See the print version (1.3MB PDF)
Welcome to the first issue of Annotations, KU Libraries’ semi-annual publication for faculty and staff. This newsletter will include updates on collections, resources, services and developments at the Libraries. It will also keep you informed of our existing and expanding support mechanisms for faculty and staff.
We plan to work closely with faculty across campus to assess the Libraries’ relevancy to teaching and research needs. We will explore closer collaboration between faculty, librarians and IT professionals to enhance students’ learning experiences. Librarians offer innovative student instruction and reference services that emphasize critical thinking, global awareness, creativity and technical skills. Engaging faculty and IT professionals will help us adapt service delivery to students’ learning styles.
Our new Scholar Services program will help create a virtual environment for research. The Scholar Services program already offers support in GIS and maps, data services, digital initiatives and statistical consulting, and librarians and IT professionals will work closely with faculty, graduate students and researchers to identify new and emerging research needs. We look forward to learning more about your needs in future forums specifically designed for this purpose.
I hope you find this newsletter helpful in staying informed about your Libraries. I look forward to sharing our progress this year.
lorraine j. haricombe
Dean
KU Libraries’ recent acquisition of one of four major, worldwide collections devoted to the works of John Bunyan puts our own Department of Special Collections in good company: only the British Library, the New York Public Library and Harvard University can stake a similar claim.
The collection of over 700 works by and about Bunyan, assembled by Professor Emeritus Robert Collmer of Baylor University, will impact research across campus.
“Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress has appeared in more editions and has been more often translated than any other single English work. It is certainly one of the single most influential books in the English language,” said Richard Clement, head of special collections at KU’s Spencer Research Library (pictured). “A significant aspect of the Collmer Collection is its emphasis on illustration. Additionally, the collection covers editions and translation from Bunyan’s lifetime up to the end of the 20th century. Almost every year in the 19th century is represented.”
For more information on the collection, contact Clement at rclement@ku.edu.
“I cannot thank you enough for the fabulous TripSaver service. It has changed my research life considerably — all for the better.” — Linda Stone-Ferrier, Professor and Chair, History of Art
Join the revolution! KU Libraries TripSaver enables Lawrence campus faculty and staff to request delivery of library materials to them via Campus Mail to wherever Campus Mail currently delivers on the Lawrence campus.
TripSaver is available through the library catalog under the Retrieve from Shelf option. It can be used for any materials you can request through Voyager, as well as most interlibrary loans. Materials are delivered in about one to three business days.
To get started or find out more, visit www.lib.ku.edu/tripsaver.
KU Libraries has added more than 25 databases across the arts, sciences and humanities to its A-Z listing since January.
Be sure to check out the complete list at infogateway.ku.edu.
Thanks to the more than 1,100 faculty, staff and students who completed the 2006 LibQUAL+ survey, KU Libraries has made significant changes over the past few months to better meet your research and service needs.
The Division of Information Services values your input. Watch your in box for the upcoming TechQual+ survey, an opportunity to assess information technology at KU.
Scholar Services, the newly created program to support research and digital scholarship at KU, bridges existing services to provide integrated technology and library support to KU faculty, researchers, staff and students.
To help meet this goal, Scholar Services is pleased to announce that KU faculty and graduate students have the opportunity to apply for mini-grants to support innovative digital content development at KU. The goal of the program is to develop scholarly projects utilizing the robust services offered by the BudigOne Digital Workspace.
The BudigOne Mini-Grants are similar to the Internal Grants Program sponsored by the KU Digital Library Initiative in 2002 when members of the KU community were invited to submit project proposals to convert scholarly materials to digital format. Following a competitive process, six projects that best met the program criteria were selected.
Liz MacGonagle, Assistant Professor in History and African & African-American Studies, partnering with Ken Lohrentz, former Africana Studies Librarian with the KU Libraries, was a recipient of a DLI Internal Grant. For the Onitsha Market Literature site, onitsha.diglib.ku.edu, MacGonagle and Lohrentz digitized 21 popular literature pamphlets from Onitsha, Nigeria written by local authors in the 1960s. The pamphlets are part of a larger collection housed in the Special Collections Department of the Spencer Research Library.
MacGonagle said the project was a success in that it assisted her in her ongoing goal to “develop Internet resources to bring parts of Africa to North America and to encourage students to gain a deeper understanding of Africa, Africans and the African Diaspora beyond the classroom.”
Mary Adair, Associate Curator of the Archaeological Research Center, used a DLI Internal Grant to create the Kansas City Hopewell site, www.arc.ku.edu/~arc/cgi-bin/hopewell. The grant enabled Adair to digitize material representing five Kansas City Hopewell archaeological sites, centered on the junction of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, and put them online.
“The online project helps foster greater awareness of the extensive archaeological collections at KU and encourages access for research and education world-wide,” Adair said. “The DLI grant helped me to understand the potential of making digital content accessible to users. And the new BudigOne digitization facility now provides faculty the means to continue creating digital content.”
The BudigOne Mini-Grants will also serve to fund similar projects that will increase the amount and scope of scholarly information available online and will enhance KU teaching, learning and research.
Recipients will receive the tools, training and support needed to successfully create, display and store a digital project. They will also gain access to software and equipment, training, project management and digitization specialists to do the work. KU Libraries will host the projects, and Scholar Services will provide long-term storage to preserve the finished product.
To learn more or to apply, please visit kudiglib.ku.edu/budig/grants. The submission deadline is October 15. Recipients will be announced in mid-November.
Sherry Williams was named interim head of Spencer Research Library in July. She will assume full responsibility for the Spencer Research Library when William Crowe, Spencer librarian, enters phased retirement in October 2007.
“Spencer Research Library is an incredibly important asset not only to this campus, but also to the Lawrence community and the state of Kansas,” said Haricombe. “I have great confidence that Sherry will continue the tradition of outreach and excellence for which Spencer Library is known.”
The Spencer Research Library is home to more than 350,000 rare books, 500,000 manuscripts and approximately 2.5 million photographs. It houses University Archives, the Kansas Collection and Special Collections.
Williams joined KU Libraries more than 28 years ago. She is currently the curator of the Kansas Collection, the regional history division of the University of Kansas Libraries. The collection provides researchers with primary source materials that document the history of Kansas, the region, and the people who have lived here. The Kansas Collection is also a depository for publications of the state of Kansas and for Douglas County records.
Crowe has been head of the research library for eight years. In October, he will become a special assistant to Haricombe.
Sure, they can Google, but can your students find the scholarly information they need for college-level work? If not, three new research skills workshops, offered by Instructional Services at the KU Libraries, can help.
In First Year Research Essentials: Books (offered Sept. 17 and 26) and First Year Research Essentials: Articles (Sept. 18 and 27) students learn to locate and retrieve a variety of print and electronic information.
Credible or Not? Evaluating Internet and Print Resources (Sept. 27) teaches students to evaluate critically the information they find online and in print, enabling them to focus on sources that are credible, accurate and appropriate for academic work.
“These free workshops will help students understand the research process and how the Libraries fit into that, which will lessen their anxiety and allow them to do better research and write better papers,” explained Tami Albin, undergraduate instruction and outreach librarian, who designed several of the workshops.
Visit www.infotraining.ku.edu for workshop dates, times and locations, or contact Instructional Services (training@ku.edu, 864‑0410) to arrange a custom version of one of these workshops for students in your courses.
AnnotationsAnnotations is published semiannually in September and March by the KU Libraries, a division of Information Services.
Inquiries: Rebecca Smith, rasmith@ku.edu; design: Sarah Kanning.
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Kansas