Donna Witek, Public Services Librarian and Kristen Yarmey, Digital Services Librarian received Provost Enhancement Awards at the annual faculty appreciation dinner. Donna earned the Excellence in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning award. Kristen earned the Excellence in University Service and Leadership award. Congratulations Donna and Kristen!
Year: 2015
National Poetry Month
Image soure: Salem (MA) Public Library, via Flicker Creative Commons https://www.flickr.com/photos/salemmapubliclibrary/5615861539
April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate the last couple days of April with poetry, check out these library resources:
The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry Read the “Featured Poem” or find out what happened on this day in poetry history with “Poets Book of Days.” You can also search for your favorite poet or poem or browse the “Poetry Sources” for different categories of poetry like Children’s Poetry, Love Poetry, or Nature Poetry.
You could also take a look at the journal Poetry. Our online collection includes issues dating from 1998 to the present, and the print copies for the past two years are available in the periodicals section on the second floor.
If you have a special interest in a specific poet, poem, or type of poetry or you want to expand your poetic knowledge, search out Catalog with the keywords you are interested in. For example, you might try a search for “Emily Dickinson,” “The Raven,” or “epic poem.”
Or you can celebrate by creating some poetry of your own!
SpringerLink Ebook Collections
Springer has been in the publishing business since the early 1840’s and has been an industry leader in innovative publishing methods. The Weinberg Memorial Library provides access to the Springer Complete ebook collections from 2005 through 2014. We have also just added the Springer 2015 ebook collection into which new titles will be added throughout the entirety of 2015. Springer is actually home to the world’s largest Scientific, Technical and Medical ebook collection currently published. The library has access to over 42,000 ebooks via Springer. The titles included in the 2015 ebook collection will be gradually implemented throughout the year until eventually all 6,750 new titles within the collection are available.
There are no limits on page downloads or printing, so it is possible to download every page of all 42,000 plus titles if that is what you need. Also, SpringerLink is now available in the form of a mobile app, for both Android and IOS, allowing a University of Scranton student to utilize the Springer ebook collection for research from virtually anywhere.
It is a simple process to access the ebook collection from the library’s home page (http://www.scranton.edu/academics/wml/index.shtml). Choose the articles and databases tab, click the link to the databases page. From there, choose the letter S and click on SpringerLink (http://link.springer.com/). SpringerLink allows the user to browse by discipline, see book or articles that were recently accessed by other users within the University of Scranton, or use a keyword searching function for your research subject area or specific topic. You can refine by content type (book, article, chapter etc.), discipline, subdiscipline, primary language. You can also further refine searches by date of publication and relevance (whether the keyword is in the title, subject or in the fulltext make the results a better match).
Although best known for sciences, medical research, and also computer science and mathematics there is a wealth of information in all disciplines including philosophy, theology and psychology. Any member of the University community studying these fields in any capacity should utilize Springer as a truly invaluable research tool.
Printing from the Internet in the Library
We are investigating reported problems related to printing from the Google Chrome internet browser within the Library.
When a print job is sent from within the Chrome browser–whether from an email attachment (i.e., MS Word or Excel doc, or PDF), a web-hosted PDF file, or an HTML web page–to the Library’s printing stations, the success of these print jobs is inconsistent.
If you need to print from the internet while in the Library, including email attachments that open within the browser, we suggest you use the Firefox browser to do so.
If you run into any problems with your print job printing successfully, please report it to the 2nd floor Reference Desk and we will assist you.
Thank you!
—
Image source // public domain
Happy Birthday, Scranton: Kickoff to the 150th Anniversary Celebration
Tomorrow morning at 9:15 am, the City of Scranton will kick off its year-long Sesquicentennial Anniversary Celebration. Scranton was incorporated as a city on April 23, 1866, so next spring (April 23, 2016) will be the city’s 150th birthday.
While the University of Scranton itself wasn’t around back at the very beginning (founded in 1888, we just celebrated our 125th anniversary in 2013-2014), we’re proud of the close ‘town and gown’ relationship we’ve had with the city of Scranton throughout our shared history.
