November 19th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The UI Libraries welcome National History Day students from across Eastern Iowa to a research workshop. These students prepare projects around a theme and present them at an annual competition.
Reference, Special Collections and Iowa Women’s Archives library staff put together a special library guide webpage for these students: http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/nhd .
Students will be visiting the Main Library on Thursday, November 19. If you have any questions, please contact Janalyn Moss, Reference & Instruction Librarian, 335-5698.
November 18th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The History of Medicine Society has invited Matt Schaefer, Archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library to speak on the topic, “Iowa Doctors and the Germ Theory of Disease.”
Wednesday, November 18
5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Main Library, Second Floor Conference Room (2032)
The widely accepted notion that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases was very controversial when first proposed and doctors and scientists from different schools of thought and different countries reacted to the notion with varying degrees of skepticism. Matt will examine the reception received by the germ theory in the Hawkeye State.
As always, light refreshments will be served. Contact Ed Holtum for more information.
November 18th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The University of Iowa Libraries will offer the workshop “Google U: Using Google for Academic Research” on two dates this fall.
Wednesday, Dec. 2 and Thursday, Dec. 3, noon-1:30 pm.
Information Arcade Classroom 1 at the Main Library
This workshop is geared to the experienced Web searcher and will be especially useful for graduate students. Emphasis will be on using the Google family of search products, particularly Google Books and Google Scholar, for scholarly research. Time will be provided for practice searches and advice on particular research needs.
No registration is required but seating is limited.
November 16th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
“Memories of a Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor” screening with introduction by Prof. Stephen Vlastos
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
3:30-5:00 pm
Main Library 2nd Floor Conference Room
Ms. Yoshiko Kajimoto was a student directed to work in an airplane parts factory 2.3 kilometers from the epicenter of where the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. She toured across the Midwest as part of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation’s goal to warn about the future destructive use of nuclear weapons in September, 2008.
Ms. Kajimoto came to UI campus to speak about her A-bomb experience and we received more than 200 attendees both from the university and Iowa City community at the event. We heard from people that her story was the one of most powerful A-bomb stories they have ever heard. If you have missed the opportunity, UITV recording of the event will be shown again at the Main Library 2nd Floor Conference Room on November 17th with introduction by Prof. Stephen Vlastos from the Department of History.
November 16th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
RefWorks is web-based citation management tool to help you keep track of your research. There’s no software to install. Use RefWorks to organize and share citations, format bibliographies, and more. See RefWorks tutorials for more information.
November 11th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
You can use the Libraries’ anonymous IM service to ask quick question about your research.
Library staff can suggest appropriate databases and search strategies to get you started. For more complete discussion of your project, you can request a research consultation with a librarian.
November 5th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa Research Online (IRO) preserves and provides open access to the scholarly and creative work of the University of Iowa.
We are pleased to announce that over 1500 records for items found in the IRO are now available in Smart Search. Additional records will be added to Smart Search on a monthly basis.
November 4th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Between October 1943 and March 1944 the German Embassy in Ankara had access to documents from the British Embassy. These included documents relating to the Teheran, Cairo and Casablanca conferences, at which Allied strategies were discussed, including Operation Overlord and the disposition of Europe after the war in the event of an Allied victory.
The German Embassy received this information from a very unlikely source: not a trained spy but an unscrupulous Albanian servant with a chip on his shoulder. This exhibit, “The Singing Spy,” examines some of resources at the University of Iowa relating to this incident, drawing from almost every department in the Library (Special Collections, Media Services, Maps, Government Documents, and online collections) and provides a glimpse into this “notorious affair.”
November 3rd, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Librarians frequently are asked by teachers at all levels of education – from kindergarten to college – about the permissibility of showing films in the classroom. For once, the Copyright Act actually provides a straightforward answer: the Act contains a specific exception for the performance of works such as films in the classroom. If librarians and instructors take advantage of existing law, they can engage in a range of classroom-based video and film performance activities (e.g,. the showing of a film) without having to secure any additional license or permissions.
Above is an excerpt from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the American Library Association (ALA) recently released a statement, “Performance of or Showing Films in the Classroom.” This statement provides guidance on the digital delivery of content to the “physical” classroom.
