Interlibrary Loan: Powering access to resources from around the globe

Interlibrary Loan services come to the rescue when students and faculty need access to information the library doesn’t have. Whether it’s a book, journal/magazine article, or an article from a small newspaper published in the 1930s, the library works to ensure access to a diverse network of library collections and the ability to borrow from them. Here you can see libraries from around the world that have loaned to Northeastern. In addition to these, Northeastern borrows from hundreds of libraries in the United States and Canada ranging from large universities to small community colleges and public libraries. We’ve created an interactive map of all our interlibrary loan transactions in the past year and have highlighted some places where we’ve borrowed from below so you can see how far some of your resources have travelled. ILL Map Blog Post ILL BLog Post Places

Finals Week Events at Snell Library

Finals: every college student’s favorite time of year. Your friends at Snell Library know that it is an incredibly stressful time. That’s why we’ve got some Finals Week activities for you at Snell. Firstly, we’ll have a coloring table during all finals week set up in the first floor lobby. Coloring is a great proven way to reduce stress and focus on something other than college. On Friday, April 21th, From Puppies with Love is bringing some of their furry friends to visit you on the front porch of Snell from 11 AM to 1 PM. On Tuesday, April 25th, our friends at Fit University will be bringing some awesome snacks and massage chairs into Snell from 12 to 4! Also, be on the lookout during finals week for tiny 3D printed huskies, pop-up coffee study breaks, and bubble wrap giveaway to pop your stress away. Finals are here. You got this. Finals are here. You got this.

Welcome to our Wikipedia Visiting Scholar!

We’re thrilled to announce that Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight will be joining us as our first Wikipedia Visiting Scholar! Rosie is a prolific and experienced Wikipedian (User:Rosiestep), and founder or co-founder of projects such as WikiProject Women Writers, Women in Red, WikiWomen’s User Group, and more. She’s also on the Board of Directors for Wikimedia District of Columbia and on the Editorial Board of The Signpost, one of the longest-running publications covering English Wikipedia and Wikimedia at large. Wikipedia’s Visiting Scholar program, “connecting experienced Wikipedians with academic institutions to improve Wikipedia,” includes Wikipedians and hosts across the United States. Visiting Scholars join institutions of higher education as remote partners, and improve articles in subject areas suggested by that institution. There is no compensation to the Visiting Scholar beyond remote access. Rosie’s focus for the Visiting Scholar position here at Northeastern, supported by scholars in the Women Writers Project as well as our reference librarians, will be women and writing before 1900. This might encompass topics such as early women’s writing, women and the book trade, women and education, women as readers, women writers of well-known works, and many more. Women Writers Project staff will support Rosie’s work through activities such as helping Rosie develop lists of women or works that need coverage in Wikipedia, pointing her towards specialty sources in the history of women writers, or helping to track down particularly difficult bibliographic or biographic information. Rosie will join Northeastern as a remote community member with access to library resources, from March to December 2017. We’re looking forward to seeing her work and learning more about how we can help her in that work. Stay tuned to watch this project grow!

New Library Showcase Highlights Student Media Projects

Snell Library has launched the DMC Studios Showcase featuring student audio and video recordings and 3D printing projects created in the Library’s state-of-the-art facilities. Check out the variety of curricular course work and personal endeavors– Brazilian, Persian and rock music tracks, outstanding videos created for David Herlihy’s music industry class and a cool 3D character designed for a Capstone project. The Showcase is a work in progress and will only grow with your submissions. We encourage faculty assigning classes and projects in the Library’s studios to collaborate with us to help curate this site so we can share and preserve exemplary audio, video and 3D printing projects. Please contact Digital Media Specialist Thomas Bary with your feedback and ideas and to discuss upcoming projects.

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: