borrow a first or second grader and read We are in a Book by Mo Willems. Piggie the pig and Gerald the elephant (who contradicts everything you’ve read about pachyderm intelligence) sense someone looking at them and realize, “A reader is reading us!” They then have barrels of laughs making the reader say words -- until the book ends. Totally silly.
You can find these and lots of other picture books in the Library General Stacks in the number 800. Don’t let the Children’s Lit. students have all the fun.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Robbing the bees
Our September in the Stacks series of events and raffle are over. We’ve already announced the winners with some photos on our Facebook page; there are some big grins there!
Now: No vlog this week. I just finally had my computer upgraded to Windows 7 like the rest of campus -- it’s a long story that can mostly be chalked up to my own sentimentality for XP -- and the software I usually use to edit vlogs still needs to be reinstalled. That’s on my list!
In the meantime, I thought I’d actually write a book review for a change. Here goes. I hope my writin’ muscles haven’t atrophied too much by now.
The book I’m going to review: Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop.
I’m going to cop to something that a lot of people find weird for some reason: I love bees. They’re really cool animals. Not only do they make honey and sting stuff, but they also are responsible for making sure that a lot of the plants we eat on a daily basis -- from oranges to almonds -- manage to grow and produce the fruits and nuts that we all enjoy so much.
As Bishop notes in the book, I’m not the only one who thinks they’re cool; an old guy called Smiley down in the Florida Panhandle loves them. He loves them enough to have tens of thousands of them working for him, collecting pollen and nectar from various local plants ranging from watermelon to the rare, expensive, and difficult-to-get tupelo.
Although a lot of the book tells Smiley’s story, it’s really about the history of the partnership that’s existed between humans and bees for thousands of years. It offers an overview of different kinds of beekeeping techniques, some of which are still in use today after hundreds of years, and how this partnership’s evolved from chancing across the odd hive with its trove of honey in a cave or hollow tree to a multibillion-dollar industry that hums along behind our supermarket shelves.
Bishop’s style is kind of interesting; when she talks about Smiley, her tone turns kind of wry, as though she’s trying to tell a funny story without laughing. He’s a funny guy, definitely a down-home fella, and he reminds me of a few people I grew up with, a little rough around the edges, but a big old sweetheart who’s somewhat crazy.
But when she turns to the bigger picture of beekeeping history, things get a little academic. I found myself wishing every so often that she’d return to the Panhandle and the travails of harvesting tupelo nectar, which only becomes available for a two-to-three-week period in the spring. Then it turns funny again when she talks about her own experiences as an amateur beekeeper, even when she accidentally kills her first hive after a long winter. It’s a sad moment that kind of drives home the strange contrast between how important bees are to us in general, but relatively expendable as far as a particular individual or hive are concerned.
On the whole, I really dug this book! Although it focuses on our relationship with bees and how their everyday lives have become a major part of ours -- often without our realizing it -- it led me to think a little more about the mutualistic relationships our species enjoys with others, like dogs, horses, or cats.
In an oddly serendipitous incident, right when I was in the middle of this book, a friend invited me to a beekeeping workshop right here in Washington, DC! I know it sounds odd, but there are many small gardens and “farms” all over the place; this one was associated with a library and community center just a few blocks from Gallaudet.
It was pretty fascinating; a group of us stood around the hive and watched as the local beekeeper opened it up and pulled out a frame with its honeycomb and put it in a glass box for us to examine more closely. I remember most strongly seeing a young girl, a local who was involved with the center and the farm, standing right next to the hive. She was at the center of a cloud of bees, a scene that would drive most people I know into a flailing frenzy, but was completely at ease. The next generation!
Of course, the honey with brie on crusty bread that we had afterwards didn’t hurt, either. Good times.
Now: No vlog this week. I just finally had my computer upgraded to Windows 7 like the rest of campus -- it’s a long story that can mostly be chalked up to my own sentimentality for XP -- and the software I usually use to edit vlogs still needs to be reinstalled. That’s on my list!
In the meantime, I thought I’d actually write a book review for a change. Here goes. I hope my writin’ muscles haven’t atrophied too much by now.
The book I’m going to review: Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop.
I’m going to cop to something that a lot of people find weird for some reason: I love bees. They’re really cool animals. Not only do they make honey and sting stuff, but they also are responsible for making sure that a lot of the plants we eat on a daily basis -- from oranges to almonds -- manage to grow and produce the fruits and nuts that we all enjoy so much.
As Bishop notes in the book, I’m not the only one who thinks they’re cool; an old guy called Smiley down in the Florida Panhandle loves them. He loves them enough to have tens of thousands of them working for him, collecting pollen and nectar from various local plants ranging from watermelon to the rare, expensive, and difficult-to-get tupelo.
