Library “Comic Con” Game Night Recap

Last night the library held its most successful Game Night to date! A large number of students, staff, and faculty had fun playing video games and board games, enjoyed the free pizza, and even got to make buttons! The library holds a Game Night once in the Fall semester and once in the Spring semester, so if you missed out there’s always next semester! For a glimpse at some of the fun we had, see some of our photos here:

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Students enjoyed playing Super Smash Bros.

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Rock Band:

 

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Mario Kart:
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Just Dance:

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Our winner for best costume, Harley Quinn!

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Don’t forget to check the blog and WML Facebook page regularly to find out about other exciting events hosted by the library!

 

 

 

 

The International Film Series Presents: A Screaming Man

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Photo courtesy of Film Movement.

Please join us at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday November 13, 2013 in Room 305 of the Weinberg Memorial Library for a free presentation of the drama A Screaming Man. Professor George Aulisio will lead a discussion following the film.

Set in Chad, A Screaming Man is described by Film Movement as the story of Adam, an aging former swimming champion, who is a pool attendant at a popular hotel. When the hotel is taken over by new Chinese owners, he is forced to give up his job to his son, Abdel, leaving Adam humiliated and resentful. Meanwhile the country is in the throes of civil war. Rebel forces attack the government while the authorities demand the population contribute to the war effort.  Can Adam and his family survive the changes that are breaking their world apart?  

Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun A Screaming Man is in French and Arabic with English subtitles and is the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

This event is open to faculty, staff, students and the public. Please email Sharon.finnerty@scranton.edu for reservations.

 

Open Access Week is October 21 – 27

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Today marks the beginning of International Open Access Week, a celebration of access to scholarship. Open Access is a movement in scholarly publishing which endeavors to sidestep or bypass the traditional barriers that block people from accessing scholarship. The most common barrier is the cost of subscription journals which are usually too expensive for individuals to own and have increasingly become a burden on academic libraries as well. Generally speaking, academic libraries and librarians consider open access to be a worthwhile or virtuous endeavor, because librarians are the people most aware of the ever increasing costs of scholarly journals. Librarians have long realized that under the current scholarly publishing model, libraries will not be able to sustain the journal collections that scholars need.

Open Access comes in a few different forms, but the common characteristic that unites all types of Open Access is that scholarship is accessible. That is to say, scholarship is not written in laymen’s terms or overly simplified, but rather articles that are made to be Open Access or articles published in Open Access journals are freely available to anyone with an internet connection. Open Access is more equitable, allowing all individuals to have the same access to the scholarship traditionally only accessible by those with the financial means to purchase multiple expensive subscriptions.

Since its inception, Open Access publishing has continuously been under attack. Some individuals do not recognize the value of Open Access publishing and tend to discriminate against publications in open access journals. Though this seemed to have been on a decline with Universities such as Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and UPenn signing open access mandates supporting scholars who publish in open access venues (http://roarmap.eprints.org/). However, the debate seems to be on the rise again with the rise of predatory open access journals. These journals seek out scholars encouraging them to submit materials to their “peer reviewed” journal, accept the articles without undergoing peer review, and then charge the author a publication fee (the-scientist). These journals are simply exploitative of the open access movement and do not truly represent the vast, high quality scholarship that is being published in legitimate open access journals.

Recently, a sting on “open access” journals published in SCIENCE has given the anti-open access cause some ammunition (sciencemag). However, the study is not without considerable backlash from open access proponents who have noted, among other things, that the sting was selective about which journals the author chose to submit and the tone of the article was misleading about open access in general (blogs.law.harvard; Peter Suber’s plus.google.comscholarlykitchen).  It is also worth noting that the source of the “open access sting” article (SCIENCE), is the same subscription based peer reviewed publication that published a fake article in the past. This is of course a similar peer review indiscretion that the sting article sought to illuminate (michaeleisen).

Predatory Open Access journals are a real concern to the advancement of open access publishing, but there are resources for determining which journals are legitimate peer review and which are predatory. The Directory of Open Access Journals is an index of Open Access Journals. Currently, the Directory is undergoing a reevaluation to assure open access journals found in the directory are all legitimate peer reviewed journals (doaj). In addition, Beall’s list of predatory Open Access Journals lists journals and publishers that the blog’s author, a scholarly initiatives librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, deems to be predatory in nature (scholarlyoa). However, it is important to note that the Directory of Open Access Journals was found to have a few predatory open access journals in its index, this is primarily the reason it is currently undergoing internal evaluation, and Beall’s list was found to list journals that deny publication to articles based on recommendations from peer reviewers.   The best safety measure is to ask colleagues their thoughts about specific journals, research the journal and the articles that it has published, and consult a librarian for their recommendation.

