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August 17th, 2018
Many at Purdue know about (and have likely benefited from using) Purdue University Libraries’ robust research resources (online and in print), as well as cutting-edge services (e.g., 3D printing, data visualization, data management, research and scholarly communication support… the list goes on). What some individuals may not completely understand, though: How Purdue University Libraries faculty members contribute to instruction, teaching, and learning at Purdue.
In addition to serving as instructors and co-instructors in courses across the disciplines and majors here at Purdue, Libraries’ faculty members also perform important liaison duties to help faculty in all disciplines connect their students to important and authoritative information in their respective fields.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll introduce you to the Purdue Libraries faculty liaisons and share a bit about what they each do in their librarian, instructor, liaison, and/or information specialist roles.
This week, we start by introducing David (“Dave”) Zwicky, assistant professor of library science and chemical information specialist at Purdue Libraries. His liaison responsibilities include the departments of chemistry, chemical engineering, and materials engineering. He is also a patent and trademark specialist, affiliated with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent & Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) program.
His work through the PTRC is an invaluable resource here at Purdue, particularly for those who are interested in patents and want to understand how they are and can be used in business and industry.
“Patents help you avoid repeating work other people have done, they can inspire new designs, and expired patents are pieces of technology that are in the public domain, free to be built upon and adapted,” explained Zwicky. They also let you know what technologies other companies are exploring (they’re a key part of competitive intelligence analysis). And, of course, if you can get a patent on your own invention, that’s incredibly powerful when you want to commercialize it,” he added.
Following is a brief overview, through a short Q&A, of how Professor Zwicky advances teaching and learning at Purdue, through his direct work with students and faculty.
Q. Tell me a bit about your background, what you do here as a faculty member in Purdue Libraries, and your role as the patent and trademark specialist in the Libraries.
Professor Zwicky: As the chemical information specialist, I work with folks in my liaison departments to support research, incorporate information literacy into courses, build collections, and just generally see that their information needs are met.
Before I became a librarian, I was actually a chemical engineer (with my B.S. and M.S. in the field), and I was on my way to a Ph.D., but I decided I couldn’t see myself working in the field. I had worked in my undergraduate university’s engineering library and I knew that STEM and library science could be complementary, so I switched over and got an master’s degree in library and information science. It’s been a great experience, and my two different areas of study and former career practice work really well together.
I’m also Purdue University’s representative to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s PTRC (Patent & Trademark Resource Center) program. We’re an outreach organization affiliated with the USPTO, which tries to help people in our communities learn more about patents and trademarks. This usually means teaching students and entrepreneurs about the basics of the patent system and how they can do their own patent searching.
I do this through courses, through workshops, and through one-on-one consultations. Patents are a different beast than other forms of information, harder to search, and harder to use. One of my specialties is breaking them down and showing people how to work with them effectively. I’ve been a patent librarian for about nine years (at my last job and here at Purdue), and I’m currently the president of the PTRC Association (the professional group for PTRC reps).
Q. Why are patents important sources of information for faculty and student researchers?
Professor Zwicky: Patents are important for researchers for a few reasons. The big, obvious reason is that researchers might want to get patents of their own. If they invent something novel and useful, they may want to patent and commercialize it, which is great for both the researcher and for the University. That said, I really want to get people to think how patents can be useful beyond their entrepreneurial applications. Patents have the potential to give researchers insight into research and development that goes on outside of academia. If you’re working in industry and you invent something important, you may not write an academic article or present at a scholarly conference; you’re almost certainly going to apply for a patent. These publicly available documents dramatically expand the scope of the scientific literature, particularly in applied areas.
Q. Through you, how does Purdue Libraries and Purdue U. collaborate with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent and Trademark Research Center?
Professor Zwicky: The PTRC program is aimed at outreach. Personnel at the USPTO realize that entrepreneurs around the country need to know about intellectual property (especially independent inventors), and they know not everyone can come to the main patent office in Alexandria (Virginia). So they’ve set up this program, which links 80-odd libraries (public, government, and academic) from around the country with the USPTO and each other. If someone in our area has a need for a patent or trademark consultation, the USPTO can refer that individual to us for the basic level of training. In exchange, the Purdue Libraries get access to USPTO training and resources.
In practice, this means that I meet with people from Purdue, Lafayette, and West Lafayette, and our general area of Indiana and Illinois (the other PTRCs in our area are Chicago Public Library and Indianapolis Public Library) and talk to them about patents and trademarks. I am not a lawyer and I can’t answer any legal questions, but I can explain the overall process and show them the publicly available tools they can use to do their own searching. I also use what I’ve learned through this program to teach about intellectual property.
Q. What does it mean that you have liaison responsibilities with the Purdue departments of chemistry, chemical engineering and materials engineering?
Professor Zwicky: My liaison responsibilities mean I’m the point of contact for people in those departments (faculty, staff, and students) when they have information needs. Is there a book they think we should add to the Libraries’ collection? Do they need help finding a specific reference or doing a broader literature search? Do they want to incorporate information literacy into their courses? I’m here to help with all of that and more.
Q. How does patent research apply to the work you do with faculty and students teaching and learning in these disciplines/departments?
Professor Zwicky: Patents are particularly relevant in that last area of teaching and learning. Not only do students—especially students who are interested in pursuing careers outside of academia—need to know basic information about patents; patents represent an incredible opportunity for students to engage with information in a different way. Patents, among other applications, can be used as case studies, showing students how other people have tried to solve real-world problems, and they’re incredibly potent in the context of design courses.
Q. Why is it important for faculty and even student researchers to be aware of patents and trademark information? How can they become more knowledgeable about the importance of patents?
Professor Zwicky: Patents help you avoid repeating work other people have done, they can inspire new designs, and expired patents are pieces of technology that are in the public domain, free to be built upon and adapted. They also let you know what technologies other companies are exploring (they’re a key part of competitive intelligence analysis). And, of course, if you can get a patent on your own invention, that’s incredibly powerful when you want to commercialize it.
Trademarks are a little simpler and a little more niche. They’re vitally important in terms of marketing your company and making sure your customers can easily identify your goods and services, but they’re a bit less relevant in purely academic settings.
In terms of learning about patents and trademarks, contact me. I’m happy to set up one-on-one consultation appointments, training sessions, and so on. I also have a LibGuide page at http://guides.lib.purdue.edu/patents.
Patents and trademarks have applications beyond science and technology; I tend to focus on STEM, but that’s more about me than about the information. I’d love the opportunity to talk to someone working in the graphic design space, studying the history of science, or doing any other kind of research where patents or trademarks may be relevant. If anyone out there is interested, by all means, contact me.
Contact Professor Zwicky at dzwicky@purdue.edu.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, PSET, UncategorizedAugust 9th, 2018
As of Monday, Aug. 13, gaining access to Purdue University Libraries’ valuable online scholarly resources while on campus will require students, faculty, and staff to log in using their Purdue University career account credentials.
Formerly, users accessing Purdue Libraries’ online resources while working anywhere on the West Lafayette campus would be logged in automatically (through IP address detection) to view and download Libraries’ online materials. The new log-in requirement creates an extra layer of security and is consistent with the Purdue log-in systems used across campus.
However, users who have already logged into a Purdue system (e.g., OnePurdue) on any given day via their computers and devices while on campus will not have to log in again; the only time the new log-in requirement will apply is when users attempt to log in to Libraries’ online resources without having logged into another Purdue system. Users who log in to access Libraries’ online resources as the initial way they access a Purdue online system will either be able to use their career account credentials or their BoilerKey passwords.
When users are not physically present on the West Lafayette campus, the process for gaining online access to Purdue Libraries’ online resources will remain the same; users will be prompted to log in upon attempting to access Libraries’ resources.
For more information, contact Purdue Libraries’ LibAnswers service at http://answers.lib.purdue.edu/ or via eResources support at www.lib.purdue.edu/help/eresources-support.
Filed under: generalAugust 9th, 2018
As of Monday, Aug. 13, gaining access to Purdue University Libraries’ valuable online scholarly resources while on campus will require students, faculty, and staff to log in using their Purdue University career account credentials.
Formerly, users accessing Purdue Libraries’ online resources while working anywhere on the West Lafayette campus would be logged in automatically (through IP address detection) to view and download Libraries’ online materials. The new log-in requirement creates an extra layer of security and is consistent with the Purdue log-in systems used across campus.
However, users who have already logged into a Purdue system (e.g., OnePurdue) on any given day via their computers and devices while on campus will not have to log in again; the only time the new log-in requirement will apply is when users attempt to log in to Libraries’ online resources without having logged into another Purdue system. Users who log in to access Libraries’ online resources as the initial way they access a Purdue online system will either be able to use their career account credentials or their BoilerKey passwords.
