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Issue 48 5/3/2006 News for Staff of UW-Madison Libraries


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PREVIOUS ISSUES


LIBRARY NEWS

~ Frazier named interim CIO, Van Gemert named acting director
~ Ruenger-Hanson, Kresse named Librarians of the Year
~ Steenbock Library remodeling closes first floor to patrons
~ MadCat shows new scripts
~ College Library becomes first in state to circulate self-playing audio books
~ Tracing the path—how library staff work to make resources digital
~ Memorial Library public service areas take statistics of interactions with patrons
~ Library Web site now under moratorium


NOTABLES

~ Dillon appointed to advisory committee for MLAIB
~ Gorodinsky's magic show now online
~ Staff Service Awards honor Luke, Baumgartner, Fox, Hanneman, Hanson and Kliss
~ Sheppard to join libraries in May
~ Saywell takes new position with Memorial


FEATURES AND EVENTS

~ Chemistry Library hosts lecture on "Light Spectra" sculpture
~ Library staff show talents in Artistic Collaboration exhibit
~ Profits from book sale No. 2 all-time for Friends
~ SLIS hosts Edible Book Festival April 4
~ Wild turkey visits Memorial Library
~ Beltrán gives lecture in Evolving Directions series
~ Friends host annual dinner, Forni April 19


NEW RESOURCES ON THE WEB

~ UWDCC adds nearly 33,500 pages in March and April
~ Historical Society offers Earth Day information and lesson plans online


IN THE NEWS

~ Friends President wins 2006 Hilldale Award
~ Badger Herald announces Memorial Library to limit cell phone use


FYI: National Library News

~ Former SBP staff member helps turn old books into art


SNAPSHOTS

~ New undergraduate art gallery in College Library in conjunction with second Illumination edition


PUBLISHED

~ Werhane's video part of Madison's Sesquicentennial celebration
~ West's presentation published by Marquette University Press
~ Memorial Community News released for April, May
~ Former staffer Fietzer publishes second novel
~ Water Resources Library launches new Web site for kids
~ Barribeau published in Library Resources & Technical Services
~ DPLS News April issue online
~ Parallel Press releases Short Story and Other Short Stories
~ Encore poetry collection released by Parallel Press


IN PASSING

~ Former Health Sciences Libraries' Director Virginia Holtz
~ Tom Shafer, ex-husband of Deb Shafer
~ Gerd Zoller, husband of Telle Zoller


25 YEARS AGO IN THE LIBRARIES

~ Steenbock Library held live honey bee exhibit


LIBRARY NEWS

  • Provost Patrick Farrell announced Monday, May 1 UW-Madison Libraries Director Kenneth Frazier will take a leave from his position as director to serve as interim chief information officer for the campus. Frazier will begin his new position July 1, and Deputy Director Edward Van Gemert will become acting director of the libraries.
    Read more about Frazier and Van Gemert

  • The UW-Madison Librarians' Assembly has named Jean Ruenger-Hanson and Kerry Kresse as the 2006 Librarians of the Year. Ruenger-Hanson and Kresse received their honors at the assembly's annual High Tea April 25.
    Read more about the 2006 Librarians of the Year

  • Steenbock Library is currently undergoing renovations and the first floor of the library is closed to patrons through mid-July. Materials in the primary book collection on the first floor will be retrieved by staff upon request at the circulation desk or via MadCat. Once requested, the patron can pick up materials at the circulation desk or another campus library of their choosing. For updates on the renovations, visit Steenbock's Web site.

  • Those searching for materials in non-Western European languages, such as Chinese, Arabic or Hebrew, no longer need to rely on English transliterations when searching in MadCat, the UW–Madison library catalog. Scripts have been added to MadCat making it possible to show foreign resources in their native scripts as well as in Roman script.
    Read more about new updates in MadCat and WorldCat

  • College Library has added a new type of book to its collection, a tiny, self-playing digital audio book. These books hold up to 20 hours of content and are much simpler to use than books on tape or CD, which typically include multiple pieces that can be lost. The actual book is about the size of a deck of cards and runs on one AAA battery. The library does not supply the battery or headphones, however.

