Search
Loading

Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Faculty Spotlight: Maybee Selected as Instructor for ACRL Immersion Program

March 7th, 2017

In a society named for the ubiquity of information, it is essential that everyone knows how to use information to continually learn in order to be successful in their professional, personal, and civic lives.” — Clarence Maybee, Assistant Professor of Library Science, Information Literacy Specialist, Purdue University LibrariesClarence Maybee, Information Literacy Specialist at Purdue Libraries

Information literacy is Clarence Maybee’s “thing” at Purdue University Libraries. He is, after all, the Purdue Libraries’ information literacy specialist.

So, it was with much excitement that he recently accepted a faculty position with the Association of College and Research Library’s (ACRL) Information Literacy Immersion Program. The week-long teacher development program is designed for academic librarians who want to enhance their teaching or programming skills related to information literacy. Maybee, who applied for the position in the ACRL’s recent national search for Immersion Program faculty, interviewed for the job at the American Library Association‘s annual Midwinter Meeting in January. He readily accepted the offer last month.

“As a faculty member in the Immersion Program, I will help craft the Immersion curriculum, work with the other Immersion faculty to facilitate the program, and mentor participating librarians in their teaching and programming roles on their campuses,” he explained.

In the Immersion Program, Maybee joins nationally recognized faculty, from college and research libraries around the nation, who lead the program, which provides instruction librarians the opportunity to work intensively for several days on all aspects of information literacy.

Below, Clarence shared a bit more information about his new opportunity with the ACRL and how his work in the Immersion Program will help serve the students and faculty at Purdue University.

Q. Tell me a little bit about your background, e.g., your work in libraries, as a librarian, a faculty member, as well as specifically what interested you in information literacy.

Clarence: I became a librarian in 2005 after completing my MLIS at San Jose State University (SJSU). Under the mentorship of Dr. Mary Somerville, then assistant dean of the library at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), I completed a master’s thesis in which I studied undergraduates’ experiences of information literacy. The research made me aware of how essential it is to understand the experiences of the learners for whom we are designing instruction. I began my career in librarianship in the role of Information Literacy Librarian at Mills College, and I served in a similar role at Colgate University before coming to Purdue.

Based on my research, which reveals that learners use information in more sophisticated ways when learning about course content, I focus my work at Purdue on integrating information literacy into Purdue courses. With colleagues from the Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE) and Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), I manage the Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation program (IMPACT), which aims to make undergraduate courses more student-centered. In 2015, I received a PhD from Queensland University of Technology (QUT). My dissertation thesis, “Informed learning in the undergraduate classroom: The role of information experiences in shaping outcomes,” received QUT’s Outstanding Thesis Award for its contribution to the discipline and excellence demonstrated in doctoral research practice.

Q. How do you think taking part in the Immersion program will help you in your position as an information literacy specialist at Purdue Libraries? How do you think it will help students and faculty at Purdue?

Clarence: Great new ideas come from diverse minds sharing and discussing the possibilities. The Immersion Program Faculty is comprised of nationally known information literacy experts. A cornerstone of the Immersion Program is bringing together academic librarian participants from across the U.S. and beyond. No doubt, the learning experiences generated by this group will give me insights and new perspectives to bring back with me to my work at Purdue.

Q. Tell me something that people may be surprised to learn about you…

Clarence: I used to be a poet in San Francisco.

Q. What do you know about yourself and/or your work now that you wish you would have known when you first started your career?

Clarence: Understanding learning theory better has really advanced my own teaching, as well as helped me in my work with librarians and other instructors.


Read more about information literacy at Purdue University Libraries at www.lib.purdue.edu/infolit, and learn more about the ACRL Immersion Program at www.ala.org/acrl/immersion.


