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June 28th, 2019
“It can be challenging for instruction librarians to create sustained collaborations with instructors beyond the one-shot instruction session. The results from this study make a compelling case for why collaborating with disciplinary instructors on course design―such as working together to design meaningful assignments throughout the term―can provide benefits for students in gaining information literacy skills, as well as helping them engage more deeply with course content.” ― Melissa Harden, LIRT Top Twenty Articles 2019 Selection Committee
Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies Assistant Professor Michael Flierl, Associate Professor Clarence Maybee, and Instructional Designer Rachel Fundator, as well as Purdue Center for Instructional Excellence Instructional Developer Emily Bonem, were recently recognized by the Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) for their research article “Information literacy supporting student motivation and performance: Course-level analyses.” Their research, published in the January 2018 issue of Library and Information Science Research, was listed as one of the “Top Twenty Articles of 2018” by LIRT in its June 2019 newsletter.
“This article describes the results of a large-scale study exploring the relationships between information literacy, student academic performance, and student motivation in the context of disciplinary courses,” notes the article abstract.
The abstract continues: “Data were gathered from over 3,000 students at a public research university through an end-of-semester survey that asked questions about learning climate, basic psychological needs, student motivation, and perceptions of relevance of course content to future careers. Instructors also completed a survey indicating how often students in their courses were expected to use information in various ways, including posing questions or problems, accessing information outside of assigned readings, evaluating sources, synthesizing information and communicating results, and applying the conventions of attribution. The responses to these surveys were analyzed in conjunction with student course grades to determine the relationships between information engagement and use, and student motivation and achievement.”
“The results suggest a positive relationship between students synthesizing and communicating information throughout the term and student perceptions of autonomy and motivation. Therefore, instruction librarians should encourage disciplinary instructors to design and create many opportunities for students to engage in higher-order skills, such as synthesizing and communicating information, throughout the term. These results suggest that the benefits for students gained from these types of learning opportunities include higher academic achievement and greater motivation to learn disciplinary content presented in their courses,” assert the authors.
LIRT is part of the American Library Association and was founded in 1977. According to its website, the organization empowers librarians, from all types of libraries, to become better teachers through sharing best practices, leadership and professional development, and networking.
For more information about LIRT, visit www.ala.org/rt/lirt.
Filed under: Faculty E-Newsletter, faculty_staff, generalJune 21st, 2019
In an interview with Vicki Hutton, the author of A Reason to Live: HIV and Animal Companions, we discuss the new book and relevant subjects, including the public perception of HIV/AIDS and the universality of the human-animal bond. A Reason to Live is the newest book in the popular New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond book series, edited by Dr. Alan M. Beck and Dr. Marguerite O’Haire.
Q: Could you briefly explain your book, for those who are not familiar?
Vicki Hutton: A Reason to Live provides a testament to the power of the human-animal relationship for eleven men living with HIV in Australia. In the 1980s HIV changed the lives of thousands of people in a way that could never have been predicted. For many people living with HIV, their animal companions followed them into this new and unexpected life and by doing so, provided some semblance of normality in a world turned upside down.
For others with HIV, their animal companions joined them further down the track, and provided the consistent and unconditional support that was not always forthcoming from other humans and the medical world. For this reason, animal companions are part of the narrative history of HIV, and part of the meaning-making around an epidemic that changed the world.
This collection of narratives spans the entirety of the HIV epidemic in Australia, from public awareness and discrimination in the 1980s and 1990s, to survival and hope in the twenty-first century. Each narrative is explored within the context of the latest human-animal research and theory in order to understand the unique bond between human and animal during an ‘epidemic of stigma’. A consistent theme is that these animals provided ‘a reason to live’: both for the long-term survivors and their past animal companions who offered unconditional love and support during this tumultuous period; and the current generation of HIV-positive narrators whose animal companions form part of the ‘wellness narrative’ of living and ageing with HIV.
Q: What compelled you to research and write about these stories?
