Faculty News – Library News

Jul 02 2020

UI Libraries awards 12 OpenHawks grants

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by The University of Iowa Libraries

The University of Iowa Libraries has awarded 12 grants for Open Educational Resource (OER) projects for the 2020-2021 academic year. OpenHawks is a campus-wide grant program that funds faculty efforts to replace current textbooks with OERs for enhanced student success.

OpenHawks is funded by the annual Provost Investment Fund (PIF) from the UI Office of the Provost. This year, two projects are jointly funded with the Office of Teaching, Learning, & Technology.

The funded OER projects, which were selected through a competitive application process, will benefit students in a wide range of disciplines, including fine arts, English as a second language, neurobiology, political science, foreign languages, communication sciences and disorders, education, communications, and biostatistics.

OER (such as textbooks, videos, assessment tools, lab books, research materials, or interactive course modules) are free for students to use. The 2020-2021 OER projects will save UI students $171,000 in the first year alone. Removing cost barriers to course materials opens student access and positively impacts learning.

The value of OER extends to the wider academic community, since they carry legal permission for open use. The open licenses under which these items are released allow any user at any institution to create, reuse, and redistribute copies of the resources.

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 2021. For more information, visit www.lib.uiowa.edu/openhawks

Stephanie Dowda DeMer
OER creation grant: $4,700.
Title: Material Encounters.

Material Encounters is a textbook that will fill significant gaps in the research and presentation of alternative photography processes and theory. It achieves this by bringing together traditionally siloed information regarding process, theory, and interdisciplinary practice into one text to serve student research and faculty pedagogy. The textbook will include interviews with female-identifying and queer artists who innovate alternative processes and use their practices to address social, environmental, or personal issues.

Craig Dresser
OER creation grant: $8,200.
Title: Elements of Academic Writing

This text will help ESL students understand the purposes of writing assignments and their common component. This approach relies heavily on decision-making, informed by consideration of the context around the assignment. It aims to increase the students’ understanding and efficacy in the ways in which they communicate with their teachers through academic writing. In the end, students should be empowered to take on any manner of writing assignment, confident in their ability to communicate effectively.

Mei-Ling Joiner and Jason Hardie
OER creation grant: $8,200.
Title: A Centralized Online OER for Introduction to Neurobiology

Joiner and Hardie are developing a neurobiology OER to better align with the course as it is currently taught and to save students significant money on textbook costs. Existing textbooks for this course almost exclusively follow a molecule to whole organism approach, but the course begins with whole organism, then later addresses molecular level mechanisms, which invites the interest of students newly encountering neurobiology.

Courtney Juelich
OER creation grant: $3,000.
Title: Online Videos for Introduction to American Politics

By developing an online lecture system, students will replace the current $200 textbook with online video lectures and come to class ready to show comprehension and critical thinking through a discussion-based class. Teaching students of all majors about the basis of the United States government’s innerworkings, and the history of its laws is essential for our students’ growth and for our democracy.

Irene Lottini, Lucia Gemmani, Claudia Sartini-Rideout
Course redesign grant: $2,000.
Title: E-textbook and Workbook for Elementary Italian

The authors are planning to redesign this sequence to better help our students achieve the CLAS GE Program Outcomes and be prepared for programs abroad. The goal is to create an e-textbook and a workbook that will fulfill the two main objectives of redesigned courses: supporting students’ acquisition of the grammar and vocabulary that ensure meaningful communication and enhancing students’ familiarity with Italian culture. This project is co-funded by OTLT.

Stewart McCauley and Jean Gordon
Course redesign grant: $2,000.
Title: OER Redesign of Basic Neuroscience for Speech and Hearing

The authors will design a textbook that integrates topics in communication disorders with foundational concepts in neuroscience. This can best be achieved by using OER materials from a variety of domains—especially taking advantage of the wealth of freely available online audiovisual case illustrations—to better interweave normal and disordered processes. This project is co-funded by OTLT.

