The University Libraries is seeking nominations for the Arthur Benton University Librarian’s Award for Excellence. Funded by a generous endowment, this prestigious award acknowledges a library staff member’s professional contributions in the practice of librarianship, service to the profession, scholarship, or leadership which has had a significant impact or innovation to the operations of the Libraries or the University of Iowa.
The $1,500 award may be used to support professional development activity expenses for conferences or workshops in support of research projects and publications related to services, or it may be taken as a cash award. Any member of the University of Iowa community may make a nomination, or self-nominations are also accepted. The nomination form is available at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/admin/bentonaward/ . The due date is Wednesday, October 30.
By Elizabeth Cox, head of cataloging-metadata at the UI Libraries
When you think of diversity issues at a university, you probably think of faculty and student representation, or maybe course topics. Rarely do people, perhaps even librarians, think of the online catalog or those who put information in it: the catalogers.
Catalogers are highly trained, detail-oriented librarians and staff who succinctly describe the library’s materials for students, faculty, and staff to find and use. We have particular databases and many sets of rules and guidelines to follow, from local to international. We provide subject headings or descriptors to every item in the online catalog (at the UI Libraries, our online catalog is called InfoHawk+).
For decades, librarians at the national and international levels have determined “authorized” headings. By using these headings, a library user can go into almost any library and find material on a particular subject, because most libraries use the same headings. In the United States, most academic and research libraries use the Library of Congress subject headings list.
Because the burden of standardizing these headings lies with a single organization (the Library of Congress), it can take time for the headings to catch up with the culture. Over the years, catalogers have raised questions about this process, noting the importance of balancing the use of historical terminology against the need to adopt new terminology. In some instances, new terminology can reflect changing societal views and prevent the proliferation of outdated ideas.
In 2016, subject headings hit the national news. A group of Dartmouth College students, Dartmouth librarians, and the Coalition for Immigration Reform, Equality and DREAMers (CoFIRED) petitioned the Library of Congress to remove “Illegal aliens” as a subject heading. At first, the Library of Congress denied the request, citing use of the term in “authoritative sources for legal terminology.”
However, members of the American Library Association collaborated with the Library of Congress, forming a working group to review the issue. The group reached a compromise, agreeing to replace the term “aliens” with “noncitizens” and to replace “illegal aliens” with “undocumented immigrants.” Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee introduced a bill (H.R. 4926 – Stopping Partisan Policy at the Library of Congress Act) calling for retention of the headings “aliens” and “illegal aliens.” In April 2016, the bill was referred to the Committee on House Administration, but it went no further. The Library of Congress continues to use the terms “aliens” and “illegal aliens” as subject headings.
This chart illustrates inconsistency in representing gender in subject headings. The chart is derived from one that appeared in a poster session by Texas A&M librarian Amanda Ros, titled “The bias in your library’s catalog,” which was presented at NCORE 2018.
This is just one example of the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion in subject headings. Sadly, there are many others, and the majority of them don’t get the same attention as this. The chart to the right shows an inconsistent application of subject headings regarding gender. All of the words and phrases in this chart are authorized headings. Using the currently approved subject headings, a book can be labeled as one about nurses generally, about female nurses, or about male nurses. A book can be labeled as one about librarians generally or about women librarians, but a book cannot be labeled as one about male librarians.
Catalogers have also noted concerns with headings related to people with disabilities, as well as biases related to culture, class, or country of origin. This hits very close to home in Iowa when searching for the nearby community of the Meskwaki Nation, the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi. A search of the Library of Congress database for “Meskwaki” refers you to the heading, “Fox Indians,” listing “Meskwaki Indians” as a variant or unused term. Not only does it fail to refer to the Sac Tribe, but it uses the old terminology “Indians” rather than “Native Americans.”
Catalogers wonder what to do in situations such as these. The Library of Congress makes available a procedure to recommend addition or revision of a Library of Congress subject heading and provides a number of tips and instructions to assist in the process. Although the process is not onerous, it can be tedious and requires research on the part of the librarian, who must provide proof that the word or phrase is used in one or more resource. Each month, the Library of Congress publishes a list of proposed headings and invites comments. After considering the proposals and comments, the Library of Congress publishes its decisions along with its rationale in cases of rejection.
The Library of Congress does not give a time estimate for this process. As of April 2019, the Library of Congress had published a list of approximately 200 proposed headings. Of those, only seven have been approved and three proposals have been deemed incomplete.
