| May 2001 |
HAVERFORD COLLEGE |
No. 27 |
Table of Contents
From the Librarian
The Library does not very often receive suggestions from students
about adding books to the collection, and in order to encourage student involvement
in this aspect of the Library's work we held a contest in fall 2000, during an
open house for new students, to get their advice in building the browsing collection.
For some years now, librarians have stocked a bookcase near the
Magill Library Circulation Desk with the sorts of books that academics read guiltily
and furtively as they avoid the press of their "real" work, books of
the sort that none of us feels we should have the leisure to read when classes
are in session. Mysteries and current novels along with some essays, poetry, plays,
travel, and current issues titles dominate the shelves; some titles duplicate
those cataloged in the main collection but most of them would not find their way
into the stacks for permanent addition to the Library. The books are paperbacks,
and since they are not cataloged they circulate on an honor system. It's "impulse
reading," like the magazines, candy, and other little items that merchants
place near their cash registers.
At the open house in early September, we
asked new students to create a list of five books they thought all first-year
college students should read. 75 of the roughly 200 students who visited us that
evening completed the form, signed it, and entered it in a drawing. Library staff
then drew nine completed forms at random from a box; each of these nine students
was then assigned to a month of the academic year and given $50 with which to
purchase any books they think students and other browsers might enjoy encountering.
The "winning" book buyers are Jackie Corley, Erika Haglund,
Tirzah Heller, Felicia Jadczak, Kate Janoski, Britt Johnson, Iliana Konidaris,
Matthew Schechter, and David Snyder. Thus far the titles they have selected include
Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Complete and Unabridged;
Gary Greenberg, The Pop-Up Book of Phobias; Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone;
Andrew Carroll, ed., Letters of a Nation: A Collection of Extraordinary American
Letters; Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife; Beverly Daniel Tatum, "Why
Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the
Cafeteria?" And Other Conversations About Race; Edward
Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart;
John Irving, The Cider House Rules; Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange;
Patrick McCabe, The Butcher Boy: A Novel; and J. D. Salinger, Franny
and Zooey.
The students who completed the form listed almost 150 different
titles from Dr. Seuss and Shakespeare to George Eliot, Sherman Alexie, and the
Haverford Honor Code. Classroom classics were well represented as were current
popular fiction; a few poems, plays, and current issues titles found their way
into the results, but most respondents suggested novels. The 10 most recommended
books were J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye; Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meaney;
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby;
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha; William Shakespeare, Hamlet; Kurt Vonnegut,
Slaughterhouse Five; and Elie Wiesel, Night.
Please stop at the browsing collection bookcase and help yourself
to some extra-curricular reading.
- Bob Kieft is Librarian of the College
Art at Haverford
by Diana Franzusoff Peterson
High above the archway leading to Special Collections hangs a
portrait of Isaac Sharpless, President of Haverford College from 1887 to 1917.
It is an oil on canvas, 44" x 32", framed to 59" x 46 1/2",
painted, signed by Cecilia Beaux, but undated.
What is unusual about the painting is its very existence. Isaac
Sharpless was a member of the Society of Friends, and Quakers did not usually
have their portraits painted, as art was considered a "frivolity." Yet,
Sharpless chose Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942) to paint his portrait. Beaux studied
under the Quaker artist, Katharine Drinker, among others, and contemporaries considered
her the most distinguished woman portrait painter in America.
Only some few works of art trickled in to Haverford
in the 19th century. In his 1933 history of the College, professor Rufus Jones
wrote "We look back with mild pity on the generations of Haverford students
who were deprived of the joy of music and art. The strong anti-aesthetic bias
in the minds of the Quaker Founders and the early Managers was, I think, an unmitigated
misfortune."
The College offered no fine arts classes until a sculpture course
was introduced in 1968, nor was there a painting course until 1969-70, or photography
until 1970.
Still, Haverford has acquired a good deal of art over the years.
A notable example is the 1942 bequest of a substantial art collection which included
an oil on canvas painting of St. Sebastian attributed to Bernardino Betti Pinturicchio;
an oil on panel "Early Autumn, White Birch" by Maxfield Parrish (who
matriculated at Haverford in 1888); an oil painting on canvas of Samuel by Joshua
Reynolds; and many others. Within the last few months a collection of six prints
came as a gift; these included a hand-colored woodblock print by Hiroshige and
an etching by Marc Chagall from his "Noah's Ark" series.
Today, artwork can be found all over Haverford's campus -- in
offices, dormitories, and the studios in Marshall Fine Arts -- and sculpture beautifies
its grounds. For this we can be grateful to the evolution of standards of culture
at Haverford.
- Diana Franzusoff Peterson is Manuscripts Cataloger &
College Archivist
Electronic Reserves
by Donna Fournier
It's 2:00am and you forgot to borrow that reserve reading for
tomorrow's class before the library closed for the night. Trouble, right? No,
not if the Library offers the reserve material on the Web. And that's just what
we're doing. Electronic reserves, usually referred to
as "ERes" by our students, is one of a number of ways that the Library
is moving beyond its walls into offices and dorm rooms providing services twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week.
