ProQuest Digital Microfilm has been upgraded and relaunched as ProQuest Digitized Newspapers-Recent Newspapers. ProQuest Digitized Newspapers-Recent Newspapers is a new digital archive that offers full-page images of recent editions of essential and most-requested newspaper titles. Recent Newspapers titles are available individually or in regional collections. For titles in the program, coverage begins in the late 2000s and goes up through the most recent issue with a three-month embargo. The Recent Newspapers content is hosted on the ProQuest platform, and is fully searchable at the page level and cross-searchable with all other products on the ProQuest platform. Currently, the Weinberg Memorial Library provides access to both The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal via ProQuest Digitized Newspapers. Please see the link below to view these resources in our library A-Z list:
Category: Resources & Technology
First-Year Writing Drop-in Research Workshop on 5/7
Date/Time: Monday, May 7, 2018 at 6:00-8:00 pm
Location: Weinberg Memorial Library, Room WML 306
Are you a Writing 106 or 107 student who is working on your final paper?
Research & Instruction Librarians Kelly Banyas and Neil Grimes will be hosting a drop-in workshop for Writing 106 and 107 students on Monday, May 7th, from 6:00-8:00 pm.
This workshop will give you more time with librarians during which you can focus on their project needs and have developed conversations with librarians regarding their topics and the research process.
As a result of attending this drop-in workshop, you will be able to properly cite sources, be more comfortable in interactions with librarians, and become aware of the many research services available to students at the Weinberg Memorial Library.
You can bring your own computer or use one of ours. Drop by any time between 6:00 and 8:00 pm to learn more about the library services available to students at the Weinberg Memorial Library!
Home Page Catalog Search Temporarily Down
This morning on Monday, January 29, the catalog search box on the Library’s home page and on the Library tab in My.Scranton.edu is temporarily down. The problem has been logged and it should be back to normal soon.
The catalog is still available through the Advanced Search catalog link in both places, as well as at this link.
Thank you for your patience as we address this issue.
Cataloging Summer Project 2017: Assessment of the Oversized and Folio Book Collections
Have you ever seen or taken out a book with one of these labels in the photo on the left from the Weinberg Memorial Library? Or maybe you have seen a record in the catalog that says Oversize Stacks or Folio Stacks. This year the cataloging staff spent the summer assessing the current contents and condition of the Oversized and Folio collections located on the fifth floor of the Weinberg Memorial Library in the Heritage Room. This project involves a two-part process and is part of an effort to upgrade and improve the accuracy and accessibility of our records for items held in our existing collections.
The first part of the project required the physical accounting and inspection of the books currently held in the collection. Each book was checked against the record in the catalog. Books that did not match their record were brought down to cataloging for revisions. Each book was also measured to ensure that it met the criteria for being in the Oversize/Folio collection and condition examined for damage. Damaged books were removed for review and/or repair.
So what is the criteria for an Oversized book?
The sizing of what is considered an oversized book differs from library to library because it is dependent on the shelving heights available within the library.
An Oversized book at the Weinberg Memorial Library is a book that is typically taller than 11” (28 cm) within call number ranges A-M & P-Z. Books in the N-NX section, which have taller shelf heights, need to be taller than 13” (33 cm). Books taller than these measurements would be unable to fit properly onto the shelves in the regular circulating stack areas of the Library.
What makes a Folio book different from an Oversized book?
The Folio stacks house the widest and tallest books in the circulating collection. For a book to receive a Folio tag that book must be wider than 12” (30 cm) and/or taller than 16” (38 cm). Books wider that 12”, typically books printed in a landscape format, would protrude too far off the end of the standard shelves in the circulating stack area. Books taller or wider than 17” (39 cm) are laid flat instead of housed on their ends.
How many books did we review?
Over a four month period the two-member staff accounted for 2294 books and 1987 records in the Oversized Stacks and 192 books and 187 records in the Folio Stacks with the exception of 14 items which are marked missing in the catalog and 10 items which were checked out at the time of review.
Next steps?
The second part of the process will be upgrading the records for the books we accounted for that match their current records in the catalog. This includes ensuring that all records have subject headings, name headings, descriptions and/or indexed table of contents information if available. These record enhancements will allow for improved searching and retrieval from our catalog.
