Welcome to Fall Semester, 2021!

Posted by on August 19, 2021 No comments
Abby Mann, Online Learning Librarian

Welcome to our new students, Class of 2025, and welcome back to our returning Titans! We have news to share!

Our most exciting news is that we have a new library faculty colleague, Professor Abby Mann, who joins us as our new Online Learning Librarian. Abby will be working with the departments of English, Women’s and Gender Studies, World Languages & Cultures, and the School of Art, School of Music, School of Theatre Arts. She joins us from UNC-Pembroke, where she was an associate professor of English. Welcome, Abby!

Another welcome addition to the library is several of our colleagues from Information Technology Services, including our new CIO Leon Lewis, have moved into the library’s lower level offices. More to come about the location of the ITS Help Desk!

If you’ve been in the library recently, you’ve seen some of the changes we’ve made over the past year on the entry level to establish the Center for Engaged Learning on the east side of the entry level. New paint and new carpet were installed in early summer, and new furniture is in the process of being installed as I type. To highlight student art, we’ve moved several works of art from our Art Purchase Award collection to the entry level as well. I am hopeful we can have a celebration for the space later in September, when the furniture installation is complete.It’s been repainted and new carpet installed, and the library acquired “The Corner Office” from Lizette Toto, ’21 for the west side of the entry level. It is gorgeous, and complements the space perfectly.

We’ve enjoyed two events welcoming faculty back to campus – the Scholarship & Creative Work Celebration, and the New Faculty Orientation. It was great to see our colleagues, catch up, and not say “You’re on mute” during our conversations. We’re also planning a faculty panel that will feature the faculty who received Open Educational Resources (OER) Exploration Grants last summer, and the reports detailing their work will be available on Digital Commons soon.

A few services have returned to pre-COVID operations – print reserves are available again, we are open our regular hours, and we no longer quarantine materials after they are returned. We chose to retain access to several ebook and streaming video resources acquired through our consortium since they proved to be useful and valuable additions to our suite of resources.

Upgrades to System for Accessing Resources Off Campus

Posted by on July 7, 2021 No comments

IT Services and the Ames Library will be upgrading the EZProxy system in the coming weeks. This is the system that allows the Illinois Wesleyan community to connect to library resources and “intra” web pages from off campus.

After the EZProxy upgrade you will still be able to search databases and click links to Ames Library resources from any location. However, if you connect from off campus you’ll notice a new campus login page:

This represents more than just a new design. You may notice a new web address (https://login.iwu.edu). There’s also a different technology under the hood which paves the way for other important improvements such as multi-factor authentication.

We’ll be rolling out the new login for other campus services throughout the summer. As always, please reach out with any questions or concerns at https://help.iwu.edu/.

Ebook Central Downtime

Posted by on June 24, 2021 No comments

Ebook Central will be down for planned maintenance from 9 am – 5 pm CST on Saturday, June 26. Titles from the Academic Complete ebook collection will not be available during this time.

Juneteenth book talk with Opal Lee

Posted by on June 15, 2021 No comments
Opal Lee coverpage

The city of Boulder will sponsor a talk with Opal Lee–the Grand Mother of Juneteenth.
At 94 years young–Opal Lee leads a campaign with Carmelo Anthony, Sean Combs, and 
Pharrell to make Juneteenth a National Holiday.  

This virtual talk happens–Saturday (June 19th–!0:00).  
It will also be recorded and posted on youtube.
You can register for the program HERE.

Harpercollins will publish Opal Lee’s  poignant picture book biography soon.

Opal Lee coverpage

NYT artist–Keturah Bobo is the illustrator.  The pictures are stunning.  
The text is lyrical and engaging.  And it includes a a red Juneteenth punch recipe
from Texan and famous Diva Chef–Angela Medearis. 
Will you pre-order the book HERE?

RISE AND SHINE!
IT’S JUNETEENTH TIME!
LET THE JOY BEGIN!
JUNETEENTH IS FOR EVERYONE.
JUNETEENTH IS YOU AND ME!

Ames Awards Announcement

Posted by on April 20, 2021 No comments

 

Serenade by Jazalyn Belz

“Serenade” by Jazalyn Belz

Congratulations to Jazalyn Belz, ’24, the 2021 recipient of The Ames Library Art Purchase Award! Jazalyn’s print, titled “Serenade,” will be displayed in the library soon. The Art Purchase Award is a long-standing tradition at the library, and you can view more student art in our digital collection.

Congratulations to Katie Fata, ’22, the 2021 recipient of The Ames Library Scholarly and Artistic Research Proposal Award! Katie’s research project, “__Plath: Confronting the Tone Policing of Sylvia Plath,” will take her to explore the archives at Indiana University, and she will be sharing her progress via a blog this summer. Her final project will reside in Digital Commons @ IWU when complete.

 

 

The Ames Library is Open!

Posted by on March 23, 2021 No comments

 

The library is now open!

Thanks to Physical Plant staff for keeping our building safe and beautiful!