Mark McDermott
OER creation grant: $8,200.
Title: Developing an OER Toolkit for Science Methods Courses

McDermott will work with former students to develop an Open Educational Resource Toolkit that provides background information about the argument-based pedagogical approach the class explores, tools for planning units based on this pedagogical approach, supplemental resources for supporting science conceptual understanding, and sample activity plans for the experiences engaged in during the courses.

Sylvia Mikucki-Enyart
OER creation grant: $8,200
Title: Sexual Communication in Personal Relationships

The primary objective of this project is to create a no-cost, accessible, interactive, and flexible textbook and companion materials (e.g., activities, study guides) that enhance UI students’ theoretical understanding of sexual communication and increase their sexual communication efficacy to engage in sexual communication tasks (e.g., conversations surrounding consent, safe sex practices).

Beatrice Mkenda
OER creation grant: $8,200.
Title: Elementary Swahili Online Course

Swahili teaching and learning materials have relied on traditional textbooks, some of which lack listening materials. Listening is one of the most important skills in foreign language teaching and learning. The Swahili Online Course will be a proficiency-based teaching and learning resource for elementary levels and will provide interactive activities based on listening to native speakers of Swahili. Students will have an opportunity to listen and react to the video and audio in different ways, such as speaking, writing, reading, and identifying culture.

Caitlin Ward and Collin Nolte
OER creation grant: $6,000.
Title: Simulation Based Inference in Introductory Biostatistics

The American Statistical Association (ASA) recommends that introductory statistics education focuses on conceptual understanding, with an emphasis on technology and real data. Statistics education often places priorities on an antiquated view of the former, with symbolic manipulation and contrived examples taking priority over data exploration and statistical thinking, and BIOS:4120 is no different. Both the ASA recommendations and the advances in pedagogical literature on active learning bring to the forefront the need to restructure this course. The authors’ proposal aims to meet this need by developing a new resource, which empowers students to achieve a higher level of understanding through the use of technology and real-world data.

Sang-Seok Yoon and Joung-A Park
OER creation grant: $8,200.
Title: Developing a Textbook for First Year Korean Course

The objective of developing this resource is to make students’ learning experience more active, fun and challenging, and to reduce students’ financial burden of purchasing the textbook used in First Year Korean: First Semester. This textbook is an essential part of the class for self-study in addition to attending lectures and doing exercises in the class.

Giovanni Zimotti and Alexis Jimenez Candia
OER creation grant: $8,200.
Title: Intermediate Spanish II: Spanish for Healthcare

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is undertaking efforts to redesign the GE CLAS Core sequence of Spanish. The aim is to modernize the curriculum offered to meet the needs of 21st century students and to better prepare them in their future careers. As part of this redesign, it is paramount to develop materials that are meaningful for the specific type of students that will be taking this course. Unfortunately, the commercially available textbook we currently use is very expensive for students and outdated. This project aims to create an OER textbook that is personalized to the educational needs of the students of Spanish Intermediate II: Spanish for Healthcare.

May 05 2020

How to return materials to the UI Libraries

Posted on May 5, 2020June 1, 2020 by The University of Iowa Libraries

Book return map — University of Iowa Libraries’ regional book return map. Find a location near you to return your UI Libraries books and DVDs. This service will be offered through May 31, 2020.

University of Iowa students can return items to the UI Libraries from afar by dropping off items at one of 46 participating libraries across the state and region. See a map of these locations or the list of locations at the end of this article.

The UI Libraries has spearheaded this special service to help students living far from campus due to the pandemic. With the aid of partnering public and academic libraries, the UI Libraries will continue to offer this service while it’s needed.

This network of libraries is participating in an unprecedented cooperative project to assist library users who are sheltering far from the library from which they borrowed items. Each library in this network will accept items from the other participating libraries and return those items at no cost to the borrower.

Students who have University of Iowa library books to return can check the UI Libraries’ book return map for drop-off locations in the state and region. Students without access to a drop-off library and those living further than 30 miles from Iowa City can request a UPS shipping label.

Students living near campus are encouraged to return books at the Main Library drop box (125 W. Washington Street, return slots available at both the south and north entrances) or the Hardin Library drop box (600 Newton Road, next to the entrance that faces University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics). Students with tools or electronic equipment should schedule a drop off to ensure the security and safety of the items.

