University Libraries

After email, searching for information is the second most popular activity on the Internet. Search has become central means to discover products, services, information and entertainment on the Web.

Kaushal Kurapati, Director of Search Relevance & Quality at Ask.com will present “Search Engine Internals” in the Department of Computer Science Colloquim Series on Friday, March 9 at 4 p.m. in 140 Schaeffer Hall.

There are four major general purpose search engines on the Web today: Ask.com, Google, MSN and Yahoo. Kurapati will talk about how search engines work in general and discuss the challenges search engines face today. He will focus on various aspects of relevance in general and especially on one of the interesting and unique features at Ask.com, “related search.”

Reception, with refreshments, takes place 3:30-4:00 in Muhly Lounge right before the presentation.

Frank LaMere, a Winnebago activist, will discuss “The People, Empowerment, and Change” at 10 a.m. Friday, March 9 in the Shambaugh Auditorium in the Main Library on the University of Iowa campus. The lecture is sponsored by Opportunity of Iowa and Support Service Programs and is free and open to the public.

LaMere has had extensive involvement with empowerment efforts of Native People throughout the United States. In 2001, he was named Peacemaker of the Year by the Nebraskans for peace for his work to stop the illegal flow of alcohol on to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He has been active in state and national politics since 1987 and chaired the Native American Caucus at the 2000 and 2004 Democratic conventions. He is former vice chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and is currently a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee. Frank has also been extensively involved in the ongoing Community Initiative for Native Children and Families (CINCF) and he was instrumental in the passage and implementation of the Iowa Indian Children Welfare Act of 2003.

For more information or special accommodations to attend this lecture, contact Marisa Moore, Opportunity at Iowa, at 319-335-3555.

Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties Union, will present a keynote address “Defending the F-Word: Freedom!” of the Obscenity: An Interdisciplinary Discussion symposium on Saturday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Shambaugh Auditorium of the Main Library. A reception and exhibit opening, “Making No Compromise with the Public Taste,” will follow her remarks in the North Exhibition Hall.

Strossen has written, lectured, and practiced extensively in the areas of constitutional law, civil liberties, and international human rights. Since 1991, she has served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation’s largest and oldest civil liberties organization.

The National Law Journal has twice named Professor Strossen one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” In 1996, Working Woman Magazine listed her among the “350 Women Who Changed the World 1976–1996.” In 1997, Upside Magazine included her in the “Elite 100: 100 Executives Leading The Digital Revolution.” In 1998, Vanity Fair Magazine included Professor Strossen in “America’s 200 Most Influential Women.” In 1999, Ladies’ Home Journal included her in “America’s 100 Most Important Women.”

A new online collection from the University of Iowa Libraries features digitized photographs, clippings, newsletters, and other historical materials documenting the experience of African American women in Iowa during the 20th century.

The “African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection,” on the web at http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/aawiowa, is a collaborative project coordinated by the Digital Library Services department of the UI Libraries. Featuring digitized material from the Iowa Women’s Archives and the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa, the collection includes items dating between 1924 and 1970 that were formerly owned by Iowans ranging from sorority girls to civil rights activists.

A highlight from the collection is AAHMCCI’s scrapbook of Althea Beatrice Moore Smith, an African American student at the University of Iowa from 1924 to 1928. Filled with photographs of Smith and her friends posed on the Old Capitol steps and other familiar locations around campus, the scrapbook’s 50 pages also contain invitations, concert programs, and autographed messages from her wide acquaintance among the local African American community.

“This scrapbook is a wonderful snapshot of what it was like to be African American, female, and a student at the University of Iowa in the 1920s,” says Susan Kuecker, Curator of the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa, located in Cedar Rapids. “The Museum staff and board are so pleased that this scrapbook will be placed online so that anyone with internet access can view it and appreciate it for the treasure that it is.”

