Q&A with Shin Amano, Access Services Specialist
Submitted on September 12, 2016 - 2:00PM
When library seating fills up and students double-down to study, filled with the best intentions for the new school year, Shin Amano sees it all. As the Libraries' Access Services Specialist, Shin comes in close contact with clients, answering their questions and helping them find what they need. Since Shin sees so much of the day-to-day library activity, he was able to shed some light on how students use the library and how library staff keep up with them at such a busy time of year.
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Celebrating Drexel's History
Submitted on August 4, 2016 - 10:08AM
In planning for the upcoming year, we have been searching the University Archives for interesting and lesser-known facts about Drexel's history.
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Dean's Update: Summer Reading
Submitted on August 4, 2016 - 10:03AM
'Summer must be a slow time for you' is a sentiment friends and strangers voice when commenting on working in a library. It is true that during the summer there are fewer people in the building including our staff who use the quieter time to go on vacation or attend conferences. But many of us recall summer as a busy time to catch up with that stack of professional articles or perhaps the bedside pile of deferred novels that we've been meaning to read.
Summer reading allows us to escape into a different time and place while we travel or sit on the beach. Given that I seldom read for pleasure, I wondered how people who are avid readers select what to read these days. Results of a highly unscientific investigation I undertook might offer you some ideas on how to select your next reading material during the so-called lazy days of summer.
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Teaching Information Literacy Skills through Gaming
Submitted on August 4, 2016 - 9:07AM
Today's students have grown up in a digital world with a seemingly endless amount of information available at their fingertips through their multiple connected devices. So, it does not seem like much of a stretch to assume that these students are well versed in information literacy.
However, studies show that most incoming college students lack fundamental information literacy skills - relying on familiar open resources such as Wikipedia or Google.
Libraries are at the forefront of teaching information literacy skills. At Drexel, librarians partner with faculty to ensure that information literacy is on the curriculum, working on tutorials and guides, guest lecturing and providing consultations on research efforts.
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Sound Booth Added to Libraries Reservation System
Submitted on August 3, 2016 - 3:28PM
This month the Libraries added a new item to the room reservation system that already includes meeting spaces, a 3D printer and the data visualization zone. The enclosed sound booth is available for audio recordings and audio/video recordings individuals interested in using the booth can reserve equipment from the Libraries or bring their own.
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Exploring Qualitative Research Software
Submitted on July 8, 2016 - 10:43AM
Qualitative research methods, traditionally associated with social scientists, are increasingly being used across disciplines to support results from quantitative analysis. This mixed-methods approach provides a richer and more nuanced output, but it can be complicated to design. Drexel librarians are exploring tools to help support the process.
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Dean's Update: Celebrating William Walsh Hagerty
Submitted by Danuta A. Nitecki on June 1, 2016 - 11:14AM
[The Dean's Update is a reoccurring column introducing the Libraries' monthly newsletter In Circulation.]
Anniversaries provide us with an opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate milestones. They become significant when shared among those most affected by their impact and when they disclose new insights. Next Friday, the Libraries will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Walsh Hagerty who served as Drexel's president from 1963 to 1984.
While Dr. Hagerty's birthdate falls during a particularly busy day of commencement exercises, we hope members of our community, visiting parents, families, and friends will be able to join some of the festivities on Friday, June 10th from 1 - 2:30 p.m. in W. W. Hagerty Library. The event will feature a talk, an exhibit, and a custom Cake Boss cake in the shape of the Hagerty Library building. For more information, please visit our event listing.
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New Health Sciences Guide Showcases Free Resources
Submitted on May 26, 2016 - 10:57AM
The Libraries has a new Library Guide that showcases free health sciences resources and is accessible to the entire Drexel University community and members of the general public.
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2016 Staff Celebration Awards
Submitted on May 6, 2016 - 1:07PM
On Thursday, May 5, 2016, the Libraries recognized six staff and two student workers at the sixth annual Library Celebration Awards. The Library Celebration Awards recognize individuals or teams who embody the characteristics of the Libraries organization; including providing exceptional service, championing and embracing change, contributing to the profession and employing user feedback to guide decisions.
The Libraries staff provides critical support for the University's mission of teaching, research and community engagement. Awards are given to individuals or teams who have advanced these values through exceptional accomplishments that surpass expectations and serve as a model for other staff.
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Computable Knowledge Base and Symbolic Coding Platform Comes to Drexel
Submitted on May 4, 2016 - 3:29PM
Drexel now enjoys a site license to the Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica products as a result of a new collaboration between Engineering, LeBow, the Math Department in COAS, and Drexel University Online (DUO).
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Seventy-six Authors & Editors Recognized at Fourth Annual Celebrating Drexel Authors Event
Submitted on May 2, 2016 - 1:42PM
On Wednesday, April 27, 2016 the Office of the Provost and Drexel Libraries honored Drexel faculty, staff and students who wrote or edited books that were published in 2015. The fourth annual Celebrating Drexel Authors event was hosted in the A. J. Drexel Picture Gallery.
Books this year included textbooks, children's books, works of fiction, and stories told through photographs. In total 76 authors and editors were recognized at the 2016 event.
