Tag Archives: Noteworthy

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.

A Million e-Books Added to Summon, Our New Search Engine

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Summon, our new search engine, is now being previewed in its Beta version on the Libraries homepage. We are very pleased to announce that the Summon search now includes the public domain books offered by the Hathi Trust in full-text online format. These are books digitized by Google and numerous research library partners.

Hathi Trust, a non-profit cooperative centered at the University of Michigan, claims more than 2.3 million volumes are being served. That works out to about 910,000 titles at the moment, give or take. By the end of the year, we expect that total could reach 1 million titles all available 24/.7 in full-text online.

These Hathi Trust titles are for the most part in addition to the over 517,000 full-text online e-books which the Temple University Libraries already offered within the online catalog and Summon.

Amazing.

A great many of the Hathi Trust works date from 1923 or before. All books published prior to 1923 are now in the public domain and no longer prohibited from free reproduction by original copyright. However, there are tens of thousands of later works included because they are government documents or were found to be in public domain. Most are in English, but over 200,000 foreign language titles are included as well.

At present, Hathi Trust titles can be retrieved through Summon by author or title. For example, search Summon using the keywords Russell Conwell and limit the content type to ebook. Now you can read original works by Dr. Conwell, the founder of Temple University, or early biographies of the man.

Later this year Hathi and Summon promise to add full-text keyword searching to deliver a Google-like experience.

Please try Summon and let us know how it works for you.

– Jonathan LeBreton, Senior Associate University Librarian

Winners of 2010-2011 Library Prize for Undergraduate Research and Library Prize for Undergraduate Research on Sustainability and the Environment Announced

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Temple University Libraries would like to congratulate the student winners and honorable mentions for this year’s Library Prize for Undergraduate Research and Library Prize for Undergraduate Research on Sustainability and the Environment. The winners of the Library Prize are:

  • Melissa Garretson, “The Dancing Intelligence of the Age: Women of the Institute of Colored Youth, 1852-1903,” for History 4296 with professor Bettye Collier-Thomas
  • Karl McCool, “A Pornographic Avant-Garde: Boys in the Sand, LA Plays Itself, and the Construction of a Gay Masculinity,” for LGBT Studies 3400 with professor Whitney Strub
  • Cara Rankin, “Cracking Consensus: The Dominican Intervention, Public Opinion and Advocacy Organizations in the 1960s,” for History 4997 with professor Petra Goedde Winners of the Library Prize for Sustainability and the Environment are:
  • Tom Gallen, Jennifer Huber, Paloma Vila, “Harvesting Stormwater for Urban Farm Irrigation,” for Engineering 4296 with professors Joseph Picone and Robert J. Ryan
  • Derek T. Lichtner, “Can the Global Economy Afford to Preserve Biodiversity? The Econosphere-Biosphere Connection,” for Earth and Environmental Sciences 2096 with professor Laura Toran Congratulations also to our honorable mentions.

These noteworthy papers for the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research are:

  • Wajeeha Choudhary, “The Loose Threads of ‘Rag Head’ Phobia,” for American Studies 2900 with Professor Kelly Shannon
  • Anna Dini, “Reconciling Faith and Astrology in Early Modern Europe: Marsilio Ficino’s Influence on John Milton’s ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’,” for English 4597 with Professor Susan Wells For the Library Prize for Sustainibility and the Environment:
  • Bonnie Evans, “Correlates of Intrinsic Extinction Risks of Lemur Species,” for Biology 4391 with professor Brent Sewall

Please join us next Tuesday, May 3 at 4PM in the Paley Library Lecture Hall to hear more from all of this year’s winners and celebrate the accomplishments of all of the 2010-2011 applicants. The Library Prize for Undergraduate Research on Sustainability and the Environment is made possible by Gale, part of Cengage Learning.

We would like to thank John H. Livingstone, Jr., SBM ’49 for his generous support of the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research.

Foundations Department, General Activities Fund and Temple University Libraries Annual Book Giveaway

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Foundations Department, General Activities Fund and Temple University Libraries Annual Book Giveaway Stop by the Paley Library Circulation desk between March 30 and April 6 and ask for your free copy of Trevor Paglen’s I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me. The first twenty people to ask for the book at the circulation desk will receive one—FREE. But only while that day’s supply lasts. Paglen will also speak in Gladfelter Hall on April 6 at 6PM. Paglen is a social scientist, artist, writer and provocateur. I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me shows patches that reveal a secret world of military imagery and jargon, where classified projects are known by peculiar names and illustrated with occult symbols and ridiculous cartoons. Although the actual projects represented (such as the notorious Area 51) are classified, these patches-which are worn by military units working on classified missions-are precisely photographed, strangely hinting at a world about which little is known. The April 6 program is presented by the Foundations Department at Tyler School of Art and the General Activities Fund at Temple. Temple University Libraries, the Departments of Architecture and of Geography and Urban Studies have provided additional support.

