Author: The University of Iowa Libraries

Smart Search will be down starting a midnight tonight and should be back up by 7am tomorrow morning.

Tim Shipe, assistant to the director for collections and scholarly communications, has been selected to receive the 2010 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Western European Studies Section (WESS) Coutts Nijhoff International West European Specialist Study Grant, for his proposal, “The Franco-Romanian Literary Avant-garde in Bucharest Libraries.”

Sponsored by Coutts Information Services, the grant provides $3,000 to support a trip to Europe. The primary criterion for awarding the grant is the significance and utility of the proposed project as a contribution to the study of the acquisition, organization or use of library materials from or relating to Western Europe. Shipe will receive his award during the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C.

Congratulations Tim!

Read the full announcement from the American Library Association.

Due to construction taking place on Hardin Library’s 1st floor, the Psychology Collection will be unavailable beginning Monday, Feb. 8 through Friday, Feb. 12.  If you require materials from the Psychology Collection during that time, please stop by the 3rd floor desk at Hardin to discuss your options.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes.

The University Libraries is seeking nominations for the Arthur Benton Excellence in Reference Services Professional Development Award. Funded by a generous endowment and presented in alternating years, this prestigious award recognizes a member of the Libraries’ professional staff who provides exemplary reference services for the University community. The recipient of the award receives $1,000 to be used for professional development activities.

Criteria for the award and the nomination form are available at:   http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/admin/bentonaward/

Please forward this message to faculty and graduate assistants in your department and encourage them to submit nominations. Thank you for your assistance. 

*The University Libraries includes the Main Library, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, and the Art, Biological Sciences, Business, Engineering, Geosciences, Music and Physics libraries. (Professional staff in the Law Library, Curriculum Lab, and other campus departmental library staff are not eligible.)

Mr. Katsufumi Shintaku will describe his experience as a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor at a presentation from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9, in Meeting Room A at the Iowa City Public Library.

On Aug. 6, 1945, Shintaku just returned from his night shift at Toyo Kogyo (currently Mazda Motor Corporation) when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. His house was 1.5 kilometers from the epicenter.

Shintaku will speak to audiences in Iowa City and at Drake University for this Web conference presentation. Steven Leeper, chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, will also talk about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the call for disarmament. He is a well-known peace activist and the first American to head the foundation.

This program is sponsored by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the University of Iowa Libraries. For more information, contact Chiaki Sakai at [email protected] or 319-335-5030.

RefWorks will be unavailable at 9:30 p.m.  for up to 2 hours on January 30, 2010 for scheduled maintenance.

While we anticipate that RefWorks will be unavailable for up to 2 hours, we hope that this disruption will affect as few users as possible over this weekend.

Arts and humanities researchers interested in collaborating with campus technologists and librarians to develop innovative technology project proposals for the upcoming Arts & Humanities Initiative (AHI) grant cycle are encouraged to attend one of two workshops. While project consultations are geared toward AHI applicants, any researcher interested in getting a digital project off the ground is encouraged to attend.

Thursday, Jan. 21—1:30-2:15 at the Information Arcade, Main Library
Friday, Jan. 29—1:30-2:15 at the Information Arcade, Main Library

Please register for a workshop at http://survey.uiowa.edu/wsb.dll/848/ahiwkshp.htm

Digital specialists from the Libraries, ITS, and past AHI winners will discuss digital scholar-ship and examine how researchers, centers, and collaborative projects elsewhere are using technology to enhance their research, and how local scholars might leverage emerging digital humanities tools and resources locally.

The 45-minute workshops will be followed by individual project consultations.

AHI grants are awarded to projects that make a significant impact on scholarship in the proposed field. Proposals for digital arts and humanities projects and projects for which the applicant will seek external grant support are especially encouraged. Application deadline is February 9, 2010.

For more details, see http://research.uiowa.edu/ifi//index.php?get=ahi

For more information about the upcoming workshops, please contact Digital Library Services at 335-6465.

January 2010
Issue 1.10

Welcome to the winter issue of Transitions.

The purpose of this irregular electronic newsletter is to bring to readers’ attention some of the many new projects and developments informnig the current system of scholarly communication, with emphasis on new products and programs, the open access movement, and other alternative publishing models. Scholarly communication refers to the full range of formal and informal means by which scholars and researchers communicate, from email discussion lists to peer-reviewed publication. In general, authors are seeking to document and share new discoveries with their colleagues, while readers–researchers, students, librarians and others–want access to all the literature relevant to their work.

While the system of scholarly communication exists for the benefit of the world’s research and educational community and the public at large, it faces a multitude of challenges and is undergoing rapid change brought on by technology. To help interested members of the UI community keep up on these challenges and changes we plan to put out 4 issues per year of this newsletter.  Please visit our web site, Transforming Scholarly Communication, to find out more about this topic.

This newsletter is designed to reflect the interests of its readers so please forward comments, suggestions and entries to include to [email protected].