- Art Library: Please use the Main Library drop box or contact lib-art@uiowa.edu
- Business Library: Schedule a time by emailing lib-bus@uiowa.edu
- Engineering Library: Schedule a time by emailing lib-engineering@uiowa.edu
- Hardin Library: Please use the drop box for books and DVDs. Schedule a time for non-book items by emailing lib-hardin@uiowa.edu
- Main Library: Please use the drop box for books and DVDs. Schedule a time for non-book items by emailing lib-maincirc@uiowa.edu
- Music Library: Please use the Main Library drop box or contact lib-mus@uiowa.edu
- Sciences Library: Schedule a time by emailing lib-sciences@uiowa.edu.

Before returning library items, please observe the following safe-handling practices:

Do not clean, disinfect, or microwave library materials before returning them. For example, do not use water, Lysol, or any other cleaner on materials.
If you or your family members are sick or have been sick, seal materials in a zip-lock style bag if possible before returning.
Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer before handling library materials for return and again after you have completed the return.

List of locations for materials return

Iowa State University Parks Library, 701 Morrill Road, Ames, IA
DMACC Ankeny campus Library Bldg 6, 2006 S. Ankeny Blvd, Ankeny, IA
Scott Community College Library, 500 Belmont Rd, Bettendorf, IA
DMACC Boone campus Library, 1125 Hancock Drive, Boone, IA
Northeast Iowa Community College Library Student Center, 1625 Hwy 150 S., Calmar, IA
DMACC Carroll campus Library, 906 North Grant Rd., Carroll, IA
University of Northern Iowa Rod Library, 1227 W 27th Street, Cedar Falls, IA
Mount Mercy University Busse Library, 1330 Elmhurst Drive NE, Cedar Rapids, IA
Kirkwood Community College Library Benton Hall, 6301 Kirkwood Blvd. SW, Cedar Rapids, IA
Clinton Community College Library, 1000 Lincoln Blvd, Clinton, IA
Coralville Public Library, 1401 5th Street, Coralville, IA
Southwestern Community College Library, 1501 W. Townline Street, Creston, IA
Saint Ambrose University Library, 518 W. Locust Street, Davenport, IA
DMACC Urban/Des Moines campus Library Bldg 1, 1100 7th Street, Des Moines, IA
Drake University Cowles Library, 2725 University Avenue, Des Moines, IA
Grand View University Library, 1350 Morton Avenue, Des Moines, IA
Mercy College of Health Sciences Library Sullivan Center, 928 6th Avenue, Des Moines, IA
Loras College Library, 1450 Alta Vista, Dubuque, IA
University of Dubuque Charles C. Myers Library, 2195 Grace Street, Dubuque, IA
Grinnell College Library, 1111 6th Ave, Grinnell, IA
Simpson College Dunn Library, 508 N C Street, Indianola, IA
Kirkwood Community College Library, 1816 Lower Muscatine Rd, Iowa City, IA
University of Iowa Hardin Library, 600 Newtown Road, Iowa City, IA
University of Iowa Main Library, 125 W. Washington Street, Iowa City, IA
Southeastern Community College Fred Karre Memorial Library, 335 Messenger Rd, Keokuk, IA
Cornell College Cole Library, 320 3rd Street SW, Mount Vernon, IA
Muscatine Community College Library, 152 Colorado Street, Muscatine, IA
North Liberty Public Library, 520 W. Cherry Street, North Liberty, IA
Northwestern College DeWitt Library, 101 7th Street SW, Orange City, IA
William Penn University Wilcox Library, 201 Trueblood Avenue, Oskaloosa, IA
Indian Hills Community College Library, 525 Grandview Avenue, Ottumwa, IA
Northeast Iowa Community College Library, 8342 NICC Drive, Peosta, IA
Dordt University Hulst Library, 700 7th Street NE, Sioux Center, IA
Briar Cliff University Bishop Mueller Library, 3303 Rebecca Street, Sioux City, IA
Morningside College Library, 1501 Morningside Avenue, Sioux City, IA
Hawkeye Community College Library Main Campus, 1501 East Orange Road, Waterloo, IA
Wartburg College Vogel Library, 100 Wartburg Blvd, Waverly, IA
University of Illinois Main Library, 1408 W Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL
Indiana University Wells Library, 1320 E. Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN
Purdue University Library, West State Street, West Lafayette, IN
University of Michigan Hatcher Graduate Library, 913 S. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI
Michigan State University Main Library, 366 W. Circle Drive, East Lansing, MI
University of Minnesota Wilson Library, 309 19th Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN
University of Nebraska Love Library, 13th & R Street, Lincoln, NE
University of Wisconsin Memorial Library, 728 State Street, Madison, WI

