@library.edu The newsletter of the Swarthmore College Libraries
Spring 2002 Vol. 4 #2
Their homes are far away...
Mondays @McCabe Workshops for Students, Faculty, and Staff Internet Searching Techniques Feb. 11 - 11:30-12:30 p.m. Endnote: Collecting & Organizing Bibliographic Information Feb. 25 - 1:00 -3:00 p.m. Endnote: Collecting & Organizing Bibliographic Information Pizza too. March 25 - 6:00 -8:00 p.m. Internet Searching Techniques April 1 - 11:30- 12:30 p.m. Last Minute Researcher: Using Full Text, Online Resources for Those in a Hurry (student taught workshop) Pizza too. April 22 - 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. RSVP to Pam Harris, pharris1, Ext. 2056 or go to: http:// www.swarthmore.edu/library/ instruction/workshops.html
other events Special Black Alumni Event: Black Alumni Publications BCC & McCabe Exhibit Friday, March 22 - 24 Special Family Weekend Event: Internet Searching Techniques Friday, April 12 11:00 – 12:00 p.m. Family Weekend Book Sale Sat., Apr. 13 - 10:00-5:00 p.m. Sun., Apr. 14 - 1:00-5:00 p.m.
Meet some of our student assistants Bubu Banini Bubu is a 22-year-old senior from Ghana who works at the circulation desk in Cornell. She is majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry, and is now applying to medical schools. Bubu chose to attend Swarthmore because she wanted to be a science major but still get a good liberal arts education. She also emphasizes the close relationship between students and faculty here. “Being so far away from home, that has always been especially important to me,” she says. “I also knew some Ghanians who were attending Swarthmore and really enjoyed it.” There were some things about Swarthmore which surprised her. “Computers are so readily available here. Also, although I attended boarding school in Ghana, and so was used to being away from home, I wasn’t used to being asked my opinion and perspective on what I’m learning in class.” There were some things about the United States which surprised her, as well. “Everyone back in Ghana thinks it’s cold here all the time, everywhere! It was interesting to learn that there are places in America where it never snows.” Bubu has a sister and a brother. Her sister is working toward a Ph.D in nutrition at North Carolina State, while her brother is earning his Ph.D in physics at Cambridge. Kanani Milles Kanani is a 20-year-old junior from Aiea, Hawaii, who works in government documents and interlibrary loan at McCabe. The youngest of four, coming here took some thought. “It was a hard decision, because it’s so far away from home,” she says. “But I wanted a small liberal arts college that focused on the things that really interested me – literature and racial identity.” Kanani plans to go to graduate school and pursue a career in academia. She has also noted the differences between Hawaii and the East Coast. “It was a major culture shock,” she says. “People here are a bit more distant, a little more impersonal. And I froze the first winter! I couldn’t believe it could get so cold. But I like the variation of the seasons, and I think fall is just beautiful.” Anand Vaidya Anand, a 19-year-old freshman who works in government documents at McCabe, has taken an interesting path to Swarthmore. He was born in Seattle and lived in Washington State until he was 11, before moving to India with his parents, who met at Purdue University. They now live in Bangalore, India. Anand chose to attend Swarthmore because he wanted to get a broad education at a small liberal arts college, “and Swarthmore seemed like it would be the most stimulating for me,” he says. “There’s a lot of peer pressure here to study and to work hard, and that’s very helpful.” He plans to major in biology. Anand has an older brother and a younger sister. Although he likes being here, India is still home. “I miss India a lot,” he says. “India is so alive, and your senses are always overwhelmed by the colors, smells, heat, poverty, pollution – everything.” Continued on page 6
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New and featured electronic resources New: Worldwide Political Science Abstracts: Merged backfiles of Political Science Abstracts, published by IFI/Plenum, 19752000, and ABC POL SCI, published by ABC-CLIO, 1984-2000. http://www.csa.com/htbin/ dbrng.cgi?username=abm67&access=abm6767&cat=polisci IEEE Computer Society Digital Library Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers transactions and proceedings. http://computer.org/publications/dlib/index.htm PsycArticles: More than 20,000 articles from 37 core journals from the American Psychological Association and the Educational Publishing Foundation. Accessible by searching in the PsycInfo database: http://webspirs4.silverplatter.com:8300/ obpal4?sp.dbid.p=S(PY)&sp.form.first.p=srchmain.htm. Contact Megan Adams, madams1@swarthmore.edu for more information. Amico Library: (available as of 2/1/02) The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO), a unique collaboration of artcollecting institutions, provides access to over 65,000 digital images. http://www.amico.org American Film Institute Catalog: Comprehensive filmographic information on over 45,000 films. http://afi.chadwyck.com/ Featured: Philadelphia Inquirer: Complete full-text content of local and regional news. 1981-present. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/ Encyclopedia Britannica: Encyclopedia Britannica’s latest article database. http://search.eb.com/ Literature Online: Over 250,000 works in English and American literature. http://lion.chadwyck.com
