Documenting COVID-19 in University Archives

Posted on by

At the Archives and Rare Books Library, we recently began using Archive-It to preserve important university websites. The average life span of a webpage is between 44 and 100 days. Web pages are notoriously fragile documents, and many of the web resources we take for granted are at risk of disappearing.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, we are using Archive-It to capture various UC domain webpages dedicated to the pandemic’s impact on the university community. This kind of rapid response web archiving will ensure we preserve a historical record of this monumental event at UC for future researchers. You can currently view the UC COVID-19 website archive, which is being updated on a daily basis.

So far, we have collected several gigabytes of data, and over 20 websites, including each college’s COVID-19 page. Since some pages update more frequently than other, we schedule crawls (i.e. the process of archiving a webpage) of pages like https://www.uc.edu/publichealth.html on a more frequent basis in order to capture all of the changes.

The Archives and Rare Books Library is not the only archival repository documenting the experience of COVID-19. Dozens of other institutions, including many other Ohio college and university archives, are also collecting and preserving this fast-moving event. One of the largest COVID-19 collections so far is a collaboration between the International Internet Preservation Consortium and Archive-It, which has now collected more than 2,763 websites in 30 languages about the worldwide response to the pandemic.

There has been growing interest over the last several years in developing ethical frameworks around documenting crises within the archives profession. In response, the Society of American Archivists created a Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force that has developed a comprehensive set of guidelines based on archivists’ professional ethics and values. Previous examples of online archiving projects of crises and traumatic events include the September 11 Digital Archive, Hurricane Katrina Digital Memory Bank, and Documenting Ferguson. Given the global reach of COVID-19 and the advances in web archiving and digital projects, the pandemic is likely to become one of the most well-documented global events in recent history.

Would you like to suggest a website that we should include in our COVID-19 UC web archive? Please email us to suggest new UC sites to preserve in our COVID-19 web archives. Please note that at this time, we are currently only crawling public-facing webpages directly related to the UC community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Welcome to Clermont College Library, Kathy Ladell!

Posted on by

Kathy Ladell

Clermont College Library welcomes a new faculty member – Reference Librarian, Kathy Ladell! 

Kathy comes to UC Clermont from Northern Illinois University where she served as an Outreach Librarian. Kathy worked for many years with non-profits serving Spanish-speaking individuals before obtaining a master’s degree in Library Science and Latin American Studies from Indiana University. She worked in public libraries for 7 years before transitioning to an academic library. 

Kathy’s role at Clermont College Library will focus on reference and research services. She will work to develop online reference services while continuing to support our on-campus students, faculty, and staff.  

Please join me in welcoming Kathy to UC Clermont College! 

Emergency Online Access to Science and Engineering Books via HathiTrust Digital Library

Image

HathiTrust Logo

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of physical library spaces, the HathiTrust Digital Library has opened up emergency temporary access to digitized materials usually protected by copyright. This Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) is available for HathiTrust member institutions like UC and will remain available until regular access to UC libraries physical collections is restored.  The service allows UC users to “checkout” books that we have identified as owning in print that are also part of the HathiTrust digital collection.

Susan Hight, Technical and Public Services Specialist, did fantastic work tracking down science and engineering textbooks and highly circulating print books that are now available digitally under this Emergency Temporary Access Service.

  • Check here to browse newly available digitized textbooks.
  • Check here to browse  highly circulating print books.

The science and engineering libraries maintain access to many online textbooks for students which can be browsed here. As always, please check out our updated Sciences library and CEAS Library websites. For help, contact Ask-A-Librarian or Ted.Baldwin@uc.edu.

From the Virtual Desk of….Christian Boyles

Posted on by

Like all of us, the Librarians and Staff at the UCBA Library have settled into a new routine of working at home.  We invite you to see how we keep the (virtual) lights on at the Library while still providing support to our UCBA community.

I’m Christian Boyles, the Collection Services Manager at your UCBA Library.  Here’s a quick tour of my new workspace.

Thanks for stopping by my office and I hope you are doing well, staying healthy, and I hope to see you soon again in the Library.

by Christian Boyles

Temporary Online Resources from the UCBA Library

Posted on by

temporary access graphic

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to virtual instruction and learning, the UCBA Library has been able to move our services and many of our resources online as well.  In addition to our ebooks, databases, and electronic articles, we have noticed that a number of our vendors have been offering to provide complimentary short term access to their products.  These offerings include:

  • Streaming media from JoVE Science Education and Films on Demand
  • Ebook packages from Gale Cengage, HeinOnline, and the HathiTrust
  • Up-to-date COVID-19 research from ProQuest and the Royal Society

You can learn more about these resources in this ever evolving guide.  To access all the electronic resources and online services the Library has to offer, we encourage you to visit the UCBA Library homepage.

by Christian Boyles

Posted in UC

Freely-Available ISO Standards: Help with COVID19 Crisis

Posted on by

 

 

 

To speed response efforts for the COVID-19 global health crisis, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is providing free access to a group of key ISO international standards.

