2011

Library Hours During Thanksgiving Holiday

Snell Library has special hours over Thanksgiving break. Please note the changes in the library’s regular schedule due to the holiday. Wednesday, November 23rd: 7:45am – 5pm Thursday, November 24th- Saturday, November 26th: CLOSED Sunday, November 27th: 12pm – 12am Regular 24/7 library hours will resume Monday, November 28th. Thank you for cooperating with the library’s scheduling changes. If you have any questions, please visit the library’s website .

Welcome, Charlotte students and faculty!

As I was driving in to work today, I heard on our local news/traffic/weather radio station that Northeastern formally announced the opening of its campus in Charlotte, North Carolina today. We’ve been looking forward to this day for many months and we want you to know that the Northeastern University libraries are open to you in Charlotte as to any NU students and faculty anywhere. While you may not be able to settle into a comfy chair in the Snell Library, you do have access to all of our online research resources and services. Here are the three I think are most important for you. First is the Discovery search box on the library home page. This search helps you find journal articles and reports related to any research topic. It includes citations from our research databases including Medline, CINAHL, JSTOR, and hundreds of other publishers and vendors, in a single search. The key to access is your myNEU username and password, which you’ll need to log in. If you don’t have one, please contact the NU help desk at (617) 373-HELP (4357). Second are research guides prepared by our librarians that can be used as a starting point for you to find out what specialized resources we have in your discipline like Education, Health Sciences, and Business. Finally, our Ask a Librarian page allows you to reach us with any questions you have about your research. You can text, phone, email, or use your browser to get in touch with us for anything from quick questions to more extended research assistance. Welcome to Northeastern, and we look forward to working with you!

Tent Library Occupies Boston

The branches of the Occupy movement, including Occupy Boston, have been making headlines in the news for over two months now. However, one aspect of the Occupy Boston movement that has garnered little media attention is its library. Located at the Occupy Boston headquarters in Dewey Square, the library is set up in a military tent in the middle of the movement’s encampment area. The library, run by a bookstore owner and librarians who support the Occupy cause, has over 500 books available for the protesters to check out. The bookstore owner is John Ford, who temporarily shut down his alternative bookstore in Plymouth, Mass. to start the tent bookstore instead. Ford says having a library at the protest site helps people involved with the movement learn more about the system they are fighting against and become more educated about possible alternatives. Along with a growing collection of books, the library also features an archive of Occupy Boston’s meeting notes and proposals, as well as an expanding program of speakers and writing workshops. For example, the famous linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky spoke to the protestors of Occupy Boston this past Saturday. Although the Occupy Boston library is in a tent, in actuality it is not so different from Snell Library here at Northeastern. Patrons can check out books, learn more about subjects they are interested in, and converse with others. Of course, Snell Library is lucky enough to be indoors and librarians do not have to protect the books from the elements. Next time you’re curled up in a chair at Snell reading a book, be thankful that you can enjoy reading and relaxing without having to worry about the wind or rain. To read more about Occupy Boston’s tent library, check out the NY Times article.

The Arader Galleries Collection now on display at Snell

Northeastern University’s recent acquisition of works from the Arader Galleries Collection has enabled Snell Library to exhibit a number of historically significant maps and botanical water colors. These works, ranging from the 16th to 19th centuries, can be viewed outside of Snell Library Study Rooms 291 and 293 and in Classroom 295. For more information on the collection and its incorporation into NU coursework, you can check out the article featured by news@Northeastern.

Open Access Week event: Open Textbooks and Flat World Knowledge – Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Join us on Thursday, October 27, at 10:30 a.m. in 90 Snell Library for a presentation on open textbooks. Michael Boezi, editorial director of Flat World Knowledge, the leading commercial publisher of open textbooks, will speak on “Keeping Education Accessible: The Textbook Affordability Crisis and Emerging Open Solutions.” High textbook prices increasingly challenge the mission of many institutions to provide affordable, quality education. The emerging trend of open content is reshaping the publishing landscape, allowing for the rise of new business models that:
  1. significantly reduce the cost of high-quality learning materials, and thereby the overall cost of education;
  2. meet the growing demand for alternate, flexible formats that keep pace with the different ways we consume information; and
  3. provide authors with a forward-looking compensation model.
Boezi will discuss the emerging trend of open content, examining the advantages (and challenges) of “open” as it relates to textbooks, as well as the economic, social, and technology drivers that are transforming education and propelling the growth of free, low-cost, and open alternatives to expensive, traditional college textbooks. Refreshments will be served. For a full schedule of our Open Access Week events, visit our News & Events page.