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October 16th, 2019
Purdue University Press is offering 50% off all books in our Studies in Jewish Civilization series, including the most recent addition, Next Year in Jerusalem: Exile and Return in Jewish History edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon.
Next Year in Jerusalem recognizes that Jews have often experienced or imaged periods of exile and return in their long tradition, examining this phenomenon from different approaches, genres, and media.
The volumes in our Studies in Jewish Civilization series, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, are based on presentations made at the annual symposium of the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, sponsored by Creighton University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Nebraska at Omaha. Each collection explores a different topic in Jewish history and culture worldwide that continues to be of interest today. Jargon-free, unbiased, and inherently interdisciplinary, every chapter is accessible, authoritative, and meant for scholars and laypeople alike.
Get 50% the books when you order off of our website and use the discount code SJC50. The sale will continue until the end of the year.
Filed under: Uncategorized
October 15th, 2019
We talked with James R. Hansen, Neil Armstrong’s authorized biographer, about his new book with Purdue University Press Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind.
Dear Neil Armstrong publishes a careful sampling—roughly 400—of the thousands of letters sent to Neil Armstrong from the day of the moon landing to the day of his passing, reflecting the various kinds of correspondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of his replies.
Q: You’ve already written First Man, the definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, what motivated you to take on this new project?
James R. Hansen: I find not just the biography but even more the iconography of the First Man on the Moon endlessly fascinating. “Definitive” is relative. There’s always more to know, to learn, to discover. For First Man, I did not have total access to Neil’s correspondence. For the past four or five years I did have access, in the Purdue Archives, and, as a result, I have a lot more to share with the world about Armstrong.
Q: What do you think is the most commonly misunderstood thing about Neil Armstrong, and how could looking through these letters remedy that misunderstanding?
Hansen: That he was ultra-private, closed off, a near-recluse. The letters show that Neil was not any of those things, not at all. He was very engaged in the world around him, though he had his own particular ways and standards of how he would engage with society and culture.
Q: There are some 75,000 letters stored in the Purdue University Archives and Special collections, what was it like paring it down to the roughly 400 that made it into the book?
Hansen: It was very hard to keep my selection of letters to that size, because almost every letter to Neil, and every reply from him, offered interesting new insights into who he was, and even more so into who we were, in terms of what we thought about our hero and what we wanted from him.
Q: Was there any overarching theme or trend in the letters that surprised you most?
Hansen: Nothing in the letters made me change my basic understanding of Armstrong. What they did, however, is add depth, richness, and resonance to everything I had already come to understand about his as a person and as an icon.
Q: Were there any letters that didn’t make it in the book that still stick out to you?
Hansen: I tried very hard to include all the letters that stuck out to me! Some of the truly crazy letters that were written to him, which included some threatening letters from stalkers and other disturbed individuals, I chose not to include: letters from people in mental asylums, criminal penitentiaries, or people who should have been. Some of the letters were so disturbing that I did not want to present them in the book.
Q: What do you most hope to accomplish with this book?
Hansen: Foremost, I hope people today and forevermore will understand and appreciate Neil Armstrong not just as a global icon but a flesh-and-blood three-dimensional human being, with faults, defects, and limitations, just like all the rest of us. But I also hope the reader stops from time to time to think, “Shame on us.” Shame on us for not being more considerate for the situation of our celebrities and great public figures. Day in and day out, we just ask way too much of them.
You can order Dear Neil Armstrong now, and get 30% off when using the discount code PURDUE30 on the Purdue University Press website.
Filed under: UncategorizedOctober 10th, 2019
The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Thursday (Oct. 10) ratified the appointment of Beth McNeil as the Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science.
McNeil is dean of Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies. She is a nationally known scholar of management practices in libraries and leadership development. She is the author of “Fundamentals of Library Supervision,” which is in its third edition, as well as numerous articles, edited works, and book chapters.
She rejoined the Purdue faculty in July 2019, having previously been at Purdue from 2007-15 as associate dean in Libraries.
Read the entire BOT release at www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q4/purdue-trustees-approve-faculty-appointments.html.
Filed under: Faculty E-Newsletter, faculty_staff, general, UncategorizedOctober 10th, 2019
October is National Medical Librarians Month, and Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies (PULSIS) Assistant Professor and Health Sciences Information Specialist Bethany McGowan, who has close to ten years of academic medical librarian experience, notes that 2019 brings medical librarians two years into the current U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) Strategic Plan, 2017-2027. Below, she shares the kind of work she does as a medical librarian at Purdue and in the field of library science.
by Bethany McGowan
The NLM Strategic Plan, 2017-2027, focuses on three goals:
The NLM strategic plan, along with the PULSIS strategic plan, guide my work as a medical librarian. As assistant professor and a health sciences information specialist, I focus on information literacy and data literacy instruction. This includes working with health sciences faculty to scaffold information literacy (IL) instruction throughout curriculums, through course design programs, such as IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation), and by establishing collaborations with the health sciences faculty who influence curriculum development, at the individual course level and across curriculums at a programmatic level.
