This session will focus on the use of RSS feeds for pedagogical purposes. RSS stands for “Real Simple Syndication.” RSS is a protocol that lets users subscribe to online content using an RSS “reader” or “aggregator”. Rather than checking 20 or 50 or 100 blogs every day, subscribing to RSS feeds using an aggregator allows you to receive regular updates from your favorite information sources on the web. Aggregating and culling information from the web in this manner is pedagogically relevant for a wide range of courses and disciplines. RSS provides an efficient way for students to keep in touch with faculty, stay informed about coursework and other academic activities, and follow developments in their fields of study.

Robin Ladouceur will introduce RSS feeds and give an overview of RSS feed readers and aggregators. Barbara Stuart will present her use of RSS Feeds in her English 114 course this fall on the Election.

When?
Tuesday from 1:00-2:00 p.m.

Where?
Bass Library room L01 (lower level of the Bass Library)

Who?
Barbara Stuart, English Lecturer
Robin Ladouceur, Instructional Design Specialist, Instructional Technology Group

The University Library has launched a blog to document the actions and activities of the Library Green Team, a group of staff from across the Library system working to make Yale University Library a greener and more sustainable workplace. Visit the blog to find out what we're doing to reduce energy consumption, increase recycling, and promote environmentally sustainable work practices to support of Yale's wider goal of reducing its carbon footprint.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library also has a blog, 'The Greening of the Beinecke', that describes their green goals and actions.

New features and a bold new design are now available for Yale University Library's Visual Resources Collection (VRC). The VRC contains over 250,000 images of art, architecture, and art objects used by students and faculty in teaching and learning.

The new design, released now in its initial beta phase, is called Metagallery and allows users to login and create groups, browse groups created by others, and even add their own items to groups. Metagallery is available to anyone on the Yale campus at http://images.library.yale.edu/metagallery.

Graduate students in the social sciences are invited to attend focus groups to discuss future plans for the Social Science Library and StatLab in light of Yale's plans to build two new residential colleges in the Prospect-Sachem triangle. For more information and to register, click here.

Ben Kiernan
A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History & Director, Genocide Studies Program
Yale University

Wednesday, October 29, 4:00 p.m.
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall Street
Reception to follow | Free and open to the public

For thirty years Ben Kiernan has been deeply involved in the study of genocide and crimes against humanity. He has played a key role in unearthing confidential documentation of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge and his writings have transformed our understanding not only of twentieth-century Cambodia, but also of the historical phenomenon of genocide.

Kiernan examines outbreaks of mass violence from the classical era to the present, focusing on worldwide colonial exterminations and twentieth-century case studies including the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalin’s mass murders, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides. He identifies connections, patterns, and features that in nearly every case gave early warning of the catastrophe to come: racism or religious prejudice, territorial expansionism, and cults of antiquity and agrarianism.

Please stop by an Open House in the Thain Family Café on Friday, October 17 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. to celebrate the Bass Library's first birthday. Just one year ago, the Library opened at midnight to an estimated crowd of 1,500 who gathered on the Cross Campus. To mark the success of the Bass Library and the way in which it has become a center for collaboration between students, faculty, and library staff, coffee, cookies, and cider will be served in the Thain Family Café. Take a break from studying (or Facebook) and stop by this Friday afternoon.

A gentle reminder that beyond the Café in the Bass Library, food cannot be consumed and liquids are only allowed in approved spill-proof containers.

Yale University will mark the 250th birthday of alumnus Noah Webster with a series of events on October 16-17 that range from special exhibits, lectures, and tour to birthday cupcakes inscribed with words that first appeared in Webster’s landmark 1828 dictionary. The Library's department of Manuscripts and Archives is a major sponsor of Noah Webster 250 and many of the lectures and events will take place in the Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall (128 Wall Street). A detailed schedule of events can found here.

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.

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

The University Library has launched a beta version of Yufind, an experimental alternative interface to its catalog. Yufind is not a replacement for Orbis, the Library’s current catalog, but it provides a new kind of discovery experience for users, one that better fits current search expectations and incorporates a variety of Web 2.0 tools.

Orbis transaction logs show that searches often fail because of misspelled words, use of natural language (versus controlled vocabularies like Library of Congress Subject Headings), or information entered into the wrong search fields. Users also expect a Google-like interface that suggests alternate spellings and employs sophisticated relevancy ranking and faceted navigation to help display and narrow search results.

Yufind offers a powerful keyword relevancy ranking algorithm, RSS feeds, formatted export of bibliographic citations, integration of cover art, book reviews, sample book chapters, tables of contents, and real-time circulation status. Future enhancements will include the ability to bookmark and annotate records and send them to an e-mail address, cell phone, or PDA, while longer-term goals aim to integrate archival finding aids, visual image records, and new facets that will allow results to be narrowed by item availability and location.

The Library invites user feedback to help improve Yufind, and questions and comments can be sent to Daniel Lovins. For detailed information about Yufind and to contact members of the project team visit About Yufind.