Simply being aware of these issues is a good start, but librarians can be more vigilant about noticing the discrepancies in online catalogs and be more proactive in making positive changes to reflect the diverse world around us and provide more equitable, inclusive, and diverse databases for our library users.
Bibliography
Adler, Melissa, Jeffrey T. Huber, and A. Tyler Nix. 2017. “Stigmatizing disability: Library classifications and the marking and marginalization of books about people with disabilities.” Library Quarterly, April: 117-135.
Aguilera, Jasmine. 2016. “Another word for ‘Illegal alien’ at the Library of Congress: Contentious.” New York Times, July 22. Accessed February 7, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/another-word-for-illegal-alien-at-the-library-of-congress-contentious.html?_r=0.
Berman, Sanford. 2017. “Berman’s Bag: Omissions and Distortions in Libraries, Too: LCSH Proposals.” Unabashed Librarian (185): 19-22.
—. 1971. Prejudices and antipathies: a tract on the LC subject heads concerning people. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press.
Diao, Junli, and Haiyun Cao. 2016. “Chronology in cataloging Chinese archaeological reports: An investigation of cultural bias in the Library of Congress classification.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 244-262.
Library of Congress. n.d. Library of Congress Subject Headings. Accessed March 5, 2019. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html.
—. n.d. Process for Adding and Revising Library of Congress Subject Headings. Accessed March 6, 2019. http://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/lcsh-process.html.
Peet, Lisa. 2016. “Library of Congress Drops Illegal Alien Subject Heading, Provokes Backlash Legislation.” Library Journal. Accessed March 6, 2019. https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=library-of-congress-drops-illegal-alien-subject-heading-provokes-backlash-legislation.
Ros, Amanda. n.d. “The bias in your library’s catalog.” Texas A&M University. Accessed February 7, 2019. http://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/166418/Bias%20Poster%20NCORE.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y.
Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. 2017. Meskwaki Nation. Accessed March 11, 2019. https://meskwaki.org/.
OpenHawks is a campus-wide grant program that funds faculty efforts to replace their current textbooks with OERs for enhanced student success.
Students will benefit from Open Educational Resource (OER) projects
The University of Iowa Libraries has awarded fifteen grants to eighteen faculty for Open Educational Resource (OER) projects for the 2019-2020 academic year. OpenHawks is a campus-wide grant program that funds faculty efforts to replace their current textbooks with OERs for enhanced student success.
OpenHawks is one of five innovative, interdisciplinary initiatives funded by the annual Provost Investment Fund (PIF) from the UI Office of the Provost. The PIF will provide OpenHawks projects with funds totaling $87,288 for AY 2020. The funded OER projects, which were selected through a competitive application process, will benefit students in the College of Education, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Medicine, and Tippie College of Business.
OER (such as textbooks, videos, assessment tools, lab books, research materials or interactive course modules) are free for students and carry legal permission for open use. The open licenses under which these items are released allow users to create, reuse, and redistribute copies of the resources.
Removing cost barriers to course materials opens student access and positively impacts learning. OER provide further benefit when faculty fully integrate free resources into their curricula by “remixing” or tailoring materials to enhance specific learning objectives.
The next call for proposals will be in the spring of 2020. For more information, visit www.lib.uiowa.edu/openhawks
Mercedes Bern-Klug, faculty in the School of Social Work in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $7,000. For this project, Dr. Bern-Klug will create an OER textbook on global aging. By replacing the textbook with up-to-date readings and resources from different sources, Bern-Klug ensures students will learn the material from organizations and authors with a track record of producing high-quality materials germane to global aging.
Stephen Cummings, faculty in the School of Social Work in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $1,400 for Human Behavior in the Social Environment. Cummings will develop an OER textbook on human behavior in social settings for an online, graduate-level course in Social Work. Students will benefit from the vibrant content of this textbook, reflecting current events and engagement for a more dynamic learning environment. The OER resource is projected to save students money, as it will replace a $55 textbook.
Hannah Givler, lecturer in the School of Art and Art History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $9,000 for Woodworking: Theory and Practice in Studio Arts. Givier will create an OER textbook that combines theory and practice, illuminating the material behaviors of wood. The resource will include foundational and experimental techniques for bending, joining, and framing. The textbook will be used by students in her wood-bending and wood-joinery courses in the School of Art and Art History. It will provide students with the narratives and experiences of contemporary artists working conceptually with wood materials—a perspective missing from currently available textbook resources.
Julia Kleinschmit, faculty in the School of Social Work in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $1,300 for her OER project, Computer Lab: statistics with less pain – in your wallet. Students taking a required one-semester-hour statistics course will benefit from this resource. Kleinschmit will remix existing OER resources to replace existing textbooks and eliminate expensive software purchases, saving students nearly $150 each.
Mouna Maalouf, lecturer in Chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $4,000 for Principles of Chemistry II—Lab Manual in pressbook. The goal of this project is to create an OER lab manual for the freshman chemistry laboratory, replacing lab manuals from publishers that range in cost from $10 to $40. The born-digital lab manual will be easier for students to access and navigate. In addition, the digital resource will be easier for the instructor to update frequently.
Kate Magsamen-Conrad, faculty in Communication Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $10,000 to create no-cost, accessible, engaging, tailored resources for UI students. The project, Introduction to Social Scientific Communication Research Methods, will include a textbook, study guides, presentation materials, and class activities developed in collaboration with UI librarians, the UI Human Subjects Office, and other campus partners. Conrad is replacing an $125 textbook with content tailored for UI students.
Emilia Illana Mahiques, faculty in Spanish & Portuguese in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $1,000 for an OER project titled Aligning peer review, assessments, and learning objectives in SPAN:2000 based on the framework resulting from her research study on peer review. Through this project, Mahiques will create a bank of activities instructors can use to train students on effective, efficient peer review processes aimed at improving students’ abilities to write in their second language. She will also create peer review guidelines and corresponding assessment rubrics according to the curricular requirements of the Spanish Writing course.
Brandon Myers, lecturer in computer science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $2,999 for a project titled Guided Inquiry Activities for Advanced Computer Science. Myers will create OER learning activities using an instruction strategy shown to improve student engagement and learning called Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL). In POGIL, students cooperate in teams to construct and apply concepts in carefully designed activities. Unfortunately, such activities are not readily available to computer science instructors. In this project, Myers aims to create, pilot, revise, and share four to six POGIL activities to support two courses, Database Systems and Programming Languages. The activities will be shared with a Creative Commons license on the CS-POGIL project website (http://cspogil.org).
Ted Neal, professor of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education, has been awarded $10,000 to create an OER titled Earth and Space Science for Elementary Teachers. Neal will develop an OER textbook, in cooperation with students, that will cover broad topic areas as mandated by the State of Iowa’s new science curriculum for which adequate teaching resources do not yet exist. Under Neal’s direction, students will develop this comprehensive resource, providing future elementary science teachers with concise, accurate, and centralized resources for K-12 instruction in earth and space science.
Marc A. Pizzimenti, faculty in Anatomy and Cell Biology in the Carver College of Medicine, has been awarded $9,859 for Online Physical Examination Skills Modules with Integrated Basic Science Review. These instructional modules will help students learn basic physical examination (PE) skills by creating efficient, timely, scalable, easily accessible resources that will assist in training, but will also serve as the primary resource for students learning the basics of PE.
Jacob B. Priest, faculty in Psychological and Quantitative Foundations in the College of Education, and Rachel Williams, faculty in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, have been awarded $8,000 for their project titled Heathy Relationship OER. Priest and Williams will create an OER to replace a $141 textbook on relationships. Their resource will be designed to enhance relationship communication and skills so students can make and maintain healthy relationships. Rather than providing statistics about relationships, this OER will help students learn actual relationship skills and apply them to different relationship situations.
Steven Stong, faculty in economics in the Tippie College of Business, has been awarded $1,000 for Test bank and clicker questions for Principles of Microeconomics 2e openstax. This project involves creating a 100-question bank of exam and quiz questions designed to help students develop a better theoretical understanding of economics and also gain the analytical skills they need to apply the theories to solve real-world economic problems. Strong is developing these questions to supplement an OER textbook that he is already using for Microeconomics.
Christine Wingate, faculty in English as a Second Language (ESL) in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been awarded $7,730 for American English Sounds, an online resource already under development for courses focused on ESL speaking skills. Pronunciation is a vital part of these courses, and students need more time to practice and improve pronunciation than is possible during class. Wingate’s OER will help students practice pronunciation independently as directed by the teacher with tutorials, which will be accessible online through a computer or mobile device. Each tutorial will provide explanation, examples, and practice activities, including activities that could be recorded and submitted for teacher feedback.
Sang-Seok Yoon and Joung-A Park, faculty in Asian & Slavic Languages in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, have been awarded $5,000 for First Year Korean: First Semester. Yoon and Park will create an OER workbook for students studying the Korean language. This workbook will improve on the currently used commercial text by incorporating stronger content in conversations, listening comprehension, and Korean culture. The resource will reduce expenses for students while providing a more engaging and effective learning tool for UI students, with a special focus on preparing students for specific study abroad and work experiences in Korea.
Giovanni Zimotti, lecturer in Spanish & Portuguese, and Fernando Castro Ortiz, lecturer in Spanish and director of the Spanish Speaking, Writing, and Conversation Center in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, have been awarded $9,000 for Intermediate Spanish II: Spanish for Educators, a new UI course designed specifically for educators. Commercially available textbooks for this course are pedagogically outdated, very expensive for the students, and lack a well-developed online component. Zimotti and Castro Ortiz will create an OER textbook customized to fulfill the educational needs of UI students taking this new course, integrate content and technology already available at our institution and/or online, create self-assessment materials to supplement the OER textbook and classroom instruction, test and teach a pilot course using the content created in this project, and promote this new OER resource at national conferences and other professional venues.
A Humument Fourth Revision Page 366 by Tom Phillips, 1997. The drawing depicts a varicolored stone mosaic, which, based on the content of the poem on this page, may be an abstraction of the facade of Morro Castle that opens James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The poem adapts Molly Bloom’s closing soliloquy that ends the book: “Oh, Ah, And I said — yes yes – I will yes – end.”
The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collectionsis the new home of the renowned Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry. Founded by Ruth and Marvin Sackner in 1979 in Miami Beach, Florida, the Sackner Archive currently holds the largest collection of concrete and visual poetry in the world.
The archive includes over 75,000 items that document the concrete poetry movement. Annotated books, periodicals, typewritings, drawings, letters, print portfolios, ephemera, and rare and out-of-print artists’ books and manuscripts represent 20th-century art movements such as Italian Futurism, Russian and Eastern European Avant Garde, Dada, Surrealism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Ultra, Tabu-Dada, Lettrisme, and Ultra-Lettrisme.
Among many notable items, the collection includes materials by and about the founders of the contemporary concrete poetry movement, such as Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, Eugen Gomringer, Öyvind Fahlström, Décio Pignatari, and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Also among the richly varied cross section of artists and poets represented in the archive are Dom Sylvester Houédard, Henri Chopin, John Cage, Johanna Drucker, Yoko Ono, and Nam June Paik.
“It’s a great honor for the UI Libraries to become the new home for the Sackner Archive, which will enrich scholarship, inspire generations of students, and draw visitors from around the world,” says John Culshaw, the Jack B. King university librarian at the UI.
Margaret Gamm, head of UI Libraries Special Collections, says the Sackners’ extensive work with item descriptions makes the archive of even greater value to scholars.
“We will soon be able to make a truly remarkable assortment of materials available, thanks to the dedication of Ruth and Marvin Sackner, their love of collecting, and their determination to create a complete archive by creating descriptive item records for each piece,” Gamm says. “I cannot wait to see how our students, faculty, and community use these materials in their research and classes.”
The entire archive has been moved to the UI Libraries, where it will be housed and maintained. The Sackner family has arranged for a scheduled donation of materials to be transferred to the UI Libraries’ ownership. The archive will be open by appointment to students, scholars, and the general public starting January 2020.
The Sackner family chose the University of Iowa Libraries as the new home for the archive due to the Libraries’ reputation as a center for the study of Dadaism, with its substantial holdings in the International Dada Archive. In addition, the Libraries’ world-class conservation program, the UI’s nationally recognized Center for the Book and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, collections in the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, and location in Iowa City (a UNESCO City of Literature) were also factors influencing their decision. The Sackners’ first encounter with Iowa was to loan work for the 1983 UI exhibition Lettrisme: Into the Present, not knowing that those items would eventually find their way back to the Midwest.
“My beloved wife, Ruth, and I had a dream that one day our efforts to build our collection into one that would reside in a world-class educational institution like the University of Iowa would come true,” Dr. Marvin Sackner says. “Our dream has finally become a reality. I am just sorry that Ruth is no longer with us to witness this monumental moment.”
