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LSU Libraries News
null December 2015

Access to Excellence

From the Dean
Game Day LSU: Keep Middleton Open

This year's LSU-South Carolina football game has already become legend. With Columbia, South Carolina struggling to recover from catastrophic rains and flooding, President King Alexander stepped up and offered to host the game, and to welcome South Carolina students and fans in ways that made us all proud. Do unto others.
 
The LSU Libraries' role that Saturday was exceptionally small, but worthy of some note. A group of LSU students approached President Alexander in the days prior to the game, pointing out that while Middleton Library typically closes on game days, they needed it open to prepare for exams. Middleton's staff reacted quickly and efficiently, and the experiment was a complete success. In fact, it was so successful that Middleton will henceforward be open 24 hours throughout future fall and spring midterm exam periods, including football Saturdays.
 
We get frequent requests from students, especially graduate students, to remain open on football game days. Our reflexive response is that parking restrictions prevent staff and student workers from driving to work. In light of our recent South Carolina experience, I think it's time to raise the question once again: is there a way we can keep Middleton open on those days?
 
The logistical considerations are significant, but by no means insurmountable. Meanwhile, the business of LSU is its academic mission, and Middleton Library is essential to student academic performance. Keep Middleton Open!

2015 Library of the Year
 

Associate Dean of Public Services, Lois Kuyper-Rushing (left), and Head of Government Documents & Microforms,
Stephanie Braunstein, accept the award in Washington DC.

LSU Libraries, together with Louisiana Tech University's
Prescott Memorial Library, are 2015 U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Regional Libraries of the Year, recognized for demonstrating leadership, innovation, and commitment to providing free public access to federal government information. A third library named this year as a Selective Library of the Year is The University of North Texas Libraries.

LSU Libraries and Prescott Memorial Library worked with Southern University in New Orleans to reopen its library almost a decade after the destruction left behind by Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, librarians recovered and reassembled government collections at damaged depository libraries to restore public access to government information at all of the state's twenty-seven federal depository libraries.

"The Louisiana and Texas libraries receiving this honor serve as another example of the critical role libraries play in helping GPO provide the public Government information," said GPO Director Davita Vance-Cooks. "These libraries are valuable partners to the FDLP and an incredible resource for the American people."

The LSU Libraries has been a depository for federal government publications since 1907 and has a substantial number of U.S. documents issued before and after that time. The Libraries became a Regional Depository Library in 1964, and was designated an official depository for U.S. Patents in 1981. The patent collection includes all patents issued from 1871 to the present.

 
New Faculty
LSU Libraries Welcomes Two, With Joint Appointments in English

Associate Professor Lauren Coats (English) joins the Libraries as Director of the Digital Scholarship Lab. Coats received her PhD in English from Duke University and is founder and editor of Archive Journal. She has published a number of articles and essays, presented at national conferences on open access and many other topics, and has been awarded grants from the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Read more about the Digital Scholarship Lab below.
John Miles joins the LSU Libraries Special Collections as Professional-in-Residence with a joint appointment in the Department of English. Originally from Danville, Kentucky, Miles earned a PhD in American Literature from Duke University. Prior to his arrival at LSU, he taught for a year at the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York and for the last six years he has been at the University of Memphis, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in American literature. His research and teaching interests include American literature to 1900, literature and history, and early American print culture. Miles is working on a book titled The Secular History of a Sacred Space: Narrating Community in Seventeenth-Century New England.

His work in Special Collections includes involvement in teaching and outreach, collaborating with the curators of manuscripts, coordinating class visits, and contributing to the development of activities and resources for instructors interested in using Special Collections. Read below about how two aspects of his work will come together in his History of the Book course this Spring.
 
