Academic Libraries

Stanford Gets Steven Jay Gould's Books

birdie — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:03:17 -0500

Stanford University Libraries has acquired the collection of books, papers and artifacts of the late Harvard paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, author of more than 20 books.

Gould spent his career at Harvard but decided before his death in 2002 that his work should go to a library that that made a commitment to digitize and cross-link all of his work, according to Rhonda Shearer, Gould's widow. Stanford was the only institution that made that commitment, she said.

"This is something that Steve wanted," Shearer said. "Even though he called himself a Luddite and really had anxiety about technology, he saw that for ideas to compete, they really had to be on the Internet."

University Librarian Michael Keller said, "The library's plan is to digitize Gould's articles as well as the sources he drew on, and cross-link the sources with his own writing. The goal will be make all of Gould's papers freely available over the Internet to anyone who wants to see them.

Google bashing from a cranky Medical Librarian

Pete — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:38:18 -0500

Over on Sivacracy.net is this post where a medical librarian takes issue with the NBC show "Scrubs" and it's portrayal of doctors using Google.

USC Dean will digitize libraries with new plan

Blake — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:44:31 -0500

Daily Trojan Online Reports The dean of USC Libraries announced a strategic plan that will upgrade all collections, technology and customer service to be more digitized and unified in order to match other university libraries' quality.

New Whitepaper: SPARC And Science Commons Release Guide To Creating Institutional Open Access Policies

Blake — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:05:02 -0500

Gary Price sent over a Link To The Resourceshelf about SPARC and Science Commons who have released “Open Doors and Open Minds: What faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work through their institution.” The new white paper assists institutions in adopting policies that ensure the widest practical exposure for scholarly works produced, such as that adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in February.

Frustration for authors as students hog British Library reading rooms

Blake — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:15:56 -0500

Two years after one of the world’s greatest libraries opened its doors to undergraduates and anyone working on research, high-profile writers and academics say that the struggle to find a desk is now intolerable. Library directors stand accused of increasing visitor numbers to boost funds and performance bonuses.

Information alert

Blake — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:20:30 -0500

A recent survey shows many students from the so-called 'Google generation' lack the basic skills needed for online research, Wendy Wallace Says Many libaries have assumedyoung students have learned to use the internet for research simply by virtue of their age. But while many are proficient with Facebook and Wikipedia, they may not be information- literate. Many lack the skills to differentiate between authoritative information and amateur blogging.

Book Review: How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation

Bibliofuture — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:22:05 -0500

Many of you have probably spent some time in higher education. Enrollment in U.S. higher education institutions has steadily increased over the past few decades, and is projected to reach new highs each year for the next decade or so. What you may not know, however, are the working conditions of educators in colleges and universities. In his new book, How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation, Marc Bousquet lays it all out, and the picture is not pretty.

Full book review here.

Can you be fired?

nbruce — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:32:05 -0500

Forget the Patriot Act. Forget stop words on Popline impeding your right to an easy search. Will you lose a job or not get one because you're over weight, aka fat? I really enjoy the blog Junkfoodscience.blogspot.com because the author really rips apart the health stories we hear over and over in the media (some of which I repeat) which then are used to support various initiatives. She's not writing about "junk food," but the junk "food science." Like this one from a month ago. http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/03/from-food-for-thought-file-can-you-be.html

"As the move to hire only low-cost employees and “a healthy work force,” fat people could also find themselves out on the street. Yes, you can be fired for anything, yet, the evidence points to things other than costs and mortality risks being behind these initiatives. The single largest demographic risk factor for early mortality in our country, accord to Daniel Kruger, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan Insitute for Social Research, is being male. Moderate drinkers live the longest, as shown in the American Heart Association's review of the evidence and in studies such as the recent Copenhagen City Heart Study. And the highest mortalities are found in those who are thin and aging. "

She really chews on the whole grains mantra and low fat diets for children.

Posthumous Collection of Styron's Essays Has Roots in the Library

birdie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:28:30 -0500

William Styron died at the end of 2006, but left behind a wonderful collection of essays, "Havanas in Camelot", reviewed here by The New York Times Michiko Kakutani.

Having enlisted at 17, but considered too much of a tenderfoot to send overseas, the United States Marine Corps introduced him “to the glories of the library.” He was sent first, instead, to a military-sponsored college program at Duke University, “which then, as now, possessed one of the great college libraries of America.” Possessed of “a prevision of himself as being among the fallen martyrs” in the Pacific theater, he began to read voraciously, regarding the books in the Duke library as “the rocks and boulders” he could cling to against his “onrushing sense of doom and mortality.”

“I read everything I could lay my hands on,” he remembers, some 50 years later. “Even today I can recall the slightly blind and bloodshot perception I had of the vaulted Gothic reading room, overheated, the smell of glue and sweat and stale documents, winter coughs, whispers, the clock ticking toward midnight as I raised my eyes over the edge of ‘Crime and Punishment.’ The library became my hangout, my private club, my sanctuary, the place of my salvation; during the many months I was at Duke, I felt that when I was reading in the library I was sheltered from the world and from the evil winds of the future; no harm could come to me there.”

Textbook costs getting hard to cover

Bibliofuture — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:23:34 -0500

Marketplace on American Public media has this story: A growing chunk of college costs is the price of textbooks, on which the typical undergraduate spends $900 a year. So a group of college professors is calling for low-priced and free texts online. Congress is getting involved, too. Jill Barshay reports. Full story here.