SPOTLIGHT

Have you ever used AccessScience?

A great place to start a research project, this encyclopedia provides comprehensive overviews on a range of issues. For example, check out this article on a particle trap written by Stephen Chu. Mr. Chu is President-Elect Barack Obama's choice for Secretary of Energy.

This and other resources can be found in the A-Z List of E-Resources.

Selected Works Training for Faculty

Date: Wed., Dec. 17th
Time: 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Description: Bibliographic Instruction Room, DeWitt Wallace Library
Training session for interested faculty who want to learn how to update and maintain their Selected Works page - see web page at digitalcommons.macalester.edu. We will cover how to add publication or performance information as well as copies of articles if faculty have permission from the publishers to do so. We'll also cover reports that are generated by Selected Works. We'll cover how to locate information to determine if you are allowed to upload copies of your articles. For faculty who are interested, we'll provide additional information on Journal Citation reports, a new service added this year that provides information on citations and impact factors for journals. To register please use registration form Sponsored by the Library.

Introducing Macalester WorldCat Local

We are very pleased to announce our new WorldCat discovery tool available to Macalester users and we want you to please tell us what you think!

(Originally posted on DWL website, spring 2008)

NEWS: The Library Newsletter!

The Fall, and inaugural, issue of the Library, Media, Web Services News is now available online.

We intend to produce an issue at least twice a year, and we welcome your feedback. For environmental reasons, we will not be producing a paper copy. Instead, an electronic copy is kept in our Digital Commons.

Open Access Day - October 14th

What is open access? How can open access impact future research and knowledge? Please join us and over 100 institutions in more than 20 countries for the first Open Access Day to learn more about a world-wide initiative to increase open access to research. Watch Nobel Prize winner Richard Roberts via a webcast discuss his support for open access. Event Details Location: Harmon Room, DeWitt Wallace Library. Food and beverages will be served for those who register prior to the event. To register, please contact Janet Sietmann (sietmann@macalester.edu). 6:00 6:15 - 6:25 6:25 - 6:45 6:45 - 6:55 6:55 - 6:55 - 7:15 Welcome Video: Voices of Open Access Keynote introduction and address Q&A Thanks and call to action Discussion at Macalester - what we are doing to promote open access, plans for a student and faculty panel on textbook prices, and more... Read a brief introduction on OA About the Open Access Day Sponsored by Students for a Free Culture and SPARC.

Banned Books Week

Sept. 27 - Oct. 4 is American Library Association's Banned Books Week. Video by ALA:



The most challenged books in 2007 were:

1. And Tango Makes Three
2. The Chocolate War
3. Olive's Ocean
4. The Golden Compass
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
6. The Color Purple
7. TTYL
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
9. It's Perfectly Normal
10. The Perks of Being A Wallflower

Legislation to change copyright - Please register your opposition by Sept. 24

Special interests are hard at work to reverse the NIH public access mandate which makes publications produced as a result of publicly funded research, available to the taxpayers. However, in addition to working to reverse the mandate, many additional copyright changes are being proposed. Please take a few minutes to read about the changes at the Scholarly Communication Blog as well as a well written summary at Duke which does an even better job outlining the impact on higher education. We are asking members of Macalester for your support in writing to express your opposition to this legislation. Please contact Keith Ellison, the Minnesota representative on the House Judiciary Committee and urge him not to support this legislation. His contact information is:

Minneapolis Office

2100 Plymouth Avenue N
Minneapolis, MN 55411

(612) 522-1212 Phone

Washington, D.C. Office

1130 Longworth Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

(202) 225-4755 Phone

Please be sure to refer to his role on the House Judiciary Committee. A sample letter is included below:
DRAFT TEXT:
Dear [Representative/Senator];
I am writing to strongly urge you to OPPOSE HR 6845, the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, introduced to the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, on September 11, 2008. This bill would reverse the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy, prohibit American taxpayers from accessing any and all research funded by taxpayer dollars, and stifle critical advancements in lifesaving research and scientific discovery.
Because of the NIH Public Access Policy, millions of Americans now have access to vital health care information from the NIH’s PubMed Central database. Under the current policy, nearly 4,000 new crucial biomedical articles were deposited in the last month alone. HR6845 would prohibit the deposit of these articles so that, as a result, researchers, physicians, health care professionals, families and individuals will be seriously impeded in their ability to access NIH-funded, critical health-related information.
The NIH policy must be allowed to continue to ensure public access to the results of research funded by the agency with taxpayer dollars. Please OPPOSE HR6845.
Sincerely,

Please take action now as letters much reach Senators and Representatives no later than Sept. 24th.
Terri Fishel on behalf of the Members of the Library, Media, Web Services Advisory Committee

Honors Sessions - All students preparing to complete an Honors project this year are invited to a session in the library that will provide some information on resources and support available to you. Sessions will cover information on research assistance, interlibrary loan policies and procedures, copyright, RefWorks, and publishing your completed project in the Digital Commons. The Honors sessions this fall are scheduled for: Thursday, September 11, 5:00-6:00 in the Library Instruction Room, 2nd level
Tuesday, September 16, 5:00-6:00 in the Library Instruction Room, 2nd level
Please Register for one of the two sessions.

