Issue 2, February 2009
Welcome message from Chris Banks, University Librarian
 |
I’m delighted to welcome you to this second issue of HeadLines, our newsletter aimed at keeping you informed of recent news and developments in Library & Historic Collections. You'll see that we have another bumper edition covering breaking news about enabling works for the new library building, as well as updates about some significant electronic resources that are now available to us; including increased journal access through a new landmark Scotland-wide HE collaborative agreement. Fundraising has had a major boost with the news that we have received a first round pass with the Heritage Lottery Fund. On the staff front, we bid farewell to two former long-standing colleagues and we congratulate another for her receipt of an individual award. As with the first issue, we hope that you find it useful and relevant and we would really welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues. During the year we will be offering opportunities for staff and students to come and hear about the plans for the new library building and to contribute to discussions about layout, organisation and facilities. We are keen to hear your views as all these will help with the planning process and we hope that you will be willing to contribute. |
Heritage Lottery boost for new library |
|
A significant step toward attracting Lottery funding for one of Scotland’s most prestigious new buildings has been achieved. Initial work on the University of Aberdeen's new £57 million library, scheduled to open in 2011, begins in early summer 2009.
Media release issued by the Communications Team, Office of External Affairs, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen on Thursday 18th December 2008.
|
Part of the ambitious new project will be the creation of a Conservation Studio to provide a centre of expertise in paper and book conservation, primarily for the University's precious and historically significant special collections. In early December it was announced that the Studio has received a crucial first-round pass in the bidding process for a significant Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Although not a guarantee of funding, passing stage one of the application process gives the project a great chance. Professor Chris Gane, Vice Principal (Culture and Communities), said the new Conservation Studio would allow the University to promote its collections for the benefit of the whole community. He explained:
|
New library site preparation to begin early in 2009 |
|
This feature, based on a New Library Project web page, outlines the effect of building work on access to campus and the availability of car parking spaces .... A map of the proposed construction work is available online. Further information on access routes and demolition work can be obtained from Calum Proctor: c.proctor@abdn.ac.uk, Estates Section. |
Preparatory site works for the new University library will take place over a three-month period, starting 26 January 2009, with CHAP Construction having been appointed as contractor. Work will begin with the creation of a new service road from Bedford Road to the rear of the Fraser Noble Building and the Hub. The remainder of the preparatory work will follow, including utility diversions and the demolition of the single-storey wing of the Queen Mother Library (QML). The University's aim is to manage this work such that we minimise the impact on activity in nearby buildings. There will be no change to access and use of QML, and pedestrian routes will be largely unaffected. Demolition of the single-storey wing of QML is scheduled for end-March to mid-April during the spring vacation to minimise disturbance for the student community. There will however be unavoidable changes to availability of parking in the car park to the west of Fraser Noble Building. The Bedford Road side of this car park will be temporarily unavailable for four weeks from around 2 February, and there will also be restrictions in the north part of the car park. Disabled car parking spaces outside QML will be retained. Construction of the new library is scheduled to begin late spring, with the new building open in time for the start of the academic year in late summer 2011. |
Room layouts and contents scrutinised for new library |
|
By Wendy Pirie, Reader Services Manager w.pirie@abdn.ac.uk
|
A small group of library staff have been checking and commenting on documents, Room Data Sheets, provided by architects planning the new library. These documents give indicative room layouts and counts of potential furniture items, largely for costing purposes. This has been a very useful exercise, both to give a greater range of library staff some detailed knowledge of the emerging plans for possible layouts, and to pick up on minor practical issues, e.g. the need for cupboards to store additional seating for events. It has also reinforced the requirement for flexibility in, for example, the new seminar room, where movable tables for laptop or group working and some fixed PCs would be highly desirable. The results will be sent to the architects who will then refine their estimates. |
A new ‘one-stop shop’ library & historic collections home page is launched |
|
By Anne Beavan, Applications Support Manager, Directorate of Information Technology
|
As highlighted in the last issue of HeadLines, the proposed new Library & Historic Collections home page is now ready to try. Find it at www.abdn.ac.uk/library/. The major new feature is a central, concertina-like section which opens up to provide immediate search options for the library catalogue, the archives and manuscripts catalogue and digital museum resources. There is also a tabbed section at the bottom of the page which includes a feedback form, as well as news, events and contact details. Please try it out and let us know what you think! |
Hands-On Egypt with Organ Ani… |
|
By Alison Parfitt, Education & Access Officer, Marischal Museum
|
Following the closure of Marischal Museum’s public displays, the schools service is now providing outreach visits to schools covering various topics including Vikings, Romans and Archaeology. In an exciting new workshop, children in schools across Aberdeen City and Shire have been getting to grips with Ancient Egypt with the help of Ani, Marischal Museum’s life-size mummification doll. The whole class takes part in the mummification of Ani, removing her lungs, liver and stomach, then pulling out her intestines and placing each organ in its own special canopic jar. The heart just goes in the bin! Children then help to wrap the mummy, placing amulets between the layers of bandages. Pupils also have the opportunity to examine a range of Egyptian artifacts, including real scarab beetles, and have a guided tour of the Marischal Virtual Museum’s Egypt displays on an interactive whiteboard. |
Special Libraries acquires important edition of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ |
|
By Keith M C O’Sullivan, Senior Rare Books Librarian
|
Recent acquisitions by Historic Collections include a copy of the first edition of Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop to appear as a separate book, published in 1841 by Chapman and Hall. The story had previously been serialised in Master Humphrey’s Clock in 1840-1841. Among a memorable gallery of characters in the novel are the villainous Daniel Quilp and the doomed Little Nell. The book is Illustrated by George Cattermole and Hablot Knight Browne; Dickens’ most famous collaborator, better known as ‘Phiz’.