Top 10 databases at Swarthmore Most used/most recommended databases: Tripod Tri-college library catalog. http://tripod.brynmawr.edu Expanded Academic Index Academic periodicals. http://web7.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/ infomark/111/1/1/ purl=rc6_EAIM?sw_aep=swar94187 FirstSearch Access to over 50 databases. http://firstsearch.oclc.org/done=http:// www.swarthmore.edu/library/;FSIP SilverPlatter ATLA Religion Index, EconLit, ERIC, INSPEC, LLBA, MLA, PAIS, Philosopher’s Index, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts. http://webspirs4.silverplatter.com:8300/ obpal4? Academic Universe Web version of popularly known LexisNexis service. Legal, business, more. http://www.lexisnexis.com/universe
WorldCat Over 36 million records of the OCLC Online Union Catalog. http://firstsearch.oclc.org/ dbname=WorldCat;FSIP Web of Science Combines Science Citation Index and the Social Sciences Citation Index, two classic research tools from ISI. http://wos.isiglobalnet.com/ ScienceDirect Over 1000 Elsevier journals in sciences and social sciences. 1997-present. http://www.sciencedirect.com/ JSTOR Archives of core scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. http://www.jstor.org/jstor/ Project Muse Over 100 scholarly journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press and 10 other university presses. Literature, criticism, history, arts, and more. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/
Vol. 4, no. 2 Spring 2002
Tri-co libraries reorganize federal document collection The tri-college libraries will now have one official federal depository library for government documents, instead of two, although the documents will be housed on all three campuses. Swarthmore will be the “official” depository; Bryn Mawr and Haverford will be housing sites. The reorganization of the collection results in some new practices: 〈 Electronic versions of documents, when available and appropriate, will be selected and made accessible through the campus networks. 〈 If an electronic version is not available, only one print copy will generally be acquired, unless it is absolutely necessary to have more. 〈 Any new documents will be kept either at Bryn Mawr or Swarthmore, and previously acquired documents will remain on all three campuses. 〈 Print documents may be borrowed from any campus. The libraries aim to increase electronic access to government information, conserve stack space, and reduce duplication of processing work. The Swarthmore student newspaper recently featured the McCabe depository and a government request to destroy a U.S. Geological Survey CD-ROM. (http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/ phoenix/2001/2001-11-29/news/ 11565.html)
@library.edu is the newsletter of the Swarthmore College Libraries, published once a semester. Editorial Staff: Pam Harris, Terry Heinrichs, Andy Miller, Annette Newman, Meg Spencer Thank you to all who contributed to this issue, especially: Barry Woolson, Peggy Seiden, Chris Densmore, Amy Morrison, Wendy Chmielewski, Megan Adams, Tammy Rabideau, Jackie Magagnosc, Linda Hunt, Mary Ann Wood, Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes E-mail: <libnews@swarthmore.edu> Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081
Vol. 4, no. 2 Spring 2002
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to good home:
globe The Rand McNally geophysical globe which currently resides on the third floor of McCabe is in need of a good, loving new home. The renovations which are scheduled to begin in the summer of 2003 make keeping the globe impractical, and the considerable space which the globe takes up is planned to hold seating for students and other library patrons. The globe was the gracious gift of Arthur Magill (Class of 1929), who was a business executive in South Carolina and a philanthropist. McCabe officials hope an educational institution would like the globe, the only condition being that anyone interested in it disassemble and transport it. The globe cost $12,020 and was installed in McCabe in 1967. It was constructed at a Rand McNally plant in Ossining, N.Y., and consists of two hemispheres of
My Do ‘05 points to her country of Vietnam
reinforced fiberglass and epoxy. Originally, the globe was powered by a small motor and rotated, but the motor is no longer functional. Rand McNally craftsmen painted the globe’s land surfaces in natural vegetation colors, while the oceans are painted in five shades of blue to illustrate varying depths. Included in the total cost of the globe was $145 to cover painting the names of five oceans, 20 seas, and four bays and gulfs. - A. MILLER