DeWitt Code Winners!Congratulations to the First Year Students in Leola Johnson's HMCS194 Critical Studies of Sports in the Media. They will be enjoying their Pizza party on Monday, Sept. 8th in the Harmon Room.

Constitution Day - Sept. 17th. Constitution Day, adesignated a federal holiday in 2004, is designated to celebrate the signing of the Constitution in 1787. Check out the library display on the first level, and take a look at the display of Presidential candidates who have been on the Mac campus.

Open Access Day - Oct. 14th. Mark your calendars now. There will be information on Macalester events coming soon. For more information on the day .

Student Prize Winners

Thanks to all first years who celebrated with President Rosenberg and library staff at Wednesday night’s First Year Night event. Many students took advantage of the root beer floats, Guitar Hero games, car races, and other festivities.

Tour DeWitt car race winners:
1st place – Ben Francis
2nd place – Nora Hencir
3rd place – Bailey Gucinski
4th place – Vien Chi O
5th place – Amelia Axness
6th place – Andrew Flynn

Guitar Hero participants were automatically entered into a random drawing for prizes. Winners include:
Pizza party (grand prize) - Amy Hillis
Amazon shopping trip – Emiliano Urbina
MacBear giant mascot – Lillie Jacobson

First Year Night, Wednesday, Aug. 27

First Year Night - 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
DeWitt Wallace Library
President Rosenberg and Library staff members invite all first year students to come to the library to celebrate completion of the first day of classes. Festivities include root beer floats with the President on the library plaza, Guitar Hero in the Harmon Room, mug pickup and mug shot photos, and car races. Additional qualifying heats for the Tour DeWitt remote control car race will be held from 7:00 - 8:00. First year car racers with the best race times from Friday and Wednesday will compete for prizes at 8:00 p.m. Guitar Hero participants will also be entered in a random drawing for prizes. Prize winners will be announced in the Library News on the Library home page and will be notified by email. Rain location for root beer floats will be inside the library.

Welcome to Class of 2012 and their Families

• DeWitt Code Online Game for First Year Students - students should have received an announcement in their email announcing the start of the game. Please join your team to help solve the mystery while learning about the library and it's services.
• Friday Events for Parents and Family of First Year Students
  • Coffee and treats in the Harmon Room beginning at 10 a.m.
  • Parents - please join us anytime between 2:30 and 4:00 to meet the liaison librarian for your son or daughter's' first year course
  • Root Beer Floats from 1:30 to 4:00
  • 2nd Annual Tour deWitt: test your race car driving skills as we lay out a competive course on the first level of the library. Winners of each individual race will receive small prizes. Family, friends, as well as first year students are eligible to race.

Library Makes New WorldCat Discovery Tool Available to Macalester Users: Tell us what you think!

The DeWitt Wallace Library is excited to join a select group of libraries across the country making available the new WorldCat Local discovery tool. This library service will help Macalester students, faculty and staff more easily locate and obtain library items needed for their research - not only within our local collections and those of other CLIC libraries, but also thousands of libraries around the world. Macalester is joining such libraries as the University of Washington, Cornell University, the University of California libraries and Ohio State University in piloting this new service.

Macalester WorldCat allows us to offer customizations that will help further enhance OCLC's popular WorldCat service specifically for Macalester users. These customizations include providing tiered search results with locally-owned materials displayed first followed by the holdings of other libraries within the region and worldwide.
It will also provide real time availability status of materials through a connection to CLICnet, informing users as to whether locally-owned materials are checked in and available and, if not, allowing users to easily place a hold or an interlibrary loan request for the item.

Users can seamlessly connect to many of the other resources and services that the library makes available to our users using Macalester WorldCat. The inclusion of the MacLinks/SFX button allows users to access full-text articles when available through resources to which we subscribe. The “Cite this Resource” feature connects directly with RefWorks.

With Macalester WorldCat, our library users will be able to access library materials easily through a new search box that will display on the library Web site. For those that want to search CLICnet or MnCat directly, links to these catalogs will be available immediately below the main search box.

