Month: July 2024

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News and announcements

🛳️🇵🇦📸 The Northwestern University Transportation Library has digitized a collection of photographs from the construction of the Panama Canal. “The photos show both construction sites of the canal and more leisurely photos of towns and people in Panama at the time […]. Parades, family portraits, and days on the beach are all shown in the photos.” It’s a relatively small collection (153 photographs and 30 postcards), but the photographs are fascinating! 

🔍🤖✨ The University of Arkansas Libraries are testing a new natural-language search tool, powered by generative artificial intelligence, as part of its discovery interface. More importantly, they provide a brief overview of how it works for students. I love that the instructions include the step “look for the sparkles.”

🆓👩‍🏫📚 The University of Virginia Libraries has an interview with two of the faculty involved in its Open Educational Resources Learning Community, which it co-sponsors with the university’s Center for Teaching Excellence. Through the interview, they talk about the library’s role in supporting OER, student support, and offer their advice to other faculty interesting in doing similar work.

🦋🪻🐝 The Woodruff Library at Emory University recently took a patch of grass and converted it to a pollinator garden. I love to see how academic libraries take responsibility for their spaces in ways that reach beyond simple building maintenance. 

🎙️👨‍🎓🐺 A fairly recent alumni from NC State University Libraries is creating an endowment to help fund an oral history program called “Wolf Tales,” designed to help the library capture the stories of NC State alumni though video narratives and interviews. 

On social

This TikTok from the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester [TikTok] does not have nearly enough likes. I don’t know whether this pinch-zoom idea is original (though it feels meme-ish, I haven’t seen it used elsewhere), but it’s brilliantly fun and an engaging way to show off large spaces. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@rivercampuslibs/video/7392311781915446559

I have been wanting to do a “view from a book” style video for ages now. UNC Libraries [Instagram] did a fun version. The soundtrack choice is perfect. Related: Also from UNC Libraries [Facebook], they asked their followers to help them name their book trucks. The results [Instagram] did not disappoint.  

The University of Kansas Libraries [Instagram] hosted a plant swap that included crafting and items from special collections. The resulting video makes good use of b-roll footage. Reminds me that I need to capture more video at our events!

I don’t know if this counts are sponsored content or a collaboration or what, but the University of Missouri Libraries [Instagram] made a video highlighting a local ice cream shop and the joys of reading. The two best parts of summer!

Notable mentions

Renovations 

Summer time for most colleges is the season of projects that can’t be easily accomplished during the school year. Not surprisingly, it’s often the best time to renovate or make substantial progress on long-term construction projects. A number of colleges are in the midst of renovations and upgrades. Here is just a sampling, in no particular order: 

UNC Charlotte, Cornell, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Arkansas, Texas Christian University, University of Central Florida, Rowan University, MIT, Stockton, UC Santa Barbara, Harvard, Northeastern, University of Georgia [Instagram], UT Dallas, Florida Atlantic University [Instagram], UC Riverside, and Northwestern

(header photo: Transportation Library, Northwestern University Libraries)

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I jokingly referred to “Rule #2 of the outreach team” in a meeting last week to which someone aptly responded, “So what are the other rules?” That’s a good question. We like to stay flexible on my team (it’s necessary when most of your work is collaboration-based), so there are rarely hard and fast rules. But here are a few maxims we live by.

  • Rule 1: Make something people want
  • Rule 2: Save everything to Box
  • Rule 3: Invite more people to the table
  • Rule 4: Dirty hands make it right
  • Rule 5: “Yes and”

Of course, rules are meant to be broken so here are the notable exceptions:

  • Rule 5 (with caveat): Yes and… but we can’t say yes to everything.
  • Rule 4 (with caveat): Dirty hands make it right… but don’t be a hero.
  • Rule 3 (with caveat): Invite more people to the table… but always be clear who will make the call.
  • Rule 2 (with caveat): Save everything to Box… [actually, there’s no exception to this rule]
  • Rule 1 (with caveat): Make something people want… but sometimes you have to make them want to want it first.

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fireworks on the horizon of Marina del Rey

O for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

Henry V, William Shakespeare (1599)

This year, I pledged myself to reading and watching the entire works of Shakespeare. Since January, I’ve been working through his opus in roughly chronological order of production as well as watching recorded performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I am just about halfway through, having read the following:

  • 1-3 Henry VI
  • Richard III
  • Venus and Adonis
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Edward III
  • Sonnets
  • Rape of Lucrece
  • Titus Andronicus
  • Taming of the Shrew
  • Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • King John
  • Richard II
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • 1-2 Henry IV
  • Merry Wives of Windsor
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Henry V

A few thoughts on the process thus far. Not surprisingly, the more that I read, the easier it gets. I’m picking up the vocabulary (sack, to jar), the cadence and form, and most importantly of all, the style. The more I read, the deeper my enjoyment. As an English major in college, Shakespeare was required (I’m currently reading from the Riverside 2nd edition which I bought as an undergrad) but I did not enjoy it at the time. Perhaps because I didn’t understand it or didn’t grasp the genius of it. Or because I was rushing a fraternity and hadn’t slept in three days. Either way, its beauty was wasted on my youth, but I’m trying to make up for that now. 

What I’m reading 

🤖✍️👨‍🎓 AI and the Death of Student Writing by Lisa Lieberman. “When I used to read good writing like that, my heart would leap with joy. The students are getting it! I’d think. Now my heart sinks because I know those sentences/paragraphs/whole essays are probably computer-generated.”

🫏🇺🇸🗳️ This Isn’t All Joe Biden’s Fault by Ezra Klein. “Even if top Democrats believe Biden should be replaced, they face a collective action problem.”

Garden update 

sapling in dirt and straw

This summer, I’m attempting to grow pumpkins for the first time. If the quickness with which these sprouts emerged is any indication, I will have quite a lot of vines on my hands.

Links to the past 

  • 1 year ago: “I would love to see a separate award for excellent marketing, communications, and strategic outreach (and/or programming) for higher ed libraries. The needs of our communities and the best practices for reaching them differ just enough from our colleagues in public libraries to merit our own arena.”
  • 5 years ago: I was taking some time off the grid, off email, and off projects to reflect, reconsider, and reconnect.
  • 10 years ago: I was moving content to this here site!

Overheard online 

I feel like a perfume called The Conservator would just be lanolin (for knitwear) and a whiff of an unknown but clearly toxic solvent. 

@curatedjenny on Mastodon

banner photo: Marina del Rey fireworks seen from the Westchester bluff