These 31 standards, from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), concern medical / PPE equipment and devices including ventilators and respiratory equipment; protective clothing used in health care settings; and business continuity management, security, and resilience.

To access these free ISO standards, you must accept the license agreement and register. Once registered, log in at https://asc.ansi.org. 

(Note: These standards are accessible in read-only format. Download/printing is not available.)

These free ISO standards build upon UC Libraries’ existing subscriptions to all standards from ASTM, IEEE, NFPA and other organizations.  Access all online sources at http://proxy.libraries.uc.edu/login?url=http://guides.libraries.uc.edu/ceasstandards .

For help accessing these or other standards, Ask a Science & Engineering Librarian.

Faculty Research Lightning Talks: Meet Carla Cesare  

Posted on by

The UCBA Library’s 3rd Annual Faculty Research Lightning Talks on March 10, 2020 featured four presenters and their discipline-based research projects via short, 15 minute presentations. In our Meet the Presenters series, each presenter shares some insights into their research project.

Carla Cesare | Assistant Professor of Art History | Art & Visual Communication Department

Presentation: Networks of Design: Women at Work

Professor Carla Cesare giving a presentation

Carla Cesare discusses her research.

Research Project
Networks of Design is a research project/book proposal that looks at a body of women who were working in the emerging design disciplines in America in the 1920s-30s. It does so through the contemporary lens of design thinking which includes research, making and marketing; uncovering the breadth of work women were doing and the network they were creating, unconsciously or not. By uncovering ‘anonymous’, women are brought to the foreground of design history, not just through biographies or even the objects designed, but by linking their educational and career trajectories and reconsidering the role women have played in making our daily lives through design.

Cesare Slide showing different advertisements

A slide from Cesare’s Networks of Design: Women at Work presentation 

Are there any opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration with your research? If already cross-disciplinary, are there opportunities to expand it?
There are two areas: Women’s history and the inclusion women of the design discipline; second, I think it could be a stepping off point for people looking at the history of retail and media as the evolution of organizational structures is pretty interesting.

What are your next steps with your research?
I’m currently revising a book proposal; a publisher contacted me and they think it’s viable and a fit. So hopefully a book is next.

Additional Resources
To date I’ve primarily used archives and libraries including:  UC’s Special Collections, Purdue University, Smith College, New York Public Library, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Henry Ford Museum, Cranbrook Academy of Art, University of Chicago and the Mattatuck Historical Society.

 

by Lauren Wahman

Exploring Academic Search Complete

Posted on by

As you work on final projects and need to find information sources, don’t forget about Academic Search Complete! Academic Search Complete contains news, scholarly articles, magazines, and more. It’s a general database that contains information about a lot of different topics and is especially useful when search results from Summon (the search box on the library homepage) seem overwhelming. Check out the two videos linked below for tips on using Academic Search Complete and advanced database searching to get the right sources fast! 

Remember when accessing resources from off-campus, you’ll need to use the proxy login first before you can get into the database. As always, if you need help with accessing Academic Search Complete, using the proxy, or any other library resources, contact us at clermontlibrary@uc.edu for help! 

New Science & Engineering Online Resources

Posted on by

Good news! We have expanded access to online encyclopedias & compendiums on some major science & engineering topics.

The UC Science & Engineering Libraries have added several brand-new and updated online reference works from ScienceDirect / Elsevier. Enjoy these new resources for extensive information on science and technology topics, including details on current discoveries and research.

To locate many useful science & engineering resources for classes and research, please check out our updated Sciences library and CEAS Library websites. For help, contact Ask-A-Librarian or Ted.Baldwin@uc.edu .  Thanks!

Comprehensive Biotechnology (3rd edition) 2019
— one-stop shop on all aspects of biotechnology (4,800+ pages), including scientific fundamentals, engineering considerations and applications in industry, agriculture, medicine, the environment, socio-economics and government regulatory overviews.

http://proxy.libraries.uc.edu/login?url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/referencework/9780444640475/comprehensive-biotechnology

Comprehensive Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2nd edition) 2019
— 1,800+ pages detailing every aspect of this growing field, including the latest updates on biological devices, nanomaterials, nanochemistry, nanofabrication, and applications of nanotechnology.

http://proxy.libraries.uc.edu/login?url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/referencework/9780128122969/comprehensive-nanoscience-and-nanotechnology

Additional NEW encyclopedias: