THE SWARTHMORE COLLEGE LIBRARY NEWSLETTER
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Spring 2007 Vol. 9 No. 2
Swarthmore College Archives: The past informs the present by Christopher Densmore, Curator, Friends Historical Library Swarthmore College was chartered in 1864, and opened its doors for its first class in 1869. The College Archives, housed in the Friends Historical Library, document the history of the school from the planning stages in the 1850s and 1860s to the present. Why keep records? One answer is that records show institutional accountability. They enable us to examine an organization in light of its stated goals and objectives. In 1866, Swarthmore’s first President, Edward Parrish, asserted the intention of the college to provide an education equal to the best colleges in the land. “We claim a higher mission for Swarthmore College,” Parrish said, “than that of fitting men and women for business—it should fit them for life with all its possibilities. May those who should hereafter guide its destinies be inspired with a love of learning for its own sake, and for the inestimable advantages it is capable of conferring, and may they never cease to couple in their system of training the highest intellectual culture with the development of the moral and religious elements of character.”
What is the meaning of Swarthmore? What distinguishes it from the 2,500+ other institutions in the United States that offer baccalaureate degrees, or the much shorter lists of “highly selec-
tive” undergraduate institutions? It is one of a relatively small number of Quaker-related colleges. It had, from its beginning, a commitment to academic excellence. Its honors program, begun in 1922, has been highly influential in American higher education. When Swarthmore was established, the idea of educating men and women together, and even having women on the Board of Managers, was considered innovative. What was the experience of the pioneer generation of women faculty and students? This is documented not only by catalogs and reports, but by the records of the women’s literary society, the Somerville, whose archives include verbatim texts of addresses to classes and reports from Swarthmore alumnae who had gone on, in the 1880s and 1890s, to graduate education, the first generation of women to do so. Institutional goals change over time. How did Swarthmore move from a refuge from the wider world for Quakers, to a place that values and celebrates the diversity of its students and faculty? Records concerning student sit-ins and demonstrations of the 1960s reveal that change in institutional priorities and mission sometimes did not come easily. The College Archives include an extensive photographic record of the college. These images are used in campus publications, and 19th century views of Parrish Hall were consulted by architects and planners during the recent renovations. Not all uses are specific to Swarthmore College history. A Swarthmore art class used the same photographs to study the 19th and early 20th century history of photography. continued on page 2
in this issue
Advancing information literacy . . page 3 ‘43 alum bequeaths art books . page 4-5
Staff news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 6 Spring exhibits & workshops . .page 7-8
The past informs the present continued from page 1
College archives also serve to preserve a sense of place and to to remember the stories behind the names. Who was Elizabeth Powell Bond and why does she have a Rose Garden? Her papers at Friends Historical Library record not only her activities as the 19th Century Dean of Swarthmore College, but her involvement in the anti-slavery movement. Edward Parrish was not only Swarthmore’s first president, but his papers and other records record his involvement with science education, education and the rights of Native Americans. The records of the college also record the less academic side of Swarthmore. The learned tone of the discussion about the Honors Program in the 1920s is off-set by photographs of the annual May Day festivities of the same period. The self-identity of the institution as expressed in annual reports of the president, in view books and catalogs, stands in contrast to a once popular Swarthmore tune, “No Sin at Old Swarthmore.”
No Sin at Old Swarthmore Swarthmore girls are free from sin, Drink no whiskey, beer or gin. Some of them with morals loose Sit and sip tomato juice. Yea, morals matter; Yea, morals matter; Yea, morals matter; No sin at old Swarthmore. Swarthmore boys are good as gold, They would never get too bold. If a Swarthmore girl ever gets bored, She can go to Haverford.
