Homer D. Babbidge, 1971

You are invited to join the Libraries this summer for an archival film series showcasing UConn’s rich history. The series, in conjunction with the “What’s in a Name?” exhibition currently on display, is a selection of recently digitized historic film footage illustrating UConn’s past. The first film in the series is this Friday, June 20^th with “Agriculture on Display,” a series of short films including 1936 sheep shearing competitions, wood chopping contests, and the Baby Beef Club Auction at The Big E.

Other films in the series include:

July 11    Teaching the Land
July 18    Diary of a Student Revolution
July 25    Yankee Conference Championship game at UConn, 1970
August 1   Technology and the Farm

All films will begin at noon in Conference Room 162 in the Dodd Research Center and are less than an hour long. Feel free to bring your lunch. (Maybe even some popcorn!)

The exhibit “What’s in a Name?” on display in the Dodd Research Center gallery utilizes the UConn memorabilia collection to illustrate the ways in which the University has used logos, seals, names, and colors to create our identity and affinity for the institution since 1881.

More information on both the exhibition and the film series can be found at https://blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu/archives

Since about 2010, the electronic book, or ebook, has rapidly increased its market share in the publishing business, and in 2013 it accounted for 27 percent of adult trade-book sales. Academic audiences have been somewhat slower to adopt this format, but as the general market for ebooks has begun to plateau, the academic market has been picking up. Now – and probably not coincidentally – academic libraries find themselves facing sharply increased pricing for commercially published electronic books.

Like many library consortia, the Boston Library Consortium offers an ebook program to its members. Nine of the BLC libraries – Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Northeastern University, Tufts University, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts at Boston, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and University of New Hampshire – participate in the program, which includes commercial publishers such as Wiley and Taylor & Francis, as well as a number of university presses. In the BLC program, publishers charge libraries for ebooks based on a model that combines payment for short-term use of a title by a student or researcher with the purchase of the title after a few short-term uses. In this way, libraries pay full price for an ebook that meets the needs of multiple readers, and pay a fractional price for ebooks that are of use to only one or two people. This month the BLC was surprised to learn that a number of the publishers in this program planned immediate, significant, and unexplained increases in price. Even worse, the new pricing goes into effect at a time when library budgets are already committed for the 2015 fiscal year.

These newly announced price increases, amounting to several hundred percent in some cases, are levied on short-term uses, and this regressive pricing model is being adopted by the publishers whose ebooks are already among the most expensive in the scholarly market. More reasonable library pricing – both for outright purchase and for short-term use – is being offered by other publishers and we are pleased to see many (though not all) university presses in this latter category.

The BLC recognizes that the scholarly ebook market is a developing one and that publishers need to ensure that they have a sustainable revenue stream as they invest in evolving digital technologies. However, this move looks like an experiment in predatory pricing, designed to make the most of rising demand, but without justification in terms of either production cost or use value. Academic libraries and the universities they serve have already seen the results of this kind of experiment, in the pricing of scientific journals, which sky-rocketed as publishers transitioned from print to electronic delivery. And although electronic publications have some new costs not attached to print, it is abundantly clear that a small number of commercial publishers, who control over 40 percent of the scientific journals, have reaped major profits in this transition. Price inflation in scientific journals (which has been four times the general rate of inflation since 1986) has taken a major toll on academic-library budgets for books, including ebooks. This shift in resource allocation is not discipline-neutral, either: science and technical disciplines publish primarily in the form of the journal article, but the book remains central to the humanities and the social sciences. These new ebook price increases (by some of the same publishers who have hiked the price of science journals) are unjustified and therefore ethically unacceptable, and they are economically insupportable.

Consequently, the BLC will lower the price ceiling below which individual titles are eligible to be included in our ebook program, we will reduce the availability of back-list titles at high price points, and we will increase the portion of our consortial budget that is allocated to those publishers whose pricing remains reasonable. In this way, we mean to reward what we regard as fair dealing, as we attempt to limit the budget impact of what appears plainly to be price-gouging.

We have no choice but to take action. The acquisitions budgets of academic libraries do not increase at four times the rate of inflation each year, nor are universities scaling back the teaching and research programs their libraries are called upon to support. As a library consortium focused both on purchasing partnerships and pragmatic advocacy for research libraries, the Boston Library Consortium believes it must call out these escalating ebook prices as being inimical to access and contrary to fairness. We’ve seen it before, and we should not stand for it again.

We encourage campus leaders to support their libraries in this and other efforts to control costs, and we ask faculty to keep affordability in mind when next considering where to publish. Finally, we thank those publishers, primarily university presses, who make ongoing efforts to offer high quality ebooks at affordable prices.

Susan Stearns
Executive Director
Boston Library Consortium
Boston

John Unsworth
President Elect, Boston Library Consortium
Vice Provost for Library and Technology Services
Chief Information Officer
University Librarian
Brandeis University
Waltham, Mass.

Originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 27, 2014

In the culture of the Internet, every organization needs to have a visual identity and a tag line. At the CTDA we are developing that visual identity a little at a time. Our first step was to create the minimalist wordmark that was our acronym. This minimalist approach was purposeful. The CTDA is meant to be a service and a resource that others use to preserve and make available their digital material. We wanted something that said who we were but didn’t require a lot of interpretation and did not compete with the content that the CTDA would deliver through the various presentation layers that would leverage CTDA content.

As we began working with partners beyond our small implementation group, we found that of course no one knew what CTDA stood for, and in a world of silos and “complete solutions” people did not immediately understand what services we provided.  We are happy to explain that the CTDA is not a destination, but a service that organizations use to preserve their digital content and to make that content available to many presentation applications. The CTDA doesn’t itself own any content, rather it is a means of connecting organizations to preservation services so that they can share those resources with each other and the world.

As this understanding became clearer in our own minds, we got to thinking about how to better express our new sense of the service in a sound bite. We decided that we would alter the wordmark and add a tagline that succinctly explained us.  Easier said than done. After much debate and discussion we chose the three words you see above: Connect. Preserve. Share. Our mission is to Connect participants to preservation services,. We Preserve digital content and metadata for the long term, and we make it possible to Share that content with each other, and with national aggregators like the DPLA.

So there you go. I just took 300 words to say what we hope our tagline says in just three.

Written by Greg Colati
Reprinted from http://ctdigitalarchive.org/

The UConn Libraries and the UConn Co-op Bookstore at Storrs Center welcomed Norman H. Finkelstein to campus last night for a talk about his new book Schools of Hope: How Julius Rosenwald Helped Change African American Education. After listening to the story of Rosenwald, it is clear to me why Norman was so compelled to write the story. Julius Rosenwald is relatively unknown in name before you hear that he was the man responsible for the early 20th century success of the Sears, Roebuck Co. But what may be even more surprising and arguably more impressive was his commitment to improving education for African Americans at a time when discrimination was a way of life.

Northeast Children’s Literature Curator Terri Goldich with Norman H. Finkelstein. Photo credit Suzy Staubach, UConn Co-op

Finkelstein educated the audience on the type of person that Rosenwald was and the friendship between himself and Booker T. Washington that changed history. Washington, the famed African American educator, asked Julius Rosenwald to help him build “well-designed and fully equipped” schools for black children. The result was a clearly defined road map of building specifications, including details like what became the trademark large windows to utilize daylight, and the necessary financial support through a foundation with a philosophy that engaged that same community in the fundraising efforts. Over the 20 year period more than 5,300 schools attended by 600,000 black students were built. Many are still standing around the country today thanks to a movement to preserve these sites.

The book, available at the UConn Co-op is a fact-filled publication for young adult readers. It is bursting with amazing images, quotes and a detailed bibliography that helps tell the story of this unique alliance and how it changed the course of educating African American students in the early 20th century.

Photo credit Suzy Staubach, UConn Co-op

Norman Finkelstein is no stranger to children’s books or the UConn Libraries. Recently retired as a public school librarian, Finkelstein is the author of eighteen nonfiction books for adults and young readers. Two of his titles, Heeding the Call and Forged in Freedom won the National Jewish Book Award. His biography of Edward R. Murrow, With Heroic Truth, received the Golden Kite Honor Award for Nonfiction. His archival collection including manuscripts, proofs and other editorial materials are a resource offered as part of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection. His donation yesterday will allow for us to include the materials created during the 4+ year process of creating Schools of Hope.

These types of events are always fun for us. It allows us to connect with our donors and learn more about the stories that are important to them. Yesterday also gave us the chance to check out the new UConn Co-op in Storrs Center. If you haven’t had a chance to visit them yet, please do. And while you’re at it, pick up a copy of Schools of Hope. We promise you won’t regret it.

The mission of the University of Connecticut Libraries’ includes the desire to “provide our users with access to intellectual content that fulfills their academic and research needs.” But what happens when that intellectual content is protected by copyright? The complicated issues surrounding copyright and fair use are a reality in today’s academic environment.

On April 16th we welcome Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor to the Cornell University Library to talk about the challenges of copyright, specifically how we manage the risks associated with it. Hirtle is an archivist by training and specializes in intellectual property issues. In addition to his role at Cornell, he is also currently a Research Fellow in the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and a contributing author to the LibraryLaw.com blog. He has written and spoken widely on this topic, including a paper in 2012 with the title of his lecture “Learning to Live with Risk”, works on the complications of the public domain and the challenges of copyright when digitizing archives & special collections.

