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As public spaces devoted to teaching and learning, our Libraries have a duty and responsibility to steward diversity, equity and inclusion. At UW Libraries, this is embedded in our Libraries Strategic Plan. At the UW Bothell and Cascadia College Campus Library, this work has long been a part of our professional learning and community engagement efforts in the form of events, exhibits, trainings, our social justice group and more; however, one of the most engaging parts of this work has…
I have been working at the UW East Asia Library since I was a freshman. With a strong interest in ancient Chinese history and some good fortune, I got the opportunity to work on a collection of epigraph rubbings rich with historical information from the Northern Wei, Tang, and Song dynasties. The East Asia Library received these valuable rubbings from a previous donation. The set includes approximately thirty-six complete inscriptions from the Tang (618-907), Zhou (690-705, led by China’s only…
Alongside the Libraries’ ongoing efforts to expand student information awareness, the Foster Business Library hosted “PitchBook Night” on November 12, a dynamic session on how data informs the work of entrepreneurs and private-sector investors. In this first-of-a-kind event for the Foster Library, the session attracted 25 Foster School of Business undergraduates and MBA students to learn more about PitchBook, a library-subscribed search platform that tracks private-equity and venture-capital market data. Following a welcome by Amy Sallin, director of the Buerk…
One of the images within UW Libraries Special collections has garnered a lot of media attention lately regarding the resemblance of a young girl in a photograph from 1898 to 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg. Several creative theories abound from time travel to how Greta’s image may have been inserted into a historical photo, which is most definitely not the case. As part of the UW Libraries Special Collections, the photo in question is an original. It is…
Reposted from UW Press Blog 10/21/2019 From October 21st to 27th, the University of Washington Press will be highlighting its open-access publications and partnerships as part of International Open Access Week. UW Press and Libraries Collaborate on Open-Access Books Thanks to a new partnership between UW Press and Libraries and a grant from the Kenneth S. and Faye G. Allen Library Endowment Transformation Fund, many books in the press’s long-standing and award-winning series Studies on Ethnic Groups in China (SEGC)…
At UW we’ve been thinking about OA Week’s theme of “Open for Whom?” in the context of our efforts to increase the accessibility of our resources and services. We’re pleased that the latest version release of the Manifold digital book publishing platform included substantial accessibility improvements, largely due to a partnership between Cast Iron Coding, the web development firm building Manifold, and UW’s Accessible Technology Services (ATS) Office. We spoke with Ava Cole, a Student Accessibility Assistant in ATS, about…
At UW Libraries, every week is #OpenAccessWeek Each October, institutions and individuals around the world celebrate Open Access (OA) Week by highlighting the many benefits of sharing information openly, without legal restrictions or fees. OA is especially important to the academic community where sharing knowledge in an open, timely and accessible way is key to advancing research for the public good. OA policies are spreading on campuses globally, and in May 2018, the UW Faculty Senate adopted an OA Policy….
Reposted from UW Tacoma Libraries Blog by Justin Wadland 10/14/2019 The Library is pleased to announce that Joan Hua joined its staff this autumn as the Oral History Project Manager. In the next 12 months, she will be working to develop a new collection of digital oral histories for the UW Tacoma Oral History: Founding Stories project. The collection aims to capture the memories and perspectives of individuals who played significant roles in the shaping of the campus community and…
In the Foster Business Library, we were excited to recently welcome the first students into our newly developed Business Research Commons. Modeled (very modestly) on the UW Research Commons, the new space allows us to offer topical events and programs, separate from classroom visits, for all business researchers — whether or not they are business majors. Our first session was an introduction to citation management tools, with about a dozen highly engaged business Ph.D. students in attendance. While we business…
Where developing the Strategic Plan was something of an exercise in visioning of an ideal state, implementation has proven to be more of a reality check. Where I had assumed the transition between development and implementation would be a simple baton pass, I have instead come to better understand the oft-repeated business trope: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Six months into our new planning cycle, I observe that UW Libraries sustains a culture of waiting: top-level administrators waiting to hear…