News

Fall 2015 - Volume 18 #1

PACKET NEWS

SLETTER OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE LIBRARIES

Ensuring the preservation of and access to the print scholarly record: Recent initiatives

by Peggy Seiden

Imagine you are a scholar doing research in LGBT movement in the eighties. One central primary source from that period was the Alyson Almanac that sought to bring together “A Treasury of Information for the Gay and Lesbian Community.” From a practical point of view, much of the material is out-of-date; and as a reference book, it might be seen as a candidate for withdrawal from the collection.

But as a contemporaneous historical document, it is invaluable. Yet increasingly as libraries face space shortages, such materials are disappearing from the shelves. The shared print preservation initiatives are attempting to ensure that some print copies remain accessible to scholars.

Shared print preservation has hit the mainstream press.

A recent online Newsweek article noted that “even university libraries aren’t keeping their books.” While online access is quickly replacing print as a preferred means for scholars who need access to journal literature, print monographic collections and special collections continue to grow. Along with the need for additional space for growing collections, many libraries are “repurposing” their floor space for media and maker spaces, digital scholarship/humanities labs, writing centers, academic support services, and cafes. It is hard to justify maintaining or adding to existing shelving when significant parts of the print journal collections are no longer used and older monograph materials are consulted infrequently.

The JSTOR (Journal Storage) project was conceived as a means to relieve some of these space pressures through high quality digitization of the back files of core academic journals. Many other scholarly journal publishers have digitized their own complete runs of journals, so that now it is unusual to find a major currently published scholarly journal that is not available online. Hundreds of academic libraries have already discarded their print copies with little thought to the broader needs of scholars for access to the “artifact” or for the possibility of re-digitization at some later time. Librarians have recognized that there should be

some number of print copies of these journals available, but that not every library needs to keep its copies.

In a small way, the TriColleges tried to address this issue by dividing up the responsibility for retaining print copies of the JSTOR journals in 2005. But the real catalyst for thinking about print preservation and journal archiving on a national scale was the formation of WEST (the Western Storage Trust) in 2010. The project is centered at the California Digital Library, with more than 100 college and university libraries from Hawaii and to the Mississippi now participating in the project to archive print copies not only of JSTOR journals but more than 8000 journal families. To date, the project has archived more than 400,000 volumes. The scale of this particular project is immense and complex. The project not only encompasses journals that are digitally available and digitally preserved, but also journals for which no online equivalent exists. The archives are distributed across more than 30 libraries, though 6 libraries proactively build archives. The member libraries have entered into agreements either to retain certain journals or to financially support other libraries’ holdings in case they should need to have access to the print collections in the future. The archive holders have agreed to retain the journals for at least 25 years, though there is no plan to ensure retention of more than one copy of any journal.

There are now at least a dozen such projects across the United States and Canada. In some cases, these archives are centralized in one or two storage facilities; in others, the most common model, libraries agree to retain the journals in their own facilities. Despite the broad engagement of the academic library community in this project, there is little coordination and the number of titles covered by these agreements is a fraction of the published journal literature. There is also no consensus on the number of copies of any title that should be retained in print. continued on page 2

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Ensuring the preservation of the print scholarly record continued from page 1

Some projects, such as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s Shared Print Repository, focus on particular publishers (in this case Springer, Wiley, Elsevier and various major scientific societies); others ask for nominations from their membership of titles they are willing to hold in perpetuity.

The Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. (PALCI), our own consortium, began a project in 2009 that focused on journals from three major scientific societies: the American Chemical Society, the Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. We agreed to hold these journals initially for ten years in 2009 and we reviewed that decision in 2014. Because it is difficult to judge the long term value and need for these materials, libraries who are archive holders are reluctant to commit to retention periods exceeding 10 years; but those who are relying on the archive holders want greater assurance that materials will be available in perpetuity. While staff at Ithaka, JSTOR’s parent, developed recommendations for print retention for titles in their collection based on the percentage of images and completeness of the digitized holdings, many libraries have “weeded” their entire collections of print copies of these materials.

In 2009, there was a national meeting sponsored by the Center for Research Libraries and Lyrasis to discuss preservation of print monographs. Monographs raise many different issues than journals: access to digital copies of printed works, particularly mid to late 20th century materials is almost non-existent; so when one is withdrawing a work, it is with the knowledge that an e-copy is not likely to be readily available. Furthermore, the cost/benefit of any withdrawal decision is not as clear. A decision to withdraw a single journal title can result in fairly significant space savings, hundreds of inches or more. With monographs, decisions need to be made on a title-by-title basis, and each decision to withdraw a title will only yield an inch or two of space. Nevertheless, many libraries have either moved low-use materials to off-site storage or withdrawn them without concern for the issues of broader access. While there has been almost no need for access to journals in print archives, it is likely that scholars may need to access these monographs in print.

In 2005, the TriColleges attempted a shared print book archiving project, but the title-by-title review of materials held in more than one library was onerous and had little benefit in terms of actual space gain. At Swarthmore, we abandoned the idea altogether. In order for libraries to realize any significant space gains from withdrawing the low use materials, but to ensure preservation of some number of copies, a number of consortia began to focus on shared print archiving of monographs. By 2010, most shared off-site storage facilities were nearing capacity. A few

consortia began to implement a one-copy per title policy.

But there was also interest in trying to look at collections across libraries in a more cost effective way. In 2010, the eight major libraries in the state of Maine were awarded several hundred thousand dollars to develop a shared, distributed print archiving program for books and journals.

Utilizing sophisticated collection analysis software, they evaluated their combined holdings of over 3 million volumes and assigned responsibility for retaining print copies of over 1.4 million books to the participating libraries.

While this was the first significant monograph project that was not a title-by-title review, other smaller consortia soon followed suit.

The Hathi Trust has recently announced a shared print archiving program for its millions of titles that were digitized as part of the Google Books project. And after four years of planning, the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), a newly formed consortium of libraries in the northeast (including the TriColleges), is embarking on a large-scale print archiving project that will initially focus on books. The first piece – analysis of the individual collections to better understand overlap among the collections, as well as the circulation of each title – is already underway. Once the analysis is completed, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Amherst, Williams, Smith, and many others will each take responsibility for retaining some set of print monographs, thereby allowing other libraries to remove those materials from their shelves.

The EAST project will include a validation component whereby some sample of books will be checked to ensure they are really still in the owning library and to ascertain their condition. Validating the actual existence of a preservation copy of any book or journal is extremely costly because one has to touch the material. If there are enough continued on page 3

NEWS Editors

Pam Harris, Terry Heinrichs Annette Newman Thank you to all who contributed to this issue.

Swarthmore College Libraries 500 College Avenue Swarthmore PA 19081

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Six students learn about librarianship as interns

by Meg Spencer

Swarthmore’s Library Intern program had another successful semester in the spring coordinated by Associate College Librarian for Research and Instruction Pam Harris, Science Librarian Meg Spencer, and Reference and Instruction Resident Jasmine Woodson.

This year’s library interns were: Kara Bledsoe ‘16, Michaela Krauser ‘17, Richard Monari ‘16, Julia Nee ‘15, Stephanie Wang ‘17 and Jay Wu ‘15. They had a busy spring of weekly seminars, individual projects, and field trips.

Two interns had summer internships supported by the Library’s Fall Book Sale. Kara worked at Memphis Public Library’s The Memphis & Shelby County Room (https://memphisroom.wordpress.com), a special room in the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library that contains primary sources on the history of Memphis.

Michaela worked in New York City at the Leo Baeck Institute (https://www.lbi.org), a collection devoted to the history and culture of German-speaking Jews.

In other intern news, Tess Amram ’15, former library intern and RIA, is currently serving as Haverford Science Library’s circulation services specialist.

Newton contest awards two first prizes to students

by Roberto Vargas

First prize awards went to two students this year for their entries in the A. Edward Newton Student Book Collection Competition: Abigail Norling-Ruggles for her collection “Feminism and Science Fiction and Fantasy” and Madeleine Booth for her collection “Defining English.”

The A. Edward Newton Student Book Collection Competition is the longest-running collegiate book collecting competition in the nation, and encourages reading and collecting in an age of declining readership. Started in the 1930s by a renowned Philadelphia book collector, A. Edward Newton, the competition awards cash prizes to the three Swarthmore College students who submit the best essays and annotated bibliographies of their book collections. The winners are also invited to give a talk about their collection in McCabe Library.

The deadline for submission is Tuesday, March 1, 2016, at 11:59 pm.

Interns (from l to r): Stephanie Wang, Jay Wu, Michaela Krauser, Julia Nee, Richard Monari, and Kara Bledsoe.

Ensuring preservation of the print record continued from page 2

copies to be retained in a system/consortium, the library must ultimately trust that at least one copy can be found when needed. The EAST project will test whether or not validation is worth the cost and effort.

In the meantime, work on various other print archiving projects continues. This work now includes government documents and reference materials, as well as monographs and journals. WEST has recommitted to a focus on journals, particularly those that are held by few libraries and have no digital edition. Twice yearly, the Print Archiving Network (PAN) http://www.crl.edu/programs/ print-archive-network-forum-pan meets at the American Library Association and participants continue to explore the thornier pragmatic and philosophical issues behind print preservation.

But, as yet, there is no national print archiving strategy across material types that answers the question: how many copies of this journal or that book do we need to ensure access and preservation of the content and the artifact? Swarthmore will continue to participate in these conversations and as an archive holder. And where we are completely guaranteed that we can have access to the print if we should need it, we have begun to judiciously select materials to remove from the shelves of McCabe, Cornell, and Underhill.

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Fall 2015

Busy summer at Friends Historical Library

By Celia Caust-Ellenbogen

During the summer in Friends Historical Library, students Rebecca Astatke, Constance Hawley, Aaron Kroeber, Mary Olesnavich, and Stephanie Wang worked on a project to transcribe original Quaker journals, letters, and committee records documenting Quaker involvement with Native American communities in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Scans of the records and the transcripts will be mounted online later this year in preparation for a collaborative Quakers and Native American conference with Haverford College and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.

Friends Historical Library transcripts will also be encoded in XML according to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines, a tool for marking up texts to build a “smart” corpus and enable new forms of digital scholarship. We are eager to see what new information and conclusions may be revealed when researchers gain access to this robust stock of material.

FHL staff worked on revamping the policies, finding aids, and collections in the Swarthmore College Archives. In collaboration with the college’s Information Security Committee, Friends Historical Library is actively scouting campus for caches of historical records. (If you have any suggestions, let Celia know.)

We also hope to streamline access to the digital and physical materials already stored in FHL, McCabe, Underhill, and Tripod, and Triceratops. Keep an eye on the Swarthmore College Archives landing page as we continue to update and add to it.

The Reading Room received visits this summer from documentary filmmakers, scholars of topics ranging from witch trials to abolitionism to the JFK assassination, and of course, genealogists. Since June was LGBTQ Pride Month, it seems appropriate to highlight records from the Quaker Lesbian Conference as one of our recent acquisitions.

Library hosts SPEED projects

by Roberto Vargas

During the summer, the library hosted the Swarthmore Projects for Educational Exploration and Development (SPEED). During eight weeks, six students, with the leadership of ITS and library staff, created and developed four media and digital projects.

These projects ranged from flipped classroom instructional videos to Navajo online dictionaries.

Library holds researcher lunch

For the sixth year, the library hosted the summer researcher lunch in June to celebrate student research on campus and the faculty advisors. Reference librarians joined the students to discuss their research areas. Over 100 people attended and enjoyed pizza, veggies, fruit, and cookies.

Librarians presenting research at faculty lunch in November At the faculty lunch in November, four librarians will talk about recent research into student library and information use – their behaviors, habits, and preferences.

Three years of collecting data based on the thesis writing experience in history and sociology/anthropology provide insight to the student experience of completing an ambitious undergraduate research project. Sarah Elichko, social sciences librarian, and Pam Harris, associate college librarian, will report on challenges students encountered and their advice to fellow thesis writers.

The tricollege libraries have embarked upon a redesign of Tripod informed by a Tripod user-testing project over the summer of 2014.

Mary Marissen, assessment and user experience librarian, will describe how the findings from the tests have informed Tripod’s redesign, currently in process.

Swarthmore College’s Reading Preferences survey was meant to elicit information regarding not just students’ eBook use and preferences, but to look beyond the print/electronic dichotomy and get a sense of their reading habits and preferences in general. College Librarian Peggy Seiden will discuss what we learned about how our students interact with texts.

Pinterest board created for faculty publications The Library has a new Pinterest board for recent faculty publications, focusing on articles, books, reviews, and blog posts written in 2015.

Scholarly works and websites will eventually be added to Works, the college’s institutional repository. The work of visiting faculty is also highlighted on the Pinterest board. Serials and E-Resources Specialist Maria Aghazarian created the board: https://www.pinterest.com/ swatlibrary/recent-faculty-publications/ If you’ve seen any recent publications that should be added to the board, please email swatlibrarian@gmail.com.

Another Pinterest board the library has created features helpful resources for students who plan to study abroad: https://www.pinterest. com/swatlibrary/study-abroad-travel-guideslanguage-learning-and-m/

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Peace Collection celebrates peace movement anniversaries In the midst of World War I, peace activists, who were opposed to the horrific violence of that conflict, attempted to convince leaders on all sides to negotiate an end to the war. This year, 2015, marked the 100th anniversary of two organizations created during the Great War, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, each celebrating decades of continual work for peace.

The Swarthmore College Peace Collection serves as the archives for the records of both of these groups. To recognize these significant anniversaries, two exhibits created by Peace Collection staff, showcasing historic documents, were mounted in McCabe Library during June and August. An opening reception for the WILPF exhibit was held on June 11.

WILPF member Robin Lloyd, whose grandmother attended the first international meeting of the organization in 1915, spoke during the reception program and related the history of peace work. This event was co-sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia branch of WILPF. Another peace organization marking a significant anniversary this year is the Center on Conscience and War. The CCW was founded in 1940 to assist conscientious objectors to military service during World War II. Today, CCW staff help conscientious objectors in the military, those who have questions about military service, and young men who do not wish to register for a future draft. The Peace Collection also serves as the archives for 100,000s of CCW records. To celebrate the 75 years of CCW’s work, an exhibit of organizational records, photographs, and other items on the history of conscientious objection was on display in McCabe Library during July. CCW staff and supporters participated in a program about the history of conscience and the cultural and legal aspects today. About 40 people from on and off campus attended this July 16 event, which ended with lively discussion and audience participation.

Anne Yoder, Peace Collection archivist, curated all three exhibits, choosing materials from the collections to showcase the long history of these peace organizations. She was assisted in mounting the exhibits by summer archives assistant Jocelyn Hawkley ‘15.

Meg Spencer, 1959-2015

The college lost a beloved librarian, colleague, and mentor with the sudden death of Science Librarian Meg Spencer on September 24.

Meg was dedicated, energetic, and passionate in her role of helping students, maintaining and developing a vital collection of resources, and creating a welcoming atmosphere in Cornell Science Library. She also encouraged future librarians through the student internship program and as a mentor to young professionals with the Spectrum Scholar Mentor Program conducted by the American Library Association.

In addition to recommending books and giving newly published titles to friends, she encouraged the pleasure of reading through the annual library summer reading list, the “So what are you reading?” meetings, and the Aydelotte Foundation-sponsored book groups.

Hundreds of people attended Meg’s memorial service in Lang Concert Hall on October 7 and many donated children’s books in her memory. Donations in Meg’s memory are welcome to the Student Library Internship Program (please contact the Development Office) and to the Helen Kate Furness Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.

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Peace Collection acquires the Nelson Papers The Papers of Juanita and Wally Nelson, acquired by the Peace Collection, consist of thousands of documents, photographs, and other items relating decades of activism for peace and social justice. They are available in the Peace Collection and open to all researchers.

In May of this year, over 500 people attended the memorial service of Juanita Morrow Nelson, in Deerfield, Massachusetts. The memorial began with a New Orleans-style brass brand marching down the main street of the small town. For over 30 years, Nelson and her husband Wally had lived and farmed in Deerfield, where they had been inspirational leaders in various movements for social justice.

Wally Nelson (1909-2002) was a conscientious objector during World War II, and having vowed not to support war, spent almost three years in federal prison. With other C.O.s, Wally protested the racial segregation in prison by participating in hunger strikes. After the war, he participated in the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, the first Freedom Ride to racially integrate public transportation. This was sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Wally later became the first national field organizer for CORE. Juanita Nelson (1923-2015) began her first protests against segregation in the late 1930s. While a student at Howard University, she was arrested for protesting “whites only” dining facilities in Washington, D.C. The Nelsons joined the pacifist Peacemakers group in 1948, becoming war tax resisters and life-long practitioners of non-violence. In the 1950s, Juanita and Wally moved to the intentional, racially integrated community at Koinonia Farm in Georgia, raised their own food in a small village in New Mexico, and finally moved to Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1974. In Massachusetts, they were associated with Quaker-run Woolman Hill, where they were homesteaders. The Nelsons adopted the income-reduction method of war tax refusal and cut their expenses

dramatically - building a house with salvaged materials and without electricity or plumbing, growing the majority of their own food on a half-acre of land, and living on less than $5,000 per year.

Both Nelsons will be remembered for their 40-plus years as peace and civil rights activists, tax resisters, and practitioners of non-violence and sustainable intentional/communal living. The way they lived out their convictions, and their leadership in social justice, inspired many, and will continue to do so.

Peace Collection receives grant

The Swarthmore College Peace Collection has been selected to participate in the Digital Preservation Policies Program of the Conservation Center for Historical Analysis.

The Peace Collection has thousands of born-digital files from current peace organizations, digital newsletters, and digitized content files. The CCAHA grant will help develop a comprehensive digitization and digital preservation program for the long-term care and management of this constantly growing portion of the collections.

Anne Garrison, 1968-2015

Family, friends, and colleagues gathered together at the Swarthmore Friends Meeting House on March 20 to remember and celebrate the life of Anne Garrison, humanities librarian, who died on March 5. Poems were recited, songs were song, and stories were told, with love, laughter, and sadness for her loss.

As the book arts librarian, Anne curated the artists’ books kept in the Rare Book Room in McCabe Library and enjoyed showing the unique collection.

In July 2013, the Swarthmore College Bulletin interviewed Anne for a feature article about the collection: http://bulletin.swarthmore.edu/bulletin-issue-archive/index.html%3Fp=1059.html Contributions in her memory will fund a special artist’s book.

Fall 2015

Celia Caust-Ellenbogen, new archive associate at Friends Historical Library, co-authored an article in the May/ June issue of “Archival Outlook,” published by the Society of American Archivists. The article, “Bringing Hidden Collections to Light,” discussed how the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories has helped small repositories become better known and more accessible to researchers.

This past spring, Celia delivered presentations at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference and New England Archivists Joint Meeting, the American Association of Museums, the Society of Southwest Archivists, and the Special Libraries Association.

Celia, a 2009 alum, earned the MLIS at the University of Pittsburgh.