Hutton: I could say that this was a logical outcome of my main areas of research interest: the human-animal relationship and stigmatized medical conditions, but it was far more than that. From the moment I visited a local HIV/AIDS support organization to check out the feasibility of conducting some research into stigma and the human-animal relationship, there was no going back. I was amazed by the willingness of so many people who jumped at the opportunity to describe the wonder and gratitude they felt towards their animal companions. The horrors of living with HIV, including the reactions of other humans, became almost incidental to the latest antics of their beloved animals. That first visit reshaped my research project, and I will always be grateful to the individuals who shared their time and their stories so openly and modestly. A Reason to Live is more than a cultural memory: it is a thank you to those individuals and a celebration of the human-animal relationship.
Q: What do you think are some of the most prevalent public misunderstandings surrounding HIV/AIDS?
Hutton: The first thing to remember is that there is not one HIV epidemic. It is experienced in different ways within and between countries, and according to race, gender, sexuality, age, income and decade. For example, a young woman living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa faces different challenges and public misconceptions to an older gay man living in US. Over the decades it has also attracted social meanings beyond the medical meanings, making any public misconceptions surrounding HIV and AIDS dependent on a range of factors.
With this in mind, I’ve noticed a common misconception that seems to straddle many of these groups is the tendency to assign ‘blame’ and ‘innocence’ to those with HIV. In the early years, the concept of blame and innocence saw those who contracted the virus as a result of lifestyle choices – such as unprotected sex or intravenous drug use – deemed less worthy of care and support than those who contracted it through circumstances that were perceived as out of their control – such as blood transfusions or childbirth. Fast forward several decades and blame may still emerge where a person is perceived as contracting HIV because they took avoidable lifestyle risks or failed to adequately protect themselves by adopting all the modern (medical) ways of avoiding HIV.
According to the men I spoke to, there can also be misconceptions around what it means to live and age with this stigmatized and incurable condition. They described how the medications can keep them physically healthy, but there are still challenges such as forming and maintaining relationships, and fears for the future. They described how the public perception in developed nations at least had moved towards HIV being a chronic but manageable condition – as long as a person maintains their medication regime. This perception that HIV and AIDS ares ‘over’ sometimes left them feeling ungrateful, isolated and unable to articulate the ongoing niggling anxieties that HIV can evoke (especially around ageing and cognitive decline).
And finally, I’d like to think that early public misconceptions about the ease of transmission of HIV have abated but according to some of the people I spoke to, this may not always be the case. They described how rules of physical contact were sometimes overtly or covertly reconstructed, leaving them feeling rejected and isolated. They acknowledged that negative experiences had definitely reduced over the years, but this sometimes made it all the more distressing when something unexpected happened. It seems that globally HIV still struggles to divest its misunderstood and demonized reputation.
Q: How do you feel these misunderstandings could be remedied?
Hutton: I’m not sure I’m in a position to make a meaningful response to this, given the diversity of the lived experience of HIV. I think if I make suggestions as someone who isn’t living with HIV, my response or suggestions could be perceived as trite and generic.
However, based on the stories I heard, perhaps learning from the actions of our non-judgmental animal companions could be a good starting place.
Q: Many are aware of the unconditional love that animals provide, but don’t quite grasp how much these animals can help. What are some of the most profound ways you feel these animals helped their humans or carers?
Hutton: Where do I start? These animal companions were lifelines for some of the men, providing a tangible anchor to the good parts of life that had been eroded following their diagnosis with HIV. Animals are without guile, and they can effortlessly cushion the fundamental human fears of separation and abandonment. They ask for nothing more than love and security, something all the men were delighted to give. In return, their affection remained predictable, and unaffected by their human’s circumstances or appearances.
An animal’s love can’t be faked – a tail wag, a purr, a nibble or affectionate head butt comes straight from the heart. If an animal is looking at you with love and anticipation, it’s easy to believe you are needed and still the same person you always had been. One man described being incontinent and bed-ridden, and how his animal companion lay on the bed and loved him regardless.
If an animal is expecting to be loved and fed, what better incentive to remain alive? One man acknowledged that with a non-existent social network following his diagnosis, his death by suicide would inevitably doom his young cat to starvation before anyone thought to check his apartment. The cat was his reason to live during those dark times.
And if you’re constantly having to care for, clean up after, and exercise an animal, what better way to keep fit? Many of the men described having to drag themselves out of bed in the morning to walk their dog, or feed the chickens, or just let the dog or cat outside to urinate. All acknowledged they probably would have just stayed in bed without this incentive – and felt so much worse for it.
Q: How do you feel traveling around Australia interviewing these eleven men most impacted you?
Hutton: This whole experience impacted me in a way that I had not expected. On many occasions I desperately missed the emotional support that my own animal friends would normally offer, especially after some of the more emotion-laden interviews. I longed to go home and cuddle my own animal friends, but this was impossible when thousands of miles away in a different state. I soon learned that no matter where I was, the emotion behind the stories was similar, and it was only the differences in weather and venues that differed – and the distance from my own animal support network.
But there were many fun times too. Whether I was in Sydney, Melbourne or any other state, I’d have to carry the same treats and goodies in my bag for those animal companions who came along to supervise the interviews. Many of the animals, especially the dogs, soon worked out where the treats were stored, and my travel bag became increasingly scratched and nibbled.
Some of these men are no longer alive. Where they lived interstate, sometimes I learned of their death accidentally or well after the event. I’m grateful I had the opportunity to hear their story, and it’s a timely reminder that even with twenty-first century medications, living and ageing with HIV still carries uncertainty and risk.
Q: Where there any interesting stories that came from the interviews that did not make it into the book?
Hutton: Some of the most interesting stories came out of our more informal discussions once the recording equipment was off. We shared stories of cat vomit and hairballs, anal glands and chewing habits, urination, defecation, muddy paw prints, scratched furniture and inequitable sharing of bed space – all the day-to-day minutiae that is so riveting for anyone who shares their living space with animal companions.
There were also some personal stories not related to the animal companions that were too harrowing to include in this book. Sometimes I was entrusted with information that a person had never shared before, and it would have been a violation of that trust to include these events. Each man’s story could have been a book in itself as they described their lived experience of HIV in a sometimes harsh and judgmental world. I’ve tried to do justice to those stories through the animals, while acknowledging that this was only one part of navigating life with HIV.
Receive 30% off you own copy of A Reason to Live by entering the promo code PURDUE30 at checkout on our website.
Filed under: UncategorizedJune 21st, 2019
The “Apollo in the Archives: Selections from the Neil Armstrong Papers” exhibit commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight that landed on the moon – where Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong took those famed first steps – and coincides with Purdue University’s July celebration of the moon landing, as well as the University’s sesquicentennial celebration, 150 Years of Giant Leaps.
As part of the Apollo 11 commemoration on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus, Purdue Archives and Special Collections (ASC) is hosting an open house for the exhibit from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday, July 19. The open house will feature:
The open house is free and open to the public and ideal for children of all ages.
On Saturday, July 20 — the golden anniversary of the July 20, 1969, manned moon landing — Purdue University will host several Apollo 11-related events, which are listed at www.purdue.edu/apollo11/events/index.php. From 9 a.m.-noon (July 20), Purdue ASC will host additional exhibit viewing hours, as well as scavenger hunts.
Purdue Archives and Special Collections is located on the fourth floor of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (HSSE) Library in Stewart Center. For more information about the exhibit, contact Associate Head of Archives and Special Collections and Barron Hilton Archivist for Flight and Space Exploration Tracy Grimm at grimm3@purdue.edu.
Filed under: general, SPEC
June 14th, 2019
This blog post takes part in a blog tour hosted by the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) in recognition and respect of the sudden passing of the University of Virginia Press director Mark Saunders. As our professional organization gathered this week in Detroit for our annual meeting, search on Twitter with #WeAreUP to read more posts about our sorely missed colleague, Mark, and continue to follow @AUPresses and engage with #ReadUP.
I know who Mark Saunders was, but I did not know him.
That seems weird to say since I have been employed by Purdue University Press in various capacities for 22 years as of next month (hey, I’m not that old – the first three and a half years were as a student worker!). I never met Mark but saw him often from afar at one conference or another. Seeing the impact that Mark had on the publishing industry, specifically the university press industry, is awe-inspiring and makes me wish I had stepped out of my box to introduce myself to him; or asked a colleague to make the introduction. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. But why should it be? The outpouring of grief, love, and admiration for Mark and the wonderful stories celebrating him as a leader, colleague, mentor, and friend from our community of AUPresses has caught me examining my own hindsight and asking the question, why do we wait to do so?