Although a lot of the book tells Smiley’s story, it’s really about the history of the partnership that’s existed between humans and bees for thousands of years. It offers an overview of different kinds of beekeeping techniques, some of which are still in use today after hundreds of years, and how this partnership’s evolved from chancing across the odd hive with its trove of honey in a cave or hollow tree to a multibillion-dollar industry that hums along behind our supermarket shelves.
Bishop’s style is kind of interesting; when she talks about Smiley, her tone turns kind of wry, as though she’s trying to tell a funny story without laughing. He’s a funny guy, definitely a down-home fella, and he reminds me of a few people I grew up with, a little rough around the edges, but a big old sweetheart who’s somewhat crazy.
But when she turns to the bigger picture of beekeeping history, things get a little academic. I found myself wishing every so often that she’d return to the Panhandle and the travails of harvesting tupelo nectar, which only becomes available for a two-to-three-week period in the spring. Then it turns funny again when she talks about her own experiences as an amateur beekeeper, even when she accidentally kills her first hive after a long winter. It’s a sad moment that kind of drives home the strange contrast between how important bees are to us in general, but relatively expendable as far as a particular individual or hive are concerned.
On the whole, I really dug this book! Although it focuses on our relationship with bees and how their everyday lives have become a major part of ours -- often without our realizing it -- it led me to think a little more about the mutualistic relationships our species enjoys with others, like dogs, horses, or cats.
In an oddly serendipitous incident, right when I was in the middle of this book, a friend invited me to a beekeeping workshop right here in Washington, DC! I know it sounds odd, but there are many small gardens and “farms” all over the place; this one was associated with a library and community center just a few blocks from Gallaudet.
It was pretty fascinating; a group of us stood around the hive and watched as the local beekeeper opened it up and pulled out a frame with its honeycomb and put it in a glass box for us to examine more closely. I remember most strongly seeing a young girl, a local who was involved with the center and the farm, standing right next to the hive. She was at the center of a cloud of bees, a scene that would drive most people I know into a flailing frenzy, but was completely at ease. The next generation!
Of course, the honey with brie on crusty bread that we had afterwards didn’t hurt, either. Good times.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Faces in the window
Phew.
That’s all I have to say about this semester so far. Part of it is the September in the Stacks series of events, which has required quite a bit of preparation, part of it is the class I’m teaching, part of it is the usual work, part of it is …
Well, there are a lot of moving parts in general. Including furniture. We’re slowly but surely changing a few things here in the Library, even as we settle into the new routine that comes with each fresh-faced September.
For instance, we’ve added a pair of super-comfortable IKEA rocking chairs to the new seating area by the public computers on the first floor. We’re currently waiting on a loveseat that’ll accompany the rocking chairs, and then ta-da!
We also finished the conversion of our 1404 computer lab into the new Quiet Study Room, which has some similar furniture and is a little more of a comfortable environment for people to work quietly, free of distraction.
While all of this has been going on, the renovation of our two study rooms downstairs got off to a strong start on Monday. The old chalkboards are already gone, soon to be replaced by whiteboards and computers with large monitors, similar to the setup we have in the Deaf Library Study Center. We’re also working on a room-reservation system for those two rooms; we anticipate a higher level of demand because of the new equipment, and want to make sure everyone gets their fair shot at them.
In the meantime, weird things keep cropping up. Last month, when we tore down the old counter that enclosed the new seating area, we found 40-year-old Pepsi bottles and Schlitz cans (empty, alas). Yesterday, a window appeared behind a chalkboard in one of the study rooms that are undergoing renovation downstairs.
My post today is going to be about that window.
One of the fellas working on the room came upstairs yesterday afternoon when they found the window, asking to be allowed into an adjacent room around the corner to the right, thinking that accessing the window from the other side might make things go a little easier.
So I left the meeting I had been in and went downstairs with him, and discovered that he meant the Genealogy Room, which belongs to the Archives. Once we got in, we discovered a distinct lack of windows. Or, not of windows -- one corner of the room is glassed in, opening onto the General Stacks -- but of windows resembling the newly-discovered one.
Hmm.
We checked the room around the corner to the right of that one, the other study room which was undergoing renovation. It turned out to be windowless. So we made another right turn and tried another room, where the Archives stores many of its photographs. There were windows! But not the window. The contractor started grumbling, and I privately wondered why anyone would treat buildings like honeycombs made by avant-garde bees (I’m reading a book about bees this week, and the comparison is apt, as many of the rooms in this cluster are hexagonal).
Puzzled, we found an emergency map in the corridor that connects the central hallway going past the auditorium towards the Archives to the General Stacks in the 900s, and examined it closely to try to get some idea of where the window actually was. Then we moved further along the corridor (are you confused yet? I’m not quite all there myself) and around the corner to the right to B112, a smaller auditorium-style classroom. Windows! But …
Well, you guessed it.
So we tried next door, which turned out to be a strange little hallway with a ramp going down, then stairs going up, and which represented the sixth right turn that brought us full circle around the southwest quadrant of downstairs rooms from where we’d started.
We found another door into B112, the rear door of the photograph room we tried earlier, and another door, which I’d never noticed before, not in the just-about-three years I’d worked here. We tried that one, and discovered something creepy.
A dark staircase. Well, it wasn’t much of a staircase -- there were a couple of stairs leading up to a landing, and then around a corner, they continued into a small room. It led into utter darkness. I saw a light switch on the wall to my right, and flicked it, but it only turned on a set of uplights set in the wall near the floor that did nothing to help and, if anything, only aggravated the mounting sense of weirdness.
Luckily, we weren’t in there for long because as it turned out, we’d found the window we were looking for. At long last. We lifted the white shade and peeked through only to see the other contractor hard at work on the other side of the room, his back to us.
The guy I was with knocked on the window, and we saw his colleague give a start, turn around slowly, and see what I can only imagine were a pair of sinister orange faces, lit from below and wreathed in darkness, staring at him through what had up until now been a sheet of blank white glass.
His reaction was something to behold.
As I went back to my meeting, I realized that more than anything else, all the big projects that the Library’s undertaken since January -- from weeding to renovations -- have shown me that regardless of how long you’ve worked or studied here, this place still has plenty of surprises.
That’s all I have to say about this semester so far. Part of it is the September in the Stacks series of events, which has required quite a bit of preparation, part of it is the class I’m teaching, part of it is the usual work, part of it is …
Well, there are a lot of moving parts in general. Including furniture. We’re slowly but surely changing a few things here in the Library, even as we settle into the new routine that comes with each fresh-faced September.
For instance, we’ve added a pair of super-comfortable IKEA rocking chairs to the new seating area by the public computers on the first floor. We’re currently waiting on a loveseat that’ll accompany the rocking chairs, and then ta-da!
We also finished the conversion of our 1404 computer lab into the new Quiet Study Room, which has some similar furniture and is a little more of a comfortable environment for people to work quietly, free of distraction.
While all of this has been going on, the renovation of our two study rooms downstairs got off to a strong start on Monday. The old chalkboards are already gone, soon to be replaced by whiteboards and computers with large monitors, similar to the setup we have in the Deaf Library Study Center. We’re also working on a room-reservation system for those two rooms; we anticipate a higher level of demand because of the new equipment, and want to make sure everyone gets their fair shot at them.
In the meantime, weird things keep cropping up. Last month, when we tore down the old counter that enclosed the new seating area, we found 40-year-old Pepsi bottles and Schlitz cans (empty, alas). Yesterday, a window appeared behind a chalkboard in one of the study rooms that are undergoing renovation downstairs.
My post today is going to be about that window.
One of the fellas working on the room came upstairs yesterday afternoon when they found the window, asking to be allowed into an adjacent room around the corner to the right, thinking that accessing the window from the other side might make things go a little easier.
So I left the meeting I had been in and went downstairs with him, and discovered that he meant the Genealogy Room, which belongs to the Archives. Once we got in, we discovered a distinct lack of windows. Or, not of windows -- one corner of the room is glassed in, opening onto the General Stacks -- but of windows resembling the newly-discovered one.
Hmm.
We checked the room around the corner to the right of that one, the other study room which was undergoing renovation. It turned out to be windowless. So we made another right turn and tried another room, where the Archives stores many of its photographs. There were windows! But not the window. The contractor started grumbling, and I privately wondered why anyone would treat buildings like honeycombs made by avant-garde bees (I’m reading a book about bees this week, and the comparison is apt, as many of the rooms in this cluster are hexagonal).
Puzzled, we found an emergency map in the corridor that connects the central hallway going past the auditorium towards the Archives to the General Stacks in the 900s, and examined it closely to try to get some idea of where the window actually was. Then we moved further along the corridor (are you confused yet? I’m not quite all there myself) and around the corner to the right to B112, a smaller auditorium-style classroom. Windows! But …
Well, you guessed it.
So we tried next door, which turned out to be a strange little hallway with a ramp going down, then stairs going up, and which represented the sixth right turn that brought us full circle around the southwest quadrant of downstairs rooms from where we’d started.
We found another door into B112, the rear door of the photograph room we tried earlier, and another door, which I’d never noticed before, not in the just-about-three years I’d worked here. We tried that one, and discovered something creepy.
