George A. Smathers Libraries www.ufl ib.ufl .edu LIBRARY NEWS For the University of Florida Faculty Vol. 16 Issue 4 Spring 2006 Distance Learning & the UF Libraries: Communicating services to our off-campus users n a recent study published in the to the UF Libraries’ services and can be We also have a UF Libraries Distance IOnline Journal of Distance Learning accessed on the UF Libraries Distance Learning brochure that will be sent out Administration, Martina Nicholas and Learning homepage. to distance learning programs before the Melba Tomeo reported that academic fall semester so they can be distributed A “Getting Started” tutorial librarians have done a great job answering in student information packets. explains the steps to take the “challenge of providing resources Faculty who are interested in sending before having full access to and services to off-campus users in a these brochures to distance learning the UF Libraries’ services and variety of innovative ways.” Examples students, can e-mail Kathryn Kennedy at can be accessed on the UF of resources and services that academic katkenn@ufl ib.ufl .edu. Libraries Distance Learning libraries offer distance learners currently homepage. include the following: Kathryn Kennedy Another tutorial that is handy for Engineering Outreach Librarian • remote access to databases distance learners and traditional on- • e-books campus students alike is the “Remote • e-reference (phone, chat and e-mail with Logon Using EZ Proxy” tutorial, which librarians) explains how to access full-text articles Inside • e-reserves while off-campus through the online • distance education librarian databases. This tutorial can be accessed 2 Faculty-librarian • online tutorials from the UF Libraries homepage at www. collaboration ufl ib.ufl .edu, by selecting Instruction and The study also found that the same then Tutorials. 3 British women writers librarians who did a wonderful job exhibit; Cancellation list dreaming up these resources and services project did not do the best job at marketing them to distance learners. There is no point in 4 Florida history materials working hard to develop these resources if educate K-12 teachers and they are not being promoted. students Because of this, the UF Libraries have started to market distance learning 6 Head of Map & Imagery services in a number of different ways. Library retires The UF Libraries Distance Learning homepage has been revamped – you can 7 Carrie Newsom joins MSL; check it out at www.ufl ib.ufl .edu/ new READ poster distance. A “Getting Started” tutorial explains 8 Construction update the steps to take before having full access SP TLIGHT on faculty/librarian collaboration t is 1595, the height of colonial Spanish European pathogens on native Americans, Irule in the New World. You are a high- 18th century Cuban social history, ranking offi cer of the Spanish admiralty, Franciscan missions in Florida and returning home to Spain after serving secular clergy in Spanish Florida. for many years as the governor of Cuba. The seminar is also an excellent place During your years of service, you have for the students to learn ‘archive etiquette.’ administered vast swaths of land for the Chappell helps them become familiar with Crown, presided over numerous trials and strategies for working successfully with legal proceedings, protected the regional archive staff and teaches them techniques trade monopoly established by the Casa de Bruce Chappell and Cathleen Martyniak for taking and organizing notes. Students Contratacion, or House of Trade, worked study manuscript materials held by the practice their transcription skills on the Special and Area Studies Collections closely with the church to bring religion many manuscript materials held by the Department. to the region, and seen to the security of Special and Area Studies Collections the city of Santiago itself. You are waiting years. However, accessing the information Department of the Smathers Libraries. In for the turning of the trade winds, to allow contained within them can be a challenge. For addition to signifi cant holdings of 19th you to board the fl o t a , or treasure fl eet, one thing, handwriting styles have changed and 20th century paper manuscripts from for your journey home. Since up to one tremendously in the last 400-plus years. Also, Haiti and Cuba, the department also has quarter of the individual ships in the fl o t a abbreviations, grammar and punctuation over two million pages of Spanish colonial do not arrive safely back in Cadiz, you usage have changed dramatically as documents on microfi lm from Spain, update your last will and testament with well. Paleography is important so that Mexico and Cuba. Finally, in Europe, the local notary public, just in case. Along scholars can learn to correctly decipher the paleography is taught at most universities, with members of your immediate family, documents they are examining. while in the United States, only three servants, slaves and extensive personal universities teach it, with the University of holdings, you board a galleon that sets sail Paleography: The study