Books

Hub Book Displays

If you’ve passed by The Hub in the recent weeks, you might have noticed something a little different has come to Snell: book displays! Twice a month, Snell will have a small book display that highlights our Hub materials. The Hub is home to our magazines, newspapers, Writing Center materials, and so much more. The Hub is where a lot of our new releases or popular works are, including many newly released movie titles. If you’re looking for a fun read or a new movie to watch, The Hub is the place to look. We began in January by picking fun or interesting topics to highlight our wide range of materials. In February we displayed works by or about black authors to celebrate Black History Month. In March, we’re showcasing women of color. Such works will include The Veil by Rafia Zakaria, Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth, and Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon. We will have books, e-books, and movies so there’s a something for everyone’s taste. So please come on by and check out these amazing works by women of color!  

Interlibrary Loan: Getting Materials You Need From Across The Globe

  Have you ever found the absolutely perfect resource for your research, only to discover that it somehow falls outside of Snell Library’s collection of over half a million print- and e-books (each!) and hundred thousand e-journals? Found a title that Snell owns, but a classmate got to it first? Need a scanned chapter quickly, but not the whole book? Don’t worry, Interlibrary Loan has you covered! Currently enrolled students, faculty, and staff are able to borrow items free of charge from participating libraries across the country, including physical books, DVDs, music, and electronic copies of articles and book chapters. It’s as easy as identifying the item you need, either through the Snell’s own Scholar OneSearch, through WorldCat (the world’s largest online library catalog), or by manually entering your request through ILLiad, Interlibrary Loan’s management system. First time users will need to register an account, but the process only takes a few minutes. After submission, we’ll get to work finding the item, and patrons can track the status of their requests via their ILLiad account. Articles and book chapters generally arrive within 1-2 days, and while physical loan delivery times can vary (depending on availability and the lending institution’s location), titles typically arrive within 2-10 business days. Loan periods are generally 4-8 weeks. Check out our FAQ here, but do not hesitate to contact us at ill@northeastern.edu, or 617-373-8276. We look forward to helping you fulfill your research needs!

Open Access Week Breakfast with David Weinberger: Thursday, 10/25!

Don’t miss the keynote event of Open Access Week! Join us tomorrow morning from 8:00-9:30 a.m. for continental breakfast with our special guest speaker. David Weinberger is an American technologist, professional speaker, commentator, and a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society. At the Berkman Center, David writes about networking knowledge and the effect of technology on ideas, business and society. He is the author of Too Big to Know, Everything is Miscellaneous, and Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Open Access Week Breakfast with David Weinberger

When: Thursday, October 25, 2012, 8:00-9:30 a.m.

Where: Cabral Center, West Village F

All are welcome!

     

Marginalia as Scholarly Communication

Although we may think of scholarly communication as the process of disseminating research through formal publication or online distribution, scholars have been communicating with and responding to each other since well before the advent of the Internet or even print journals. One way in which modern scholars can understand earlier processes of communication is through the study of marginalia, or the notes to themselves or others that previous scholars have left in the margins of the texts they read. Works have been published on the marginalia of single writers, such as Voltaire’s Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau (Havens, 1971), or on marginalia as a topic unto itself. H.J. Jackson has published two books on marginalia: (Note: Both titles are available as e-books to members of the NU community.) Recently, the personal library of Charles Darwin was digitized and made available freely online through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Darwin himself frequently made notes in the margins of his books, and one special feature of this online collection is the full transcription of all his marginalia. Being able to read the notes that Darwin made to himself as he read gives scholars today insight into how his ideas, well, evolved over time. Marginalia were also a way for Darwin and others to share their ideas informally with their contemporaries through exchanging personal copies of their books. Of course, marginalia aren’t only created by the greatest scientific minds – one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins, wrote a poem on the margin notes left by everyday readers:
Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O’Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive – “Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA!!” – that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote “Don’t be a ninny” alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. — From “Marginalia” (Billy Collins) (Read the full poem here.)

Stately and Plump: Happy Bloomsday!

Some fun links for Bloomsday:

Slán agus beannacht leat! [slawn ogg-us ban-ocked lyat, “Goodbye and blessings with you” in Connacht Irish]