Library News

Fair Use and the Arts: Collage-Making at Snell Library

ARL-FairUseWeek-White-Logo February 20-24 is Fair Use Week, and this year Snell Library is focusing on the arts. Come and make a collage with us…details below! What is fair use? It’s a right granted to us that allows us to use copyrighted materials without permission from the copyright holder, under certain circumstances. The central purpose of the doctrine of fair use is to encourage creative expression and innovation through the transformative use of intellectual property. It is part of U.S. copyright law. People often ask, “how much of someone else’s work can I use without asking permission and have it be considered fair use?” The answer is “it depends.” Fairness is something that needs to be assessed for each potential usage, against four factors:
  1. The intended purpose and character of the use, such as whether it’s for commercial or noncommercial, educational use.
  2. The nature of the copyrighted work – is it factual or creative?
  3. The amount of the portion to be used in relation to the entire work.
  4. The effect of the use on the potential market for the original work.
There’s also a concept of “transformativeness,” which, while not specifically codified in copyright law, has been shown to be a favored use. Transformativeness has to do with the creation of a new work through the use of others’ work. Recording artists and visual artists use remixing, mashups, and sampling in this way. Sometimes they need to ask permission, but sometimes appropriation of others’ work is considered fair use, and the courts agree: Make a Collage and Learn More About Fair Use! Creativity can be a great way to think about how fair use can apply in your research output and other work. Our Art and Architecture librarian, Regina Pagani, and I will be hosting a collage table in the lobby of Snell Library on Thursday and Friday this week (2/23 and 2/24), from 2:00 to 4:00. Stop by and find out more about fair use, and make your own collage to take with you or contribute to a larger collaborative effort! Further Reading:

2017 Call for Proposals: The CERES Exhibit Toolkit

CERES Exhibit Toolkit Call for Proposals The Digital Scholarship Group is now accepting proposals for the next round of CERES Exhibit Toolkit development (formerly known as The DRS Project Toolkit). The CERES Exhibit Toolkit is a user-friendly set of tools for building digital projects and publications using digital materials from the Digital Repository Service (DRS) or the Digital Public Library of America. With CERES users can create exhibits, galleries, maps, timelines, and playlists that draw digital materials dynamically from the DRS or the DPLA. We are also excited to announce a new program of support for classroom use of the CERES Exhibit Toolkit. We invite proposals from faculty for courses to be held in Fall 2017 and Spring 2018. Feature development CERES will be a collaborative endeavor and a great opportunity to experiment with publishing your project’s materials. If you have a project idea, we’d love to hear from you! Just answer a few questions about your project to apply. Examples of successful projects from the first two years of the CERES project include: Accepted projects will partner with the DSG and DRS teams to use CERES to securely store their project materials in the DRS and create a customized WordPress site to publish those materials on the web. If you have questions, the DSG staff are glad to meet and discuss project proposals before the deadline; please contact us at DSG@northeastern.edu to set up a meeting. Please visit the DRS Resources page for more information about the DRS. If you don’t think CERES is right for your project, but you are still interested in securely storing project files in the DRS, contact Sarah Sweeney.

DRS Milestone: 100,000 Files!

King Husky Celebrates his first birthdayWe’re happy to announce that the Digital Repository Service (DRS) now contains more than 100,000 files! We reached this milestone earlier in the month as files were being uploaded into the Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción collection for Archives and Special Collections. The 100,000 files stored in the DRS cover a broad range of topics, from dissertations about drug delivery systems, to images of specimens collected from the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, to student posters produced for the 2016 Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Expo. New material is being added every day, so be sure to check in regularly to see what projects Northeastern’s faculty, staff, and students are working on! As we celebrate this milestone, here are a few highlighted statistics to share with you:
  • In total, DRS files have accumulated 170,786 views, 165,997 downloads, and 2,326 audio or video streams.
  • The most popular files are from the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS), which is a psychological test that measures a subject’s ability to interpret nonverbal cues. Collectively the PONS materials have been viewed 2,464 times, downloaded 2,099 times, and the videos have been streamed through the DRS 806 times.
  • Archives and Special Collections’ Digital Collection has the largest number of files (53,407), as well as the highest total views (60,984) and downloads (47,604) for all files in a single community.
Onward to 500,000!

October is Open Access Month!

Open Access Month header

 

In October the Library celebrates Open Access Month—a time to highlight the importance of making research and information more accessible without cost. Events throughout the month will showcase many ways in which people here at Northeastern and around the world are working to make Open Access a reality, including projects in which you can participate! 

Open Access Month: Schedule of Events

Download a PDF schedule!   Zotero in 30 Minutes Tuesday, October 4, 2:00-2:30 DSC Media Lounge Learn about using Zotero, one of the most well-known free, open source citation management tools, to organize your research. Track and gather all of your research in one place and automatically format citations and bibliographies—bring your laptop to get started right away. DH Open Office Hours Wednesday, October 5, 12:30-1:30 DSC Media Lounge Understanding copyright and fair use in the Digital Humanities will be the focus of this week’s regularly scheduled DH Open Office Hours. Citizen Science in Action with Zooniverse Thursday, October 6, 4:00-7:00 DSC Media Lounge Want to see how easy it is to contribute to citizen science research?  Drop in for a hack-a-thon style session and work with us on a Zooniverse project!  No prior experience is necessary. We’ll provide guidance (and pizza!), just bring a laptop or tablet to participate. More info available here! Refreshments will be served. Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Wednesday, October 12, 4:00-7:00 DSC Media Lounge Join us to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of under-represented groups in Massachusetts and U.S. history. This hack-a-thon style session will focus on editing and updating Wikipedia pages in a group setting. You do not need any prior experience with Wikipedia to participate. We’ll provide guidance, just bring a laptop or tablet to participate. Refreshments will be served. Managing Your Research Output for STEM Graduate Students Thursday, October 13, 11:00-12:00 422 SL Learn how and why to share your conference posters, presentation slides, codebase, and other products of your graduate research. Bring your questions about author rights, copyright, theses/dissertations, and anything else relevant to managing your output! We’ll provide info on resources available for you at the Library and elsewhere on campus. DSG/NULab Fall Welcome Event Monday, October 17, 3:00-6:30 90 SL Join the DSG and NULab at 3:00 for a keynote by Dan Cohen, Founding Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America. This event will also feature lightning talks by Northeastern students, staff, and faculty about their recent work in digital scholarship, from 4:00-5:15. It will end with an informal reception where you can continue the conversation with area colleagues. Because space is limited, please register at bit.ly/DSGNULab2016 by October 10. Refreshments will be served. Decoding the Dragon Wednesday, October 19, 12:00-2:00 DSC Seminar Space Learn to read Northeastern University’s only medieval manuscript with faculty member Erika Boeckeler. Write Gothic letters with quills, tweet using medieval texting (aka abbreviationes), get a parchment souvenir and a Gothic henna tattoo. Level up through activities to become a “scribe” and contribute original research that will integrate into the manuscript’s website. We’ll provide guidance (and pizza!), just bring a laptop or tablet to participate. Refreshments will be served. Sourcing Multimedia for Your Course Thursday, October 20, 10:30-12:00 140 SL The Internet offers a variety of public domain and Creative Commons images, movies, and documents that may be used to support teaching and learning. Learn strategies for finding relevant media and crediting the media appropriately. Hosted by Academic Technology Services Creating Interactive Open Educational Resources Friday, October 21, 1:00-3:00 140 SL This course will show you the basics of using Storyline to create interactive educational resources. You’ll learn how to incorporate open source multimedia, create your own text, audio, and image content, and create interactive features. Finally, we’ll discuss options for publishing on the web and posting to open educational resource aggregator sites. Hosted by Academic Technology Services Storing and Sharing Files Using the Digital Repository Service Monday, October 24, 2:00-3:00 DSC Media Lounge Did you know the library can help you preserve your project and research materials, while also making those materials accessible on the web? This session will introduce faculty, staff, and students to the Digital Repository Service, the library’s trusted resource for storing digital materials created or acquired by the Northeastern community. Data Management Plans and the DRS Tuesday, October 25, 12:30-1:30 DSC Media Lounge How can you effectively share and preserve research data while fulfilling grant requirements?  This session will describe the library’s support for research data management, including the DMPTool as an option to generate data management plans, and the Digital Repository Service as an option for preserving and sharing research data. Refreshments will be served. Film Screening & Discussion: The Internet’s Own Boy Tuesday, October 25, 4:00-6:00 90 SL Join us for a screening of a special one-hour edit of this documentary about programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. An audience-guided discussion will follow the film. Refreshments will be served. Archival Collections Transcribe-a-thon Wednesday, October 26, 4:00-7:00 DSC Media Lounge Digitized collections of manuscripts and ephemera need help from human eyes to be more useful to readers and researchers. We’ll highlight several major archives where anyone can participate in transcribing digitized materials online and get you started on some of these fascinating projects, which range from historical restaurant menus to explorers’ logbooks to anthropologists’ field notes. Drop in at any point during the session and bring a laptop or tablet to participate. More info available here! Refreshments will be served. Hypothes.is in 30 Minutes Friday, October 28, 11:00-11:30 DSC Media Lounge We’ll go over the basics of how to use this open-source annotation tool in your research and teaching! For more information and to sign up for an account in advance, visit hypothes.is.

