Jonathan Holloway, Yale Professor of History, African American Studies, and American Studies recounts visiting the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in his first month of graduate school and the transformative experience that grew out of his surprise encounter with Richard Wright's landmark text, Native Son.
You can listen to and download the podcast free via the Beinecke’s Blogs & Podcasts page and through Yale's iTunesU web site.
Spend twenty minutes filling out an online survey on the Library's beta Yufind catalog interface and you could win an iPod Touch. A valid Yale University e-mail account is required and Library staff are not eligible to participate. The lucky winner's name will be drawn on October 17, 2008 and readers can access the survey here.
Yufind has been available since August 22 as an alternate interface for Orbis, the Library's current catalog. In order to improve and enchance Yufind and to measure reader satisfaction, the Library welcomes feedback and comments.
Twofortyfive is a new blog brought to you by the Library's Usability and Assessment department.
Traditionally, librarians have been dedicated to making their collections easier to discover, access, and use. Readers once had to physically come into the library and it was easy to get to know them and understand how they worked and what they needed. In the digital world, however, there is less opportunity for patron and librarian to talk to each other, because it is less common for them to interact in real time or in the same physical space. More and more collections are online, scholars are online, librarians are online too, but meaningful interactions are less frequent.
The Usability and Assessment team spend alot of time examining and evaluating the reader experience on the web and this blog is designed to improve two way communication between library staff and its users.
Beginning on September 29 and for the remainder of the fall term, Manuscripts and Archives will remain open for research until 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. Hours of operation are also extended to Sunday afternoons from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Readers may use previously paged collection material, but there is no additional reference or paging service available during these times.
Yale University Library has received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for Improving Search and Discovery of Digital Resources Using Topic Modeling, a unique research project that will attempt to improve the search and discovery of digital resources. The project will leverage the enormous textual output from mass digitization efforts and the popularity of social tagging to improve the searchability and usability of digital library and museum collections. Partners in the project include the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine.
Continue reading "Library Receives Grant to Investigate Topic Modeling" »
An exhibition celebrating the 250th birthday of lexicographer Noah Webster has opened in the Memorabilia Room in Sterling Memorial Library. Titled "Noah Webster: American Patriot and Yale Loyalist," the exhibition demonstrates that Webster, Yale class of 1778, M.A. 1781, and Honorary Doctor of Laws 1823, was far more than just a brilliant compiler of dictionaries. His astoundingly various contributions to his country and his proud identity as a Yale man are vividly displayed in this collection of manuscripts, books, and artifacts, reflecting a lifetime of accomplishment, innovation, and unflagging patriotism.
Webster played a major role in the drafting and ratification of the Constitution and played a crucial impact on the development of the American educational system. The father of copyright legislation in the United States, Webster also served in elected offices both in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and played an important role in the creation of Amherst College.
These diverse achievements and more are represented in the sections like Webster the Yale Man, Webster the Patriot, and Webster the Historian, but Noah Webster was also a lawyer, a teacher, an ecologist, a geographer, a moralist, and above all a founding "uncle," if not a founding father, of his country. His triumphant achievement as a landmark lexicographer of the English language has hitherto overshadowed his many and important accomplishments in other areas.
The exhibition will be on display through the end of November. It is free and open to the public during scheduled library hours. Sterling Memorial Library is located at 120 High Street, New Haven, Connecticut.
The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library and the Kline Science Library have purchased access to more than 2,000 e-books in the Springer Medicine and Life Sciences packages. They can be accessed through SpringerLink. Each title will eventually be represented in Orbis, Yale Library's online catalog.
The Yale Map Department is offering a number of GIS workshops throughout the term. All workshops will be held in the Bass Library Electronic Classroom L06 (Lower Level) from 1:00-4:00 p.m. For more information, contact Stacey Maples.
Register for the workshops here.
(Please note that the registration page currently only works with Internet Explorer with pop-ups enabled.)
Introduction to GIS Mapping and ESRI’s ArcGIS Software
An introduction to the basic concepts of creating, managing and analyzing explicitly spatial data within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) framework. Included is a step-by-step, "hands on" introduction to using spatial data within ESRI's ArcGIS software. Topics will include: Spatial Data Models, Spatial Relationships, The ArcMap User Interface, Thematic Mapping Using Symbology, and Simple Analysis Using Complex Selection Methods.
Dates:
Wednesday, September 24
Friday, October 17
Wednesday, November
Thursday, December 3
Finding GIS and Census Data & Preparing It for Use
Geographic data can come from a variety of sources, including your own database files and spreadsheets, federal, state and local governmental agencies and commercial vendors. This workshop will focus upon dependable sources of commonly used GIS data, common data file formats, projections & coordinate systems, scale, aggregation, metadata, and issues of sources and citation. Special Attention will be given to downloading and preparing Census data for use in GIS software.
