This week in Library News:

• Events
• Sustainability and Environment awards presented
• DeStress Fest
• Hudson-Ward selected as CIC Academic Leadership Program fellow
• Libraries announce award recipients
• Winner of Lynd Ward Prize announced
• Circ-Reserves Expert Team and Access Services Council roles
• Library hosts book deconstruction workshop
• Tech Tip: Uninstall programs with Privilege Guard
• LHR News
• Maps Library display uncovers Crimean history
• Faculty News
• Bibload Meeting Minutes
• Copyright status notes added to Sanborn map collection

May 6, noon to 2 p.m.: Film Fest to Celebrate 100 Years of Cooperative Extension, Foster Auditorium. Enjoy old black and white silent films produced by USDA to promote their latest technology for the farm and home. Join us for all or part of this event. Films will be followed by a discussion by Jan Scholl, Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education.

May 9, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.: MediaTech Expo: This year’s Technology Expo will showcase what’s new for 2014, President’s Hall, Penn Stater Conference Center, University Park campus.

May 28, 2-3:30 p.m.: How to get the most out of training – Insights into adult learning and learning styles, Mann Assembly Room. Register on techsmart. This workshop is designed for supervisors and their staff trainers. Topics include: who are adult learners and why are they different from traditional students, ten principles of adult learning, learning styles and the VAK model, and meeting the learning styles of adult learners. During the workshop, participants will learn about their personal learning style and discover methods for meeting the learning styles of the adult learners. If you have any questions, please contact Rita Buhite, user services training coordinator at rbb21@psu.edu.

In a ceremony on Earth Day, April 22, at the Sustainability Experience Center on Penn State’s University Park Campus, three undergraduate students received the inaugural “Award for Undergraduate Research in Sustainability and the Environment.”

Mark Staub, a student in the energy and sustainability policy program in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, received the first place award of $2000, for his project on the Sensible Accounting to Value (Save) Act. This bipartisan piece of legislation was presented in 2011 to improve mortgage underwriting and energy efficiency. Using traditional research, a survey and interviews, Staub’s paper analyzed the perceived benefits, impacts and current status of the act.

Two students in the architecture program in the College of Arts and Architecture, each received the second place award of $1000, for projects focusing on sustainable education and research. Emily Liuzza was awarded for her architectural rendering of The Research and Visitor Center at ALCOSAN, a project to create an environmentally friendly research and visitor facility for a wastewater treatment facility in the Pittsburgh area. Ryan Andrew David was recognized for his YES! Project (Youth Education in Sustainability), an immersive educational experience for students in grades 3–5, to teach underlying philosophies of sustainability.

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For finals week, Penn State University Libraries are hosting a DeStress Fest, beginning Sunday, May 2, through Wednesday, May 7. Activities in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library, include:

• Sunday–Wednesday, 4–6 p.m., free snacks and beverages
• Monday–Wednesday, 1–4 p.m., HealthWorks Mobile De-Stress Zone
• Monday–Wednesday, 1–10 p.m., Life-size Scrabble board, puzzles, and other games; aromatherapy tent

In addition, students will be able to play popular Wii games in the Pattee Library Mall entrance  through Wednesday night. The De-stress Fest is sponsored by the University Libraries. For more information or for questions regarding special needs or physical access, contact Joe Fennewald at jaf23@psu.edu or 814-865-0666.

Associate Librarian Alexia Hudson-Ward has been selected by Penn State’s administration to be a 2014–15 CIC Academic Leadership Program (ALP) Fellow. She is among five faculty selected by Penn State to attend this program that addresses the challenges of academic administration at major research universities.

Hudson-Ward

Hudson-Ward, a Penn State librarian since 2006, is based at Abington College. She is also a doctoral student in a program focused on managerial leadership in the information professions at Simmons College. Prior to her career as a librarian, she was a customer marketing manager for The Coca-Cola Company’s Foodservice Division. She currently serves on the National Board of Directors for the American Library Association.

Dean of Libraries Barbara I. Dewey notes, “One of the most successful Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) leadership initiatives, ALP was established in 1989 to develop the leadership and managerial skills of faculty who have demonstrated exceptional ability and academic promise, such as Alexia Hudson-Ward.”

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Each year Penn State’s University Libraries honor individuals nominated by faculty and staff and selected by the Libraries Awards Committee to receive University Libraries Awards. Those recently receiving awards include:

• Robert C. Harris, manager of Libraries Human Resources, received the University Libraries Award.
• Megan C. Gilpin, outreach coordinator for Libraries Learning Services, and Marcus J. Fowler, associate director of Development for the University Libraries, received the Margaret Knoll Spangler Oliver Libraries Award.
• Paula M. Smith, associate librarian, reference, at the Abington Campus, received the University Libraries Diversity Award.
• Lauren M. Reiter, business liaison librarian, in the William and Joan Schreyer Business Library, received the University Libraries Teaching Award.

For more information, please call Public Relations and Marketing at 814-863-4240, during normal business hours.

Penn State University Libraries and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book are pleased to announce that “Fran,” by Jim Woodring and published by Fantagraphics Books, has won the Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year for 2014.

‘Lush and absorbing’…the winning book

“Woodring’s pen-and-ink technique is staggeringly lush and absorbing, yet he is equally proficient at ordering his panels into sequential art, thus driving his wordless story. These formal elements are critical to the book’s episodes of hilariously violent slapstick, distortions of time and space and depictions of a bizarre world vibrating with psychedelic energy. Characters seem like embodied archetypes or allegories of psychological states, expressing themselves through their interactions with the fluid and unpredictable world they inhabit. Hypnotic and subliminal while entertaining and compelling, ‘Fran’s’ dream world is at once familiar and unsettling, a conduit to mental states that, in many ways, only the graphic novel can achieve. Woodring’s work poses a refreshing change from the trend towards wordy graphic memoir, entreating the reader to reckon with a world whose language we cannot capture in our own,” comments the jury.

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Submitted by Nina Clements, reference and instruction librarian, John D. Vairo Library, Penn State Brandywine

To celebrate National Library Week (April 13-19), Brandywine’s Vairo Library teamed up with English professor Beth Womack to host a book deconstruction workshop and contest. We were initially inspired by book sculptures she had previously created and thought a workshop would be a great way to get students excited about making art in the library. Students came together for a short common hour workshop and began to fold and slice into discarded books that staff members and others had donated for the event.

Workshop participants. Photo by Michael McDade

With the help of Professor Womack, we created a book display designed to inspire students, faculty, and staff to participate. A few students and I also promoted the event at Litapalooza, the campus’s annual literary festival, which helped to generate interest. All, in all, about 10 students and a few faculty and staff members participated, and we had seven contest entries.

Sculpture by Professor Beth Womack. Photo by Michael McDade

Contest winner Daniel García-Vargas took only 30 minutes to excavate this book with materials he found at the workshop. Photo by Nina Clements

This was a lively opportunity to show the campus that there are other things to be done to unwanted books besides tossing them in the recycling bin. They can easily be turned into works of art, and some of these pieces will remain on display until our next contest. We hope to turn it into an annual event.

Submitted by Heather Ross

Mongols and Germans and Russians…Oh my! Over the last 2000 years, the Crimean Peninsula has seen conquerors and occupiers. Using maps found in atlases in the Donald W. Hamer Maps Library you can trace the history of this valuable region. We also have a selection of other resources in several languages. Stop down and see our display in the Maps Library or view it online. Contact the Maps Library if you have any questions (UL-Maps@lists.psu.edu).

Detailed…this section of the poster details Crimea’s early history.

A selection of books and maps on display. Photos by Heather Ross

View a PDF of the poster

Submitted by Linda Musser

The Cataloging & Metadata Services Department recently completed adding Copyright Status notes (MARC field 542) to records in the Sanborn Fire Insurance map collection. This collection of maps shows historic details of Pennsylvania towns and is one of the most heavily used collections in the Maps Library. The notes reflect research done by the Maps Library staff regarding the copyright status of these maps, indicating which are now in the public domain due to lack of copyright renewal and documenting when maps which are still under copyright will move into the public domain. With the addition of these notes to the CAT records, all users will know the copyright status of each map. Through this project, approximately 250 additional maps will be made available to the public on the Digital Collections site.

Two examples below: