2010

Cambridge Eviction Free Zone records available for historical research

We are pleased to announce that the historical records of the Cambridge Eviction Free Zone are now available in the NU Archives, located on the lower level of the Snell Library. This collection is part of the local history collections in the NU Libraries Archives and Special Collections. Many people do not realize that, in addition to collecting historical records of Northeastern, we also collect local history records and documents, focusing especially on Boston-area social justice organizations that serve under-represented communities. Founded in 1988, the Cambridge Eviction Free Zone (EFZ) was an independent, tenant-run community organization that worked for social and economic justice in the areas of housing and tenants’ rights, rent control, and immigrant voting rights. The collection includes meeting minutes, reports, newsletters, newspaper clippings, promotional materials such as flyers, photographs, signs, and memorabilia. View a guide to the collection and read a complete press release about the collection.

Redefining “Institutional Repository”: The Quiet Revolution

Earlier this summer, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an eye-catching article on digital repositories, using the University of Nebraska’s outstanding repository as its main example, as well as highlighting IDEALS at the University of Illinois and Harvard’s DASH repository. The Chronicle titled this article “Digital Repositories Foment a Quiet Revolution in Scholarship.” The revolution, we are given to understand, is that institutional repositories (or IRs) are finding their greatest successes in providing access to a previously untapped wealth of knowledge. And it’s a quiet revolution because these resources aren’t necessarily the most flashy — they’re the so-called grey literature (unpublished papers produced by institutes or research centers, conference proceedings, etc.) and the unique materials held by an institution that are not duplicated in the way that traditional library holdings are. An IR can provide global access to materials that might otherwise stay hidden in someone’s file cabinet — that is a revolutionary concept! Here at Northeastern, our Archives and Special Collections department has developed digital collections that spotlight its unique materials. And IRis, our digital archive of Northeastern’s intellectual output, provides access to materials that might otherwise remain unseen. We are actively developing these and other digital library services in order to expand the global reach of our collections. I read this Chronicle article and thought, someday I’d like Northeastern to be highlighted as a shining example of how digital repositories can change the way we gain access to information. So, let’s take on the quiet revolution and make some noise! What kinds of material would you like to see in IRis, in our online archival collections, and in our growing digital library?

Some practical joke

Recently, we’ve been seeing signs posted around the library, possibly on every floor, that read: Club Snell Announces: 24/7 PARTY. Starting July 5th, 2010. All floors will be open as dance space to Students, Faculty and Staff with current Husky ID. Sorry, no BU students. Okay so…we can take the high road and admit that this is kind of funny. The signs are versions of the template that Krissy created in June to announce the 24/7 library service. It is not clear how somebody got a hold of the template for this sign and was able to print it. Judging from the fact that it’s in black and white, though, it must have been printed in the info commons. Still, if you see one of these signs, you can take it down and junk it. More detective work to follow, perhaps.

Friday Five: Oil and Water

This is the first of my new Friday Five series, a roundup of this week’s news.  I’m a little of a news junkie. If you are too, and you’re curious to read more about those little nuggets you hear on the radio, you should know that NU affiliates can go beyond the news breaks and get the complete information through the Northeastern University Libraries! This week almost everything on my list has to do with either water or oil, the two things we seem to need to sustain modern life. 1. It’s the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. NU’s freshman class is reading “Zeitoun” for the occasion in a “one-book one-community”-type reading program.  Naturally all our library copies are checked out! But there’s a lot of information about the book in this “webliography” about Zeitoun by Snell Reference librarian Jamie Dendy. 2. Where’s the oil? That big plume in the Gulf of Mexico is being eaten by bacteria, according to research at Massachusetts’ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Here’s the full report from the journal Science. 3. “Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama” by Jane Mayer in this week’s New Yorker is making the rounds of the pundit and political news blogs this week.  Never heard of the Koch Brothers?  Read about them online here temporarily, after which you’ll be able to find the article through one of our ejournal vendors such as Ebsco or Gale. 4. The world of stem cell research is reeling from this week’s Federal District Court preliminary injunction against the Obama Administration’s guidelines for research using embryonic stem cells. For more information about why, you can read the complete 15-page decision in Lexis-Nexis. 5. Good news for cheapskates who want to lose weight! Up front, let me say that I’m not a big water drinker.  I’ve never bought that 8 glasses of water a day thing–well, not until this week when, at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston, research was presented updating a recent article showing that there is a link between drinking .5 liters (about a pint) of water before meals and…weight loss! I must now admit my grandmother was right with her big glass of H2O before every meal.  Much cheaper than acai berries, pills and Jenny Craig! Hope you enjoy the weekend, and have fun catching up on this week’s news!