Danny L. Taylor Receives Prestigious Jane Morton Award

Danny L. Taylor, Periodical/Reserves Assistant at Ball State University Libraries, is the recipient of the A. Jane Morton Award for Excellence in Staff. Danny received the award during the 43rd Annual Staff Recognition and Retirement Award program on April 17, 2008.

With 37 years of service to the University, Danny is well known within the Ball State community for his optimistic attitude, dedication, and superior customer service skills. Former students frequently ask about Danny and comment on how he has inspired them to make positive differences in their own and other people's lives.

Kathleen Pickens-French, Access Services Evening Supervisor, nominated Danny for the award.

“Danny’s love of life, Ball State and Bracken, inspires the people he meets,” says Kathleen. “His dedication extends beyond the library’s walls and into the university community where he takes the time to meet with students and to talk to classes about working with people with disabilities. Students walk away from these brief encounters with altered perspectives, increased awareness, and renewed appreciation for their own lives.”

“It is a real pleasure to work in the library,” Danny said. “I get up every morning and look forward to coming to work at Ball State. It makes me feel like I’m part of a big family.”

The recipient of the A. Jane Morton award receives a $1,000 gift, a framed and engraved "Between the Buildings ... is the Life" print, and a book of nomination and support letters.

The A. Jane Morton Award recognizes one exemplary full-time staff person for demonstrating continuous commitment and service to all facets of the Ball State community. A committee analyzes the achievements and contributions of each nominee and determines who is most deserving for going above and beyond expectations at work, for their active involvement on campus, and for their service to the greater community.

Ball State's 152nd Commencement

by Arthur W. Hafner, Dean of University Libraries

On Saturday, May 3, 2008, Ball State University celebrated its 152nd commencement. Approximately 2,600 students received diplomas at the associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels.

As Dean of University Libraries, I would like to make some comments and share some observations.

Our graduating students have many people to thank for all of the help they have received along the way — significant others, parents, siblings, grandparents, in-laws, faculty mentors, and employers. And there is another group, too. They are the Ball State alumni who have gone before them since our graduates are the beneficiaries of our alumni’s earlier achievements.

Graduation initiates each of our students into the proud family of alumni who have offered their best. Now, because of what each of our students has accomplished at Ball State, each graduate is positioned to live a better life, to enjoy better opportunities, to hold better jobs, to have better choices, to achieve and build wealth, and to contribute to the communities in which each lives and works. In short, graduation from Ball State allows each of our graduates to claim his/her bliss and joy in the world.

Graduation marks the official completion of an important chapter in each student’s life. In leaving the Ball State campus and Muncie, a part of each student remains.

I urge each graduating student, as a proud new alumnus or alumna, to stay in contact with Ball State, to lend his/her voice and provide financial support for alma mater’s continued growth and development. The University's name recognition, the quality and reputation of its programs, and its success for recruiting and graduating leaders for tomorrow reflects directly upon each graduate and impacts the value of each graduate’s own degree.

As well, I urge each of our graduates to make the effort to stay in touch with fellow students, to develop a strong network of friends and contacts, and to commit one’s self to excellence and focus all creativity and time to make the world a better and more just place, influencing others to do the same.

I hope each graduate of the Class of 2008 will support important community resources, such as libraries that are open and available to everyone for self-education, since these facilities touch and enhance the lives of everyone within their sphere of influence.

As our graduates face tomorrow, my suggestion is that each quickly build on past achievements by setting new goals and seize opportunities that are waiting for you. Everything begins with an idea and happens through action.

I wish each graduating Ball State student abundant good health, happiness, and both financial and personal success.

Furniture Outside of Bracken Library Provides Additional Gathering Place, Expands Use of Library’s Two Plazas

The University Libraries recently purchased five outdoor lawn tables to enrich Bracken Library’s north and south plazas. Since mid-April, students and faculty have been able to enjoy the green next to Bracken for research, learning, and discussion.

Already the tables are proving popular with students and others who want to catch some sunshine while taking a break or socializing outdoors, or while they enjoy food and beverages al fresco from the Bookmark Café.

Of course, Bracken’s plazas offer full wireless connectivity so that students and faculty can access the Libraries’ resources through their laptops, Macbooks, notebook computers, and Wi-Fi enabled small-screen devices, such as PDAs, Palm/PocketPCs, or smartphones.