Welcome New Library Staff

Welcome new and returning students, faculty and staff!  The library is pleased to announce new staff members to support your research, teaching, and scholarship.   Bopp, MelanieMelanie Bopp – Access Services Librarian Melanie Bopp comes to Northeastern from the University of New Orleans where she worked as the Head of Circulation Services.  At Northeastern Melanie oversees evening/weekend services at the Help and Information Desk, coordinates building security services, and contributes to a variety of projects and initiatives that improve your experience in Snell Library.  Melanie has a BA in English from Mount Holyoke College and an MA in Library and Information Science from Louisiana State University.  Prior to working in libraries Melanie taught English in Japan. Reach Melanie at m.bopp@northeastern.edu.     Sarah ConnellSarah Connell – Sarah Connell has joined the Women Writers Project (WWP) in a new staff role as Assistant Director, where she served previously as Project Manager.  Currently Sarah is also Assistant Director of NULab.  For the WWP, Sarah brings a wealth of experience in women’s writing, digital humanities pedagogy, text encoding, and project management.  In her new role she will focus on a recently funded “Intertextual Networks” grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Sarah completed her PhD in English at Northeastern in 2014, with a specialization in early modern Irish and British literature and digital humanities.  Reach Sarah at sa.connell@northeastern.edu.   Lindley HomolLindley Homol – Research and Instruction Librarian Lindley Homol comes to Northeastern from the University of Maryland where she provided teaching and research support to online and distance users.  Lindley’s work has included creating and assessing online learning objects and collaborating with faculty and university administration to identify and replace traditional textbooks with open education resources.  At Northeastern Lindley supports students and faculty in Education. Lindley has been very active in the library profession.  She presented at recent national conferences including last spring’s Computers in Libraries conference and Catholic University’s Annual Symposium on Scholarship and Practice, and has published articles relevant to the profession for the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Keeping Up With series and the Journal of Academic Librarianship.  Lindley has a BA in English from Pennsylvania State University and an MA in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh.   Reach Lindley at l.homol@northeastern.edu.   Jon ReedJon Reed – Communications and Outreach Specialist Jon Reed comes to Northeastern from James Madison University where he worked as Communications Coordinator for the James Madison University Libraries.  Jon draws on solid experience working with stakeholders on a variety of communications initiatives to help promote library services and collections.  Jon has a BA in History from James Madison University.  Reach Jon at jo.reed@northeastern.edu.     ThomasNicoleSquareNicole Thomas – Access Services Librarian Nicole Thomas comes to Northeastern from Boston University’s Pardee Management Library where she worked as the Circulation Supervisor.   At NU Nicole oversees daytime services at the Help and Information Desk, and plays a key role on a variety of fronts including managing systems that help students and faculty reserve and utilize study spaces in Snell Library.  Originally from San Francisco, CA, Nicole has a BA in English from the College of Wooster and an MA in Library Science from Simmons College.  Prior to libraries, Nicole worked in administration at the University of San Francisco School of Law.  Reach Nicole at ni.thomas@northeastern.edu.   WilliamsBSquareBrooke Williams – Research and Instruction Librarian Brooke Williams comes to Northeastern from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she worked closely with undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty to support teaching and learning.  Brooke brings expertise in designing and implementing online library instruction modules, experience teaching in credit-bearing information literacy courses, and experience mentoring students immersed in capstone projects. Brooke has a BA in American Studies/English from Skidmore College and an MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  At Northeastern Brooke supports students and faculty in Communications Studies and Journalism.  Reach Brooke at b.williams@northeastern.edu.