Library News

Northeastern Ranks #11 by RateMyProfessors.com

On April 28th RateMyProfessor.com released a list of their top 25 picks for best universities across the country. The decision was based on the ratings and comments of students regarding campus professors, environment, and facilities. We are proud to announce that Northeastern University received 11th place and we are even more proud to know that Snell Library helped us reach this ranking. Quality of professors made up 50% of the score while the other 50% was based off of school reputation, location, career opportunities, library, food services, and social activities. Here’s to summer at one of the 25 best universities in the country!

Nation's Archivist Helps Snell Celebrate 20 Years

Yesterday’s celebration of Snell Library’s 20th anniversary was truly a memorable event. Guests gathered in the lobby of Snell to welcome our esteemed speakers: Dean of Libraries Will Wakeling and the 10th Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, as they spoke of both the history and future of the library, and brought to light the many roles Snell fills in Northeastern’s community. A reception followed and celebrated the library’s staff who have been at Snell since the beginning as well as past authors from Snell’s Meet the Author Series. Special recognition was also made for the library’s largest supporters and members of Snell Library’s building campaign. To read more about the festivities, check out the News@Northeastern coverage of the event here: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/04/snell.html

New Release: 2,200 18th-Century Texts

Through lots of hard work from the University of Michigan Libraries and support from the Gale publishing company, over 2,200 fully-searchable 18th-century texts have been made freely available through 18th Century Connect, an excellent collection of online, peer-reviewed resources in the 18th century. Why is this such a big deal? Isn’t everything on Google Books? In a word, no. These texts are hard-to-find and typically not available anywhere else. In addition, 18th-century spelling and typography are so different from ours, and so non-standard, that machines have a hard time automatically reading and understanding these texts. So every single text had to be re-typed and correctly coded to allow analysis by modern computers. Until now, these texts were only available through an expensive personal or institutional purchase. But this subset has now been released into the wild, which is very exciting news for humanists — see for yourself at 18th Century Connect. For more information, see the website of the Text Creation Partnership (the lovely people that do all the hard work of re-typing and coding these titles) or their official blog post.

Where can I study?! April 25

For all you students trying to hunker down and study in Snell today, you might be slightly thrown off if you can’t find your usual study spot or table on the second floor. Never fear! In preparation for the Snell Library 20th Anniversary Celebration, some of the tables and chairs that usually live on the second floor have been temporarily relocated to the back of the first floor. If you’re having trouble locating a space, please feel free to ask a librarian or staff member for assistance, and don’t forget to stop by and celebrate with us! The festivities begin at 2pm in the lobby on the first floor.