Author Archives: slindenb

Ames Library’s Stephanie Davis-Kahl Makes Reading List

Posted on August 30, 2018 | 1 comment

Earlier this month, Credo profiled “4 Essential Summer Reads for Librarians” on their blog. Second on the list? The Ames Library’s own Scholarly Communications librarian Stephanie Davis-Kahl with her co-edited book Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian: Case Studies and Best Practices. Says Credo:

This edited volume contains over 50 contributions on how academic libraries can plan new services and resources, and collaborate across departments to support new modes of research including the creation of undergraduate journals, managing data services, or organizing undergraduate research conferences. These activities can be considered high-impact practices to support student success and retention as well.

Whether you’re a librarian or an undergraduate research yourself, you’re sure to find this book helpful. To read it, drop by Archives and Special Collections on the 4th Floor and ask for call number Z682.4.C63 U534 2017!

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Exploring Ames: Center for Resource Libraries

Posted on August 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

As a Titan, one of the many electronic resources that you have free access to is the Center for Research Libraries. This international consortium of libraries makes available “approximately five million newspapers, journals, books, pamphlets, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other resources” from areas which include “Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central, South and Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe.” (Source.) You also have access to physical CRL collections through interlibrary loan.

If you’re not quite sure where to start, CRL provides topic guides to give you a boost. For example, if your research area is South Asian studies, you can find complete runs of Indian, Sri Lankan, and Nepalese newspapers on microfilm. CRL’s digital resources include periodicals and pamphlets from the 1848 French Revolution and Chinese “street literature” from the earliest days of Mao Zedong’s newly formed republic.

Still feeling overwhelmed by this amazing resource? Ask a librarian! We’re always happy to help guide you to the materials that you need to get started on your research, whether you’re a first-year student or longstanding faculty member.

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Calling All Poli-Sci and Pre-Law Enthusiasts: HeinOnline

Posted on August 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

One of the things that we do periodically at The Ames Library is test out new resources to see whether they’re good fits for our collection. And you have a part to play in this! Yes, you. We need your opinion before we commit to databases like HeinOnline, which we have a trial subscription to until October 31st this year.

So what’s HeinOnline? We’re glad you asked.

HeinOnline is the world’s largest fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of both U.S. statutory materials, U.S. Congressional Documents and more than 2,500 scholarly journals, all of the world’s constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, and access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase. This Government, Politics & Law HeinOnline’s database package offers special collections on Criminal Justice, Religion and the Law and Women and the Law among others.

Their discrete databases include Gun Regulation and Legislation in America, John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection, Pentagon Papers, and Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law.

If you’re majoring in Political Science or Pre-Law, or if your research is centered on politics or law, you’ll definitely want to check HeinOnline out. Please help us out by taking ten minutes to explore HeinOnline to see if you’re interested in having the library subscribe to it on a more permanent basis. If so, leave a comment or email us at askames@iwu.edu!

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New Pop Culture Films on Kanopy

Posted on July 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

July may be almost behind us, but summer break ain’t over yet! If you’re looking for something to do during your downtime, hop onto Kanopy and browse their new collection of pop-culture films.


Just a reminder that all IWU faculty, staff, and students have free access to thousands of foreign, independent, and documentary films through Kanopy. You don’t have to be on campus to access this amazing resource; just log in by proxy through our website. Happy viewing!

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Ania Bui (’18) Wins Annual University Library Senior Art Purchase Award

Posted on June 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Ames Library is pleased to announce senior Ania Bui as the recipient of our 23rd annual University Library Senior Art Purchase Award. Each year, the library acquires an artwork from a graduating senior. Ania’s vibrant pieces are photographs of a San Diego sculpture by Janet Echelman.

Ania has previously made IWU headlines for designing the cover of Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian: Case Studies and Best Practices, co-edited by Scholarly Communications Librarian & Professor Stephanie Davis-Kahl. You can view Ania’s photographs in person on the west wall of the main floor of The Ames Library.