The Ames Library Announces Open Educational Resources (OER) Exploratory Grants

Posted by on March 3, 2021 No comments

The Ames Library OER Exploration Grants

The Ames Library will fund five, two-hundred dollar grants for faculty to explore Open Educational resources (OER) for their class(es). OER are defined as learning resources, teaching practices, and  education policies that use the flexibility of OER to provide learners with high quality educational experiences. OER are either in the public domain or licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities – retaining, remixing, revising, reusing and redistributing the resources. There is increasing OER interest for higher education because they help to reduce educational inequality by removing (or reducing) student costs to access course materials. Large scale studies of OER show lower course drop rates, improved student grades, and better retention. For this grant, materials that are not strictly OER, but are “free” to students, such as library-owned articles, videos, digital archives, and open access materials are also acceptable.

OER can include any of the following:

  • Open textbooks
  • Public domain materials
  • Videos
  • Tutorials / modules / simulations
  • Quizzes / ancillary materials

Our goal with the OER grant is for faculty to explore OER resources, selecting and critically assessing specific materials for inclusion in their courses, and ultimately, to encourage faculty to adopt OERs. We also hope faculty will be able to use the results of these exploration grants to later propose CD grants focused on revising courses or assignments to incorporate OERs.

Requirements

Faculty will be asked to select and review several OERs and/or materials that are free to students that have the potential for integration into a current or future course. OER repositories and search engines can be found on the Ames Library OER LibGuide and the CARLI Open Illinois Initiative site. Your liaison librarian is happy to assist as well. 

At the conclusion of the project, grant recipients agree to participate in a campus panel discussion about materials you discovered and how you plan to incorporate them into an assignment/course. In addition, the faculty member will submit a 2-3 page (single spaced) written report which will include the following:

  • Summary and evaluation of specific OER or free-to-students resources that you discovered 
  • How these materials support your pedagogical goals
  • The class or classes these materials could be incorporated into
  • Reflection on the evolving role of OER in higher education and/or your discipline

Grants are awarded on a first-come, first-served, basis and the grant disbursements will occur after the receipt of your written report. Reports are due within five months from initial approval.

If you would like to secure one of these grants, or have any questions, please contact Chris Sweet in the Ames Library (csweet@iwu.edu, x3984).

Black History Month Resources

Posted by on February 22, 2021 No comments

To celebrate Black History Month, we’ll be sharing resources from our collection as well as sites from around the internet:

screenshot of The Star of ZionOur subscription to the African American Historical Serials Collection provides access to “an archive of periodicals that document the history of African American religious life and culture between 1829 and 1922. It includes newspapers and magazines, plus reports and annuals from African American religious organizations, including churches and social service agencies. Now compiled and accessible to researchers in one digital collection, this unique resource documents the history of African American life and religious organizations from 1829 and 1922. Content features multiple religious denominations, including the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Zion Church and many Baptist churches.”

University Council on Diversity Alumni interviewsIn 2010, the University Council on Diversity invited alumni to participate in interviews addressing diversity. This collection, stewarded by Meg Miner, our University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, will be added to as more interviews are done with alumni in the future.

 

 

 

 

UGA NewsThe University of Georgia’s Brown Media Archives recently discovered footage from the area’s African American community in a home movie. Read the press release, or visit the Brown Media Archives page for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

JSTOR Companion to Schomburg's reading list JSTOR, one of our favorite organizations, recently created a companion to the renowned Schomburg Center’s for Research in Black Culture‘s Black Liberation Reading List. For more information about the reading list, see the JSTOR Daily, which also links to Black Liberation Lists for teens and children.

 

 

 

 

 

Historymakers From the Library of Congress, The HistoryMakers collects oral histories from notables in the African American community, across the United States. Artists, sports figures, lawmakers, and scientists are just a few of the groups represented.

 

Call for Scholarly and Artistic Research Award Proposals!

Posted by on February 15, 2021 No comments

The Ames Library Scholarly and Artistic Research Proposal Award provides one $500 award for an IWU student, under the supervision of a faculty sponsor, to propose a significant research or creative project in their specific fields of study. More details and application instructions are available online, and the deadline is March 8.

We can’t wait to read about your ideas for your research!

Japanese Woodblock Print Exhibition

Posted by on January 21, 2021 No comments
Bamboo Quay

Bamboo Quay

Bamboo Quay by Kyobashi Bridge (Kyobashi Takegashi)

A selection of Utagawa Hiroshige’s woodblock prints are on exhibit in The School of Art’s Wakeley Gallery now through February 11, 2021. Each print is a small world to lose yourself in during these trying times.

These and other woodblock prints are part of IWU’s Campus Art Collection.

From the exhibition guide:
In Hiroshige’s groundbreaking series of woodblock prints, The 53 Stations of the Tokaido (1832-1833), he captured the journey along the Tokaido road, the highway connecting Edo to Kyoto, the imperial capital.

Hiroshige’s prints continue to convey the beauty of Japan and provide insight into the everyday life of its citizens during the Edo period. The appeal of his tender, lyrical landscapes was not restricted to the Japanese audience. Hiroshige’s work had a profound influence on the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists of Europe: Toulouse-Lautrec was fascinated with Hiroshige’s daring diagonal compositions and inventive use of perspective, while Van Gogh literally copied two of Hiroshige’s prints from the famous series, 100 Famous Views of Edo in oil paint.
resource: https://www.roningallery.com/artists/Hiroshige