Category Archives: Library News

Do You Know the Top Two Complaints About Paley?

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As the library staff member who receives all the suggestions and complaints that come from members of the Temple University community I can answer this question. Perhaps you already knew the answer: 1) Noise 2) Food Despite the efforts of the library staff to create an environment that is welcoming to all students, we are occasionally challenged to meet everyone’s needs. Whether it’s two students talking in one of the quiet zones, students getting a little too loud in the noise-tolerant zones, students talking on cellphones, a food mess left on a study table or a student eating a food truck meal that for one reason or another is distracting to other students, we continue to experience situations that leave someone dissatisfied with their Paley Library experience. In recent months we’ve been asked to create very strict, zero tolerance rules about both noise and food. One student even asked us to hire a security guard to force students to be quiet. We believe that strict rules about food and noise are difficult if not impossible to enforce in a building of Paley’s size, and we want to treat students as responsible adults. Sign stating top two library complaints are noise and food odors, to be respectful of others, and keep the library clean, (linked to larger version).
 All that said, we do need to create a better environment in Paley Library, and to do so we need the help of everyone who uses this great community resource. In an effort to remind all those who use Paley Library about the top two complaints we have designed a small card with this information, and have placed these cards throughout the Paley Library. You will see them on desks, carrels and computer workstations. It’s just a reminder. We know the vast majority of those who use the Library are considerate of their fellow library users. Sometimes we could all use a reminder that this is Your Library and together it is Our library. Paley belongs to all of us. Let’s make it the best Library possible so that everyone has a great experience each and every time they are here. If you have any ideas to share about improving Paley Library, be it noise and food issues or any other situation, please leave a comment.

Passing: What is it?

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Robin Washington.           Lewis Gordon

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On November 14, 2011, The Center for Afro-Jewish Studies held its 6th Annual Symposium on “Passing”: Religion, Politics & Peoplehood, a topic inspired by the 50th anniversary of the publication of John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me and Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.

“Both Griffin and Fanon, though primarily concerned with racism and colonialism, were in dialogue with Jewish history and experience. “Passing”: Religion, Politics & Peoplehood will explore both the impact of their works at their time of publication and the after-effects of the texts’ publication in Jewish and African-American communities in America and Israel.” —from Pre-symposium press release

Press Release      Symposium Program

Before the symposium began, I spoke with two of the day’s participants, Robin Washington, editor of the Duluth News Tribune, and Lewis Gordon, Temple professor of religion and philosophy and director of the Center for Afro-Judaic Studies.

—Fred Rowland

Frederick Ahl on Wordplay in the Aeneid

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On September 30, Professor Frederick Ahl of the Cornell University Classics Department spoke at Temple University about “Wordplay in the Aeneid”. The Zeta Beta Chapter of Eta Sigma Phi invited him to campus for its second annual lecture. Zeta Beta is a group on campus that promotes the teaching, study, and appreciation of Latin, Greek, and the ancient world.

On Saturday morning, Oct. 1, I interviewed Professor Ahl. We discussed wordplay in the Aeneid, the unease with which modern scholars encounter and interpret wordplay, and his love of the plays of Gilbert & Sullivan, on whom he is currently writing a book. Anyone who is interested in wordplay, or in the cultural and intellectual life of the ancient world, will find this interview very interesting.

Sustaining Scholarly Publishing

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In September, I sat down with the director of the Temple University Press Alex Holzman to speak about an AAUP report entitled “Sustaining Scholarly Publishing”, which he helped to organize during his tenure as president of the American Association of University Presses (AAUP). The 2011 report tries to make sense of recent changes in scholarly publishing. Though increasingly fractured by the proliferation of business models, the current publishing environment also provides excellent opportunities for future scholarship.

[The report is available from two different sources.]

The interview with Alex Holzman provides an excellent overview of the Temple University Press as well as the contemporary business, economic and academic environment in which university presses operate. Although we use the report as a touchstone for our conversation, there a lot of details included in the report that we do not cover. I strongly recommend taking the time to read the comprehensive and clearly written report.

Listen to the audio of Part I

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Listen to the audio of Part II

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—Fred Rowland

Library Prize: eligibility expanded

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The eighth annual Library Prize for Undergraduate Research and the second annual Library Prize for Undergraduate on Sustainability & the Environment will be held in the Spring 2012 semester. The purpose of the prize is to encourage the use of the Libraries’ resources and to highlight the best research among Temple undergraduates. This year’s prize submission deadline is Wednesday, March 28, 2012 at 5 pm.

This year the eligibility requirements have changed to include students participating in the McNair Scholars Program, The Creative Arts, Research and Scholarship (CARAS) Program, and students who finish their coursework in December 2011 and graduate in January. Below are the complete eligibility requirements.