A little more than 11 years ago my colleague and at the time our managing editor, Margaret, lost her war with cancer. She won the first battle a couple years before that, but the evil disease finally won. She did not pass suddenly, like Mark, so we in the office knew this day would come but the shock was similar when we finally received the news. Stupidly, I did not take the opportunity to go and say goodbye. I grieved in my own way, I keep some things in a box like that for better or for worse. One part of grieving was that I volunteered to clean out her office and pack up her personal items in order to get them back to her family. In doing so, I came across a section of her file cabinet that was bursting with notes, cards, and letters sent to her by a plethora of authors, editors, and colleagues. These items were thanking her for the excellent job on a manuscript, sending good wishes at holidays, or sharing cute and cuddly cat pictures (like many publishers, Margaret was a huge cat person and an expert gardener). I knew that Margaret was good at her job. I respected and admired her, but in reading through these items my hindsight suddenly came into focus and became 20/20. I also realized, I should have picked Margaret’s brain more, asked her all the little questions I had about the industry. I thought they were silly, little questions that would waste her time. I missed the opportunity to receive a different perspective. More importantly, I missed the opportunity to express my admiration and respect to her through words; I missed the opportunity to wish her enough. Hindsight is 20/20.
Mark’s sudden passing and the outpouring of admiration, fun stories, and great respect for him as a colleague and friend throughout our industry brought Margaret back from my memories. What do I take away from this? What do I want others to glean from my short post here?
University presses are not run by one person nor do they succeed because of one person. From the smallest to the largest presses, it takes a team to succeed. If I tried to recall the names of all the staff members, interns, student workers, graduate assistants, and colleagues who I have worked with over the past 22 years I would surely miss several; so, I will not try. But to all of them, I say thank you and my apologies if I had not done so previously. To my current colleagues and friends at Purdue University Press: Becki, Katherine, Kelley, Chris, Matt, Susan, Sarah, Sebastian, Ashutosh, Nina, Marcy, and Justin – thank you for all that you do, for me personally and more so for our team. Our success is because of the whole team.
To all past, present, and future colleagues—at Purdue UP and the greater AUPresses family—: don’t wait for your hindsight to become 20/20. I wish you all enough.
About the author: Bryan Shaffer drove the official Purdue University mascot, the Boilermaker Special, to his interview for a student worker position at the Press in July 1997. He was hired on the spot to design advertisements and to pick-and-pack book orders. When he arrived for the first day of work and he switched on the dusty Apple IIc computer he wondered what in the world he got himself into. Almost 22 years later he is the sales and marketing manager for Purdue University Press and is said to be the “institutional memory” and “den bear” of the small family that makes up the Press. He now knows what he got himself into…..a caring family and greater community. He considers himself very blessed, fortunate, and lucky.
June 4th, 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 CareerBeam, brought to you by CareerArc Group LLC.
Link: http://guides.lib.purdue.edu/az.php?s=71213 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: CareerBeam provides access to career assessments, resume and cover letter development tools, search strategies and research databases and integrates them into one portal. Please note that a person account or registration is required to access CareerBeam.
Tutorial: Click here see the basics of using CareerBeam.
Start with this hint: Complete your “Quick Profile” under the Career Exploration tab to access an analysis of your values, interests, and personality.
Why you should know this database: The tools and resources available through CareerBeam can help identify industries and areas you might work best in. It can also help you decide what you’re looking for in a career and where you begin.
Related Resources
Some other databases 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, MGMTMay 29th, 2019
On Thursday, May 23, a Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations was held at Purdue University. Ashlee Messersmith, manager, thesis/dissertation, The Graduate School at Purdue University, and Michael Witt, associate professor, Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, organized the event, with support from the United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA).
By Michael Witt, Head, Distributed Data Curation Center (D2C2), and Associate Professor of Library Science
The presenters at the Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) highlighted a wide variety of creative works produced by graduate students in earning their degrees, such as:
Graduate students will typically prepare and defend a written thesis, even if their research can be communicated in a more meaningful or impactful format than a document. There are other examples, such as software source code and research data, videos and photos from exhibits and performances, mixed media, dynamic websites, and much more produced by students; but this type of content is often left out of a traditional thesis.
In some cases, these non-traditional works could be considered as the primary product of the students’ scholarship — without the need for a written thesis.
Recent changes to the policies of Purdue’s Graduate School reflect a progressive approach and support for non-traditional theses, embracing both the opportunities and challenges they present for the Purdue’s faculty, thesis office, and libraries.
