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library .edu
the newsletter of the Swarthmore College Libraries
Fall 2012 Vol.15, no. 1
Library ebooks: Licensing and ownership by Lucy E. Saxon
American libraries are currently facing an important challenge: to implement a system of lending ebooks that is simple for readers in the short term, in which libraries maintain enough control over their collections to serve our readers and institutions well in the long term. Many electronic library materials (including many ebooks) are licensed rather than bought, and when libraries do not own content, they often have less control over the content that they provide. Even in cases where libraries own electronic books outright, they may have fewer rights to use the materials than they would to printed works. While electronic content can theoretically be easily replicated, in practice and law, licenses and contracts can be restrictive compared to the rights afforded to the rights of print book and journal owners, especially libraries, under copyright law. What is fair use? Fair use doctrine is the provision of copyright law that allows us to reproduce copyrighted material for the purposes of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.” However, such use must be balanced against four factors, enumerated by the U.S. Copyright Office: 1. purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes 2. The nature of the copyrighted work 3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole 4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work. (U.S. Copyright Office, 2012)
This is the legal basis that allows for copying and printing from library books, including ebooks. Because digital reproduction is so easy and flawless, ebook providers have taken it upon themselves to limit reproduction and printing of their products. This limitation is accomplished by dint of Digital Rights Management (DRM), software that limits how users
can access content, and backed up legally by a contract. More on that below. What is First Sale Doctrine? First Sale Doctrine is the legal basis for libraries to lend books despite not owning copyrights to them.
The first sale doctrine is a principal tenet on which many library operations are based. It “holds that a copyright owner’s exclusive right to distribute extends only to the first sale of a copy.” Once a copy of a work is sold, the new owner of that physical copy is allowed to dispose of that one copy as he or she wishes. He or she can sell it to a used book store or give it away to a friend. If the new owner is a library, it can loan it to as many patrons as it wishes, as often and for as long as it likes. (Ou, 2003)
Unfortunately, there is currently no broadly accepted understanding of First Sale Doctrine as applied to digital materials, continued on page 3
How to use our scholarly ebook collections by Lucy E. Saxon
Library ebooks: Licensing and ownership continued from page 1
The college libraries offer hundreds of thousands of ebooks. You can find them with a simple Tripod search, just like any other book. Most of our ebooks are through the EBL collection or the ebrary collection. EBL and ebrary books can be read online, where you can print, copy, or annotate portions of them. EBL and Ebrary books can also be read on many portable devices like androids, iPads/Pods/Phones, Nooks, and Sony Readers. Portions of ebrary books can also be read on Kindles; EBL books are not compatible with Kindle.
To download such ebooks to your device, you will need to download the program Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) (free on your PC or Mac). ADE will prompt you to create an Adobe ID that allows you to download a book on up to six devices. On Apple or Android devices, you will need to download the free app Bluefire Reader. You can download the book straight from ebrary or EBL into Bluefire. For Nooks and Sonys, you will transfer the book via USB. At the end of the loan period, the book will self-destruct, but you can check it out again.
EBL vs. Ebrary: Quick Comparison Chart Device/Feature
EBL
Ebrary
Access
Always via EZ-Proxy
Requires EZ-Proxy from Off-Campus ONLY.
Tips
To “interact” with the text, i.e. Copy or Print, you will need to create a loan in the “Online Reader,” not download the book to ADE or a Device.
InfoTools has a lot of useful features in it. Trying to copy or print? Use InfoTools. To download, create a personal account and sign in.
20% of doc. Every six weeks from Online Reader.
Usually up to 60 pgs. per printable PDF. (Can be mysteriously limited by publisher.)
Kindle
No
Email attachment to Kindle (60 page pdf increments)
Adobe Reader for PC/MAC
Select 1, 7, or 14 days
14 days
Adobe Reader/Bluefire for iPad, iPod, iPhone
Select 1, 7, or 14 days
14 days
Sony or Nook
Select 1, 7, or 14 days
14 days
which means that until such law is hammered out, the right of libraries to lend books is at risk of erosion.
Let’s compare the rights of libraries to lend and use different formats of materials that they may provide: How can a library legally use a printed book that it owns? For at least ninety-five years, the first sale doctrine in U.S. copyright law has allowed those who buy copies of a copyrighted work to resell, rent, or lend those copies. And the first sale doctrine has been a major bulwark in providing public access by facilitating the existence of used book and record stores, video rental stores, and perhaps most significantly, public libraries. (Reese, 2003)
Cornell Library of Science and Engineering celebrates its 30th birthday this year. A gift of Julien Cornell ‘30 and Virginia Stratton Cornell ‘30, the library was built in 1982 (shown above) to merge libraries housed in several science buildings. It later became incorporated in the Science Center.
