Tag Archives: Top News

A Digital Public Library of America Free-For-All

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Portrait of John Palfrey.

On February 6, 2013, the Center for the Humanities At Temple (CHAT) hosted John Palfrey from the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

DPLA has been in the planning stages since 2010 and will have its kickoff in April 2013. Palfrey explained that digital libraries have typically not undergone the level of deliberate planning used during the architectural design of the past’s glorious library buildings. Thus, DPLA considers it important to build an information architecture that will support the project well into the future.

Rather than being a massive repository of digital works, DPLA is designed as a repository of metadata about works held by the country’s other digital libraries. Users can search this metadata to find pathways to digital objects held in previously hard-to-locate information silos.

An important aspect of this open, distributed infrastructure is its modularity. DPLA believes in making their code, metadata, and content free to all. This model will allow any programmer or developer to create applications that access the DPLA metadata in new, creative, and useful ways.

One interesting concern expressed by Palfrey is the idea that we are a critical juncture in the divide between public and privatized information. Today’s cloud-based systems and their ownership by private, profit-driven firms set dangerous precedents that work against the public interest. Consider, for example, the large sums Temple pays for subscription databases and scholarly journals. Palfrey hopes that projects such as DPLA, Open Access publishing, and Wikipedia-style development will shift the balance of information power back to the wider community.

Justin Hill is Librarian for Access Services and Resource Sharing

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Justin Hill is the new Librarian for Access Services and Resource Sharing at Temple University Libraries. Justin begins this new position after eight years as our Supervisor of Interlibrary Loan. Prior to that, he was a Bibliographic Assistant, also at Paley Library. Justin received his Masters of Library and Information Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh and his BA from Temple. As Access Services Librarian, Justin will operate, develop, and provide leadership for Temple University Libraries’ resource sharing activities that support teaching, research, and learning. We are delighted to welcome this long-time Owl to his new post.

Inside the Struggle: Photos Give Insight into the Desegregation of Girard College

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In commemoration of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries exhibited images from its signature collection, John W. Mosley Photograph Collection, at Girard College for the Martin Luther King Day of Service on January 21, 2013. The civil rights photos by the internationally and nationally known Philadelphia photographer document the interconnections between Dr. King, Cecil B. Moore, the Freedom Fighters and other Philadelphians who were active participants in the movement to expose and eliminate the wrongs of segregation and inequality in Philadelphia and throughout the nation during the 1960s.

Many of Mosley’s Girard College protest images along with a treasure trove of archival materials from Temple University Libraries’ Urban Archives are featured on the Temple University Libraries’ website Civil Rights in a Northern City: Philadelphia. This primary source collection of photographs, newspaper clippings, oral histories, videos of Dr. King and more powerfully reveals the campaigns fought by African Americans and their supporters at the 10-foot Girard College wall because of an 1831 segregation clause in the will of its founder, Stephan Girard, that the school was created to offer free education to white, male orphans only. Girard believed that a quality education would be marred severely if the sons of enslaved Africans were allowed to study next to the sons of whites. As a result, civil rights organizations prepared to challenge the school’s philosophy. In his speech on August 2, 1965, Dr. King stated that “on the one hand I am delighted to see so many of you here … on the other hand, it is a sad experience to stand at this wall in the 20th century in Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty, and know that it is a barrier to God’s Negro children.”

To learn more about Black activism and civil rights protests launched in North Philadelphia, including the Columbia Avenue riots, visit northerncity.library.temple.edu.

Digital Commons Network Offers Open Access to Scholarly Research

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This week Bepress, a company that creates institutional repository software, announced it had created a new multi-disciplinary repository of open access research content. According the announcement:

Bepress Digital Commons invites you to explore a new database of open access scholarship (600,000+ articles) that is curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, and represents thousands of disciplines and subject areas — from Architecture to Zoology. Researchers will never run into paywalls or empty records, because only full-text, open access research and scholarship are included. This new resource for researchers includes scholarship from hundreds of universities and colleges, including peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work. It continues to grow rapidly thanks to the contributions of researchers, librarians, faculty, and students who believe that scholarship is a community enterprise.

It will be interesting to see how quickly the Digital Commons Network grows and whether it will catch on as a valued research resource among scholars, but we welcome this new entry into the world of open access scholarship.

Paley Library Break Hours

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Paley Library will be open from 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Monday, December 17 through Friday, December 21 and again with those hours from Wednesday, December 26 through Friday, December 28. Paley will be closed December 22-25 and December 29-January 1.

From January 2 through the start of spring semester on January 22, Paley is open from 8:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. on weekdays, 9:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. on Saturday, and noon-8:00 p.m. on Sundays.

Starting on January 22 we’re open from 8:00 a.m.-2:00 a.m. during the week, like always during the semester.

Check our schedule for other library locations, more details, and all the most up-to-date information.

 

Read ‘The Teaching Professor” for Inspiration To Teach Better

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The Chronicle of Higher Education has a worthwhile essay about a unique publication called The Teaching Professor.  Titled “Inspiration From ‘The Teaching Professor” it sings the praises of this publication. This is how the author describes it:

What struck me as most distinctive about the newsletter was the feature that remains most valuable to me today: brief summaries of recently published articles on teaching and learning from a wide range of journals. The summaries not only evaluated the quality of the latest research but also teased out its practical implications.

The Teaching Professor is a monthly newsletter that averages about eight short articles per issue. They provide either first-hand accounts from faculty of their own teaching experiences with advice on some technique they’ve tried to improve student learning or it might be a summarization of a research article about a pedagogical technique.

The good news is that the Temple Libraries subscribes to a site license version of The Teaching Professor. That means every Temple University community member has free access to the newsletter. Click on this link to get to our group page. Keep in mind that this link will work on campus. You can then subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when the latest issue is published. When you are off campus you will be prompted to authenticate to our network. The other great thing is that you can search the complete archive of all past issues. This is invaluable when seeking advice on a particular teaching issue, such as how to generate better class discussions, how to improve grading or how to deal with class disturbances.

You will find this essay a good source of inspiration, and it just may motivate you to become a regular reader of The Teaching Professor.

 

New Upgrade to Digital Collections Interface

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The Temple University Libraries are pleased to announce a new upgrade to our Digital Collections interface. On November 1, 2012,  Temple Libraries will upgrade to the latest version of our digital presentation platform, CONTENTdm®.

Some of the new features of Version 6 are:

  • Streamlined interface: Users will be able to browse by collection or by thematic subject area.
  • Improved Search capabilities:  The default search options have changed, so that users that create a search can “drill down” by refining their search set with additional keywords.
  • Enhanced Faceting: Improved faceted browse and search results that are customized for each collection will help patrons to narrow down result sets by author, date, subject, and other relevant categories.
  • Tracking recent additions: Digital Library Initiatives, the Special Collections Research Center, and the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection are adding to Temple’s digital collections on a regular basis.  To keep informed of new additions, users can now subscribe to an RSS feed by clicking on the option to “receive updates” for the digital collection.

This new upgrade represents a large amount of behind-the-scenes effort from the Digital Library Initiatives Department and the Digitization Practices Group in coordination with other Library departments to design the layout and settings of this new interface. Many hours were spent troubleshooting software bugs and issues with our database provider, OCLC, and this work has led to improvements made to the software’s functionality. We believe that the wait for CONTENTdm® Version 6 has been worth it, as our patrons will benefit from various enhancements.

For questions about the new interface, or to suggest items to be digitized for inclusion in Temple’s digital collections, please contact Digital Library Initiatives at diglib@temple.edu .

Temple Libraries close due to Sandy

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Due to the approach of Hurricane Sandy a state of emergency has been declared in Philadelphia and Temple University is taking steps to secure the campus in order to assure the safety of students and staff.

Sunday October 28th,  Paley Library will close at 9:00 p.m.  as will the TECH Center. The Science & Engineering Library will close at 5:00 p.m.  The Ginsburg Health Sciences Library will close at 9:00 p.m. and Krausz Podiatry Library will close at 6:00 p.m.

All libraries, including Paley and Ginsburg, will remain closed on Monday, October 29, and Tuesday, October 30 due to the severe weather forecast for Philadelphia.  

As the storm subsides, please watch for further announcements from Temple as to the re-opening of the campuses.

Jonathan LeBreton, Senior Associate University Librarian

 

 

 

 

Campaign 2012! All the Info You Need to Vote is Right Here!

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A red, white and blue button with stars that says "vote". We created Voter Information –2012 Election Guide to give voters at Temple quality information on the upcoming presidential election. If you are a first-time voter, you can find information in the guide about polling locations and voter registration. To stay informed on daily campaign developments, to read public statements made by candidates, and to see what is being said about candidates, you can read the RSS feeds from fact checkers, reporters, polls, and bloggers. If you are curious about the history and political theory behind presidential elections the United States, you can find information about these subjects on the guide and through links to other research guides. Checking this guide regularly will keep you informed before you head to the polls in November.