LIBRARY
LINK
FACULTY UPDATE FROM THE
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND LIBRARIES SPRING 2013
NEH awards grant to digitize historic newspapers
Online and Onward
The University of Maryland Libraries was awarded $325,000
Our newly created Digital Stewardship unit oversees projects including:
from the National Endowment for the Humanities to make important historic newspapers from the state of Maryland freely accessible via the Internet. The grant will be used to digitize 100,000 pages from many of Maryland’s historic newspapers. Published between 1836 and 1922, the newspapers relate significant historical events in Maryland, including the growth of Baltimore as a commercial hub and the upheaval of the Civil War—which manifested itself in harsh censorship of Maryland newspapers.
“This project will make the state’s history available in a new way to researchers not only in Maryland, but also around the world,” says Patricia Steele, dean of the University of Maryland Libraries. “It extends our land-grant mission in a digital age and exposes the state’s collections to new audiences.” Actual digitization will be performed by a vendor using second-generation microfilm, thereby ensuring the original film is unharmed. The University Libraries are uniquely qualified to lead this project, says Jennie Levine Knies, manager of the library’s newly created Digital Stewardship Unit. “The confidence the NEH has placed in us by awarding this grant speaks highly of our expertise and track record. We’re so pleased to be serving the state in this way.” The National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, is a long-term effort to develop an Internetbased, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information. www.loc.gov/ndnp
DRUM: Digital Repository at the University of Maryland
A digital home for faculty research to make it permanently accessible and freely available drum.lib.umd.edu
Research Data Services
An expanding set of services to assist faculty with data management, curation, and long-term preservation lib.umd.edu/digital
E-Publishing
A pilot project to provide infrastructure and support for journal publishing lib.umd.edu/digital
Films at UM
“We’ve made meaningful progress,” says Patricia Steele, dean of University Libraries. “Though there’s much work to be done, there should be no doubt Maryland supports the principles of free and open access.”
Our first contribution will be Der Deutsche Correspondent, a German newspaper published between 1848 and 1918. It is only the second German-language newspaper funded by the National Digital Newspaper Program.
A collection of more than 800 digital videos for classroom or independent use digital.lib.umd.edu/films
The two-year project will make the newspapers available via the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America website. The first images will be available by summer; we expect to have 25,000 pages available by October. www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
A collection of 8,000 items from the early years of the Occupation of Japan, 1945-49. digital.lib.umd.edu/prange
Gordon W. Prange Children’s Book Collection
Senate endorses Open Access At its meeting on February 14, the University Senate gave the academic community a valentine: unanimous approval of a proposal by the Open Access Task Force to support open scholarship. Specifically, the senate recommended that the university sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. By doing so, the university joins a group of nearly 400 universities, research institutions, foundations, libraries, museums, and archives from around the world who share the vision of disseminating information so that it’s widely and readily available to society. The task force, chaired by Patricia Steele, also recommended actions to advance open access and to ensure the academy owns its scholarly output.
Among the actions recommended: University Libraries n Inform faculty of ways of negotiating with publishers to retain rights to deposit scholarly works in DRUM, the university’s digital repository. n Establish an Open Access publishing program n Support the creation of publishing open textbooks University n Inform faculty of need for expanded view of promotion and tenure requirements in a digital age n Consider impact of Open Access measures on technology transfer n Establish a pilot program to fund Open Access fees for faculty
Big Ten affiliation benefits libraries big time When the university announced its intention to join the Big Ten, we had good reason to celebrate. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a robust organization of Big Ten member institutions, has a long and successful track record of supporting and advancing library initiatives. The Center for Library Initiatives, a unit within the CIC, has its own staff, a long history of collaboration among partner libraries, and is the most effective working group in the CIC. It is probably the strongest library consortium now functioning. We’ll be part of a can-do group of power house libraries that accomplishes ambitious mutual goals. As a faculty member, you’ll benefit from improved access to print materials through shared print repositories and robust and award-winning interlibrary loan services. Combined collections exceed 79 million volumes. We’ll see price breaks on some subscriptions. Consortial licensing agreements negotiated by CIC’s Center for Library Initiatives save the libraries $6.5 million annually. Although the university’s membership in the Big Ten becomes effective July 2014, we expect to collaborate with CIC libraries as soon as practical. The HathiTrust digital library (www.hathitrust.org) is a major nationwide initiative that was seeded in large measure by the CIC. A plan is now also under way to digitize and provide access to the entire corpus of federal government documents.
University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Minnesota University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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Northwestern University University of Chicago Michigan State University University of Michigan Pennsylvania State University Rutgers University
University of Maryland University of Iowa University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)
Ohio State University Indiana University Purdue University
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
SPEAKING OF BOOKS: Conversations with Campus Authors
TERPS IN OUR BEDS? Building Meaningful (Library) Relationships in a Multi-Partnered World Monday, March 25, 2013, 10 – 11:30 a.m.