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Privacy and Justice in the Digital Age
Submitted on May 2, 2016 - 10:55AM
Why do stories of Secretary Clinton's emails keep popping up in the news or the government's request of Apple to create a backdoor for their encryption? Why should we care? Email and texting have changed the ways we communicate and the ways our government can surveil its citizens in the name of national security, causing ripple effects throughout our justice system.
This issue and others related to e-discovery, will be the topic of a documentary film and panel discussion at a May event hosted at Drexel University.
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Announcing Drexel's Participation in DLF E-Research Network
Submitted on April 13, 2016 - 9:33AM
Drexel University Libraries has been selected as a member of the 2016 Digital Library Federation (DLF) eResearch Network, a research data management community in practice. The cohort of institutions included in this program are focused on implementing research data management services, and engaging in shared skill development, networking, and collaboration.
Among the members of this year's cohort are the Universities of Pennsylvania and California-Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Rice University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the National Institute of Health.
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Drexel's Libraries Gain NACO Independence
Submitted on April 8, 2016 - 9:49AM
In January of this year, the Libraries was approved for membership in the Library of Congress' Name Authority Cooperative Program [NACO] after successfully participating in the training and review process. This membership allows Drexel's library catalogers to directly contribute Name Authority Files to the Library of Congress - establishing national standards for consistent use of names, places, topics and more.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world by collection size and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Though it officially serves the United States Congress, it is considered the national library for the country.
The NACO program allows participants to contribute authority records for people, corporations and jurisdictional names. Libraries staff can now add new authority files to uniquely identify researchers, authors, colleges and locations at Drexel, for Philadelphia and beyond.
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Free Textbooks and other benefits of Open Educational Resources
Submitted on April 8, 2016 - 9:43AM
Open Educational Resources, OER, are a popular topic in the educational press right now. But what is OER? Who is producing OER and where can they be found? What institutions are using OER and what kind of impact are they measuring?
Explore these and other questions with our new Library Guide, Open Educational Resources.
UNESCO, an early proponent of Open Educational Resources, defines OERs as: 'any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation.'
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Beyond Lecturing: Online Instruction & Demonstrations
Submitted on April 7, 2016 - 1:00AM
Online tools have become an increasingly valuable and efficient vehicle for the Libraries to reach online students for instruction and research guidance.
Providing high quality instructional sessions in an online environment can be daunting - especially as library instruction often includes theoretical content alongside practical demonstrations of specific information tools and resources. The liaison librarians in the Library Academic Partnerships division at the Libraries have many years of experience teaching and working with students online.
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New Popular Books
Submitted on March 29, 2016 - 2:30PM
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Dan Taylor to Speak at March ScholarSip
Submitted on March 1, 2016 - 12:44PM
Think about a recent trauma that someone has experienced: perhaps an unsettling or unresolved argument, a car accident, the loss of a job, or the passing of a loved one. These experiences often haunt the person long after the time when they occurred. People may experience lingering stress, anxiety or sadness, or they may change how they make decisions about their actions, sleep or diets.
So what happens when young people experience trauma and how does this experience impact their lifelong health?
Daniel Taylor, DO, an associate professor at Drexel's College of Medicine, will present his research on how trends in child poverty and early childhood stressors impact short- and long-term health at the Libraries' quarterly ScholarSip event on March 14, 2016.
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Data Driven Management Enhances Libraries Collections
Submitted on February 4, 2016 - 11:55AM
The combination of rising costs for information resources and the growing span of Drexel's academic programs requires attentive balancing of the Libraries' collections budget. Recently, the Libraries launched a Data Driven Management program, which provides greater capability for analysis of collections data to aid in making collections decisions.
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Assessing Information Literacy
Submitted on February 4, 2016 - 11:44AM
At Drexel University there are 12 Student Learning Priorities. These DSLPs identify educational goals that should be at the center of every student's experience. The Priorities range from communication to responsible citizenship, but it is the priority of Information Literacy that is at the heart of the Libraries' mission.
The Libraries teach and support Information Literacy in many ways, but how does one assess the success of these efforts?
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Resource Spotlight: Swank Trial
Submitted on February 3, 2016 - 11:36AM
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New Technology Available for Faculty Test Drives
Submitted on January 19, 2016 - 2:19PM
The Libraries has partnered with Drexel University Online to offer faculty the opportunity to test out Livescribe Smartpens, a ThinkLabs Digital Stethoscope, and a pair of Google Glass for use in the classroom.
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Changes to Hahnemann Library 24/7 Space
Submitted on January 13, 2016 - 12:54PM
Over the holiday break, a renovation of Hahnemann Library's 24/7 Space was completed. The renovation included new furnishings designed to separate the first floor into designated and focused study spaces. It also included new paint and carpeting.
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Resource Spotlight: ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library
Submitted on January 12, 2016 - 10:30AM
The Libraries is excited to announce that we now have access to the ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library. ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library, known as ASTM Compass, is a vast collection of industry-leading standards and technical engineering information, including the ASTM journals and symposia papers (also known as Standard Technical Publications.) ASTM Compass publications cover a broad range of engineering disciplines, including aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, environmental, geological, health and safety, industrial, materials science, mechanical, nuclear, petroleum, soil science, and solar engineering.
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