Dr. Stacey Greenwell presents at European Conference on Information Literacy

Dr. Stacey Greenwell

Dr. Stacey Greenwell, associate dean for Academic Affairs and Research, recently participated in the third European Conference on Information Literacy in Tallinn, Estonia. She presented "Creating Instructional Materials Using I-LEARN" and also chaired two conference sessions; "Best Practices in E-Learning and M-Learning" and "Professional Information Literacy." The conference included 195 presentations with contributors from 50 countries.

Dr. Greenwell served as a member of the Program Committee and will continue on the committee for the fourth European Conference on Information Literacy to be held in Prague in October 2016.

Medical Center Library interns receive Library Student Outreach Awards

Two Medical Center Library interns, Teresa McGinley and Matthew Noe, have been awarded Library Student Outreach Awards from the National Networks of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region. The awards allow students to participate in meetings, conference sessions and other activities to learn about the importance of health information outreach and services conducted by librarians in the Greater Midwest Region. Both Teresa and Matt have been awarded up to $1,000 to attend and present their research at the upcoming Midwest Chapter American American Medical Association conference in Louisville, October 2 to 6. 

Congratulations to Teresa and Matthew. 

Mary Molinaro travels to Australia with Library of Congress

Mary Molinaro

Digital preservation has become essential as changes in equipment and file formats can quickly render digital files like photos and documents obsolete. Universities must seek best practices for preserving and making accessible this information for posterity and librarians are playing a key role. As a part of a team from the Library of Congress, UK Libraries sent an expert “down under” this summer to offer guidance on best practices in digital preservation.

In early June Mary Molinaro, director of the UK Libraries Research Data Center, traveled to Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, to serve as an instructor for the U.S. Library of Congress Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE) workshops.

The DPOE program uses a “train the trainer” methodology based on the DPOE Baseline Digital Preservation Curriculum. The aim of the program is to to teach working professionals how to teach digital preservation skills to other professionals in their communities. Previous workshops have been offered at the Library of Congress; the State Library of Indiana; in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, for the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois; and at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The training helps the participants:

· identify types of digital content they have;

· select what portion of digital content will be preserved;

· store selected content for the long term;

· protect content from everyday threats and emergency contingencies;

· manage and implement requirements for long term management; and

· provide access to digital content over time.

"There is a great deal of content being created and gathered in libraries, small museums, and historical societies with the organizations not realizing that the way they are managing the files is not sustainable over time," Mary said. "As the DPOE program expands we hope to help educate people so the content is secure and so time and money spent on building digital collections is not wasted."  

In Australia, Mary and her two DPOE co-instructors presented a weeklong workshop to librarians from the Public Libraries Victoria Network at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. The National and State Libraries Australasia sponsored the same training in Sydney at the State Library of New South Wales for librarians from New Zealand and from every state and territory in Australia.

"It has been a privilege participating over the years as a core DPOE instructor. I have been affiliated with the program since its inception and it is satisfying to see it grow," Mary said. "Our Australian hosts were incredibly hospitable and it is gratifying to see the DPOE curriculum and pedagogical model being rolled out on a national basis. The Library of Congress is hoping to do the same in the United States."

Mary's work and research interests include the topics of research data management, digital preservation, personal digital archiving, and digital library development. She has served as primary investigator on a number of projects centered on providing digital access to cultural heritage materials and newspaper content, including her work for UK Libraries with the National Digital Newspaper Program. In addition, Mary has great interest in supporting library infrastructure and planning in developing nations and has worked extensively with libraries in Ecuador, as well as served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Tunisia.

An instructor and advisor to DPOE, Mary has previously presented information about the program in Florence, Italy, and Barcelona, Spain. 

The DPOE at Library of Congress fosters outreach and education about digital preservation on a global scale, and promotes continuing education and training opportunities that increase individual and organizational capacity to provide long-term, durable access to digital content. The program actively seeks opportunities to collaborate with organizations to advance the practice of digital preservation through a series of hands-on, in-person workshops for working professionals.

Excerpted in part, with permission, from UKNow.

