The originally scheduled maintenance for the Alexander Street Press VAST Collection for Sunday, August 19th, has been rescheduled to Wednesday, August 22, 2012, between the hours of 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm EST.
Alexander Street Press apologizes for the short notice and for any inconvenience this may cause.
There will be scheduled maintenance for the Alexander Street Press VAST Collection on Sunday, August 19th, 2012 between the hours of 10:00 am and 12:00 pm EST / UTC-5.
There will be an estimated downtime of 2 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please plan accordingly.
This summer, we’ve been experimenting with new ways of displaying and sharing all of the interesting items from the University Archives that we’ve uploaded into our digital collections. With the University’s 125th anniversary coming up next year, we’re especially looking for fun ways to share our campus history with University of Scranton students, alumni, and friends.
The Library’s Digital Services department has been putting together Pinterest boards to highlight some of our favorite photographs – and even our favorite Aquinas headlines – from the last 125 years. We’re still experimenting, so check out our pins and let us know what you think!
Library Letterpress Christmas card, a set on Flickr.
Photos and video from our trip to Hand Deliver Press for the printing of our Library Christmas card, from one of our Zaner-Bloser Collection printing blocks.
It may be 90 degrees outside today, but we’re too excited to wait until December to share our latest project – letterpress printing our Library Christmas card!
Back in 2010, the Zaner-Bloser Company donated a rich collection of 19th and early 20th century penmanship materials to the University of Scranton Weinberg Memorial Library’s Special Collections. In addition to original artwork by the masters of the Golden Age of Penmanship, the collection also includes some of the printing blocks used to publish their work.
We’ve partnered with Samantha Urbanick of Clarks Summit-based letterpress studio Hand Deliver Press to put some of those printing blocks back in action.
Our first project, the Library’s 2012 Christmas card, uses a Zaner-Bloser printing block from Christmas 1912. The block is based on a pen and ink drawing by master penman E. L. Brown and was used in the publication of the December 1912 issue of the professional penmanship journal The Business Educator.
Check out our photo set and video to see Hand Deliver Press and our Zaner-Bloser block in action!
You might know him as our evening Public Services Librarian, but George Aulisio is also a philosopher. On top of his master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Drexel University, he holds a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Philosophy and Metaphysics from the University of Pennsylvania.
On July 12, he’ll share some of his research on technological determinism, or how technology affects and drives society in different directions, at the Pages & Places Café in the Radisson Hotel’s Platform Lounge.
The Café program begins at 7pm, but you can also come early for a 6pm happy hour. Admission is free. We’ll see you there!
The Weinberg Memorial Library held its second annual Library Research Prize Reception yesterday afternoon to honor the winners of the 2012 Library Research Prize. The prizes were given to one graduate, Colleen Achatz, and one undergraduate student, Stephanie Pisko, who demonstrated exemplary research skills and use of library resources. The library also presented certificates to two honorable mentions in the undergraduate category: Allison Carey and Ryan P. Pipan. Read all about our winning students and their research projects. We are very proud of all of the essays that were submitted and look forward to next year’s Library Research Prize. Please visit our Flickr page to view all of the photos from yesterdays reception.
The Library is pleased to announce our two winners of the 2nd Annual Library Research Prize competition, one in the Undergraduate category and one in the Graduate category.
Congratulations to Stephanie A. Pisko, a senior double major in History and Women’s Studies, whose submission, “Murder and Turmoil: Honor and Crimes of Passion in Two Nineteenth-Century Murder Trials,” was selected as this year’s winner of the prize in the Undergraduate category. Stephanie’s supporting faculty member was Dr. Susan L. Poulson in the History Department.
Stephanie wrote in her essay describing her research process:
Throughout the entire process, the library and the librarians helped me with all my questions, and there were many. […] As an undergraduate I had never taken on extensive research like this before and their guidance was invaluable. From learning to use the microfilm machine to locating articles in a bound journal, the library was there every step of the way. The research skills I gained are as sophisticated and as numerous as those of a graduate student. I feel confident of how to research, how to evaluate scholarly sources, and how to integrate the sources. This research project would not have been of the same quality without the librarians’ extensive knowledge and constant assistance.
Congratulations as well to Colleen Achatz, a student in our Graduate Program in Occupational Therapy, whose submission, Part I: “Evolution of Sensory Integration with Children” and Part II: “Jean Ayres’ Impact on the Past, Present, and Future of Sensory Integration,” was selected as this year’s winner of the prize in the Graduate category. Colleen’s supporting faculty member was Dr. Rita Fleming-Castaldy in the Occupational Therapy Department.
Colleen wrote in her essay describing her research process:
The resource in the library that most surprised me was the microfilm; I had no idea about it until I learned about it for this assignment. I did not know what the microfilm section of the library even was and I wound up using microfilm for a key portion of my research. The journals in the library were also very helpful. In the past I had only used the databases on the library website to retrieve articles from the American Journal of Occupational Therapy and other journals but it only goes so many years back. I was surprised to see how many years’ worth of journals were physically in the library. I never realized how extensive the resources, tools, and services the library had to offer until this assignment. […] Through this assignment and the research process with the use of Weinberg Library’s resources and services, I learned a significant amount of knowledge in the methods and process of research as well as the importance of research in the profession of occupational therapy. This experience also helped me with my ability to more competently participate in my faculty mentored research course.
The Weinberg Memorial Library inaugurated the prize to recognize excellence in research projects that show evidence of significant knowledge in the methods of research and the information gathering process, and use of library resources, tools, and services. The prize is in the amount of $500 for the winning submission in each category: Undergraduate and Graduate.
In addition to our winners, two students were selected to receive Honorable Mentions in the Undergraduate category: Allison Carey for her submission, “Dynamics of Recent Trade Relationships with China,” and Ryan P. Pipan for his submission, “Much Ado about the Archer-Shee’s: Shakespearean Signatures in Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy.”
Winners will be honored at a reception and awards ceremony on Thursday, May 10, 2012 in the Library’s 5th floor Heritage Room.
We’ve just put a shiny, new interface on our digital collections, and we’d love for you to take a look! Some of the new features we’re excited about:
Take our new collections for a test drive, and then let us know what you think! There are still a few quirks we’re working out, so if you run into any problems, just let us know at digitalcollections@scranton.edu.