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@library.edu Editors: Pam Harris, Terry Heinrichs, Annette Newman Thank you to all who contributed to this issue. libnews@swarthmore.edu Swarthmore College Library, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081
How can a library legally use an ebook that it licenses? Under some circumstances, fair use rights can be overridden by contractual restrictions. Thus, these principles [of fair use] may not apply if a library has agreed, in a license agreement, donor agreement, or other contract, to forgo the exercise of fair use with respect to some set of collection materials. If fair use rights are to be preserved, library personnel in charge of acquisitions and procurement should be vigilant as they negotiate and enter into contracts related to collections materials. (Association of Research Libraries et al, 2012, pg. 6)
Of course our leadership is careful to balance our desire to provide access to the best, most convenient digital resources with our commitment to providing patrons the broadest access to those materials. We try not to enter into contracts that grossly limit our rights to our materials. The opportunities available to us are influenced by the mores of the digital environment. First Sale Doctrine is currently before the Supreme Court in Kirtsaeng vs. Wiley. We will continue to follow developments in copyright law and scholarly communications. Bibliography Association of Research Libraries. (2012). Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/codefairuse/ index. shtml
Tripod improvements continue A tri-college team continues to improve the new Tripod by adding features, enhancements, and addressing issues. Many changes have been made, including: adding the ability to do Journal Title searching in the Books & More tab (using the drop-down menu); adding the ability to email and cite records from the article channel; enhancing the system speed; enabling autocomplete for Books & More searches; adding the option to sort on author pages. The team is working on the relevancy ranking adjustments, adding Did you mean?/spelling suggestions in the Articles tab, and dealing with other issues. Please contact the library to report bugs or request enhancements.
Hinkes makes clear that, even in the case where libraries purchase copies of ebooks, sustained access to the copyrighted material depends on being permitted to have or create back ups. The rights of the library to its books are contingent on the particulars of the arrangement.
How can a library legally use an ebook that it owns? It is difficult to make any broad statement about the rights of libraries to use ebooks that they buy, because the rights of libraries to buy ebooks typically depend on the contracts between libraries and their vendors. Such contracts are typically confidential, so rather than discuss our contracts, I refer you to Hinkes, who writes of the general case, In the case of tethered copies, if users are able to purchase works to download to their hard drive that are no encumbered by DRM restrictions, they can access those files even if and after the copyright owner takes them offline. In the case of technologically tethered copies, the owner can use that copy as long as he/she owns the original tethered equipment. These encumbrances prevent selling, renting, or even lending a tethered copy, all of which are permissible under a traditional first sale doctrine. (Hinkes, 2006)
Hinkes, E. M. (2006). Access Controls in the digital era and the fair use/first sale doctrines. Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. LJ, 23, 685. Ou, C. (2003). Technology and copyright issues in the academic library: First sale, fair use and the electronic document. Portal-Libraries and the Academy, 3(1), 89–98. Reese, R. (2003). The first sale doctrine in the era of digital networks. U of Texas Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 57; and U of Texas Law, Law and Econ Research Paper No. 004. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=463620 U.S. Copyright Office. (2012). U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
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New resources in the Swarthmore College Libraries by Amy McColl
American Periodicals Series (Proquest)
Includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine and America’s first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies’ Home Journal; important Quaker journals such as The Friend, Friends Review and the Friends Weekly Intelligencer/Friends Intelligencer; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure’s.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (Gale)
Offers full-text access to English-language titles and editions published between 1801 and 1900. Subjects covered include history, geography, fine arts, medicine, science, literature, language, religion, philosophy, diplomacy, theater, politics and law. There are currently four collections available: British Politics and Society; European Literature 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection; Asia and the West : Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; and British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture.
Times of London Digital Archive (Gale)
Provides full-text and full-image articles from the Times of London for the years 1785-2006. Previously Swarthmore only had coverage through 1984; we purchased the additional content from 1985-2005.
JSTOR Arts and Sciences X and XI
We have added two new collections to our extensive JSTOR holdings. JSTOR A&S X focuses on sociology, education, public policy & administration, and the history of science, technology, and medicine. A&S XI will expand coverage in the humanities, with emphasis on language and literature, history, art and architecture, classical studies, and music. Other subjects covered will include bibliography and library science, religion, philosophy, archaeology, performing arts and film studies, as well as American studies, Asian studies, Jewish studies, and African American studies.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1941-1974 (Readex)
FBIS Daily Reports issued by the U.S. Government. Includes translations of broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the world. The United States’ principal record of political and historical open source intelligence.
Vogue Archive (Proquest)
A completely searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month. Every article, cover, photo shoot, illustration and advertisement has been digitized to the highest standard, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by designer and brand names.
Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress & Fashion (Oxford)
Also in the area of fashion, Swarthmore subscribed to this resource from Oxford. Provides integrated text and image content on world dress and fashion throughout history. Offers fully cross-searchable access to an expanding range of Berg content collections, includ4
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ing the Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, ebooks, ejournals, museum directory, reference works, images, and more.