When the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act was enacted in 2002, librarians hoped that it would provide some clarity on copyright exceptions for the digital delivery of content for distance education. In reality, understanding what is permitted under the TEACH Act in combination with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and existing exceptions like fair use have become more confusing to many practioners.
The statement was written by Jonathan Band legal counsel to ALA and ARL, Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law, Faculty Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic at American University Washington College of Law and Kenneth D. Crews, Director of the Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University.
November 2nd, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The Iowa City Book Festival, a celebration of books, reading and writing presented by the University of Iowa Libraries, will be held on Saturday, July 17, 2010. Hosted in Gibson Square outside the Main Library’s south entrance on the University campus, the Festival will be a mix of booksellers, a small music stage, children’s activities, food vendors, book arts demonstrations, and readings and panel discussions.
The planning committee has already begun work on next summer’s festivities. Members of the committee include: Kristi Bontrager and Greg Prickman from the UI Libraries as ICBF Co-Directors; Tim Barrett, UI Center for the Book, hands-on activities; Chris Clark, UI Libraries, music coordinator; Debb Green, Iowa City Public Library, kids’ programming; Jim McCoy, UI Press, book vendors and programming; Lisa McDaniels, UI Libraries, food vendors and programming; Allison Means, UI Press, public relations and marketing; Jan Weissmiller, Prairie Lights Book Store, programming.
Again this year, the Libraries will host a pre-festival Author Dinner on Friday, July 16 in the North Exhibition Hall of the Main Library. Authors participating in the Festival will be attending.
To see photos from the 2009 Iowa City Book Festival and keep up-to-date on planning for the upcoming festival, please check our website www.iowacitybookfestival.org.
October 26th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The School of Library and Information Science and Professor Padmini Srinivasan have invited Dr. Edward Fox from Virginia Tech University to speak about the future of electronic theses and dissertation. Also on
Thursday, October 29
2:00-3:15 p.m.
Second Floor Conference Room 2032, Main Library
Dr. Edward A. Fox holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University, and a B.S. from M.I.T. Since 1983 he has been at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU or Virginia Tech), where he serves as Professor of Computer Science. He directs the Digital Library Research Laboratory and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. He has been (co)PI on over 100 research and development projects. In addition to his courses at Virginia Tech, Dr. Fox has taught over 72 tutorials in more than 25 countries. He has given more than 60 keynote/banquet/international invited/distinguished speaker presentations, about 145 refereed conference/workshop papers, and over 250 additional presentations.
In the 1980s he was project director for the Virginia Disc series of CD-ROMs as well as for VPI&SU work on interactive digital video. He was editor for the Morgan Kaufmann Publishers book series on Multimedia Information and Systems. He also serves on the editorial boards of Information Processing and Management, Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Journal of Universal Computer Science, and Multimedia Tools and Applications. He served as Chairman of the IEEE-CS Technical Committee on Digital Libraries. He has co-authored/edited 13 books, 95 journal/magazine articles, 41 book chapters, and many reports. These are in the areas of digital libraries, information storage and retrieval, hypertext/hypermedia/multimedia, computing education, computational linguistics, CD-ROM and optical disc technology, electronic publishing, and expert systems.
Professor Fox’s visit is supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the School of Library and Information Sciences to train digital librarians for the 21st Century. If you have questions please contact Vicki MacLeod at 335-5707.
October 23rd, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Editor’s note: Throughout Open Access Week (Oct 19-23), the UI Libraries will be sharing the views of our UI colleagues on the topic of open access.
by Peter Likarish, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Computer Science and Bridget Draxler, Ph.d Candidate, Department of English
Nicholas Carr’s “The Big Switch” argues that the internet, and computing in general, will behave increasingly like a utility: providing near universal access at a low-cost that most customers will pay without thinking. We already see the trend to no-/low-cost business models for services such as email, web hosting, data storage and etc.
With regard to Open Access, Google Scholar (and similar services) have fundamentally changed the way academics search for new and related research. The service is free, and indexes not only articles at journals and digital archives that require a subscription, but also the PDF files hosted on individual author’s websites. As with other types of digital media, there is no doubt entrenched interests will oppose Open Access but, as their customers become increasingly accustomed to thinking of online services as a utility, journals and other archives may be hard-pressed to defend the current system of charging huge fees to provide access on an institution-by-institution basis when there is no tangible cost to copying and disseminating digital information.
October 22nd, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Editor’s note: Throughout Open Access Week (Oct 19-23), the UI Libraries will be sharing the views of our UI colleagues on the topic of open access.
by Edward Miner, Ph.D., International Studies Bibliographer
Although Open Access movements are unfolding within the legal frameworks of individual countries, their most dramatic potential benefits are really global in scale. One critical aspect of the North-South divide is structural inequality in access to current scientific and scholarly research. This disparity in access existed under the traditional (print) publishing system, and was actually exacerbated by the advent of electronic publishing technologies as not-for-profit scholarly societies in the developed world sold or outsourced their journals to for-profit commercial publishers. Scientists and scholars create and disseminate knowledge to advance their disciplines and serve the public good, and those values transcend national boundaries. Indeed, much scientific and applied social scientific research is specifically intended to combat poverty and social inequality – so the increased inaccessibility of such research to resource-poor universities and scholars in the Global South is a most grim irony.
Scholars who are concerned about the role of new knowledge in driving socioeconomic and political development have a duty to retain the rights they need to make their peer-reviewed research freely available on the Internet, either in open access journals or institutional/disciplinary repositories. But given that affordable Internet access is out of reach for many of the most resource-poor institutions and scholars in the poorest countries, open access on the Internet doesn’t go far enough. To really maximize the potential of new digital publishing technologies to level the playing field in access to current research, scholars need to disseminate their work through mechanisms like the eGranary, an offline digital library of scholarly information produced by the University of Iowa’s WiderNet Project. Through donations of content from copyright holders, the eGranary Digital Library moves a massive assortment of scholarly content onto the local area networks of institutions in Africa and elsewhere, saving significant amounts of money for institutions that have an Internet connection and providing an Internet surrogate for those institutions that have no Internet connection at all.
October 21st, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Professor Ted Striphas (University of Indiana, Department of Communication and Culture) will be visiting the UI campus next week. He will present a public lecture titled “The Abuses of Literacy: Amazon Kindle and the Right to Read” at 4 pm on October 22nd in Adler E105.
Professor Striphas will also meet with a graduate seminar to discuss his book, The Late Age of Print, on October 23 from 9:30 am-12:00 p.m. in 106 BCSB. If you would like to attend the seminar, please feel free to drop in for part or all of the class.
Striphas’ visit is co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies,Communication Studies, English, Journalism and Mass Communication, as well as the Center for the Book.
October 21st, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Editor’s note: Throughout Open Access Week (Oct 19-23), the UI Libraries will be sharing the views of our UI colleagues on the topic of open access.
by Dr. Christopher Squier, Professor, College of Dentistry and Christine White, Librarian, College of Dentistry
Traditionally, the cost of publishing articles in print journals has been borne (apart from page charges for lengthy articles or colored illustrations) by the publisher, based on income, from subscriptions from readers or libraries. This is reasonable considering the high cost of supporting the scholarship that forms the basis of a publication. With open access articles, however, there is now a movement towards freely providing the material to the reader but shifting the cost of publication on the scholar. Fees, which may range from $500 to $3000, are requested from the author, although in a few situations, voluntary donations are solicited to help support a journal (e.g., Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontists / Angle Orthodontist), or the publication may be subsidized by a publisher’s other journals, as acknowledged by PLoS. Other mechanisms include support from advertisers, such as the Journal of Chemical Education, which notes that “advertising in the Journal plays a significant role in helping to keep your subscription affordable,” or sponsored by an open access individual/institutional membership fee, which provides discounts to authors based on the number of articles submitted for publication (e.g., Bentham Open: http://bentham.org/open/).
There are good reasons to resist moving the costs of publication from the publisher to the author, even when there may be grant or institutional funding to support this. The major objection is the temptation to base publication on the ability to pay rather than on the quality of work, as determined by peers. When costs are passed onto grants or academic institutions, the sponsor is, in effect, paying twice: once for the cost of doing the research and again to publish it, and the support available for new research is reduced. Of course, it could be argued that the institution pays when it purchases subscriptions, but because a large number of academic and industrial organizations all do this, the cost is spread over a large pool.
Should the reader be allowed free access as well as open access? Should the traditional balance be kept between authors, institutions and publishers? These are questions that we must continue to discuss.
I recently published an article in PlosOne (Mitochondrial Targeted Coenzyme Q, Superoxide, and Fuel Selectivity in Endothelial Cells by Brian D. Fink, Yunxia O’Malley, Brian L. Dake, Nicolette C. Ross, Thomas E. Prisinzano, and William I. Sivitz). I found the process straightforward and faster than most other journals. The peer review was thorough but fair. I hope to see this used more frequently.
We published in Plos One and found it a very satisfying experience. Quick, insightful reviews, no charge for color figures and no copyright forms to sign.
The journal allows readers to provide feedback and ratings of each article. I would recommend Open Access to all.
October 20th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Today in Molly Kleinman’s talk about Open Access, she discussed the importance of scholars/authors keeping some of their rights to their own work.
The UI Author’s Addendum (pdf) enables authors to continue using their publications in their academic work and to deposit them into any discipline-based research repository (including PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s database for NIH-funded manuscripts).
The Economics Bulletinis an open-access letters journal founded in 2001 with the mission of providing free and extremely rapid scientific communication across the entire community of research economists. EB publishes original notes, comments, and preliminary results. We are especially interested in publishing manuscripts that keep the profession informed about on-going research programs.
Our publication standard is that a manuscript be original, correct and of interest to a specialist. Submissions in these categories are refereed and our objective is to make a decision within two months. Accepted papers are published immediately in contrast to traditional journals that can take anywhere from 2-5 years from submission to publication. I have been involved with EB since its inception and have enjoyed being able to evaluate papers quickly and see them published immediately upon acceptance.
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition of the Association of Research Library, of which the University of Iowa Libraries is a member) is a proud co-organizer of Open Access Week 2009 and is pleased to offer this welcome to the global celebrations, to be held October 19 – 23, 2009. See openaccessweek.org for details. In addition to a welcome and thanks to organizers, partners, and participants, SPARC principals cast the Week in the context of the international movement toward free, open, online, and immediate access to the results of scholarly research. Ideal way to open your week or your session, or to spread the word by email.
(c) Subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
October 19th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Editor’s Note: Throughout Open Access Week (Oct 19-23), the UI Libraries will be sharing the views of our UI colleagues on the topic of open access.
In November 2005 Creative Commons published the following conversation with UI Associate Professor, Kembrew McLeod. At the time he had recently published his book “Freedom of Expression®” under a Creative Commons License.
Creative Commons (”CC”): How did you come to decide to release your book “Freedom of Expression®” online under a Creative Commons license? How did your publisher respond to your decision?
Kembrew McLeod (”KM”): While working on “Freedom of Expression®”, I always knew I would vigorously try to convince Doubleday/Random House to release a PDF file version of my book under a Creative Commons license although I suspected that Doubleday/Random House’s response would be “no way.” After all, the parent company of Random House is Bertelsmann, the media giant that also owns one of the major labels that is suing downloaders, so I didn’t think they would exactly jump for joy at my proposal.
Then Larry Lessig released his book “Free Culture”, that was published by Penguin books (another media giant publisher) online under a Creative Commons license; it made the news, and eventually it filtered back to my editor, Gerry Howard, who is a truly extraordinary person, and a really cool rock ‘n’ roll dude (not to mention a legend in the editing world). Gerry deserves the credit for getting Random House and its lawyers to go along with the idea. However, I don’t think I ever would have gotten any traction if Larry hadn’t convinced already another major press of the merits of a Creative Commons license.
CC: Have you had any reaction or comments from members of the public about your online release of the book under a Creative Commons license?
KM: It has been a truly gratifying experience to have the PDF version freely available, especially because (with the exception of Japan, where it is being translated for publication), my book “Freedom of Expression®” has no overseas distribution. I have heard from someone at a UN office in Switzerland, who shares my research interests, as well as others from various European, Asian, and African countries. Not coincidentally, soon after the book was released I was invited to speak at a really interesting event to be held this October 14-15, 2005, in Budapest, Hungary, called: “RE:activism: Re-drawing the boundaries of activism in a new media environment.”
CC: You have been selling hardcopies of your book as well. Do you feel that the online release of your book under a Creative Commons license has had any impact on the hardcopy sales?
KM: When I placed the Creative Commons-licensed PDF version online a week after it had been released, Larry Lessig endorsed my book on his blog — providing links to both the free PDF version on my website, and to Amazon. After that, my Amazon ranking (of course, not the most scientific indicator of sales, but an indicator nonetheless) shot way, way up after he posted his recommendation. Honestly, I think I got more publicity from that event than anything else surrounding the release of the book. After all, my book did not receive even a millionth of the promotion muscle of, say, Harry Potter, so the Creative Commons-prompted publicity definitely helped. It also seemed to be a positive karmic act of good faith, given the nature of what I argue in the book.
CC: You are in the process of making a documentary about the second chapter of your book – “Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport“. You used the Creative Commons ccPublisher tool to upload the video for free hosting at Internet Archive. What was your experience of using the ccPublisher tool?
KM: It was really simple and easy! It took me less than one minute to do it, and I’ve recommended this tool to everyone who has asked about Creative Commons licenses. My co-producer, Ben Franzen, and I had already placed our 10-minute work-in-progress version of Copyright Criminals under a Creative Commons license. But when we remembered that there is free hosting on the Internet Archive for Creative Commons-licensed works, we quickly uploaded it there after we blew through our bandwidth in only 24 hours.
CC: You also had an interesting experience with our ccMixter site and a remix involving your “Copyright Criminals” documentary. Can you tell us about it?
KM: Straight after we made this early version of “Copyright Criminals” available, someone (Pat Chilla the Beat Gorilla) placed an a capella rap on the ccMixter site that starts out, “It’s the copyright criminals/hit you with a blast from the past… .”
Shortly after this track was uploaded, many different remixes appeared that reworked this a capella. To date, there are 9 different remixes. Next time we do another Creative Commons-licensed cut of our work-in-progress (the feature length version won’t be finished until sometime in 2006), we are intending to use Ashwan’s “Chilla Illa Tha Cilla Killa” during the credit sequence.
This is an example of one of those gratifying creative feedback loops that makes Creative Commons so attractive for so many different kinds of people. I am glad it happened.
Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.
OA is entirely compatible with peer review, and all the major OA initiatives for scientific and scholarly literature insist on its importance. Just as authors of journal articles donate their labor, so do most journal editors and referees participating in peer review.
OA literature is not free to produce, even if it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature. The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers. Business models for paying the bills depend on how OA is delivered.
October 14th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Did you know that access to some scholarly journals can cost as much as buying a new car . . . every year? That is a price that UI Libraries cannot afford, but it is a research tool that YOU can’t afford to work without. So what do we do? Open Access: it means more readers, more recognition and more impact for new ideas.
We invite you to join us to hear Molly Kleinman, Special Assistant to the Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan and a copyright specialist, talk about it: “Open Access or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Internet” at noon on Tuesday, Oct. 20th in the Bijou at the Iowa Memorial Union.
This event is part of UI Libraries’ celebration of Open Access Week, October 19-23, 2009. Also that week, we’ll be posting more useful information about open access including our UI colleagues own experiences with open access.
For more information about scholarly communication and your role in creating a
sustainable system, check the Libraries website (www.lib.uiowa.edu/scholarly).
Co-sponsors of this event include the University of Iowa Libraries, Department of Communication Studies, Graduate Student Senate, the UI Center for Human Rights, College of Public Health, Widernet, Executive Council of Graduate and Professional Students, and the Project on the Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI).
October 12th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Frederick W. Kent Collection, University of Iowa Archives
In 2000, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack declared Oct. 12 to be “Paul Engle Day,” in honor of the Iowa-born poet who served as head of the Writer’s Workshop from 1942 to 1977, helping to develop it from an obscure experimental program to an internationally renowned literary center. Featured here is an audio recording from the first annual Paul Engle Literary Festival, which includes tributes to Engle from International Writing Program Director Christopher Merrill and from novelist Arnost Lustig.
October 8th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Washington, DC – The organizers of the popular Sparky Awards, a contest that recognizes the best new short videos on the value of information sharing, have announced that Pat Aufderheide, Director of the Center for Social Media and professor at American University, and Ben Moskowitz, organizer of the Open Video Alliance and co-founder of the Berkeley Students for Free Culture chapter, will help select the winners of the 2009 international contest. These additions to the judges’ panel reflect how vital the open sharing of information is to both students and faculty, and that the Sparky Awards is a unique forum to bring together stakeholders from across campus to the discussion on access to research.
