“A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality” Exhibit in Hicks thru March 27

February 28th, 2017

“A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality,” an exhibit that features the photographs of Mark A. Lee, will be on display in the Hicks Undergraduate Library through March 27. The panel display (located between the first two rows of study carrels on the right side of the library’s entrance) is sponsored by the Purdue University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Center, and it was created by Lee, an Indianapolis-based photographer.

According to the Purdue LGBTQ Center website, the traveling exhibit celebrates 30 years of LGBT history as seen through the lens of Lee. His photographs give visitors a front row seat to events, both public and private, that shaped the lives of many Hoosiers.

“A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality documents members of the AIDS community, past and present Bag Ladies, members of Pride, and those who fought for marriage equality, It also pays tribute to five very special people who are no longer here (for reasons other than AIDS) and takes a sneak peek into our future, as it takes a closer look at the transgender community.” — Mark A. Lee

Purdue’s Info. Literacy Efforts & IMPACT Program Featured in Chronicle of Higher Ed

February 28th, 2017

Purdue University Libraries Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy Sharon Weiner is featured in an article in “The Chronicle of Higher Education” this week.

The Q&A “special report” with Weiner, “How One College Put Information Literacy Into Its Curriculum,” discusses Purdue University’s efforts to bring information literacy into the classroom through its IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation) program.

The article is available through the Purdue University Libraries’ subscription to “The Chronicle of Higher Education” and to those who have Premium-level subscriptions to the publication.

Systematic Reviews Workshop March 3; Register by Feb. 24

February 20th, 2017

Margaret Foster, associate professor and systematic reviews coordinator at  Texas A & M University Libraries, will conduct “An Introduction to Systematic Reviews” from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, March 3, in the Swaim Conference Room (fourth floor, HSSE Library, Stewart Center). The six-hour workshop will cover systematic reviews, which are based a research method to study studies or a method to systematically identify, evaluate, code, and combine studies into a synthesized summary. Register online at purdue.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3RdXvbEZP3oo5jT (space is limited to 25 registrants).

This method is used across a wide variety of disciplines medicine, public health, education, agriculture, and more. It will include how to determine if a research question is a feasible for a systematic review or other type of review and how to develop a protocol. The workshop (which is geared toward librarians but faculty from other disciplines are welcome to register) will focus on identifying studies, but other steps of the process will also be covered. Lunch will be provided.

Copyright Office, Libraries to Celebrate Fair Use Impact Feb. 23

February 14th, 2017

“Can I use this copyrighted image in my video… legally?”

That question seems like a relatively easy query, and one that, most likely, you have had to consider if you have ever downloaded content from the web for a class project or a presentation. The answer, though, is not necessarily as simple.

But, before you rush to your computer to edit your video, you may want to take a look at Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, which is referred to as “Fair Use.” Fair Use is so critical to education and libraries that, a few years ago, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) established Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week, which set to take place Monday-Friday, Feb. 20-24 this year. Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week raises awareness about the important doctrines of fair use in the U.S. and fair dealing in Canada and other jurisdictions.

Purdue University Libraries and the University Copyright Office will celebrate the importance of Fair Use with discussions and cake from noon-1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23 near the main floor entryway to Hicks Library.

“Join us to celebrate and discuss the incredible impact and benefits of fair use, which we enjoy all year long,” noted Director of the University Copyright Office Donna Ferullo.

Fair Use in Education

Fair use is an exception under the U.S. Copyright Act. It allows copyrighted works to be used without the copyright holder’s permission, provided the use complies with the rules of the exception. It is a four factor test that analyzes the purpose and character of the use; the nature of the work being used; the amount of the work being used; and whether the market for the original work will be impacted by the new work. (For more information on applying the fair use factors, check out fair use on the Purdue University Copyright Office’s website at www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/fair_use.html.)

“In higher education, fair use is used in both teaching and research. Faculty, staff and students probably apply it on a daily basis, many times without even realizing it. Uses can range from showing a video clip in a classroom to quoting passages from a copyrighted work in a student paper or faculty journal article. The fair use exception is critical to promoting advances in arts and sciences, which is the fundamental purpose of the copyright clause in the U.S. Constitution and promulgated by the U.S. Copyright Act,” Ferullo explained.

In the past few years, there have been some high profile cases in which individuals challenged fair use, and the courts ruled in favor of the exceptions. Three noteworthy cases that impacted Purdue were the Google Library Books Project, the Georgia State e-reserves case and the HathiTrust challenge, Ferullo said. Those specific instances of mass digitization were found to be fair use with some caveats. The courts looked to the intent of copyright and ruled that transformative uses, such as what occurred in those three cases, were the essence of what copyright is all about.

For information on major events around the country during Fair Use Week, check out www.fairuseweek.org.

Grand Challenges Research Teams Announced in Mellon Grant

February 10th, 2017

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $1.4M to date to support a unique approach to global grand challenges research, scholarly publishing and communication at Purdue.Purdue Scholarly Publishing, a division of Purdue Libraries, and the Purdue Policy Research Institute have announced the final proposals selected for funding under the grant “Breaking Through: Developing Multidisciplinary Solutions to Global Grand Challenges.”

