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The staff of the Temple University Libraries welcomes all of our new students and faculty and all those returning to campus. We look forward to being your partner in helping everyone to achieve academic success this fall. Over the summer we have worked to improve the Libraries. You will find new computers in many areas of the Libraries. All of the computers at the Science, Architecture and Engineering Library are new. We have also replaced many of our laptops, added additional laptops and even a few netbook computers - all availble for loan at our Circulation/Reserve Desk. One of our big summer projects was to develop a prototype for a new Libraries homepage. We hope you will look at our preview and provide us with your feedback. We will introduce the new homepage at a later date. Best wishes for a great fall semester and academic year.

You finally found that book you've been wanting to read or that DVD that the rental shops don't stock right here in your library...and it's available! All you have to do now is find a piece of scrap paper, hunt down a pen that has ink, and write down the call number to take with you to the book stacks or Media Services desk. Or, you could text it to your phone!

Save yourself time and be green with the latest feature in Diamond: the library catalog. While viewing any item, just click the "Send via Text Message" button. A new screen will appear - see the example below. Just enter your mobile phone information, and click "Send." In seconds, you'll get a text message with the location, call number, and title of the item. Normal carrier charges may apply.

We hope you enjoy this new feature in our library catalog. Please share any comments or concerns with Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian for Research & Instruction.

Temple University Libraries Announce Spring Season of Events and Programs

Temple University Libraries Spring 2009 programs and events will begin on January 29 with the Temple Book Club’s annual discussion of the One Book, One Philadelphia selection; this year’s is The Soloist by Steve Lopez. Author and journalist Lopez will also be making a stop at the Libraries later this spring. Don’t miss this acclaimed Los Angeles Times writer, formerly of The Philadelphia Inquirer, on March 19 as he discusses his best-selling book: a story of second chances, human connections and the power of art and music.

The season continues on February 5 with the spring’s first installment of Chat in the Stacks. This ongoing series highlighting and promoting excellence in faculty research, creativity and scholarship will highlight Race in the Stage with a performance from The Seven, based on Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. Director Lee Richardson, along with English professor Roland Williams and Theater professor Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, will complete the panel.

On February 18 we welcome local scholar David Eng. A multi-disciplinary scholar, Eng is a professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s English Department, but his specialties lie within and beyond the written word. Eng is a cutting-edge scholar exploring the inter-connectedness of literature, cinema, ethnic studies, sexuality and theory. He will present his new research on “Queer Space in China” through a discussion of the film Lan Yu. Please join us in welcoming one of our city’s most engaging academics. This event is co-sponsored by Center for the Humanities at Temple.

Other season highlights include:

A visit by local popular author Leslie Banks on March 4.

The Blockson Collection’s second annual celebration of Women’s History Month on March 5.

A Conversation with Dom Nozzi, a city planner and sustainability expert on March 31.

Secret Cinema, featuring unearthed films from the Urban Archives April 16.

The 5th Annual Library Prize for Undergraduate Research awards April 30.

Check out all our events and programs, and we hope to see you at the Libraries soon.

-Nicole Restaino
Library Communications Manager

November 13, Paley Library Lecture Hall-Temple University Libraries celebrated 3 million volumes, a testament to the rich and growing collections available to Temple scholars, students and researchers.

At the ceremony on Thursday, the 13th, the Libraries' Board of Visitors Chair Estelle Alexander, Dean of University Libraries Larry P. Alford, Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico, and Special Collections Department head Tom Whitehead unveiled the ceremonial book to a crowd of over nearly 200 at the celebration in Paley Library. Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Teresa Scott Soufas; Dean of the School of Communications and Theater, Concetta M. Stewart; and the head of the Theater Department, Roberta Sloan, also participated in the day's activities.

The acquisition, Shakespeare’s The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, is “a stunning example of 20th century fine printing,” according to Alford. The book was issued by the Cranach Press in 1930, edited by J. Dover Wilson, contains illustrations by Edward Gordon Craig and was printed by Count Harry Kessler. Whitehead worked with a number of departments across Temple to acquire this fine edition, which supports so many disciplines across campus.

Festivities also featured the opening of a new exhibit on the history of fine printing curated by Whitehead. For the occasion Whitehead and Brian D. Stilwell wrote the Libraries' first large scholarly exhibition catalog: Fine Printing and Typography of Five and One-Half Centuries.

