Let me take this opportunity to thank you all for your patience and patronage at this time of change for the IU Libraries. For many of you, the Libraries serve as a second office on campus, providing a haven where, immersed in the stacks, you can conduct research, concentrate, and quickly retrieve materials. We understand that changes in parking, increased construction noise, and moves due to renovation are a disruption to your routine.

However, such disruptions are temporary changes that will yield great benefits to the entire campus community, including the recently opened Grad Commons, which provides space exclusively for graduate students on the 8th floor of the East Tower in Wells Library; the Scholars’ Commons, which, once open, will provide a technology-rich, user-friendly space designed to support faculty research; and the School of Global and International Studies under construction just south of Wells Library. Thank you again for your support during this time of great change, and we at the IU Libraries look forward to continuing to provide services that help you achieve at the highest levels.

1. Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative

Announced by President McRobbie in his State of the University Address, the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative is the latest stage in IU’s strategic approach to preserving IU’s vital audio-visual assets. Co-chaired by Brenda L. Johnson, Ruth Lilly Dean of Indiana University Libraries, and Brad Wheeler, Vice President for IT and CIO, this initiative aims to digitize, preserve, and make universally available (consistent with copyright or other legal restrictions) by IU’s Bicentenary all of IU’s time-based media judged to be important by experts. Librarians and IU Libraries staff have been involved in this effort from the planning phase—the Media Preservation Initiative—and continue to contribute to this vast project that will help IU maintain its collections as well as its leadership role in national and international media preservation efforts.

2. Orphans Midwest Film Symposium at IU Bloomington

The Indiana University Libraries Film Archive and the IU Cinema successfully hosted the Orphans Midwest Film Symposium September 26th through the 28th. The symposium was a collaboration among IU, the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the Orphan Film Project, which is dedicated to studying and preserving the hidden corners of moving image history.

Read more about the Orphans Film Symposium.

Click here for a story on the Orphans Symposium on WFIU.

3. Area and International Studies Librarianship Workshop: A National Conversation

At a time of increasing internationalization in American higher education and decreasing resources, IU Libraries hosted a national workshop that promises to have lasting impact on international library collection development and support. The Collaboration, Advocacy, and Recruitment: Area and International Studies Librarianship Workshop drew together a wide range of specialists from area studies librarians to independent booksellers to the head of collection development at the New York Public Library to discuss the future of the profession for international collection experts. Read more about the Area and International Studies Librarianship Workshop.

4. On Exhibition at the Lilly:Visualizing Disease

Curated by Professor Domenico Bertoloni Meli in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, Visualizing Disease features pathological illustrations from the 16th century to the mid-19th century on display at the Lilly Library.The exhibition features first-of-their-kind illustrations, including a reproduction of the original watercolor that pathologist Thomas Hodgkin used in 1832 when he lectured about what we now know as Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Visualizing Disease is on display through Dec. 20.

Read more about the exhibition.

Click here for the HuffPo blog post on the exhibition.

5. IU Archives and the 1960s/1970s Reunion

Over the summer, Indiana University Archives assisted alumni David G. Martin (BA 1973, PhD 2004) and Cathy Rountree (BA 1977, BS Nursing 1984) in their work to organize a reunion of their friends and classmates who hail from the New Left and anti-war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Archives Director Phil Bantin, pictured at left, worked with staff from the Archives and the IU Office of the President to record oral histories from reunion participants.

Read more about the reunion.

6. Avalon Media System

The IU Libraries are leading the development of a new open source software tool, known as the Avalon Media System, that will allow libraries and archives worldwide to more easily provide online access to audio and video collections for teaching, learning, and research use. Avalon will eventually replace the Libraries’ Video Streaming Service, currently used by Media and Reserve Services and the IU Libraries Film Archive to provide online access to videos, and is anticipated to serve as the basis for future development of the Variations digital music library system, used by the Cook Music Library to provide online access to music sound recordings and scores. Avalon is also expected to play a major role in providing access to media for the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative recently announced by President McRobbie.

Avalon is being co-developed with Northwestern University Library and is supported in part by a three-year National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For more information, visit www.avalonmediasystem.org.

7. IU Libraries Partner with Ithaka S+R on New Research

IU Libraries are partnering with Ithaka S+R, a non-profit higher education research and consulting organization, to conduct two research studies during the current academic year. These studies will help the Libraries plan future resources, environments, and support services for IU faculty.

IU is one of only four institutions selected to participate in the NEH-funded “Sustaining the Digital Humanities,” which investigates how universities invest in and support digital content and tools. IU faculty members and administrators are participating in in-depth interviews and surveys that will be used to help develop a common language of cost, impact, and value for digital research, as well as models for funding that will encourage the long-term sustainability of digital initiatives.

The “Ithaka Local Faculty Survey” will be conducted in spring 2014 in order to gain a better understanding of IU faculty members’ information needs, attitudes and practices. This study will examine topics such as how faculty members discover and access scholarly materials, the types of materials they use in research and teaching, how they disseminate their work, and how they manage and maintain research data. This survey will assist the IU Libraries and the Office of Scholarly Publishing in supporting faculty research, scholarship, and teaching, and will provide data that can be compared with peer institutions and national survey results.

1. Scopus

Beginning this winter, the IU Libraries will be providing IU faculty, staff, and students access to Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, which includes 50 million records, 21,000 titles, and 5,000 publishers in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts & humanities. Read more about Scopus.

2. BrowZine

BrowZine is an application for mobile devices that allows users to browse and read journals electronically in a magazine-like format. BrowZine is optimized for tablet devices and is available for the iPad and some Android devices, including the Google Nexus, Samsung Galaxy, and Kindle Fire HD. Read more about BrowZine.

3. EndNote

As of July 1, 2014, the Libraries will transition from EndNote to other bibliography management software like Zotero and Mendeley, both of which are robust, free alternative bibliographic management tools.EndNote will remain available through IUWare until June 30, 2014, and the Libraries will continue to provide instruction support versions 5, 6, and 7.The Libraries will also offer instruction on transitioning from EndNote to Zotero and Mendeley.

4. Grad Commons Grand Opening

On Monday, October 7, the IU Libraries celebrated the grand opening of the Grad Commons in the Wells Library. A space dedicated to graduate students, the Grad Commons occupies 2,500 square feet on the eighth floor of Wells and was designed as a flexible, multipurpose space in the heart of the stacks to provide graduate students easy access to resources and experts vital to their research. Read more about the Grad Commons.

5. IU Scholars’ Commons

The IU Libraries are funding and planning the renovation of a new concept for service and space in the Wells Library that will provide interdisciplinary support for traditional and digital research and scholarship, uniting services from across campus in one central location. Services include digitization, visualization technologies, data preservation planning, and intellectual property rights management, among others. Construction is slated to begin in December and will primarily affect the first floor of the East Tower. Read more about the IU Scholars’ Commons.