Statista
Provides access to selected statistics and studies of over 600 industries gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and government sources from 2007 to the present.
Si ku quan shu (Eastview) Provides full-text access to the most comprehensive collection of Chinese literature from antiquity through the 18th century. Includes 3,460 works, and more than 36,000 volumes. Covers a wide range of subjects including the classics, history, literature, philosophy, geography, politics, governmental rules and regulations, economics, society, astronomy, science, technology, medicine, and more. Please note that this resource can only be used with a PC (no Macs), and the client must be downloaded onto your machine using Internet Explorer.
Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education (Sage)
The major aim of this encyclopedia is to describe the most important concepts, theories, research, policies, case studies, and programs at the pre-school through the postsecondary levels and their implications for educational reform.
Backfiles for selected ScienceDirect journals Cell (back to 1974) Animal Behaviour (back to 1958) Journal of Development Economics (back to 1974) Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (back to 1965) World Development (back to 1973)
Oxford Bibliographies Online, Islamic Studies
This collection will join our other OBO subscriptions in Political Science, Classics, and Latin American Studies. Islamic Studies will provide expert guidance to the field in all its diversity and throughout its developmental stages. Top scholars in the field have contributed on their areas of expertise, so that users will understand how the field is organized and why it developed in the way it did.
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960-1974 (Alexander Street)
Provides a searchable collection that brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. With 150,000 pages of material at completion, this searchable collection is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history, culture, and politics.
OverDrive
An addition to our recreational titles, Overdrive will add popular downloadable ebooks and streaming audiobooks to our collections. OverDrive currently hosts more than 650,000 premium digital titles from more than 1,000 publishers, including Random House, HarperCollins, BBC Audiobooks America, Harlequin, and Bloomsbury. Selected individual records to titles will be searchable in Tripod.
The Book Arts Collection at McCabe Library by Anne Garrison
Swarthmore College is home to a vibrant and continually growing collection of modern and contemporary artists’ books. The Book Arts and Private Press Collection is committed to the acquisition of fine printing and artist books, and strives to represent all aspects of the physical book including bookbinding, typography, letterpress and offset printing, hand papermaking, illustration, and book design. Housed in the Rare Book Room in McCabe Library, this collection currently contains examples from nearly 1,000 different presses, from historically significant presses like Kelmscott Press, Doves Press, the Roycrofters, Nonesuch Press, and Golden Cockerel Press, to the works of important contemporary book artists such as Julie Chen, Charles Hobson, Maureen Cummins, Xu Bing, and Donald Glaister. Begun in 1937 under the auspices of Charles Shaw, college librarian from 1927-1962, this collection originally encompassed examples of small private press books selected to demonstrate excellence in typography. Shaw, whose curatorial fingerprints are all over the collection, had a clear fondness for the fine press movement of the late-19th century and presses influenced by the Arts and Crafts tradition. As with many fine press collections in universities and colleges, the emphasis began to shift in the 1980’s from fine press to artists’ books. The collection grew substantially under Michael Durkin, college librarian, and subsequently, the excellent care of Amy Morrison, associate college librarian. In 2004, I took over curatorial duties. The collection itself serves many purposes for the campus and the community. Because the collection contains material dating back to 1540, it provides students and visitors with a hands-on history of printing and the book in an intimate, concrete way. Artists can use the collection to find solutions to current technical problems. Professors can use the collection to illustrate concepts relevant to their curriculum, whether it is politics, gender issues, autobiography, history, or art. We regularly meet with book arts classes from Swarthmore, University of Pennsylvania, University of the Arts, and Rosemont College. But we also sometimes have the opportunity to tailor presentations for classes outside of traditional book arts courses. Students in a recent art history course on the visual culture of Japan had the chance to examine over a dozen artists’ books inspired by Japanese culture, including My Hands of Japan by Miriam Schaer, and Jack and Betty Forever by Veronika Shapers. Another basic goal of the Book Arts Collection is to provide students with a broad range of choices for the definition of the book. Artists’ books continually challenge the definition of “book” and are sometimes delightfully difficult to describe. They can creatively and beautifully represent the book in its most comprehensive sense, incorporating structure, surface, image, and text. A book arts collection at its best can provide innumerable examples of what a book can be. In tandem with a focus on the history of the book is an emphasis on collecting works that reflect the ethos of Swarthmore’s culture. Swarthmore College has a very strong tradition of encouraging social justice and political activism, so we try to buy books that reflect those issues. One recent purchase we’re excited about is called 5 Year Plan, a beautiful silkscreen-printed onto hand-loomed khadi cloth book that examines the significance of the jhola bags in the Independence Movement in India. Thirty-two artists contributed artwork, poetry, personal narratives, and activist perspectives about the relevance of independence movements in the global situation. All profits from sales of 5 Year Plan are donated to Doctors Without Borders. The library regularly exhibits material from the collection. Recent exhibits included 10 books honoring the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and 26 books celebrating the diversity of alphabet books. Next year we’ll be curating an exhibit on the Occupy Movement using the recently purchased Occuprint portfolio of silkscreen prints documenting the protests at Wall Street. The collection, with over 6,000 items, is catalogued and available in Tripod, the library catalog. Anyone interested in seeing a specific work or in having a selection created on a particular topic, binding style, or technique is welcome to contact the library at librarian@swarthmore.edu. Functioning as a kind of intimate hands-on laboratory for the book arts, the collection is an educational and inspirational tool that directly supports the arts, visual culture interests, and curricular interests. (This article is adapted from an article which will appear in an upcoming issue of Central Booking Magazine: A Guide to the World of Book Arts, for Readers with Conviction.) @library. edu Fall 2012
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Is being friendly and courteous enough? by Peggy Seiden and Lucy Saxon
This past spring, the Swarthmore College Libraries ran the LibQUAL+ survey for a second time. The survey was developed by the Association of Research Libraries and has been used by more than 1,000 institutions world-wide. It asks respondents to rate on a nine point scale their minimal, desired, and perceived level of library service on three dimensions – affect of service, information control, and library as place. There are also questions about use of the physical library and other sources of information, information literacy outcomes, and general satisfaction with the library. We used the “lite” protocol under which any one respondent is only asked 8 questions, rather than answering all 22 core questions in the standard version. According to the LibQUAL+ web site, “the Lite protocol uses item sampling methods to (a) gather data on all 22 LibQUAL+ core items, while (b) only requiring given individual users to respond to a subset of the 22 core questions.” All users answer three core questions and the remaining questions are answered only by a randomly selected subset of respondents. Using this protocol, we had a far greater response rate than in 2005 when only 117 students and 69 faculty completed surveys. This year, 650 students and 104 faculty responded. About one-third of the respondents also provided comments. The radargraph allows one to quickly assess the biggest areas of greatest and least satisfaction. In almost all cases, the perceived service quality is higher than the minimal expectation, but in two of the dimensions, information control and library as place, perceived service quality falls quite short of the desired level. The remainder of this article will posit a number of hypotheses as to why perception of service varies across these different dimensions. As in 2005, respondents rated the library most highly on affect of service. In fact, among faculty, on five out of nine questions (employees who instill confidence in users; who are consistently courteous; who deal with users in a caring fashion; readiness to respond to users’ questions; and dependability in handling users’ service problems) the perceived mean was higher than the desired mean. Students also rated affect of service most highly, though they rated dependability in handling users’ service problems much lower than faculty (6.68 versus 8.06) and lower than any other question on this service dimension. It is likely that faculty and students define these service problems differently. Students are most likely to encounter problems when using equipment, particularly printers, whereas faculty are more likely to encounter problems around access to materials. One student wrote: The printing services are incredibly frustrating; though I am a huge supporter of the new print release stations, the erratic nature of the printing process (text huge on one page, missing pages, etc.) is really just horrible. It takes almost 45 minutes on average for me to print out my materials for class. Another student said simply, “The printers are consistently a huge cause of troubles for me and a lot of my peers.” Both faculty and students were less satisfied than in our last iteration of the survey regarding access and availability of resources (information control). Our average perceived level of service was well under the mean desired service level for the following criteria: IC1 Making electronic resources accessible from my home or office. IC2 A library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own. IC4 The electronic information resources I need (a problem primarily for faculty). IC8 Print and/or electronic journal collections I require for my work. The library fell below the minimal mean for faculty on “making electronic resources available from my home or office.” The ability to find information via the library web site and accessibility of online journals were also problematic. One faculty member described her work-around for getting electronic articles: “I have an affiliation with Penn so I end up using their library system for most electronic journals (the primary sources that I use in my research) since they have even better access than we do.” This was not an uncommon strategy, another professor wrote: “I think that the Swarthmore libraries do an amazing job of delivering excellent service given their limited resources. However, I -- and I suspect a good number of my colleagues -- must regularly access databases crucial to my research through the library accounts of friends because Swarthmore’s library cannot provide me with access to these often relatively expensive subscription databases. This is a bad situation.” From other comments, we can deduce that part of the issue with satisfaction with ejournals may be based upon the lack of availability of online journal issues, particularly in the sciences, prior to the mid-1990s. It is only in the last few years that the major STM publishers have made their archival collections available digitally, and though we recognize our users’ preference for digital over print for journal article access, because of the cost, we have proceeded slowly in acquiring these materials, particularly where we already own them in print. Interestingly, a 2010 study from Columbia and the University of Virginia, found that users are never satisfied with the availability of journals - whether print or online. We were also interested in whether the survey would elicit feedback on the new Tripod. While there were no specific questions on the catalog, there were three questions related to tools to help users locate information independently. Furthermore, both students and faculty commented on the new Tripod. Faculty raised concerns related to the relevancy ranking and the difficulty locating journal titles. Students liked the ability to search books and journals simultaneously, but their positive/negative comments were split about 50-50. A student who was familiar with the former Tripod interface, now called Tripod Classic, wrote: “I prefer old Tripod. I think it allowed for more nuanced searches. I understand and see the benefits of new Tripod, I just wish that 6
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ID Question Text Key Affect of Service AS-1 Employees who instill confidence in users AS-2 Giving users individual attention AS-3 Employees who are consistently courteous AS-4 Readiness to respond to users’ questions AS-5 Employees who have the knowledge to answer user questions AS-6 Employees who deal with users in a caring fashion AS-7 Employees who understand the needs of their users AS-8 Willingness to help users AS-9 Dependability in handling users’ service problems Information Control IC-1 Making electronic resources accessible from my home or office IC-2 A library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own IC-3 The printed library materials I need for my work IC-4 The electronic information resources I need IC-5 Modern equipment that lets me easily access needed information IC-6 Easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things on my own IC-7 Making information easily accessible for independent use IC-8 Print and/or electronic journal collections I require for my work Library as Place LP-1 Library space that inspires study and learning LP-2 Quiet space for individual activities LP-3 A comfortable and inviting location LP-4 A getaway for study, learning, or research LP-5 Community space for group learning and group study
it had kept the same search options.” Another student countered, “I really like how Tripod is a central portal where materials and resources from a combination of different sources can be found at the same time.” LibQUAL+ also measures satisfaction with the web presence of the Libraries. The study asks students and faculty, “how often do you access library resources through a library webpage?” While the use of the physical library to access resources fell, so did the use of the library’s web page, by about 20% for both students and faculty. Still our data on major subscribed resources (JSTOR, Proquest, Web of Science) show an overall rise in searches of major resources, though the data is mixed. It is likely that both groups are connecting to subscribed resources through Google or Google Scholar. Self-reported use of non-library internet gateways to information was up. We also know anecdotally, that faculty patterns of information-seeking often rely on navigating to known sources (journal sites, preprint archives, or colleagues’ web pages) to keep up in their disciplines. But given the concerns suggested by the data regarding the ease of finding needed resources independently, it may be that some portion of our population are avoiding using Tripod or the library’s website and finding other ways to get to needed resources. While the message about access to resources may be mixed, it was much less so regarding library as place. In 2012, as in 2005, this area received the lowest overall scores. In particular, students do not find the library to be inspirational, nor comfortable and inviting. Many respondents volunteered comments about their dissatisfaction with the design and sufficiency of the libraries (particularly McCabe) as a study space. A student wrote: “I think the library needs more space for people to study together. In addition, McCabe is so dark and depressing that it makes it hard for me to want to study in my own college library. The windows are so small and the brick is so heavy and dark. How about some sky light or wide open windows?” A faculty member offered the following perspective: “The library’s biggest drawback right now is its physical space. I love working in academic libraries -- except McCabe. McCabe has very few spaces with tables big enough to spread work out on, or enough natural light to keep one attentive in a quiet space. Its interior spaces don’t inspire or comfort. It doesn’t have the accoutrements of contemporary libraries that make them inviting -- such as coffee! Honestly, on weekends, there is no coffee to be found *on campus*, never mind in the library.” In fact, complaints about the study space, design, and lighting of McCabe were very frequent among our responses. There were 48 comments on study spaces, and none of them jumps out as completely positive. There were a further 40 comments that addressed general design of the libraries, most of which were also constructively critical. Many students asked for more tables, more individual study rooms, more numerous and more pleasant group study rooms, better lighting, better heating, and more windows. Musty smells in certain areas also made students suspect that the building is not watertight. The LibQUAL+ study also asks respondents to self-report visits to the library and usage of the collection. Our average usage numbers have fallen since the survey was last administered seven years ago. In 2005 the average student respondent visited the library and used resources there on 42 days per quarter. In 2012 the average student respondent visited and used library resources on 35 days per quarter. The number of faculty visits also fell during the same period from 42 to 35 days per quarter. The number of days per quarter on which the average undergraduate used resources via a library web page also fell. In 2005, that number was 27. In 2012 the average was 22. Faculty website use was at 54 days per quarter in 2005, and 44 days per quarter in 2012. There are many factors that could have contributed to this continued on page 10 fall in average days of usage. @library. edu Fall 2012
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College Librarian Peggy Seiden was elected to a second term as PALCI (Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc.) Board president and a second term as chair of ALA/APA’s (American Library Association/ Allied Professional Association) Library Support Staff Certification Review Committee. She was also appointed to the Editorial Board of Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, a major provider of reviews of academic books, electronic media, and internet resources. Seiden co-authored, with Eleanor Mitchell and Suzy Taraba, Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives, published this year by the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Christopher Densmore, curator of Friends Historical Library, appeared in the spring on PBS’s Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in an episode that examined the ancestry of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. An ancestor of Sedgwick owned a slave at the same time that Bacon’s ancestor, a devout Quaker, struggled with the morality of slavery. Although Quakers did own slaves in New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, they were unhappy with some of the aspects of slavery by the 1680s, Densmore explained. “But it really takes them to the 1750s before they come up with a clear position that it’s not just treatment of slaves, it’s not just the African slave trade; it’s a system that we can’t make better. We can’t make humane. It’s fundamentally wrong.” Quaker debates resulted in their eventual decision to call for the abolition of slavery.
