College Information Resources N e w s l e t t e r

October 2007 Haverford College No. 6

From the Director A New Haverford Web Presence by Bob Kieft by Jennifer Grant

For all the bragging rights libraries like to claim — On September 18th, Haverford College launched “my library’s bigger than your library” or has X Y a new website , the long-awaited or Z rare or unique item — the modern traditions result of a two-year redesign project. Tasked of librarianship in the U.S. manifest a strong with the job by former President Tom Tritton, cooperative streak. On the whole, U.S. libraries are the College has worked with White Whale Web “all for one, one for all” organizations in spite of Services, a web design company based in Oakland, the barriers that libraries occasionally erect to make CA. The new website features much more than a it hard for “outsiders” to get at their collections. simple design overhaul. Many goals were outlined in its development, including the need to better poses well-known geographical and represent who we are to the outside world, and to political/cultural impediments to cooperation provide tools for on-campus users to better manage among academic libraries, and it wasn’t until the and present online information. mid-1990s that the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium Inc. (PALCI, http://www.palci.org/) As a result, developed to share resources among the state’s both the college and university libraries. Our Tri-College content and Library Consortium joined PALCI, and today user- capabilities generated requests through PALCI’s E-Z Borrow of our service account for 50% of our interlibrary activity website will with books. be greatly expanded. The Tri-College Consortium experience has been The narrative that resource sharing leads to more sophisticated content thinking about the relationship among collections has been and the services that make those collections significantly available. That has also been the case with PALCI, expanded for which, as the result of a planning initiative so that “the during the 2004/5 academic year, I have been Haverford convening a task force on cooperative collection story” is development. more easily The new Haverford homepage told, with Discussions have centered on members’ general pages about its Quaker heritage, the Honor Code, interest in cooperative approaches to the following: and much about Haverford life and academics. The new, integrated campus calendar allows • an archiving program for print journals now in groups to publish their events to the calendar and electronic form and potentially for those titles not see those same events display on their own website. in digital form and serial reference works The new site also boasts a more effective search • disaster planning and response tool using Google technology; student, faculty and organizational profiles; a news management • archiving print monographs according to centers system; an updated course information tool; of strength and collecting interest (Continued on p. 4) (Continued on p. 4) College Information Resources Newsletter

Technology Orientation New Acquisition in Special Collections for New Students by Ann W. Upton by Sharon Strauss This past winter, Special Collections was able to “I couldn’t access my course readings!” acquire a copy of Thomas Eddy’s An Account of the “Blackboard? What’s Blackboard?” “My computer State Prison or Penitentiary House, in the City of broke and I couldn’t finish my paper.” , 1801. Eddy (1758–1827), a Quaker from New York, wrote this proposal, the first on prison After hearing statements like these a few too many reform to be published in America. times, Raisa Williams, Dean for First-Year Students, approached Academic Computing about a way to Quaker activism in prison reform is a popular topic help new students learn the computer skills they with Haverford students who are studying the need to succeed at Haverford. Working with the history of Quakerism, and there is a long tradition Dean’s Office, Academic Computing devised an on- of Friends’ involvement in this social concern in line technology orientation that introduces students the area. Thomas Eddy, however, to important Haverford-specific computing furthered the reform movement and influenced information, such as how to contact the Helpdesk Friends and civil governments to work for and locate campus computer labs. It also introduces improvements throughout the country. students to the Blackboard course management system, where most course readings are stored, Eddy visited the infamous Philadelphia Walnut and teaches them how to log onto it. Once in Street Jail in 1796. This penitentiary, constructed Blackboard, students must complete a short quiz in 1790, was the first of modern prisons. Women to verify that they accessed Blackboard successfully were separated from men and debtors from others, and are familiar with other essential computing liquor was forbidden, and eventually even the information. dungeons were eliminated. Although the social experiment at the Walnut Street Jail failed by Students can complete this orientation at any time 1800 due to overpopulation, it served as a model during the summer or when they arrive on campus for Eddy, who took the progressive elements he for non-academic registration. Those students who viewed and wrote a plan for the construction of complete the assignment over the summer were two similar penitentiaries in . Soon entered into a raffle. Winners were announced after Eddy’s Account was published, Newgate at non-academic registration. Nathaniel Blood- Prison was constructed in Greenwich Village Patterson won a Dell Photo All-In-One printer 966, based on his plan. Eddy’s report contains all the donated by Dell Computer. Alexander Cahill and specifications for a modern prison including William Holloway both won iPod Shuffles. folding plates showing elevation and floor plans, and the accompanying humanitarian rationale for Academic Computing and the Dean’s Office have the features he proposed. The publication became been jointly running a technology orientation a guide for the reform of penitentiaries that was every summer since 2004. In addition to teaching followed as America grew larger and increasingly students important computer skills, it enables complex. the computing center to find and resolve any Blackboard account problems before classes start. The acquisition of this volume has enhanced the scholarly experience for Haverford’s students and researchers, and leads to increasing appreciation and understanding of the history of social reform in The College Information Resources Newsletter America. is available on the Web at

http://www.haverford.edu/library/about/news — Ann W. Upton is Quaker Bibliographe