She previously worked as the senior project surveyor for the Small Repositories Project at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Wendy Chmielewski, curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, attended the Women’s History in the Digital World Conference, held at Bryn Mawr College, in May. In July, she led a workshop, “From Suffrage to Senate,” for middle and high school teachers on the history of women’s involvement in U.S. politics. The workshop, held at the Alice Paul Institute in Moorestown, New Jersey, was sponsored by the New Jersey Council on the Humanities.

staff news

Roberto Vargas, the new Research Librarian for the Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies, will serve as the primary liaison for Art and Art History; Classics; Latin American and Latino Studies; Linguistics; Philosophy; Religion and Spanish.

Roberto has been the reference and digital scholarship resident since May 2013, during which time he has provided leadership for the summer SPEED students and projects; initiated the ongoing Swat Stories oral history project; and partnered with students, staff and faculty on projects as diverse as supporting the development of a mobile school library in Pakistan, Visualizing Rome [digitally] with Professor Thomas Morton, and the ImagINe Project.

Roberto Vargas, formerly the reference and digital scholarship resident, and Nabil Kashyap, librarian for digital initiatives and scholarship, attended the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC. Each participated in a weeklong class.

Jessica Brangiel, electronic resources management librarian, was elected Member-at-Large to the College Libraries Section executive committee of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL).

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Lindsay Van Tine, the new CLIR fellow based here and at the University of Pennsylvania, received her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. As Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, she will work to build a more robust infrastructure for digital scholarship within and across the Penn Libraries and the Swarthmore Libraries. She will mainly be working on projects related to Rachel Burrma’s Early Novels Database (END), an existing collaborative bibliographic open-data project based out of the two institutions.

Pat O’Donnell, archivist at Friends Historical Library, is the author of the article “This Side of the Grave: Navigating the Quaker Plainness Testimony in London and Philadelphia in the Eighteenth Century,” published in the Spring 2015 edition of Winterthur Portfolio. She discusses: For observant members of the Society of Friends in greater London and Philadelphia during the eighteenth century, navigating the Quaker plainness testimony involved material culture choices that might be viewed by non-Quakers as concealing motives of frugality or blurring class lines or as violating standards of decency and propriety. This was particularly true of coffins, which were carried through the streets from home to burial ground followed by family and friends. On this public stage, Quaker coffin choices satisfied the requirements for plainness while at the same time they demonstrated family values and fulfilled societal expectations.

Fall 2015

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exhibitions and events Victorious Secret - Elite Olympic Champions as Dancing Bikini Girls

Exhibition: August 4 – October 4, three locations Lecture/Opening Reception: September 10, 4:30pm Sponsored by Swarthmore College Libraries, Office of the Title IX Coordinator, Department of Classics, Student Wellness, and Athletics

Victorious Secret, the work of the visual artist Angela Lorenz, is on display in three locations on campus: McCabe Library, the Science Center (across from Room 101), and the Matchbox (top floor). The project consists of three triptychs, nine framed images in all, based on Roman mosaics in Italy from 300AD. The images are details from a thematic sequence on the floor of an ancient Roman villa in Piazza Armerina, Sicily. These mosaics, originally thought to be of dancing girls, are actually of elite athletes. Lorenz created this project to highlight the misinterpretation and to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX. An accompanying exhibition of Lorenz’ book arts is at McCabe Library.

All of Us or None

McCabe Library Exhibition: October 7 – November 15 All of Us or None is a poster exhibition examining the effects of militarism both at home and abroad. Including more than 30 posters from artists around the country, the exhibition explores war, policing, border militarization, and incarceration, and offers commentary on the ways that militarism shapes people’s daily lives. The exhibition is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization dedicated to peace and nonviolence.

McCabe Library Fall Book Sale Friday, October 23: 12-5pm Saturday, October 24: 10am-5pm Sunday, October 25: 10am-2pm

This popular sale offers bargains for every age but specializes in the scholarly, artistic, and unusual. This year’s highlights include fiction, classics, social sciences, and videos. Not to be missed: the free table.