Tri-Colleges to test Variations3 digital music library and pedagogy system by John Anderies, Haverford College Library coordinator for The tri-colleges will be collaborating with the Indiana University Digital Library Program in the development of a turn-key digital music library and pedagogy system known as Variations3. Indiana University is internationally known for both its music school and its pioneering work in the field of music digital library systems. Funding for the three-year project comes from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Variations3 will be built upon the technology of its predecessor, Variations2, which is now in use at Indiana University.
what’s new Library suggestion book online Want the library to buy a certain DVD? Post your questions, thoughts, and purchase suggestions as comments on the online suggestion book, and you’ll get an answer from a librarian. Or just read what others have to say. Let the library know what you think at: http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/mt/trinews/2006/11/ mccabes_suggestion_book_online.html Orange carpeting replaced in McCabe After four decades of use, the orange carpeting in McCabe Library has been removed. The new carpet, light brown with flecks of color, was installed during the winter break. Historically black schools join collaboration The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Swarthmore College Library, along with five other academic libraries, a new three year grant for a major collaborative project that addresses librarian recruiting and diversity issues at the undergraduate level. In addition to Swarthmore, the libraries of Oberlin College, Occidental College, and the historically black institutions, Atlanta University Center (serving Clark University and Morehouse and Spelman Colleges), Saint Augustine College and Johnson C. Smith University will participate in the project. 2
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special and digital collections Variations2 currently provides access to a sizeable collection of streaming audio, scanned score images, and encoded score notation, as well as a large suite of navigational and pedagogical tools. IU will be providing the tri-colleges with hardware, software, training, and support. The tri-colleges will load the system with digitized audio files and scanned score images from its own collections; they will also contribute metadata to be shared with IU and other partner institutions. The tri-colleges will participate in usability testing and provide feedback to IU. John Anderies will serve as the project director for the tri-colleges. Donna Fournier, Swarthmore College’s performing arts librarian, and Michelle Oswell, Haverford College music librarian, will oversee the digitizing and metadata work. Current plans are to test the system first on a small number of courses at all three colleges during the Spring semester before opening it up to others in the following semesters. For more information on the project, please contact John Anderies <janderie@haverford.edu>
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The newsletter of the Swarthmore College Library Published once a semester
Editors: Pam Harris, Terry Heinrichs, Annette Newman Thank you to Wendy Chmielewski, Donna Fournier Email: libnews@swarthmore.edu Swarthmore College Library 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081
Advancing information literacy at Swarthmore by College Librarian Peggy Seiden and Outreach Librarian Pam Harris Information literacy, defined as the ability to locate, evaluate, and effectively use information sources, is an increasingly essential skill. But such a simple definition belies the complexity of the processes, knowledge, and skills that an individual must possess in order to successfully navigate the information landscape. Those skills range in sophistication from the ability to locate a reserve reading in Tripod to the knowledge necessary to access and mine large databanks of scientific information. While librarians have provided national leadership in ensuring that educational organizations understand the importance of an information literate society, success on the local level is dependent upon integration of information literacy into the curriculum. Such success can only be achieved through faculty-librarian collaboration. This collaboration can take many forms. Faculty-librarian collaboration at Swarthmore Faculty and librarians present research sources to students by using them in prerequisite courses and by directly introducing them to course majors. Students have the opportunity to work with librarians on traditional library research skills while gaining preliminary knowledge specific to the discipline. Three examples of such collaboration between faculty and librarians are: Diane Anderson’s FYS Education 14 students have an opportunity to be discussion leaders, supplementing required readings with resources that are both scholarly and popular. One group used a South Park video clip on learning disabilities found on You Tube. Barbara Milewski, professor of music, ensures that her students are well-prepared by collaborating with Donna Fournier, performing arts librarian. In Music of the Holocaust, the library is a jumping off point, enhanced by one-on-one meetings with the librarian. Ultimately, students take their assignment outside the physical and virtual library, contacting individuals who can provide testimonial accounts of their musical experience during the war. The third example, showing how to utilize research in the creation of different intellectual products, is Tomoko Sakomura’s final project for her course, The Art of Japanese Tea Ceremony, in collaboration with Syd Carpenter’s class, The Potter’s Wheel. Students worked in groups to create educational displays on the variety of tea ceremonies. Outside speakers, a film screening, and a reception celebrated this interdepartmental collaboration and unique learning experience. Although most of our students receive some formal instruction in research methods while at Swarthmore, there has not been a systematic approach