Towers - University of Idaho Newsletter - Vol. 17, Issue 3 (2014)

Towers Newsletter of the Library Associates of the University of Idaho Library Early Fall 2014

Inside this issue: Student Spaces............................ 1 Digital Initiatives.......................... 2 Idaho Bibliography........................ 3

Transforming the library for student success In the twenty years since the last remodel of the UI Library, both libraries and students have changed.

The UI Library has transformed into a bustling hub of electronic and print information, collaborative student workspaces, and active learning.

Students expect to have immediate access to an entire world of knowledge and a wide variety of cutting-edge technologies.

Dean’s Corner.............................. 4 Ways to Give.............................. 4

Briefly....................................... 3

Volume 17, Issue 3

The challenge facing the UI Library today is to provide spaces that engage students and give them the tools they need to learn, create, and collaborate while also showcasing the amazing diversity of resources it provides.

Spaces for engaged student learning The increased need for collaborative spaces has greatly influenced current trends in academic library space planning. The UI Library currently lacks these types of spaces, which include flexible group workstation clusters with multiple outlets to plug in laptops and classrooms with modular walls that can make one large classroom.

Pictured above are collaborative spaces in the University of Washington’s Odegaard Undergraduate Library, designed by Miller Hull Partnership, LLP. The awardwinning Seattle architecture firm is working with the UI Library to redesign its first floor space to create new spaces for engaged learning with the most modern technologies. Images from http://www.millerhull.com/ html/nonresidential/odegaard.htm

Modern, collaborative spaces also require new technology like classroom screen sharing software for group presentations and video conferencing.

Other technology needs include circulation self-check machines; HDTV screen near the library entrance to highlight collections, exhibits and programming; a touch-screen info kiosk with library catalog and databases access.

875 Perimeter Dr., 2350 Moscow, ID 83844-2350 Phone: (208) 885-6534 Email: librdean@uidaho.edu

Coffee shops are another way contemporary academic libraries have been engaging students. The coffee shop planned for the UI library is a potentially self-supporting space that could also provide a revenue stream for enhancing library collections that affect students and faculty research. continued on page two

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“First floor,” continued from page one

Recruitment and Retention

selection. The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) noted that 54 percent of students across the country considered the library as part of their decisionmaking — above classrooms, residence halls, and student recreation facilities. Nearly one third of students surveyed reported rejecting a college because it lacked a facility, such as a library, they felt was important.

Collaborative spaces, which the library is seeking to build, will directly benefit the university’s students and align with university goals such as increasing enrollment. The library, as a facility, plays a major role in recruiting new students and faculty. In fact, President Chuck Staben has cited student enrollment as the key focus of his administration; other UI administrators back him up. In remarks to the library advisory board, Interim Provost Kathy Aiken said, “The library is absolutely essential to the undergraduate experience, and it can be a great tool for recruitment. We want the first floor of the library to be such an exciting place that as soon a potential student walks in the door, that is evident.”

The university has a real need to transform its library into a modern space that aids in student and faculty recruitment, and contributes to student success. Through the generosity of our donors, the UI Library looks forward to beginning the next school year with a tranformation of the first floor well underway.

Much has been written about the library’s vital role in college

University of Idaho Advancement Officer Jim Zuba contributed to this article.

Digital Initiatives will feature collections of Robinson, Stonebraker He also helped build the Three Blaze Trail from the north side of the Salmon River into the Thunder Mountain gold mine area near the mining town of Roosevelt. The town was abandoned in 1909 as a result of a landslide.

The Psychiana Collection This past year the Digital Initiatives student workers and staff focused much of their time on digitizing and describing the Psychiana Collection. This collection consists of digitized material from the Frank B. Robinson Papers, which are held in the library’s Special Collections and Archives.

In addition to his other projects, Stonebraker ran a profitable pack train business transporting mail and supplies from his home in Stites (south of Kooskia), where the Northern Pacific Railroad ended. He later ran businesses in big-game hunting and pack strings for the US Forest Service, and converted his homestead into a dude ranch, which is still accessible today near the Chamberlain Basin Ranger Station.