Four proposals have been selected for funding, which was made possible through a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The four projects are as follows:

• Big Data Ethics Detecting Bias in Data Collection, Algorithmic Discrimination and “Informed Refusal”: Led by Chris Clifton, professor of computer science, this research team is addressing grand challenges through a multidisciplinary study of the ethical issues involved in the use of big data and predictive algorithms to make decisions affecting individuals.
• From Global to Local to Global: Attaining Long Run Sustainability in U.S. Agriculture: Led by Thomas Hertel, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics, this research team is leveraging existing knowledge, models and data to understand and communicate the interplay between global change and local sustainability of U.S. agriculture in the context of alternative national, state and local policies affecting agricultural productivity and environmental quality.
• Global Temperature Goals to Avoid Climate Tipping Points: A Serious Game to Support Serious Decisions: Led by Manjana Milkoreit, assistant professor of political science, this research team is engaging in a first-of-its-kind project that merges a creative knowledge co-production process between scientists and decision makers on urgent questions in global climate change governance and a scientific assessment of the effectiveness of this science-policy interaction.
• Decision Support for Flood Risk Mitigation: Automated Data Collection and Visualization Tools: Led by David R. Johnson, assistant professor of industrial engineering and political science, this research team is developing automated data collection tools and interactive decision support systems to tackle the grand challenge of increasing coastal flood risks and address the need for better risk communication.

This three-year program enables multidisciplinary teams to tackle grand challenges in new ways. It also embeds policy experts, publishing professionals, and libraries faculty in the scholarly research and communication process, in order to provide researchers with expert assistance in communicating results directly to the public and key stakeholders.

The Scholarly Publishing Division of the Purdue University Libraries, the Purdue Policy Research Institute in Discovery Park, the College of Liberal Arts and the Purdue Systems Collaboratory are partners on the grant.

Peter Froehlich, director of Purdue Scholarly Publishing, and Laurel Weldon, director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute, are principal investigators.

Both lead PIs are pleased with the outcome of the competition, which was intense.

“So many excellent proposals were submitted in response to our call for proposals, it ended up being a difficult choice. The four proposals selected are outstanding, and we are excited to be able to launch these innovative, interdisciplinary projects,” Weldon says.

Froehlich also highlighted the unique aspects of the program, including the integration of communication planning — how key stakeholders will receive results — from the onset of each project.

“Getting actionable new information to stakeholders sooner, in the most well-targeted, intelligible, digestible and sharable manner possible, will allow us to better impact the challenges we face,” he says. “We’re thrilled to be working with top researchers on this innovative approach to scholarly communications.”

For more information, visit grandchallenges.lib.purdue.edu/index.php.

Researchers and media can direct questions to Froehlich and Weldon at humstem@purdue.edu.

Purdue Alum to Present Feminist Data Structures, Data Literacy Talk Feb. 23

February 8th, 2017

As the first installment of the 2017 Library Seminar series, Purdue University Libraries will host Purdue alumna Dr. Christine Masters Thursday, Feb. 23, for her talk, “Feminist Data Structures and Data Literacy.” Masters, who earned her Ph.D. in English rhetoric and composition from Purdue, will present her lecture from noon-1 p.m. (Feb. 23) in the SWAIM Instruction Center, located on the fourth floor of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (HSSE) Library (in Stewart Center).

Masters—whose dissertation is titled “Encounters Beyond the Interface: Data Structures, Material Feminisms, and Composition”—published the article “Women’s Ways of Structuring Data” in the November 2015 issue of Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.

“Just as infrastructures are often invisible, women’s roles within them traditionally have been rendered even more invisible. Whether or not it has been articulated with this particular vocabulary, a goal of feminism has been to make visible our ubiquitous cultural, political, social, and economic infrastructures and the roles of women within them. While infrastructures are usually transparent, the structures within them—including collections of data—can be more consciously designed from feminist perspectives,” Masters explained. “My talk will examine some of the rhetorical and cultural issues surrounding data literacy—a key term that I define as an understanding of how collections of data are compositions that involve rhetorical choices to include or exclude certain criteria. Especially in university settings, we need to understand how data literacy fits into the larger project of information literacy. Students should be encouraged to think about databases and data sets as culturally situated compositions that can either support or work against social justice issues. To this end, I propose ways that educators and information specialists can use rhetorical frameworks to encourage critical analysis of data resources.”

Masters is an assistant professor of English at Francis Marion University, and she coordinates the professional writing program there. She earned her B.A. in English from the University of Washington and her M.A. from Western Illinois University.

WALC Sign in Place

February 1st, 2017

It’s a sign… that the new Thomas S. and Harvey D. Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC) will open in 2017!

Located in the heart of campus, the WALC (when it opens later this year) will serve as a central location for classroom and library space. The 164,000-square-foot facility houses 27 classrooms designed for active learning. Library study and collaborative spaces are interspersed with the classrooms throughout the building. The WALC will be open 24/7 (with some exceptions during the year), and the design of structure creates highly efficient use of university space.

The building will combine six disciplinary libraries (Chemistry; Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Engineering; Life Sciences; Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences; and Physics) in the Engineering and Science Library. In planning for the WALC, Libraries faculty and staff consulted learning design expertise, based on the creation and success of current active learning classrooms.

In addition, an Au Bon Pain café and bakery will provide food services on the first floor and will open onto the patio adjacent to the building.

Learn more about the innovative vision for the WALC – “a learning commons for the 21st century” and the first of its kind in higher education – at www.lib.purdue.edu/walc.