Students are now able to take advantage of free access to NYTimes.com and all stories, editorials and extras that come with it through a partnership between West Virginia University and The New York Times.
Laura Reino of The New York Times will present an informational workshop at 11:30 a.m. Friday in room 104 of the Downtown Library to teach students the ins and outs of the New York Times website, the smartphone app and how the paper can benefit them as students.
“The access is important because of the important journalism—and the good writing—that the Times is known for,” said Tom Stewart, a professor in the Reed College of Media and a former newspaper editor. “The fact that it’s free is important because most college students really have to watch their spending.”
“These photographs are visual narratives, split-second windows opening up to someone else’s world. Individually, they introduce strangers. Collectively, I hope they allow viewers to recognize some piece of themselves within that human story,” said Lois Raimondo, the Shott Chair of Journalism at WVU’s Reed College of Media.
The opening for Fractured spaces: stories of resistance & resilience, sponsored by the WVU Libraries, will be held 4:30-6 p.m. Sept. 17, with remarks at 5 p.m.
Do you spend 20 minutes walking around the Library looking for an available study room? Can’t find enough sources to write a paper? Wish you could text a librarian when you get stuck on an assignment?
The West Virginia University Libraries can help. Library 101 is an hour-long workshop that covers a variety of library resources and services, from printing a poster for a project to reserving a study room, from finding the latest research on your topic to texting questions to a librarian.
What do you get when you mix mountaintop removal activism with sex education? The answer can be found in the Here Come the Ecosexuals! Tour, which visits the West Virginia University campus on September 1 and 2.
Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, activists, artists, educators and filmmakers, are touring with their film about mountaintop removal coal mining destruction in Appalachia titled Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story.
Over their two-day visit, they will hold four events to educate and have public dialogs that advance diversity initiatives, cultural awareness and responsibility, and provide outreach and awareness to students and the public about women’s issues, sexual orientation and health, and the environment.
The initiative, in its fifth year, enables participants to pledge a dollar amount per touchdown the Mountaineers score during the 2015 season and a subsequent bowl game. The proceeds will support a project within the Libraries.
“I am thrilled to continue the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge and support WVU Libraries,” Director of Athletics Shane Lyons said. “It’s exciting to know that our success on the field translates into needed library resources to benefit all students.”
Dr. Bruce Herbert, Director of Digital services and Scholarly Communications at Texas A&M Libraries, will deliver a presentation titled “Advancing Scholarship in a 21st Century Library” Monday, August 24, from 10:30 a.m.-noon in the Downtown Campus Library Room 104. He’ll address open research practices, changes in academic publishing, data-driven research and implications for academic libraries, the rising interdisciplinary of research, and more. He’ll also share how TAMU Libraries have adapted to create a 21st century library space. Refreshments will be served and the talk is open to all interested parties.
The West Virginia & Regional History Center will be closed to the public from Friday, July 31, through Monday, Aug. 3, for renovations. The WVRHC will reopen Tuesday, Aug. 4, with new hours: Tuesdays 9:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.; Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; and closed on Sundays.
The WVU Libraries Resident Librarian Program will provide a unique training and educational experience for underrepresented graduates of professional library degree programs who are either early career librarians or new to research libraries.
“We are excited to promote diversity at WVU while helping new academic librarians lay strong foundations for their careers,” Dean of Libraries Jon E. Cawthorne said. “We also anticipate positive benefits for the entire campus community when our resident librarians begin working with students and faculty.”
West Virginia UniversityLibraries is working with Wikipedia to address the gender gap in its encyclopedia articles through a new grant-funded position.
The Wikimedia Foundation has awarded the WVU Libraries a $27,100 grant to support a Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity. A Wikipedian in residence is an editor placed at an institution to facilitate the creation and improvement of Wikipedia articles related to that institution’s mission.
“We’re excited to partner with WVU to create the first gender-focused Wikipedian in Residence. This role will help us get significantly closer to Wikimedia’s vision of sharing the sum of all human knowledge,” said Siko Bouterse, director of Community Resources for the Wikimedia Foundation.
One of the first institutions of higher learning open to African Americans south of the Mason-Dixon line, Storer College in Harpers Ferry played a key role in providing minority education from its origins as a mission school in 1865 to its close in 1955. The school also made significant contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. A particularly notable occasion in Storer history occurred in 1906 when the college hosted the second meeting (and the first on U.S. soil) of the Niagara Movement, a precursor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.
“It is almost impossible for us to comprehend today how revolutionary the establishment of an African American school was at the close of the Civil War,” West Virginia and Regional History Center Director John Cuthbert said. “Just a few years earlier, education of slaves was potentially a capital offense in Virginia. The education of even free blacks was forbidden by law.”
The WVU Library Staff Association (LSA) has presented Thea Browne with the Library Staff Association Staff Person of the Year Award and Joe Morasco with the Library Staff Association Continuing Excellence Award.
Associate Dean of Libraries Myra N. Lowe and LSA Chair Jennifer Dubetz presented the honors during a ceremony Monday in the Robinson Reading Room.
Thea Browne, Library Staff Association Staff Person of the Year, and Joe Morasco, Library Staff Association Continuing Excellence Award winner, pose with Associate Dean of Libraries Myra N. Lowe and LSA Chair Jennifer Dubetz.