and Florida being one of them. for the straits of Florida, where you reach scholarly interpretation The Center for Latin American Studies the gulf stream and are propelled east, of ancient written documents has been supportive of the seminar since towards the Azores. Luckily, the journey is its inception. The current Center Director, uneventful and you arrive home to a royal Students affi liated with the University Dr. Carmen Diana Deere, continues welcome. Before your death, you write of Florida do fi eld work examining this long tradition of close cooperation your memoirs for posterity. In addition documents at the National Archives of between the center and the libraries. In to the autobiographical account of your Spain in Seville and Madrid, in Mexico addition to providing funding for several life, over the course of your administrative at Mexico City and at smaller, regional graduate student assistants to work at career, you have either written or been and religious archives throughout Latin the Latin American Collection (LAC), responsible for the creation of literally America. the center also supports the frequent hundreds, or possibly even thousands, Bruce Chappell, affi liate faculty of travel of Bruce Chappell to Cuba in order of documents that have fl owed into the the Center for Latin American Studies to build ties between our nations in the Archivo General de Indias, the historical and coordinator of Caribbean Collection area of cultural patrimony. Dr. Deere is document repository in Seville. Development Initiatives for the Smathers implementing a new governance structure Personal correspondence, diaries, Libraries, has been teaching “Paleography designed to increase participation by religious records, legal documents, of Historical Spanish Documents and the center’s affi liate faculty in decision- notarial records, shipping manifests, etc, Archival Research Methodology” here at making processes. Demonstrating her all contain valuable information that is of UF since 1982. This graduate level seminar ongoing commitment to work closely with interest to scholars in history, sociology, is offered every two to three years and has the libraries, she named Richard Phillips, anthropology, linguistics, botany, women’s been taken by over 150 students. They head of the LAC, as an ex ofi cio member studies, geography, natural resources and use their new found skills to decipher of the 2005-2007 Latin American Studies environment, and political science, to many hand written documents, allowing Faculty Advisory Council. name just a few. These resources have been them to gain the knowledge to write their gathered, organized, preserved and made dissertations and publish books on such Cathleen Martyniak available to researchers at archives across varied topics as the history of geopolitical Head, Preservation Dept. the old and new world for hundreds of and environmental changes, the impact of Page 2 Library News British women writers exhibition Smathers Libraries cancellation list in Special Collections project he Department of Special and Conference held in Gainesville March TArea Studies Collections is pleased 23-26. The conference keynote speaker, Dr. to present a new exhibit entitled Lynn Vallone from Texas A&M University, Smathers Libraries is beginning “(Re)Collecting British Women Writers: spoke on “Re-membering Mary, Queen a project to compile a list of $750,000 Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century of Scots: Girls Reading and Girls Writing worth of journals (both electronic British Women Writers in Special in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century and paper) to cancel in fi scal 2007 Collections.” The exhibit features books Britain.” Nineteenth century books about should there be no increase to the from the Baldwin Library of Historical Mary, Queen of Scots are also included in library resources allocation. Children’s Literature with an emphasis on the exhibit. The exhibit is on display in the To be effective in FY 2007, these women who wrote for children, including Smathers Library Exhibit Gallery through cuts must be made before the end Kate Greenaway and Maria Edgeworth. May 21. of July. Faculty will leave campus in Curated by Cathlena Martin, a Ph.D. early May. The libraries generally John Nemmers do not hear about budget increases/ candidate in the English department, the Descriptive and decreases until late June or early July exhibit was created in conjunction with Technical Services Archivist, the 14th Annual British Women Writers Special and Area Studies Collections — too late for subject specialists to consult with faculty before making serious cuts. Why The library resources allocation has been reduced (Legislative reductions) and then stayed relatively fl at for the past fi ve years while the cost of library materials (journals and monographs) has infl ated at a rate of about 5% per year. Legally required to stay within our budget allocation, the decrease in funds combined with infl ation makes it impossible to purchase the same number of Left: The play grammar, or, The elements journals.