Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Cornerstone Newsletters Spring 2010 Vol. 5, no. 3, Spring 2010 Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/morrisnews_cornerstone Recommended Citation "Vol. 5, no. 3, Spring 2010" (2010). Cornerstone. Paper 19. http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/morrisnews_cornerstone/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Newsletters at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornerstone by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Volume 5, Number 3 Spring 2010 The Newsletter of Morris Library • Southern Illinois University Carbondale Morris Library’s Cuneiform Tablet by Ann Myers, Special Cuneiform writing is the earliest known Collections Cataloger writing system in the world, emerging in the 34th century BC, and it was used he oldest item owned by Morris for over 3,000 years. Its characters could TLibrary is not a book by modern represent a number of different languag- definitions; it is a small clay tablet with es, but it was first developed from a form cuneiform writing. It would fit comfort- of hieroglyphics used by the Sumerians. ably in the palm of your hand, though These hieroglyphics had been carved it is in two pieces and cracked in other into stone, and used curved as well places, so we try to handle it as little as as straight lines. When the Sumerian possible. We believe the tablet dates from culture moved to Mesopotamia where 2400–2200 BC, and it was found in Senkereh, In This Issue also known as the biblical • Morris Library’s Cuneiform city of Larsa (modern Tablet day Tell as-Senkereh in Page 1 Iraq). • Message from the Dean Morris Library acquired Page 2 the tablet from Edgar J. • Katherine Dunham’s Banks, an early twenti- Haitian Legacy eth-century archaeolo- Page 4 gist. He was also a dealer in antiquities, buying • Library Is Seeking many cuneiform tablets Morris’ cuneiform tablet lives in a custom-made box that is in need of repair. See page 5. Page 3 & 6 and importing as many as 11,000 to the United • Focus on Library Faculty: States, where he sold them to universi- stone was less common, clay became the Jonathan Nabe ties and museums. He excavated Bismya, dominant writing material. The tools Page 7 or the lost city of Adab in 1903, was the used to impress marks in the clay made first American to climb Mount Ararat wedge-shaped marks which did not lend in 1912, and may have been the first themselves to curved lines, so the hiero- www.lib.siu.edu archaeologist to search for the Ark of the glyphic characters became more stylized, Covenant. His many adventures have led and eventually came to represent sounds some to speculate that he inspired the rather than ideas. The cuneiform writing Indiana Jones character. on our clay tablet covers every surface continued on page 5 . Cornerstone is published four times Message from the Dean a year. It is distributed free of charge to Friends of Morris Library, SIUC faculty and friends of the University. Taxpayer Access Dean RPAA: It stands for Federal Research Public Access Act (pro- David Carlson 618/453-2522/[email protected] Fnounced fir-pa). Like many initialisms, it does not roll off the tongue but FRPAA is important legislation that was introduced Acting Associate Dean For into the U.S. House of Representatives in April as HR 5037. The Support Services bill was introduced on a bi-partisan basis by Representatives Doyle Howard Carter 618/453-2258/[email protected] (D-PA), Waxman (D-CA), Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), Harper (R-MS), Boucher (D-VA) and Rohrabacher (R-CA). Associate Dean For Information Services Susan Tulis Governmental agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science 618/453-1459/[email protected] Foundation give money—tens of billions of dollars annually—to universities and other groups in support of research. The results of the research are reported back to the agency through Special Collection Research technical documents, progress updates, and a final report. Further, in most cases researchers Center—Manuscript, Art & Photographic Donations report results in articles in peer-reviewed journals. Unfortunately, access to these articles, which Pam Hackbart-Dean represent the explication and documentation of the research findings, is limited and restricted. 618/453-2516/[email protected] Access is gained only by those who have access to the journal, in print or electronic format. Typically, researchers gain access through a subscription paid for by the library of the institu- Book and Monetary Donations & Bequests tion with which they are affiliated. Kristine McGuire 618/453-1633/[email protected] As a society, we support and value research because we wish to discover new knowledge and understand more fully the world around us. But discoveries and new knowledge, even the most Cornerstone important ones, are valueless unless they are shared and communicated. When shared, discov- eries can be applied, and others can learn and build upon the knowledge gained. Communica- Editor tion is not simply a by-product of research—it is essential to its purpose. Gordon Pruett 618/453-1660/[email protected] FRPAA requires the primary federal grant-funding agencies to provide online public access to Designer published manuscripts stemming from the research no later than six months after publication Sharon Granderson in a peer-reviewed journal. The argument for such a requirement is that since the research is 618/453-1011/[email protected] funded through public funds, the public has a right to the literature reporting the results. The Preservation six-month embargo period protects the business models of publishers which rely on the income Julie Mosbo from subscriptions. 618/453-2947/[email protected] Photography A key objection by publishers to FRPAA is that it undermines their business model and that Greg Wendt libraries will cut subscriptions despite the six-month embargo. Regrettably, we have some 618/453-3860/[email protected] experience with journal cancellation projects at Morris, and I can report two key findings. First, we have never looked at the percentage of public access availability of articles in a journal as a criterion for cancellation. Our primary concern is and will always be the applicability and For a complete listing of the library staff, relevance of the journal to our curriculum and research interests. Second, I can report that the About The Library follow the link to primary reason we cancel journals is the inability to afford what I believe are the rapacious price the Staff Directory on our home page: http://www.lib.siu.edu/hp/ increases by publishers which year after year, decade after decade, exceed the average U.S. infla- © 2010 Board of Trustees, tion rate. Southern Illinois University I encourage you to support FRPAA. You paid for the research. You deserve access to it. If you want more information about FRPAA, I recommend the web site of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access at the following URL: www.taxpayeraccess.org Portions of this essay were also used in a recent Op Ed piece in the Southern Illinoisan. David Carlson • 2 • The Library Is Seeking . Library Affairs thanks donors who have purchased items from the previous list— ith research library budgets $110 for Frank Auerbach by William Wstrained by the increasing costs Feaver. This is the most comprehensive Barry W. Birnbaum of electronic journals and databases, publication to date, and the only book in Chicago, IL more traditional reference/replacement print, on the work of Frank Auerbach, –•– volumes are sometimes left behind. The a painter who has become one of the David E. Christensen Library Is Seeking . looks for private pre-eminent artists of our age, widely ad- Carbondale, IL funding for those items that would not mired for his vivid, impulsive depictions –•– otherwise be purchased by the library. If of the world around him. His is, ostensi- Connie Corwin you are interested in underwriting one bly, a narrow world, a small area of north Centennial, CO of these items, please contact Kristine London where he has lived and worked –•– McGuire at [email protected] or for more than fifty years, but within it he Mary Houchin 618-453-1633. achieves images of marvelous poignancy Lebanon, IL and feel. “I’m hoping,” Auerbach has said, –•– R “to make a new thing for the world that Richard & Karin Jurek remains in the mind like a new species of Dyer, IN living thing.” Auerbach, who was born in $170 for Landscape As World Picture: –•– Berlin in 1931 and came to Britain when Bill & Gail McGraw Tracing Cultural Evolution in Images by he was eight, repeatedly paints people he Chicago, IL Jacob Wamberg. This book presents knows well and places he is familiar with. a new and comprehensive bid concern- –•– ing the manner in which landscapes in Walter C. Rodgers Vienna, VA Western pictorial art may be interpreted The Adopt-a-Book Program in relation to the cultures that created –•– them. “Unusual for its ambitious scope, encourages donors to purchase Roger & Valerie Soals Cox Wamberg undertakes a survey of the needed titles within which Carbondale, IL appearance of landscape in western art a personalized bookplate The Adopt-a-Book Program from cave painting to the Renaissance, appreciates your support. utilizing concepts from philosophy and is placed. psychology to explain the artist’s, and by extension, that civilization’s notion of the For more information, $210 for Cambridge History of Eigh- world around them. Wamberg develops by David Wyn please call 618-453-1633.