to teaching information literacy here until now. The Library has taken some preliminary steps through Freshman Orientation, First Year Seminars, and thesis advising. Library instruction in First Year Seminars has received high praise from freshmen as they strive to understand the complex nature of research at the college level. Anecdotal evidence shows, though, that some students reach their junior year with a poor understanding of basic research concepts and are not prepared for the more sophisticated research demands of their majors. To ensure that all students graduate with essential research skills, we need a broader conversation about the topic, as we have had concerning writing skills. Benchmarks needed We need to build information literacy over time, providing students with opportunities and benchmarks from their first year through their senior year. To understand what these benchmarks should be, the Library plans to ask faculty to consider what their expectations are for students’ competence with research at various points in their career. The challenge will be to apply concrete objectives to things we have been doing all along and to things that need to be added. The first step to setting these benchmarks is to evaluate entering students’ research experience, knowledge of basic research concepts, and attitudes towards research. During the past fall, Swarthmore participated with 13 other liberal arts colleges in a survey designed to assess just those dimensions of information literacy. The preliminary data reveal a certain amount of unevenness in the understanding of research concepts, despite the students reporting that they had a significant amount of experience with library research and paper writing before college. Clearly, the students who come to Swarthmore have had plenty of opportunities to engage in the research process, which they don’t see as particularly difficult. A survey of current freshmen shows: 77% said that developing a list of sources to investigate is very or somewhat easy. 76% said that using a library catalog is very or somewhat easy. 79% said that using an electronic index is very or somewhat easy. 80% said that locating sources in a library is very or somewhat easy. 55% did not correctly identify the best search statement for retrieving the maximum number of results in an online search. Only 27% knew how to truncate a search term. About 50% were able to select the most appropriate source for finding scholarly articles. About 50% knew whether a specific citation referred to a chapter of a book or an article. Some showed confusion in evaluating the scholarly merits of various resources. Many students do not demonstrate a thorough knowledge of basic research concepts or strategies. This survey exposes a need to address the varying abilities of our incoming class and to foster their knowledge of information literacy. As the nature of scholarship, teaching, and learning changes, the library needs to redefine itself for a new generation of students. Library research has become increasingly complex, and librarians have recognized the need to incorporate information literacy throughout the curriculum. In an effort to seamlessly weave library research into the academic lives of our students, it is crucial that librarians and faculty collaborate, making this a conversation in which we all need to participate. @library.edu Spring 2007
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A legacy of books on art: William Swarthmore’s libraries received an invaluable gift this fall: the complete library of the late William Slattery Lieberman (1923-2005), a prominent New York museum curator and Swarthmore alumnus. Mr. Lieberman’s collection, which arrived from New York by truck at the beginning of August, totals approximately 6000 books - a rough estimate, since the collection has not been formally counted. Mr. Lieberman’s entry in the 1943 Halcyon suggests that his interests in book collecting and the arts began early: “According to those who are in the know, Bill lives in New York theatres and commutes to Swarthmore for seminars. … Culture-merchant deluxe, he has written a large amount of creditable poetry and accumulated a library notable for French literature and books on art.” After graduating from Swarthmore, he moved to New York, where he began working for the Museum of Modern Art. He served there as a curator of prints and drawings from 1949 to 1979 before moving to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to become Chairman of the Twentieth Century Art Department. During his long career, he wrote dozens of articles and contributed to a wide variety of exhibit catalogues and books. His vast knowledge of the art world is reflected in his collection, which covers art movements from the ancient world to the present, with a particular emphasis on modern art and on Japanese art and culture. Some of the treasures of the collection include a booklet of drawings by the artist Joan Miró; several rare early books on Picasso; and signed works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Lieberman ‘43 Marianne Moore, and William Somerset Maugham. Some of you may have caught a glimpse of us working on this project in the locked compact shelving section on McCabe’s lower level. Library staff and student workers, led by Ed Fuller and me, have been working on sorting the collection into preliminary subject categories. When this stage of the project ends, Swarthmore faculty will survey the parts of the collection relevant to their subject areas and assist the library in deciding which books to add to McCabe’s permanent holdings. Sorting the books provided its own set of challenges. In some cases, we found so many books on a single artist (Matisse and Picasso, to name two) that we had to set aside separate shelf space for them. At other points, we discovered clusters of related books that spoke to years of dedicated collecting in particular subject areas. Certain topics recur again and again: Paris in the 1920s, the Bloomsbury Group in England, the history and culture of Australia, and the Surrealist movement in art, among others.