The third annual Sparky Awards invite contestants to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information. The contest is well suited for adoption as a class assignment as well as an opportunity to promote library services, including media services or the information commons, where students can edit video, browse media, work collaboratively, and learn about copyright and balancing features such as fair use.
Entries in the international Sparky Awards competition must be received before December 6, 2009. To be eligible, videos must be freely available on the Internet and available for use under a Creative Commons License.
“The value of working with students on the legal reuse of online material cannot be understated,” said Aufderheide. “Students are the vanguard of collaborative, participatory remix culture, whose vitality will depend upon a good understanding of copyright. Too often they fear the law, when in fact they can and should use their rights. The Sparky Awards are an excellent way for students to learn by doing and to find the tools and resources available to them on campus. I’m so pleased to participate this year.”
Moskowitz added, “By now, creating video is a basic part of information literacy. The Sparky Awards present a fantastic opportunity for students to share the message of openness and showcase their creative skills. More people have access to video tools than ever before, so this year’s entries are bound to be the best yet.”
The full 2009 judges’ panel represents the breadth of the coalition driving the success of this contest and, with it, conversations on the value of information sharing. Judges include:
Nicole Allen, director of the Student PIRGs’ Make Textbooks Affordable campaign
Pat Aufderheide, director of the Center for Social Media and professor at American University
Adrian Ho, Scholarly Communication Librarian at the University of Western Ontario
Rick Johnson, SPARC’s founding Executive Director and now a consultant and senior advisor to SPARC
Jennifer McLennan, SPARC’s Communications Director
Ben Moskowitz, co-organizer of the Open Video Alliance and founder of the Berkeley Students for Free Culture chapter
Mark A. Puente, Director of Diversity Programs at the Association of Research Libraries
Jessica Reynoso, Associate Producer for Campus MovieFest
Anu Vedantham, Director of the Weigle Information Commons at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries
The international award-winning videos will be announced in conjunction with the January 2010 American Library Association Midwinter Conference in Boston and the Campus MovieFest 2010 Southern Regional Grand Finale. The Grand Prize winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 along with a Sparky Award statuette, a copy of Apple Final Cut Studio, and an iPod Nano (courtesy of Campus MovieFest). The Runner Up and People’s Choice Award winners will each receive $500 plus a personalized award certificate. At the discretion of the judges, additional Special Merit Awards may be designated.
October 6th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Join us in celebrating Open Access Week, October 19-23, 2009. Check out interviews with a Teacher, Funder, Patient Advocate, Physician Scientist, Librarian and Student who explain why Open Access matters to them.
Brought to you by: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition: sparc.org/ ; Public Library of Science: plos.org/ ; Students for Free Culture: freeculture.org/
October 5th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The Main Library will serve as a polling site for Iowa City’s Primary Election Tuesday, Oct 6. Hours for voting are 7AM — 8PM and will take place in the North Exhibit Lobby.
October 1st, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
To accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward Open Access to scholarly research results, October 19 – 23, 2009 will mark the first international Open Access Week. The now-annual event, expanded from one day to a full week, presents an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public.
Open Access Week builds on the momentum generated by the 120 campuses in 27 countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. Event organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and Students for FreeCulture welcome key new contributors, who will help to enhance and expand the global reach of this popular event in 2009: eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); and the Open Access Directory (OAD).
“I’m participating in Open Access Week again this year because I want to shed light on the tremendous potential of Open Access,” said Allyson Mower, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Librarian for the University of Utah’s Marriott Library. “People searching for information usually consume whatever is readily available. Open Access ensures that quality information is at people’s fingertips.”
“eIFL.net works to make intellectual outputs of developing and transitional countries more visible and more easily accessible,” added Rima Kupryte, Director of eIFL.net. “We believe that Open Access contributes to improved education, teaching, and research, and accelerates innovations and economical developments in these countries. Open Access Week is a great opportunity to promote Open Access globally.”
“After the success of last year’s Open Access Day, we’re delighted to be co-organizing the first ever Open Access Week with our fellow collaborators, again in conjunction with the anniversary of one of our flagship journals,” said Peter Jerram, CEO for the Public Library of Science. “We ask our supporters to celebrate the fifth anniversary of PLoS Medicine by spreading the word about Open Access and getting involved in the week.”