    According to WorldCat and BadgerCat, College Library is the first academic library and the first Wisconsin library to circulate digital audio books. Nine titles are currently available and can be checked out for 28 days. Eliot Finkelstein of College Library said the library plans to add more titles, especially those that can be used for foreign language instruction.

  • University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center (UWDCC) marked a significant achievement for the university library community when it digitized and published online "Harvest Time," a painting of Wisconsin scenery, as its 1 millionth digital image. Today the UWDCC continues to add to its burgeoning collections – approximately 200,000 digital images have been added since Lois Ireland's "Harvest Time" went live last October.
    Read more about how an object "goes digital"

  • Staff working in public service areas of Memorial Library recorded their interactions with patrons from April 10 through April 23 to gather statistics. These statistics are used to improve training, supply data for annual reports and improve scheduling, among other things. During this two-week period, staff members answered more than 4,600 questions and were busiest over noon hours.
    Read some of the questions that were recorded

  • In preparation for the new library Web site this summer, the Web site Steering Committee placed a moratorium on existing site pages April 17. Web pages may no longer be updated or changed and new pages cannot be added. Any changes that were previously planned but not yet implemented should be discussed with the Steering Committee as soon as possible. The moratorium allows the writing/editing and migration working groups to complete their work as they revise and migrate the Web site's content for the new site.

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NOTABLES

  • John B. Dillon, European humanities bibliographer in Memorial Library, has been appointed by the executive council of the Modern Language Association to a three-year term on the Advisory Committee on the MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB). The world's leading bibliography of books and articles on modern languages, literature, linguistics and folklore, the MLA International Bibliography annually lists more than 45,000 citations, indexed from more than 3,000 periodicals, series, books, conference proceedings and dissertations. Dillon is a former chair of the Western European Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. Since 2001 he has served on the programming committee of the annual International Medieval Congress organized and administered by the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds (England) and is coordinator of that congress' Latin Writing strand.

  • For those who enjoy magic shows, Bibliographer Victor Gorodinsky has just added a video (with music) of his magic show to his personal Web site. This show is similar to those he has performed at the past two White Elephant Drawings for the Partners in Giving Campaign.

  • The second annual Library Staff Service Awards will be presented at a reception at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 10, at the University Club. These awards recognize the following:

    *Exemplary working relationships with library colleagues and/or library clients
    *Contributions to establishing a welcoming learning and research environment
    *High-productivity coupled with teamwork, leadership and/or cooperation
    *Creativity, initiative and independence that positively influences library services
    *Achievements and work products that significantly benefit library services

    The Library Staff Service Award for Academic Staff will be presented to Dave Luke, senior information processing consultant at College Library. The award for Classified Staff will be given to Sue Baumgartner, library services assistant-advanced at Steenbock Library. Both will receive a $1,000 award.

    Four student staff members will also be honored. Nicholas Fox of Special Collections, Josie Hanneman of American Indian Studies, Katie Hanson of the Woodman Astronomical Library and Molly Kliss of the School of Library & Information Studies Library will be given awards of $250.

    The Library Staff Service Awards program began in 2005 with the support of the Friends of the UW-Madison Library and the General Library System.

  • Brian Sheppard will be joining the libraries May 11. He will be an information processing consultant and will work with UWDCC Head Peter Gorman.

  • Lisa Saywell of the Digital Content Group begins a new position at Memorial Library in a few weeks. Saywell has been named the Scholarly Communications and Research Services Planning Coordinator. She will also be involved in Reference and in Library & Information Literacy Instruction.

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FEATURES AND EVENTS

  • As part of the UW-Madison Chemistry Department's Irving Shain Research Tower Dedication Celebration, sculptor Beverly Stucker Precious will give an informal talk on the convergence of science and art at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 6, in the Chemistry Library. Precious created the suspended sculpture, "Light Spectra," for the interior lobby space of the Daniels wing of the Chemistry Building just outside the library's window. The aluminum and dichroic glass piece forms a large arc that relates to the gentle curves of the new research tower.

