Penn State University Libraries' Interlibrary Loan program recently received a four-star rating and the highest score to date among all participating libraries in the American Library Association (ALA) initiative -- Rethinking Resource Sharing STAR. Penn State's score indicates that they are engaged with 90 percent or more of the activities, initiatives and services outlined in a "checklist" created by ALA. (more)
Opening the doors to his library is important to Tim Pyatt, the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and head of The Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State's University Park campus. This past spring he created research travel awards using funding from his endowed position and from a recent gift in memory of Helen F. Faust. Seeing the awards as an opportunity to showcase the wealth of materials in the library, he said, "I see travel grants as a great way to promote use and disseminate information about our collections."
The award winners of the successful initiative included researchers from as far away as England as well as Texas, New York, Virginia and Iowa. (more)
Penn State University Libraries and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book have announced the winner of the 2012 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. This year's winner is "Won Ton: a Cat Tale Told In Haiku" by Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin, and published by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. The award and a $1,000 prize, courtesy of Lee Bennett Hopkins, was presented on April 13, 2012 at the Pennsylvania School Librarians' Association Conference in Hershey, Pa. (more)
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant of $143,000 to Penn State to investigate how faculty create and manage personal information collections. Led by Associate Librarian Ellysa Stern Cahoy and Associate Professor of Science Education Scott McDonald, the 15-month ethnographic study will examine in detail how faculty save, share, cite and archive scholarly information. (more)
Information literacy for all students is a goal of Penn State's University Libraries, and to help highlight its importance, the Libraries have funded cash awards as part of the 2012 Undergraduate Research Exhibition, co-sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education and the Schreyers Honor College in partnership with the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the University Libraries, and Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Society. (more)
Mark Dyreson, associate professor of kinesiology at Penn State, is one of eight finalists in the "I Found It In the Archives Contest," a national campaign sponsored by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) to raise awareness about the importance of archives. SAA asked archives users to submit essays or videos detailing their "discoveries" in the archives. The winning entries are at www.archivists.org , and the public is urged to cast a ballot through May 15. (more)
A critically acclaimed independent documentary about two men with autism creates new understandings and perceptions of autism. The film, "Wretches & Jabberers," will be shown Tuesday, April 24, 6:30 p.m., in the Palmer Lipcon Auditorium, Curtin Road, Penn State University Park. In the film, directed by Geradine Wurzburg, Tracy Thresher, age 42, and Larry Bissonnette, age 52, embark on a global quest to change attitudes about disability and intelligence. Determined to put a new face on autism, the men travel to Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland, where at each stop they challenge public attitudes about autism and issue a hopeful message to reconsider competency. (more)
To accommodate end of semester study needs, Pattee and Paterno Libraries are open until 2 a.m. every night, from Wednesday, April 25 through Saturday, April 28, and are open for 24-hour continuous service, beginning 10 a.m. Sunday, April 29 through 2 a.m. Thursday, May 3. Exceptions to these hours include the Maps Library and the Special Collections Library.
Call ahead to confirm hours at 814-865-3063 or go to www.libraries.psu.edu/hours online. (more)
Penn State University Libraries and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book are pleased to announce that "Big Questions" by Anders Nilsen, published by Drawn & Quarterly, has won the Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year.
The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize honors Ward's influence in the development of the graphic novel and celebrates the gift of an extensive collection of Ward's wood engravings, original book illustrations and other graphic art donated to the Libraries by his daughters Robin Ward Savage and Nanda Weedon Ward. (more)
In 1969, President Richard Nixon created the Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities that marked the beginning of a successful initiative to recruit and train women for upper-level governmental positions. Unfortunately, few of the women who joined the government as a result of this initiative left collections of papers for historians to review.
In an effort to capture this moment in history, an advisory board chaired by Barbara Hackman Franklin initiated a project to gather oral histories from key participants. The board initially identified twelve individuals to be interviewed. As the project continued, this list expanded to nearly 50 interviews that are now housed in Penn State's Special Collections Library.
Ten of those interviews are available in full text online at www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/afgw/bios.html