“There’s no more certain sign of the momentum behind Open Access to research than an annual, global celebration of this scale,” added Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “Occasions like this are the best possible way to attract attention from busy faculty members and administrators, and to demonstrate the widespread appeal of Open Access. It’s SPARC’s pleasure to be working with our partners to realize the event once again this year.”
September 30th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Hardin Library’s newest exhibit traces the history of the dubious attempts to divine personality characteristics by analyzing the size, shape, structure and composition of the human head.
It was Aristotle who coined the term, “physiognomy” to support his own writings and inclinations on the subject. Since that time the notion that character and personality are somehow imprinted in facial features has received considerable attention through a variety of approaches, nearly all of them unsupported by empirical evidence of any kind and many of them used for such nefarious purposes as racial stereotyping and the outright support of bigotry.
The exhibit is located near the 3rd floor entrance to the library.
September 28th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The Main Library will serve as an early voting satellite location Wednesday, Sept. 30th. Hours for voting will be from 2pm – 8pm in the North Exhibition Hall.
September 26th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Banned Books Week (BBW): Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where the freedom to express oneself and the freedom to choose what opinions and viewpoints to consume are both met. As the Intellectual Freedom Manual (ALA, 7th edition) states:
Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled.
Although they were the targets of attempted bannings, most of the books featured during BBW were not banned, thanks to the efforts of librarians to maintain them in their collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.
Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
September 24th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
Librarians in our nation’s 123,000 libraries make a difference in the lives of millions of people every day. If a librarian has made a difference in your life, now is the chance to tell your story.
The Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award encourages library users to recognize the accomplishments of librarians in public, school, college, community college and university libraries for their efforts to improve the lives of people in their community.
Up to 10 librarians in public, school and college, community college and university libraries will be selected to win $5,000 and will be honored at a ceremony and reception in New York at TheTimesCenter, hosted by The New York Times. In addition, a plaque will be given to each award winner’s library. Winners will be announced in November 2009.
Each nominee must be a librarian with a master’s degree from a program accredited by the ALA in library and information studies or a master’s degree with a specialty in school library media from an educational unit accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. Nominees must be currently working in the United States in a public library, a library at an accredited two- or four-year college or university or at an accredited K-12 school.
The award is supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York and The New York Times. It is administered by The American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world, and The Campaign for America’s Libraries, ALA’s public awareness campaign about the value of libraries and librarians.
September 21st, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
LISSO (Library and Information Science Student Organization), Pirate Radio, and the Iowa City Public Library (ICPL) invite you to the Intellectual Freedom Festival from Sept. 25 – Oct. 7! All events will be held at the Iowa City Public Library at 123 S. Linn St. in Meeting Room A.
Fri. Sept. 25, 7:00 p.m. “Bloody Cartoons: Freedom of expression and the clash of cultures.”
“Bloody Cartoons” is a documentary about how and why 12 drawings in a Danish provincial paper could whirl a small country into a confrontation with Muslims all over the world. He asks whether respect for Islam combined with the heated response to the cartoons is now leading us towards self-censorship. How tolerant should we be, he wonders, of the intolerant. And what limits should there be, if any, to freedom of speech in a democracy.
Wed. Sept. 30, noon “Public Libraries, Budget Cuts and Intellectual Freedom: a conversation about the state of Iowa Libraries.”
A panel with: Nick Shimmin – Director, West Branch Public Library; Jennie Garner – Assistant Director, North Liberty Public Library; Susan Craig – Director, Iowa City Public Library; Mike Jorgensen – Adult Services Librarian, Coralville Public Library; Jason Paulious – Young Adult Librarian, Iowa City Public Library; Mike Wright – Head of Acquisitions and Copy Cataloging, University of Iowa Libraries.
Wed. Oct. 7, noon “Intellectual Freedom Remix, feat. Tack-Fu, the Chaircrusher, Pirate Radio and Kembrew McLeod: What Producing, Sampling, Remixing and Broadcasting have to teach us about copyright and the freedom to create.”
Music, film, books and other media have become imminently shareable with the advent of internet broadband communications. Some artists see this as a threat to their rights under copyright law. Meanwhile, a counter-movement of artists argues that strict copyright and broadcasting laws stifle intellectual freedom and creativity.
Tack-Fu and the Chaircrusher are local hip-hop producers who live by their own set of rules for sampling other musicians’ work to create new and innovative music.