  • Artistic Collaboration is now on display in the lobby of Memorial Library through May 17. This exhibition features a variety of work by 18 library staff members and was coordinated by the GLS Staff Development Committee. Exhibit items include paintings, photographs, patchwork, watercolors and beaded jewelry, among others. Staff members submitted work earlier this spring for the exhibit. A reception was held April 20 to celebrate the opening of the exhibit.
    View pictures of Artistic Collaboration

  • The Friends of the UW-Madison Library are pleased to report the spring used book sale raised $21,857, the second highest total in the history of the sale. According to the book sale's chief organizer Jim Dast, 51 volunteers worked more than 300 hours to help move nearly 15,000 books. The semiannual sale returns this fall October 18-21 in 116 Memorial Library.

  • Food for Thought by Todd BrunsThe School of Library & Information Studies joined in the worldwide Edible Book Festival April 4. SLIS hosted a two-hour reception where book-shaped or book-themed edible art was displayed and then eaten. A variety of library staff members participated as well as a team from the Wisconsin State Journal. The exhibit included cakes and other food items that often used clever puns on well-known titles or authors. For pictures of the edible exhibit items, visit the Web site showcasing celebrations all over the world.

  • On April 5, Memorial Library Day Custodian Pat Christianson discovered a turkey in front of the Langdon Street entrance. After determining it was "not here for a research purpose," library staff called the campus police, who escorted the gobbler to Lake Mendota. "Maybe our reputation for having a warm and user friendly atmosphere in the West Corridor is more well known than we realize," suggested Dennis Bloom Memorial Library Security.

  • Mary Beltrán, assistant professor of Communication Arts and the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program, gave a lecture April 14 as part of the Evolving Directions in Academic Research and Resources lecture series. Beltrán has been at UW-Madison since 2003, and she is particularly interested in media representation and the media industries as a reflection of social history and social power. She has also been involved with the Visual Culture program and is currently working on a book, Lessons in Hollywood Latinidad: Latin@ Stars and the Evolution of U.S. Racial Borders, which explores the evolution of mediated images of Latino/as in relation to the evolving status of Latinos in this country.

    This lecture series is meant to open a dialogue between librarians and faculty to support library involvement in new scholarly directions, in the hopes that library staff will better understand the type of interdisciplinary research currently being done at the UW-Madison. The series is an opportunity for faculty to meet library staff interested in supporting their research through the acquisition of resources and the provision of services. This library series is sponsored by ASHIND, the Libraries' Area Studies, Social Sciences and Humanities Interdisciplinary Group. 

  • The Friends of the Library hosted their annual dinner April 19 which featured a lecture by Johns Hopkins University Professor Pier Massimo Forni. Forni's lecture discussed the connections among civility, ethics and quality of life. Forni has written extensively on the works of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and was the co-founder and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. In 2002 he wrote Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, and he continues to publish on the topic of civility.

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NEW RESOURCES ON THE WEB

 

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IN THE NEWS

  • Professor of Italian and newly named President of the Friends of the UW-Madison Library Christopher Kleinhenz was one of five recipients of 2006 Hilldale awards for excellence in teaching, research and service. UW-Madison announced the award recipients April 5.

  • The Badger Herald published a story April 27 announcing Memorial Library's new plan to limit cell phone use to the west corridor of the library.

 

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FYI: NATIONAL LIBRARY NEWS

  • An innovative book recycling program with a distant Silver Buckle Press connection was mentioned in the New York Times April 23. The article discussed a program in which artists turn discarded library books into art. Adriane Herman, now a faculty member at the Maine College of Art, helped develop this new program. She previously attended UW-Madison and worked at the Silver Buckle Press.

 

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SNAPSHOTS




 

   
A new student art gallery in College Library opened April 24 in conjunction with the release of the second edition of Illumination, an annual undergraduate journal of the humanities sponsored in part by the UW–Madison Libraries and the Friends of the UW–Madison Library.
Read more about the new gallery and the new issue of Illumination

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PUBLISHED

  • Amanda Werhane of Wendt Library helped create the film "Sense of Place: A Social History of 102 East Gorham Street" which was included in the Madison sesquicentennial celebration April 9. The film incorporates research conducted and footage shot at the Wisconsin Historical Society and Archives, the UW-Madison Archives, Memorial Library and the downtown branch of the Madison Public Library, among other sources. 