Relatedly, I co-chair an Association of College and Research Libraries working group to redesign the outdated Information Literacy Competency Standards for Nursing into a Framework for Information Literacy for Nursing. After a comprehensive literature review and surveying nursing faculty across nine research and teaching colleges and universities, our working group has concluded that scaffolding information literacy throughout course and program curriculum provides the most comprehensive means to disseminate information literacy instruction and engage students. We are working hard to develop a practical tool that will make it easier for librarians to build connections with nursing faculty, to better understand strategies for integrating information literacy instruction across course and program curriculums, and to better understand student-centered approaches for information literacy instruction.
I support data-driven research and believe that libraries are the perfect place to teach data literacy via extracurricular data challenges like “hackathons” and “datathons.” My research focuses on strategies for engaging participants who might not otherwise compete in data challenges, like health sciences students, women, and minorities.
I was recently awarded an NLM grant to explore why students participate in and drop out of data challenges, and I will use my findings to create an open educational resource that librarians can use to recruit and retain diverse participation in these events.
I’m also leading the team planning the 2020 Purdue Women in Data Science (WiDS) datathon and conference, events focused on highlighting the contributions of women in data science.
Finally, I’m interested in the global impacts of the open data and open access movements. I have been active with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Health and Biosciences Section for the past few years, and this year, I was elected information officer for the section. As our section collaborates with the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) to plan the 2021 AHILA Congress in South Africa. I plan to use the experience to consider how my expertise might support the data and information interests and needs of librarians in African countries. I hope it will be a launchpad for future collaborations.
Ultimately, the work I do is incredibly fulfilling, and I’m proud to be a part of such a supportive community. Happy National Medical Librarians Month to all my fellow medical librarians!
Filed under: Faculty E-Newsletter, faculty_staff, general, HLS, UncategorizedOctober 8th, 2019
Parrish Library’s Featured Database will give you a very brief introduction to the basic features of one of our specialized subscription databases. This time we’re featuring Regional Business News, brought to you by EBSCO Industries, Inc.
Link: The List of Business Databases is the alphabetical list of the databases specially selected for those in a business program of study. Access the databases off-campus with your Purdue login and password.
Focus: Provides comprehensive full text coverage for regional business publications, incorporating 75 business news magazines, newspapers and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.
Tutorial: Click Getting Started with Regional Business News see the basics of using Regional Business News.
Start with this hint: Use the search bar on the homepage to begin a simple search by keyword, then use the filters on the left side of the page to narrow your results.
Why you should know this database: Regional Business News provides full text coverage of publications such as The Washington Post and Investor’s Business Daily, dating back to 1990
Related Resources
Some other resources you might want to explore, are:
This Featured Database comes to you from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics. If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact parrlib@purdue.edu. Also let us know if you know of a colleague who would benefit from this, or future Featured Databases.
Since usage statistics are an important barometer when databases are up for renewal, tell us your favorite database, and we will gladly promote it. Send an email to parrlib@purdue.edu.
Filed under: database, general, MGMTOctober 3rd, 2019
October is Health Literacy Month, and to commemorate it, we asked Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies Health Sciences Information Specialist and Assistant Professor Jason Reed to share what he does in his work to support Purdue University faculty, students, and staff.
by Jason Reed, Health Sciences Information Specialist and Assistant Professor
Regularly, I collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to support research and learning in health sciences disciplines. My assigned areas include the Purdue Department of Health and Kinesiology, the Purdue College of Pharmacy‘s Professional Program, and the Purdue Department of Public Health.
A key component of my work involves supporting evidence-based practice (EBP). EBP is a framework that encourages health practitioners to use scientific evidence to guide decisions, along with patient preferences and their own acquired knowledge, and focuses on how students will continue to discover, evaluate, and implement new information throughout their health careers.
A few examples of how I collaborate with my liaison units to support EBP through teaching include:
In all of these examples, I include in class activities to provide an opportunity for the students to engage with and practice the skills discussed in class, not only to help them develop a mastery of the skills, but also to provide opportunities for the students to seek clarification on aspects they don’t fully understand.
On the research side, I have been very active in working on systematic reviews. High-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses are considered the highest levels of evidence in evidence-based practice and are guided by a set of guidelines, PRISMA Checklist.
Systematic reviews strive to discover and assess all materials relating to a specific research question, with the goal of answering that question within the limits of the available evidence. One of the recommendations for completing a systematic review is including a database expert on the team. That is the role I have filled on several systematic reviews from multiple colleges and departments on campus including the Professional Program in the College of Pharmacy, Purdue Department of Public Health, Purdue Department of Health and Kinesiology, and Purdue Department of Nutrition.
This work on systematic reviews has led to an opportunity to co-instruct, with Bethany McGowan, a course on systematic reviews offered to graduate students as a Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies’ designated course. This course was offered for the first time in the spring 2019 semester, we had 10 students from four different programs on campus.
The instruction focuses on teaching students how to prepare their review projects to meet the standards of a systematic review by teaching them the best practices for designing a search strategy, identifying the people and tools they will use in their review, and considering any potential biases in the project.
Learn more about other areas of Jason Reed’s work at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2019/02/08/climate-change-game-reed/.
Filed under: Faculty E-Newsletter, faculty_staff, general, HLS, PHAR, Uncategorized