Other items include materials from the Iowa Women’s Archives, which began an initiative in the mid-1990s to acquire papers and oral histories from African American women around the state. Among the docments currently digitized from these collections is a 1929 pamphlet for the Iowa Federation Home, created to house female African American students at the University before dormitories were integrated, and the mid- to late-1960s newsletters of the Fort Madison branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“It’s exciting to see how the landscape of Iowa’s African American history has changed over the past decade. When we began preserving the documents and stories of African American women in 1995, very little historical material was available. Our work was a real act of discovery,” says Kären M. Mason, Curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives. “Since that time many groups have joined the effort to preserve and record this history. Now African American history in Iowa is not only available but visible in the African American museum, in a major published history: Outside In, and in these digital collections.”

The “African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection” is the latest in a series of projects coordinated by Digital Library Services for inclusion in the UI Libraries’ Iowa Digital Library web site, as well as the statewide Iowa Heritage Digital Collections consortium.

“This project demonstrates how technology can be used to preserve Iowa history and make it accessible to anyone in the state, from schoolchildren to scholars,” says Paul Soderdahl, Director of Library Information Technology and interim coordinator for Digital Library Services. “Through this collaborative effort, we can leverage the University Libraries’ technical infrastructure and digital library expertise to expose the diverse and precious collections of the Archives and the Museum”

To view more digital collections created from the UI Libraries’ archives, visit the Iowa Digital Library web site at http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu.

UI Libraries Conservator Gary Frost was recently quoted in Forbes.com. Jonathan Enfield, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, wrote “Stop Worrying About Copyrights” for the December 1, 2006 Special Report: Books.

“To the fear mongerers among the literati, the Internet is a threat to the paperbound book. It’s an electronic playground where copyrighted material can be exchanged among anonymous readers, destroying the profit-motive for writing and publishing. File-sharing has already eaten into music and film industry sales they figure, and publishing is as likely a victim.” more…

The latest edition of The University of Iowa Faculty & Staff newsletter fyi contains a photo feature on historic children’s books held in Special Collections. Click on the link to see some nice photographs of these materials, which are always available to view in person in the Special Collections reading room, and they can also be made available for presentations to classes.

Kathy Skhal, Clinical Education Librarian at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences will be co-presenting a poster with Helen Damon-Moore, Ph.D. and Dee Dee Stafford, M.D., Ph.D. at the Medical Education Celebration Day on Thursday, November 30. The poster session is scheduled from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the MERF Atrium.

The poster describes a major pilot project that Kathy took the lead on for the Foundations of Clinical Practice IV (FCP IV) course, linking information concepts in the FCP IV curriculum to lecture notes and course materials presented in the FCP I, II and III class series.

A $225,000 gift from the estate of Clarice E. Krieg, who worked at the University of Iowa Libraries as a cataloguer in the 1920s and 1930s, will assist the UI Libraries in purchasing books and reference materials far into the future.

A 1932 graduate of the UI, Krieg died in 2004, having lived most recently in Eugene, Ore. Before designating that a portion of her estate be used to create the Clarice Krieg Libraries Fund, Krieg had been a longtime supporter of UI Libraries; her gifts included monetary contributions and her collection of Christmas-related greeting cards, which she donated to UI Libraries’ Special Collections. Those cards formed the heart of an exhibition at the UI Main Library in December 2000.

“We have been very touched by Clarice Krieg’s generosity to the University of Iowa Libraries over the years,” says Nancy L. Baker, University Librarian. “As a fellow academic librarian, she spent her career providing access to information. With this bequest, the UI Libraries will honor her legacy by continuing to meet the information needs of our students, faculty and staff.”

The University of Iowa Libraries is the largest library system in the state of Iowa and among the top 25 of the nation’s research libraries. The University’s Main Library, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, 10 branch libraries, and the Law Library contain more than 4 million volumes.

The UI Foundation is acknowledged by the UI as a preferred channel for private contributions that benefit all areas of the university. For more information, visit the Foundation’s web site at www.uiowafoundation.org.