2015

Lawsuit Against the MBTA for Unlawful Censorship of Condom Campaign Ads

Did you know that in 1994, the AIDS Action Committee sued the MBTA for unlawful censorship of a subway campaign featuring the use of condoms?  Seems hard to believe, but you can read all about it in our Archives and Special Collections, which has received a donation of new material from former AIDS Action Committee Director Thomas McNaught (1991-1996).

This donation adds to the existing AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts Records in the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

While processing the new materials I noticed the photo of Captain B. Careful on the Boston Common. It stood out  for a few reasons. His sheer ingenuity for costume design. The huge smile on his face even though it was noticeably cold outside.

Captain B. Careful, Condom Campaign. AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Inc. (M61, Box 42, Folder 14.)

Less tangibly his image stood out to me because he symbolizes a continuity in Boston’s legacy of advocating for the power of knowledge and striving toward equal rights and opportunity for all. 

In 1992,  AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts (AAC)  introduced New England’s first public service television AIDS prevention campaign directed at gay men.

They also launched the United States’ first statewide transit campaign for AIDS awareness by placing condom posters on 437 buses throughout Massachusetts ultimately leading to a legal battle with the MBTA.

Highlights of the collection include:

  • photographs and press
  • outreach material regarding the condom campaign
  • materials on the AAC’s education and prevention campaigns
  • documentation regarding the AAC’s lawsuit against the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) for unlawful censorship of a subway campaign featuring the use of condoms in 1994

Meet the Inaugural DRS Pilot Projects

 
The Library’s Digital Scholarship Group is excited to announce projects chosen for the 2015 DRS Project Toolkit Pilot program. In this Pilot program, we work with selected digital projects at Northeastern to develop new tools for online scholarship. Projects will store and preserve their digital content in Northeastern’s next generation Digital Repository Service (learn more about the DRS here). Projects can then use platforms like WordPress and Omeka to curate and display this work in an engaging and accessible manner on the web. The Digital Scholarship Group received impressive proposals from a wide range of Northeastern’s colleges and departments, and are looking forward to working with the following three proposals for 2015-2016:
  • Debra Mandel (Libraries) will showcase the exciting work Northeastern students have created in Snell Library’s Digital Media Commons and Studios. A collaborative facility with state-of-the-art audio and video technology and support, the Digital Media Commons has helped students at Northeastern record music, create animated films, and produce a range of high-quality creative projects. The Digital Scholarship Group will help Digital Media Commons staff celebrate and preserve this work.
  • Giordana Mecagni (Archives and Special Collections) will create digital exhibits about the Boston Public Schools Desegregation, a process which began in the fall of 1974. The Digital Scholarship Group will help Northeastern’s Archives and Special Collections make digital records of this important event in the history of Boston more widely accessible and visible. In addition to Archives and Special Collections, an interdisciplinary coalition of students, faculty members, and archivists from the Northeastern community will participate in this project.
  • Jenny Sartori (Jewish Studies) and the University’s Holocaust Awareness Committee will create a publicly-accessible archive of Northeastern’s Holocaust Awareness Week programming. For more than thirty years, these events have reflected Northeastern’s commitment to Holocaust awareness and genocide prevention. This will be an important educational resource that highlights the digital records of survivor testimonies, distinguished lectures, and roundtable discussions, as well as the history of the Holocaust Awareness Committee itself.
These projects join three other new DSG initiatives from earlier in Spring 2015:
  • a web presence for content from the Library’s Arader Galleries collection (and the creation of new signage that directs viewers of the physical prints to this online collection)
  • the addition of Stephen Sadow’s collection of interviews with Latin American artists and writers to the DRS
  • the migration of the Catskill Institute materials from their current home at Brown University to the DRS (and a new website at Northeastern)
The Digital Scholarship Group also continues to support the ongoing work of the Women Writers Project; Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive; The Early Caribbean Digital Archive; Viral Texts; Digital Humanities Quarterly; and TAPAS. For more information on projects supported by the Digital Scholarship Group, please visit our Projects page. If you’d like to contact the Digital Scholarship Group, please email us: dsg@neu.edu. We are also on Twitter: @NU_DSG.

Digital Repository Service (DRS) replaces IRis for storage and sharing of NU-created materials

After several months of preparation, the library has now successfully transitioned from IRis, our previous repository platform, to the newly redesigned Digital Repository Service (DRS).