6137 McKeldin Library Dan Hazen, associate librarian of Harvard College for Collection Development. Learn how cooperative and consortial arrangements are helping research libraries meet local needs—despite overlapping commitments, uncertain business models, and fundamental questions concerning scope and adaptability.
SPEAKING OF BOOKS: Conversations with Campus Authors
PINK AND BLUE: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America Tuesday, March 26, 2013 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.
McKeldin Library 6137 Jo Paoletti, Associate Professor, American Studies
EDIBLE BOOK FESTIVAL 2013
Pink
Blue and
Telling The Boys from The girls in AmericA
Jo B. Paoletti
EDIBLE BOOK FESTIVAL
Monday, April 1, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
NAKED TRUTH: Strip Clubs, Democracy, and a Christian Right Wednesday, April 10, 2013 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. McKeldin Library 6137 Judith Hanna, Affiliate Senior Research Scientist, Anthropology, takes readers onstage, backstage, and into the community and courts to reveal the conflicts, charges, and realities that are playing out at the intersection of erotic fantasy, religion, politics, and law.
MARYLAND DAY
Saturday, April 27, 2013, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Join the University Libraries in this campuswide celebration of all that the university has to offer. The portico of McKeldin Library, offering a stunning view of McKeldin Mall, will be open for the first time. Elsewhere, star in an old-time radio drama or try your hand at origami. To find all of the activities the University Libraries will offer, enter “libraries” in the “search for events by keyword” at www.marylandday.umd.edu.
McKeldin Library plaza View edible creations inspired by books and authors on this April Fools’ Day celebration observed by libraries around the world. Sponsored by the University Libraries and the iSchool.
IN BRIEF Vive la France!
Thanks to a grant from the College of Arts and Humanities that recognizes innovative projects, a faculty team will digitize rare historical French pamphlets, exposing valuable information about the French Revolution to a broad audience. Librarian Kelsey Corlett-Rivera has teamed up with Assistant Professor Sarah Benharrech and Professor Valerie K. Orlando of the Department of French and Italian to oversee the effort to digitize 300 French pamphlets published in the late 18th century. The pamphlets are part of the special collections of the University Libraries.
UMD to train Digital Residents
The University of Maryland has been selected by the Library of Congress to serve as an elite training ground in a new residency program for professionals who work with digital collections. The University Libraries and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) will partner to offer the nine-month residency which begins in September 2013. UMD is one of 10 regional host sites—and the only university—in the first year of this National Digital Stewardship Residency program.
A Series of Events with DR. VALERII PAVLOVICH
LEONOV Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Library
LEC TURE
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIA AND THE COLD WAR
Tuesday, April 2, 2013, 12 noon – 2:00 p.m.
Conservators rescue historic diploma The diploma awarded to the first Korean student to receive a degree from any American college or university has returned to Maryland, now at home in the University Archives. Pyon Su received the diploma from Maryland Agricultural College in 1891; his great-great-great nephew gave it to the university in 2012. Printed on parchment and tightly rolled, the diploma suffered from multiple creases. In order to digitally scan the document, it first had to be flattened. Collections conservator Bryan Draper began this treatment by reintroducing low levels of moisture to the document, first in a humidity chamber which allowed him to slowly unroll the stiff document. To remove the creases, the diploma was humidified again between laminate material and damp blotting paper. Modified bulldog clips attached to the diploma’s edges maintained proper tension as the parchment dried.
“Like a Taco” The greatest threats to parchment are high humidity and mold, says Draper. Keep your own diploma in as stable an environment as possible, matted and framed with archival-quality materials. Don’t dry-mount it, and if it gets wet and wrinkles, contact a conservator. Draper once conserved a water-soaked diploma which someone had attempted to dry by ironing it. “It was horribly shrunken,” he says. “It looked like a taco.”
OUR MISSION The University of Maryland Libraries enable the intellectual inquiry and learning required to meet the education, research and community outreach mission of the University. Architecture Library Art Library Engineering & Physical Sciences Library Hornbake Library McKeldin Library Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library Priddy Library at Shady Grove White Memorial Chemistry Library
Patricia A. Steele Dean of Libraries 6131 McKeldin Library College Park, Maryland 20742-7011 pasteele@umd.edu www.lib.umd.edu LIBRARY LINK is produced by the University Libraries. Writer and editor: Eric Bartheld Designer: Rebecca Wilson
McKeldin Library 7121 Sponsored by the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies, Department of History. Light lunch will be served. K EYNOTE PRESENTATION
RUSSIAN LIBRARIES, RESEARCH AND SCHOLARS: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. McKeldin Library 6137
FILM VIE W ING AND DISCUSSION
FIRE OF 1988 AT THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES LIBRARY
Thursday, April 4 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
McKeldin Library 7121 The film documents the devastating 1988 fire at the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.