History of the Book
Honors 2030 to Be Taught in Hill Memorial Library

In the spring of 2016, Professional-in-Residence John Miles will teach History of the Book (HNRS 2030, Section 7), in Hill Memorial Library. The Ogden Honors College course will investigate the history of the book in America, drawing upon LSU Libraries Special Collections to introduce students to how the material form of the book influences its everyday use, artistic meaning, and social impact. Beginning with the first printing press in Massachusetts Bay, working through to the nineteenth-century's bestseller Uncle Tom's Cabin, and ending in the present moment with a look at the eBook, the course will give students a better appreciation of how form impacts content, as well as a sense of what role print culture played in the larger movements of American history.

The class will also read a selection from Oprah's new social media-driven Book Club 2.0. Anyone wishing to read along with the class is encouraged to do so. Email John Miles with questions or requests for a syllabus. The class will meet in the McIlhenny Room on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30.

Digital Scholarship Lab

Caleb Doan, English PhD student and GA for the Poe project, working on The Broadway Journal
In August, the Libraries launched the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), and Dr. Lauren Coats joined the staff part time to serve as the Director and lead the emerging program.

The DSL's mission is to advance digitally-enabled research, teaching, and learning at LSU. The lab will help faculty, staff, and students incorporate computational methods, new media, and digital technologies into their classrooms and research.

Housed in Middleton room 5, the DSL will soon offer a collaborative workspace with digitization workstations and specialized software. The Libraries recently received a nearly $30,000 allocation of Student Tech Fee money that will be used to purchase computer equipment, whiteboards, and furniture. Staff will provide technological expertise, help develop pedagogical resources, and offer training for students and faculty utilizing the equipment in the DSL.

This fall, the DSL's work has focused on three areas: building a cross-campus, interdisciplinary community; raising awareness of digital scholarship at LSU; and piloting two projects. As part of these efforts, the DSL hosts a speaker series on digital scholarship. In October, Dr. Emma Watson, director of the Alabama Digital Humanities Center, visited LSU. The campus-wide interest in digital scholarship was clear from the number of people who attended her talk on digital humanities. Watson also conducted a workshop on digital project development to interested faculty and staff. At a second event in November, Rachel Buurma from Swarthmore College discussed her work with the Early Novels Database. The DSL will continue the series in the spring with more targeted workshops and expert speakers. In the meantime, work continues on two pilot projects, one research project building a digital edition of Edgar Allan Poe's The Broadway Journal and one offering pedagogical support to a Spring 2016 undergraduate digital history course studying slavery in the U.S. South. 

New Collection Focuses on Educator of Freedmen

Special Collections recently acquired and processed the Beverly Babin Woods Collection, a compilation that records the fascinating fruits of one genealogist's efforts. Woods is a researcher, genealogist, and writer from Washington D.C. and the great granddaughter of Walter Hamilton Williams, the focus of the collection.

In 1868, Williams, a Canadian of mixed race, migrated to Lafayette, Louisiana, where he operated the first public school for freedmen in the area, under the aegis of the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. He later operated a private school and held positions at the U.S. Customs House and International Cotton Exchange in New Orleans. Williams married Louisiana native Pearl Genevieve Doucet in 1872, and the couple had seven children. He was killed in Lafayette in 1902.

The collection is composed of biographical sketches about Williams written by Woods, typed transcriptions of excerpts taken from his letters, and reports relating to the education of freedmen and political elections.

Woods decided to place her materials with LSU after seeing publicity about the Libraries' digital project Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown Past.

For additional information about the collection, or if you have historical documents you think may be of interest to Special Collections, contact Curator of Manuscripts Tara Laver, [email protected].


Featured Acquisition: Japanese Illustrated Books

Special Collections has begun to build a small collection of Japanese illustrated books to provide primary research material for studying the history of books, printing, printmaking, and illustration, and to support Asian art surveys and comparative historical studies. The books will also strengthen the McIlhenny Natural History Collection by adding works by Japanese artists who made important contributions to nature illustration.

Twelve books have been acquired so far, from as early at 1803 to as recent as 1901, the illustrated books depict subjects included military history, Kabuki theater, botanical and aviary illustrations, and more.