Here at the Weinberg Memorial Library, we’re looking forward to joining in the fun throughout the anniversary year. Beginning in May, each month of the City celebration will highlight a decade (or two) in the city’s history, and here on our Library blog we’ll be highlighting how the University grew alongside the city during that time.
Our University Archives and Helen Gallagher McHugh Special Collections include many rare and unique resources related to the history of the City of Scranton, its residents, and its major institutions. For example, the Library holds the records of the International Correspondence Schools of Scranton – and in the fall, we’ll be exhibiting materials from this collection in celebration of the 125th anniversary of ICS (now known as Penn Foster), which was founded in 1891.
We’ve been working on digitizing archival and special collections materials and making them publicly available for searching and browsing in our digital collections, but there’s always more to do. We’re currently tossing around new ideas for increasing public, digital access to local history materials with some of our friends on campus (the History and Communication Departments, Royals’ Historical Society, Hope Horn Gallery, and Community Relations) and in the community (the Lackawanna Historical Society, the Everhart Museum, Scranton Public Library/Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives, and Marywood University). More to come on this as our plans develop!
At the state level, we’re collaborating with other academic and public libraries on a broad initiative to establish a Pennsylvania service hub for the Digital Public Library of America, which will make Pennsylvania history and cultural heritage more accessible and discoverable to students, teachers, genealogists, historians, scholars, and others in our communities and around the world.
So happy birthday, Scranton! Let’s get this party started.
Spotlight on Student Worker Erica Brown
Almost four years ago, Erica Brown came from Baltimore, Maryland, to study Psychology at the University of Scranton. Right away, she came to the library and applied for a workstudy position. After talking to her about her work experience as a resident leader in a nursing home, and hearing her speak so passionately about taking care of people, I could see her pleasant personality and level of patience made her a perfect candidate to work in a customer service position.
Erica enjoys the environment of the library as well as the flexibility of her schedule. If she’s not working a shift at the Circulation Desk, you’ll often find her doing schoolwork here. She is a strong advocate for the library, advising fellow students to “Use the services the library has to offer for studying and researching!”
Erica is an active member of the Psychology Club. She also volunteers at St. Francis of Assisi Soup Kitchen and the Griffin Pond Animal Shelter. She enjoys photography, games, outdoor activities, and reading.
Some Erica Fun Facts: her deep fondness and fascination for hippopotami; her 15 tattoos (one of which, you guessed it, is a hippopotamus); her favorite class is Abnormal Psychology and her favorite book/movie is Fight Club.
After graduating in May, Erica will continue to care for the elderly by pursuing a career as a social worker with a focus on gerontology and Alzheimer patients. We wish her all the best!
Thank you Erica!!
Library Book Sale This Weekend
A variety of subject materials, tag sale and a variety of flowering potted plants!
Saturday, April 25 9:00a.m. – 8:00p.m.
Sunday, April 26 noon – 4:00p.m.
Heritage Room (Fifth Floor)
(A special preview sale will be held on Friday, April 24, for Friends’ members and Schemel Forum members.)
Cash, check and credit card payments accepted.
Bus Trip to NYC: April 25th
Library Research Prize Deadline Approaches
Did you work on a research project in either Intersession or Spring 2015? Did you use the library’s resources, services, collections, or spaces in order to complete your research? Then the Weinberg Memorial Library Research Prize is for you!
Two prizes of $500 each are awarded every year to the winning Undergraduate and the winning Graduate submission. All you need to do is write a 500-word essay describing your research process and how you used the library in completing the project. Click here for some tips on how to craft the best 500-word essay you can about your research.
Then, submit the application materials for your project through the Library Research Prize website by the Intersession and Spring 2015 deadline: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 by 4:00 pm.
Research projects can be individual or group projects, though winning group projects will receive one $500 prize for the group.
A statement of faculty support from the instructor who assigned the research project is also required for each submission.
Details on how to apply, what to include in a completed application, and what the selection criteria are, can be found at the Library Research Prize website. Any additional questions can be sent to Prof. Bonnie Oldham, Information Literacy Coordinator (bonnie.oldham@scranton.edu).
We look forward to hearing about your research!
Earth Week Events on Campus
In addition to the Environmental Art show, which will remain up through Monday, April 20, there are many other Earth Day events on campus throughout the month. Be sure to check them out!