September 2009 Archives
The University of Virginia Faculty Senate discussed a draft resolution on open access to scholarship at their September 23rd meeting with the intention that senators vote on it in November. The resolution was presented by the senate's Task Force on Scholarly Publication and Authors' Rights, represented by Edmund Kitch, a law professor, and committee chair Brian Pusser, a professor at the Curry School of Education.
As reported by UVa Today on September 28th,
"Under the proposed resolution, U.Va. faculty members would assign to the rector and Board of Visitors "a nonexclusive, irrevocable, non-commercial global license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of her or his scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided the articles are not sold for profit."
The policy would apply to all scholarly articles written by faculty members while at U.Va., except pieces that were written before the policy is adopted and remain under "incompatible" licensing agreements. All other articles would be turned over to the provost's office in electronic form and made generally available no sooner than 12 months after their journal publication.
"Scholarship is done for the benefit of mankind and it should be accessible to everyone," Kitch said.
There are many avenues for disseminating scholarly work, particularly with the Internet, he said. Authors should be aware of their rights, which they often sign away to the publisher. Because of this, he said, many authors have no right to post their material on the Internet.
Authors should be aware of the rights they have to their works, he said, and should specify, as an example, that they want the rights to revert to them when the material goes out of print.
"Raise questions with your publisher," he said.
Madelyn Wessel, special adviser to the University librarian and a member of the task force, said the current resolution is based on a similar policy at Harvard University.
She said there is great potential to put scholarly work on the Internet and also urged faculty authors to negotiate with their publishers."
For more information on authors' rights, see the VCU Libraries' Copyright and Authors Rights guide to resources, specifically the "Author's Rights" section.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Investigations has released the report: Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme. In a written statement, SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro said, "Today we are releasing the Inspector General's 450-page report regarding the Bernard Madoff fraud and the many missed opportunities to discover it...it is a failure that we continue to regret, and one that has led us to reform in many ways how we regulate markets and protect investors."
In June of 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison after pleading guilty in federal district court in New York to perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme since the early 1990s that victimized thousands of investors. Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts including securities fraud, and providing false documents and testimony to the SEC. The SEC has developed the Post-Madoff Reforms to prevent fraud and to promote its detection in the future.
Learn more about VCU Libraries' government documents collections. For assistance, call the Cabell Library reference desk at 828-1101.
The Presentation Rehearsal Studio at Cabell Library provides VCU students, faculty, and staff with the space and technology resources to practice, record, and develop presentations as well as to refine public speaking skills. Presentations may be recorded and then archived to a flash drive.
The Studio features a podium, ceiling-mounted projector, microphone, and a motorized viewing screen.
ARTstor is a nonprofit digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences with a suite of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and
pedagogical purposes. The community-built collections comprise contributions from outstanding museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, and artists and artists' estates. In this workshop, teaching faculty will learn how to: - Share images with students and colleagues through ARTstor folders, e-mail, and Blackboard.
- Upload and manage your own images in ARTstor Personal Collections.
- Make presentations with the Offline Image Viewer.
- Download high resolution images and image groups for use in PowerPoint or Keynote.
The Teaching with ARTstor Workshop is open to faculty, staff, and graduate students. It will be held in in the third floor classroom in Cabell Library on October 9th, from 10:00am-11:30 a.m.
Please contact Kristina Keogh at (804) 828-6339 for more information or special accommodations.
The VCU Libraries is pleased to announce the availability of more than 150 electronic health sciences books from multiple publishers through the new R2 Digital Library. The new collection provides access to digital books from the fields of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health. In addition, each individual title is cataloged and linked from the VCU Libraries Catalog. The R2 Web site can be browsed by category or discipline, and keyword searches can be performed across the entire collection of books. Users can create a personal account to save images, searches, references, and other files. Bibliographic citations can be exported to RefWorks and titles can be linked from Blackboard courses. Other features include a drug index of concise information from mobilePDR and the ability to e-mail sections of content. Titles from key health science publishers are available, including American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Publishing, F.A. Davis, McGraw-Hill, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Springer, and many others. Electronic book collections such as the R2 Digital Library are indicative of future publishing trends in Science, Technology and Medicine disciplines.
The R2 Digital Library will be celebrated as the 2,000,001st addition to the VCU Libraries during VCU's 2,000,000th volume ceremonies on October 2, beginning at 2 p.m. in Cabell Library. The event will be simulcast at Tompkins-McCaw Library on the MCV Campus.
The library's Web team has been hard at work on a redesign of the VCU Libraries homepage, but we need your help before we go live. Please take a moment to review the redesigned site by clicking on the image in our redesign blog, then answer a few short questions for us.