In addition to housing the archive in Special Collections, the UI Libraries will maintain the condition of archive items, including fragile materials and rare or one-of-a-kind items. The Libraries Preservation and Conservation department has begun repairs on items damaged during Hurricane Irma in 2017.
In its new home, the Sackner Archive will continue to function as a living record of the concrete poetry movement, as new works are accepted into the collections. The UI Libraries will house new items as they come in and work to make the material available to all.
“It’s a pleasure to collaborate with the University of Iowa Libraries staff to ensure the safety of the collection during the move and into the future,” says Amanda Keeley, who has served as associate curator of the Sackner Archive for three years. “Margaret [Gamm] has been a particularly helpful partner, allowing a smooth process for moving this substantial archive to Iowa City.”
The University of Iowa Libraries plans to host a celebration of the Sackner Archive in the near future. At a later date, UI Libraries staff will mount an exhibition of select archive items in the Main Library Gallery. The exhibition dates will be announced at lib.uiowa.edu/gallery.
Contact
Margaret Gamm, head, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries margaret-gamm@uiowa.edu
Tim Shipe, curator, International Dada Archive, University of Iowa Libraries timothy-shipe@uiowa.edu
Images from the collection
The Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry includes items created in a wide variety of styles and media. Initially, the Sackners collected examples of artists who started the concrete poetry movement, but the archive has since expanded in scope and now includes a broad array of works that integrate text and image. Examples include experimental typography, experimental calligraphy, correspondence art, stamp art, sound poetry, performance poetry, micrography, ‘zines,’ graphic design, and artist magazines.
The images below show a variety of materials and techniques such as calligraphy on an ostrich egg, a “handmade” leather book cover, pressed leaves, lithograph, embossed paper, tea bags encased in paper, one-of-a-kind artist’s book in a round box, carved/painted wood, and an altered book page on which poetry was created through a technique called “erasure.”
Couve le Feu, part of a series published by Atelier des Grames, 2000. The egg is engraved with the title and embellished with an original engraving enclosed with a text by Michael Gluck. This book object was delivered with rolled, uncrumpled pages within the shell. Their removal caused them to crumple. The texts are egg-shaped and printed on Tibetan paper with a gilded initial on each page.
Couve le Feu, part of a series published by Atelier des Grames, 2000.
Kyoto Grids by Margaret Ahrens Sahlstrand, 1984. Unique artist’s book, which captures the grids of Kyoto’s streets in original drawings contained within an unusual circular shape.
Les Clés de la Tombe, conceived and realized by Émile Bernard Souchière for Christian Gabriel/le Guez-Ricord. Atelier des Grames, 1987.
Guez Ricord by Christian Gabrielle, a series by Atelier des Grames, 1982.
Engraving by Albert Dupont, from Isidore Isou’s Concerto pour œil et oreille (Paris: Atelier Dupont-Visat, 1984).
by Jenay Solomon, Undergraduate Engagement Librarian, UI Libraries
Celebrating student accomplishments and getting to showcase all the amazing services and resources the UI libraries provide for students is always a great thing to do. Even on a Saturday!
Earlier this spring on a beautiful sunny Saturday, I spent the day at the 2nd Annual “I’m the First” First-Generation Summit celebrating the experiences and accomplishments of first-generation college students at Iowa. The Summit is entirely student-led and coordinated by the UI Student Government, who also provide the majority of funding. UISG did an amazing job at making the entire event very student-focused, while also encouraging networking and conversation among students, staff, and faculty.
The day began with a panel of first-generation students moderated by Dr. Melissa Shivers, VP for Student Life, who is herself first-generation, where they discussed challenges of being first-gen at Iowa, while also reminding attendees of the many strengths and talents being first-gen also brings. The day continued with breakout sessions, and two fabulous keynote speakers who spoke about their own experiences being a first-gen and a continuing college student.
During the afternoon “task force town-hall” session, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel with six other staff across campus in the departments of Academic Support & Retention, Academic Advising, TRiO Student Support Services, English as a Second Language, and University Counseling Service. Each of us discussed our roles in our departments and the different ways we reach out to first-gen students. It was interesting and informative listening to the others discuss their services and the various ways they reach out to students and first-gen in particular. Though we each came from different backgrounds and had distinct roles on campus, we all had commonalities when it came to caring about student success and empowering students to reach their potential.