2017 Library Scholars Grant Program Recipients Announced

March 1st, 2017

Four Purdue University faculty members have been named recipients of the 2017 Library Scholars Grant Program. Established in 1985 by the 50th anniversary gift of members of the Class of 1935, the Library Scholars Grant Program supports access to unique collections of information around the country and the world for non-tenured and recently tenured Purdue faculty in all disciplines from the West Lafayette, Fort Wayne, IUPUI, and Northwest campuses, as well as those in the Statewide Technology Program. The 2017 recipients are:

Christopher Cayari
Christopher Cayari
  • Christopher Cayari, assistant professor, Music Education, was awarded $5,000 to travel to the Eberly Family Special Collections at Pennsylvania State University in University Park to conduct archival research on Fred Waring. Waring, band and choir leader, was one of the most influential figures in popular American choral singing in the mid-1900s.Waring’s musical groups performed classical, American folk, swing, and popular music. Their performances were broadcast on radio, audio recordings, motion pictures, and television.Cayari will analyze recordings, communications, and other artifacts from The Eberly Family Special Collections to better understand Waring and his journey as he popularized American choral pop music and performance;
Heather Fielding
Heather Fielding
  • Heather Fielding, associate professor, English, Purdue University Northwest, was awarded $4,800 to examine the manuscripts of British novelist Ronald Firbank at the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library and the Columbia University Rare Books Library. Fielding’s research is part of a project that analyzes how 1920s culture, especially the modernist literature of that era, made sense of an economy increasingly based on the irrational moves of the market, but also prioritized efficiency above all else. The novels of Ronald Firbank (1886-1926) constitute a key site where modernist narrative technique engaged with economic ideas. Firbank’s novels are deeply concerned with the residue that exists at the edges of a culture, aiming to purge waste and improve productivity. Fielding will examine Firbank’s manuscript drafts and notebooks, where he developed ideas and drew sketches for his novels. These are crucial resources for understanding what Firbank chose to include and exclude as he drafted and revised his novels and for analyzing modernism’s re-use of economic ideas;
Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler
Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler
  • Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler, assistant professor of design history, Department of Art and Design, was awarded $2,966 to conduct archival research at the Manuscripts and Archives Library of Yale University in New Haven. Kaufmann-Buhler’s research centers on the history and evolution of the American open plan office; this project broadly focuses on the tension among the progressive idealism of architects and designers who first promoted the open plan, and the challenges and problems that emerged for architects and designers, office furniture manufacturers, organizations and workers as the open plan became mainstream. At the Yale Library, she will study architectural papers — including plans, correspondence, and project files — of several important American architects practicing in the U.S. in the late 20th century to examine their use of the open plan office concept in their office designs. Kaufmann-Buhler’s research will be used in several related articles currently in development, as well as a book manuscript; and
Zoe Nyssa
Zoe Nyssa
  • Zoe Nyssa, assistant professor, Anthropology, was awarded $4,728 for travel to special collections at Yale University and the University of Georgia related to the organization and practices of biodiversity conservation in the U.S. Her project examines how saving the environment — and not just studying it — became the business of scientists. Three questions will be pursued: 1) how these scientists created a conceptual and organizational niche for conservation, 2) how they began to coordinate environmental protection work across diverse sets of actors and institutions, and 3) how they thought about humans and human society in relationship to the environment. Support from the Library Scholars Grant will fund travel to these archives in order to digitize materials. Digitization will enable the use of a mix of methods, including computational social science techniques (“big data”), in combination with traditional qualitative approaches. These materials will be parsed for text and investigated using social network analyses and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling.

The grant program, which the Class of 1935 has supported continuously over the last 32 years, covers the recipients’ expenses associated with the cost of transportation, lodging, meals, and fees charged by the library or other collection owner.

The full, detailed descriptions about each of the recipients’ research projects are available in the March 1 issue of the Purdue University Libraries’ staff newsletter, INSIDe, at www.lib.purdue.edu/inside/2017/march1.html.


“A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality” Exhibit in Hicks thru March 27

February 28th, 2017

A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality“A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality,” an exhibit that features the photographs of Mark A. Lee, will be on display in the Hicks Undergraduate Library through March 27. The panel display (located between the first two rows of study carrels on the right side of the library’s entrance) is sponsored by the Purdue University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Center, and it was created by Lee, an Indianapolis-based photographer.

According to the Purdue LGBTQ Center website, the traveling exhibit celebrates 30 years of LGBT history as seen through the lens of Lee. His photographs give visitors a front row seat to events, both public and private, that shaped the lives of many Hoosiers.


“A Visual Journey: From AIDS to Marriage Equality documents members of the AIDS community, past and present Bag Ladies, members of Pride, and those who fought for marriage equality, It also pays tribute to five very special people who are no longer here (for reasons other than AIDS) and takes a sneak peek into our future, as it takes a closer look at the transgender community.” — Mark A. Lee


Purdue’s Info. Literacy Efforts & IMPACT Program Featured in Chronicle of Higher Ed

February 28th, 2017

 Purdue University Libraries Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy Sharon Weiner
“The best ways to teach information literacy are in the context of a course or some other learning activity. If you do it in isolation, it becomes very skills-oriented. But if students are learning about something, and the instructor has the opportunity to insert better ways of finding information or evaluating information in that learning activity, it’s more likely to stay with the student and become a habit.” — Sharon Weiner

Purdue University Libraries Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy Sharon Weiner is featured in an article in “The Chronicle of Higher Education” this week.

The Q&A “special report” with Weiner, “How One College Put Information Literacy Into Its Curriculum,” discusses Purdue University’s efforts to bring information literacy into the classroom through its IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation) program.

The article is available through the Purdue University Libraries’ subscription to “The Chronicle of Higher Education” and to those who have Premium-level subscriptions to the publication.


Systematic Reviews Workshop March 3; Register by Feb. 24

February 20th, 2017

Margaret Foster, associate professor and systematic reviews coordinator at Texas A & M University Libraries
Margaret Foster, associate professor and systematic reviews coordinator, Texas A & M University Libraries

Margaret Foster, associate professor and systematic reviews coordinator at  Texas A & M University Libraries, will conduct “An Introduction to Systematic Reviews” from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, March 3, in the Swaim Conference Room (fourth floor, HSSE Library, Stewart Center). The six-hour workshop will cover systematic reviews, which are based a research method to study studies or a method to systematically identify, evaluate, code, and combine studies into a synthesized summary. Register online at purdue.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3RdXvbEZP3oo5jT (space is limited to 25 registrants).

This method is used across a wide variety of disciplines medicine, public health, education, agriculture, and more. It will include how to determine if a research question is a feasible for a systematic review or other type of review and how to develop a protocol. The workshop (which is geared toward librarians but faculty from other disciplines are welcome to register) will focus on identifying studies, but other steps of the process will also be covered. Lunch will be provided.


Copyright Office, Libraries to Celebrate Fair Use Impact Feb. 23

February 14th, 2017

Purdue Copyright Office - Fair Use Week 2017“Can I use this copyrighted image in my video… legally?”

That question seems like a relatively easy query, and one that, most likely, you have had to consider if you have ever downloaded content from the web for a class project or a presentation. The answer, though, is not necessarily as simple.

But, before you rush to your computer to edit your video, you may want to take a look at Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, which is referred to as “Fair Use.” Fair Use is so critical to education and libraries that, a few years ago, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) established Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week, which set to take place Monday-Friday, Feb. 20-24 this year. Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week raises awareness about the important doctrines of fair use in the U.S. and fair dealing in Canada and other jurisdictions.

Purdue University Libraries and the University Copyright Office will celebrate the importance of Fair Use with discussions and cake from noon-1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23 near the main floor entryway to Hicks Library.

“Join us to celebrate and discuss the incredible impact and benefits of fair use, which we enjoy all year long,” noted Director of the University Copyright Office Donna Ferullo.

Fair Use in Education

Fair use is an exception under the U.S. Copyright Act. It allows copyrighted works to be used without the copyright holder’s permission, provided the use complies with the rules of the exception. It is a four factor test that analyzes the purpose and character of the use; the nature of the work being used; the amount of the work being used; and whether the market for the original work will be impacted by the new work. (For more information on applying the fair use factors, check out fair use on the Purdue University Copyright Office’s website at www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/fair_use.html.)