Actors Ross Beschler, as Hamlet, and Whitney Nielson, as Ophelia, performed the famed Hamlet scene, "To Be or Not To Be," to the delight of the crowd. The Libraries had consulted with the Theater Department on the selection of the book, which further demonstrates Temple's strong commitment to the arts. The text of Hamlet is not just a singularly great work of theater, but the commentary and illustrations in our 3- millionth edition serve as a primary source for theater history and design.

After the ceremony, a keynote lecture was given by Harvard University’s Marjorie Garber, one of the nation’s foremost and versatile scholars. Garber's talk A Tale of Three Hamlets focused specifically on the book of the day, the "Cranach Hamlet." Dr. Garber's lecture was co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Temple.

In addition to the 3 million volumes, the Libraries hold 10 million images; more than 50,000 print and online subscriptions; 35,000 linear feet of manuscripts; and a rich collection of sound and video recordings, along with growing media holdings. Thanks to all involved in making the Libraries' 3 Millionth Volume Celebration so special.

On October 6, 2008, The Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought at Temple University held its Second Annual Symposium on Race and Judaism in the Paley Library Lecture Hall. The program was entitled Exploring Race in Contemporary Judaism: A Symposium on Jewish Diversity [click here for PDF of flyer].

Before the symposium began, Professor Lewis Gordon, director of The Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, sat down with three of the presenters, Edith Bruder, Avishai Mekonen, and Shari Rothfarb Mekonen to discuss their work. Edith Bruder has written a book entitled The Black Jews of Africa: History, Religion, Identity and her symposium presentation was entitled "African Judaism: Ancient Myths and Modern Phenomena". Avishai Mekonen and Shari Rothfarb Mekonen screened and discussed their work-in-progress documentary, 400 Miles to Freedom, a "film [which] explores racial and ethnic diversity in Judaism through the story of Avishai Mekonen, whose disappearance in Sudan as a boy launches a quest that leads him to other African, Asian and Latino Jews in Israel and in the U.S." John L. Jackson, who also presented at the symposium ("The Bodied Politic: Ethnobiology, Anti-Religiosity and the Reckoning of Black Hebrewism") was not present for this recording (but we hope to record an interview with him at a later date).

Download the audio here (mp3, 22 MB).

Solve 3 problems using Knovel, a database of online engineering books. Enter to win a Wii, iPod Nano, or Free Music.

Access the Contest Rules. Competition closes on November 7, 2008.

Enter the Challenge Here:

Gretchen Sneff
Engineering Librarian
gsneff@temple.edu

Beginning in the 1980s but accelerating over the last decade, libraries have been unable to keep pace with the skyrocketing costs of scholarly journals. For both private and publicly-supported research universities the publication "circle" looks something like this: 1) scholar obtains money to conduct research, perhaps through government grants or internal, tuition-supported funding; 2) scholar conducts and then publishes research in peer-reviewed journal; 3) university library "buys back" scholarly research from for-profit or societal journal publishers. The problem? Academic libraries, whose budgets sometimes do not even take inflation into account from year to year, can no longer afford to buy journal titles, especially in the sciences. Did you know, for example, that the annual $19,396 paid by Brown University Library for the journal Nuclear Physics A & B, matches the price of a "new midsize car" (Brown University's George Street Journal).

Libraries and others who care about open access to scholarly information are fighting back. "SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system... It's pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communications models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries" (About SPARC). The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is another such initiative. DOAJ defines open access journals as ones that "use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access" (About DOAJ). Explore DOAJ's list of 110 scholarly, open access journals in history. 

Who benefits from these initiatives? In my view scholars, libraries, small and even large publishers benefit when research is made readily available to industry and the public at large. Think about it this way: It is reasonable to expect that the public will be more willing to support research that is readily available, and that the impact of this research will be greater and longer lasting.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the open access community is scholars' fear that publishing in open access journals will not advance careers or lead to tenure. After all, academic journals were created in the first place, in part, to promote the careers of authors. Scholars are also often concerned with a journal's impact factor. Despite these concerns, however, new information technologies and initiatives such as SPARC and DOAJ are here to stay. Consider the benefits of open access today!