The tables are olive color, feature a 42” diameter tabletop, have perforated backless seats, and provide superior corrosion resistance because of their all-aluminum construction. Their recycled content is 68% and each table is 100% recyclable. An additional feature is that the tables do not require the use of cleaning chemicals to maintain their finish.

On each plaza, one of the tables provides wheelchair accessibility. Each unit typically offers six backless seating positions; the wheelchair accessible units offer five. The tables were manufactured by Landscape Forms Inc., Kalamazoo, Michigan, a member of the U.S. Green Building Council.

The outdoor furniture and the new indoor chairs recently added to Bracken Library are part of the continuing transformation of the University Libraries as a destination for students and faculty for research, learning, and friends. We want to make the University Libraries an inviting, friendly space that students and faculty visit first for their research and learning.

Purchase Award Helps Beautify Library

The 73rd Annual Student Art Show, held at Ball State University’s Museum of Art, featured student artwork in all media, from painting and sculpture to video and furniture. Each year, a panel of professional jurors considers hundreds of works for selection in this show, narrowing the final selection to between 100 and 125. The result is a student exhibition that showcases outstanding student talent and quality artwork.

Ball State University Libraries selected for purchase Rooster, Guitar, Scott (oil on plywood with newspaper, 36”x36”), by senior Braydee A. Euliss.

Braydee, from Munster, Indiana, created the bright cubism-inspired artwork by starting with several sketches, one on top of the other, and manipulating the resulting image until she was pleased with the composition. The sketches were simply of a still life that contained, among several other things, a stuffed rooster, a guitar, and her professor Scott G. Anderson. She then transferred it onto the plywood, applied newspaper, and decided where to leave the raw wood showing through.

“Although the piece was created for an assignment, I feel I took it in a direction that made it my own, different from most of the examples I had seen,” she said.

Ball State’s annual Student Art Show began in 1935 and offers art students an opportunity to present artworks in a professional, juried setting. The accepted artworks were shown in Ball State’s Museum of Art through April.

Bracken Library Hosts Several Music Programs in April

During April, the Ball State University community was graced with three outstanding musical performances by student groups.

Under the artistic direction of Lou Ann Young, the Ball State Dance Theatre (BSDT) rose from humble beginnings 20 years ago to become a premiere professional dance training troupe. On April 10, the celebration of these 20 years was provided through a sneak preview of the Department of Theatre and Dance's 20th Anniversary Ball State Dance Theatre Concert.

The BSDT Concert Preview highlighted and featured the choreography of some of the best works from current students and faculty including Kory Browder, Gregory Lund, Sarah Mangelsdorf, Stacy Pottinger, Audra Sokol, Michael Worcel and Artistic Director Lou Ann Young.

On April 17, the combined talents of the music fraternal organizations at the School of Music, ΣΑΙ and ΦΜΑ Sinfonia performed their annual Festival of American Music recital to a crowd of more than 60 people.

The Ball State University Saxophone Quartets #2 and #3 performed on April 25.

University Libraries’ Personnel Contribute to the Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting

Personnel from the University Libraries contributed to the success of the Third Annual Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting held April 29-30, 2008, in Indianapolis, Indiana. CONTENTdm serves as the platform for the Ball State University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository (DMR). The Users Group meeting drew over 100 attendees from all over the Midwest.

The ] Libraries team responsible for building the Middletown Oral History Collections, funded in part by a LSTA digitization grant, conducted the pre-conference workshop, “From Spoken Word to Digital File: Making Oral Histories Available in CONTENTdm.” The presenters demonstrated how to plan, digitize, create metadata, and publish an oral history collection using CONTENTdm. Ball State presenters included James A. Bradley, Head of Metadata and Digital Initiatives, Amanda A. Hurford, Metadata and Multimedia Developer, Maren L. Read, Archivist for Manuscript Collections, and Jonathan M. Brinley, Metadata and Digital Initiatives Developer.

The workshop earned overwhelmingly positive feedback from the capacity crowd of participants. “[The workshop] gave us good ideas about the next steps for our oral histories” said Jane Kokotkiewicz of Indianapolis’ prestigious Park Tudor School. “The pace was very good. Just what I needed.”