Robinson invented and directed Psychiana, a series of religious mailings and lessons that he and his staff developed here in Moscow.

His papers provide a thorough, first-hand history of the religion’s rise to prominence throughout the Depression, as well as its expansion into one of the ten most popular religions in the world in the early 1940s. After Robinson’s death in 1948, however, the religion faded away.

The Psychiana Collection contains the religion’s lesson series, correspondence to and from Robinson, transcripts of Robinson’s speeches, broadsides and fliers advertising the religion, recordings of Robinson’s radio show, and other fascinating material.

Currently, all of the items in the collection have been digitized and uploaded to our server. A larger web portal for the collection will be released in 2015; for now, material from the collection can be browsed at: http://digital.lib.uidaho.edu/cdm/search/collection/ psychiana.

Materials in the collection include negatives, photographs, and scrapbooks created

by Stonebraker between 1900 and 1930.

Stonebraker Photograph Collection Another upcoming collection from Digital Initiatives is the Stonebraker Photograph Collection. This collection consists of approximately 550 digitized images from the William Allen Stonebraker Collection in the library’s Special Collections and Archives.

Topics and themes include a focus on his homestead, businesses, and the environment – wildlife, scenery, buildings, pack train operations, mining, hunting, ranching, and early aircraft operation in the Chamberlain Basin.

Using primitive camera equipment, Stonebraker took photographs in central Idaho’s remote Salmon River and Frank Church River of No Return areas at the turn of the 20th century. Stonebraker, an Idaho pioneer, built one of the first homesteads in the Chamberlain Basin area.

Mining scenes from the Stonebraker Collection are featured above.

The collection will be made available online later this fall, but can be browsed for now at: http://digital.lib.uidaho.edu/cdm/search/ collection/stonebraker.

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Major bibliography of Idaho published by UI Library faculty member Focusing on non-fiction monographs that could be obtained from a library or historical society, Perret’s goal was to list every readily available non-fiction book on Idaho history. “Including fiction and articles would have easily doubled the size of the project. Unlike monographs, most journals and articles are pretty thoroughly cataloged and thus are easily findable through an online catalog like Worldcat,” he said.

UI Associate Professor and Reference Librarian Robert Perret has published a new bibliography of the state of Idaho, Here We Have 150 Years of Idaho History: A Bibliography. This project was supported by a grant from the J.C. Smith Memorial Fund with additional funding from the University of Idaho Library. The bibliography includes 220 pages and 5,000 entries, making it the most comprehensive bibliography of Idaho history ever produced and the first in nearly twenty-five years.

Here We Have 150 Years of Idaho History is also the first major Idaho history bibliography to be made available digitally. The two that were previously published, Idaho Local History: A Bibliography by Nelson & Webbert (1976) and Idaho History: A Bibliography by Domitz and Hitchcock (1991), are not available online.

Here We Have 150 Years of Idaho History: A Bibliography is complete as a monograph, but Perret has also created an ongoing bibliography, The Idaho Bibliography Project, which he plans to update annually.

Contact Robert at rperret@uidaho.edu with questions or to suggest additions to The Idaho Bibliography Project.

Perret said the Idaho sesquicentennial and Idaho History Day prompted him to want to make it easier for citizens to find books on Idaho history – especially local history. “I felt like it is a rite of passage for a librarian to create a major bibliography. I am happy to have such diverse and interesting subject matter,” he added.

Image from the Northwest Postcard Collection http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/ digital/postcards/

Briefly . . .

Faculty updates

same applies to libraries.” Thank you, Ryan. We couldn’t have said it better.

The UI Library has made several recent hires to fill key leadership positions. Rick Stoddart has joined the library faculty as Head, User and Research Services. He will oversee reference services, library instruction, the liaison program, circulation, and interlibrary loan. Rick is most recently from Oregon State University, where he served as Assessment Librarian and was previously at Rick Stoddart Boise State University Library. He earned an MLIS and MA in Communication Studies at University of Alabama and is a current doctoral candidate at Boise State.