“As emerging technologies continue to influence higher education, we needed to set a precedent through which students are permitted to express their creativity,” Messersmith explained. “Exploring these influences and their implications was the focus of the symposium, which was held in the Wilmeth Active Learning Center. We invited experts to share ideas and brainstorm with participants who supervise theses and manage the processes and platforms for producing and archiving them.”
The opening keynote presentation by Professor and Dean of Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Martin Halbert addressed the landscape and life cycle of electronic theses and dissertations, as well as the ETDPlus resource.
The closing keynote, delivered by Jean-Pierre Hérubel, professor, Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, dove into the history and culture of the doctoral dissertation, as well as variations and transformations of its purpose and form.
Other presentations from Purdue faculty and staff explored issues related to student perspectives, digital humanities, graduate college policies, research data management, digital preservation, and scholarly publishing. Throughout the symposium, participants discussed important questions related to sharing current practices; interfacing with faculty to observe and respect local cultures related to credentialing students; identifying concerns and opportunities for graduate colleges, libraries, and technology providers; and increasing collaboration within the University and among universities. A lively round of lightning talks in the afternoon featured specific examples of theses that challenge conventions from other universities.
Presentation slides and collaborative notes from the symposium are available on Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies’ e-Pubs repository at https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/etdgiantleaps/.
Filed under: events, faculty_staff, general
May 28th, 2019
Philip Roth Studies is a peer-reviewed semiannual journal published by Purdue University Press in cooperation with the Philip Roth Society. The journal publishes writing pertaining entirely or in part to Philip Roth, his fiction, and his literary and cultural significance.
Philip Roth Studies Volume 15, Issue 1, out this month, will be the final issue for executive co-editors Debra Shostak and David Brauner. We spoke to them about their experience, Philip Roth’s passing, and the future of the journal.
Q: PRS 15.1 is special for a few reasons; could you explain its significance?
Debra Shostak and David Brauner: The spring 2019 issue of Philip Roth Studies, volume 15, is professionally and personally momentous for us as editors, and we hope it will be as meaningful to our readers as it is to us. PRS 15.1 is valedictory, not only because it is the last issue we will have overseen before turning the Executive Co-editorship of the journal over to the capable hands of Aimee Pozorski and Maren Scheurer, but also, and even more movingly for us, because we are honoring the late Philip Roth, who died in May of 2018, with a special memorial issue.
To remember Roth as a writer who has brought so many of us together within the pages of PRS over nearly fifteen years, we invited reflective essays from eighteen scholars who have contributed significantly to the study of his work, mostly in monographs devoted significantly or wholly to Roth. We are also thrilled to publish what we think may be the last scholarly interview Roth granted, to Elèna Mortara, who has edited the Italian editions of his work for the prestigious literary series Meridiani Mondadori. Our line-up of contributors is stellar—in alphabetical order, Victoria Aarons, Ann Basu, Alan Cooper, David Gooblar, Jay Halio, Patrick Hayes, Brett Ashley Kaplan, Michael Kimmage, Pia Masiero, Maggie McKinley, Catherine Morley, Ira Nadel, Patrick O’Donnell, Timothy Parrish, Aimee Pozorski, and Matthew Shipe—and their offerings are brilliant, heartfelt, at times humorous (and we two have exploited our executive editor privilege to include our own reflections as well). The essays run from memories of meeting Roth and of attending his funeral, to musings on the profound, often disorienting, effects of his fiction on us as readers and critics. Contributors meditate on Roth’s attachment to Newark, New Jersey, on the sexual politics of his fiction, on his allusions to children, on his deep and troubled connection to the American history to which he faithfully, sometimes mercilessly, bore witness, on how he speaks to the present moment, on his devotion to literary pleasures, and on his fictive conversations with his literary forebears. Others revisit The Human Stain, Sabbath’s Theater, and American Pastoral. Without exception, the essays demonstrate Roth’s vital, unabated presence among us all—in his language, his stories, his inexhaustible formal invention, his integrity, his daring—even though he is no longer living among us to delight us yet again.
We, David and Deb, are bidding farewell to the many pleasures of editing Philip Roth Studies, but we will never bid farewell to the boundless, bottomless Philip Roth.
