Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Q&A with John Norberg

October 16th, 2019

We talked with celebrated writer, author, and humorist John Norberg about the second edition of Wings of Their Dreams: Purdue in Flight, his second book with Purdue University Press this year.

The second edition of Wings of Their Dreams continues and updates the story of an aeronautic odyssey of imagination, science, engineering, technology, adventure, courage, danger, and promise. It is the ever-evolving story of the human spirit taking flight, expanding Purdue’s legacy in aviation’s history.

Q: What originally inspired you to write Wings of Their Dreams?

John Norberg: I started working on it in 1999 as the 2003 centennial of flight approached. Purdue has a great history in flight and space and I thought the centennial of flight would be the perfect time to highlight it. There was no book where the stories of all our historical figures in flight and our astronauts were brought together in one place. As with several of the books I’ve written I talked about the idea with Joe Bennett, then vice president for university relation. This was before I started at Purdue in October of 2000. Joe liked the idea and took it to President Steve Beering who authorized it with financial support from the Purdue Research Foundation.

Q: Purdue is often referred to as the “cradle of astronauts”, what do you think are some of the main reasons Purdue has been so successful in producing astronauts?

Norberg: I have researched this and talked with all our astronauts about it. I’ve concluded there are five specific reasons we have so many astronauts.

• Large and world class schools of engineering and science that attract people who want to become astronauts. NASA has a history of selecting people with engineering and science backgrounds as astronauts. In the early days being an engineer was required.
• A university airport on the campus. Going back to our earliest astronauts, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and Roger Chaffee, they had no idea about the future that awaited them. But they knew they liked to fly and the airport was a plus in attracting people interested first in aviation and later space flight. Many of our shuttle astronauts have also been pilots and they were interested in the University airport.
• A large and outstanding ROTC program. Many astronauts used a military career path to be selected by NASA for space flight. A number of them become military test pilots. Some received ROTC scholarships or came to Purdue on Navy scholarships. The excellence of Purdue’s ROTC programs and the fact that the military was a good career track for become an astronaut attracted people to Purdue who were interested in flight and later space.
• A master’s degree program in association with the Air Force Academy. In the 1960s one of the most selective programs at the Air Force Academy was a master’s degree program with Purdue. Only the top students were selected. They took some advanced courses at the Academy and upon graduation they came immediately to Purdue and began taking course during summer terms, and there were three of them. With a heavy course load in the fall semester they were able to complete their master’s degree work in January. Seven men who went through this program became astronauts and credit Purdue with helping them succeed. One of the people who came to Purdue on the program became the Hero of the Hudson, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger.
• When Cernan and Chaffee became NASA astronauts in 1963, Purdue had four alumni selected for space missions and the total number of people in the space program was not large. Young people interested in space began to see Purdue as a great place to study to accomplish their goals. Purdue’s reputation as a school of astronauts became even stronger as more and more Boilermakers were selected for the program by NASA.

Q: What’s something you think that people may not know about Purdue’s history in flight?

Norberg: People are always interested in stories about Neil Armstrong and the first landing on the moon. It’s in the book. I also wanted to give readers surprises, stories they didn’t know about. Most people don’t know that a Purdue alumnus worked with the Wright Brothers in the earliest days of flight. They don’t know Purdue graduates taught flight to Billy Mitchell and Hap Arnold – icons in U.S. military. They don’t know one of the nation’s first test pilots was a Purdue graduate, that a Purdue graduate and Charles Lindbergh were involved in a mid-air crash, an incident that marked the first time two pilots parachuted to safety. They don’t know about a Purdue graduate who flew beneath a balloon to the stratosphere. The first pilot to be called “Mr. Space” when there were no astronauts was a Purdue alumnus. The second person to break the sound barrier studied at Purdue (and some say he was the first). There is much more. Wings tells the history of flight and space through the stories of Purdue graduates. I think people will also be surprised that some astronauts apply four or five times before being selected. It is very competitive. The man who assigned astronauts to flights says Grissom would probably have been the first person on the moon, had he survived.

Q: What was the thing that surprised you most when you did the research for this book?