When users are not physically present on the West Lafayette campus, the process for gaining online access to Purdue Libraries’ online resources will remain the same; users will be prompted to log in upon attempting to access Libraries’ resources.
For more information, contact Purdue Libraries’ LibAnswers service at http://answers.lib.purdue.edu/ or via eResources support at www.lib.purdue.edu/help/eresources-support.
Filed under: generalAugust 8th, 2018
This blog post is written by Jonathan Bloch, son of Chana Bloch. The 36.2 (Summer 2018) issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies is a tribute issue for writer, poet, teacher, and mother: Chana Bloch (1940-2017). In the words of the special issue editors, Rachel Tzvia Back and Dara Barnat, “We gather together in the pages of this special issue for Chana Bloch to sing of her a funeral plainsong of profound appreciation, of enduring love, of great sorrow at her leaving.” This special issue includes essays and poems from her students, loved ones, and friends. We are especially excited and grateful for the final two pieces in the issue, an artwork contributed by Jonathan Bloch and a never before published poem by Chana Bloch which was discovered by Bloch’s sons after her passing.
Most people who know my mother know her through her words. I know her the same way – because Ima and me talked constantly. We would sit at the kitchen table and talk, one thing
leading to another, in conversations that meandered for hours, for the joy of it. But then she died. Now, I am left holding my end of the conversation, which we never finished. I will never be able to tell her how my life has changed. She will never see my daughters grow up. We will never sit at the kitchen table again.
But she gave me words. It’s because of her that words have flavor for me; that words have meaning for me. And I think that all the words between us were our connection, but also a barrier. She was always saying, “you know, isn’t it amazing that so-and-so, and I’m so happy that this, and isn’t it a wonderful surprise that that” – it was lovely, but also kind of exhausting. But I think I understand why she did that. She grew up in a difficult family, and had to maintain a constant note of joviality on top of the anxiety.
But this reflexive habit of hers matured, over time, into a deeper ability – to laugh; to deal with pain, even to find joy in dealing with it; to find poetry in dealing with it; to make use of it. She made much use of pain. The quality she admired in Mark O’Brien1 – his ability to choose his attitude even in unimaginably difficult circumstances – had become a core attribute of her self.
That attribute – the ability to cope with difficulty – is primarily a practical one, and my mother’s overriding tendency was to be practical. I think, though, that she secretly wanted something else in her life, a kind of sensuality, which she never got enough of. At her core there was innocence and joy, which, in a less harsh world, would have been met with sensuality. It’s probably one of the reasons why she wrote poetry. That, and also because she was a dauntingly brilliant human being with a profoundly artistic soul.
Another ideal she cherished, for herself and in her poetry, was clarity. When I was a child, Ima wrote the word ‘clarity’ in black marker on an index card and taped it to the wall above her typewriter, where she would see it when she looked up from writing. I remember seeing that index card with the word clarity, in fading marker, hanging there for many years. I think that clarity was her lifeline, to the end. On her deathbed, two days before she died, she opened her eyes suddenly and asked, “Do I still have my head?” I asked, “Ima, do you mean do you still have your wits about you”? And she nodded. And I said, “Yes, Ima, that fact that you asked that, means that you definitely still have your head”. Even at the point of death, that clarity – do I still have my head – was still her concern.
And when she had to go, she left us. I think not when she was ready – but at a certain point she had to accept it, and then she became ready. And she accomplished the last thing she wanted to do in her life: to choose when, and where, and how she would die. It was her wish to come home from the hospital, to lie in her study overlooking the garden, with her family around her. At the end, she found the strength to give up her strength.
I know she would have been happy living on for many more years – writing, working, traveling, watching her grandchildren grow up. I feel that Ima got interrupted in the springtime of a life that was glorious with creation, and wisdom, and humor and love. She never really became an old person; she was full of youth, the life force, till the end. After all she had gone through, she still had such lightness of spirit. And so she remains forever young.
1Mark O’Brien was a poet who spent his entire adult life in an iron lung.
Filed under: UncategorizedAugust 7th, 2018
Parrish Library’s Featured Database, formerly Database of the Month, will give you a very brief introduction to the basic features of one of our specialized subscription databases. This time we’re featuring Small Business Resource Center brought to you by Gale, a Cengage company.
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: Small Business Resource Center is a portal for entrepreneurs containing business plans, entrepreneurial articles, small business forms and related information. It also includes small business encyclopedias.
Tutorial: Click here see the basics of using the Small Business Resource Center.