“In higher education, fair use is used in both teaching and research. Faculty, staff and students probably apply it on a daily basis, many times without even realizing it. Uses can range from showing a video clip in a classroom to quoting passages from a copyrighted work in a student paper or faculty journal article. The fair use exception is critical to promoting advances in arts and sciences, which is the fundamental purpose of the copyright clause in the U.S. Constitution and promulgated by the U.S. Copyright Act,” Ferullo explained.

In the past few years, there have been some high profile cases in which individuals challenged fair use, and the courts ruled in favor of the exceptions. Three noteworthy cases that impacted Purdue were the Google Library Books Project, the Georgia State e-reserves case and the HathiTrust challenge, Ferullo said. Those specific instances of mass digitization were found to be fair use with some caveats. The courts looked to the intent of copyright and ruled that transformative uses, such as what occurred in those three cases, were the essence of what copyright is all about.

For information on major events around the country during Fair Use Week, check out www.fairuseweek.org.


Grand Challenges Research Teams Announced in Mellon Grant

February 10th, 2017

 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $1.4M to date to support a unique approach to global grand challenges research, scholarly publishing and communication at Purdue.
To date, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $1.4M to support a unique approach to global grand challenges research, scholarly publishing and communication at Purdue.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $1.4M to date to support a unique approach to global grand challenges research, scholarly publishing and communication at Purdue.Purdue Scholarly Publishing, a division of Purdue Libraries, and the Purdue Policy Research Institute have announced the final proposals selected for funding under the grant “Breaking Through: Developing Multidisciplinary Solutions to Global Grand Challenges.”

Four proposals have been selected for funding, which was made possible through a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The four projects are as follows:

  • Big Data Ethics Detecting Bias in Data Collection, Algorithmic Discrimination and “Informed Refusal”: Led by Chris Clifton, professor of computer science, this research team is addressing grand challenges through a multidisciplinary study of the ethical issues involved in the use of big data and predictive algorithms to make decisions affecting individuals.
  • From Global to Local to Global: Attaining Long Run Sustainability in U.S. Agriculture: Led by Thomas Hertel, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics, this research team is leveraging existing knowledge, models and data to understand and communicate the interplay between global change and local sustainability of U.S. agriculture in the context of alternative national, state and local policies affecting agricultural productivity and environmental quality.
  • Global Temperature Goals to Avoid Climate Tipping Points: A Serious Game to Support Serious Decisions: Led by Manjana Milkoreit, assistant professor of political science, this research team is engaging in a first-of-its-kind project that merges a creative knowledge co-production process between scientists and decision makers on urgent questions in global climate change governance and a scientific assessment of the effectiveness of this science-policy interaction.
  • Decision Support for Flood Risk Mitigation: Automated Data Collection and Visualization Tools: Led by David R. Johnson, assistant professor of industrial engineering and political science, this research team is developing automated data collection tools and interactive decision support systems to tackle the grand challenge of increasing coastal flood risks and address the need for better risk communication.

This three-year program enables multidisciplinary teams to tackle grand challenges in new ways. It also embeds policy experts, publishing professionals, and libraries faculty in the scholarly research and communication process, in order to provide researchers with expert assistance in communicating results directly to the public and key stakeholders.

The Scholarly Publishing Division of the Purdue University Libraries, the Purdue Policy Research Institute in Discovery Park, the College of Liberal Arts and the Purdue Systems Collaboratory are partners on the grant.

Peter Froehlich, director of Purdue Scholarly Publishing, and Laurel Weldon, director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute, are principal investigators.

Both lead PIs are pleased with the outcome of the competition, which was intense.

“So many excellent proposals were submitted in response to our call for proposals, it ended up being a difficult choice. The four proposals selected are outstanding, and we are excited to be able to launch these innovative, interdisciplinary projects,” Weldon says.

Froehlich also highlighted the unique aspects of the program, including the integration of communication planning — how key stakeholders will receive results — from the onset of each project.

“Getting actionable new information to stakeholders sooner, in the most well-targeted, intelligible, digestible and sharable manner possible, will allow us to better impact the challenges we face,” he says. “We’re thrilled to be working with top researchers on this innovative approach to scholarly communications.”

For more information, visit grandchallenges.lib.purdue.edu/index.php.

Researchers and media can direct questions to Froehlich and Weldon at humstem@purdue.edu.


Purdue Alum to Present Feminist Data Structures, Data Literacy Talk Feb. 23

February 8th, 2017

Purdue University LibrariesAs the first installment of the 2017 Library Seminar series, Purdue University Libraries will host Purdue alumna Dr. Christine Masters Thursday, Feb. 23, for her talk, “Feminist Data Structures and Data Literacy.” Masters, who earned her Ph.D. in English rhetoric and composition from Purdue, will present her lecture from noon-1 p.m. (Feb. 23) in the SWAIM Instruction Center, located on the fourth floor of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (HSSE) Library (in Stewart Center).

Masters—whose dissertation is titled “Encounters Beyond the Interface: Data Structures, Material Feminisms, and Composition”—published the article “Women’s Ways of Structuring Data” in the November 2015 issue of Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.

“Just as infrastructures are often invisible, women’s roles within them traditionally have been rendered even more invisible. Whether or not it has been articulated with this particular vocabulary, a goal of feminism has been to make visible our ubiquitous cultural, political, social, and economic infrastructures and the roles of women within them. While infrastructures are usually transparent, the structures within them—including collections of data—can be more consciously designed from feminist perspectives,” Masters explained. “My talk will examine some of the rhetorical and cultural issues surrounding data literacy—a key term that I define as an understanding of how collections of data are compositions that involve rhetorical choices to include or exclude certain criteria. Especially in university settings, we need to understand how data literacy fits into the larger project of information literacy. Students should be encouraged to think about databases and data sets as culturally situated compositions that can either support or work against social justice issues. To this end, I propose ways that educators and information specialists can use rhetorical frameworks to encourage critical analysis of data resources.”

Masters is an assistant professor of English at Francis Marion University, and she coordinates the professional writing program there. She earned her B.A. in English from the University of Washington and her M.A. from Western Illinois University.


WALC Sign in Place

February 1st, 2017

It’s a sign… that the new Thomas S. and Harvey D. Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC) will open in 2017!

Wilmeth Active Learning Center at Purdue University
The sign identifying the name of the new Purdue University Libraries building is in place!

Located in the heart of campus, the WALC (when it opens later this year) will serve as a central location for classroom and library space. The 164,000-square-foot facility houses 27 classrooms designed for active learning. Library study and collaborative spaces are interspersed with the classrooms throughout the building. The WALC will be open 24/7 (with some exceptions during the year), and the design of structure creates highly efficient use of university space.

The building will combine six disciplinary libraries (Chemistry; Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Engineering; Life Sciences; Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences; and Physics) in the Engineering and Science Library. In planning for the WALC, Libraries faculty and staff consulted learning design expertise, based on the creation and success of current active learning classrooms.

In addition, an Au Bon Pain café and bakery will provide food services on the first floor and will open onto the patio adjacent to the building.

Learn more about the innovative vision for the WALC – “a learning commons for the 21st century” and the first of its kind in higher education – at www.lib.purdue.edu/walc.


You Could Win $1K! “Why I Love Purdue Libraries” Video Contest Deadline Feb. 1

January 26th, 2017

Why I Love Purdue LibrariesWhy do you love Purdue Libraries? Show us in a 1-3 min. video and you could win $1,000. Prizes for second and third place are $750 and $500, respectively.

The deadline is coming fast! Enter your video on or before Feb. 1 for a chance to win.

Complete rules and guidelines available at www.lib.purdue.edu/videocontest.

Below are winners from previous years…

2015

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

2014

First Place

Second Place

Third Place