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:

2017 Call for Proposals: The CERES Exhibit Toolkit

CERES Exhibit Toolkit Call for Proposals The Digital Scholarship Group is now accepting proposals for the next round of CERES Exhibit Toolkit development (formerly known as The DRS Project Toolkit). The CERES Exhibit Toolkit is a user-friendly set of tools for building digital projects and publications using digital materials from the Digital Repository Service (DRS) or the Digital Public Library of America. With CERES users can create exhibits, galleries, maps, timelines, and playlists that draw digital materials dynamically from the DRS or the DPLA. We are also excited to announce a new program of support for classroom use of the CERES Exhibit Toolkit. We invite proposals from faculty for courses to be held in Fall 2017 and Spring 2018. Feature development CERES will be a collaborative endeavor and a great opportunity to experiment with publishing your project’s materials. If you have a project idea, we’d love to hear from you! Just answer a few questions about your project to apply. Examples of successful projects from the first two years of the CERES project include: Accepted projects will partner with the DSG and DRS teams to use CERES to securely store their project materials in the DRS and create a customized WordPress site to publish those materials on the web. If you have questions, the DSG staff are glad to meet and discuss project proposals before the deadline; please contact us at DSG@northeastern.edu to set up a meeting. Please visit the DRS Resources page for more information about the DRS. If you don’t think CERES is right for your project, but you are still interested in securely storing project files in the DRS, contact Sarah Sweeney.

Catherine Allen and the Early Years of Title IX

Written by Teresa de Costa, School of Journalism. Catherine AllenNortheastern’s Archives and Special Collections have compiled the works of Catherine Allen, a prominent Boston educator and professor at Bouvé College. Allen’s collection includes her notes and pictures of life achievements throughout her career in Boston. Authors Diane LeBlanc and Allys Swan published the book “Playing for Equality: Oral Histories of Women Leaders in the Early Years of Title IX.” The bulk of the research which informed this work was done with the help of Northeastern’s Archives. Swan and LeBlanc examine Allen’s life as a musician, coach and teacher. During Allen’s time in Boston, she taught at Bouvé College and spoke all over the world as a coeducational advocate. According to Michelle Romero, Assistant Archivist, “In 1980 the Boston-Bouvé College merged with Northeastern University’s College of Education to form the Boston-Bouvé College of Human Development Professions. In 1992 the school merged with the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions and continues at Northeastern University as the Bouvé College of Health Sciences.” Allen observed Northeastern students in her notes and called them “Beautifully educated.” Her work with former Northeastern President Asa Knowles created a coeducational program ten years before Title IX. Title IX allowed anyone to be educated without prejudice. With Allen’s passing in 2002 her legacy still lives in the surviving students from Bouvé College. “They created a sisterhood where they share fond memories.” Said Romero “These women are real go getter’s.” The work of Catherine Allen and Bouvé Exhibit can be viewed at Snell Library.