Pirate Radio is a local independent radio station that broadcasts music, talk, poetry, radio drama (an original is currently in production), and even weekly bedtime stories from Iowa City.
Kembrew McLeod is a Professor of Communications at the University of Iowa. He has copyrighted the phrase “Freedom of Expression” as a statement about the chilling effects of current copyright laws in the U.S.
September 17th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
click to read letter
To Constitution Day Participants at The University of Iowa Libraries:
The Founding Fathers signed the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787. That day marked the completion of one of the most important documents not only in United States history, but in the history of democratic governance. In making this document the core of our new country, the Founding Fathers declared that the rights and freedoms enumerated in the Constitution would be the foundation and guiding principles for the United States of America.
It is precisely because these rights and freedoms are at the core of American democracy that we must remain vigilant in protecting and upholding them. In order to do so, I believe it is the responsibility of every American to study the Constitution. This is why it is my honor to provide copies of the Constitution for you to take home with you.
I applaud your participation in today’s events and hope that you will find the copies of the Constitution useful. I encourage all of you to honor the legacy of our Constitution by remaining engaged in your communities as well as in the state and national issues that matter most to you.
Sincerely,
Dave Loebsack
Member of Congress
Editor’s Note: Representative Loebsack’s office provided copies of the pocket Constitution. You can pick up yours at the North Circulation desk of the Main Library.
September 15th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
As public concern about Pandemic H1N1 and the upcoming flu season continues to grow, the medical and nursing editors from EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) respond by offering the latest evidence-based flu-related information available for free.
This free flu information resource is located at www.ebscohost.com/flu and will provide continually updated, evidence-based clinical information from DynaMed™ and Nursing Reference Center™, EBSCO’s clinical and nursing point-of-care databases, along with patient education information in 17 languages from Patient Education Reference Center™. Please visit this site often and feel free to share, post, and email this link to your colleagues, patrons, family and friends.
September 13th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
September 17th marks the 222nd anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. May we recommend pausing for a good cup of coffee or latte, maybe, to contemplate the significance of that document? Java House (Washington St.) and T-Spoons will shine a light on individual rights established by the Constitution for the whole week of September 13-19, 2009.
Java House will feature the “Bill of Rights” by designating each brew station for one of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
T-Spoon’s has created a special latte that is the “perfect Union” of white chocolate, cherry and blueberry. Like a flag in a cup!
Want your very own copy of the Constitution? Thanks to Representative Dave Loebsack, you can pick up a pocket-sized copy at the North Circulation Desk of the Main Library all week.
On a more serious level, although the U.S. Constitution is a fairly short document, it is the defining outline of the United States government. The Constitution is the highest law in the land and all other laws must comply with its mandates.
September 11th, 2009 by The University of Iowa Libraries
The Internet Scout Report also recognized The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. This digitization project was a collaboration between the UI Libraries and the University of Iowa Press and was released this summer at the Iowa City Book Festival.
The online version of the University of Iowa Press’ Biographical Dictionary is a website that just feels welcoming. The colorful 1934 Cesco mural, “Agriculture,” featured on its homepage, and portions of it on other sections of the website remind visitors of Iowa’s farming roots. In the “Introduction” tab, one of the editors makes the argument that “Iowa’s cultural climate, at least in the last half of the nineteenth century, might have made it more than coincidental that ‘a disproportionate share of the influential people of the 1930s came from Iowa.’” Some of these influential people include Herbert Hoover, John L. Lewis, Henry A. Wallace, and Harry Hopkins. Visitors who want to learn more about these famous figures and their Iowa roots can click on the “Browse by Name” tab at the top of the page, choose a link to the first letter of their last name, and read more about them. The “Browse by Topic” tab has over two dozen topics to choose from, including “Ornithology”, “Mining”, and “Invention”.
The Scout Report is the flagship publication of the Internet Scout Project. Published every Friday both on the web and by email, it provides a fast, convenient way to stay informed of valuable resources on the Internet. Our team of professional librarians and subject matter experts select, research, and annotate each resource.
Published continuously since 1994, the Scout Report is one of the Internet’s oldest and most respected publications. Organizations are encouraged to link to this page from their own Web pages, or to receive the HTML version of the Report each week via email for local posting at their site.
