Library News

We Need to Know What You Need to Study

Crowded study space in Snell

UPDATE 5/1/12: We have closed the survey data collection, thank you to everyone who shared their experience on this survey! If you are interested in the results of the survey, please watch this space, or contact me directly, at t.urell@neu.edu. — Do you come in to study in Snell but you can’t find a place to sit? Is your favorite group study room always booked? Need more power outlets? We want to know! This spring the Library will be asking for your help in collecting information about how study space is configured in Snell. We’re conducting a quick survey about study habits, preferences for space and furniture, and we will use the information to shape Library development over the next few years. Please take a few minutes to let us know what space and furniture you use, what you would like to see more of, and any other feedback or suggestions you have about study space in Snell. The survey shouldn’t take more than five minutes, your responses will remain anonymous, and each response will help us shape the Library’s study space. If you would prefer to fill out a paper version of the same survey, copies are available at the Circulation (1st floor) and Research Assistance (2nd floor) desks in the Library. Questions? Send me an email at t.urell[at]neu.edu Thanks for your help in creating a better Library!

Preserving HOPE

Poder Latino AIDS/HIV training session, ca. 1995 The Library’s Archives and Special Collections Department is happy to announce our newest social justice collection, the historical records of HOPE, the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation, Inc.. HOPE was a community-based organization established in 1971 to offer services and programs to benefit Massachusetts’ Hispanic/Latino residents. A wonderful addition to the Archives, the HOPE collection furthers our mission to collect and preserve the records of the Boston-area social justice organizations that serve under-represented communities. HOPE was a leader in creating innovative programs and services. In the mid-1970s, HOPE Talent Search was established to assist low-income youths in Boston and surrounding communities to stay in school, complete high school, and seek advanced or post-secondary education. During the 1990s, HOPE established Poder Latino (Latin Youth Power), a program to train Latino youth as peer educators about health promotion and disease prevention with particular emphasis on sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS/HIV. Another innovative program, PLENA (Padres Latinos Educando Nuestros Adolescentes/Latino Parents Educating Our Youth), trained volunteers to educate their own parents and family members on health issues. In 1995, HOPE established the Pedro Zamora Center, a peer center offering support services to Latinos and family members living with AIDS/HIV. HOPE promoted civic engagement and leadership development through its HOPE “Proyecto PLAN” Community Leadership Development and HOPE YouthPLAN and CommUNITYPLAN programs.  It also operated a computer-learning center and offered training classes to the community. HOPE worked closely with schools, cities, state-run organizations, and local non-profits until its closing in 2011. To learn more about HOPE’s contents or if you’re interested in our other social justice collections, please visit the Archives website.

Celebrate Open Education Week – March 5-10, 2012

Today’s News@Northeastern featured a “3Qs” interview with our Dean of Libraries, Will Wakeling. The focus was open access to research, and Will specifically highlighted Open Educational Resources (OERs).  Development of OERs involves remixing resources that are openly available in order to create learning materials that don’t cost students anything. The average college student paid $700 a year on textbooks in the 2009-2010 school year; given that the price of college textbooks is said to be increasing at four times the rate of inflation, that amount is likely higher today. So, it’s no surprise that the need for affordable course materials is becoming critical. Legislation such as the College Opportunity and Affordability Act has placed limits on textbook publishers, but prices are still high. MIT was a pioneer in the OER field with their Open CourseWare system, which debuted in 2002. It offered anybody, anywhere, the opportunity to access MIT course materials for free – a radical concept at the time. Since then many other institutions around the world have also established OCW programs, as well as an international consortium. That consortium is now sponsoring the first global Open Education Week, “to raise awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide.” Events are taking place around the world this week – many being hosted as online webinars. I encourage you to check out their schedule of events! How do you think Northeastern can play a role in the development and adoption of OERs? Leave your thoughts in the comments section…

Just Scan It!

If you are in Snell Library and are frantically looking for a photocopier, stop your searching. Why? Because the library is photocopier free! Yes, that’s right– the old copy machines in the Library were replaced with environmentally-friendly scanners last year.Located on floors 1-4 of the Library, these easy-to-use scanners are a green alternative to copy machines. They help save trees and reduce paper-use by allowing students to save the scanned image to their email, USB flash drive, or Google Docs account, instead of printing out unnecessary and wasteful hard copies of documents. If you still need a paper copy of the scanned document,  it can be emailed and then printed out using the printers at the Library. And the best part? The scanners are absolutely free! Now you don’t have to suffer from a guilt trip every time you want a copy of something– just go green and use the scanning stations instead! If you haven’t yet, use one of the scanning stations today, and feel good about making copies!

Welcome to the new Library website!

Update: January 20, 2012 — The new site is live! Please have a look around, and let us know what you think, here in the comments, on our Facebook page, or on Twitter @ClubSnell. — Coming soon, the Northeastern University Libraries will launch a redesigned web site at library.northeastern.edu. The site is the result of over a year of planning and building by myself and my Web Team colleagues Annie DeVane, Amanda Rust, and Diann Smothers along with the staff of the NU Libraries who helped us along the way. Many of you and your friends in the Northeastern community participated in usability testing, surveys and focus groups as part of this project. The resulting site is designed to be easy to use, and takes into account the primary functions you need when visiting the library online. It was a lengthy and robust process, we’re excited about the results, and can say with gratitude that it all began with you. The new homepage welcomes visitors with our familiar Discovery search as well as a NUCat search option. Links to our most popular services, like Room Booking, Ask a Librarian, and Interlibrary Loan are prominently displayed. New features include a redesigned menu, site search, and plenty of engaging exhibits, polls, featured resources, and news. A dropdown at the top of the homepage allows for selection of targeted resources for different types of users. Built on Drupal, an open-source web content management system, the new website is flexible, configurable, and allows for innovation and sustainable growth going forward. The site is the first part of a number of initiatives and redesigned online services planned for the coming year, including improvements to searching and room booking. The top of the page will have a link to a form for you to contribute your feedback. You can comment there, or on this blog, about the new site. We look forward to hearing from you!