“Chat” with a librarian from your room! A tri-college online reference “chat” service, allowing patrons to ask questions of a reference librarian from their dorm room, off-campus, or even from a remote corner of the Library continues to be offered in a pilot program. This service offers live, realtime reference transactions online, including the ability to ‘push’ web pages to the patron, and to browse databases simultaneously as the librarian guides the patron. Two software packages are currently being tested, including the popular AOL Instant Messenger service. Last semester the service was tested on a select group of the libraries’ own student assistants, but the hope is to offer access to everyone on all three campuses (and beyond) this coming semester. While the pilot project currently offers service between 1 and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, the potential for 24/7 coverage is great, using a cross-country collaboration of librarians manning a nationwide virtual reference desk. This could solve the problem of how to answer the reference questions of those night-owl students who do their best work in the middle of the night, long after the ‘non-virtual’ librarians have gone home to bed.
Swarthmore Social Sciences librarian Megan Adams recently attended the first Virtual Reference Desk Conference, held in Orlando, Florida. She returned from the conference very excited about the as-yet untapped potential of this cutting-edge service. To use this new service, go to http:// www.swarthmore.edu/library/reference/ vr.html. - M.SPENCER
Mellon grant improves catalog As several tri-college Mellon-funded grants continue simultaneously, the latest one, Mellon VI, is making much progress on several fronts directly involving the collections of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore. One part of the grant is supporting a labor-intensive technical services project involving the deduplication of thousands of records in Tripod, the tri-college library catalog. This should result in an online catalog which will be much easier to navigate, as it will yield far fewer duplicate hits for each search. Other parts of this ambitious grant include faculty focus groups, outside speakers on collaborative collection development, and assessing the different collection development philosophies and practices among the three college libraries.
Cornell moving books again for Science Center construction Less than a year after Cornell Science Library packed up and moved two floors of its collection to allow for the installation of compact shelving, it finds itself preparing to shift half of its book collection to get out of the way of the new Science Center’s first phase of construction. About 22,000 books, currently shelved on the second floor of Cornell Library, will need to be moved from the front of the building towards the back, compacting the collection so it will continue to be available to the public. Then the remaining part of the science library’s slanted roof will be demolished and the steel beams erected to support the new construction in the front of the library. Steel work is scheduled from March to late June, when the books will be returned to their original location. This new construction will consist of a two-story structure which will house introductory biology labs and computer science classrooms. It will also connect to what promises to be an impressive Commons space, complete with its own coffee bar. - M.SPENCER Visit The Daily Grind coffee bar in McCabe
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Vol. 4, no. 2 Spring 2002
FHL provides images for films, exhibits, books and more Next time you see a documentary on the abolitionist movement, the early woman’s rights movement, or Quakers, look for the credit line for Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. The resources of the Friends Historical Library include thousands of unique historical images documenting Quakers and their concerns. During the past year, FHL has supplied images to a documentary film maker preparing a film on Thomas Garrett and the Underground Railroad, to a Japanese television program on the life of Japanese Quaker educator Inazio Nitobe, to the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls for an exhibition on the Hunt family, to the editors of a forthcoming book on Quaker material culture, and for text-books on American history. Answering these Christopher requests takes Densmore time and all Curator FHL libraries and archives must critically evaluate the costs and benefits of their services to their different audiences. The highest use for our documentary resources, including images, is to advance historical understanding. In this sense, the ideal user, whether Swarthmore student or faculty, outside scholar or film maker, is one who will both learn from our materials and will share his/her findings with a broader community. In the best cases, exemplified in the past year by studies of Quaker material culture, FHL images are themselves a primary document carrying information not available in other forms. For example, how did Quakers dress in the 19th century? Did dress conventions change over time, vary according to social class, and reflect broader cultural changes? What does this tell us about the nature of the Society of Friends? Researchers often look at old resources with new eyes. What had been an uninteresting family album becomes, with the appropriate analytical tools, a fascinating document of social history. Historical images add dimension to a text or film. A recent documentary film on the Underground Railroad in Delaware, Whispers of Angels, combined actors, contemporary film of historical sites, and historical images to portray the 1848 trial
of Thomas Garrett for aiding fugitive slaves. Friends Historical Library contributed original photographs of Quaker Thomas Garrett and his Underground Railroad co-worker, William Still, and manuscript letters of Still and Garrett. Another example is the use of FHL’s portrait of Lucretia Mott for the cover of The Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, edited by Beverly Palmer (University of Illinois Press, 2001). Images from Friends Historical Library also serve as a form of outreach and publicity. Those Japanese television viewers who read the credits of the documentary on Inazio Nitobe now know that there is a Swarthmore College and a Friends Historical Library. The ideal researcher has a clear idea of the connection of image and text, and a respect for the documentary integrity of illustrations. Not all image researchers come up to the mark. Some publishers of reference books and/or children’s books seem content to publish any image that even roughly corresponds to the subject matter. Errors abound. In reviewing books coming into Friends Historical Library during the past year, I noted several misidentified illustrations: a children’s book with a 19th century woodcut of a Shaker worship service misidentified as a Quaker meeting; a reference book with a photograph of James Mott (a name connected with the early history of Swarthmore College) misidentified as William Lloyd Garrison. Historical images are documents, and we should insist that book publishers and documentary film makers have the same respect for accuracy of image as they would have for accuracy of text. Reference, particularly with special collections and almost always with historical images, is often a partnership between researcher and librarian. In the past week we had a request from a museum for a particular photograph of Lucretia Mott for a forthcoming exhibit. This was a simple matter of filling out permission forms, mostly to see that the source of the photograph is credited in the exhibition. Another request for illustrations of Quakers in the Seventeenth Century from a researcher working on a new college level textbook involved a lengthy discussion about the context of the
illustration— what historical event or concept was the image intended to represent— and about the range of images available. In this instance, the researcher wanted something to illustrate the persecution of Quakers in colonial America, specifically the hangings of four Quakers, including Mary Dyer, in Boston. This then becomes a matter of consideration and negotiation. There are no eye witness images of the hanging of Mary Dyer, but there are twentieth century representations on the event. Would it be better to use, clearly identified, an artist’s conception of what occurred painted two or three hundred years after, or would the title page of a Quaker tract of the period about the event be more appropriate? Would a contemporary image of a Quaker meeting, though unconnected with the Boston executions, be a useful illustration? Historical information is increasingly being conveyed through images in documentaries, on web sites and in museum exhibits. As custodians of history, archivists and librarians in research collections are in partnership not only with the “traditional” researchers who produce articles and books, but also with an increasingly important category of researcher who creates “public history” and whose product is more apt to appear in a visual format. FHL will continue to provide images to publishers, documentary filmmakers, and museums, so look for us in the credits.
Peace Collection presents conference on Jane Addams The Peace Collection is sponsoring a conference entitled Rediscovering Jane Addams, Feb. 1 and 2, at Swarthmore College. It will be a symposium on Jane Addams’ impact on democracy, U.S. social policy, and international efforts. The conference will feature numerous renowned scholars and biographers, including Jean Bethke Elshtain, Allen F. Davis, Kathryn K. Sklar, Eileen L. McDonagh and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn. For more information, and to reserve your place at this conference, please visit: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/ peace/addamsconf./rediscovering.ja.htm or call (610) 328-8527.
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From the Director
what’s what’snew new
Beit Midrash and Library working together by Peggy Seiden, College Librarian
African Drums Underhill Music Library now has two Kpanlogos that can be checked out. Now you can drum on Parrish beach or in your dorm room. Also available is a new African Gyil, which can be played in Underhill. The drum sticks are kept at the circulation desk. The drums were made for us in Ghana and their purchase was made possible with funds from an African Studies Grant. More laptops available in McCabe The laptops that circulated in McCabe last semester proved even more popular than anticipated. There were three types that patrons could check out: Dell, iBook or Powerbook. According to circulation statistics, each of the eight laptops was checked out an average of 10 hours a day. The Dells were the most popular, Powerbooks the least popular. Two more Dell laptops were added in late December, and there are no plans to buy more in the immediate future. Because it’s a pilot project the laptops will not be replaced on a regular schedule, as are the public computers. Doublesided printing in McCabe The public access computers in McCabe are scheduled to be set to default doublesided printing. The change, to take effect early in the semester, is the result of an initiative from Earthlust as well as ongoing discussions among College staff, with the aim of saving potentially a great deal of paper. Essentially, the new default just reverses the printing process: Previously, the printers were set to print on only one side, although patrons could print on both sides if they wished. Now, the printing is planned to be double-sided, although computer users can still set for one-sided printing if they prefer. Videoconferencing system Though still in a pilot phase, videoconferencing with Haverford and/or Bryn Mawr is now available to the Swarthmore College community. The videoconferencing program is a fixed system located in the video viewing room on the fourth level of McCabe Library. To Continued on page 6
The library has agreed to serve as the “administrative home” for the Beit Midrash, which opened last fall in Bond Lodge 5. The genesis of the idea came from a collaboration between Richard Schuldenfrei in Philosophy and Nathaniel Deutsch in Religion. Helen Plotkin, ’77, is responsible for the realization of this idea as well as for the management of the Beit Midrash. The following is her eloquent description of a Beit Midrash: In Hebrew, “Beit” means “House.” “Midrash” comes from the root DRS: to seek, to search out, to dig for meaning. “Beit Midrash” is usually translated “House of Study.” At Swarthmore College, it is the Center for the Study of Jewish Texts. The Beit Midrash is a room whose walls are lined with volumes of Bible, Talmud, Midrash, mystical texts, and codes of Jewish Law. There are commentaries, indexes, translations, and analytical works from every era, including our own, that examine these texts from multiple perspectives. Around tables in the Beit Midrash, small groups of students work together to decipher and interpret texts. The Beit Midrash is a library, a study center, and a gathering place. It is also a classroom of a very particular kind. The format of the shiur, or study session, that takes place in a traditional Beit Midrash closely resembles that of the Swarthmore College seminar. Once learners have struggled over a text in chevruta (in pairs), they may come together to learn with a teacher, who expounds upon the deeper meanings of the text, entertains questions, and asks for student interpretations. The Beit Midrash has already received a good deal of use. Last semester, Nathaniel Deutsch taught two courses in the room - the Hebrew Bible and a seminar on the Midrash, “a sophisticated, imaginative and entertaining method of interpreting the Bible.” The room was also used for Deutsch’s Religion 1 discussion sessions, and the Religion department hosted two guest lecturers who spoke on textual issues in Genesis. I was quite taken with the idea of the Beit Midrash when Rich Schuldenfrei first presented it to me last spring, though we clearly couldn’t accommodate such a room in McCabe in its current configuration. But I didn’t understand the full implications of the idea until I experienced it first hand. As a result of auditing Nathaniel Deutsch’s Hebrew Bible class, I decided that I wanted the library to be part of bringing together text and learning in this unique way. The idea of the library as a site of conversation about text, as opposed to a place to store texts, seemed consonant with Swarthmore’s culture and my own philosophy of the library as a vital center of learning. Clearly this is a concept that could have a great potential for other text-based areas of study. Nathaniel, Helen, Rich, and I met and agreed to place the Beit Midrash administratively under the auspices of the library with oversight by an advisory committee. Thus far the development of the Beit Midrash has been funded through the President’s office, and the materials housed there were funded through the generosity of an individual donor. We will be working with the Development Office to find potential donors to enhance its collections and to support staffing of the center, lectures, and other programming. The Religion Department will continue to use the Beit Midrash as a teaching resource and classroom. An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism will be taught there during spring 2002. In addition there will be regularly scheduled textual study sessions, and we are hoping that faculty and staff interested in either Bible study or Talmud study will find their way to Bond Lodge 5. The selection of materials for the Beit Midrash will be a collaborative effort of the library, the Religion Department, and the advisory board. For more information about the Beit Midrash, contact Helen Plotkin, hplotki1@swarthmore.edu. We would like to hear from other faculty who might be interested in exploring this concept in other text-based fields of study. Those interested in financially supporting the Beit Midrash can contact Susan Levin, slevin2@swarthmore.edu, or (610) 328-8009.