Tours of Sterling Memorial and Bass Libraries begin today, September 2nd. Additional tours are scheduled for Thursday, September 4th, Friday, September 5th, Thursday, September 11th, Friday, September 12th, Friday, September 19th, Friday September 26th, Thursday, October 2nd, and Friday October 3rd. Tours begin in the Sterling Memorial Library nave at 3:30 p.m. and are open to any member of the Yale community. No sign-up or advance registration is required. Please bring your Yale ID.

The University Library is in the process of designing a new and reconceived social science library which will include classrooms, an information commons with full suites of digital services, social and study spaces, collections, and a café. As part of the University’s overall plans for the Sachem-Prospect triangle and the construction of two new residential colleges, the Seeley G. Mudd and Social Science Libraries will be reconfigured to support learning and research in the social sciences campus-wide as well as the community of students who will be housed in the new colleges.

To create this new library, the Mudd Library and Government Documents and Information Center (GDIC) will be closed to readers as of September 15, 2008. To keep disruption to a minimum, services and collections will continue to be available during the closure in the following ways:

Mudd Library Collections

•Items in the Mudd Library can be requested for delivery through Orbis and delivered to any library on campus
•Yale faculty and graduate students can request articles from Mudd Library journals or selections from other Mudd Library holdings; material will be delivered electronically
•David McCaslin can be contacted with special requests

Government Documents and Information Center (GDIC) Collections

•A non-circulating GDIC reference collection will be relocated to the Social Science Library
•Government documents will circulate during the closure and can be requested for delivery via Orbis to any library on campus
•Readers who cannot find items in Orbis can use an online form or an e-mail to request a search of the collections. If an item is found but not catalogued, it will be processed first before it is allowed to circulate
•GDIC microform materials can be requested for delivery via Orbis. Microform reading, printing, and scanning services will be available in the Social Science Library, Sterling Memorial Library, and Divinity School Library
•GDIC research assistance will be available in the Social Science Library
•Julie Linden can be contacted with special requests

Members of the Yale community are invited to contact Jill Parchuck, Director of Social Science Libraries and Information Services, or Kendall Crilly, Associate University Librarian for Program Development and Research, with questions or concerns.

Beginning Tuesday, September 2, Information Services, located in the Sterling Memorial Library nave, will provide information about the University Library’s collections and services, directional assistance, referrals to subject specialists, and reference assistance, as well as information about reader access to the libraries including privileges cards for visiting researchers, study carrels, fines, and circulation. This new service will integrate Privileges Office operations and reference desk services.

The service also represents increased hours in which staff will be available to assist readers in the Sterling nave, as well as enhanced support for readers who have questions about accessing the Library and its resources.

Information Services will be available Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.; Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.; Sunday, 1:00- 5:00 p.m.

Questions and comments about this new service can be sent to Danuta Nitecki, Associate University Librarian for Public Services and Library Teaching and Learning.

The new Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library in the Rudolph Building and Loria Center at 180 York Street is now open! Fall semester hours are Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-11:00 p.m.; Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.; and Sunday, 2:00-11:00 p.m.

The opening of the Arts Library Special Collections, located on the lower level of the Haas Family Arts Library, will be delayed until September 8. For more information, visit the Arts Library's web site.

The Yale University Library now has a profile on Facebook, the popular social networking web site. The Library's profile includes news and information, research tools, images, and blog posts from across the Library system. You can access the Library's profile here or by searching for 'Yale University Library' in the Facebook search box. Show your support by becoming a fan and use the site to access the Library's resources, services, and collections.

Beginning July 30, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library collections began moving into the Rudolph Building and the Jeffrey Loria Center for the History of Art at 180 Crown Street. Arts of the Book, located in Sterling Memorial Library, was the first collection to move. Beginning August 4, the Drama collections will be moved into these spaces. The move of the Art & Architecture collections have now been postponed to an as yet unknown date. Library personnel from all Arts units (including Drama, Arts Special Collections, VRC) will continue to work from their current office locations. Access to Drama and Arts Special Collections will be limited until further notice. Please continue to check the Arts Library web site for updates.

Questions and concerns regarding the Arts Library closure can be directed to Allen Townsend. We look forward to serving the Yale Community in the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library.

Each year, the Library Staff Association (LiSA) holds a food drive to benefit the Connecticut Food Bank, a local organization that works with corporations, community organizations, and individuals to solicit, transport, warehouse and distribute donated food. This year's drive will begin Monday, July 14th and end on Friday, August 1st. The "Virtual Food Drive" website created for the Yale University Library makes it even easier to donate "food" or funds to the Connecticut Food Bank. Last year, Library staff donated a total of 1,060 pounds of food, the equivalent of 815 meals.

The Annual Report of the University Librarian 2006-2007 has been released and is available online in pdf format.

For Immediate Release
June 26, 2008

New Haven, Conn.—Yale University Library today announced that it is has received a grant of $294,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support Yale’s Oral History American Music project (OHAM). The grant will help OHAM transition into a sustained program within the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library.

OHAM is the only ongoing project in the field of music dedicated to the collection and preservation of oral and video memoirs in the voices of musicians and composers. The project’s origins can be traced back to 1968 when Vivian Perlis, then a reference librarian at Yale’s Music Library, began to conduct interviews with individuals who had known and worked with the composer Charles Ives. Her award-winning book, Charles Ives Remembered, was published in 1974 by Yale University Press, and was quickly hailed as a model of how oral history could illuminate the activities of musicians and their place in society.

Over a decade in the planning, the new Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library in the Paul Rudolph Building reflects and meets the changing needs of teaching, research, and learning in the arts at Yale. Arts Library collections and staff, currently housed in a number of buildings across campus including the swing space at 270 Crown Street, will move into the Haas Family Arts Library later this summer in time for the fall semester. The Library will house the collections of the Art + Architecture Library, the Drama Library, and the Arts of the Book Collection, as well as staff and services for the Visual Resources Collection, and will become the physical and intellectual center for the pursuit of research, teaching, learning, and practice of the arts at Yale.

The Haas Family Arts Library will feature a variety of spaces for individual study, group study spaces, a large teaching space, and secure reading and teaching spaces for Arts Library special collections. The Special Collections Reading Room, a dramatic feature of the central two-story atrium, enhances interdisciplinary studies by realizing the long-planned consolidation of the many important special collections of the Arts Library, including the Arts of the Book Collection, one of the largest special collections at Yale and one of the most important book arts collections in North America. The Special Collections Exhibit area, which will continuously showcase exhibitions of the Library’s treasures, will feature a plaque recognizing a significant gift from William H. Wright, ’82.

More information on Arts Library services during the planned move period will be made available over the coming weeks on the Library's web site: www.library.yale.edu/art/.

As of Monday, June 30, 2008, all Blackwell Synergy journal content, including all full-text HTML and PDF versions of articles from current issues, backfiles, and issues published online before print, will be incorporated into Wiley InterScience.

On Friday, June 27 at 9:00 pm Blackwell Synergy will close down. On Saturday, June 28 at 5:00 am Wiley InterScience will go offline temporarily due to the migration of the content. On Sunday, June 29 at 9:00 pm Wiley InterScience will come back online with the Blackwell Synergy journals incorporated. Over the weekend there will be a period when both Blackwell Synergy and Wiley InterScience will be unavailable while they transition and re-index data.

For more information, visit Wiley-Blackwell's Online Content Transition News.

During the summer months, the Thain Family Café at the Bass Library is open Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. It is closed on weekends and holidays.

Yale alumni, spouses, friends, family, and guests are warmly invited to Reunion Weekend events at Sterling Memorial Library on June 6 and 7. June 7 coincides with the Library's Open House Day and all are welcome. Detailed information and a schedule of tours and events can be found in the "read more" section of this entry.

The Lewis Walpole Library is delighted to announce the recipients of Fellowships for the 2008-2009 academic year. A complete list of Fellows follows in the extended entry.

The Library offers visiting fellowships, normally for four weeks, as well as travel grants of lesser duration, to scholars engaged in post-doctoral or equivalent research and to doctoral candidates at the dissertation stage. Fellows in residence also have access to additional materials at Yale. Summer fellowships for graduate students at Yale are also offered.

The Lewis Walpole Library is a research library for eighteenth-century studies and the prime source for the study of Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. Its collections include significant holdings of eighteenth-century British books, manuscripts, prints, drawings and paintings, as well as important examples of the decorative arts.

Students from New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School and archivists from Yale University Library will celebrate their collaboration on the Family and Community Archives Project (FCAP) with an event on Wednesday, May 28 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in Sterling Memorial Library’s lecture hall (128 Wall Street). The media is welcome to attend.

In response to the Society of American Archivists call for action in developing a more diverse archival workforce, twenty-one Yale University Library archivists conceived the Family and Community Archives Project to introduce New Haven high school students to the archival profession and the work of professional archivists. Over nine weeks, 113 juniors and their teachers in “United States History II” learned how to find and care for photographs, documents, and artifacts and learned how to do research using primary sources.

The University Library moved to its summer schedule on May 13, 2008. For detailed information on opening and closing times for all libraries, visit: www.library.yale.edu/hours.

For release May 6, 2008

New Haven, Conn.--Important periods in the history of Yale will now be more accessible to scholars and students through the Yale University Library’s Yale Daily News Historical Archive.

The Yale Daily News (YDN) is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States, and has been covering student life at Yale and in New Haven for 130 years. The Library has now digitized key periods from the YDN including January 1878 to June 1879, the first year of the YDN’s publication; the period covering the two World Wars; the era of civil unrest, coeducation, and the Black Panther trials from 1967 to 1970; and the early years of President A. Bartlett Giamatti’s administration from 1978 to 1981. The Library is working with a number of partners to digitize the entire run of the YDN from 1878 to 2000, and content from January 2001 to the present is already available online at the YDN web site.