Apr 03 2020

Emergency access to copyrighted books

Posted on April 3, 2020April 3, 2020 by The University of Iowa Libraries

Effective immediately and until normal access to physical collections resumes, students, faculty, and staff at the University of Iowa have online access to a large portion of the University Libraries’ print collection—volumes that would have been difficult to access from library facilities that are closed due to COVID-19.

Reading access to digitized copies of print volumes has been granted to the UI by HathiTrust, a not-for-profit, collaborative digital library that holds over 17 million volumes digitized from academic and research libraries. The UI Libraries, in collaboration with the Big Ten Academic Alliance, is a founding member of HathiTrust.

This means that any books available through HathiTrust that are also in the UI Libraries’ collections will be available online without the additional step of requesting a digital scan. HathiTrust’s online collection contains nearly half of the UI Libraries’ book collection for an additional 1.6 million volumes now available online for our campus community.

To take advantage of this resource:

Visit HathiTrust and click the yellow “LOG IN” button.
Select “University of Iowa” and log with your HawkID.
Use the site to locate the item you wish to view.
Click on the Temporary Access link at the bottom of the record to check out the item through the Emergency Temporary Access Service.
You will have 60 minutes of access to the book during any session. If you remain active in the book during any session, access time will be extended.
Please note that it is not possible to download books from HathiTrust. This is to protect authors’ rights.

HathiTrust has provided detailed instructions, including how to use the service on a phone or tablet.

For help with access to these and other digital resources at the UI Libraries, please contact us.

Mar 23 2020

Virtual Hours for UI Libraries

Posted on March 23, 2020March 31, 2020 by The University of Iowa Libraries

Click here to see our VIRTUAL HOURS during the time of COVID-19.

Nov 26 2019

Mahanna wins Library Research Award

Posted on November 26, 2019December 13, 2019 by The University of Iowa Libraries

Allexis Mahanna, a UI senior majoring in global health studies, won the inaugural Undergraduate Library Research Award (ULRA) offered by the University of Iowa Libraries. Mahanna was selected from a competitive pool of undergraduate researchers who applied for the award and presented their work at the University of Iowa’s Fall Undergraduate Research Festival held November 13, 2019.

Mahanna’s research focuses on the differences in migration policies between the autonomous community of Catalonia and the local municipality of Barcelona, Spain. She evaluated the local migration policies of Barcelona through a case study framework analyzing country-wide policies and community perceptions of migrants.

Her research integrated library resources—including databases such as Web of Science, SAGE research methods, and services in SEAM—with specialized instruction on coding methods from SEAM Graduate Student Megan Dial-Lapcewich. Mahanna also met with librarians Brett Cloyd and Cathy Cranston and sought poster design assistance from Nikki White in the Libraries’ Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio in preparation for presenting at the Fall Undergraduate Research Festival.

The Undergraduate Library Research Award was established this year by Jenay Solomon, librarian in the UI Libraries’ Undergraduate Engagement Department, who collaborated with Bob Kirby and Melinda Licht of the Iowa Center for Undergraduate Research (ICRU) to integrate the new award into the Fall Undergraduate Research Festival.

The award carries a $500 prize, which is funded by the Friends of the University of Iowa Libraries. The Libraries will offer the award again at the UI’s Spring Undergraduate Research Festival. The award is open to any undergraduate student in any year or discipline who demonstrates creative or innovative research skills in the selection, integration, and synthesis of resources, services, and materials from the UI Libraries.