When it came time for me to speak, I decided to showcase all the ways the Libraries provide support for students, through instruction, research consultations, our collections, and spaces. As the Undergraduate Engagement librarian, I shamelessly promoted services in The SEAM, spoke about the importance of offering flexible late night and drop-in research help for students who have different needs, crazy schedules, and who no longer fit the “traditional” mold of what a first-year student looks like. I stressed the importance of the how we all, as library staff, work hard to create a safe, comfortable, and judgment-free zone at the Libraries, whether that’s through our collections, our physical spaces, or our public outreach. I also took the opportunity to remind the students it’s our job to answer questions and help them find the information they need – so don’t be shy!
I’m hopeful we can continue being a part of the First-Generation Summit and I would encourage anyone, whatever role you’re in, to attend or present in next year’s 3rd annual summit. As librarians and library staff, we always relish the chance to promote the services we provide and remind students of the importance of their Libraries as part of their success story at Iowa. Simply attending the Summit and being a part of the program was a great opportunity to do just that.
The University of Iowa Libraries announces OpenHawks, a campus-wide grant program that funds faculty efforts to adopt or develop Open Educational Resources (OER) for enhanced student success.
What are OER?
OER (such as textbooks, videos, assessment tools, lab books, research methods, or interactive course modules) are free for students and carry legal permission for open use. The open licenses under which these items are released allow users to create, reuse, and redistribute copies of the resources.
Why use OER?
Removing cost barriers to course materials opens student access and positively impacts learning. OER provide further benefit when faculty fully integrate free resources into their curricula by “remixing” or tailoring materials to enhance specific learning objectives.
Acknowledging the rising costs of educational resources and increasing financial pressures on students, the UI Libraries works to provide creative solutions in partnership with other campus units. As a result of this collaborative work, OpenHawks grants support faculty efforts to use OER at any level: adopting or remixing existing materials, developing open access assessment and learning tools, redesigning courses, or creating an original OER to share under an open license.
How to apply
The UI Libraries will issue a formal Call for Proposals in March 2019. The award levels outlined below provide guidance for grant applicants on the amount of funding that may be approved for different types of proposals. UI instructors can apply for awards at any of these levels.
Award Type
Award Range
Requirements
Adoption
$500-$1,000
Use an existing open textbook for a course with no editing and minimal course adaptation required.
Remixing
$750-$2,000
Adapt, update, combine, or improve existing OER to replace a currently used textbook. Use of library-licensed materials may also be considered.
Support Materials
$1,000-$3,000
Develop test bank questions, teaching support materials, quizzes, interactive learning aids, or other support materials for existing OER.
Course Redesign
Up to $5,000
Redesign a course around the use of OER.
OER Creation
Up to $10,000
Create an original Open Educational Resource to be used in a course and shared under an open license.
OpenHawks grants are funded by the Office of the Provost and UI Student Government (UISG) and administered by the UI Libraries with support from the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology (OTLT), University College, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS).
Faculty and instructors interesting in applying for OpenHawks funding can direct questions to Scholarly Communications Librarian Mahrya Burnett at mahrya-burnett@uiowa.edu.
How will I afford my textbooks this semester? Can I pass this course even though I don’t have the book? Is it illegal to download this PDF of the book that I found online?
These are the kinds of questions students ask at the beginning of the semester. The solutions they find are creative. Sometimes a whole group of roommates will share a book. In other cases, they will find a dubious copy for free online. Other times, they skip textbooks entirely. For some students, it’s a matter of buying food or buying books.
UI Libraries and UI Student Government are easing some of this burden with a collaborative project called the Textbook Affordability Pilot (TAP). Under TAP, a committee of library staff and student government representatives collect donated textbooks and purchase new ones for “high impact courses.” These are classes for which the cost of books is high and more than 100 students are enrolled in the course. These books are placed on course reserves in Main Library and the branch libraries for students to use free of charge.
Plans for TAP began in the summer of 2017, when student government approached the Libraries with questions about making textbooks more affordable. The UI Libraries encourages faculty to bypass traditional textbooks where possible by using books from the Libraries’ collection and using open educational resources. The Libraries also keeps copies of some textbooks on course reserve. Despite these efforts, librarians and students realized more could be done.