Brad Faust, Assistant Dean for Library Information Technology Services, served as co-chair of the Users Group Meeting Program Planning Committee. His responsibilities included hosting the program proposal Web form, collecting program proposals from speakers, and communicating with speakers and other program committee members about session schedules, acceptance, and registration details. Brad also served as moderator for two of the presentations at the Users Group meeting.

Speakers in several sessions referred to CONTENTdm successes at the University Libraries. The 3-D rotating image process used at Ball State, which can be seen in the Doll Collection in the DMR, is being used as a model at IUPUI.

Technical advice and direction provided by Budi Wibowo, University Libraries’ Head of Digital Libraries and Web Services, was mentioned as very useful by the Keynote Speaker. The Architecture Image End User Copyright Agreement page, presented to DMR users before access to the Architecture Image collection is granted, was also hailed as a great example of digital rights management.

For more information, contact Bradley D. Faust, Assistant Dean for Library Information Technology Services, BFaust@bsu.edu, 765-285-8032

Libraries Provide Students with Comfortable Spaces, Access to Food, Beverages

With backpacks, laptops, and other small-screen smart devices in tow, students gear up for studying at Bracken Library, often with a cup of coffee and sandwich in hand.

In late 2002, Dr. Arthur W. Hafner, newly appointed Dean of University Libraries, lifted a long-standing ban against eating and consuming beverages in the Libraries. This decision marked the beginning of the transformation of the University Libraries as an inviting space for student and faculty to gather for research and learning.

Today, Bracken Library proudly houses The Bookmark Café, which opened in January 2007, is located in Bracken’s southeast corner. It is a popular place to grab a cup of freshly brewed Seattle’s Best Coffees, Tazo teas, espressos, and more. There are also juices and many selections for breakfast and lunch. The Café, along with other amenities to the Libraries, are part of an initiative for students to think of the Libraries as their “third place” after homes and classrooms.

From comments made by students and faculty, changing the Libraries’ rules about food and beverages has helped to increase the number of visits and the amount of time that people stay in Bracken Library.

“I can save time by eating at the library or taking a break from studying to get some coffee without having to leave the building,” said Emily Akers, a senior. “The sitting area outside of the Bookmark Café makes it easy to meet someone to go over class notes or have a short meeting.”

The only library areas that are off-limits to both food and beverages is Archives and Special Collections, which contains rare archival material, and the two e-classrooms on Bracken’s lower level. In the time since removing the prohibition against food and beverages, the Libraries’ experience has shown that students generally clean-up after themselves, and to facilitate this, the Libraries have provided more and larger waste containers around the Libraries. Overall, allowing food and beverages has proved to be a good decision.

Bracken Library provides a vending area on its lower level, which provides sweet and salty snacks and a variety of beverages including coffee.

Student Artwork Adds Sense of Place, Enjoyment to Others at Bracken Library

Artwork enhances the physical environment and adds color and interest to the study spaces at Bracken Library. Each summer we look forward to meeting students from the Department of Art who agree to lend artwork to the University Libraries for the enjoyment of others. Recently, senior Joshua J. Chatwin decided to donate three oil paintings to Bracken Library.

Artist Study of Robert Delunay’s Champs de Mars, oil on canvas, measuring 24” x 36” shown at right, will find a new home in the New Books and Bestsellers corner of Bracken Library. Delunay was a French cubist painter and an inspiration to Josh.

“I think it is cool to know I have work hanging in Bracken Library and that it will be in the possession of the Ball State Libraries now that I have graduated,” he said.

Laura M. Hruska, a junior from Munster, Indiana, agreed to lend three paintings this summer. Laura plans to major in photography. My Factory, oil and mixed media, measuring 64” x 48” is a geometric design with shades of yellow, purple, and red and will hang in the Learning Center area on the west side of Bracken’s first floor.

“Students whose work is accepted in Ball State’s annual juried art exhibit are our main contacts. We welcome artwork from our students and faculty,” said Susan Akers, University Libraries’ Marketing Communications Manager.

University Libraries Sponsor Successful Copyright Conference at Ball State University

The Fifth Annual Copyright Conference, sponsored by the University Libraries, was held at the Alumni Center on April 23, 2008. The conference was entitled, Copyright in Oz: Over the Rainbow or I’ll Get Your Little Dog, too? with 111 attendees.