The VCU Libraries is pleased to announce the 2,000,000th addition to the library collections: Marvel Comics "Amazing Spider-Man, #583." This collector's edition of the Amazing Spider-Man, written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Todd Nauck and Frank D'Armata, includes a variant cover drawn by Phil Jimenez featuring President Barak Obama giving the thumbs-up to his favorite superhero. In the story set in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Spider Man battles his old foe the Chameleon, who threatens the swearing in ceremony by posing as President-Elect Barak Obama. Spider Man saves the day in "Spidey Meets the President." Marvel Comics undertook the publication of the special issue when they learned of Obama's childhood interest in comic books. The issue sold out immediately. The fifth printing (currently available) includes the original variant cover with the Lincoln Memorial in the background. The VCU Libraries' copy of "Amazing Spider-Man, #583" is a first printing and will be housed in Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library as part of its Comic Arts Collection.
"Amazing Spider-Man, #583" is especially appropriate as the 2,000,000th addition for the VCU Libraries. It highlights the historic election of the 44th President of the United States, celebrates VCU's proud tradition of diversity, and represents another significant addition to the Comic Arts Collection. The VCU Libraries' Comic Arts Collection is one of the largest of its kind in North America, with over 125,000 items, including comic books, graphic novels, manga, editorial cartoons, comic strips, memorabilia, comic journals, fanzines, and a broad array of reference materials. It also includes the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Archive, awarded each year to outstanding expressions of comic art and recognized as the "Oscars" of the comic world.
The "Amazing Spider-Man, #583" will be celebrated as the 2,000,000th addition to the VCU Libraries during the Two Millionth Volume celebration on October 2nd beginning at 2 p.m. in Cabell Library. The event will be simulcast at Tompkins-McCaw Library on the MCV Campus.
Visit the VCU Libraries Two Millionth Volume Blog to learn more.
The VCU Libraries is delighted to announce the release of a new addition to the VCU Libraries Digital Collections: the Edward H. Peeples Prince Edward County (Va.) Public Schools Collection. From 1959 to 1964, Prince Edward County, Virginia, chose to close its public schools rather than integrate them. Through photographs, documents, and maps, this collection explores the history of Prince Edward County segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Emeritus professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, photographed over 100 images of schools in the county and environs in 1962 and 1963, documenting the disparity between African American and white facilities. Also included are contemporary images of the schools and events surrounding the anniversary of the 1951 student strike and other occasions, as well as additional published and unpublished materials on the topic.
The Edward Peeples Collection will be celebrated as the 1,999,999th addition to the VCU Libraries during VCU's 2,000,000th volume ceremonies on October 2, beginning at 2 p.m. in Cabell Library. The event will be simulcast at Tompkins-McCaw Library on the MCV Campus.
Visit more projects at the VCU Libraries Digital Collections.
VCU Libraries will celebrate the acquisition of its two millionth volume at 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2. In just 16 years, the VCU Libraries' collection, including books, journals, media and electronic resources, has doubled in size. To mark this milestone, the VCU Libraries will recognize the 1,999,999th, 2,000,000th and 2,000,001st additions to the collection in ceremonies at Cabell and Tompkins-McCaw libraries. Details will be announced soon.
VCU Libraries has compiled a page of resources on H1N1 influenza from a variety of sources. You will find links to government and other official Web sites around the world, as well medical journals, news sources and articles, maps, and reputable medical blogs. Professional and consumer resources are included.
Hispanic Heritage Month is a month long observance (September 15 - Oct. 15) when America celebrates the culture and traditions of U.S. residents who trace their roots to Spain, Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America, and the Latin Caribbean. VCU Libraries is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by hosting a special exhibit on resources in our collections relating to Hispanic history and culture. On display on the fourth floor of the James Branch Cabell Library are a sample of the many books, films, and music recordings the library houses on Latin American society.
Also on display are two of the first Spanish language newspapers to be published in Virginia. Complete runs of the newspapers El Eco de Virginia and El Sol were donated to VCU Libraries in 2006. The issues were microfilmed and added to the Virginia State Newspaper Project. The newspapers can be accessed in the library's Special Collections and Archives department or on microfilm on the third floor of the library.
Hispanic Heritage Month began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded to a 30-day period under President Ronald Reagan in 1988. September 15 was chosen as the starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of the independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua -- all of which declared independence in 1821. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September 18, respectively.
Please visit the James Branch Cabell Library's exhibit area, located on the fourth floor of the library, to view this exhibit and others that highlight many of the diverse collections housed in the VCU Libraries.
ARTstor is a digital library of over one million images (including art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences) and a suite of software tools. In this workshop, you will learn how to search and browse the ARTstor collection of images, create an account and manage folders, create and manage image groups, and download and use the ARTstor Offline Image Viewer. The workshop will be held in the third floor classroom in Cabell Library on September 18th, from 1:30-3:00 p.m. and repeated on September 25th, from 1-2:30 p.m. Please contact Kristina Keogh (804-828-6339) for more information or for special accommodations.