UISG Director of Academic Affairs, Tristan Schmidt, and Scholarly Communications Librarian, Mahrya Burnett, along with interested colleagues, began to explore the idea of purchasing textbooks and collecting donated copies. There was broad interest on both ends. Eventually, UISG and UI Libraries both allocated funds, totaling $17,000 for the one-year pilot. The committee drafted a set of criteria for books to be included in TAP and identified objectives for success. Then they started buying and collecting books.
As TAP began accepting donations last spring, the response from students was overwhelming. They donated hundreds of books, filling the UISG offices at the IMU. The committee is now working with faculty, students, and librarians to finalize its purchase list in order to get new books processed and on the shelves. TAP aims to have 100 books available for student use through course reserves at the Main Library and several other campus libraries by spring semester 2019. Their hope is to see the program grow over time so that more and more books are available for the students who need them.
TAP information for students
Can I access my textbooks for free? One easy way to find out whether your textbook is on Course Reserves is to use this simple search tool. Search by course name, instructor, or book title.
TAP information for faculty, instructors, and TAs
Do the textbooks for my course qualify for TAP? Faculty can email LIB-TAP@uiowa.edu to see if their textbooks are TAP eligible.
Eight Big Ten universities, a federal funding agency, and private companies come together to fund the development of Collaborative Archive Data Research Environment (CADRE)
Students, faculty, and researchers across the Midwest and beyond will gain crucial access to large research datasets through a secure, cloud-based platform called CADRE (Collaborative Archive Data Research Environment). CADRE will be developed through a large-scale partnership led by the Indiana University Libraries and the Indiana University Network Science Institute.
The University of Iowa Libraries will collaborate with IU Libraries and other partners from the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) to develop a cloud-based platform that will allow library users direct, hands-on access to bibliometric, patent, and other large databases.
Other BTAA partners are Michigan State University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, The Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, and Rutgers University.
“We firmly support this project because this type of shared secure data mining service is badly needed by research libraries, and importantly, by sharing the costs of enhancing, maintaining, and updating the platform across libraries, the costs become very affordable,” says John Culshaw, the Jack B. King university librarian at the UI Libraries. He says that without collaborative partners, the University of Iowa would not be able to “parse, secure, and host such enormous repositories of data, let alone develop the Graphical User Interfaces necessary to facilitate patron-driven queries.”
“This project exemplifies the role of libraries in the information age,” says Jamie Wittenberg, research data management librarian and head of scholarly communication at Indiana University Libraries, who will direct the project. “Our mission is to efficiently and effectively connect researchers with the materials they need to advance innovation and discovery. CADRE will open up the power of data mining to everyone, not only people with specialized expertise.”
Bibliometric research is the “science of science”
The ability to deeply analyze connections between these texts will support bibliometric research, a growing field that plumbs the world’s increasingly large and complex databases to reveal the underlying structural forces that affect the production of scientific knowledge. This work—often called the “science of science”—has shed light on a wide range of subjects. For example, bibliometric analysis has helped reveal the depth of women’s historical contributions to science and the influence of large-scale historical events on research activity.
CADRE will provide a user-friendly “front door” through which the partner institution members can request bibliometric analysis of available data. The project will automate many complex and time-consuming tasks that were previously required to conduct this research.
Product developers seeking input. To build user interfaces that will be of the highest utility for you, CADRE seeks your input. Potential users in all disciplines (faculty, staff, and students) are encouraged to provide input through user stories. To share your user story, please complete this form. All responses, no matter how abstract or seemingly trivial, are very helpful for us and will be given serious consideration as we plan for the development of CADRE.
Another important feature of the system is the power to share data. Individuals who use the platform will not only be able to share the results of their analyses, but also the software code, algorithms, workflows, methods, and the specific software versions and configurations used to run their analyses. This is critical for making the work reproducible, as well as helping the original researchers refine their methods for other projects.
The first new materials to be accessed via CADRE are records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which contains data on publicly-available patents and intellectual property, and the Microsoft Academic Graph, a public database of 160 million scientific records.
The University Libraries is seeking nominations for the Arthur Benton University Librarian’s Award for Excellence. Funded by a generous endowment, this prestigious award acknowledges a library staff member’s professional contributions in the practice of librarianship, service to the profession, scholarship, or leadership which has had a significant impact or innovation to the operations of the Libraries or the University of Iowa.