Celebrate Digital Day At Paley – March 23

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Temple University Libraries will celebrate Digital Day — a celebration of our fantastic e-resources — on Wednesday, March 23, from 11:00am to 2:00pm with an e-resource fair held in Paley Library. Vendors and library staff will be on hand to familiarize you with the wide range of library resources and services available for research. Vendors include:

  • Adam Matthew
  • Alexander Street Press
  • Films Media Group
  • Gale
  • ProQuest
  • Sage
  • SimplyMap
  • Thomson Reuters

There will be food and drink, prizes, and a raffle too! Enter the raffle to win great prizes including: Kindles, a nook, an iPod shuffle, plus gift cards to Amazon, iTunes, and more!

We hope you’ll stop by and enjoy the fair — this is a fabulous way to learn how the library’s e-resources can help you with your research! Please know that owing to the fair you can expect a higher noise level on the first floor of the Paley Library, particularly on the east side of the building (normally a quiet zone). In addition, there will be fewer computers available on the east side of the first floor of Paley Library, but there will still be many computers available in the Library. Hope to see you there!

Take Our Survey

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You may notice something different on our Temple Libraries homepage today. There – in the upper right hand corner of the page. Now you see it. Place your mouse pointer there and you’ll be invited to take our satisfaction survey. We’ll be offering this survey through the end of the semester. It’s a totally opt-in survey. You won’t receive an email asking you to take the survey. If you want to complete the survey – it’s there. There are two versions of the survey: short and long. The short version takes approximately 7 minutes to complete, while the longer version takes about 15 minutes. We hope you will take time -either less or more – to complete the survey. We are always looking for ways to improve Temple University Libraries and the services it offers. Your feedback will help us to do a better job of serving you and the Temple University community. If you have any questions or feedback about the survey, please contact Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian.

Margery Sly Joins Temple as Director of Special Collections

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I am delighted to welcome Margery Sly to Temple University Libraries, where she will take on the newly created position of Director of Special Collections beginning today, December 20. Reporting to me, Margery will lead the merger of the collections and staff within our current Urban Archives and Special Collections operating units, and then lead the ongoing operations of this unified Special Collections division.

Margery comes to us from the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS), where she served as the Deputy Executive Director for the past seven years. Prior to that, she held several other administrative and archival positions at the PHS and Smith College in Northampton, MA. Margery received her MA in American History and MS in Library Science at Case Western Reserve. She received a BA in German literature and history from Dickinson College.

Please join me in welcoming Margery to Temple University Libraries.

With warm wishes,

Larry P. Alford

Delphine Khanna joins Temple University Libraries as Head of Digital Library Initiatives

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I am delighted to welcome Delphine Khanna to Temple University Libraries, where she will take on the role of Head of Digital Library Initiatives beginning today, December 1. Delphine will create a Digital Initiatives Department, where she will oversee the digitization of special collections and other library materials in text, image, and video formats. She will also lead the development of digital repository systems to preserve and make accessible the intellectual output of Temple University, and the implementation of discovery tools related to these initiatives.

Delphine comes to us from the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as the Digital Projects Librarian for over ten years. Prior to that, she held several digital librarianship positions at Rutgers University. Delphine earned her MLS from Syracuse University, and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Linguistics and Computer Science from the University of Paris.

Please join me in welcoming Delphine to Temple University Libraries.

With warm wishes,

Larry P. Alford

New York City Writers Descend on Paley Library

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New York City Writers Descend on Paley Library Prolific and well-versed writers Emily Gould and Keith Gessen come to Philadelphia on October 26 and 27 for a two-day program on writing and publishing. Marco Roth, a 2009 Pew Fellow for the Arts, will join Gessen to discuss their literary journal, n+1, on the 27th.

These young writers have emerged on the Philadelphia and New York scenes over the past five years and amongst them boast publication in the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Nation and the London Review of Books. Both discussions take place at Paley Library Lecture Hall located at 1210 Polett Walk on Temple’s Main Campus. On October 26 at 5:30 p.m. Emily Gould will be joined by scholar/poet Rachel Blau DuPlessis. They will explore the craft of writing, popular culture and media, and their love of pets. Gould wrote a cover story for the New York Times magazine, and has written a plethora of articles, commentary, and opinion pieces for myriad online and print sources. She recently published her first full-length book And the Heart Says Whatever.

On October 27 at 3:30 p.m. Keith Gessen and Marco Roth will discuss the establishment of their new literary journal, n+1. This journal has lead to multiple offshoots including a mini-book series, a film review print journal, and an online book review periodical. Their latest mini-book, What Was the Hipster? has just been released, and the n+1 inventors have held a series of discussions on this post-modern cultural phenomenon.