A dark staircase. Well, it wasn’t much of a staircase -- there were a couple of stairs leading up to a landing, and then around a corner, they continued into a small room. It led into utter darkness. I saw a light switch on the wall to my right, and flicked it, but it only turned on a set of uplights set in the wall near the floor that did nothing to help and, if anything, only aggravated the mounting sense of weirdness.
Luckily, we weren’t in there for long because as it turned out, we’d found the window we were looking for. At long last. We lifted the white shade and peeked through only to see the other contractor hard at work on the other side of the room, his back to us.
The guy I was with knocked on the window, and we saw his colleague give a start, turn around slowly, and see what I can only imagine were a pair of sinister orange faces, lit from below and wreathed in darkness, staring at him through what had up until now been a sheet of blank white glass.
His reaction was something to behold.
As I went back to my meeting, I realized that more than anything else, all the big projects that the Library’s undertaken since January -- from weeding to renovations -- have shown me that regardless of how long you’ve worked or studied here, this place still has plenty of surprises.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
We're underway!
We survived without a scratch!
The campus, actually, is pristine, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by the sight of downed trees and damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. We also have quite a few faculty and staff members who have to cope with what the hurricane wrought upon their own houses, what with the loss of power, strong winds, and a whole lot of rain.
Nevertheless, the semester started yesterday without a hitch for Gallaudet students, as evidenced by the large number of people we had coming and going all day. It’s nice to work at the Service Desk and get none of your own work done because you’re busy helping students, staff, and faculty members.
I just wanted to drop this quick note to update everyone that we’re okay and prove this to be true by informing the world that as of yesterday, we have a shiny new microform scanner! You can use it to scan our microfilm documents (e.g., deaf-related theses and dissertations, back issues of our periodicals, the Little Paper Family, and other deaf-related historical material) to PDF or print it out from a computer. We’d like to convert all the microform stuff we have to digital formats, but copyright restrictions make that difficult, if not impossible, for some titles. We’re working on the rest of the collection as quickly as we can -- since microform was the best technology available for preservation for a pretty long time, there’s a lot of it to get through!
Bonus: It’s fast. And has this cool green-colored light that glows under the scanning plate. The future is now, people!
And the future can get a little complicated. Most of the stuff you’ll be using it for is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few bells and whistles we’re still familiarizing ourselves with. Once we’ve got the whole thing down, we’ll post some basic instructions you can use to get started. Or just give it a shot yourself; learn by doing!
In the meantime, we just have the one, so I’d like to emphasize again that, like the regular scanner workstation and the ZoomText workstations for our users with visual disabilities, people who need the computer for its specific purpose take priority.
We actually added another computer with the microfilm scanner, so the overall number of available computers shouldn’t be affected and, when nobody’s scanning microfilm, has actually increased. It’s a win-win!
I’ll do a vlog tomorrow. It’s actually on a really cool book; I just have to figure out how to explain it ...
The campus, actually, is pristine, an accomplishment made all the more impressive by the sight of downed trees and damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. We also have quite a few faculty and staff members who have to cope with what the hurricane wrought upon their own houses, what with the loss of power, strong winds, and a whole lot of rain.
Nevertheless, the semester started yesterday without a hitch for Gallaudet students, as evidenced by the large number of people we had coming and going all day. It’s nice to work at the Service Desk and get none of your own work done because you’re busy helping students, staff, and faculty members.
I just wanted to drop this quick note to update everyone that we’re okay and prove this to be true by informing the world that as of yesterday, we have a shiny new microform scanner! You can use it to scan our microfilm documents (e.g., deaf-related theses and dissertations, back issues of our periodicals, the Little Paper Family, and other deaf-related historical material) to PDF or print it out from a computer. We’d like to convert all the microform stuff we have to digital formats, but copyright restrictions make that difficult, if not impossible, for some titles. We’re working on the rest of the collection as quickly as we can -- since microform was the best technology available for preservation for a pretty long time, there’s a lot of it to get through!
Bonus: It’s fast. And has this cool green-colored light that glows under the scanning plate. The future is now, people!
And the future can get a little complicated. Most of the stuff you’ll be using it for is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few bells and whistles we’re still familiarizing ourselves with. Once we’ve got the whole thing down, we’ll post some basic instructions you can use to get started. Or just give it a shot yourself; learn by doing!
In the meantime, we just have the one, so I’d like to emphasize again that, like the regular scanner workstation and the ZoomText workstations for our users with visual disabilities, people who need the computer for its specific purpose take priority.
We actually added another computer with the microfilm scanner, so the overall number of available computers shouldn’t be affected and, when nobody’s scanning microfilm, has actually increased. It’s a win-win!
I’ll do a vlog tomorrow. It’s actually on a really cool book; I just have to figure out how to explain it ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