IRis was publicly launched in 2006, and attained a milestone of 1 million downloads in 2013. The DRS builds upon the success of IRis by offering expanded functionality and customization specific to community needs. Like IRis, the DRS is a storage and preservation tool designed to allow the Northeastern University community to store materials that are produced at the University or are important to the university’s mission. Faculty are welcome to upload their research materials, publications, datasets, and presentations; staff can store important administrative materials, like departmental photographs and documents. As in IRis, the library deposits all master’s theses and doctoral dissertations completed at the University into the DRS. Exemplary undergraduate student projects and publications are also included in the DRS. DRS features include:

Self deposit: Faculty members may deposit their own material.

Simple discovery: The locally developed interface offers user-friendly searching and browsing.

Saving and downloading: Materials can be saved to Sets or downloaded for future use.

Easy account creation: Users may sign in to the DRS with their myNEU username and password.

As of today the DRS has over 70,000 files stored, and more than half of those files are available to the public:

  • 1,677 master’s theses and doctoral dissertations completed at Northeastern University since 2008

  • 1,217 publications authored by Northeastern University faculty and staff

  • 16 archival collections from University Archives and Special Collections, including photographs from the Boys and Girls Club and Freedom House collections

  • 25,000 photographs from Northeastern University’s Office of Marketing and Communications (faculty and staff access only)

  • And growing…

We encourage everyone to visit the DRS to view the impressive collection of material produced by Northeastern University faculty, staff, and students. Faculty and staff are invited to start uploading their materials right away. For more information about the DRS, or for help getting started uploading your files, please visit our DRS resource page: http://dsg.neu.edu/resources/drs.

Summer Reading Suggestions

Now’s the time to start tackling your summer reading list! Whether you’re staying in town or going on an elaborate trip, you’re bound to have some down time. Why not spend that time taking advantage of Snell Library’s thousands of available books, e-books, journals, and more! Snell Library staff have suggested some of their favorites to get you started:   The Darkest Minds By Alexandra Bracken Recommended by Ernesto Valencia “When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.”       Feynman By Jim Ottaviani and Leyland Myrick Recommended by Sarah Sweeney “This is a lovely and fascinating graphic novel that illustrates bits and pieces of various works by Richard Feynman, the famous physicist.”               Wonder By R.J. Palacio Recommended by Jen Ferguson “This New York Times bestseller, available in Snell Library’s Favat Children’s Collection, tells the story of Auggie, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face. Told skillfully from Auggie’s point of view as well as the perspectives of others in his life, this fast read will transport you back to the glories and agonies of childhood.”           Bagombo Snuff Box By Kurt Vonnegut Recommended by Mark Sivak “If people are looking for a good book for a plane ride, I recommend Bagombo Snuff Box, which is a collection of short fiction by Kurt Vonnegut.”               The Heart is a Lonely Hunter By Carson McCullers Recommended by Molly Dupere “Set in Georgia in the 1930s,  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter follows four residents of a small town, each a loner and all struggling with feeling misunderstood within the confines of their lives. Independently, the four seek the company of another local, a def-mute who is himself an enigma in the town, but upon whom each character projects what they want him to be – a sounding board for what’s going on in their heads, often to heart-breaking effect. The plot is both simple and complex, and a must-read for any fan of Southern Gothic literature.”     Not what you’re looking for? Browse our collections online using Scholar OneSearch to find your new favorite read!    

Keep track of your BLC books!

Are you one of the thousands of Northeastern students and researchers who borrow books using interlibrary loan through the BLC (Boston Library Consortium) partnership program? If so, this is a heads up that beginning June 1, BLC books are subject to overdue fines. These books and DVD’s are the ones with the white bands wrapped around the cover saying “Boston Library Consortium.”

  This means books, CDs, and DVDs that you borrow from our partner libraries in the BLC will now be subject to the same fines as Northeastern books.  (You can look up the fine information on our web site.) Why are we doing this?  Because it’s important for us to maintain good relationships with our partner libraries.  If we do not return books to them, they can’t serve their own populations of students and researchers.  And it can be hard for us to return items in a timely manner when we do not charge fines. The good news is that it’s easy for you to avoid fines!   All you need to do is note on your calendar when your books are due, and always read your email reminders from the library.  We notify you 3 days before fines begin, and we follow up with another email on the day the book is due. You may also check your library account at any time to see what you currently have checked out and the due dates.