Date:
Wednesday, October 1
From Non-Spatial Data to Spatial Data: Geocoding & Georeferencing in ArcGIS
This workshop provides the skills necessary for turning non-spatial data, such as street addresses and scanned maps, into explicitly spatial data for use in GIS analysis. Topics include: The TIGER Data Model, Collecting Useable Address Data, The Geocoding Process, Troubleshooting Problem Addresses, Using Offsets, Scanning and Georeferencing of Paper Maps, and Display of XY Data.
Date:
Wednesday, October 8
Raster: The ‘Other’ GIS Data
The Raster Data Model provided an effective means of characterizing spatially continuous phenomena, such as elevation, temperature, precipitation and other environmental and climatic characteristics. This workshop provides a targeted introduction to the tools available in ArcGIS for creating, managing and analyzing data in raster form. Topics include: Introduction to Spatial Analyst, Map Algebra and the Raster Calculator, Surface Analysis, and Combining Vector & Raster Data in Analysis.
Date:
Wednesday, October 15
GPS & GIS: Collecting Spatial Coordinates and Using them in ArcGIS
A workshop designed to introduce the participant to the use of consumer-grade GPS equipment for the collection of explicitly spatial data for analysis within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) framework. Topics include: The Global Positioning Satellite System, Coordinate Systems, Minimizing Measurement Error, and Converting Tabular Data to ESRI Shapefiles.
Date:
Wednesday, October 22
Editing in ArcGIS: Creating and Altering Spatial Data
The objective of this workshop is to provide participants with hands on experience with editing in ArcGIS (or doing "heads-up" digitizing), to provide an appreciation of the issues involved in editing to maintain topological consistency and to demonstrate the steps which may be involved in creating a new, spatially accurate coverage.
Date:
Wednesday, October 29
Creating Map Layouts in ArcGIS
This workshop will introduce the ArcGIS tools available for creating effective map layouts that are capable of clearly conveying the results of GIS analysis to an audience. Topics include: Symbolization, Advanced Labeling, Annotation, Using Graphics in Layouts, Cartographic Elements, and Grids & Graticules.
Date:
Wednesday, November 5
Classic Cartographic Techniques in ArcGIS
One of the drawbacks of the computer revolution in mapping is the decline in attention to cartography as a graphic art. Working in the Yale Map Collection exposes one to the most beautiful cartography ever produced. This workshop is intended to provide the participant with an appreciation of the graphic and cartographic techniques used in classic cartography and the tools to reproduce some of these elements in their own cartographic work. Topics will include: Coastal & Lacustrine Vignettes, Depiction of Topography and Use of Color in Thematic Mapping, Decorative Typography and Creating Custom Cartographic Elements. This workshop is being presented as part of the activities celebrating GIS Day 2008.
Date:
Wednesday, November 19
Yale University Library and Oxford University Press will mark the 80th anniversary of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) with a symposium featuring four “word-renowned” experts on October 1.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Sterling-Sheffield-Strathcona lecture hall, 1 Prospect Street. The speakers are Fred Shapiro, Associate Librarian at the Yale Law School and editor of The Yale Book of Quotations; Simon Winchester, author of The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary and The Professor and the Madman; Jesse Sheidlower, the OED’s editor-at-large; and Ammon Shea, author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages.
Continue reading "Library Celebrates 80th Anniversary of the OED" »
The Collaborative Learning Center is offering a weekly program called Teaching w/ Technology Tuesdays. This program is for those teaching at Yale (staff, faculty, and students) interested in innovative instructional activities that utilize technology.
September 16: Facebook
Facebook is an online social networking website that was launched in 2004. The New Media Consortium’s 2008 Horizon Report designated Social Operating Systems, like Facebook, one of the 6 emerging technologies of 2008 likely to be widely implemented in educational contexts in the next 4-5 years. This session will orient you to the Facebook topography and showcase how it is being used by faculty and library instructors. Please come to our fall inaugural Teaching w/ Technology Tuesday, if you have ever wondered what all the fuss is about Facebook, or how it might be used for instruction.
When? Tuesday from 1:00 - 2:00pm
Where? Bass Library room L01 (lower level of the Bass Library)
Who? Robin Ladouceur, Instructional Design Specialist, will introduce Facebook. Michael Farina of the Italian Department and Geoffrey Little, Communications Coordinator in the Library, will demonstrate how they use Facebook for instructional purposes.
Fall 2008 Schedule
September
16 Facebook
23 Geospatial Data Collection
30 Ynote (collaborative research database tool)
October
07 Wikis
14 Teaching w/ Digital Images
21 Viddler
28 Student Created Video
November
04 Tablets
11 What's on the Horizon - Bryan Alexander, NITLE
25 RSS and Alerts
For more information visit http://clc.yale.edu or e-mailclc@yale.edu.