Edward Fuller, 1944-2012 Edward Fuller, longtime reference and special collections librarian at McCabe Library, died on April 13 at Taylor Hospital at the age of 68. He had undergone surgery for brain cancer in August 2011. Born and raised in Chester, Ed attended Widener University (at that time Pennsylvania Military College) on a full scholarship, graduating in 1966 with a major in English and a minor in French. After doing graduate work in English and English education at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, Ed decided that teaching was not the goal for him, and in 1975 found employment in McCabe Library. A series of swift promotions inspired him to attend Drexel University, where he was a member of Beta Phi Mu Library Science Honor Society, graduating with a Masters in Library Science in 1980. While working in special collections at Swarthmore, Ed was instrumental in establishing the college’s video collection as support material for coursework. He also served as general reference librarian, a position he particularly loved for the daily contact it gave him with the engaged and diverse student body, as well as the general public, and for the opportunity to apply his often scathing wit. Along with his wife, Gail, whom he met in 1982, Ed spent as much time as possible traveling in France, and they had come to think of Paris as their second home. An accomplished calligrapher, Ed had a serious side that encompassed a deep love of classical music (particularly the works of Bela Bartok and the French impressionists), poetry, and the works of William Shakespeare. One of his many eccentricities was the constant companionship of Immortal Poems of the English Language, a paperback anthology edited by Oscar Williams. He literally never left home without it, and once mailed a copy back to an acquaintance in Paris who had admired it. Ed is survived by his wife Gail, mother Bernice Neiberg Fuller, and brother Arthur Fuller, of Hartford, Connecticut. Gifts may be made in Ed’s name to the Associates of the Swarthmore College Library.
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staff notes Anna Goslen and Melinda Kleppinger, of McCabe’s technical services department, attended the conference “Digital Directions 2012” in June. Sponsored by the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Boston, the conference focused on digital collections created by libraries (public, private, academic), special archives, or historical societies. The overall theme covered creation, curation, and use of digital collections. About 185 people from the United States and Canada attended. Sarah Hartman-Caverly has left her position as serials and electronic resources specialist to become the electronic resources librarian at Delaware County Community College. She worked at Swarthmore for two years after serving in a similar position at Bryn Mawr College. Anna Headley is now the tri-college library application programmer, after serving as in intern in that position. Working with Chelsea Lobdell, she is developing new tools, upgrading and maintaining current applications, and helping to maintain the tri-college server environment. Mary Marissen, technical services specialist in McCabe Library, received the MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science) with a concentration in academic libraries from Drexel University in June. She also received a stipend award for a future academic librarian from the Delaware Valley Chapter of the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries). Zara Wilkinson has accepted a position as reference librarian at Rutgers University, Camden, and left her position as access and lending weekend supervisor in McCabe Library.
Events this summer at the library included a craft workshop repurposing discarded books and a pizza lunch for student researchers.
Sarah Elichko is the new social sciences librarian, replacing Melanie Maksin who accepted a position at Yale University. She graduated from Bryn Mawr with a major in political science and received the Masters in Library and Information Science from Rutgers University. For the past two years, she has worked at Basset Medical Center in Cooperstown, NY, as a librarian and educational technology consultant.
