Library Newsletter
Spring 2002 (No. 42)
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News & Events |
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Renovations and Improvements at Frost Library
During the summer and fall of 2001, several renovations and improvements took place at the Circulation and Reference Desks at Frost Library. The modifications made to the desks and the addition of new equipment will enable staff to work more efficiently and effectively. In addition, the changes will facilitate interaction between Library staff and researchers. Perhaps the most visible change is the addition of new, flat computer monitors, or "flat screens." The new screens are glare-free, making close work and reading on-screen much easier. One monitor at the Reference Desk is mounted on a flexible arm that can easily be turned to face Library users who are working with reference librarians.
Another Successful Exam Break
The latest Student Exam Break, sponsored by the Friends of the Library, took place on December 12 at the Robert Frost Library. Five gallons of coffee, four gallons of punch, 250 cookies, and 100 granny smith apples were served to about 230 students studying in the Library. Many left notes of gratitude on the student comment board; one response, representative of many others, read: "This made my day. You people are Awesome. The Library is the coolest place ever and the Friends rock!!"
Visual Resources Department Moves To Fayerweather Hall
Visual Resources is moving to Rooms 213 - 215 in Fayerweather Hall during January 2002. The collection's slides (in their cabinets) were moved on January 14th by National Library Relocations. The furniture was moved the following week. The collection should be fully operational by the end of February. For additional information, call the Department at x2263 after January 28th.
Join the Friends of the Library
The Friends of the Amherst College Library, a group of students, faculty, friends, and alumni, is dedicated to active support of the Library and participation in its development. The Friends sponsor many programs in the Library and generously contribute to acquisitions in the full range of library resources. Current Amherst College students are encouraged to show their enthusiasm about the Library by joining the Student Friends. Annual dues for students are just $1. To join, fill out this form.
Library Staff Changes
Rebecca Henning joined the Library staff as a Cataloger in December of 2001. Rebecca, a graduate of Colby College and the School of Library & Information Science at Simmons College, worked as a props artisan and stage manager in regional theaters around the country before becoming a librarian. She has worked in public and academic libraries, including the Denver Public Library and the libraries at Northeastern University and Simmons College. She comes to Amherst College from the Hamilton Campus of Miami University (of Ohio).
Reference/Instruction Librarian Nancy Kuhl will be leaving Frost Library in January. She has accepted a position as Assistant Curator of the Yale American Literature Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Amherst College Undergraduate Folger Fellowships
The Amherst College Undergraduate Folger Fellowships, sponsored in part by the Friends of the Library, are research fellowships held for two weeks in January at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. The fellows are selected in a competitive search during fall semester; those applicants whose academic work can most profit from two weeks of intensive research in the Folger Shakespeare Library are awarded an all-expense paid trip to DC to study at the Folger Library. This year's fellowships were awarded to Ema Vyroubalová '02, Daniel Shore '02, and Rikita Tyson '02.
No Manuscript is an Island
On November 14, Archives and Special Collections hosted a lecture by Alfred Habegger. Professor Habegger's lecture, "No Manuscript is an Island: The Local and the Global in Biographical Research," discussed his use of materials in the Amherst College Library in completing My Wars Are Laid Away in Books, his recently published biography of Emily Dickinson. Professor Habegger's lecture was part of an ongoing series of presentations sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
Book in a Box, Or Preservation in the Library
Ever run across a library book wrapped in a folding paper box-cover? These preservation boxes are just one way the Library protects fragile, older materials. The Library's Technical Services Department has a book repair and preservation program which uses various methods to insure the long life of Library materials. Last year, the department repaired more than a thousand volumes and returned them to the stacks for general use.
The Library also has a special preservation program, known as "Care and Preserve," funded by the Friends of the Library. The program strives to restore time-worn items and to prevent deterioration of the Library's rare and unusual materials. The program has expanded the Library's preservation program to include conservation of individual items and it has helped to address broader areas that need attention. Since its inception, 49 people have donated a total of $8,292 to the "Care and Preserve" program. A more complete description of "Care and Preserve," including images of restored materials, is available on the Friends of the Library website.
2001 Robert Frost Library Fellow for 2001: Professor Marianne Constable
This year's Robert Frost Library Fellow, Professor Marianne Constable, visited Amherst College and the Frost Library in October. Constable met with students, faculty, and library staff during her week- long stay. The final event of the week was Professor Constable's lecture, "Silence in the Library." Professor Constable, an interdisciplinary legal scholar, is best known for her book, The Law of the Other: The Mixed Jury and Changing Conceptions of Citizenship, Law, and Knowledge which received the Hurst Prize by the Law and Society Association, for the best book in legal history in 1994.
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History Notes—22.02D515:
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Melvil Dewey started life as Melville Dewey. He was a man with a passion for order, efficiency, time and labor saving devices, and an advocate of spelling reform. In his adult life, Dewey composed all his correspondence using simplified "fonetic" spelling, often signing himself Melvil Dui.