  • Marquette University Press recently published The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder, which details a conference held at Marquette in October 2004. Richard West of Wendt Library presented a paper on Tolkien's "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" at the conference, and it is included in this new publication.

  • Memorial Library published an April and May issue of Memorial Community News. April's issue highlights an employee art exhibit and a digitization symposium. The staff spotlight is on Pat Erickson of GLS Administration Services. The May issue features an article on new equipment in Memorial Library, and the staff spotlight is on Ann Pollock of Reference.

  • Former GLS staff member Bill Fietzer has written a second novel, Metadata Murders, published last January. For information on the new novel, or to purchase a copy, visit Bill's Web site. Fietzer worked in CTS from 1974-1991.

  • The Water Resources Library has a new Web site specifically for kids. The site features children's books with an aquatic theme that have appeared on best book lists or won awards. Three School of Library & Information Studies students developed the site for a class. Students Molly Kliss, Jodi Leslie and Ellsworth Rockefeller worked with Aquatic Sciences Center Art Director Tina Yao whose design for the site was inspired by pictures from the Allied Drive story hours.

  • Electronic Resources Librarian Susan Barribeau recently wrote an article with Jim Stemper of the University of Minnesota which was published in the April issue of Library Resources & Technical Services. The article, titled "Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals" is a survey of one academic research library's licenses to carry journals in light of the fact that many libraries are canceling subscriptions to print journals for a variety of reasons.

  • The April issue of DPLS News is now online. This issue features a farewell to DACC Administrator Jean Mindel, a story about thinking outside the social science box and the latest Allied Drive story hour.

  • In Short Story and Other Short Stories, the latest poetry chapbook release from the Parallel Press, Corey Mesler captures moments, both fleeting and languishing, in which people's lives become complicated and often take a turn for the worse.
    Read more about Mesler's chapbook

  • EncoreIn a celebration of the first 40 poets featured in the Parallel Press chapbook series, Encore: More of Parallel Press Poets brings the authors together in one collection that also allows readers to explore the poets' thought processes.
    Read more about Encore



 

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IN PASSING

  • Virginia Holtz, Health Sciences Libraries' director from 1971-1997, passed away April 3. A memorial service was held April 19, and a Virginia Holtz Memorial Fund is being set up to support Ebling Library professional development.

    Holtz helped dramatically improve access to health-related information during her tenure at the library, and she received many awards for her work, including Librarian of the Year in 1993 from the Wisconsin Health Science Library Association.

    "We appreciated her deep commitment to the welfare of the Health Sciences Libraries at the UW-Madison and the profession as a whole," Ebling Director Terry Burton said in an e-mail to library staff.

  • Tom Shafer, ex-husband of Deb Shafer in Circulation, passed away in April. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to a trust fund for their daughters, Sarah and Kristin. Sarah works at the ID check station in Memorial Library. Checks may be sent to the Kristin and Sarah Shafer Trust Fund, c/o Gunderson Funeral Home, 5203 Monona Drive, Monona, WI 53716.

  • Gerd Zoller, husband of former MARC and Law Library staff member Telle Zoller, passed away suddenly April 20. For more information, see his obituary.

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25 YEARS AGO IN THE LIBRARIES

  • In the May 1, 1981 issue of Added Entries, a message "from the branches" describes Steenbock Library's spring exhibit, which included live honey bees.

    "In celebration of the arrival of spring, Steenbock Library hosted a press conference on April 8 for the American Honey Queen and the Wisconsin Honey Queen. In cooperation with the Department of Entomology Bee Laboratory, the library exhibited live honey bees, beekeeping paraphernalia and rare books on display thorough April 27. Steenbock has the nation's largest collection of rare books on beekeeping, many of which are sixteenth-century apiary treatises with illustrations."

    For a more recent—and less risky—perusal of the collection, see the 2004 Libraries Magazine cover story.

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Quotation

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."

— Robertson Davies (1913-1995), Canadian Author

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Libraries@UW-Madison is written by the staff of Library Communications.
Managing Editor: Kristin Knipschild

Please send questions, comments or story ideas to:
Don Johnson, 608.262.0076, 330C Memorial Library,
Kristin Knipschild, 608.262.2853, 348 Memorial Library, or
e-mail Libraries@UW-Madison.