Some of the 6,000 books donated A Picasso print with signature
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Lieberman’s library comes to Swarthmore
Working with the collection has been a fascinating experience. There’s something strangely compelling about looking at someone else’s books, even when you’re just glancing at the bookshelves in the living room when you visit their home. An entire personal library of this size is like a window into the collector’s personality. Even though none of us at McCabe knew Bill Lieberman, his interests and preoccupations shine clearly through the books he left us. His library reveals not only an encyclopedic understanding of modern art, but also a life spent traveling, learning, and creating. Numerous guides to places as far apart as Japan and Mexico speak of his travels around the world. His tastes in reading ranged from classics of French literature in the original French to mystery novels and a huge collection of biographies and autobiographies. Many of the books show a deeply scholarly mind at work, interested in virtually everything - Søren Kierkegaard, Morocco, the history of World War II, clothing design, classical archaeology - and attuned to all the key art movements of the 20th century. Others are decidedly offbeat (my personal favorite is The Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia). A number of the art books were written by Mr. Lieberman himself; the collection includes many copies of the catalogues for exhibits he curated. William Lieberman will be greatly missed by his friends and colleagues in New York. Fittingly for such an ardent collector, he will also be remembered at Swarthmore through his books. by Amanda Watson, reference intern
LibraryThing! A great resource for anyone who... Has ever been tempted to stick labels on all his books and shelve them in Library of Congress call number order. Is tired of asking everyone she knows what she should read next. Can never join enough social networking websites. LibraryThing is an organizational tool, recommendation source, and social networking system all rolled into one. It is easy to use and conveniently located on the world wide web. LibraryThing has been careful to make your data entry experience as quick and easy as possible. Given an ISBN, title, or author, the system helps you find your book, drawing information from the Library of Congress and other sources to create your personal catalog, complete with cover images. You can create a personal profile, join groups, and browse other people’s book collections. You can add content like tags and reviews to track your collection and enhance the database. You can even put a LibraryThing widget on your blog to show everyone what you have been reading. A free account allows you to catalog up to 200 books. Learn more or start playing at, yes, http://www.librarything.com. by Anna Headley, technical services specialist
A cover from a book of Miro’s work
Support the Swarthmore College Library The excellent quality of our library can be attributed both to the strong support from the College and to the generosity of our many friends Corporate Matching Gift Forms may be included with your check or mailed directly to the College’s Gift Records Office.
$25 $50 $100 $250 $1000 Other: $ Enclosed is check # _________ Please charge contribution to: VISA __ MASTERCARD __ DISCOVER __ Account Number: ____________________________ Expiration Date: _________________ OR CALL Swarthmore College Credit Card Hotline: 1-800-660-9714 Fund: Associates of College Library Name Phone ____________________________ ___________________ Address Email ____________________________ ___________________ ____________________________ Mail to: Swarthmore College Library, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081 Thank you!