Dr. Doug Boyd delivers Oral History Society keynote

Dr. Doug Boyd

Dr. Doug Boyd, director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, delivered the keynote address for the Oral History Society’s annual meeting “Oral Histories of Science, Technology and Medicine” at the Royal Holoway, University of London, on July 11, 2015. Dr. Boyd’s talk, "Play, Record, and Pause: How Technology is Changing the Practice and Purpose of Oral History," discussed the recent work of the Nunn Center and the innovative OHMS system as well as the impact of digital technologies on core aspects of archived oral history. Additionally, Dr. Boyd taught a detailed workshop on using OHMS.

Matthew Noe participates in Research Experience for Master's Students

Matthew Noe

Matthew Noe, a graduate student working in the Medical Center Library, will participate this summer in a 12-week Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded Research Experience for Master's Students (REMS) program at the University of Michigan School of Information. Matthew will work with University of Michigan faculty member Tiffany Veinot on her project “Collaborative Information Behavior in Families Dealing with Chronic Illness.” 

More information on Matthew’s project is available online. 

Kentucky Research Commons provides access to scholarship across the Commonwealth

UK Libraries and Western Kentucky University (WKU) announce the launch of the Kentucky Research Commons, a new digital portal that provides access to the breadth and depth of research conducted at universities in Kentucky.

The portal features a real-time readership map that visualizes when and where content is downloaded, to demonstrate the global reach of research from Kentucky institutions.

"It is exhilarating to see scholarly endeavors in the Commonwealth hold broad appeal around the world. This new portal certainly helps researchers and the academic communities develop a clear picture of the reach and impact of their work,” said Adrian Ho, director of Digital Scholarship at UK Libraries. 

The Kentucky Research Commons hosts a wealth of valuable scholarly materials, ranging from faculty publications, to online peer-reviewed journals, to conferences and events, to electronic theses and dissertations, to special archival collections. Users can browse content by institution, discipline, or author. They can also type in search terms for easy discovery.

Institutional repositories play an increasingly significant role in the way universities share, manage, and preserve their scholarly outputs. Hosted by bepress on its Digital Commons platform, the site aggregates content from the institutional repositories of a growing number of Kentucky institutions, including: Asbury Theological Seminary, Bellarmine University, Eastern Kentucky University, UK, the University of Louisville, and WKU. 

Visit the Kentucky Research Commons at kentucky.researchcommons.us.

For more information, contact adrian.ho@uky.edu.

A full news release is available on UKNow. 

UK Libraries at 2015 Joint Spring Conference

A group of faculty, staff, and students from UK Libraries presented at the 2015 Joint Spring Conference of the Special Libraries Association Kentucky Chapter and the Academic and Special Sections of the Kentucky Library Association. The conference took place April 15 through 17 at Jenny Wiley State Resort Park in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, with a theme of “Adapt, Evolve, Innovate: Embracing Change in Libraries.” 

UK Libraries representatives presented on the following topics:

“Upgrade Your View of the Web with Browser Extensions” – Kathryn Lybarger, Cataloging and Meta Data

“Edit That Page! Wikipedians and Librarians” – Ida Sell, Special Collections Research Center, and Abbye Allan, Little Fine Arts Library

“Cooperative Authority Control: Workflow and NACO Training at UK” – Julene Jones, Database Integrity Unit

“Learning through Interning: National Library of Medicine Internships” – Lauren Robinson, graduate assistant in the Agricultural Information Center, and Tyler Nix, graduate research assistant in the UK School of Library and Information Science 

“High Yield from Small Change: Evolution in Response to User Need” – Beth Reeder and Melinda Borie, Agricultural Information Center

Alex Grigg of the Lexmark Library is president-elect of the Special Libraries Association Kentucky Chapter. Laura Whayne of the Kentucky Transportation Center Library is current president of the Kentucky Library Association.

Thanks to everyone for representing UK Libraries at this statewide conference.

Robert Shapiro receives Wethington Award

Robert Shapiro

Robert Shapiro, public health librarian at the Medical Center Library, is the recipient of a Wethington Award. The university-wide award program, named for former UK President Charles T. Wethington, recognizes the success of individual faculty in contributing to the university’s research program by competitively obtaining extramural funding. The criteria for the selection of nominees must include evidence of scholarly productivity and excellence such as:

• number of grants submitted and funded as PI or co-PI;
• percent of salary funded from grants;
• refereed publications and quality of journals;
• training of graduate students or postdoctoral fellows;
• regional or national awards; or
• patents or commercialization activity.  

 Congratulations Robert.