Norberg: If I tell all the surprises they won’t be surprises. The most pleasant surprise was that Neil Armstrong agreed to let me interview him for the book, something he rarely did. It was before Jim Hansen released his excellent biography of Neil, First Man but they were working on it. When I finished Neil’s chapters I sent them to him for accuracy review. He responded that the chapters were good, but he thought they were “about one-third too much me.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. So, I took quotation marks off some of his statements and paraphrased them. I sent it back and he said it was perfect. Shortly after Wings was published, Purdue held an event at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Neil was there and spoke. He started telling stories about pilots in Purdue’s history. The first one I recognized as someone in the book. Then there was a second and third. It finally dawned on me that he was repeating the stories from the book. I sent him a copy of the book and he had read it. That surprised me. At the end of his talk he said “All these stories are from John Norberg’s book Wings of Their Dreams that I heartily recommend.” I thanked Neil after he spoke. Someone came up to me and told me I needed to go to the table we were using to sell and sign books. There was a line of people waiting that stretched down the first floor of the museum. Neil wrote a statement for the cover of another book, Spacewalker, I wrote with Purdue astronaut Jerry Ross: “Spacewalker is the book for anyone who ever dreamed of flying in space.” There are many surprises in the stories about the people I wrote about in the book. I hope people enjoy them.

Q: What is new about the second edition of Wings of Their Dreams?

Norberg: Much has changed from 2003 to 2019. All the profiles and stories that were in the first book are in the second edition, but many of them have been updated. I interviewed all our living astronauts again (there are 24 associated with NASA and one commercial astronaut) and updated their information and thoughts. In addition to Grissom and Chaffee, who died in 1967, four other Purdue astronauts have died since 2003 – Janice Voss, Armstrong, Cernan, and Don Williams. I updated those stories. I added profiles on two additional astronauts since 2003. I also added a chapter on Sullenberger’s 2009 landing of a commercial airplane on the Hudson River, saving all the souls onboard.

You can get 30% off of Wings of Their Dreams by entering the discount code PURDUE30 when ordering from our website.

Seeking Student Social Media Specialist

October 16th, 2019

Must Be a Currently Enrolled (Fall 2019, Spring 2020) Purdue University Undergraduate Student

Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies (PULSIS) seeks a creative social media specialist student employee for 20 hour per week the remainder of Fall 2019 and for Spring 2020. The ideal applicant will possess strong knowledge of the digital media landscape, particularly in Instagram and its storytelling functionalities. The successful candidate will be responsible for contributing content to PULSIS Instagram (and other social media platforms at various times) via their own mobile device to share the story of PULSIS and the resources and services we provide for Purdue students. This position requires a student with exceptional public relations judgement, the ability to maintain our unit’s brand voice, and one who has photo-composition skills and/or aptitude. This position will also require developing and maintaining rapport with PULSIS faculty and staff—who are integral in helping tell our story—and include Instagram-monitoring duties. Those looking to gain valuable online media experience with an established organization are encouraged to apply.

Qualifications

1+ years’ experience in social media/marketing
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Working knowledge of Instagram
Basic knowledge of Photoshop
Beginner-level knowledge of video content best practices
Photo composition skills/aptitude

Please send resume and cover letter to:

Teresa Koltzenburg, Director of Strategic Communication

tkoltzen@purdue.edu

Studies in Jewish Civilization – 50% Off Sale

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.

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The Legacy of the “First Man”, a Q&A with James R. Hansen

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.

Purdue BOT Ratifies McNeil’s Appointment as Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science

October 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.

Purdue Medical Librarian Bethany McGowan’s Work Focuses on Information and Data Literacy Instruction

October 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:

• accelerating discovery and advancing health by providing the tools for data-driven research,
• reaching more people in more ways through enhanced dissemination and engagement pathways, and
• building a workforce for data-driven research and health.

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!

Featured Database: Regional Business News

October 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:

• ABI/Inform Global, provides access to articles on business conditions, trends, management techniques with research on advertising, marketing, economics, human resources, and more.
• Business Source Complete, provides access to articles in business and management, marketing, MIS, accounting, finance, international business, and related disciplines.

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.

Celebrating Health Literacy Month with Jason Reed, Health Sciences Info. Specialist

October 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.

What Does a Health Sciences Information Specialist Do?

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:

• working with athletic training students to teach them how to discover information for use in Critically Appraised Topics, a type of EBP that focuses on using a literature review to answer clinical questions.
• In health and kinesiology I provide instruction to students on searching for intervention studies guided by behavioral theories to support creating/starting a public health initiative.
• In the College of Pharmacy Professional Program, I teach lab sessions for the first- and second-year students. In these labs, we discuss the importance of EBP and how to determine the best resource to use for answering questions and how to best use those resources to find evidence supporting their clinical questions.

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/.

HSSE Library Launches Monthly “Featured Databases” Tutorials

September 26th, 2019

Among the many resource and services Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies (PULSIS) offers student and faculty researchers are more than 600 databases. For years, staff in the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management and Economics have offered the “Database of the Month” feature to help business researchers navigate these rich resources.

To help humanities’ and social sciences’ researchers, on Sept. 26, staff in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (HSSE) Library launched a similar series, the HSSE Library “Featured Databases” tutorials. This ongoing series will cover a wide array of disciplines.

According to Library Assistant Ann O’Donnell, the series will post on the fourth Thursday of every month (with the exception of December and May). Each series installment is a new video tutorial that provides a brief introduction to the basic features of one of the PULSIS specialized subscription databases.

The first featured database is ProQuest Research Library, which provides one-stop access to more than 4,000 periodicals.

“ProQuest Research Library is one of the broadest, most inclusive general reference databases ProQuest has to offer,” O’Donnell explained. “Users can search in a highly respected, diversified mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, and magazines that cover more than 150 academic disciplines,” she added.

O’Donnell said the goal of these tutorials is to highlight the various resources available through the Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies and to give users additional tools to help them with their research and studies.

“We understand with a collection of more than 600 databases, finding the best resource and understanding how to navigate that resource can be difficult. These tutorials will help patrons with that process,” she noted.

The databases featured every month are selected by faculty in the HSSE Library, but O’Donnell said they are open to suggestions from the faculty in these subject areas.

If you have questions or suggestions for possible databases to feature, contact O’Donnell at hsselib@purdue.edu.

“What Open Access Means to You” Panel Oct. 22, Part of Open Access Week Celebration at Purdue

September 26th, 2019

Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies will kick off International Open Access Week (October 21-27) with the announcement of the Leadership in Open Access Award from Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies (PULSIS) and Purdue University Office of the Provost.

During the week, PULSIS and the Purdue University Press (PUP) will also host a panel discussion, three Open Access information installations on campus, and an Open Access content campaign via the PULSIS website and PULSIS and PUP social media.

From 10:30 a.m.-noon Tuesday, Oct. 22 PULSIS and PUP are sponsoring the panel discussion, “What Open Access Means to You.” Purdue University Press Director Justin Race will serve as moderator of the panel discussion, which will be held in Stewart Center, room 202. Panelists include:

• Kris Bross, associate dean for research and creative endeavors, Purdue Honors College;
• Gaurav Chopra, assistant professor, Purdue Department of Chemistry;
• Michael Witt, interim associate dean for research, associate professor, and head of the Distributed Data Curation Center, PULSIS; and
• Wayne Wright, Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language and associate dean for research, graduate programs, and faculty development, Purdue College of Education.

Leadership Award and Information Installations

According to Dean of Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies Beth McNeil, the Leadership in Open Access Award recognizes an individual (or individuals) at Purdue University who make an exceptional commitment to broadening the reach of scholarship by making publicly funded research freely accessible online through Purdue e-Pubs repository.

In addition, Scholarly Publishing Specialist Nina Collins will be available via three Open Access “information installations” on campus that week, including:

• 1-4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 21, Horticulture Building (HORT), room 217;
• 9 a.m.-noon Wednesday, Oct. 23, Knoy Hall of Technology (KNOY), KNOY Lobby; and
• noon-3 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 24, Mechanical Engineering, Railside Station area.

The PULSIS and PUP content campaign will feature blog and social media posts about the benefits of Open Access. Blog post authors include:

• Darcy Bullock, Lyles Family Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Joint Transportation Research Program;
• Sandi Caldrone, data repository outreach specialist, Purdue University Research Repository (PURR);
• Erla Heyns, head, Humanities, Social Science, Education, and Business (HSSEB) Division and associate professor, PULSIS;
• Senay Purzer, director of assessment research at the INSPIRE Institute for Pre-college Engineering Research and associate professor, School of Engineering; and
• Beth McNeil, dean, PULSIS.

For more information, contact Collins at nkcollin@purdue.edu.

About Open Access Week

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its eleventh year, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they have learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. Learn more about Open Access Week at www.openaccessweek.org.