2 Haverford College College Information Resources Newsletter

A Conversation with Darin Hayton “Until Called For”: Safekeeping by Margaret Schaus Materials in Special Collections by J’aime Wells In a wide-ranging talk History of Science professor Darin Hayton shares his thoughts about teaching, Every once in awhile the Commonwealth of research, and critical points in history along with Pennsylvania places in the Philadelphia Inquirer lists fascinating bits of arcana that you never learned in of “unclaimed property,” and we are all familiar school. with warehouse sales of “unclaimed freight.” Readers of this Newsletter might be surprised MS: How do your students use the Library? to know that the Library’s Special Collections DH: Students exploit the Library in two ways, in Department also holds such items. print and electronically. In previous decades, Special Collections staff They choose a arranged with community members to deposit topic and need valuable items for “safekeeping” in the Library to investigate vault. Along with rare books, manuscripts, and a rare book at fine art in College collections, then, the vault Bryn Mawr also contained family heirlooms, business or or Haverford organization records, and typed or hand-written as a primary book manuscripts—materials never intended to source. Then become part of the Library’s collections but allowed they fill in to “visit” for a short time, such as a family’s the context summer vacation, or “until called for” by their — other books owner (past items included numerous silver sets by the same and a stack of Beatles albums; even the ashes of author and James Magill were kept in safekeeping for a short other titles time before being buried beneath the large oak at on the same the library’s entrance!). topic — in an electronic Over the years, Haverford’s collections of rare fulltext books and manuscripts have grown to the point database like where no more room is available for safekeeping Early English Books Online (EEBO). For students items, and we have been systematically over this is the best symbiotic use of rare and electronic. the last few years returning long-unclaimed possessions to their owners. When I came to Students working in early-modern history Haverford in August, 2006, one of the first tasks I must confront a series of challenges, of which undertook was to inventory the remaining boxes of orthography and typography are only the most safekeeping and to search our records for contact mundane. Those who have studied foreign information about each item. This was a fun job, as languages are often not used to reading them or I cracked open each box with no idea what I might have limited exposure to the technical vocabulary. find and then began to speak to people by email, To help students, I started a Latin reading group. letter, and phone to explain that we could no longer We read authors like John of Seville, who translated offer safekeeping and would like to return their Arabic medical and scientific texts, including possessions. astrology, geography, and comets. Working through these texts helps students gain confidence and {The unabridged version of this article is available at facility with Latin sources. www.haverford.edu/library/about/news/cirnewsletter6.html.}

(Continued on p. 5) — J’aime Wells was Special Collections Executive Assistant

3 College Information Resources Newsletter

From the Director (continued from p. 1) digitized versions for search, discovery, evaluation, and reading of most texts under • digital collections creation and preservation most circumstances • remote storage for those libraries currently • establish a collective approach to archiving new short of space and, in the longer term, for the material for future scholarship (popular works management of legacy print collections. and other things we do not collect heavily now) • create a system of incentives to collect and Taken together, these elements are shaping a preserve unusual and unique materials. planning horizon that foresees in the next 20 years a collective sense of PALCI member holdings that Such events as the Aberdeen Woods Conferences • guarantees continued access to the greatest (1999, 2002) and Preserving America’s Print variety of (print) titles through Resources (PAPR, 2003), the recent North American • coordinated retention and acquisition programs, Storage Trust discussions, and technology solutions preservation/conservation/digitization offered by library systems, Google, and OCLC, programs, and coordinated disaster planning/ together with policy and program developments response for materials held in among library consortia in the Pacific Northwest, • trusted archives distributed among libraries or New Jersey, Colorado, and Ohio provide PALCI held in collectively-operated depositories that with agenda, models, and new capacities from which to choose. All situate themselves in the long • are connected by information systems which history of library efforts to provide the most varied integrate searching, discovery, and evaluation resources quickly to any given reader as libraries of materials online and facilitate their delivery/ and readers adjust to fundamental changes in the access in physical and in many cases electronic information environment. form, • the cooperative as a whole developed and ­— Bob Kieft is Director of College Information Resources supported in partnership with government & Librarian of the College agencies, consortia, and member institutions that provide services and sweat equity to PALCI.

To realize this vision, we will have to work in A New Haverford Web (continued from p. 1) the context of members’ existing peer groups, affiliations, and funding mechanisms to and easier ways for the campus community to • define the roles of individual libraries, kinds incorporate the overall look and feel of the College and groups of libraries, and other consortia site into their own pages. (PALINET, AccessPA, etc.) • create unified access to holdings information College Information Resources (CIR) has played • develop materials access/delivery systems a significant role in this project from its inception. • create a resource discovery as well as known- Currently, Bob Kieft, Director of CIR, serves as web item search tool committee co-chair, along with Jess Lord, Dean of Admissions, and Chris Mills, Director of Marketing • agree on long-term responsibility for funding & Communications. Jennifer Patton of Marketing materials storage, preservation, conservation, & Communications has been the project manager, and resource sharing and committee members include CIR staff Dawn • agree on terms for relying on trusted repositories Heckert, Jennifer Grant, Mary Lynn Morris of e-texts and for designating PALCI libraries as Kennedy, Mary Ellen Luongo, Barbara Mindell, light/dim/dark archives of print titles Matt Nocifore, and Bill Ulrich. • purchase and share e-monographs; consider joint purchasing of new printed monographs — Jennifer Grant is Applications Support Specialist • ensure the preservation of print materials as most users begin in the next 10-20 years to prefer

