News
Whether you are planning courses for summer or fall quarters or beginning to take a deep dive into your research this summer, the Libraries stands ready to help! The UW Libraries is in year one of a three-year pilot exploring new digital scholarship tools. Use these tools to help teach new knowledge creation skills in your classes and to share your scholarship openly with a broader audience. Here are our top 3 digital scholarship tools and tips: 1) Create a…
Dear UW Community: Thank you to our UW leadership across all three campuses, President Ana Mari Cauce and Laura Cañate, UW MBA ’18, for your powerful words. We recognize the clarity of this moment and share a commitment to anti-racist work across the UW Libraries. Speaking on behalf of UW Libraries to all individuals and communities of color— including our UW employees, users and partners—we mourn with you and support the calls throughout our region and across the nation for…
This post was updated on 7/6/2020 We know our UW community is eager for information to help plan for summer quarter and beyond. The UW Libraries is working in close partnership with University leadership and community partners to assess and plan for return-to-work/return-to-school following the new UW Safe Start protocols. Our decisions will be guided by our shared values and mission of providing access and excellence while ensuring the maximum health and safety for Libraries’ staff and our users. We…
Why choose online alternatives to standard textbooks or physical course readings? 1) Ease of use. These existing resources are immediately available and avoid potential delays (sometimes of several weeks!) that may occur in trying to source and license new electronic materials for courses. 2) More equitable access. In accordance with existing UW guidance, all classes (online or in-person) this fall should “ensure that all students can complete their coursework, even if they are unable to attend in-person classes due to…
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) recently announced that UW Libraries, Special Collections has been awarded the CLIR ‘Recordings at Risk’ Award.* The award provides a grant of over $30,000 to help with the digitization of recordings – ‘at risk’ due to their fragility, lack of equipment to play them, as well as environmental factors. The award recognizes projects involving underrepresented communities, and will fund the project: Digitizing the Independent Media Center World Trade Organization Videotape Collection to…
In early February, before travel restrictions were implemented, and the true nature of the global pandemic was fully understood, I made an acquisitions trip to Southeast Asia to purchase materials for the UW Libraries SE Asia collection. While adhering to all of the CDC and UW guidelines for travel, it was still an anxious time to be traveling in Asia; but for me, it was a familiar itinerary. Visiting small publishers, government offices, museums and archives, and other sources of…
As faculty across campus raced to prepare for spring quarter, there were many concerns over how classes could be conducted without access to the Libraries. For example, Izumi Matsuda, a senior lecturer in Asian Language and Literature, was considering not offering her Tadoku class because of its reliance on the physical books available in the Tateuchi East Asia Library. “My course was scheduled to meet every week in the Library, where we had access to over 400 physical books on…
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is magical! I don’t just believe that ILL is magical because this is the work that I do, but it is the opinion of others as well. We hear that phrase a lot from our users, especially in this remote learning environment. Interlibrary Loan has always been committed to helping the UW community get access to resources from around the globe. The global ILL community has adapted during this crisis to continue providing an efficient service to…
Today, May 21st, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (#GAAD) focusing on digital access and inclusion for the more than one billion people with disabilities and impairments. As the Accessibility Coordinator for UW Libraries, I routinely answer questions about what the Libraries are doing to ensure accessibility is considered and properly implemented, especially as more content is moved online; so today is great opportunity to shine a light on all of the work our Libraries team has been doing in this…
The annual UW Libraries Student Video Contest asks students to create original videos showcasing the Libraries through the lens of student experience. Across all three campuses, UW Libraries is the “heart” of the University – our people, places, resources and programs support students, faculty and our local community in so many ways. As this year’s contest kicked off on Valentine’s Day, what better theme could we choose than “love”? The contest asked the student filmmakers to consider, why do you…