Start with this hint: Use the How To section to easily find information and answers to the most asked questions by small business owners.
Why you should know this database: Small Business Resource Center is a comprehensive database that covers all aspects of starting and operating a business, including accounting, finance, human resources, management, marketing, tax, and more.
Interested in Entrepreneurship Articles?
Some other databases you might want to check out, 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, MGMTJuly 27th, 2018
Last month, Purdue Libraries Assistant Professor and Business Information Specialist Heather Howard was honored with the annual Achievement in Academic Business Librarianship Award from the Special Libraries Association (SLA) Business and Finance Division.
According to the SLA website, the award recognizes the accomplishments of librarians who are new to the field of academic business librarianship. Qualifying criteria for this award include evidence of exemplary librarianship, such as published journal articles and/or books, conference presentations, excellence in teaching, online tutorials, or innovative services at nominees’ institutions. In addition to the recognition, Howard received a $1,000 gift.
For more information about the award, visit http://bf.sla1.org/awards/award-descriptions/.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, HSSEB, press_release, UncategorizedJuly 26th, 2018
The Graduate Research Information Program, or G.R.I.P., workshop series schedule is set for the 2018-19 academic year. The series is designed to enhance graduate students’ research skills. Each workshop session is led by a Purdue Libraries faculty member.
The series is sponsored by the Libraries and The Graduate School. All G.R.I.P. workshops are open free to graduate students at Purdue University.
The 2018-19 schedule is listed below; registration will be available soon via a link on the G.R.I.P. library guide (LibGuide) at guides.lib.purdue.edu/grip.
July 26th, 2018
Purdue University Libraries faculty are part of two research teams to receive funding in Purdue University’s initial round of research for the Integrative Data Science Initiative (IDSI). According to the IDSI website, the vision for the initiative is “to be at the forefront of advancing data science-enabled research and education by tightly coupling theory, discovery, and applications while providing students with an integrated, data science-fluent campus ecosystem.”
Last March, Purdue University administrators and researchers working on the initiative disseminated an initial request for proposals (RFP) as “the first investment towards achieving the goals of the Integrative Data Science Initiative.” The areas of focus/themes for the RFP included: health care; defense; ethics, society, and policy; fundamentals, methods, and algorithms; and cross-cutting data science-enabled research.
The RFP resulted in 52 separate highly competitive proposals addressing data science applications in the theme areas. Libraries faculty are part of two research teams that received funding, including the following research projects and investigators:
For more information about the initiative, visit www.purdue.edu/data-science/.
July 24th, 2018
At the Purdue University 2018 Homecoming Celebration, Purdue University Libraries invites you to share your treasured Purdue University memories and preserve them for posterity in the first-ever Digital History Harvest hosted by Purdue Libraries.
Purdue University Alumni are invited to bring their Purdue-related papers, objects, texts, and other materials or memorabilia back to campus for Homecoming 2018. Then, please join us from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21 in the Humanities, Social Science, and Education (HSSE) Library (first floor) in Stewart Center, where Purdue Libraries personnel will help alumni digitally preserve these materials.
After Purdue Libraries’ personnel capture the materials through scanning, we will store them in a digital archive and make them visible to the public. Because we digitize the materials, you will keep your original papers and objects.
This event is open free to Purdue alumni.
For more information, contact Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities Matt Hannah at hannah8@purdue.edu.
July 11th, 2018
Welcome to Database of the Month, a feature from the Parrish Library. Each of these monthly snapshots will give you a very brief introduction to the basic features of one of our specialized subscription databases. This month’s database is S&P NetAdvantage brought to you by S&P Global Inc.
Link: http://guides.lib.purdue.edu/businessdatabases 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: Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage, also known as S&P NetAdvantage, provides investment information and analysis on companies, industries, stocks and bonds, mutual funds and dividends. Resources available include: S&P Bond Guides, Earnings Guide, Corporation Records, Industry Surveys, Mutual Funds, S&P Outlook, Register of Corporations, Executives and Directors, S&P Stock Guide and Stock Reports.
Tutorial: Click here see the basics of searching S&P NetAdvantage.
Start with this hint: You can easily browse industry or company profiles and find investment research under the Companies tab.
Why you should know this database: S&P NetAdvantage provides access to company profiles, news, investment research, and industry surveys. This database also features a chart builder that makes company comparison easy.
Interested in Company Financials?
Some other databases you might want to check out, are:
Database of the Month 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 monthly feature.
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, MGMT