This copyright conference is the only annual copyright conference held in the Midwest. In addition to attendees from Indiana, 11 other states were represented: Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Attendees included academic deans, library directors, teaching faculty, librarians, media specialists, and lawyers. Indiana lawyers received 6.4 Continuing Legal Education Credits for this Conference.

In her welcoming address, Ball State University President Jo Ann M. Gora noted that copyright law is a critical issue in higher education and that Ball State University will continue to foster ethical and productive use of intellectual property.

The following nationally recognized intellectual property lawyers were speakers:
· Special guest speaker, David Carson, J.D., Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office
· Michelle Cooper, J.D., attorney in the Education Law Group at Bose McKinney & Evans LLP
· Dwayne Buttler, J.D., Professor and first Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair for Scholarly Communication at the University of Louisville, University Libraries
· Kenneth Crews, J.D., Director of the Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University
· James Williams, J.D., attorney at DeFur Voran LLP and intellectual property lawyer for Ball State University

Presentations and discussions included pending legislation for Orphan Works, Fair Use, the TEACH Act, the Digital, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Dr. Jay E. Gillette, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences and Senior Research Fellow at the Digital Policy Institute, live blogged the Conference and his comments can be read at www.cicsworld.org/blogs/jaygillette.

Carla Myers, University of Akron, wrote the following: “… it was so nice to hear from people like Ken, David, Michelle and Jim, who are experts in the field, aware of the current issues, and present the information in an engaging and interesting manner.”

How a Digital Collection Grows: Mass Digitization Creates Digitization Mass

From a modest beginning of 2,000 photographic images from the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections in 2002, the number of digital objects created and offered by the Libraries for learning, teaching, and research has grown to over 104,000.

By most standards, that is an impressive growth in just a few years time. We’ve created a bountiful digital garden.
But as the garden of digital resources expands daily, the demand to increase digital output becomes more prominent. While 104,000 items seems like a large number, it is only a fraction of the potential resources that could be digitized from Archives and Special Collections alone, and the fraction is even smaller when library-wide, campus-wide, and community-wide materials are added to the equation.

Increasing the digitization of analog materials creates opportunities and challenges for libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other cultural and educational organizations. Changes in financial resource allocations, job responsibilities, and even physical space often become necessary as institutions address these opportunities and challenges. Our gardens change with the seasons. If our visitors expect more digitization efforts to make more resources available from our collections, then what is the best way to meet those expectations?

At a recent professional conference of archivists, one approach addressed by the keynote speaker and other program participants was mass digitization. The concept of mass digitization is as it sounds: a program that digitizes in mass. This approach is a familiar processing technique that archivists have employed for years to handle massive volumes (and backlogs) of paper that need to be organized, described, and made available for research. It is a way to deal with large volumes of materials in a timely manner with minimum descriptive information.

The advantage of mass digitization, like mass archival processing, is that it makes the materials available more rapidly. The problem, if you ask any librarian, is the lack of descriptive information. In the case of digital objects, this means less metadata. In turn, less metadata means that some objects may not turn up in your searches.

The proponents of mass digitization projects argue that it is better to have the digital object on the Web where it is accessible globally today than to wait for one or more months to have it searchable through more robust metadata. That is the same argument that many archivists have used for mass processing. As the call goes out for more digital resources, the mass digitization approach gains appeal to some.

The first 2,000 photographs made available by Ball State University Libraries are an example of the mass digitization approach. We had very little metadata because we did not have a librarian to prepare it, and what we had followed very few standards. Since then, the collection has been redone with appropriate and accurate metadata and even rescanned to follow better standards.

Have these improvements increased the usability of the objects or the satisfaction of the users? While the use has not increased in percentage significantly, the satisfaction of the users has improved.

While mass digitization may be an answer worth exploring in some cases, it does not mean that quality and standards should suffer.
The University Libraries will continue to increase their production of digital resources to meet the growing demands of students and faculty while continuing to ensure a high quality product for “mass satisfaction.” Visit our digital collections at http://libx.bsu.edu.

Student’s Thesis and Exhibit Focuses on Prolific Typographer Frederic Goudy

Howdy Goudy: Frederic W. Goudy and the Private Press in the Midwest, is an exhibit curated by Ball State senior Amy E. Duncan. It opened with a reception in the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections on April 15, 2008.