|
EThOS - a new access to electronic theses |
|
By Sheona Farquhar, Technical Services Manager
Over a hundred of the most frequently loaned University of Aberdeen theses, have already been digitised by the British Library, and will be available through the new service. These theses will also be available in our own digital repository – DigiTool. Further information can be found online. |
Access to UK doctoral theses is changing. A new service that provides electronic access to full-text UK doctoral theses began Beta testing on 9th December 2008. When testing is complete, the existing British Library Theses Service system (of providing microfilm copies in response to inter-library loan requests) will cease, and UK theses will be provided as digitised copies through a new Electronic Theses Online System (EThOS) via www.ethos.ac.uk. EThOS will offer free access to the full text of UK theses, allowing researchers to tap into a rich and vast body of knowledge. Delivered through a single web interface, the service includes theses stored electronically by the British Library, as well as harvesting e-theses held by UK higher education institutions. In addition the service will digitise theses on demand. It is expected that the majority of doctoral theses will be free at the point of use for researchers. Since September 2008 the University has been accepting electronic versions of theses and we are working on making the first eighteen of these available in DigiTool. Students registered for research postgraduate degrees since this date are required to submit both a printed and electronic version of their thesis, making research easier to access and visible to a wider audience. |
New e-resources purchased in Summer 2008 prove popular with staff and students |
|
By Ross Hayworth, Serials & Electronic Resource Manager r.hayworth@abdn.ac.uk
|
Last summer Library & Historic Collections were able to provide users with perpetual access to a selection of electronic journal archives from several major academic publishers - Elsevier, Sage and Taylor & Francis. We are really pleased to see how well these products have been used. Staff and students at Aberdeen viewed over 5000 full text articles from these collections during the month of October alone. **** Additionally, four new e-journal archives (containing over 200 journal titles between them) have been purchased by JISC Collections in perpetuity, and will be available to University of Aberdeen staff and students:
Further details can be found on the JISC Collections website. |
Landmark SHEDL initiative provides access to even more journals |
|
By Ross Hayworth, Serials & Electronic Resource Manager r.hayworth@abdn.ac.uk
|
2009 sees the launch of the Scottish Higher Education Digital Library (SHEDL); a landmark initiative in the licensing of electronic resources. SHEDL, which grew our of a proposal from the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL), allows Aberdeen and other Scottish libraries to lead the way within the UK by working together to increase value for money and widen access to content. The scheme is initially a pilot involving electronic journals from three major publishers; American Chemical Society, Cambridge University Press and Springer, but the pilot is scaleable to other publishers and plans are already being made to include more from 2010. Content licensed under the SHEDL initiative will be available across all the Scottish Higher Education Institutions, supporting research pooling and other collaborative research by ensuring that those affiliated with different institutions have access to the same material. This will also mean that staff and students from all Scottish HEIs will benefit from access to additional journal titles from 2009 as a result of their libraries working together. At Aberdeen, for example, staff and students will have access to a range of additional Springer titles that were not previously available to them. SHEDL content is licensed in perpetuity, ensuring it will always be available. |
The Burney Collection of news media now available |
|
By Gilian Dawson, Information Consultant |
The Burney Collection has been purchased by JISC Collections on behalf of the UK academic community following a significant agreement with Gale, Cengage Learning ... and our staff and students will soon have access. This unique collection of early newspapers covers the period from 1600 to 1800. Newspapers from Britain, Europe, India and some Caribbean islands provide a fascinating insight into daily life at the time. Those studying the early modern period whether from the stance of history, literature or religion will find this database enthralling. Events like the great fire of London in 1666 can be brought alive by newspaper style reporting. Over 1 million pages have been digitised and are fully searchable by keyword. The font may seem strange initially but after some practice reading will become second nature. It gives a sense of really engaging with History as it happened. Look out for a news item on the Burney Collection on the Library home page. |
Volunteer helps with transliteration of Hebrew texts |
|
By Robin Armstrong-Viner, Cataloguing Manager
|