The public is invited to attend the lecture, which is scheduled for

Wednesday, April 16th
10:00-11:30am
Class of ’47 Meeting Room
Homer Babbidge Library
University of Connecticut, Storrs

Please RSVP to library@lib.uconn.edu by April 11.

A flyer is available (pdf version) here

The UConn Libraries will host three distinctly different art exhibits this spring:  contemporary Aboriginal artwork from Australia;  fine wood sculpture focusing on social issues, and  punk art, music, and songs from the 1980s,  now  through June 27.

The opening reception will take place on Thursday, March 13 from 4-6 p.m. and feature live music by “Blues  Beyond  Borders,” a musical ensemble of members of the UConn community. Members include:  Harry A. Frank, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Chemistry on bass; Lewis Gordon, Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies on drums; Harvey A. Swadlow, Professor of Psychology, vocals and harmonica;  Mark Overmyer-Velázquez, Associate Professor of History & Director, Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies on piano; and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh, Professor of Political Science on guitar.  Refreshments will be served.  The public is cordially invited to attend this free event.

“Utopia Lives:  Symbolic Aboriginal Art from Australia,” is art based on important ancient stories (Jukurrpa) and symbols centered on ‘the Dreamtime’ – the period in which Indigenous people believe the world was created.  These large and bold works by four contemporary Indigenous artists are from the collection of David Glenn, a UConn Ph.D. candidate in Public Health.

Sculptor John Magnan’s installation, “Strangers in Class:  Gazing Across the Economic Divide,” features unique wooden sculptures which depict contemporary economic struggles.  “These works touch on blue-collar economic struggle, the digital divide, abject poverty and other issues, and the refinement of the work makes it resonate far beyond finger wagging,” says the Standard Times of New Bedford, MA.  Magnan, who holds an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts, lives and works in the National Park Waterfront Historic District of New Bedford.

“Out of the Frame: Alternative Arts of the 1980s Poets, Punk Rock and the Printed Book,” draws upon materials from UConn’s Archives & Special Collections and highlights works including:  the “Dial-a-Poem” movement, in which callers could listen for free to a variety of poems on social issues, cyberpunk writers, punk rock music and memorabilia and recordings documenting punk rock music and offset printed artists’ books of the period. The exhibit ends May 11.

For more information, please visit:  http://lib.uconn.edu/about/exhibits/.

Written by Anna Kijas, Music & Dramatic Arts Librarian and Project Coordinator, Scholars’ Collaborative.
Reprinted from UConn  Libraries Newsletter, published December, 2013

The Scholars’ Collaborative, which began in March and concluded in December, was a pilot project undertaken by the Libraries. Through it, faculty and graduate students were provided with physical space, expertise, and project management assistance to develop innovative projects using digital tools. For it, the Scholars’ Collaborative partnered with graduate students and faculty from several departments and programs, including English, Geography, History, Medieval Studies, and Digital Media & Design. During the pilot, we coordinated and taught workshops, which introduced faculty, students, and library staff to methods and tools used in digital scholarship.

Two projects currently underway, include, “Studying Judith in Anglo-Saxon England” directed by Brandon W. Hawk, a Ph.D. candidate in the Medieval Studies program and “Virtual Hartford” led by Kevin Finefrock and Mary Mahoney, Ph.D. candidates in the History department. While the two projects differ widely from each other, they are both being built in Omeka, a free, open- source platform created at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Hawk’s project focuses on an Old English poem Judith, which was adapted from the biblical Book of Judith (10th- century). Through this project, he aims to introduce readers to the ways in which Anglo-Saxon English society (c.600-1200) studied the Book of Judith, and to approach research in this area from various disciplines. Hawk’s project will feature a multimedia archive, analytical tools, and an interactive map. Finefrock and Mahoney’s project will present an interactive history website focused on events in Hartford, Connecticut’s past. They are building a site which will allow users to examine people, places, and events through access to primary source documents in an interactive environment. This site will also enable users to access documents for teaching and research in undergraduate education, as well as promote and publicize persons active in writing and presenting Hartford’s history. Readmore about these projects.

Although the pilot has ended, we encourage faculty and graduate students to contact the Scholars’ Collaborative with questions about digital scholarship. Stay tuned to developments with the Scholars’ Collaborative; recommendations based on discussions and projects from this pilot are being reviewed and next steps will be determined in the near future.

Brandon Hawk, a Ph.D. candidate explained his project in a public presentation