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November 28th, 2018
Courtesy of Abbey Nickel, Purdue Marketing and Media
Imagine being able to open a time capsule with just a click of a button.
The newly launched Purdue Campus Facilities and Buildings Historic Database allows users to take a closer look at the metamorphosis of Purdue’s buildings over the years that goes beyond just maps and illustrations.
Neal Harmeyer, digital archivist in Purdue University Libraries’ Division of Archives and Special Collections, debuted the historic online database this month that documents the historic grounds and structures of Purdue’s West Lafayette campus. The project took five years to complete.
Using an interactive map, researchers will be able to find and sort campus buildings by architects, contractors, university president at time of construction, building materials and keywords. Each building has data related to his specific history, including construction information, renovation information and images from various stages of their use.
Harmeyer has helped lead the creation of the exhibit, which was funded by a 2013 gift from Richard Funkhouser, professor emeritus.
Through studying the history of Purdue’s facilities, Harmeyer said the intention of the database is to help researchers understand and visualize Purdue’s growth over the years — and perhaps study how those facilities will impact Purdue’s future.
“The Historic Database will provide all members of the Purdue community the opportunity to experience the West Lafayette campus from an entirely new perspective,” Harmeyer said. “As the university has changed over its existence, the places Purdue students, faculty, and staff have visited, studied and lived have also changed. For the first time, there is a resource to search and study the physical campus, re-visit, and even share those experiences.”
Haymeyer said data has been gathered from archival collections, reports and publications regarding all known structures throughout the West Lafayette campus history. Priority is given to academic buildings, but the project encompasses non-academic buildings as well.
The database is entirely online. Digitized campus maps have been created to visualize the history of campus. Meanwhile, Purdue Libraries information technology staff have worked alongside those from Archives and Special Collections to create a database to incorporate that information.
Harmeyer hopes the database is also used for educational purposes in addition to traditional research.
“For example, Purdue Polytechnic or Engineering faculty can use the database to learn more about construction materials and building techniques over time,” Harmeyer said. “Or, political science students can analyze building numbers in micro or macro scales to determine economic trends in campus buildings infrastructure.”
And, of course, former Purdue students can check out just how much campus has changed since their days at the university.
The University Development Office and Archives and Special Collections are partnering to provide donor information data for different buildings on campus. All information related to donors is maintained and managed by the development office, and information is being added or amended in the Database incrementally.
Harmeyer said the database will continue to be maintained, and information will be added on an annual basis to reflect new buildings or demolition of older buildings.
Purdue Libraries’ Geographic Information Systems and Digital Programs also assisted with the development of the project. Explore the Purdue Campus Facilities and Buildings Historic Database at http://collections.lib.purdue.edu/campus/.
Editor’s Note: The article is also posted at www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2018/Q4/travel-back-in-time-with-purdue-archives-new-online-building-database.html.
Filed under: general, SPECNovember 27th, 2018
To prepare for the release of the 36.3 issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Purdue University Press interviewed contributor Jay Michaelson about religion, writing, and more.
Michaelson is an affiliated assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, where his work focuses on the intersection of queer studies and Jewish theology. His scholarly publications include “Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism,” “Hating Law for Christian Reasons: The Religious Roots of American Anti-lawyerism,” and “Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality.” His books include Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Trumpeter, 2009) and God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon, 2011). A book based on his doctoral dissertation, Jacob Frank: From Jewish Antinomianism to Esoteric Myth, is presently under review. He holds a PhD in Jewish thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a JD from Yale Law School, and nondenominational rabbinic ordination.
Michaelson’s article “Queering Martin Buber: Harry Hay’s Erotic Dialogical?” appears in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, volume 36, issue 3.
“In certain gay subcultures, Harry Hay’s philosophy is well-known and actively practiced, and yet there’s very little awareness there of its close relationship to Buber’s. At first, I was interested in possible influences; as the research went on, this morphed into an interest in phenomenological affinities and differences, and how the two thinkers could complement one another.”
“As an “alt-ac” with a long-term visiting position at Chicago Theological Seminary but a primary career outside the academy, there’s a certain freedom in being able to write scholarly articles on a wide variety of subjects, and I certainly make use of that. In addition, I’m interested in bridging discourses between “high” philosophers such as Buber and outsider thinkers like Hay. I’m not sure Hay is (or deserves to be) taken seriously by proper philosophy scholars, and yet there’s something quite interesting in his eroticizing of the dialogical that I think is worthy of analysis.”
“It depends on the work. In the case of this article, I was interested in trying to assess, based on the textual evidence, how these similar but divergent dialogical philosophies might be experienced in practice, rather than solely on the page. I think that’s informed by my work in the contemplative world. At the same time, I’m extremely wary of imposing any of my own experiences onto the subjects at hand.”
“I feel like I’ve written a book on that subject.… I think for many people, myself included, the Buddha Dharma provides a less theologically freighted set of contemplative practices that can enrich a Jewish communal and ritual life. The questions Buddhism asks about suffering and the end of suffering are complementary to those Judaism asks about justice and relationship to the Divine. I see them as having different conversations.”
“In terms of the work, I think there’s a constant awareness of the justice impacts of any idea under consideration, including those in this article. For example, for all of Hay’s genius, the problem of essentialism, which I discuss in the article, is particularly glaring in the context of nationalism, ethnocentrism, and threats to democracy. As soon as one group of people declares itself intrinsically different from and better than another, we’re in trouble.”
“Certainly this particular article reflects my own identity as queer person on the one hand, and on the other as an American Jew who encountered popularizations of Buber at an early, formative age.”
“I’d be happy simply to introduce mainstream Jewish studies scholars to considering the sex-negative and implicitly queer-negative elements in various forms of philosophical discourse. There have been some excellent encounters recently between queer/LGBTQ studies and Jewish studies, and I’d be thrilled for this to be another of them.”
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies is a triannual publication that produces original, peer-reviewed scholarly articles, issues on special topics, book forums, review essays, and the occasional forum on Contemporary Critical Jewish Studies. Shofar reaches an international readership with an impressive range of reliably robust offerings primarily in modern history, literature, culture, and the arts. Shofar’s special issues have covered a wide range of timely subjects, including Diaspora and exile in modern Jewish culture, the transcultural generation in Israeli literature, race and Jews in America, and Holocaust and genocide cinema. To learn more about or subscribe to Shofar, visit: www.shofarjournal.org.
Filed under: UncategorizedNovember 14th, 2018
Libraries faculty members Clarence Maybee and Michael Flierl are collaborating with their Purdue colleagues in the University’s innovative and touted IMPACT program.
Transforming OSHA material to make it engaging for Purdue students studying construction management is a daunting task. But, according to Purdue Libraries Associate Professor Clarence Maybee and Assistant Professor Michael Flierl, through IMPACT—Purdue University‘s “Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation” program formally established in 2011—Libraries faculty and staff have helped other Purdue faculty members do just that: make what may seem like tedious (but nevertheless integral) content motivating for college students.
One example is Flierl’s work with James Jenkins (associate professor of construction management in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute) to redesign a construction management course. Through the course, students are able to earn important career-advancing certification from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); however, federal law requires faculty teaching such courses to base their pedagogy on specific OSHA materials.
“When Professor Jenkins and I initially met, he showed me a manual printed in green and black ink, then said, ‘This is what my students have to deal with. They are just not engaged with this material,'” Flierl explained. “Through our work together in IMPACT, we changed that. Professor Jenkins and I created a variety of different ways to make the content the students were required to learn more dynamic. For example, we incorporated information literacy concepts into hands-on, gaming activities, as well as developed open-ended problems for them to solve.”
Flierl’s work with Jenkins is just one illustration of how the campus-wide IMPACT program has been employed at Purdue. Highlighted in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s October 21 “Education’s 2018 Innovators Special Issue,” IMPACT was described by George D. Kuh, professor emeritus of higher education at Indiana University’s Center for Postsecondary Research, as a “textbook illustration of how to successfully deliver timely, substantive, high-quality professional-development experiences over an extended period of time to a particularly discerning audience.”
At the tactical level, through their work in the program, faculty learn how to refine learning outcomes and are equipped with new and innovative tools to engage their students, Maybee explained.
“Libraries faculty have been involved with the program from the very beginning,” he said. “Of course, librarians are interested in the information literacy part of learning and improving instructional design to incorporate information literacy, which improves the learning experience if you do it right. But that isn’t the only thing we have done and are doing in the program. As Michael mentioned, we help instructors think through their pedagogy. We have had a lot of success with that.”
According to the IMPACT website, since 2011, “IMPACT has grown into an institutional transformation program positively impacting every college/school with nearly 9 out 10 of all undergraduate students taking at least one IMPACT course.” The latest data from the program (listed at the bottom of the IMPACT website, www.purdue.edu/impact) show that more than 580 courses have been transformed and over 330 Purdue instructors have participated in IMPACT.