Visit our newsletter to read the articles:

Public Access to Federally Funded Research – Public input
University Press survival… through open access
Compact for Open Access Publication Equity (COPE)
PLoS One to be indexed by Web of Science
Optical Society of America – a pioneer in scholarly publishing innovation
Nobel Prize-winning scientists urge Congress to act
Open Access Encyclopedias
Who will pay for Arxiv?
Studies on Access – a review
Medical Schools Quizzed on Ghostwriting
Scholarly and Research Communication, a new OA journal
Wellcome Trust calls for greater transparency

The Psychology Library closed December 18, 2009, and by January 13, 2010, all materials were moved.  The collection was divided among the Biological Sciences Library, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, and the Library Annex.  Except as noted below, the Psychology Library materials have been moved to the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, where they are located on the first floor.

Is there a librarian for Psychology and Education students and faculty? Yes.  Dottie Persson will have offices in Seashore Hall (E201 SSH, 335-3080) and the Lindquist Center (N426 LC, 335-5232) to serve the Psychology Department and the College of Education.  As a result of closing some branch libraries, the library system is joining other academic institutions in moving to the concept of an embedded librarian, a librarian who performs research consultations, reference, user instruction and collection management in an electronic environment and who responds to faculty, student and staff who report library related technical or service problems.

What materials formerly housed in the Psychology Library will be housed in the Biological Sciences Library? Selected reference materials from the current reference collection, multimedia and some journals with call numbers, from the Psychology Library, along with the reserve collection for the Psychology Department.  (Older reference materials were sent to the Library Annex.)  The Biological Sciences Library will also receive new multimedia and reference books purchased from the Psychology collection fund.

What materials went to the Library Annex?  Little used books, published before 1995, older reference materials, microforms, and journals that are available electronically, pre-1980, or little used were sent to the Library Annex.  It will take several months for location changes to be made in the online catalog.  During this time, Interlibrary Loan staff will obtain needed items for library users.  Once all location codes have been updated, library users will be able to request items from the Annex for check-out.  

What about reserve materials? Starting second semester, the College of Education and Sociology Department instructors will submit their reserve requests to Main Library Circulation, Reserve and Media Department.  The Psychology Department instructors will submit their reserve requests to Dottie Persson; their reserve will be housed at the Biological Sciences Library.

Where are the Psychology Department Honors Theses?  These honors theses have been transferred to the Library Annex.  The Psychology Department will be responsible for psychology honors theses that are completed this academic year forward.

Where is the Psychology Library Test Collection?  The Psychology Department started the test collection with a donation to the Psychology Library years ago and has continued to donate to it.  At the department’s request, this collection was returned to the department for departmental use.  The American Psychological Association is currently developing an electronic test file and a licensing agreement.  Dottie Persson hopes to be able to fund access to this new database when it becomes available in the next 1-2 years.

Where will newly purchased materials be located?  Except for multimedia and reference books, paper materials purchased from the Education or Psychology collection funds or education and psychology gifts will be cataloged for the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences.  For multimedia, items purchased from the Education collection fund will go to the Main Library Circulation, Reserve and Media Department.  Multimedia items purchased from the Psychology collection fund will go to the Biological Sciences Library. For reference books, items purchased from the Education collection fund will go to the Reference and Library Instruction Department.  Reference items purchased from the Psychology collection fund will go to the Biological Sciences Library.

If you have tried unsuccessfully to find a book or journal volume in the library stacks, it is possible that it may have been sent to the Library Annex in late summer of 2009.  InfoHawk records are being updated to indicate which books are in that facility and a retrieval service will enable you to have them brought back to campus for your use.  While we are in the process of updating InfoHawk, it may be necessary to use our Interlibrary Loan services to get access to some needed titles until this work has been completed. 

This situation came about through a series of events resulting from 2008 flood and the recent economic downturn.   The flood of 2008 required us to move the Music and Art Libraries temporarily into the already overcrowded Main Library.  To make matters worse, the recent economic downturn deferred indefinitely the construction of a planned collection storage facility.  To help alleviated the added overcrowding in the meantime, the University decided to lease a warehouse in the Iowa City area to house the lesser used collection overflow.  FEMA agreed to cover some of the leasing costs and the cost of moving and shelving, but all the work had to be completed by August 20, just weeks after a warehouse was found and leased.  As a result, several hundred thousand volumes were moved in about two weeks, leaving no time for a truly organized relocation.  While criteria were used to identify volumes for transfer based on low usage, availability of electronic versions, and age, the planned review of individual titles by library liaisons and faculty could not be completed in time for the FEMA deadline.

Library staff have been working continuously this fall to organize the materials at the leased facility and to change the location records in InfoHawk.  This is an enormous task that will require many weeks to complete.  We are also aware that a few books may have been sent to the Annex which should have remained in the stacks. If you think a volume may have been sent in error, send a note with as much bibliographic information as possible and the reason for your request to Edward Shreeves, Associate University Librarian and Director of Collections & Scholarly Communication.