Student granted stipend for summer research By Peggy Seiden
Declan White ’13, a history major, received an award from the Library for research on the evolution of race construction in the Irish and black communities in antebellum Westchester County. Using the Westchester County Archives and 19th century newspapers in the New York State Library, he hoped to uncover “voices and connections” in the rural county that provide a different narrative than that which evolved in urban population centers. The Library sponsored the award that is designated for summer undergraduate research in the humanities or social sciences. It included a stipend intended to help the student with expenses associated with archival or library-based research. @library. edu Fall 2012
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Newton book collecting competition announces winners by Lucy E. Saxon
Former interns pursue careers in librarianship by Meg Spencer
Tossing off old stereotypes of librarianship, Swatties are embracing a dynamic career choice. Recent grads and Swarthmore College Library Intern alums shine in their latest accomplishments: Corey Baker ’07 spent the summer as an intern at the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation Archives in Brooklyn. The librarian at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, he also teaches in the affective education program and provides support for Milton’s dance program. Jenn Thompson ’08 is finishing up her two-year appointment as Research Services and Collection Development Librarian at Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and will become the Black Studies Librarian at University of California Santa Barbara. Vivienne Layne ’11 will be going to McGill University’s School of Information Studies in Montreal this fall to pursue the Masters of Library and Information Studies (MLIS). She has also been awarded an American Library Association’s Spectrum Scholarship, whose mission is to address the underrepresentation of librarians of color within the current workforce. Spring 2012 marked the eighth year of the Library Intern Program, originally funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Seven students participated, and were introduced to various aspects of librarianship including collection development and cataloging, overviews of library schools and library jobs, a day in the life of a library director (Peggy Seiden), and much more. Interns were given behind-thescenes tours of the Rare Book Room at the Free Library of Philadelphia and of archived scientific curiosities at the Wagner Free Institute of Science. One intern summed up the experience: “I have learned about how diverse the field of librarianship is and the sheer amount of work that is involved in managing information. I honestly used to view librarianship as a somewhat lonesome job that solely involved handling books and mostly academic information. However, I have discovered that librarianship is much more interdisciplinary and involves working with and handling a variety of information.” Interested in participating? A call for applications for the spring 2013 Library Intern Program will go out in November. Contact Pam Harris (pharris1) or Meg Spencer (mspence1) for more information. 10
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Corey Baker ‘07 at the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation
LibQUAL+ survey continued from page 7
The most obvious possibility is that users are visiting the library less, because they can find scholarly resources online either through the library’s website or through general-purpose search engines. As one faculty member wrote: “I almost never go into the library anymore, except to troubleshoot occasionally with a librarian or find a student I need to talk to… Thanks to the excellent electronic journal availability, I happily access almost everything I need from my laptop, wherever I am. This is brilliant!! Thank you!!” We were also able to compare our average visits with the average from a peer institution, Williams College, for 2012. Of Swarthmore faculty, 45% visited the library daily or weekly. Of Williams faculty, 62% visited daily or weekly. For students, the numbers were close or equal, with 81% of Williams students and 79% of Swarthmore students visiting the library at least weekly. Clearly, it is not enough that we are consistently courteous and deal with users in a caring fashion. We advance the College’s mission by providing information resources for teaching, learning, and research, and by supporting the discovery, evaluation, and use of these resources. If we are seen to lack in these critical dimensions, we are not meeting our central goals. Our ongoing analysis of responses to the LibQual survey helps us to understand which functions we are performing well, and where we need to direct our attention to improving our services. We are perpetually rebuilding and fine-tuning our systems, and working to tailor our collection to the needs of our scholarly community. As we address the feedback and suggestions from the survey, we will continue to support your scholarly information needs with our signature care and courtesy. We will post additional analysis of the survey data on the library news site. Special thanks to Doug Willen and Robin Shores for their help in data analysis.
The theme of this newsletter is ebooks, which certainly have a place in intellectual life. Deep down though, a lot of bibliophiles still love printed books. Because we love them, we collect them. The wonderful thing that distinguishes my book collection from my collections of Russian nesting dolls or rocks is how much books mean. A single book is an organized collection of ideas, and a curated collection of books shows a facet of the reader’s identity. We do not merely collect books, but rather, they shape who we are. Every year, the Swarthmore College Libraries honor the endeavor of collecting books with the annual Newton competition. The A. Edward Newton Student Book Collection Competition is the longest-running collegiate book collecting competition in the nation. Started in the 1930s by a renowned Philadelphia book collector, A. Edward Newton, the competition awards cash prizes of up to $600. Each year, students submit essays with annotated bibliographies of their thematic book collections containing at least 25 titles. The collectors’ names are removed from the submissions, which are read by a committee of librarians and faculty. Of the many excellent entries this year, these four were selected as winners: A familiar face in the Newton competition, bibliophile extraordinaire, Ben Goossen is the first prize winner. His voluminous and carefully structured collection of Mennonite history, “Family and Faith through Four Centuries,” draws on his family background, and includes a hymnal that crossed the Atlantic to America from Prussia with his great grandfather. Joan Huang won the second prize this year for her col-
lection, “Creator-Owned Comics: A Labor of Love and Creative Madness.” Joan has sojourned to many ComicCons, meeting artists and writers, collecting their work straight from the source. Joan has even compiled their original drawings and texts together in a one-of-a-kind book of her personal favorites. Third prize went to Madeleine Booth’s “Past and co.,” a collection of books that “tweak tense.” A sensitive close reader, and self-described “chronophile,” Madeleine has curated a collection of largely canonical works, and documented how time lends irony, pathos, and contextual meaning to descriptions of simple events. Honorable mention was awarded to Miyuki Baker, for her collection “Legibly Queer,” containing books of LGBT literature, with a focus on Asia, and collected in salons and bookshops throughout East Asia and the United States. Miyuki writes “I see each of these books as stepping stones along my journey to understand the different ways in which my identities co-exist in society.” These award-winning collections will be exhibited in McCabe Library this fall, and the winners will speak about their collections. Stay tuned for the date and time, and don’t miss this celebration of bibliophilia! Better yet, enter the next competition with an annotated bibliography of at least 25 titles. This year’s Newton submission deadline will be January 28, 2013. More information will be available as the deadline approaches. If you have any questions about applying, please contact Lucy Saxon at lsaxon1@swarthmore.edu.
Would you like personalized library instruction? by Pam Harris
Improve your library aptitude with instruction crafted just for you. Acquire new knowledge of your own design or from the list below. Email librarian@swarthmore.edu for an individual appointment and to get started. Advanced search strategies: New Tripod In this tutorial, acquire critical information needed for using Tripod to find the information you need with strategies designed to make searches meaningful and productive. Ebooks and devices Finding, downloading, viewing and printing ebooks from all of our providers to different devices can be confusing. Meet with our ebook guru and simplify the process. Interlibrary Loan An introduction to tricks and tips for searching and requesting in EZBorrow (PA Academic Libraries) and WorldCat (over 200 million records, in 479 languages from libraries all over
the world including over 35 national libraries). Citation management magic: Endnote Web, Zotero and Cite While You Write Which one of these methods for organizing research notes and bibliographic information is best-suited for your purposes? The value of any of these tools is building a personal database, at the same time making it easier to format a bibliography. Curating your own database is an amazing thing - make an appointment to start using one of these management systems to streamline your research. Streaming media Learn how to search and access thousands of documentary videos and music streams on your computer or device from providers likr Films on Demand and Naxos Music Library. Reserve a time for instruction - email us at librarian@swarthmore.edu @library. edu Fall 2012
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at the library • at the library • at the library • at the library • at the library • at the library
Visioning Asia: Artists’ Books Influenced by Asian Culture Through September 9 McCabe Library Lobby Artists’ books selected from the Rare Book Room.
VISIONING ASIA
artists’ books influenced by asian culture
A. Edward Newton Student Book Collection Competition September 10 – October 26 McCabe Library Lobby The winning student book collections will be displayed and the winners will be discussing their collections at a special event (to be announced).
Image by Katie Baldwin, Treasure
Selected from Swarthmore College Libraries’ Bo ok Arts Collection
summer
2012
Latino/a authors September McCabe Library, second floor As part of Latino Heritage month, ENLACE, the Latino/a student association, will be curating a small exhibition to celebrate Latino/a authors. The exhibition will be comprised of a selection of books by Latino/a authors and will examine these authors and the social issues depicted in their books. Patrons will be encouraged to borrow the books on display.
Portraits by Hermenegildo Sabat October McCabe Library, second floor Hermenegildo Sabat is a Uruguayan-Argentinian caricaturist and journalist, whose career started in 1955. He has painted a variety of prominent individuals, from unpopular politicians and national heroes to celebrated writers and painters. Sabat’s work is not confined to caricatures, however; he is also the author of over 20 books. In 1988, he earned the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, which is the oldest international award in journalism. This exhibit, curated by Grace Leonard ‘15, will feature seven posters of Sabat’s caricatures of writers, mostly from South America and the United States.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Hermenegildo Sabat
Family Weekend Library Book Sale Friday, October 26 – Sunday, October 28 McCabe Library Lobby Friday 12-5 p.m. (College community and their families only) Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Open to the general public) Sunday 1-5 p.m. (Open to the general public) This popular sale offers bargains for every age but specializes in the scholarly, artistic, and unusual. This year’s offerings include fiction, art books, textbooks, foreign languages, DVDs, and LPs. Not to be missed: the free table.
Tom Uttech: Photographs November 1 – December 15 McCabe Library Lobby Artist’s Lecture: Nov. 1, 4:30 pm, Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema Sponsored by the William J. Cooper Foundation, the libraries will display photographs taken by landscape painter Tom Uttech concurrently with an exhibition of his recent paintings at the List Gallery. Tom Uttech’s work portrays woodlands teeming with the wildlife he observes in northern Wisconsin and Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. Blending close observation and memory with visionary invention, he evokes liminal states - moments infused with heightened awareness, drama, and imminent transformation. Uttech’s unique sensibility is especially poignant in the context of contemporary ecological crises. 12
@library. edu Fall 2012
Onimik Sagaigan, 1974 by Tom Uttech Silver gelatin print, 14 x 14 inches, ed. 10 (Milwaukee No. 63) Image courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York City