In late 2008, the Cataloguing department was incredibly lucky to welcome Dinah, a volunteer whose skills in reading Hebrew have allowed us to run a small pilot project to improve the cataloguing of our Biesenthal Collection. Around a third of the books in this collection, said to represent all that was published in Hebrew between the invention of printing and the 1870s, are entirely in Hebraic text. A printed catalogue by D. R. G Beattie, Catalogue of the Hebrew books in the Biesenthal Collection, was published in 1979 but most of the records in our online library catalogue do not currently include the Hebrew titles. Dinah has been busy transliterating the titles from the original script into the Roman alphabet - a difficult and time consuming process. You can see some examples of this in the catalogue. What you can’t see is that Dinah’s also been adding the names of the authors, the titles and any other important notes from each book in Hebrew text. We’re working on making this information available and fully searchable so that in future you’ll be able to locate these books using their original language and script. **** |
Queen of Green at Queen Mother Library |
|
By Georgia Brooker, Senior Information Assistant
|
A big green hooray for Brenda Brown, whose hard work and dedication to the Environmental Champion Scheme were recognized recently when she became Champion of Champions out of over 35 eco-friendly university staff volunteers, by earning the most ‘eco points’ in the first year of this excellent initiative (with a grand total of 46!). She achieved this by implementing a range of planet-preserving practices within Queen Mother Library, such as making her office staple-free and creating a haven for paper recycling on Floor 2 of QML. Make sure you recycle your drinks cans in the special bin which Brenda has had installed in the QML foyer! We’d love to have an Environmental Champion at each library site who’s enthusiastic about making this kind of impact - if staff are interested in volunteering please contact the Waste and Environmental Manager, Amy Gray, for details. |
Award for Information Consultant, Gilian Dawson |
|
By Wendy Pirie, Reader Services Manager
|
Library and Historic Collections Information Consultant, Gilian Dawson, has won the 2008 Grampian Information Individual Award in recognition of her significant contribution to the information profession, specifically because of her personal interaction with school libraries and librarians, both within Aberdeen City, Shire, and Moray over the last 20 years. |
We say goodbye to Mike and Caroline Craig |
|
By Sheona Farquhar, Technical Services Manager s.c.farquhar@abdn.ac.uk
A message from Martin Sommer, Site Services Manager at Queen Mother Library: "Team Craig’s contributions to the University through the output of the Library’s Reprographic and Bindery department have been many and varied (varied in quantity that’s to say – always a quality service), but speaking personally I’m grateful for Mike and Caroline’s responding so generously to my frequently short-noticed requests for artwork design and printing. They always came up with the goods on spec and on time. Mike’s efforts on behalf of University staff as a dedicated and long-serving stalwart of Aberdeen AUT (latterly UCU) Committee deserve recognition. Committee meetings will be just that bit less lively without him. Good luck to you both – whichever exotic country’s sun you’re currently holidaying under!" |
Library and Historic Collections staff Mike and Caroline Craig, from our Reprographics service, both left the University as of Christmas Eve. Mike, latterly Reprographics and Bindery Manager, had been with the University Library for 41 years. Under his management much hard work was put into expanding the old ‘Photographic Unit’. In particular, his enormous enthusiasm and vision in developing and publicising the George Washington Wilson Collection of Victorian plate glass negatives has gained worldwide recognition and interest in the collection, which is now accessible digitally. Caroline, latterly Copyshop Manager had been with us for 29 years and her graphic design and image-making skills are available in a range of prints and reproductions, many of them depicting images held in Aberdeen University Collections. We wish them well in their new ventures and would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their many years of dedicated service to the University Library. ***** For further information on our full range of services do check our web pages. |
Bargain book sale! |
|
Terry Forbes, Library Collections Coordinator
|
A book sale will be held in the Queen Mother Library Ground Floor Photocopying Area for one week from Monday 9th February until Sunday 15th February. Books being sold are duplicates which have been withdrawn from library stock, or donations that are not required. Hardbacks cost 50p and paperbacks are just 25p! |
Take part in a national e-books survey and have a chance to win £200 of Amazon vouchers… |
|
If you leave your university email details at the end of the survey, you will be entered into a prize draw for £200 worth of Amazon vouchers. |
Have you ever felt annoyed that there are never enough books to borrow when you need them? Do you feel there should be more books for your subject? Help us find out whether e-books can provide a solution to these problems by completing a short online survey. Last year our staff and students were among the 23,000 people who took part in a national survey on attitudes towards e-books. This year the organisers (JISC national e-books observatory project) are keen to know if attitudes towards e-books have changed. |
If you have any comments or suggestions for features in future issues please contact us.