As of this post, 597 records have already been updated in the Oversize collection and 149 records in the Folio collection. The work on this collection will continue as time allows with a hopeful completion before Summer 2018.
Very Short Introductions
In April the Weinberg Memorial Library acquired over 500 titles in the Very Short Introductions series. Written by authors who are subject experts in their field, these small books (most not over 150 pages) offer easy introductions to large and sometimes complicated subjects like the Bible or Astrophysics and influential individuals like Gandhi or Freud.
Each volume offers bibliographic references to allow for more in-depth study. They are an excellent option if you want to learn a little something about a large or complicated subject and a great resource to help you to find or narrow a topic for your next paper.
Throughout the month for May cataloging will be adding new titles in the series to the catalog.
So where can I find these you ask:
Type “Very Short Introductions” into the Catalog search box on the Library’s home page at http://www.scranton.edu/academics/wml/index.shtml and hit search.
The catalog will retrieve a list of all of the copies we have in the current collection both book and ebook which can be sorted by title or refined using the facet menu on the left to narrow your search.
Do you have a subject you are particularly interested in and want to know if Very Short Introductions has something on your subject?
Let’s use Astrophysics as an example:
Try an Advanced Search using keyword: “Astrophysics” and title: “Very Short Introductions”
Your results screen will give you anything we have with the title Astrophysics in the Very Short Introductions series as well as any editions that may have notes or subjects related to the topic of Astrophysics.
Slow Printing
We are experience some problems with printing in the library today due to the increase in traffic on the network. The system is responding, but very slowly. Please, give yourself extra time to print materials. We are working with IT Services to fix the issue. Thank you for your patience.
12,876 University of Scranton Records Now Available in the Digital Public Library of America
Last week at DPLAFest in Washington, DC, executive director Dan Cohen announced that the Digital Public Library of America had grown in its third year to include more than 13 million records. We’re proud to announce that 12,876 of those records were contributed by the University of Scranton Weinberg Memorial Library.
Launched in 2013, DPLA is a digital platform and network that brings together descriptive information for rare and unique digital materials from more than 1,900 libraries, archives, and museums across the country. It’s a portal to the treasures of American cultural heritage, from digitized photographs, films, documents, and objects to born digital ebooks, video, and images. All of these materials are freely available on the web for use by researchers, students, teachers, genealogists, and the general public.
We’ve been building digital collections at the University of Scranton since 2008, and nearly all of our materials are already publicly available on our website at www.scranton.edu/library/digitalcollections (some items are restricted due to copyright, privacy, or donor request). So why participate in DPLA?
DPLA doesn’t host digital materials – they’re all stored and made accessible by contributing institutions like us, so it’s still our job to keep digitizing, describing, preserving, and publishing digital items. What DPLA does is make these materials discoverable and usable in entirely new and exciting ways. Metadata records (descriptive information) that we send to DPLA are aggregated into a stream of open data that can be used by software developers and others to create new tools or visualizations. Two of our favorites are the DPLA Visual Search Prototype and Culture Collage, which offer more visual interfaces for browsing and sorting through search results.
(We also get a kick out of Term vs. Term, which compares the number of DPLA search results for two phrases. You know, like Scranton vs. Wilkes-Barre. Just saying.)
Perhaps most importantly, DPLA allows for unified access, which is important both for 1) users who don’t necessarily know what institution will have the records they’re looking for and 2) collections that have been physically fragmented across different institutions.
An example of the former might be a genealogist looking for information about family members from Scranton. Using DPLA, they can find not only relevant materials in our collections (like our yearbooks and Aquinas issues, which are excellent sources for information about our alumni) but they’ll also stumble across photographs, manuscripts, and books from the Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives, postcards from the Boston Public Library, stereographs and menus from the New York Public Library, and genealogical books from the Library of Congress.
An example of the latter is the Horace G. Healey Collection, an impressive set of 19th century penmanship and calligraphy. Half of the collection is available here on campus in our McHugh Special Collections (as part of our Zaner-Bloser Penmanship Collection), but the other half is at the New York Public Library. In DPLA, images of the artwork are reunited as they are digitized.
Our participation in DPLA has been in the works for almost two years. DPLA is unable to accept metadata records directly from individual libraries – there are just too many potential contributors! – so almost all of its data passes through nodes called Service Hubs. Most service hubs are established at a state or regional level, and Pennsylvania didn’t have one when DPLA first launched. Beginning in August 2014, a group of Pennsylvania cultural heritage institutions got together to discuss how best to collaborate on digital collections in the state. After a year of planning, coordination, and tons of work, the PA Digital Partnership was approved as a DPLA Service Hub in August 2015. On April 13, 2016, data from the PA Digital Partnership went live in DPLA, with 131, 651 records from 19 contributing Pennsylvania institutions.
We’re incredibly proud to be part of DPLA and the PA Digital Partnership, and we’re thrilled to see our digital collections be more accessible and discoverable than ever. Congratulations to all our PA Digital colleagues, and happy searching to all!
Academic Video Online: Premium now available via the Weinberg Memorial Library
Academic Video Online: Premium is the largest and most comprehensive video subscription service available to libraries. It delivers more than 48,000 video titles spanning essential academic subject areas including: anthropology, business, science, engineering, counseling, history, music, film, and many more. Academic Video Online is a replacement for our prior streaming video service VAST from Alexander Street and all content previously found in VAST is available in Academic Video Online. Partnered with recognized providers of content such as: PBS, 60 minutes, Asian Film Online, and the BBC, Academic Video Online: Premium provides a breadth of expertly produced and relevant academic video content. A link to Academic Video Online can be found by accessing the library home page (www.scranton.edu/library), clicking on the articles and databases tab, and either search for Academic Video Online in the search box, or clicking on databases and finding Academic Video Online under the tab for databases “A”. It can also be found by logging into the My.Scranton portal and clicking on the “Library” tab, and clicking on the “Databases” link under “Resources” or searching the Library’s Catalog.
New Streaming Video Trial from Swank Digital Campus
The Weinberg Memorial Library is pleased to announce a trial of Swank Digital Campus streaming service. This pilot is made available through our membership in PALCI, the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc., and offers streaming access to 300 feature films for academic use. List of titles
Swank Digital Campus allows students, faculty and staff to view licensed content on an individual basis using personal computers and mobile devices (iOS and Android). Browsers may require a plugin installation. For mobile devices, download the Swank Media Player App. Students, faculty and staff may access the films by searching under “S” in the library’s A-Z database.
Faculty and staff can show content in a secured classroom setting to registered students for specific course support or clearly defined academic purpose. Any cross-campus promotion for classroom viewings, large screen event showings or availability of individual titles is strictly prohibited.
The trial runs through June 30, 2016.
For more information about this trial, please contact sharon.finnerty@scranton.edu.
Technology On Your Own Terms–Fall 2015
On behalf of the Weinberg Memorial Library and the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, we invite University of Scranton faculty and staff to the Fall 2015 Technology On Your Own Terms (TOYOT) workshops.
Music Streaming: Tuesday, November 17, 12pm-1pm in Weinberg Memorial Library 305. Presenter, Sam Davis, Library Systems Specialist.
Do any Google search for ‘music streaming’ or ‘online radio’, and you’re presented with a myriad of options for listening to music. When it comes to listening to music online, how do you know which one to pick? If it worth the possible subscription? Much like Goldilocks looking for the perfect bed, it’s difficult to find the best one in a sea of options. In this session, we’re going to discuss popular streaming services like Pandora and Spotify, examine some offbeat choices such as Amazon Music or Google Play, plus examine the results of the music streaming survey.
Fill out a brief survey on your music streaming preferences in preparation for the session here.
New Travel Websites and Transportation Apps: Tuesday, December 1, 12pm-1pm in Weinberg Memorial Library 305. Presenters John Culkin, Senior Systems Administer and Sheli McHugh, Cataloging & Metadata Librarian and Learning Commons Coordinator.
There are a slew of new websites and apps that are transforming the way we travel, both locally and beyond. We will explore several companies that are part of the sharing economy, including Air BnB, Uber, and Lyft. We will look at the features of using each app, the types of services included, and explore security concerns.
A light lunch will be provided. Both sessions are open to all University faculty and staff, but seats are limited, so please let us know if you plan to attend. You can register at www.scranton.edu/ctleregistration under Technology on Your Own Terms.