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staff news Kate Carter, electronic resources coordinator, attended the Internet Librarian Conference in Monterey, Ca, in October. The conference focused on providing librarians and other information professionals with new tools and techniques to create more useful, integrated user experiences. Social Sciences Librarian Erik Estep’s review of the book Brutal Truths, Fragile Myths: Power Politics and Western Adventurism in the Arab World by Mark Huband (Westview Press) was recently published in Digest of Middle East Studies, 15 (2). Pamela Harris, outreach and instruction librarian, and her colleagues from Oberlin College and Occidental College presented at the first Joint Conference of Librarians of Color in Dallas, Texas, in October. Their presentation, The Ripple Effect – Fostering an Interest in Librarianship among Talented Undergraduates, addressed the impending shortage of librarians, the changes within the profession, and the need for fostering a new generation of information professionals. After the new year began, Danie Martin joined the library staff as technical services specialist for library accounts. She is responsible for Tripod invoice processing, credit card account reconciliation, monograph ordering, and the mail. Danie worked at the libraries at the University of California at Berkeley and Ohio State. Two years ago, she achieved her goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail end to end – 2,174 miles in six months, and wrote a book about it.
Opera lover collects Newton prize for books Tenaciously tracking down tomes of opera lore, Micaela Baranello ‘07 began her quest for books on opera while still in high school. She frequented well-known used book sales and stores in upstate New York such as the Phoenix Used & Rare Books, Autumn Leaves Used Books & Café, and the huge Ithaca Book Sale. In her personal collection, Opera: History, Performance, Theory (and Humor) Baranello includes a little bit of everything, from the scholarly masterpiece Opera and Drama, to the trashy history of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Molto Agitato. One favorite is the performance oriented, Die Neuen Singenstimmen, from which she learned to say in German, “He sang too much Wagner in the mid nineties and now has giant holes in his once-magnificent tenor,” Second prize went to Bradford Taylor ’07, for his collection The Bird Watcher’s Way of Life. Kayley Whalen ’07 received third prize for Transgender and Lesbian Books. All three collections will be on display in McCabe Library, March 6 – April 2, opening reception and talk TBA. The prize, established in 1930 by A. Edward Newton, a noted bibliophile, and administered through McCabe Library, is awarded annually to undergraduates who have formed the most coherent, promising, and thoughtful book collections. First place receives $500, while second and third place winners are awarded $250 and $150 respectively. The contest is open to all undergraduates. For more information about the contest, held in November, and about previous entries, see the Newton website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/x5033.xml. 6
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Peace Collection curator writes essay for Eating in Eden Food, religion, and sex are the subjects of an essay by Wendy Chmielewski (Curator, Swarthmore College Peace Collection) published last fall. The essay, “Strawberries and Cream: Food, Sex, and Gender at the Oneida Community,” appears in a new book, Eating in Eden: Food and American Utopias (edited by Etta M. Madden and Martha L. Finch, University of Nebraska Press). The book is a collection of interdisciplinary essays on American food in the context of intentional communities and visionary ideals. Chmielewski’s essay focuses on food in religion, business, and health at the Oneida Community (OC), a utopian community that lasted from 1848 until 1880. The Oneida Community was notorious in the second half of the nineteenth century for its religious practices, centered on the teachings of its founder John Humphrey Noyes and the unique sexual practices of the community. Noyes preached “Bible Communism,” a system of living in which all goods were held in common and based on teachings of the New Testament. OC members also believed that all adult men and women were married to each other. Although many aspects of the Oneida Community have previously been studied, no one has explored the important role food played in community life. The members of the OC family believed that how they grew their food, what they ate, who prepared it, and how it was served were all crucial issues in the creation of their new society. Community members experimented with vegetarianism and abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. Noyes, the OC’s charismatic leader, often used food imagery in his religious writings and talks to the Community. One metaphor central to his theories of perfected community life was the Christian-based ideal of the heavenly marriage supper of the lamb, thus combining his ideas about marriage and sexuality, with religion and feasting. Food was also part of the Oneida Community’s great financial success.Although today OC is best known for its silver ware and stainless steel cutlery business, in the 1860s the Community established one of the earliest canning businesses with a national distribution network. OC members canned over 40 different types of jams, fruits, and vegetables, many of which were grown on the 900 acres owned by the Community near Syracuse, New York. These canned strawberries, peaches, and tomatoes were considered gourmet items and were served in the fanciest of hotels, bakeries, and grocery stores from New York to Minnesota. The Oneida Community members were pacifists, and a full set of the Community newspaper, The Oneida Circular, is held by the Peace Collection. Chmielewski used the many issues of this newspaper to begin her research on the culture of food at the OC. She also consulted the large collection of OC original letters, diaries, books, inventories, photographs, and other documents held by the Special Collections Department of the Syracuse University Library.