Here is how Eres works. Professors provide the Library with electronic
or paper copies of their course readings. If the material is in paper format,
we scan the pages to recreate the readings in an electronic format such as a pdf
or html file. A reserves webpage is created for each course with links to each
of the readings. Students can then go to the Web to read the material on screen
or make a printout on which to take notes. Each reserves webpage is password protected
to allow only students enrolled in the class access to the materials. ERes works
well for audio files too. Selected tracks from the Music Library's collection
of compact discs are digitized into real media files which can then be streamed
to students' personal computers.
This new service is especially helpful for students taking a class
at another campus, students living in the Haverford College Apartments, and students
who routinely burn the midnight oil. At the time of this writing, some thirty
courses have reserve materials available through the Library's ERes service. We
expect this number to increase every year until a time when all course reserves
are available electronically.
- Donna Fournier is Coordinator for User Services and Collections
netLibrary: Bringing Electronic Books to a Computer Near You
by Norm Medeiros
The Library has recently purchased a collection of electronic
books from netLibrary, a leading e-book vendor. E-books, the latest trend in online
information, offer useful searching capabilities and round-the-clock accessibility.
The Library has purchased over 100 e-books and will continue to add to this number
on a regular basis. These electronic books are available through links in Tripod.
In addition to the e-books the Library has purchased, netLibrary
makes an additional 4,000 titles available on its web site. This free set is known
as their "public collection," and includes such classics as Beowulf,
Hamlet, and The Scarlet Letter.
The netLibrary interface offers powerful searching capabilities,
similar to those available in Tripod. These include title, author, subject, keywords,
publisher, publication year, and ISBN (international standard book number). Results
can be displayed in various formats. Moreover, users have the ability to limit
results to titles within the Haverford e-book collection or the netLibrary public
collection, thereby ensuring that retrieved items will be available for use.
When accessing a title from netLibrary, users can either browse the
e-book for 15 minutes, read it online, or download it for use with the netLibrary
e-book reader. This tool supports off-line reading on a PC desktop or laptop computer
(but not Macintosh computers unfortunately) and provides several features to enhance
the reading experience, including searching across all downloaded texts, annotation
creation, and a citation reference manager.
One of the value-added components of netLibrary e-books is a dictionary
tool which can be used to look up terms while you read. The definition will not
only include text, but often an audio file for the word's pronunciation. Occasionally,
the definition will also include a miniaturized image that can be enlarged with
the click of the mouse.
Navigation is also a quality feature in netLibrary. Forward and
backward arrows provide simple movement through the text. In addition, a jump
facility and a "top of page" button are also quite useful.
Printing and/or copying parts of the e-book are the only real
shortcomings to the netLibrary service. Only one page at a time can be reproduced.
If a user wants to print a range of ten pages, she must select and print them
individually. This perceived nuisance, however, may deter violation of laws which
prohibit excessive reproduction of copyrighted material.
Before using the netLibrary collection, users must create an account,
which can be established the first time they access an online text.
- Norm Medeiros is Coordinator for Bibliographic and Digital
Services
Toyko Broadcasting System sees Haverford Heroine
by Emma Lapsansky
"I want to invite an American lady who
is a Christian, but not fanatic." So is quoted the Showa Emperor, Hirohito,
in the Tokyo Broadcasting System video "Testimony in 2000: Empress Michiko,
A Woman of Destiny." The 88-minute TBS video includes this description of
what Emperor Hirohito sought in a tutor for his son, Akihito, who would eventually
marry Empress Michiko. A new acquisition in Haverford's Special Collections, this
video is mostly focused on aspects of the life of the Japanese Empress.
But woven into the story is the interaction between Crown Prince Akihito and Elizabeth
Gray Vining, the American Quaker woman chosen to answer the emperor's call for
a tutor. "A Christian, but not a fanatic," Vining, whose recent death
inspired many researchers to seek information on her life, spent several years
(1946-50) in service to the Japanese royal family, encouraging the Crown
Prince to develop views "based on his own idea." Her memoirs of the
experience were published in 1952 as Windows for the Crown Prince. Vining's
many other works include a biography of Haverford College philosophy professor
Rufus M. Jones (1863-1948). The College also holds Vining's papers--including
manuscript versions of some of her publications. Access to some parts of her papers
is restricted. If you are interested in this collection please feel free to contact
us.
- Emma Lapsansky is Curator of the Quaker Collection
Staff News and Announcements
by Mike Persick
Since the last issue of the Newsletter, Haverford has had a number
of staff changes in the Library.
John Anderies, Music Librarian, joined us in January 2001.
He comes to us from the Cook Music Library at Indiana University - Bloomington,
where he served most recently as Acting Head of User Services. At Indiana, John
oversaw the daily digitizing operations for the VARIATIONS Project, Indiana's
digital music library, and served on the advisory committee for the project. John's
MLS and Ph.D. course work in musicology are also from Indiana.