Pictured on the right is
an illustration from Ehon Taka Kagami (Picture-Book Mirror of Hawks) dating from 1866-80. It is a five-volume woodblock-illustrated book on falconry.

An exhibition on Japanese-related materials will be on display in Spring 2016.

Contact Michael Taylor at [email protected] for information on this collection. 
Food for Fines
Libraries Fines Paid With Food Donations

During November, LSU Libraries accepted nonperishable food items for payment of library fines. Students brought food to Middleton Library in exchange for forgiveness of fines up to $20. The food was donated to the LSU Food Pantry to benefit LSU students.  

"Our campaign has generated a positive response from the LSU community," said Elissa Plank, Head of Circulation in mid November, "we have already brought a full box of donated items to the LSU Food Pantry and hope to have another one by the end of November."

The mission of the LSU Food Pantry is to meet the needs of students without food or low in food security by providing non-perishable goods to students in need at no cost to the student.  Its goal is to serve as the number one resource for current LSU students in need of food assistance.
Louisiana in Film
New Acquisitions, New Directions

In 1896, the first permanent home for screening movies, Vitascope Hall, opened on Canal Street in New Orleans. Since then, the film industry has been part of the Louisiana culture. Today, Louisiana is the third largest filmmaking state in America, just behind California and New York.

The Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collection contains numerous items relating to filmmaking, including scripts, and recorded film. The scope of the collection has expanded to build a growing collection of film accessories, such as movie posters, lobby cards, and studio stills, that feature films shot in Louisiana, as well as films depicting Louisiana and aspects of Louisiana. 

Working with the world's foremost experts on film accessories, Ed and Susan Poole of Gretna, this growing collection will serve as a research tool for numerous disciplines, including art and art history, film and media arts, marketing and public relations, history, English, and other areas. A lecture and exhibition are planned for the coming year that will highlight some of these materials and fascinating information about the history of the film industry in Louisiana.

Faculty Senate Relaunches Library Committee

The Faculty Senate Library Committee has recently convened with new members after several years of inactivity. The committee includes representatives from a variety of disciplines and departments, including Chemistry, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Theatre, Foreign Languages, Agricultural Economics, Natural Science, and History. Ramachandran "Vaidy" Vaidyanathan, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is the chair. 

The main charge of the Library Committee is to participate in the development and monitoring of a long-range plan for the library. The change also includes acting as an advisory body for the allocation of library funds, and as a channel of communication between the faculty and the library administration. 

The committee has already written a resolution, "Supporting LSU Library Revitalization" supporting an increased budget for the Libraries, which was first read at the November 9 meeting of the Faculty Senate
.

"Having faculty support in the form of a Faculty Senate Committee will help us focus and prioritize our efforts, and provide a channel for input from the teaching faculty," said LSU Libraries Associate Dean Dr. Lois Kuyper-Rushing, who is also a member of the committee.
Advancing Scholarship and Learning for 80 Years
LSU Press and The Southern Review
 
History of
The Southern Review
Running through January 30, 2016, Special Collections presents an exhibition, Advancing Scholarship and Learning for 80 Years: The LSU Press and The Southern Review.

The exhibition demonstrates the integral relationship between the LSU Press, The Southern Review, and LSU Libraries Special Collections, and covers the history of LSU Press and The Southern Review, and an overview of what is arguably LSU Press's most famous book, A Confederacy of Dunces.

Works published by LSU Press reflecting the major topics of history, the history of LSU, art, anthropology, geography, political science, literature, poetry and music are also a part of the exhibition.

"We are delighted to have LSU Libraries Special Collections host this exhibit, which showcases our shared mission to facilitate scholarly communication and demonstrates how closely the Press and the Library have worked together over the past 80 years," said Press director MaryKatherine Callaway. "From the Press's founding-when its offices were in the basement of Hill Memorial Library-to our publishing collaborations today, the Press and Special Collections have long enjoyed a special partnership."

LSU Press publishes many award-winning works of scholarly and creative excellence and educates readers about the rich cultural assets and traditions of Louisiana in the South and beyond. The Southern Review promotes engaging, relevant, and challenging literature--including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry--and featuring a diverse range of the very best established writers alongside rising stars. Read more.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online Now Available

Detail from The Architecture of Leon Batista Alberti, London, M.DCC.LV. (1755), 364 pp.
 
LSU Libraries now provides access to every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas, through access to Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). From books and directories, Bibles, and sheet music to sermons and pamphlets, ECCO is a critical tool for both faculty research and classroom use.

"One of the greatest developments in the recent history of the LSU Libraries is the addition to the database trove of Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, one of the most useful as well as one of the most LSU-pertinent resources in all of e-scholarship," said Kevin Cope, LSU Professor of English. Cope continued, "ECCO, which provides access to the full range of eighteenth-century British imprints, has deep roots in LSU history. It emerged from the microfilm project that accompanied former LSU Arts and Sciences Dean Henry Snyder's monumental collaborative project, The Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue, which is now part of the online English Short Title Catalogue at the prestigious British Library. Today, ECCO, a truly interdisciplinary database, is useful in an astounding number of ways to an astounding variety of scholars."

"I see Eighteenth Century Collections Online as a wonderful complement to the Early American Imprints and Early English Books Online databases, a rounding out of access for LSU students and faculty to eighteenth-century American and English literary history," said Lauren Coats, Associate Professor of English at LSU. "I look forward to using this resource to expand my research and teaching in early American literature, as it will help me study how books-and the ideas they contain-traveled back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean."
 

2015 Open House Attracts a Crowd



On October 28, LSU Libraries hosted a Halloween-themed open house, "It Came From the Library," in Middleton Library. More than 630 students attended this annual event, learning about interlibrary borrowing, e-textbooks, and subject specialist librarians. Additionally, they discovered how to use a microfilm reader, book study rooms and check out books. Librarians from Special Collections were on hand to introduce students to primary sources available at Hill Memorial Library. Some of the other university and library departments represented at the open house included the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, Carter Music Resources, LOUIS, LSU ITS, and the LSU Center for Academic Success.

Participating students had the opportunity to win prizes and enjoyed free pizza provided by LSU Auxiliary Services and LSU Dining. Even Mike the Tiger stopped by to visit with students and learn more about the Libraries' resources.

"The students really enjoyed the fun and festive atmosphere," said Rebecca Kelley, business librarian and chair of the LSU Libraries Open House Planning Team. "More importantly, students left with a better understanding about the Libraries' resources and services. We want them to know that we're here to help them succeed in their academic journeys."
Three JSTOR Collections Now Available
 

The LSU Libraries has purchased three additional JSTOR collections, Arts & Sciences XII, Arts & Sciences XIII, and Arts & Sciences XIV, adding access to more than 400 JSTOR journal titles. With the purchase of the three collections, faculty, staff, and students can now access more than 2200 JSTOR journals. The subject coverage for the new collections includes anthropology, archaeology, art and art history, Asian studies, education, language and literature, political science, and religion. The LSU community can access the full-text archives, going back to the first issues published, of all these core scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 


Middleton Library Spring Construction Projects
Math Lab and Access Services Move, More Student Study Space Coming
 
Several construction projects will make quiet study space in Middleton Library scarce this spring semester. In January, construction for the new math lab will begin on the third floor of the library. Relocating the math lab, which is used by about 5500 students each year, will make it more centrally located.

Construction for a new Access Services space will also begin in January on the second floor of Middleton Library in room 241. Access Services, which includes Circulation and InterLibrary Loan, will move from the first to the second floor. The space on the first floor of Middleton will be remodeled for bigger and better student study space.
 
We anticipate noise and disruption during this time.

  



Access to Excellence