VCU Libraries is celebrating Constitution Day (September 17th) with video viewings at both campus libraries, a Constitution Day montage on our entrance plasma screens, and free copies of a pocket Constitution guide.
A Conversation on the Constitution: Judicial Independence
- Tuesday, September 15th, 2009, 12:00 p.m.: Cabell Library Room B-35
- Friday, September 18th, 2009, 12:30 p.m.: Tompkins-McCaw Library Room 2-012 (Library Instruction Classroom)
Join us for the screening of a 30-minute video featuring Supreme Court justices Kennedy, O'Connor, and Breyer. In a conversation with students, the justices discuss the Constitution and the role of judges who are sworn to uphold the laws of this nation and to protect the rights of all citizens.
The Constitution Project: An Independent Judiciary
- Wednesday, September 16th, 2009, 12:00 p.m. Cabell Library: Room B-35
- Friday, September 18th, 2009, 1:00 p.m.: Tompkins-McCaw Library Room 2-012 (Library Instruction Classroom)
Join us for a screening of a 34-minute film chronicling two key moments that defined our understanding of the role of the judiciary: the Cherokee Nation's struggles before the Supreme Court in the 1830s to preserve its homeland, and Cooper v. Aaron, the 1958 Supreme Court case that affirmed that states were bound to follow the Court's order to integrate their schools. An Independent Judiciary features Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and some of the nation's leading Constitutional scholars.
A Constitution Day Montage
- Ongoing, Cabell Library foyer and Tompkins-McCaw first floor
A PowerPoint presentation and video montage will be displayed on large-screen monitors inside the entrances. Catch trivia and fun facts as you visit the library! The video montage features a variety of clips, from the "Schoolhouse Rock" Preamble to a segment of Barbara Jordan's 1974 "Constitution Speech."
Pocket Constitutions
- Ongoing, September 14th-18th, Cabell Library reference desk and Tompkins-McCaw service desk
Stop by for a free pocket-sized copy of the Constitution. While supplies last!
VCU Libraries is participating in trials of three online products from Springer. These trials are an opportunity to test and evaluate resources under consideration for addition to our online collections. Members of the VCU community are invited to explore these resources and help inform future decisions about purchases. Trial products are only available from computers on the campus network. Trials end on October 30, 2009. Please send comments and feedback to Lynne Turman.
- Springer Protocols contains more than 18,000 molecular biology and biomedical protocols, many from the classic series Methods in Molecular Biology.
- Springer Images includes more than 1.5 million photos, tables, graphs, and histograms from Springer publications and images. Images can be saved and downloaded as PDFs or Powerpoint.
- Springer Ebooks includes access to all English/International language book content from 2005-2009, as well as book series dating back to 1997. This constitutes close to 19,000 titles.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of the Inspector General has released the "Investigation of Failure of the SEC To Uncover Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme" Executive Summary. In a written statement, SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro states:
"Since Bernard Madoff's fraud came to light last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission's Inspector General has been investigating why the agency failed to detect it. His report makes clear that the agency missed numerous opportunities to discover the fraud. It is a failure that we continue to regret, and one that has led us to reform in many ways how we regulate markets and protect investors.
"In an effort to provide a full accounting as quickly as possible, we are releasing the Executive Summary of the Inspector General's report, to be followed by the 450-page report in the coming days."
Learn more about VCU Libraries' government documents collections. For assistance, call the Cabell Library reference desk at 828-1101.
Tompkins-McCaw Library is holding four online classes during the month of September. Two will focus on CINAHL and two will focus on RefWorks.
CINAHL, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature full-text database, offers over 600 journals plus evidence-based care sheets, legal cases, drug records, and more than 200 books. This is a must-have database for those in the nursing and allied health professions. Find out more information and register for the following sessions:
Do you want to save time and energy in managing your citations and creating a bibliography? RefWorks, an online citation management database, is just what you're looking for. We will discuss how to import citations from databases, organize the citations, and correctly format citations for a manuscript. Find out more information and register for the following sessions:
Learn about the variety of resources and services available to you from the VCU Libraries. In these one hour sessions, we'll show you the most effective ways to find books, journals, and other information for research. We will provide an orientation to the Tompkins-McCaw Library and its services, as well as offer a tour of the facility for employees and students. Tours will begin at the Service Desk, first floor, Tompkins-McCaw Library, 509 N. 12th St.
Click on the following dates for more information and to register:
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 from 9:00 - 10:00 am
Thursday, October 1, 2009 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 from 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Friday, November 6, 2009 from 9:00 - 1-:00 am
Monday, November 16, 2009 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