Q: What got you interested in studying Philip Roth? Was there a particular work that you feel most inspired your interest?
David: I first encountered Roth’s work when, as a teenager, I picked up a copy of Portnoy’s Complaint at random from my parents’ bookshelves, knowing nothing about it. In spite of the temporal and geographical gap between my own circumstances—growing up in a London suburb in the 1970s and 80s—and those of the protagonist—growing up in New Jersey in the 1940s and 50s—I felt an immediate thrill of recognition. It articulated brilliantly—and hilariously—what I later called a “transnational Jewish sensibility,” the profound ambivalence of Jews in the post-war period towards both their own Jewishness and the larger culture. There was then a hiatus of a number of years before, as a graduate student, I read The Counterlife. That was the book that got me hooked—I went on to read, systematically, everything that Roth had written and I began to write about his work. What struck me most powerfully about The Counterlife was the way it combined ingenious metafiction with compelling domestic drama and big political, historical, and existential questions. Later, Sabbath’s Theater was the novel that cemented my conviction of Roth’s pre-eminence among contemporary novelists: I remember vividly as I read it the first time thinking “this is one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read” and each successive re-reading has only reinforced my belief that this is Roth’s masterpiece.
Deb: My encounter—and fascination—with Roth’s work runs parallel to David’s in several ways. I remember seeing the vivid yellow cover of Portnoy’s Complaint on my parents’ bookshelves during my early adulthood, but I never picked it up. Instead, after hearing a casual recommendation in the late 1980s, I read The Counterlife. I was at once enthralled—by Roth’s dizzying formal experiment, his antic humor, his unique voice, and the magical touch by which he could make that most reflexive of novels seem like familiar realism in its treatment of family, history, and selfhood. I never anticipated how much that book would reshape my professional life. I felt driven to try to write about it, and then, reading through all of Roth’s work and eagerly awaiting each new volume, I never looked back. I was captivated by the hard questions he asked about American history, politics, and manhood, and by the many pleasures of his sentences. Like David, I judge Sabbath’s Theater to be Roth’s masterpiece, but for me, Operation Shylock runs a close second. If I had to guess which novels will most centrally keep Roth’s work alive for readers in the coming years, though, I’d probably point to his powerful treatment of twentieth-century America, “real” and all-too-real: in the American Trilogy and The Plot Against America.
Q: How do you think Roth’s death will affect the study of his work?
Deb and David: In the short term, it will stimulate scholarship, as critics reassess his work and his legacy in the round. In the longer term, there is a danger that interest in his work may wane—we have seen this happen with a number of his contemporaries, such as Saul Bellow and John Updike. However, our gut instinct is that this won’t be Roth’s fate—we think his work is more thoroughly embedded in the canon than that of any of his peers and, as we have seen with the recent renewed attention paid to The Plot Against America since Trump’s election, it continues to resonate powerfully in our contemporary moment.
Q: What do you feel have been your greatest achievements with the journal during your tenure, and what are you excited to see from the journal moving forward?
Deb and David: We are particularly proud of the number of younger scholars we have featured in the journal over the period of our editorship. One of these, Maren Scheurer, has now, together with Aimee Pozorski, taken over from us as Executive Co-Editor of the journal, and many others, who published their first peer-reviewed pieces with PRS, have gone on to establish themselves as important new voices in the discipline. Other notable features of our tenure have been the number of excellent special issues we have published and the range of other authors with whose work Roth’s has been placed in dialogue. Overall, the last five years have seen a significant extension of the parameters of Roth studies and we are proud that the journal has been at the forefront of this work. We are confident that Aimee and Maren will build on this legacy and continue to take Roth studies in new and exciting directions.
See more about Philip Roth Studies and subscription information.
Filed under: Uncategorized
May 27th, 2019
In the history of flight and space, there are two monumental events that stand out: one was the Wright Brothers’ achievement of the first power-controlled flight, and the other was when Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon.
Located in the Purdue University Archives and Special Collections (ASC), the Barron Hilton Flight and Space Exploration Archives collection was created to document and preserve Purdue University’s relationship to flight and space exploration. Recently, Neil Armstrong’s widow, Carol Armstrong, donated two pieces of fabric from the wings of the original Wright Brothers flyer, built in 1903 and flown at Kitty Hawk. This donation, to the Barron Hilton Flight and Space Exploration Archives at Purdue, bridges these two pivotal flight and space events, connecting the Purdue family all the way back to the birth of aviation by powered flight.