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Free Digital Archive of Black Newspapers Goes Live

Posted on June 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

As of June 2018, the Obsidian Collection Archives is now available online. This digital collection of historic black newspaper archives was started when executive director Angela Ford realized that physical archives of papers like Chicago Defender were rapidly deteriorating and in need of preservation. ”To make matters worse, when she told her son about newsworthy things that had happened when she was growing up, he often found there was no record of those, either. ‘He’d go to Google it, and it wasn’t there,’ she says. ‘I thought, ‘Wait, what?… My past was disintegrating. That’s how I got involved: to save black history and to save myself.'” (Source)

Eight exhibitions are now live, with many more to be added.

Woman and girls on Maxwell Street, Shakir Karriem, Photographer 1983-08. From the collection of
The Obsidian Collection Archives.

From the Obsidian Collection’s mission statement:

Our primary goal is to preserve and share images from African American newspapers to future generations. As Black people moved about the country, the documentation of their lives was recorded on very few mediums. The African American Newspapers were of the few published tools of the first half of the twentieth century to capture any record of our lives, our goals, our suffering and our strength.

The list of partner newspapers can be accessed here, and you can read more about the project at Atlas Obscura and Smithsonian.com.

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Cannes Film Festival Titles Now on Kanopy

Posted on May 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

With the 71st annual Cannes Film Festival now past us, it’s time to relax on the couch with some of your favorites! Kanopy offers 134 streaming films in its Cannes Film Festival Collection. All IWU faculty, staff, and students have free access to thousands of foreign, independent, and documentary films through Kanopy.

Home for the summer already? No problem. You can still access Kanopy and all of The Ames Library’s other resources by proxy. Just make sure to log in using our website as a jumping board.

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If you use the library’s website, we need your help!

Posted on May 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Library is conducting a usability study to investigate how our users navigate and find information on our website, and we need students and faculty to help us! Each usability session will take 30-45 minutes, and will take place in the library.

If you’d like to participate, please contact Stephanie Davis-Kahl (sdaviska@iwu.edu) to set up a date and time for a session.

 

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One Button Studio Now at The Ames Library!

Posted on May 10, 2018 | 1 comment

The Thorpe Center at The Ames Library is now offering a One Button Studio. Designed for users who may not have prior experience with video software, the One Button Studio requires only a USB flash drive and yours truly. With the push of a single button, you can record a presentation for class or practice your public-speaking skills. Faculty and staff can use the One Button Studio to record lectures and professional-development videos. No more fussing with lighting, camera, or mics–it’s all taken care of for you!

Where do you start? Book an appointment online up to four weeks in advance, but please be sure to give us a 24-hour notice. For tips about design and copyright, see our LibGuide about the One Button Studio. Happy recording!

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Professor Chris Sweet Publishes New Article on Leonard “Baby” Bliss

Posted on May 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

Professor and Information Literacy Librarian Chris Sweet has just published a new article in The Wheelman on Leonard “Baby” Bliss, a Bloomington, Illinois native famous in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for his impressive weight. Sweet’s article discusses how the heavyset Bliss was able to make a living combining two Victorian passions: bicycling and sideshows.

By the mid-1890s, Baby Bliss was well-known in Central Illinois for his tremendous size. Multiple accounts state his weight at this time to have been around 500 pounds. Around the country, and particularly in nearby Peoria and Chicago, the bicycle boom was underway. During the 1890s, Illinois was home to nearly 400 bicycle companies. The sheer number of bicycle companies meant intense competition between these companies to distinguish their particular bicycle from everyone else’s. . . . Eventually someone had the idea to put the heaviest cyclist they could find on their bicycle for visual proof of durability. Enter Baby Bliss. (2)

Image copyright McLean County Museum of History.

Sweet is an historian of bicycles and cycling in the Midwest. You can read about the life and times of the remarkable Leonard Bliss in Sweet’s “Baby Bliss: World’s Heaviest Cyclist.”

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