Month: January 2010

2010-01-28

The Savvy Researcher Series of open workshops are geared toward the specific research needs of graduate students in all disciplines. Check out the added new titles for the spring semester at www.library.illinois.edu/learn/workshops.html .

small class size * hands-on * quick paced * one-hour sessions

The information experts are here to help with everything from informational organization strategies to questions about copyright law basics to locating data sets to citation management to finding grant funding.

For registration information, please visit www.library.illinois.edu/learn/ .

Co-sponsored by the Graduate College

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).

2010-01-27

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign showcases Lewis Carroll materials in a special exhibition opening February 2 and running through March 5, 2010. Curiouser and Curiouser: The Games and Mind Games of Lewis Carroll includes games, puzzles, and many curious aspects of the author of the beloved classic Alice in Wonderland .

The exhibition, named in honor of Alice’s exclamation as she tumbles down a rabbit hole into a world where animals pose riddles and play croquet and decks of cards come to life, is drawn largely from the Flodden Heron Collection of Lewis Carroll materials in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library.  Flodden W. Heron was an American bibliographer and collector of rare materials on Lewis Carroll. While this exhibition primarily coheres around Carroll’s fascination with puzzles and games, the items also reflect Heron’s own interests in the author, particularly Carroll’s penchant for play and the nature of his relationship with Alice Liddell Hargreaves, the little girl for whom Alice in Wonderland was first written and dedicated.

Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898) is better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll. In addition to being a professor and writer, he adapted rules for games, including backgammon, tennis, and croquet, and invented others.  The University of Illinois owns Carroll’s own chess and backgammon board—two pastimes he combined into an entirely original game called “Lanrick.”& #160; Carroll preferred games of skill and logic over those of chance.  His games sought to instruct, but never at the expense of amusement.

The Curiouser and Curiouser exhibition includes special “game tables” where visitors can try some of Carroll’s puzzles and games, including Lanrick.  Exhibition visitors can also try “ mirror writing”—one of Carroll’s favorite forms of correspondence.  Children are encouraged to attend the five-week exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by graduate students from the Department of English and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  These curators are available for 30 to 60-minute school visits to introduce and share the games of Lewis Carroll with K-12 students.

Curiouser and Curiouser: The Games and Mind Games of Lewis Carroll is funded by a gift from Library Friend, Jean McConochie of New York, New York.  Her support also allowed for the archival processing of the collection.

The exhibition concludes on March 5 with a Mad Hatter Tea Party for Young People.  The party coincides with the release of Tim Burton’s film Alice in Wonderland .

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).

2010-01-15

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Libraries is collaborating with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) on a $1 million grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).  Together, the partners will study the value of academic libraries to students, faculty, policymakers, funders, and others.

Carol Tenopir, director of the Center for Information and Communication Studies and a professor in the School of Information Sciences at UT Knoxville, is the lead investigator on the project. Former UT Dean of Libraries Paula Kaufman, now university librarian and dean of libraries at the University of Illinois, is a co-principal investigator; and Martha Kyrillidou, senior director for statistics and service quality programs, is leading the project from ARL.

The three-year grant, entitled “Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value),” will work to enrich, expand, test and implement methodologies measuring the return on investment (ROI) in academic libraries.

The results of the study will provide evidence and a set of tested methodologies and tools to help academic librarians demonstrate how the academic library provides value to its constituents and ROI to its funders, and to measure which products and services are of most value to enhancing the university’s mission. This project will greatly expand upon earlier studies to consider multiple measures of value that the academic library brings to teaching/learning, research, and social/professional/public engagement functions of the academic institution.

To ensure that the process will be rigorous, realistic and highly visible in the academic library and university community, an experienced team of academic librarians and outstanding researchers will bring their leadership to the project. Two well-known researchers in the library field will serve as consultants: Bruce Kingma, an economist at Syracuse University, and Donald W. King, a statistician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill. Additional project participants include: Gayle Baker, Ken Wise, Rachel Fleming-May, Regina Mays, Crystal Sherline, and Andrea Baer of UT Knoxville; Tina Chrzastowski of the University of Illinois; and Henry Gross, Gary Roebuck, and David Green of ARL.

The project is also engaging an advisory committee of noted information science researchers: José-Marie Griffiths of UNC-Chapel Hill, and Michael Koenig of Long Island University; academic library directors Carol Mandel of New York University, and Colleen Cook of Texas A&M; consultants Judy Luther and Joseph Matthews; and economists George Deltas of the University of Illinois, and Nicolas Flores of University of Colorado.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee system. It has about 26,000 students, more than 1,400 faculty members and more than 300 degree programs. UT Knoxville is one of the nation’s leading public research institutions and, with Battelle, co-manages the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which provides faculty and students with unparalleled research and learning opportunities at the Department of Energy’s largest science and energy lab. UT Knoxville is now home to the one of the world’s most powerful academic computers, Kraken. Accredited since 1972, the School of Information Sciences within the College of Communication and Information has achieved regional, national and international recognition through its award-winning faculty and innovative research. For more information about UT Knoxville, see www.utk.edu and for more about the School of Information Sciences, see www.sis.utk.edu .

ARL is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL is on the Web at www.arl.org .

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).

2010-01-05

The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a training program for public librarians in other countries.

Global Libraries, an initiative of the foundation’s Global Development Program, is working to transform public libraries into vital resources that can help improve the lives of millions of people. The initiative works with select countries that demonstrate a need and a readiness to help public libraries provide free access to computers and the Internet, and training on how to make full use of these tools.

Two of the foundation’s Global Libraries country programs will be selected to participate in the Mortenson Center program. The Mortenson Center program will expose potential public library leaders and innovators from these countries to different models of successful public libraries.  The goal is to provide these individuals with the opportunity to study the policies, services, and funding sources that are necessary to fully support a library system, which is both responsive to the needs of a community and proactive in addressing the information needs of users.

“We welcome this unique opportunity to work with the Global Libraries initiative,” said Susan Schnuer, Associate Director at the Mortenson Center. “Through this work, we can build on the current training efforts and offer a professional development program that meets the needs of future public library leaders.”

Barbara Ford, Director of the Mortenson Center, adds, “We are very pleased to work with the initiative to strengthen the skills of public librarians in other countries so they can continue enhancing access to information for communities around the world.”

The training will consist of a three-week program in the United States, followed by a one-week visit to another country with excellent libraries.  It will focus on a changing library environment due in part to the influx of new electronic tools and services.

The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs, the only one of its kind in the world, was established in 1991.  It is a professional, non-degree program that seeks to strengthen international ties among libraries and librarians, regardless of geographic location or access to technology. Over 800 librarians from 89 countries have already taken advantage of programming through the Mortenson Center.  For more information, please visit www.library.illinois.edu/mortenson .

Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).