Moving of the Math Library into Main Library began today, Monday, December 28.  The Math Collection will be shelved in the northeast portion of 2nd floor. 

The movers will be using Elevator B throughout the process. Please be alert for fast moving book carts (both empty and full) in the northern portion of first and second floors of the library. Also, the north fire doors will have to be open for periods of time to accommodate the move which will make the areas near the north entrance colder than usual.

The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, ed. by David Hudson, Marvin Bergman, and Loren Horton.  Internet Resource. Reviewed in 2010 January CHOICE.

This collaboration between the University of Iowa Press and University Libraries is based on a print title that the university published in 2009 for the State Historical Society of Iowa. The print book and PDF e-book are available from the press for $45 each. The editors worked with some 150 contributors. The dictionary focuses on persons born in Iowa, living 20 years in Iowa, or making a significant contribution to Iowa. Those who died after December 31, 2000, are excluded. Biographees include athletes, writers, activists, scientists, and more, as well as Iowa governors and US senators/Supreme Court justices from Iowa. Not all are famous. The editors have chosen people who made significant contributions to the state, nation, or world, particularly those whose base was distinctly Iowan. The merely famous, the introduction points out, can be found on the Des Moines Register’s Famous Iowans Web page .

The Biographical Dictionary site is simple and attractive with tabs for the home page, introduction, and four browse functions. Users may browse 424 names, eight date ranges, contributor names, or 38 broad topics such as Indian Leaders, Mining, Settlement, and Women’s Rights, or use keywords to search the full text of the entries. The charming graphics come from a 1934 US Post Office mural–a Treasury Department art project. Entries vary in length but average about 750 words. They begin with birth/death dates and a very nice feature–an abstract of biographical highlights. In a lively but not unscholarly mode, entries cover personal and professional details, significant contributions, and long-term impact. Brief source lists complete the entries. For audiences of all ages and backgrounds, this site compiles useful and elusive information in an attractive, functional format. Photographs and better highlighting of keyword search terms would enhance the entries.

Summing Up: Recommended. All levels. — J. Drueke, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Reprinted with permission from CHOICE http://www.cro2.org/, copyright by the American Library Association.

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the partnership between the University of Iowa Libraries and the Government Printing Office (GPO).

To celebrate this anniversary, Federal Documents Librarian Marianne Mason has developed a digital exhibit

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits/govpubs/

Professor Linda K. Kerber, the May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in Des Moines on August 29, 2009.  Please join us as we celebrate Professor Kerber, who has devoted her life and career to the empowerment of women through a better understanding of women’s history. 

Thursday, December 10, 2009
4:00-5:30 p.m. (program at 4:30 p.m.)
Iowa Women’s Archives, 3rd floor, Main Library

Since joining the History Department faculty in 1971 Professor Kerber has inspired and mentored generations of students.  Her creative intellect, influential leadership, and invigorating teaching place her at the top of her field.  She is a champion of the humanities and a steadfast supporter of archives. She has achieved international distinction for her contributions to our understanding of gender, citizenship, and the legal and political status of women.

Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame:  http://www.women.iowa.gov/about_women/HOF/index.html

The Iowa Memorial Union and UI Main Library will be open all night to support students in their efforts to prepare for the end of the semester.

Twenty-four hour study at the IMU will begin Thursday, December 10th and end Friday December 18th at 10pm. Main Library 24-hour study will begin Sunday, December 13 at 11 am and will also end Friday, December 18th at 10pm.

“The Library and the IMU have been working hard to provide students with adequate study space, given the issues caused by the flood. Both facilities lost considerable student space and the IMU will re-purpose meeting and ballrooms to facilitate additional quiet and group study spaces during finals week,” David Grady, Associate Vice President and Dean of Students.

Promotion of the extended hours will be partly funded by UISG. “With the end of the semester approaching, it is crucial to support our students and offer places to study at all hours,” Michael Currie, President UISG.

The IMU will be extending River Room hours until 11pm on December 13, 15th and 16th, and will be offering students a midnight breakfast in the River Room on December 14th from 11pm-1am. Additional group and quiet study space will be set up in the building, and a game room will be open all night in River Room 1, IMU.

In the Main Library, computers in the ITC on the second floor will be available all night; research assistance will be available at the first floor information desk until 9 pm. Hardin Library for the Health Sciences has an unstaffed after hours study area. The Pomerantz Business Library will be open Sunday, December 13 – Thursday, December 17 until Midnight each night.

Nite Ride has also extended hours over finals week, so if you need a ride home just give them a call (319-384-1111).

CAB and the IMU are also offering massage chairs on December 10, 13, 14, and 15 from 9pm-midnight.  Free coffee will be provided at the Main Library December 13-15 at 10pm and at the IMU from 12am-6am all week.

Through the Libraries, you now have full text (PDF) access to over 1 million titles in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.  For more information:  http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/dissertations.