Maybee, who based his 2018 book IMPACT Learning: Librarians at the Forefront of Change in Higher Education (published by Elsevier), said he has been working in the program, along with colleagues from the Center for Instructional Excellence, ITaP (Information Technology at Purdue), as well as faculty from across the University, since he joined IMPACT in 2012. Their investment is proving to be fruitful for faculty and students. The Chronicle’s piece states, “[a]ccording to a recent outside evaluation, Impact-affected courses generally have higher end-of-course final grades and fewer students who withdraw or earn Ds and Fs.”
“In this collaboration, we have used information literacy concepts and instructional design principles to help transform such foundational courses as COM 114 (“Fundamentals of Speech Communication”), English 106, and Tech 120 (a foundational course in technology), which are important building blocks for thousands of Purdue students,” Maybee added. “Overall, Libraries faculty, and the many others involved in IMPACT here at Purdue, have enhanced students’ learning experiences significantly.”
Filed under: Faculty E-Newsletter, faculty_staff, generalNovember 7th, 2018
Join Purdue Libraries for “The American Soldier Transcribe-a-Thon,” a Digital Humanities event in commemoration of Veterans Day.
From 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13 in the Humanities, Social Science, and Education (HSSE) Library (Stewart Center, room 142), individuals are encouraged to come and transcribe original and uncensored commentaries written by soldiers who served during World War II and were asked to reflect on their service.
The transcribed commentaries will be saved and made available digitally to students and scholars around the world, providing an important resource for future research.
“These commentaries provide a wealth of information about the soldiers’ lives, their hopes and anxieties about returning to civilian life, and their thoughts about the Army,” explained Purdue Libraries Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities Matt Hannah.
“The American Soldier Transcribe-a-Thon” at Purdue is sponsored by Purdue Libraries and is open free to the public. No technical expertise required, but participants are asked to bring a laptop computer on which to transcribe. Registration is available at https://go.lib.purdue.edu/events/americansoldier.
The annual event is organized by Virginia Tech, and many individuals and entities across the U.S. participate every year.
Learn more about the project at www.zooniverse.org/projects/tkotwim/the-american-soldier/about/research.
Filed under: events, general, HSSE, UncategorizedNovember 6th, 2018
“A Look Back” is a new exhibit in the Humanities, Social Science, and Education (HSSE) Library that pays tribute to Purdue University’s first Library in University Hall.
The event “Celebrating the History of Purdue Libraries”–to highlight the display and commemorate Purdue Libraries’ history–is set from 3-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8 in the Periodical Reading Room on the first floor of the HSSE Library. The event is open free to the public.
At 3:30 p.m., Purdue Libraries Professor Judy Nixon will provide a brief background about the exhibit and introduce David Hovde, Professor Emeritus, Purdue University Archives and Special Collections. Hovde will share his work on his book about the history of Purdue Libraries. At 4:15 p.m. attendees can take part in a tour of the 1913 stacks.
The display in HSSE Library was designed by Nixon, Director of Purdue Libraries Facilities Nanette Andersson, Library Assistant Pat Whalen, and the “A Look Back”-exhibit planning team.
“A Look Back” is part of the Purdue University’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, 150 Years of Giant Leaps. Learn more at takegiantleaps.com.
Filed under: general, HSSE, SPEC, UncategorizedNovember 6th, 2018
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 Nexis Uni, brought to you by LexisNexis, from RELX Group.
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: Nexis Uni features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis – including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Tutorial: Click here see the basics of using the Nexis Uni.
Start with this hint: The Guided Search option allows you to target particular types of content in your search such as news, legal cases, or publications.
Why you should know this database: The Nexis Uni interface offers discovery across all content types, personalization features such as alerts and saved searches, and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
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, MGMTOctober 26th, 2018
Purdue University Libraries has established an Open Access Publishing Fund to support Purdue faculty, students, and staff (on the West Lafayette campus) who wish to publish their research in fully Open Access journals. According to Scholarly Publishing Specialist Nina Collins, individuals may apply for up to $2,000 to offset charges to publish in scholarly peer-reviewed journals.
Collins noted Purdue Libraries is launching the “OA Publishing Fund” pilot project this week to help celebrate the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 11th annual International Open Access Week (Oct. 22-28).
Information about how to submit an application to request OA publishing support and the link to the online application form are available at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess/fund.
The Libraries’ Open Access website has also been redesigned and is now live at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess (the link can also be found directly on the Libraries’ home page). The website includes a map that shows live, real-time downloads—totaling more than 17 million—from Purdue E-Pubs, Purdue University’s Open Access repository for scholarly works.
“Purdue University Libraries has long been a proponent of Open Access,” Collins said. “While we support initiatives that provide discounts on article processing charges, these fees continue to be out of reach for many. This fund seeks to both support research activities at Purdue University, as well as to increase discovery and visibility of Purdue University research outputs.”