Archivists in the Purdue ASC, a division of Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, announced the gift of the fabric pieces, each measuring approximately 25 in. x 24 in., at a private reception last month. The pieces are particularly important because they were given to Neil Armstrong to take with him on the Apollo 11 mission aboard his historic landing of the Eagle lunar module on the moon. Along with the fabric, Carol Armstrong donated related correspondence from 1969 between the Air Force Museum and Neil Armstrong regarding the Wright Flyer fabric.
Barron Hilton Archivist for Flight and Space Exploration and Associate Head of Archives and Special Collections Tracy Grimm noted this gift bridges the history of flight and space and cements the Barron Hilton Flight and Space Exploration Archives as a resource that documents powered flight back to its very beginnings.
“To know that this one piece of fabric connects the first lunar landing with the first airplane flight is astonishing,” Grimm said. “To think that Orville and Wilbur Wright and Neil Armstrong all touched and held this fabric is incredible. It shows that Neil honored the pioneers who came before him, just as we honor his accomplishments. Objects like this fabric bring the past into the present and help us understand history in a tangible way. We know that people from history who do courageous things and realize near-impossible dreams are people who inspire future brave leaders and bold thinkers. Seeing the physical artifacts, documents, and photos that tell their stories makes history real to us in a way that is far more meaningful and vivid than a story in a textbook,” she added.
Purdue’s ownership of the Armstrong Papers—all 450+ boxes of his manuscripts, personal papers, and working files, alongside this recent addition of the Wright Brothers flyer fabric—are all due to the generosity of Neil and Carol Armstrong. Armstrong began giving his papers to Purdue, his alma mater, during his lifetime and his wife, Carol, continued to honor their wishes over time. This latest donation is one such example of how the collection has grown rapidly due to the Armstrong’s generosity.
Head of Archives and Special Collections, Professor Sammie L. Morris noted the special private unveiling ceremony held recently at Purdue as an exciting moment.
“With these exemplary collections of flight and space history, and as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission this year, we show how Purdue has helped the world advance in transportation and exploration,” Morris said. “It is so fitting that the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 coincides with Purdue’s 150th birthday this year, cementing forever the close relationship Purdue has had to flight and space history from its beginnings.”
Filed under: general, SPECMay 23rd, 2019
Recently, two members of Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies faculty were selected to receive a Research Data Award from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM). The $20,000 grant award for the project, “Understanding Rates of Attrition in Biomedical Data Challenges: A Study of Failure,” will enable Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies Assistant Professor Bethany McGowan and Associate Professor Ilana Stonebraker to provide research data management training to students.
The award will facilitate a variety of training workshops including: FAIR Data Principles; Research Data Management Basics: Finding and Organizing Data; Cleaning and Formatting Data with OpenRefine; General Tips for Visualizing Biomedical Data; Biomedical Data Visualization with Tableau; and Useful R Packages for Analyzing and Visualizing Biomedical Data. The grant period began May 1 and will conclude April 30, 2020.
The workshops are part of a larger research project through which McGowan and Stonebraker will conduct a study to understand rates of attrition in biomedical data challenges.
“Our study will examine student motivation for participation in extracurricular innovation challenges, such as hackathons and case competitions, which involve the use of biomedical data, in an attempt to understand failure and reduce rates of attrition in these events,” said McGowan, who is the project lead.
In addition to presenting results of their research at conferences throughout the year, McGowan and Stonebraker will develop a digital open-education resource toolkit to help guide librarians in recruiting for and retaining diverse student populations in data-hacking challenges.
According to the NNLM’s Greater Midwest Region (GMR) website, the project supports Goal 3 of the National Library of Medicine’s Strategic Plan, which is to build a workforce for data-driven research and health.
“It supports the aligning objectives to expand and enhance research training for biomedical informatics and data science, to assure data science and open science proficiency, to increase workforce diversity, and to engage the next generation and promote data literacy,” states the NNLM GMR website.