To be eligible to win the 2012 Prize, applicants must:

  • be Temple undergraduates at any class level and in any discipline, and be enrolled, i.e. taking a class or classes, in the Spring 2012 semester or having completed all undergraduate coursework during the Fall 2011 semester (i.e. graduating in January 2012).

  • have completed their research project for a credit course at Temple during the Spring 2011, Summer 2011, Fall 2011, or Spring 2012 semesters, or began The Ronald McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program in the Summer of 2011 or received funding for The Creative Arts, Research and Scholarship (CARAS) Program during the Spring or Fall of 2011.

  • agree to contribute to a display about their research in theLibrary during the year following receipt of the Sustainability Prize

  • agree that all winning prize materials will become permanent property of the University Archives and may be displayed on the Library’s website

  • agree to attend the Library Prize Awards Ceremony during the week of April 30 to May 4, 2012.  (You need to attend the Awards Ceremony in order to win the Library Prize.)

We look forward to another great year for the Library Prize. If you have any questions about the new eligibility requirements, or any other questions, please email the libprize@temple.edu. 

Surviving Crunch Time – Know Where To Start Your Research

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As Temple students head home for the Thanksgiving holiday, thoughts of relaxing with family and friends may be more on the mind than research and final papers. But rest assured, when the calendar hits that last week of November, its the official start of crunch time – the last few weeks of the semester. The big challenge for many students is getting started on those final research papers. The librarians at Temple University know that getting started is the hardest part of any project. That’s why we have created lots of Research Guides to get you started in the right place.

Our Research Guides are designed to provide direct links to the top research databases and resources for students who may not be sure where to begin – and they are equally helpful for students who want to expand their research beyond the same one or two databases that always get used. We have over 600 databases, e-book collections, thousands of full-text journals and much more. Cut through the confusion. Start with a Research Guide. Where else could you get started? How about Summon. That’s our newest research tool for searching a huge amount of the content the Libraries offer – and you don’t have to even think about where to get started. Summon will get you there by providing lightning fast results that offer links to articles, books, and more – and when you follow these links it will lead to new resources – that’s why we call it a “discovery engine.”

Still not sure where to get started. Talk to one of our human discovery engines – your subject specialist librarian. No matter where you start your research, Temple Libraries has you covered for getting through crunch time.

Take the Open Access Quiz for Open Access Week

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Open Access Week is celebrated each year in late October. It is an opportunity to both create more awareness about the importance of creating more open access options in the world of academic and scholarly publishing, as well as celebrating the many accomplishments achieved so far, such as an expanding universe of open access scholarly journals, open access resolutions at a growing number of research universities and even successful efforts to promote open access sharing of federally-funded research. Here is a just-for-fun open access quiz to test your own knowledge of why there is an open access movement in academia. If you would like to learn more about open access, author rights or copyright issues and how individual faculty might make a difference email your librarians.

Civil Rights in a Northern City: Philadelphia

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Thanks to a state Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant, a Libraries project team has digitized more than 1,500 historical photographs, films, news clippings, manuscripts, oral histories, and pamphlets, documenting two events in civil rights history in Philadelphia: Girard College Desegregation (1954–1968) and the Columbia Avenue Riots (1964).

It’s all available at http://northerncity.library.temple.edu

The content, from the Libraries’ special collections, encourages students to use unique primary sources to study these significant events. Highlights include newly-created oral histories; several hours of local news footage not seen in over 40 years featuring Martin Luther King, Jr., Cecil B. Moore, and other movement leaders; and questionnaires that address Black-Jewish community relations in the 1960s.

Emphasizing that there were major events in the North that propelled the Civil Rights movement forward, the project’s consulting historian Matthew Countryman, associate professor of history at the University of Michigan and author of Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia, believes that this project exposes students and scholars to new insights on the issues.

Stay tuned for new content—including sample lesson plans for middle and high school teachers and new modules on other milestones in the history of Philadelphia’s Civil Rights movement

Libraries Partner with Teaching and Learning Center to Provide Tips on Improving Student Research

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Next Wednesday, October 5, faculty are invited join the Libraries and the Teaching and Learning Center for a workshop on improving student research. Though today’s students may be tech savvy, that doesn’t mean they’re research-savvy. Many undergraduates have a very vague idea as to what academic research is and how to do it. Based on findings from Project Information Literacy, an ongoing national research project focused on student research practices, Temple librarians have identified practical steps you can take to ensure that your students produce high-quality research assignments. Please register for this program through the TLC. Date: Wednesday, October 5 Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Location: TECH 112, TLC Seminar Room Facilitator: Thomas Heverin, Science Librarian; Susan LaValley, Education Services Librarian Audience: Faculty