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Upcoming Exhibits
Susan Johnson: Art and Archive – a Conversation Susan Johnson will create a site-specific, mixed-media installation in the List Gallery to examine the interrelationships between history, science, art, and identity. Johnson will also present a companion exhibition of her artist’s books in McCabe Library and give a public lecture titled “The Aesthetics of Memory.” Johnson explores the way culturally specific aesthetic values and institutional conventions of display shape beliefs about history and identity.
A. Edward Newton Award Exhibit Opera lover and scholar, Micaela Baranello ‘07, displays her award-winning collection, Opera: History, Performance, Theory (and Humor,) along with the two other recipients of this year’s Newton. Second prize went to Bradford Taylor ’07 for his collection, The Bird Watcher’s Way of Life. Kayley Whalen ’07 received third prize for Transgender and Lesbian Books. All three collections will be on display in McCabe Library, March 6 – April 2, opening reception and talk TBA.
Exhibits in McCabe Library January 25-February 28 Susan Johnson: Art and Archive–a Conversation. Artists' lecture, Thurs. Jan. 25, 4:30 pm, LPAC Cinema. List Gallery Reception to follow: 5:30-7 pm William Still, circa 1864, “Carte de visite” from the FHL collection.
Black Philadelphia: A Literary History From colonial times to the present, Philadelphia has been crucial to black America, as both a site of its cultural production and a place in its symbolic geography. This exhibit is part of collaboration between students of Anthony Foy's Black Philadelphia class, the Friends Historical Library and McCabe Library.
Tuesday, March 6 - Monday, April 2 A. Edward Newton Award Exhibit Opening reception and talk: TBA Tuesday, April 10 – May Black Philadelphia: A Literary History Opening reception: TBA
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Library workshops - Spring 2007 Super searching Google Erik Estep Tuesday, February 6 1:00-2:30 pm
Alternatives to EndNote Meg Spencer and Pam Harris Wednesday, March 7 12:30-1:15 pm
Using EEBO and ECCO Amanda Watson Tuesday, February 20 1:00-2:30 pm
Online music Donna Fournier Tuesday, March 20 1:00-2:30 pm
Using EndNote Pam Harris Tuesday, February 27 1:00-2:30 pm
Wikipedia Erik Estep Tuesday, April 3 1:00-2:30 pm
Quakers, Swarthmore and the Underground Railroad Chris Densmore Friday, April 13 3:00-4:00 pm Blogging for beginners Amanda Watson and Erik Estep Tuesday, April 24 1:00-2:30 pm Rare books, topic TBA Pam Harris Tuesday, May 1, 1:00-2:30 pm
Unless otherwise noted, all workshops will be held in the McCabe computer classroom. RSVP to awatson1.
McCabe Library Spring Book Sale - Family Weekend Friday, April 13, 1:00 - 5:00 pm: Open to Swarthmore College faculty, staff, students and their parents Saturday, April 14, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm: Open to the public. Sunday, April 15, 1:00 - 5:00 pm: Open to the public Proceeds from this student-organized book sale fund library events and exhibits.
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