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Meet some of our student assistants Continued from page 1
Aongus Ó Murchadha A 19-year-old freshman from Cork City, on the south coast of the Irish Republic, Aongus works in periodicals at McCabe. His primary duties are shelving, routing newspapers and periodicals, and discarding old material. Aongus chose Swarthmore because it sounded the best of all the American liberal arts colleges which he was considering. He plans on majoring in physics. Aongus has an older brother who is attending law school in New York City, and says that his parents encouraged him to attend college in the United States. He’s not sure whether he will return to Ireland or stay in the U.S. after graduation. “It all depends on what I decide to do,” he says. Yen Ting Ng Yen Ting is a 20-year-old sophomore from Malaysia who works in circulation at McCabe. She has always planned to get a degree in engineering and chose Swarthmore because she wanted a well-rounded education. She also knew about Swarthmore’s reputation and top-ranking. Yen Ting wanted to work in the library, she says, because “I’ve always been intimidated by big libraries, and I figured that if I worked here I would get to know the library better.” “I’m not a very social person, so working in circulation does help me in that way,” she added. “My first semester here, I had trouble understanding people, so working the front desk has been very good practice.” Both of Yen Ting’s parents are high school chemistry teachers. She has an older sister who recently graduated from college with a degree in biochemistry and is now doing research in New York. After graduating with her engineering degree, Yen Ting hopes to attend graduate school in America, although she says she still misses Malaysia. “I’d like to go back to Malaysia, because home is always home,” she says. “Even after more than a year, I still miss it.” - ANDY MILLER
staff notes New employees: Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes joined the Peace Collection as a Technical Services Specialist in August. Michelle graduated with a BA in English from Mary Washington College. She worked for three years there in the library book conservation department. Michelle also has a MA in Women’s Studies from Oxford. She is currently an assistant coach for women’s crew at LaSalle University and is a member of the National Women’s Crew team. Annette Newman joined the library staff as assistant to the librarian in December. Annette graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College. She has worked for the Library of Congress, Department of Justice, Federal Courts and the Smithsonian Institution. Annette also holds a certificate in information systems from George Washington University. Most recently she has taken six years off from employment to be with her family. Greg Posey joined the library as the TriCollege Web Developer. He is working with digital services and systems librarians on webbased library services. Greg brings with him over fours years of web experience in a wide variety of settings to the library. Greg is also a professional musician and has his own band Blue Scheme.
Conference activities:
What’s new Continued from page 5
sign up, email libadmin@swarthmore.edu at least one week before you want to use the system. Please include day and hours needed, purpose, what trico schools you need to connect to, and whether you have used the system before. Use of the system is being supported by the joint efforts of various staff members in McCabe, Media Services, and ITS. Someone from one of these departments will be available before and during your videoconferencing session. While this system only works among Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford, there are options for videoconferencing with the outside world. Please contact Steve Maurer, associate provost for information technology, to discuss videoconferencing beyond the tri-college network.
LIBRARY HOURS McCabe Library (610) 328-8477 M-Th: 8:15 a.m. - 1:00 a.m. F: 8:15 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. Sat: 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Sun: Noon – 1:00 a.m. Cornell Library (610) 328-8262 M-F: 8:15 a.m.– midnight Sat: 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. Sun: Noon – midnight Underhill Library (610) 328-8232 M-Th.: 8:30 a.m.– 5:15 p.m. 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. F: 8:30 a.m .– 5:15 p.m. Sat: 10:00 a.m. - 5:15 p.m. Sun: 1:00 p.m.– 5:15 p.m. 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. During breaks and summer: M-F: 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Closed weekends
Linda Bills, Tri-College Special Projects Coordinator, presented a paper at Educause 2001 in October. The paper was entitled: Managing the Library’s Subject Web Pages Without HTML Coding. Co-presenter was JuiChung Cheng of Wesleyan University. The paper explained the tri-college “WebGuide” project that is now being implemented. Andrea Campbell, of McCabe Library and Environmental Services, attended the SCALE (Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education) Conference last fall at the University of North Carolina with Susie Ansell ’02 and three co-workers. While at SCALE, the five Swarthmore representatives gave a presentation on the Learning for Life program as a useful model for literacy education in other institutions across the country. Andrea has participated in Learning for Life for two years, using the time to learn computer skills and play piano.
Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries Volume 4, Number 2
Spring 2002
Best of the Best: Guild of Book Workers exhibit Spring Events January - February The Best of the Best: Exhibit of the Guild of Book Workers Exhibit: January 10 – February 20 McCabe Lobby Reception & tour: Jan 30, 4:30 pm March The Conscientious Objector in WWII Exhibit: March 4 – 29 McCabe Lobby Opening talk & reception TBA April Irish Poet: Vona Groarke Reading and Reception TBA
The Guild of Book Workers’ traveling exhibition of members’ work, The Best of the Best, will be on display in McCabe Library, Jan.14 - Feb. 20, with an opening reception on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 4:30-6:00 pm. Mary Phelan, Swarthmore Visiting Professor of Studio Art and professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, will conduct the tour. This semester Mary is teaching “The Printed Page,” which examines the art of the book, including typesetting, printing, binding, wood engraving and more. The Guild of Book Workers, founded in 1906, is a national organization with eight regional chapters of printers, bookbinders, artists, papermakers, calligraphers, marblers, conservators and other workers in the book arts. The juried work in The Best of the Best, features the work of 33 participants from 18 states. It showcases a marvelous variety of work produced by traditional techniques as well as the latest technologies, in both usual codex and accordion format and some wildly unique structures. The exhibition is more than halfway through its one and a half years US tour. A special catalogue will be available at the reception or at the guild’s site: http:// palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw.
The Conscientious Objector in World War II Select items from conscientious objectors during the World War II era will be on display in McCabe Library, March 4-29. During World War II, conscientious objectors could choose to serve their nation in alternative service in Civilian Public Service Camps across the U.S. The camps were administered by civilian agencies, under the supervision of the federal government. Men served from one to four years in the CPS camps with no pay, working as farmers, road builders, smoke jumpers in national forests, and as hospital attendants for the mentally ill. Some volunteered as “Guinea Pigs” for medical experiments conducted at research hospitals. The Peace Collection recently received a large quilt created in 1992 by the wives and widows of World War II conscientious objectors. It consists of various panels which depict the work of men who performed alternate service as surveyors under the supervision of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey in the southwestern part of the United States. The quilt was created to honor these men and “symbolizes the[ir] belief in the rightness of taking a stand against the violence of war.” The former surveyors and their wives donated the quilt to Swarthmore. The Peace Collection, the sponsor of the event, holds one of the largest collections in the world on conscientious objection in the twentieth century. Details regarding the opening talk and reception will be announced.
Fifth annual Irish Poetry Reading Vona Groarke, poet and curator, will read from her poetry in the Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall in April (date, time TBA). Her reading will be the Fifth Annual Irish Poetry Reading in memory of Michael J. Durkan, College Librarian, 19761996. Vona’s reading will be introduced by Eamon Grennan, poet and teacher at Vassar College and this semester’s Charles A. Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University. Vona Groarke was born in County Longford, Ireland and grew up on a farm outside Athlone. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and University College, Cork, she lives in Dublin where she works as curator of the Newman House. In 1992 she received an Arts Council of Ireland Bursary and spent time writing at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. In 1994 she was joint winner of the Listowel Writer’s Week Sonnet Competition and winner of the Hennessey Award for Poetry and The Sunday Tribune New Irish Writer of the Year Award. Gallery Press has published her first two collections, Shale (1994), winner of the Brendan Behan Memorial Award in 1995, and Other People’s Houses (1999) and will be issuing her third collection in April. Her poetry is characterized by clear lyrical lines and her use of place and landscape to illuminate narratives of herself as lover and family historian.