For more information, contact Collins at nkcollin@purdue.edu.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, Open_Access, UncategorizedOctober 24th, 2018
Editor’s Note: Dr. Nicolas Picard’s presentation is the keynote address for Purdue Libraries’ GIS Day Conference 2018 and is part of the Ideas Festival, the centerpiece of Purdue’s Giant Leaps Sesquicentennial Campaign. Learn more about the GIS Day Conference 2018 at www.lib.purdue.edu/gis/gisday/gisday_2018_college_program.
Wildlife experts estimate the Earth loses 18.7 million acres of forests per year — the equivalent of 27 soccer fields every minute — through rampant deforestation. Tropical forestry expert and researcher Nicolas Picard, an official with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), believes the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can lead to a more sustainable future by improving forest management through the mapping, analysis, and oversight of global forest environments.
Dr. Picard’s keynote address will start at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, in Stewart Center 206 and is open free to the public.
The GIS Day Conference 2018 is co-sponsored by the Purdue College of Agriculture and the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, the Graduate School at Purdue University, Purdue Honors College, Purdue’s Krannert School of Management, Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and the Purdue College of Veterinary Medicine.
Picard is currently Ingénieur for the French Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood and Forest, and in charge of the Secretariat of the Committee on Mediterranean Forestry Questions-Silva Mediterranea within the Forestry Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
October 22nd, 2018
Seven individuals from Purdue University are being recognized (Monday, Oct. 22) for their contributions to open access with the Leadership in Open Access Award from Purdue University Libraries and the Office of the Provost.
This week (Oct. 22-28) academic institutions and libraries across the globe are celebrating the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 11th annual International Open Access Week commemoration.
The individuals selected to receive the award this year include: Dean of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute Gary Bertoline; David Huckleberry, coordinator of digital instruction, Purdue Department of Physics and Astronomy; and five continuing lecturers with Purdue Department of Mathematics, including: Owen Davis, Huimei Delgado, David Norris, Patrick Devlin, and Timothy Delworth.
According to Scholarly Publishing Outreach Specialist Nina Collins, the individuals contributed to the following open access projects:
According to Interim Dean of Libraries Rhonda Phillips, the individuals were selected to receive the recognition this year for leading by example in the Open Access movement at Purdue University.
“These individuals have demonstrated leadership in Open Access to scholarly resources, and they truly exemplify what it means to ‘design equitable foundations for open knowledge,’ the theme of International Open Access Week 2018,” Phillips said. “I am pleased to present the 2018 Leadership in Open Access Award to each of them, in recognition of their outstanding leadership in this area, as well as of their continued commitment to increase visibility of scholarship at Purdue in partnership with Purdue e-Pubs.”
Since 2012, Purdue e-Pubs has more than 17 million downloads from users all over the world, with the average download rate of more than two million downloads per year.
For more information about Open Access at Purdue, visit www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess. Learn more about Purdue e-Pubs at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/.
Filed under: general, Open_Access, UncategorizedOctober 17th, 2018
Justin Race has been named the director of the Purdue University Press, according to Interim Dean of Purdue University Libraries and Dean of the Purdue Honors College Rhonda Phillips.
Race, who will begin his new role Monday, Nov. 12, is currently the director of the University of Nevada Press. During his tenure there, he doubled the content output and grew sales by more than 30 percent in just over three years. Race began his career in publishing in acquisitions with the Lexington Books imprint, Rowman and Littlefield.
“We look forward to Justin joining the Purdue University Press, which is part of the Purdue Libraries,” Phillips said. “Justin’s publishing experience and his excellent track record of driving success as the leader of another university-based press will help him hit the ground running in this position.”
Race received his B.A. in political science from Tufts University and his M.A. from the Committee on Social Thought from the University of Chicago.
“Purdue University Press has a rich tradition, not only of producing worthwhile and quality content, but also of being an innovator in today’s rapidly changing publishing landscape,” Race noted. “I’m delighted to join the team and excited to be a part of the future of the Purdue University Press.”
Founded in 1960, Purdue University Press is dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information. The Press personnel select, develop, and distribute quality resources in key subject areas for which Purdue University is famous, including aeronautics and astronautics, business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences.
As the scholarly publishing arm of Purdue University and a unit of Purdue Libraries, the Press is also a partner for University faculty and staff in Purdue’s academic departments and centers who wish to disseminate the results of their research globally. The Press is a member of the Association of University Presses, the Society for Scholarly Publishing, Association of American Publishers, and is a founding member of the Library Publishing Coalition. Purdue was one of the first in the United States to integrate library/university press/open access scholarly publishing into a single unit.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, press_release, Uncategorized