It is true, there are open access journals which do not have high peer review standards and seek to exploit the movement. However, the same can be said for subscription journals as well. In and of itself, Open Access does not make a journal low quality. Though Open Access has a long road ahead of it, it is only going to grow from here. The ideals of Open Access are important to scholarship and will continue to rise as more scholars become aware of the goals of Open Access and become attuned to picking out predatory open access journals. This will take a considerable amount of time to fight the misconceptions that surround Open Access publishing (theguardian).

In closing, there is a reason libraries support the Open Access movement, it is because it is for the advancement of knowledge and it is for equality. For example, there have been position statements by the Canadian Library Association (cla), the Association of Research Libraries (arl), the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a coalition of more than 800 libraries (sparc), and the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association (ala).

For more information on the specifics of Open Access please see the University’s research guide on Open Access (http://guides.library.scranton.edu/openaccess).

Schemel Forum World Affairs Luncheon – 10/28 @ Noon!

KinzerJoin us this upcoming Monday, October 28th and meet Stephen Kinzer, Author of “The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles and Their Secret World War.”


Click here to listen to his recent interview with NPR and don’t forget to RSVP to emily.brees@scranton.edu to reserve a spot!  The event will be held at Brennan Hall in the Rose Room, 5th Floor.

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For more information on Schemel Forum events, click here.

Are You a Train Buff?

Trains magazine ranks The General as one of the 10 best train movies of all time. Buster Keaton’s extraordinary stunt work and the use of Civil War-era trains make this film a classic.
Don’t let the train leave the station without you! Join us for the International Film Series’ free presentation of The General at 7:00 p.m. Friday October 18th in Room 305 of the Weinberg Memorial Library.
This screening is being held in conjunction with the Lackawanna County Library System’s Scranton Reads program and is open to the public.
Please email sharon.finnerty@scranton.edu for reservations.

 

The Changing Face of the Middle East – 10/18

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The Schemel Forum will host Dr. David Myers, Professor of Jewish History, UCLA on
Friday, October 18th for a World Affairs Luncheon at Noon.  

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to explore the current state of affairs in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship as well as a discussion of the events in Syria.

Heritage Room, Weinberg Memorial Library, 5th Floor

Please reserve a seat here or contact emily.brees@scranton.edu.

Watch the Schemel Forum – 2013 University for a Day Lecture Series

Did you miss the University for a Day Lecture Series on freedom & justice?
Watch them at your leisure via the links below.

LECTURE 1: The Declaration of Independence: Our Guiding Light and an Inspiration to the World.
Morey Myers, Esq.

LECTURE 2: Culture and Conflict: New England, Old England and the Civil War.
Dr. Leonard Gougeon, University of Scranton 

LECTURE 3: The Great Emancipation of 1863: A Momentous Achievement – A Work in Progress.
Dr. Clement Price, Rutgers University – Newark

LECTURE 4: Global Justice: What are the Responsibilities of Citizens?
Dr. Thomas Pogge, Yale University

Comic Con Game Night

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The Library will be hosting its biannual Game Night on October 24 at 8pm in the Heritage Room. This semester it will be Comic Con themed, wear your favorite costume and enter to win a prize! We will have Rock Band, Just Dance, Super Smash Brothers, and more! The student Game Club will be sharing some of their favorite games with us as well. We’ll have pizza, snacks, and soda too!

The International Film Series Presents: The General

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Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber.

What do you do when the love of your life and your beloved locomotive are stolen from you by enemy troops?   If you’re Buster Keaton, you deliver laughs and excitement while doing whatever it takes to recover what is yours!
The General is a 1926 silent film set in the midst of the American Civil War. Keaton plays Johnny Gray, an engineer whose train, The General, is stolen by Northern spies while the lovely Annabelle Lee is on board. Gray embarks on a daring adventure to save the day.

 Consistently ranked among the greatest films ever made, The General, captures the visual aspects of the Civil War while being thoroughly entertaining. 

 Join us for this free event on Friday October 18, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. in Room 305 of the Weinberg Memorial Library.  Kevin Norris will lead a discussion following the film. 

This screening is being held in conjunction with the Lackawanna County Library System’s Scranton Reads event and is open to the public.

 Contact Sharon Finnerty at sharon.finnerty@scranton.edu for reservations.

The Evolution of the University of Scranton from 1888 to the Present

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An illustrated history talk and exhibit reception will be held in the Weinberg Memorial Library on October 2nd at 6 p.m. in celebration  of the 125th Anniversary of the University.

The presentation, titled From the 300 Block of Wyoming Avenue to the Hill Section: The Evolution of the University of Scranton  from 1888 to the Present, will be presented by Dr. Frank X.J. Homer, Professor of History Emeritus.  The talk will be held in Library Room 305.

A reception will follow in the Library’s 5th Floor Heritage Room for the exhibit, Pride, Passion, Promise: Celebrating the 125th Anniversary.

The event is sponsored by Friends of the Weinberg Library.

For more information please contact Michael Knies, Special Collections Faculty Librarian, (570) 941-6341 or michael.knies@scranton.edu