By: Hailley Fargo

This spring, the University Libraries were active participants in our undergraduate (and graduate) research exhibitions across the Commonwealth. Seventeen of our campus libraries participated in giving out a University Libraries’ Information Literacy Award. In total, 74 Penn State students received this award.

In preparation for awarding these 74 students, a team of Library employees got together in January to begin planning. This group was able to not only coordinate the award at their campuses, but also helped to make two great strides in this program. The group:

Revised and re-envisioned our rubric for evaluating student posters and research. While this rubric is iterative, the group this year made significant, impactful, and sustainable changes.

Created a shared poster creation workshop that was used at five campuses. We are excited to expand these numbers in the coming year.

A big shout out goes to the following colleagues who helped with creating the rubric — Joel Burkholder, Jen Jarson, Amy Rustic, Andrew Marshall, Beth Seyala, Erin Burns, Jen Hunter, Jo DePolt, and members of Library Learning Services. Additionally, the Poster Creation 101 workshop was created by Amy Deuink, Megan Mac Gregor, Christina Riehman-Murphy, Emily Mross, and John Siegel.

Additionally a round of thanks needs to go to everyone who helped judge for the Information Literacy Award across the Commonwealth. We could not have given out the award without you! Here at University Park, I’d like to thank Amanda Clossen, Carmen Cole, Claire Gianackos, Athena Jackson, Rebecca Miller, Rebecca Peterson, Kat Phillips, and Julie Porterfield for their efforts in helping choose our winners at UP.

To see a sampling of these Information Literacy Award winners, check our our 2018 Scholarsphere collection.

And although the exhibitions are over for the spring, the team will meet up at the end of May to debrief and begin setting goals for 2019. We look forward to expanding our award and the support we provide our students engaged in undergraduate research in the coming years! If you’re interested in getting more involved with this initiative, please reach out — hmf14@psu.edu!

By: Verne Neff and Steve Houck

The Cato – 2 Annex staff successfully completed Level 4 of the Green Paws Program. The Level 4 Green Paws Certificate and a letter signed by President Eric Baron was presented to the Annex staff by Penn State’s Sustainability Institute Director Paul Shrivastava, Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Education Sustainability Institute Lydia Vandenbergh, and institute member Daniella Espinoza on April 18, 2018.

The Cato – 2 Annex is staffed by members from Access Services and the Inactive Records Center. The Cato – 2 Annex adopted the Penn State Green standard on day 2 of opening its doors in 2008. The Green Paws Program has helped to develop a sense of comradery among the Annex’s staff relating to our environmental footprint.

The Annex staff are open for questions or guidance to any libraries units or departments that are interested in the program.

By: Jeff Toister (submitted by Carmen Gass)

Channel switching gets a bad rap in customer service.

If you are not familiar with the term, it refers to situations where a customer starts an interaction with a company in one channel and the interaction moves to another channel.

The customer sometimes initiates this. For instance, a customer might email a company with a question and then call a day later when she does not get a response. Read more here.

By: Wendi Keeler

2018 University Libraries Award winners from left: Marry Murray, Sherry Lonsdale, Christopher Holobar, Eric Novotny and Emily Rimland.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 University Libraries Awards!

The recipient of the Margaret Knoll Spangler Oliver Award — to honor and recognize outstanding service by employees at the University Libraries — is J. Christopher Holobar, manager of Lending and Reserve Services. Chris was nominated by Nadine Deitrich, who writes “Chris is the most calm, patient, and courteous person I have ever met. He treats everyone (and I mean everyone) with respect and is always offering to discuss problems with anyone; even when meeting under the most difficult situations.” Congratulations to Chris, who has been a full-time staff member of the University Libraries since 1993 and will receive his 25-year service award this year!

The Shirley J. Davis Staff Excellence Award — created in Shirley’s honor by faculty, staff, alumni, and friends as a tribute to her years of commitment to the University Libraries — was awarded to Mary Murray, Information Resources and Services Specialist at the John D. Vairo Library at Penn State Brandywine.  Going above and beyond what is expected was a common sentiment in Mary’s nomination packet. “While I can’t say enough about the quality of her work”, said Chris Avery, Sr. Director of Commonwealth Campus Libraries, “what has really impressed me about Mary over the years is the degree to which she always goes the extra mile to help a colleague out, cover the bases when no one else is on hand, and evens out the work environment to make sure everyone has a good day.”

the University Libraries Award recognizes a member of the University Libraries for professional contribution, service, leadership, and innovations, which have a significant influence on the operations of the University Libraries, earns respect of the Penn State community for the Libraries, or shows significant contribution to the library profession reflecting positively on Penn State and the University Libraries, and was awarded to History Librarian Eric Novotny. “Eric Novotny has been an invaluable and generous instructional resource. He graciously schedules library classes for my courses, tailoring them to meet the needs of the syllabus and the students,” wrote Dr. Lori Ginzberg, Professor of History and Women’s Studies, about Novotny. “Eric has been my primary, and most consistently innovative resource in the Pattee library, guiding me, my students, and my colleagues through technological changes that have transformed all our lives.”

the University Libraries Diversity Award rewards extraordinary commitment and/or contributions to enhancing our environment of mutual respect for differing backgrounds and points of view.  The Diversity Award rewards outstanding accomplishments and general impact in the area of diversity, and was awarded this year to Sherry Lonsdale, I-Tech database specialist, for ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion on the Commission for Women and throughout the University Libraries. In her nomination, Dace Freivalds, Department Head for Information Technologies says, “Sherry has worked tirelessly to ensure that Penn State provides a welcoming campus climate, recruits and retains a diverse workforce, and encourages organizational change to support diversity.”

The University Libraries Teaching Award honors an individual who has excelled in teaching and/or created an exemplary and innovative instruction program during the past year, and has a teaching component as part of their primary assignment. Emily Rimland, Information Literacy Librarian and Learning Technologies Coordinator, is the recipient of this year’s University Libraries Teaching Award.  In her nomination letter, Ellysa Cahoy, Education and Behavioral Sciences Librarian said that Emily “is a visionary library instructor and innovator who has created an exemplary and innovative instruction program that is rich with student impact. She is deeply committed to helping students become effective information consumers and information creators.”    

This year, 27 nominations were received for the five awards. The difficult job of choosing the winners from among the nominations was decided by the members of the award committee, chaired by Martha Ney and including Carmen Gass, Tara Murray, Karla Schmit, John Shank, and Ann Thompson.

In the words of Dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, Barbara Dewey, who presented each award during the ceremony, “Congratulations to all of our award winners. I am very proud of your accomplishments, commitment, and dedication in making our library system one of the best in the nation.”

By: Cate Fricke

Penn State University Press has unveiled its Fall/Winter 2018 catalog featuring new general interest and scholarly books in the fields of art history, photography, American history, Graphic Medicine, rhetoric and communication studies, medieval and early modern studies, and more.

The season’s general interest titles include a new graphic novel version of Cervantes’s timeless novel Don Quixote of La Mancha, adapted by Ilan Stavans and illustrated by Roberto Weil; Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields by Julia
Spicher Kasdorf, Penn State Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Steven Rubin, Penn State Associate Professor of Art; and Aesthetics of the Margins / The Margins of Aesthetics: Wild Art Explained by David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro, two philosophers of art who are also active critics and members of the art world about which they write.

Scholarly highlights include Study in Black and White: Photography, Race, Humor by Tanya Sheehan; Votes That Count and Voters Who Don’t: How Journalists Sideline Electoral
Participation (Without Even Knowing It) by Sharon E. Jarvis and Soo-Hye Han; and The Powerless Church and Other Selected Writings, 1955-1985 by the late philosopher, theologian, and historian Ivan Illich, who was a visiting professor at Penn State in the 1980s and 1990s. The catalog also includes new titles in ancient Near East and biblical studies from Eisenbrauns, which the Press acquired as an imprint in November 2017. To see all of Penn State University Press’s forthcoming Fall/Winter 2018 titles, visit
http://www.psupress.org/catalogs/Fall2018Catalog_WEB.pdf

By: Tim Auman

The Architecture & Landscape Architecture Library was visited by a very fresh-faced group of students on May 15th & 16th. Twenty diminutive designers from the Bennett Family Center participated in an introductory course on architecture and the built environment led by Tatjana Neuberger, Library Assistant in the Architecture & Landscape Architecture Library.

Their program started with a “world wind” journey through the A, B, Cs of design as they learned about Architects, Bridges, Columns, Landscapes, Pyramids, Streets, and other examples both on campus and from around the globe. The students assisted with  retrieving the books used in their instruction learned that every book in the library has its own ‘street address’ just like their own home. The second day had them donning hard hats as they constructed and decorated a paper model of a house and explored how buildings, trees, streets, cars, and people act as the building blocks of a city.

Ms. Neuberger envisioned the program not only as a professional development activity, but also as outreach opportunity for the Libraries that reinforced her belief that “It is never too early to learn and have fun with history, art, and architecture. Tatjana, a native of Split, Croatia, received her MA in Political Science, Art History and Archaeology from the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg and has worked in the Architecture & Landscape Architecture Library since 2016 where her academic background has been put to use  cataloging and photographing built works for both the Worldwide Building and Landscape Pictures and the Central Pennsylvania Architecture and Landscape Architecture  image databases.

Summer 2018
Academic calendar information for all campuses is available online.

Jan. 16–Aug. 26, “What Big Eyes You Have! Looking at the Wolf in Fairy Tales”exhibition, Eberly Family Special Collections Library Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library.

Feb. 18-Aug. 13, “Depth of Field” exhibit, Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library, seeks to highlight the intersections of war in the Middle East with the history of war photograph

Mar. 27-July 31, “1968: Student Activism at Penn State and Beyond” exhibit, Highlighting archival documents, photographs, and books from The Eberly Family Special Collections, this exhibit ties into a College of the Liberal Arts project titled Moments of Change: Remembering ‘68. Learn more about this project at 1968.psu.edu. Barbara Hackman Atrium, Pattee Library.

Please submit event information — and all Library News submissions — to Public Relations and Marketing via the Library News submission form. *Please note: The content submissions process may be changing soon; please stay tuned for updates.*

Summer 2018
Academic calendar information for all campuses is available online.

Jan. 16–Aug. 26, “What Big Eyes You Have! Looking at the Wolf in Fairy Tales”exhibition, Eberly Family Special Collections Library Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library.

Feb. 18-Aug. 13, “Depth of Field” exhibit, Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library, seeks to highlight the intersections of war in the Middle East with the history of war photograph

Mar. 27-July 31, “1968: Student Activism at Penn State and Beyond” exhibit, Highlighting archival documents, photographs, and books from The Eberly Family Special Collections, this exhibit ties into a College of the Liberal Arts project titled Moments of Change: Remembering ‘68. Learn more about this project at 1968.psu.edu. Barbara Hackman Atrium, Pattee Library.

Please submit event information — and all Library News submissions — to Public Relations and Marketing via the Library News submission form. *Please note: The content submissions process may be changing soon; please stay tuned for updates.*

Submitted by: Nicole Miyashiro

For the fourth consecutive year, the Pennsylvania Center for the Book will participate in Route One Reads, a roadtrip-inspired reading list that explores various genres through the network of state Center for the Book affiliates located along Route 1. In 2018, the theme of the reading will be romance novels, and the selected book to represent Pennsylvania is Remember When by Lindsay Detwiler (Hot Tree Publishing).

Detwiler is a contemporary romance writer who teaches English at Hollidaysburg Area Senior High in Pennsylvania. She credits her junior high sweetheart and husband, Chad, with showing her the enduring power of love amidst the difficulties of life. Detwiler says her goal as a writer is to maintain a “true sense of realism” in her work while celebrating the beauty of love and to “speak to the modern woman’s experience.” In the suspenseful tale Remember When, a couple finds themselves in the grips of a snowbound car wreck with only the intense contemplation of their marriage to pass the time, as they fear their time is edging towards an end.

The diverse reading list created by Route One Reads highlights each individual State Center for the Book while celebrating the East Coast as a whole. By participating in Route One Reads, readers can travel across 15 states and the District of Columbia without taking a single footstep, or load selected books into the car for a literary road trip. The full list of featured books for the 2018 Route One Reads initiative is available along with a map of participating states at Route1Reads.org.

Route One Reads is a partnership between the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, and its affiliates in: Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Virginia; and, Washington, D.C. The initiative was launched at the 2015 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit Route1Reads.org or follow #Route1Reads on Twitter.