Haverford College 4 College Information Resources Newsletter

Staff News & Notes Technology Orientation (continued from p. 2) Compiled by Mike Persick To access the web-based portion of the orientation, see . For more information, married Matthew Rankin on July 6th in Falmouth, contact Sharon Strauss ([email protected], Massachusetts. The couple lives in Philadelphia 610-896-4916.) and regularly joins Rich at Phillies games. Rich is — Sharon Strauss is Publications & running for Township Supervisor in Thornbury Training Coordinator Township, Delaware County.

James Gulick, Reference Librarian, presented “Material Religion: The Challenges It Poses to Darin Hayton (continued from p. 3) Libraries” at the Annual Conference of the American MS: What did they learn about comets? Theological Library Association, held in June in DH: Comets and other unusual phenomena were Philadelphia. political and religious events. In 1494 Sebastian Brant was convinced that a recent meteorite Bob Kieft, Director of College Information Resources & portended success for Emperor Maximilian I in Librarian of the College, and Tom Clareson, Program his conflict with the French. After Maximilian had Director for New Initiatives at PALINET, are convening concluded a peace with the French, Brant used this a group, funded by a Library Services Technology meteorite again to argue that Maximilian would Act grant, which during the next year will develop a vanquish the Turks. Prodigious phenomena were collection development policy for a digital collection epistemologically multivalent and recycled to fit about Pennsylvania history, society, and culture. new and changing situations. Bob continues to convene a task force on cooperative collection development for the Pennsylvania Brant was not unique. Religious conflicts in Academic Library Consortium Inc. (see “From the the fifteenth century along with the fall of Director” on p.1 for additional details) Constantinople in 1453 had intensified millennial fears. By the end of the century, Europe seemed to The Library recently completed a project to digitize be on the brink of disaster. Intellectuals regularly the backfile ofLibrary Resources & Technical Services looked for prodigious phenomena to help them (LRTS), the official journal of the Association for understand their political and social situation. Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS). From March through July 2007, Norm Medeiros, MS: Where else do you see a need for more study? Associate Librarian, Bruce Bumbarger, Conservator, DH: I’ve become particularly interested in Evan Pugh, HC ’07, and Matthew Scheinerman, Hungary, which is typically considered a HC ’09, disbound, scanned, adjusted, and marked borderland between full Imperial and Turkish up the first 43 volumes ofLRTS (1957-1999). The control. This picture, however, is a product of resulting PDF and HTML files have been delivered 20th-century geopolitics and our own categories to ALCTS for mounting on its web site. The Library and blinders. Consider Matthias Corvinus’s court was recognized through a certificate of appreciation in 15th-century Buda. When Regiomontanus (from signed by Pamela Bluh, ALCTS President, and Germany), Martin Bylica (from Poland) and Hans Peggy Johnson, LRTS Editor. Dorn (from Austria) worked at Corvinus’s court they were part of a European-wide network of Diana Franzusoff Peterson, Manuscripts Librarian scholars. Confusingly, nationalist historigraphies and College Archivist, is author of the Haverford now treat Bylica as a Pole or a Hungarian rather than as a member of a broader European culture. Our own prejudices should not fragment the past.

(Continued on p. 6) — Margaret Schaus is Bibliographer & Reference Librarian

Haverford College 5 College Information Resources Newsletter

CIR welcomes the following new staff members: Staff News & Notes (continued from p. 5) David Conners started on August 1st as the new College chapter in Founded by Friends: the Quaker Digital Collections Librarian in Special Collections. Heritage of Fifteen American Colleges and Universities David, a Swarthmore alum, graduated from the (Scarecrow Press, 2007). Pratt Institute in May with his Masters of Library Science. He has an article, “The Jobs can be Found: Aaron Smith , Network Specialist, finished his A Response to ‘The Entry-Level Gap,’” in the Masters of Science in Information Science at Penn September issue of Library Journal. State Great Valley this past May. Jennifer Scales has joined CIR as Help Desk and Christa Williford , User Services Librarian, spent two Public Lab Coordinator. Jen was previously a Help months this summer in Seattle learning image Desk manager at Temple University. cataloging and thesaurus management skills at Corbis Corporation, while also conducting Bill Ulrich is our new Web Developer/ an ­independent study on the best practices for Administrator. Bill comes to Haverford from ­preparing interactive 3D web resources for online the University of Delaware. teaching and learning portals for theater studies. After these two experiences, she has only two more — Mike Persick is Acquisitions Librarian courses remaining to earn her Masters of Library & Assistant Catalog Librarian

and Information Science.

www.haverford.edu

-1175 6 89 (610)

Haverford, PA 19041 PA Haverford,

370 Lancaster Avenue Lancaster 370

Haverford College Haverford

es c esour R on i Informat College by ed h s i Publ