The Tree House Because someone has been building piles of branches in the wood, I have been remembering your hands. I propose to make a shelter with a roof and walls of twigs so the close-knit warp and weft will keep us safe. I am saying that I want you to return and will show you how by laying down a bed of leaves and soft pine cones where I will kiss you so your body feels the sway. I want you home. I worry when the wind is getting up. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the ragged pine behind the house buckles and bears down upon the roof to splay my body with needles and sweet-scented cones. Reprinted, with permission, from Shale (Gallery Press, Dublin, Ireland, 1994)
Library Associates Chair James A. Hinz, 63 Library Associates president Jim Hinz passed away on September 28 at the age of 63. The Swarthmore community will deeply miss him for his caring, generous spirit and his affection for people and their artistic creations. Hinz was the first humanities librarian at Swarthmore, a faculty position created in 1972. For the next ten years, Hinz taught classes, counseled numerous students on their work, and curated library exhibits and events including the popular cartoonist series. Most recently he was the proprietor of F. Thomas Heller, Inc., an antiquarian book business specializing in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth-century medicine and science. Hinz also served as chair of the Associates of the Swarthmore College Library. He was also a member of the Swarthmore Centennial Foundation and of Partners in Ministry. Born in Fairmont, Minn., Hinz held several degrees including ones from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Mo., Ebenhard Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany, and Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Hinz is survived by his wife, Mary Mullins Hinz, a brother Terry J. Hinz and family. Memorial contributions may be made to the Associates of Swarthmore College Library or to Partners in Ministry, P.O. Box 41, Swarthmore, Pa., 19081
2002-03 Student Library Prize Competition The A. Edward Newton Student Library Prizes of $500, $250, and $150 are awarded annually for the three best undergraduate book collections as judged by the Committee of the Award. Books must be owned and have been collected by the student. Each collection will be judged by the extent to which it represents a well-defined principle giving it unity and continuity; for example, an author, a subject, an illustrator, or a group of authors. Entries should have a bibliography of at least 25 titles in the collection. Please attach a brief, one page commentary describing how, when, where, and why the books were acquired. Winners will be invited to display their collection in the library. Entries should be submitted to Pam Harris, McCabe Library, pharris1. Last date for submission is March 22, 2002.
Membership in the Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries SWARTHMORE IS KNOWN AS ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S OUTSTANDING LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES and its library is central to that reputation. The excellent quality of our library system may be attributed both to the strong support from the College and to the generosity of our many friends and benefactors. The Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries, an organization established in 1978 by Michael J. Durkan, the College Librarian from 1976-1996, is dedicated to continuing that tradition of support. The Associates provide a link between the campus and the community of book-lovers. The purpose of the Associates is: • To serve as a medium through which friends of the library may advance their own intellectual pursuits and share their enthusiasm for books, • To provide financial support that permits us to enrich the collections and the services beyond that which could be done otherwise, • To sponsor programs that enrich the cultural life of the community, such as poetry readings and our political cartoonist series, • To encourage a greater awareness of the book as artifact by sponsoring workshops, exhibits and lectures on topics in the book arts, and • To encourage an understanding and appreciation of the work of the College Libraries, which form a resource of immeasurable value in the intellectual life of the College. If you are already a member of the Associates, we thank you for your patronage and urge you to renew your membership; if you are not, we cordially invite you to join. Membership in the Associates bears the following practical rewards: Associates receive announcements and invitations to exhibitions, lectures and other library events, Associates receive @library.edu - The Newsletter of the Swarthmore College Libraries, Associates may obtain library borrowing privileges by bringing the acknowledgement receipt for their donation to the Circulation Desk, Associates’ memberships are fully tax-deductible, and Associates know that their contributions are going toward maintaining and strengthening the collections and services provided by the libraries at Swarthmore College. Please join the alumni, faculty, staff, students and community members whose generous contributions are insuring the success of the Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries.
Associates of the Libraries - Annual Membership Registration - 2002 For new members or members who have not yet sent in their membership fees. Annual memberships run from January to January. Corporate Matching Gift Forms may be included with your check or mailed directly to the College’s Gift Records Office.
CIRCLE: Individual $20; Family $30; Patron $100; Benefactor $500; Life $2500; Other $ ____ Enclosed is $ _________ for my/our annual membership payable to Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries. Please charge my/our membership to: VISA MASTERCARD DISCOVER Account Number: ______________________________________________Expiry Date: _________________ Or CALL Swarthmore College Credit Card Hotline: 1-800-660-9714 Fund: Associates of College Library NAME: ADDRESS: EMAIL: TELEPHONE: Mail to: Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081