Special thanks to UI librarians who served on the Fall 2019 ULRA review committee: Conrad Bendixen (from the Sciences Library and Main Library Liaison Services in Humanities and Social Sciences) and Kelly Hangauer (from Main Library Liaison Services in Humanities and Social Sciences), Heather Healy (from the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences), and Laurie Neuerburg (from the Sciences Library). Committee members helped create an assessment rubric for evaluating applicants and assisted in selecting this semester’s winner.

Nov 05 2019

Culshaw elected ARL vice president/president-elect

Posted on November 5, 2019November 12, 2019 by The University of Iowa Libraries

John Culshaw, the Jack B. King University Librarian at the University of Iowa, has been elected to serve as incoming vice president/president-elect for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Culshaw will become ARL president on October 7, 2020.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in Canada and the US whose mission is to advance research, learning, and scholarly communication. The Association fosters the open exchange of ideas and expertise, promotes equity and diversity, and pursues advocacy and public policy efforts that reflect the values of the library, scholarly, and higher education communities. ARL forges partnerships and catalyzes the collective efforts of research libraries to enable knowledge creation and to achieve enduring and barrier-free access to information.

“John’s leadership, both on campus and with national organizations, emphasizes collaborative efforts, empowering our librarians and scholars to work together to find and share research in ways that build pathways to new knowledge,” says Montserrat Fuentes, UI executive vice president and provost.

Culshaw has served as the university librarian at Iowa since 2013, leading the UI Libraries in providing information services, collections, and spaces to the university community and beyond. In addition to his campus duties, he has served in leadership roles with the HathiTrust Digital Library and Association of College and Research Libraries. Culshaw has played an active role with the Big Ten Academic Alliance Library Initiatives, which recently announced the BIG Collection, an effort to create collaborative processes for building a networked collective collection to benefit Big Ten scholars.

During his tenure at Iowa, Culshaw has overseen several new building projects including the Rita Benton Music Library, a climate controlled, high-density materials storage facility, and a state-of-the-art exhibition gallery. He established a scholarship program for library student employees which to date has awarded more than $53,000 to undergraduate and graduate students.

With his direction and support, UI Libraries staff garnered a grant to become the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Greater Midwest Regional Office; strengthened partnerships with the UI’s Center for the Book and the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature; merged the Studio, a collaborative incubator for digital scholarship and publishing, into Libraries operations; and brought important new research collections to Iowa including the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. In 2018, Culshaw was invested as the first Jack B. King University Librarian Chair.

Culshaw received a BA in history from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and holds an MS in information studies from Drexel University. He received UW-Parkside’s Traditions of Excellence Distinguished Alumni Award in 2015. Prior to Iowa, he held positions at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Oct 31 2019

FAQ — Ithaka S+R University of Iowa Faculty Survey on Library Planning

Posted on October 31, 2019November 14, 2019 by The University of Iowa Libraries

The Ithaka S+R University of Iowa Faculty Survey on Library services and space will help the Libraries evaluate faculty use of our facilities, resources and services.

All UI faculty are invited to participate in an important study designed to inform the University of Iowa Libraries’ strategic decision-making as it moves forward with plans to engage campus, provide resources and services, and renovate the Hardin and Main Libraries. The study, conducted by Ithaka S+R on behalf of the University Libraries, asks faculty about their perspectives on the Libraries’ resources, services, and spaces. The survey is completely anonymous, and the results will be reported only in the aggregate.

Faculty members will have received a link to the survey in an email from Ithaka S+R. During the week of November 18, 2019, faculty will receive another link to the survey in a second email.

Q: Why is the University of Iowa Libraries participating in this survey?

A: This survey is designed to inform the University of Iowa Libraries’ strategic decision-making as we move forward with plans to engage campus, provide resources and services, and renovate the Hardin and Main Libraries.

Q: What kinds of questions will be on the survey?

A: The survey will ask faculty their perspectives on a range of topics, including how you engage with and perceive the Libraries’ resources, services, and current spaces, as well as how we can best meet your current and future needs by altering the Libraries’ infrastructure. The survey is completely anonymous, and the results will only be reported in the aggregate.