WVU Libraries did not let March winter storm Thor set us back permanently on the Wikipedia Initiative. Though we had to cancel part two of the program planned for March 5, we came back strong on April 30 with an online webinar called “Tackling the Gender Gap in Wikipedia.” Over 100 online and in person registrants joined Cindy Liberatore and Carroll Wilkinson for the session featuring Jami Mathewson of the Wiki Education Foundation and Dr. Adeline Koh of Stockton University.
In addition to a thorough overview of the Wikipedia’s gender gap problem, ideas for teaching with Wikipedia, assignment examples, links to resources for instructors, and many useful techniques for effective instruction were provided.
The West Virginia UniversityLibraries selected Jordan Lovejoy and Matthew Trickett as 2015 Robert F. Munn Undergraduate Library Scholars for their research at the Libraries as part of their undergraduate theses.
“All of us at the WVU Libraries are pleased to name Jordan Lovejoy and Matthew Trickett as Munn Scholars,” Dean of Libraries Dr. Jon E. Cawthorne said. “Jordan and Matthew produced impressive works of scholarship. Both did a tremendous job researching their topics and presenting their findings.”
Munn Award winners Matthew Trickett and Jordan Lovejoy pose with Dr. Jon E. Cawthorne, dean of the WVU Libraries.
The University community gathered on Wednesday (April 22) to dedicate the planting of the Newton apple tree, a direct descendent of the one that inspired Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity. The tree was awarded to retired Sen. Jay Rockefeller by the National Institute of Standards and Technology earlier this month in honor of his science policy leadership and his strong commitment during a 30-year career in the United States Senate. Rockefeller has bestowed the tree upon the University to inspire future generations to pursue scientific and technological discovery.
By Beth Royall, Creative Arts Librarian, Evansdale Library
Evansdale Library welcomes an exhibit of altered and manipulated books created by students in Assistant Professor Dylan Collins’s Art 212, a multimedia course in the School of Art and Design.
For this project, students focused on altering or manipulating a book or series of books in order to create new meaning from an existing text. Some of these artworks take pleasure in animating the timeless stories contained within the pages of a beloved tome, while other pieces use books as building blocks that can be shaped to fit a student’s conceptual idea.
In all cases, students paid careful attention to the way their artworks were made, focusing on issues of craft, technique, and material. The exhibit is located on the main and 2nd floors, and will be up through May 10th.
National Student Employee Appreciation Week runs April 13-19, and the Libraries are helping to celebrate. The Libraries currently employ 72 students to work on all three campuses—Downtown, Evansdale, and Health Sciences. Our student workers have a variety of job duties, including answering questions, checking out materials, processing books, and more. Student workers are vital to make the Libraries run as smoothly as possible for WVU faculty, staff, and students.
Myra Lowe, Associate Dean of Libraries; Dr. Jon Cawthorne, Dean of Libraries; Judith Meyers, Research Services Graduate Assistant; Nick Marabeti, Multimedia Services Student Worker; Cassie Semler, Access Services Student Worker.
The University is honoring student employees with a celebration on Tuesday, April 14 in the Mountaineer Ballroom. In addition to activities and refreshments, President Gee will be giving an award to the Student Employee of the Year. Two students who work in the WVU Libraries, Nathan Snedden and Jazz Delos Santos, are among the five finalists for the award.
Participate in a 24-hour race to write, shoot, edit and post a video and win fabulous prizes! The contest will be held from 5 p.m. Friday to 5 p.m. Saturday. Teams of up to four undergraduate or graduate students will compete for two prizes of $400 in Amazon gift cards each—Judge’s Choice and People’s Choice. Use equipment and software available at the Downtown Campus Library’s Multimedia Services Department in this race to create a 3-minute video. Only the first 10 teams to sign up will be eligible. The winning films will be selected at our video screening on April 12. For more information and to register, please visit: https://lib.wvu.edu/services/multimedia/insomnia/
First published in 1918, Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries is an anthology of detective stories written by Melville Davisson Post. The popular stories within this collection were serialized in national magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post in the early twentieth century.
West Virginia UniversityLibraries has been granted membership in the Greater Western Library Alliance, expanding the reach of both organizations and giving researchers easier access to a multitude of resources.
“Being a member of the Alliance will immediately benefit WVU faculty and students by giving them access to a wider array of special collections and resources,” Provost Joyce McConnell said. “It also will open the door to many more projects and partnerships with other member institutions.”
Membership in the Alliance, approved at the organization’s spring membership meeting earlier this month, will bring faster access to research collections complementing the WVU Libraries’ own collections. Read the rest of this entry »
Submitted by Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson, Director of Library Strategic Initiatives, WVU Libraries
The first public program in the Talking Publicly series sponsored by the University Libraries (in partnership with the Reed College of Media) was launched on March 4, 2015 at 7:30pm at Ming Hsieh Hall on the Downtown Campus of West Virginia University.
Winter storm Thor prevented delivery of both parts of the two part program on the gender gap in Wikipedia. The Thursday morning workshop on writing for Wikipedia will be rescheduled at another time. In spite of the dreadful weather, we were successful with part 1 which was the panel discussion “Where Are All the Women?” on Wednesday March 4 at 7:30pm. Maryanne Reed, Dean of the Reed College of Media, opened the program and Jon Cawthorne, Dean of the WVU Libraries, moderated.
Maryanne Reed, Dean of the Reed College of Media, introduces the program.