Amy was inspired to research Goudy as her Honors thesis project after taking Dr. Frank A. Felsenstein’s Honors College colloquium, From Gutenberg to Ben Franklin: the Impact of the Handpress.

Dr. Felsenstein always takes students in his class to the Archives and Special Collections at Bracken Library to view historical items housed there, such as books by William Morris, the Gutenberg Bible, and other examples of fine printing.

The exhibit focuses mainly on Goudy and includes three other Midwestern printers: Bruce Rogers, Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. Although all four eventually moved away, they all learned their trade and got their start here, all showing the influence of the Midwest in the Private Press Movement.

“I became interested in Goudy because he was a typographer, printer, and designer and since I plan to work in newspaper design, typography is very important to me,” Amy said.

She researched everything related to Goudy in the Archives and Special Collections at Bracken Library where there is a unique collection of original typographic drawings, designs, and manuscript material that came from Goudy.

“Amy Duncan’s study of Goudy and the Private Press Movement in the Midwest is a fine example of Ball State’s emphasis on the value of immersive learning,” said Dr. Felsenstein.

“The Goudy Collection is just one of the many rich resources available in the University Libraries to inspire student inquiry and academic success,” adds John Straw, Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections.

University Libraries Participate in Access World News Beta Test

The University Libraries were recently chosen as a free beta test site for content enhancements to Access World News, a subscription database available through the Libraries from Newsbank, Inc. that presently includes over 1,500 newspaper sources from around the globe.

According to Susan Bokern, a Senior Vice President at Newsbank, the beta test entails the inclusion of approximately 3,000 new sources to Access World News. In addition to the electronic newspapers already available in the database, Newsbank will be offering newswires, television news transcripts, economic and stock market news, and vetted blogs.

Sources include over 20 broadcast companies and services like CBS, NBC, and NPR. Military, government, and defense news and journals including Air Force Times and Federal Times will also be available. Additionally, the enhancement will include 50 Spanish language domestic and international newspapers.

During beta testing, added sources are available to Ball State students and faculty. The Access World News search interface remains unchanged, but results will be categorized by source type. Also, analysts at Newsbank will be monitoring usage statistics for the added content and will also track search session patterns to determine if additional source types are attractive to users. At the end of the testing period, Newsbank will share a final report with the University Libraries.

While the experiment will help product developers at Newsbank, it also affords Ball State students and faculty an opportunity to take advantage of the vastly expanded availability of alternative sources for global news and analysis.

Access World News is available on the University Libraries’ databases page at www.bsu.edu/libraries/electronicresources/databases.asp.

For more information, contact Matthew C. Shaw, Ball State University Libraries’ Electronic Resources Librarian, MCShaw2@bsu.edu, 765-285-1302.

Authors Speak on Churchill and RFK

Students, faculty, and community members attended programs in April 2008 sponsored by the Friends of the Alexander M. Bracken Library featuring talks by authors of recent books on Winston Churchill and Robert F. Kennedy.

On April 9, Dr. Jonathan Rose, the William R. Kenan Professor of History at Drew University, spoke on Winston Churchill and the Literary History of Politics in Bracken Library. The program was co-sponsored by the Center for Middletown Studies. Dr. Rose is the author of a recent book by the same title as his talk.

On April 21, Mr. Ray Boomhower, Senior Editor at the Indiana Historical Society Press, presented Robert F. Kennedy: The 1968 Indiana Primary, also the title of his book.

The cover of Boomhower’s recently published book features a photograph of Kennedy speaking at Ball State University on April 4, 1968, from the George Yeamans Collection in the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections. Other photographs taken by Yeamans are used in the book also.

Boomhower’s program was particularly appropriate during the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s visit to Ball State University when he was running for president. Kennedy learned of the shooting and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while in Muncie and then went on to give his memorable speech in Indianapolis about King’s death.

The Yeamans photographs along with video and audio of Kennedy’s 1968 speech can be found in the Ball State Digital Media Repository, http://libx.bsu.edu/.

For more information on the Kennedy speech collection or the Friends of Bracken Library, contact John B. Straw, Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, JStraw@bsu.edu, 765-285-5078.