Library News

Bill Gates as usability rabble-rouser

A Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog posted this email sent by Bill Gates to various Microsoft employees in which he details, with clear irritation, the usability issues he encountered in trying to download and install some Windows software.  Aside from the clear amusement factor, the email and Gates’ response is also fascinating in providing a glimpse of someone who views his job, as The Man in Charge, to advocate for usability. Strangely enough, this is part of what I think librarians do, too.  We advocate to all those companies that make all those fancy databases to keep the end user in mind.  (The end user being, in our case, everyone that comes into Snell and tries to find an article in, say, Lexis-Nexis.) So if something is hard to use, let us know.  Sometimes research is complicated, period.  I daresay that will never change.  But sometimes research is complicated because the tools are poorly designed.

Summer Reading–Rebecca

I think Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier typifies the perfect summer read.  It’s atmospheric and has one of the most famous opening lines: “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”  It borrows liberally from past gothic plots (most obviously Jane Eyre) and also manages to make more over the top, an already pretty over the top genre.  It’s chock-full of romance, secrets, jealousy and revenge. 

 

This book is one I’d recommend checking out from Snell Library to read over the summer, and it’s also featured in the Summer Staff Picks exhibit on the first floor of the Library.

Summer Staff Picks

Looking for a good book to read or movie to watch over the summer?  Visit the exhibit showcases on the first floor of Snell Library—in the front of the Library and also in the display case by the first floor elevator.  Northeastern University Libraries staff members share their recommendations.  Browse their selections and settle on a first-rate title to enjoy this summer!  

Italy, Multiculturalism and Libraries

Italy Italy, (along with most European countries), has experienced an influx of immigrants in last few years, and with that there have been some ongoing (and escalating) tensions down racial and ethnic lines.  This has also been reflected in the election of an increasingly conservative government.   While this recent New York Times article certainly demonstrates a mixed outlook, I was pleased to see that the reporter interviewed two Italian librarians who were trying to promote cultural diversity in their country and the ways in which libraries and art organizations are uniquely positioned to do that.   

What are original editions worth?

At nearby Margaret Clapp Library at Wellesley College, students have been able to pore over the 1566 printing of Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.  It’s the third such “threshold work” for science-the Library has first printings of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica-in the Wellesley collection.  Reading about this acquisition made me think: How different is the experience of reading a first or second printing?  Does more power lie in the text, or the book? What sort of impact does it have on a student’s study?