Julie Coy joins us as Bibliographic and Digital Services
Assistant. Her primary responsibility is cataloging monographic acquisitions,
but she also performs a variety of tasks in the Serials department. Before arriving
at Haverford in June 2000, she was Technical Services Assistant in the law library
at Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen LLP in Philadelphia. As for future prospects...eventually
an MLS and to continue writing poetry and fiction.
You may have known Donna Fournier, Coordinator for User
Services and Collections/Associate Librarian of the College, in her role as Haverford's
Music Librarian from the Fall of 1989 until December of 2000. She is now in Magill
Library as an administrator for Reference, Instruction, Circulation, Interlibrary
Loan, Collection Development, Government Documents, and the Bindery. Previous
to Haverford, Donna held positions at Yale University and Connecticut College.
Norm Medeiros is Coordinator for Bibliographic and Digital
Services. This new position oversees the Library's technical services departments
(Acquisitions, Serials, & Cataloging) as well as Digital Services, a unit
charged with establishing web-based tools and services. A Massachusetts native,
Norm came to Haverford in October 2000 from the New York University School of
Medicine, where he was Technical Services Librarian. He and his wife, Trisha,
make their home in New Jersey.
Julie Miran, Science Librarian since July 2000, oversees
all aspects of the three science libraries: Stokes, Sharpless and Astronomy. Before
coming to Haverford, she worked at the Cornell Science Library at Swarthmore College.
Currently, she sees herself as having her hands full being involved in the planning
process for the new library in the Koshland Center. This summer and academic year
she has also been involved in the planning process for the Tri-Co Mellon IV projects
and looks forward to participating in the Course Management Software implementation.
In her free time she enjoys quilting and being a mom to her three sons.
Mary Lynn Morris, a member of Reference and Collection
Services since 1995, moved to Bibliographic and Digital Services in June 2000.
As Digital Services Librarian, she is responsible for managing the Library website
and for coordinating Library efforts to provide electronic resources to faculty
and students.
Mike Persick, as of November 2000 became our Assistant
Cataloger and Head of Acquisitions. He hovered around Magill Library's Tech Services/B&DS
Department for years in a number of different positions, starting as a student
assistant and most recently serving as Technical Services Assistant. A break from
Haverford took Mike to Syracuse University, where he earned his MLS in 1995. His
duties include managing the Acquisitions Department, performing various cataloging
functions, supervising book processing, and "other duties as assigned."
Jessica Poland came to Haverford in November 2000 as Circulation
Services Specialist - Reserves, handling both print and electronic reserves.
She started graduate work at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Library
and Information Science and worked as Circulation Assistant at Western Psychiatric
Institute and Clinic Library. Jess plans to start thinking about grad school again
soon.
Craig Ross joined us in October 2000 as Acquisitions Assistant.
He primarily performs ordering of library materials and the processing of the
weekly Bryn Mawr/Haverford approval books. Craig comes to us from Booz-Allen and
Hamilton, a consulting firm, where he worked in the Environment Protection Agency
record center in Philadelphia. He is currently attending Drexel University for
his Master's Degree in Library Science.
Welcome to new staff and congratulations to staff in new positions.
- Mike Persick is Assistant Cataloger and Head of Acquisitions
Library Website Update
by John Hubbard
The Library homepage <http://www.haverford.edu/library/>
got a facelift in January to reflect a new campus-wide format for top-level pages.
Several new and enhanced features were also added to the Library website.
The site provides information about the Library, and also serves
as a gateway to the catalog and article databases. Users can search or browse
the website to find a wealth of other resources.
A "Quick Links" popup menu - now appearing on every
Library webpage - provides access to popular destinations. Some of the other site
improvements include:
- A new "Help" page, which includes a sitemap and a list
of frequently asked questions.
- Integrated links to e-journals, e-books, and e-reserves.
- Updated subject, course, and Internet guides provide annotated
links to a variety of resources.
- The "Library Information" page now includes a campus
libraries map and Magill Library floor maps.
Have a question or suggestion about the website? To send feedback,
please click on the "Questions or Comments?" link at the bottom of any
Library page.
- John Hubbard is Instructional Technology Specialist
Pennsylvania
Academic Library Consortium, Inc.
by Trudi Swain
PALCI, formed in 1996, is a federation of 41 academic libraries
looking to spur development of library cooperation within the state. A primary
focus has been to create a web-based union catalog allowing patrons to search
the members' catalogs simultaneously and request books directly without having
to go through our interlibrary loan department. Through PALCI patrons can request
books from Villanova, St. Joseph's, Temple, Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh,
and Carnegie Mellon University, among others. We hope our patrons enjoy being
able to initiate requests directly and instantly to potential lenders through
the Library's link to
PALCI.
- Trudi Swain is Inter-Library Loan Specialist