Q: What will be the impact of the survey?

A: The survey will help shape the future of the University of Iowa Libraries’ resources, services, and spaces, including but not limited to the renovation of the Hardin and Main Libraries. Additionally, The University Libraries will donate $2 per completed survey to ComUnity Crisis Services and Food Bank. Your participation will help support community members in need.

Q: Who designed the survey?

A: Ithaka S+R designed the survey. Ithaka S+R is a research consulting service that helps academic, cultural, and publishing organizations consider how to shift their policies, services, and holdings to meet the needs of the digital future. Ithaka S+R is a part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes JSTOR and Portico. Their survey was reviewed by the University of Iowa’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) and given exempt status.

Q: Will a summary of the survey’s findings be shared publicly?

A: Yes.

Q: How long does the survey take to complete?

A: 15-30 minutes.

Q: Is the survey compatible with mobile devices?

A: Yes. The survey is responsive to device type. Our survey platform can detect respondents’ devices and automatically adjust the questionnaire and questions into an appropriate format.

Q: Can participants stop and later continue their survey from the same point?

A: Respondents will be able to save their responses and continue later by clicking on their individualized link, even if they close their browser, use a different browser, or use a different device.

Q: Can participants back up and change their responses?

A: No. Because the survey may branch based on participants’ responses, allowing respondents to back up and change their responses will confuse the survey software.

Q: Is the survey accessible to respondents using screen savers or other Accessibility technology, such as JAWS?

A: Yes. The survey questions we use in our platform have been tested for compliance with the accessibility standards contained in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and are compatible with screen readers and similar software.

Q: Who should I contact if I have additional questions?

A: Please contact Linda Walton, Associate University Librarian, at linda-walton@uiowa.edu.

Jun 04 2019

Eighteen faculty win UI Libraries OpenHawks grants

Posted on June 4, 2019July 1, 2019 by The University of Iowa Libraries

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.

May 31 2019

Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry moves to the University of Iowa Libraries

Posted on May 31, 2019December 16, 2019 by The University of Iowa Libraries

The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections is the new home of the renowned Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual 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. — *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.

Print by Albert Dupont — Engraving by Albert Dupont, from Isidore Isou’s *Concerto pour œil et oreille* (Paris: Atelier Dupont-Visat, 1984).

May 09 2019

University of Iowa Libraries becomes institutional member of Open Access publisher Cogitatio

Posted on May 9, 2019August 21, 2019 by Brett Cloyd

Today hefty paywalls prevent research published in most scholarly journals from being read online by audiences that many academics often most want to reach—policy makers and elected officials, industry leaders, non-profits, educators, the general public, and even faculty from smaller teaching colleges and community colleges. The University of Iowa Libraries has signed an institutional agreement with Cogitatio Press to support Open Access publishing by faculty, students and staff in their journals. According to SPARC, “Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.” Instead of paywalls, Open Access is often supported by article processing fees (APC), that are often the responsibilities of the authors (or their institutions). The agreement with Cogitatio means the APCs are paid for as part of a 3-year membership by the university. This means that the scholarly research produced by University of Iowa faculty and students can be viewed in full text online and shared widely.

Cogitatio’s peer reviewed journals include

In Political Science, Professor Caroline Tolbert and graduate students Scott LaCombe and Courtney Juelich each have had articles accepted for publication in a special issue of Politics and Governance dedicated to understanding state ballot measures (initiatives and referenda) after completing a rigorous peer-review process. Professor Tolbert is excited about the prospect of having coauthored work published in an Open Access journal that is rigorously peer-reviewed. “There are not yet many options for Open Access in Political Science, and this model of publication is one model for the future for scholarly writing. We need to expand our readers beyond just other academics and engage in conversations with policymakers and the general public. I also found Cogitation’s peer-review process very thorough. Politics and Governance is a high quality journal. Some scholars worry that Open Access is not as prestigious, but I encourage my colleagues to take a look.”

The Libraries’ Scholarly Publishing guides for “What Faculty Can Do” and “Open Access Models” provide additional information on Open Access at the University of Iowa.