Filed under: Faculty E-Newsletter, faculty_staff, general, PSETMay 17th, 2019
Every story has untold pieces. Purdue University Archives and Special Collections contains millions of stories in the many papers, books, objects, items, and other memorabilia carefully preserved and stored there. Yet, it does not hold them all—particularly those that may have not been “judged to be…important,” as noted in the introduction of the new online exhibit, “Voices, Identities & Silences: Investigating 150 Years of Diversity in Purdue Archives.”
The exhibit is the result of a graduate course led by Purdue University Archivist and Professor Sammie Morris this past spring semester.
The exhibit’s introduction notes that Purdue’s past, present, and future are comprised of much more than stories about feats associated with its engineering programs, its tales about athletic teams, or its strides in agricultural research and practice. It also explains why the student curators took on this effort:
[N]ot all of this history is (or will be) preserved in the University’s archive. Inevitably, some people and events are judged to be more important and thus more worthy of preservation. Our exhibit, then, aims to focus attention on elements of Purdue’s history that have been otherwise overlooked, not in order to ‘correct’ that history but rather to expand it and (if our aim is true) change our understanding of what ‘counts’ as that history in the first place. — Voices, Identities & Silences: Investigating 150 Years of Diversity in Purdue Archives
According to Morris, the idea for the course coincided with Purdue University’s faculty and staff members’ preparation for Purdue’s Sesquicentennial.
“As Purdue’s 150th anniversary approached, I often found myself reflecting on how the history of Purdue is preserved in the Archives, but not completely. There are many hidden gaps or silences representing people in Purdue history whose stories have not been widely known,” Morris said. “I began thinking about ways to fill in gaps in Purdue history, while engaging students in learning archival research skills.”
The course, too, coincided with Purdue Libraries’ expansion of its teaching mission through the creation of the new “Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies.”
“With digital humanities being one area the new school focuses on, the course offered the right opportunity to teach digital scholarship methods while providing students the opportunity to delve into Purdue’s lesser-known history,” Morris explained. “The overarching goal for students was to learn how to conduct archival research, but the broader goal was to benefit from the results of their research projects by highlighting diversity in Purdue’s past. Students in the course were encouraged to consider the identity of Purdue and how their experiences as students today are preserved. Students learned how the records of their experiences (that are preserved in the Archives) become sources of study for scholars in the future.”
Students in Morris’ class each focused on an individual era and/or topic in Purdue’s history, and the contents covered in the online exhibit are the result of each student’s work. For instance, Lee Hibbard, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Purdue Department of English studying rhetoric and composition, focused on queer life in the 2000s at Purdue.
“The work on the exhibit was entirely collaborative, with every person taking on distinct roles both on the front and back end of the exhibit’s appearance and contents,” Hibbard explained. “To come up with the title, we took a portion of class time and brainstormed some ideas together. The title came about as we played with the theme of the course and our process of research, as well as what we wanted viewers to take away from the exhibit. The wording was especially important to us as Purdue students wanting to tell a coherent narrative that depicted our goals for the exhibit, as well as the things we took away from the course as a whole,” he added.
“The three core pieces of archival work we focused on—voices, identities, and silences—became the first part of the title. The second half emphasized our process, which was very much a journey of going through the archives with an eye towards investigating diversity, rather than discovering,” Hibbard continued. “Discovery has an end point while Investigation is a process, and even though we all uncovered many interesting and fascinating examples of diversity, all of us felt by the end of the course that we had just scratched the surface of our areas, and could easily return to them to try and learn more.”
Hibbard, who is also interested in archival practices, noted that he found this course essential to unpacking the complex ideas he had for his dissertation.
“At the beginning of the semester, I knew I wanted to look at some archival things, but didn’t have the tools to do so. After a spring of reading complex theory, getting hands-on archival experience, and learning the importance of selection and curation in an exhibit setting, I feel more comfortable with the prospect of working with archives for my dissertation and my future scholarship as a whole,” he said.
Like his fellow students in the course, Hibbard chose to home in on a specific area of Purdue’s history because of his personal stake and interest in the selected topic and era.
“As a queer person, specifically a transgender man, I am very interested in the way support and networks for queer students developed at Purdue during the time that I was an undergraduate (2006-2010) at a similar large Midwestern university (University of Nebraska in Lincoln),” he explained.
Shortly before the end of the Spring 2019 semester, students in Morris’ course shared their personal stories about their work on the exhibit at a small, private reception held in the Archives and Special Collections. Below are more photos from that reception.