Dewey was member of the Amherst College Class of 1874 and received a master's degree from the College in 1877. As an undergraduate student working in the Library he found it to be "disorganized." Putting his exacting mind to solving that problem, Dewey devised the decimal classification system that bears his name in 1873. He submitted his proposed "Library Classification System" to the Library Committee on May 8, 1873. They were so impressed with his scheme that they authorized him to apply his system to the College Library. Dewey's 1873-74 report as assistant librarian summarizes the successful application of the new system : "The system is easily understood and applies equally well to a library of hundred vols or of a million, it being capable of indefinite and accurate growth; the system growing with the books in the same direction and at the same rate, an exceedingly desirable thing, wholly unattainable by any other plan yet proposed."
Dewey's idea was more broadly disseminated after 1876 when the first edition of A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library was published while Dewey was serving as Acting Librarian at Amherst (from 1874 to 1877).
Dewey recollected the inspiration for the system (the odd spelling is his):
For months I dreamd night and day that there must be somewhere a satisfactory solution....The first essential of the solution must be great simplicity. The proverb said "simple as a, b, c," but stil simpler than that was 1, 2, 3. After months of study, one Sunday during a long sermon by Pres. Stearns, while I lookt stedfastly at him without hearing a word, my mind absorbed in the vital problem, the solution flasht over me shouting "Eureka!" It was to get absolute simplicity by using the simplest known symbols, the arabic numerals as decimals with the ordinary significance of nought, the number a classification of all human knowledge in print.
Dewey went on to devote his life to the library profession and to his interest in simplified spelling. Dewey served as the founder and secretary of the Spelling Reform Association from 1876 until his death in 1931. As a nationally active librarian, among other things, he founded the Library Journal in 1876, served as chief librarian for Columbia University, and founded the Columbia School of Library Economy in 1887, where, against the explicit orders of the Trustees not to admit women to the library school, he did.
Dewey maintained a life long affection for his College. In 1881, writing from the offices of the Library Journal, Dewey writes "Sum day, dear Amherst, may it be my happy lot tu pruv how great iz the love I bear yu. Proud, always, everywher to be counted among yur sonz, I am Very truly, Melvil Dui."
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Library Services |
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International Television Now Available in the Language Lab
Television in all languages taught at Amherst College is now available for viewing in the Language Lab. The foreign language TV channels available on the campus network are:
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Channel 7 - TVE Spain
Channel 10 - Deutsche Welle from Germany
Channel 11 - CCTV from China
Channel 12 - TV-5 from France
Channel 13 - TV Japan
Channel 23 - NTV from Russia
If you have any questions about international TV or other language resources available in the Language Lab, contact Kara Schwartz, Language Laboratory Coordinator, at klschwartz or visit the Lab's website.
Library Research Labs
Bring your questions about library research to a reference librarian. No appointment is necessary. Librarians will be in the Lane Room (Frost Library, Level A) during the following times in April:
Wednesday 4/3 from 7-9pm
Thursday 4/4 from 2-4pm
Tuesday 4/9 from 7-9pm
Wednesday 4/10 from 2-4pm
Can't make any of our Lab hours? Make a Research Appointment.
Improved Access to Chemical Abstracts
The Library is now offering improved access to Chemical Abstracts through SciFinder Scholar, a new, simplified interface to the premier database for chemistry information. Students and faculty now have access to over 20 million bibliographic records from 1907 to the present. Researchers can search by chemical substance, research topic, or author name to retrieve journal article information. Direct links take users to the full text of online journal articles to which the Library subscribes. SciFinder Scholar requires special software which has been loaded on all Library computers and can be downloaded onto personal computers via the campus network. Please contact Susan Kimball, Science Librarian, for more information at sjkimball@amherst.edu.
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New Resources |
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More New Databases Coming this Semester
Stop by the Reference Desk for assistance searching these new resources:
Alt Press Watch (1995-present): Full text database
of about 90 newspapers, magazines, and journals of the alternative and
independent press.
Research >
Indexes
& Databases > General
Alternative Press Index (1991-present): Indexes nearly
290 alternative, radical, and left periodicals, newspapers, and magazines
that report and analyze the practices and theories of cultural, economic,
political, and social change.
Research >
Indexes
& Databases > General
Sociological Abstracts via Cambridge Scientific Abstracts:
Indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines
in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts
of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,700
serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters,
dissertations, and conference papers. Records added after 1974 contain
in-depth abstracts of journal articles.
Research >
Indexes
& Databases > Sociology
CSA Biological Sciences: Abstracts and citations
to research in biomedicine, biotechnology, zoology, ecology, and more
from over 6000 serials, as well as conference proceedings, technical reports,
monographs, and selected books and patents.
Research >
Indexes
& Databases > Sciences
CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts: Citations
and abstracts from international serials in political science and related
areas such as international relations, law, and public administration
and policy. The serials list of this new database is actively expanding
to include more international coverage.
Research >
Indexes
& Databases > Political
Science
New York Times Backfile: Full page images of the
New York Times from its first issue in 1851 to the 1990s.
Research >
Indexes
& Databases > General
New Electronic Journals in the Life Sciences
The Library recently subscribed to BioOne, a new collection of 46 online bioscience journals. The journals, primarily produced by scientific societies and non-commercial publishers, include The American Biology Teacher, The Auk, and The Wilson Bulletin. Each title is available in the online catalog and can be found by title or by searching BioOne as an author. BioOne was created by a 5-member collaboration, including SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) whose mission is to create and promote an alternative to current academic publishing models; SPARC and its partners allow scientists to control the products of their research and provide others affordable access to those materials.