The library is very interested in getting comments from the campus community as we work with OCLC in impacting the further development of this product. A comment form is available both on the library's web page and also from within Macalester WorldCat.

Change In Harmon Room Use Policy

The library staff and leadership have reviewed and amended our policy regarding use of the Harmon Room. The change is primarily based on the reduction of our custodial staff from 2 to less than 2 FTE, as our current staff will be splitting their shifts to also work in Kirk. Since the opening of the library in 1988, we have seen our custodial staff reduced from 4 fulltime custodians to less than 2. Although we had previously been working toward increasing events in the library, and encouraging outside use, we know the added events, especially those including food, have and will continue to put increased strain on our limited custodial staff. Therefore, we are implementing the following modifications in the use of the Harmon Room for the academic year 2008-09.

All use of the Harmon Room will be limited to Library, Media, Web Services and CST sponsored events only, with the following exceptions:

· National Geographic Bee, April

· Sampler Sessions by Admissions, Fall & Spring

· Faculty search presentations between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

· Staff Week Events

It is our intention to review the decision at the end of the academic year.

System Upgrades & Downtimes:

• The Library's MacLinks service will be going down for up to 1/2 hour on July 17 between the hours of 6am and noon while systems are upgraded. During that time you may not be able to link to resources and services through the MacLinks button. We apologize for any inconvenience that this disruption brings.
  
  
• CLICnet System Upgrade - Scheduled for Tuesday, July 22 from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. CLICnet will not be available during this time.
  

Library Student Employees - Class of 2008

Congratulations to our library student employees who are graduating seniors! We look forward to celebrating with you and any members of your families on Friday, May 16 from 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. in the Harmon Room. As part of our celebration, seniors selected a copy of their favorite book which will then have a plate included to acknowledge their work here in the library. A display of books selected by our seniors will be found on the kiosk in the entrance of the library. A photo display is also available for viewing. We wish all our graduating seniors the best as they embark on the next chapter of their lives.

2008 Jean K. Archibald Award Winner

Congratulations to Kathryn Wade this year's winner of the Jean K. Archibald Award!

The Jean K. Archibald Award is given to students nominated by their supervisors in recognition of their outstanding work in the library. In addition to having her name added to a plaque in the library, Kathryn will receive a monetary award.

Selected Works

Selected Works - new faculty publications and artistic expression pages
At the Faculty Celebration we unveiled the new Selected Works pages. Faculty who wish to learn more about updating their pages should either contact their liaison librarian, or see the instruction pages.

Annual Celebration of Faculty Scholarship and Artistic Accomplishments - Wednesday, April 30, 3:30 - 5:30

The library and the Center for Scholarship and Teaching are co-sponsoring a wine and cheese reception for faculty and staff on Wednesday, April 30th from 3:30 to 5:30 pm in the Library Harmon Room to celebrate faculty scholarly and artistic accomplishments. Please join us in celebrating the articles, books, performances, and exhibits that our faculty have produced during 2007. As part of the festivities, we will be giving away copies of faculty publications including Wang Ping's recent Minnesot Book award winner. We also will be demonstrating Selected Works, the new platform that will be replacing our current Faculty Publications, Research and Scholarship.

READ Posters still available

Thanks to all for participating in our National Library Week events! In case you missed spotting your fellow Mac community members in their READ posters, you can still check them out here or see them below!

NLW 2008: Join the Circle of Knowledge

National Library Week Events at the DeWitt Wallace Library April 14-18:

• Free Coffee every morning (while it lasts) beginning at 9AM in the Harmon Room
• Monday--Unveiling of this year's READ posters, Monday, 12 noon, Harmon Room (hors d'oeuvres and dessert)
• Tuesday--Gavin Baker, Student Activist for Open Access, Tuesday, 12 noon, Harmon Room. Free lunch for those students who register ahead of time. Please rsvp with Terri Fishel, x6343 or fishel@macalester.edu) For more information visit freeculture.org
• Wednesday--Alumni Career Panel, Wednesday, 6 p.m. - 7 p.m., Harmon Room. Free pizza for those that register ahead of time. Please RSVP here.
• Thursday--Free Coffee in the Harmon Room 9AM until it is gone.
• Friday--Student Library Employee Appreciation Lunch, Friday, 12 noon, Harmon Room (for Library Student Employees only)

Library Hours During January Break

January 1-6, Closed
January 7-26, Mo-Fr 10-4:30, Sa-Su Closed
  (Exception: Mon Jan 21, Closed)
January 27, 12noon-10pm
January 28, Regular Hours Resume