ACRL excellence award to UI Library faculty Two UI librarians have received the ACRL (Academic College & Research Libraries) Oregon Award for Excellence. The award recognizes excellence in significantly improving academic librarianship in Oregon.

Faculty librarians Diane Prorak and Associate Professor Rick Stoddart were honored for their work to create the Library User Experience and Assessment Un-Conference (LUAU), which brought together academic librarians from across the Pacific Northwest to share expertise in library assessment.

Ben Hunter was named Associate Dean and Head, Technical Services. Ben has been a member of the faculty since 2006. He earned an MSLS from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a MA in Music from the University of Oregon, and is a current doctoral candidate at Simmons. He has been recognized as an ALA Emerging Leader and Library Journal Mover and Shaker.

Library Research Colloquium on historical campus The UI Library Research Colloquium series will present “U-Idahome: the Moscow Campus as Place,” Oct. 16 on the library’s main floor. The presentation, which coincides with Homecoming Week activities, will feature D. Nels Reese, UI Associate Professor Emeritus of Architecture and former Director of Facilities, and Garth Reese, head of the UI Library’s Special Collections and Archives. They will discuss the history of the Moscow campus, incorporating images from the digitized UI Campus Photograph Collection to illustrate their discussion.

Annie Gaines was selected as Scholarly Communications Librarian, a tenure-track faculty position. Annie is an ALA Emerging Leader (2014), and earned her MLS from Drexel. She previously acted as Scholarly Communications Librarian in a one-year temporary appointment.

Data & Digital Services workshops

Love letter to libraries

Research data will be the focus of a series of workshops presented by the UI Library during the 2014 fall semester. The Data and Digital Services workshops are designed to build skills and educate the campus community on topics related to research and learning in the information age.

“I love libraries,” confessed the UI Argonaut’s managing editor, Ryan Tarinelli, in the August 26 edition of the newspaper.

“Libraries represent a great lesson that is often missed in the 25-and-younger crowd: it is not all about you. It reminds us that we are only one tiny part of the whole human experience, and we should recognize it. And as Vandals,” he continued, “we should take advantage of it.

Topics include research data management planning, metadata and research data documentation, and research data citation and publication. Research Librarian Jeremy Kenyon and Science Librarian Nancy Sprague will lead the workshops, which are scheduled for Oct. 10, Oct. 31, and Nov. 14 in the library.

Summarizing his “wonder toward libraries,” Tarnelli quoted Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes. “‘If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’d bet they’d live a lot differently.’ Well, the

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Dean’s Corner: President Staben challenges fundraising with match

We are working on this challenge and making good progress. I urge you to help us show President Staben that the library is worthy of

his investment. Please contact our development officer, Jim Zuba (his contact information is provided in the box next to this column) if you are able to help us meet this challenge.

Remember: your gift will be matched, so you are providing twice as much support with your check!

The library continues to be a focal point for student success and retention. Despite the electronic access to materials, the library is a space where students come to study and learn.

They connect with the university community and learn how to become researchers. These are skills they carry with them far beyond their college experience and into the marketplace.

Thank you for supporting our students through your support of the library. And, this year, I thank you for making an extra gift so we can demonstrate to President Staben how much Vandals value libraries!

Ways to Give For more information on giving options and ensuring your gift is used exactly the way you want it to be, contact Jim Zuba at (208)885-4142 (work), (509)432-6422 (cell), or jzuba@uidaho.edu.

• Cash Gifts • Planned Giving • In-kind Gifts (Materials and Personal Collections) • Tax Benefits Appreciated Assets • Memorial or Honorary Gifts For more information, please visit: www.lib.uidaho.edu/

875 Perimeter Dr., 2350 Moscow, ID 83844-2350 Phone: (208) 885-6534 Email: librdean@uidaho.edu

As you read in our lead article, the library is planning a face-lift that will refresh our facility to provide the welcoming learning space that our Vandals deserve.

We are actively seeking your help to make this a project Dr. Lynn Baird, that will add to Dean of Libraries the stature of our university. As some of you may know, President Chuck Staben is known to challenge people to achieve higher goals. The library project has not escaped his attention; he has challenged us to exceed our fund-raising goals by providing a $200,000 match.