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Stories

Libraries Superheroes: Procuring eBooks for UW Students

May 22, 2020
Tadoku bookshelf
The Tadoku bookshelf in the Tateuchi East Asia Library

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 the Tadoku Bookshelf,” said Matsuda.”  I wasn’t sure how we would be able to facilitate this class in an online learning environment, but the Tateuchi East Asia Library staff made it possible to offer the course as scheduled.”

“the Tateuchi East Asia Library staff made it possible to offer the course as scheduled.”

Lucky for these students and faculty, Japanese Studies Librarian Azusa Tanaka was already on it.  Azusa anticipated this need and began researching options immediately. Her quick actions and conscientious focus ensured that this popular class remained on the schedule.

Historically, certain types of Japanese eBook options are limited, especially when it comes to academic titles. In fact, there were only 55 eBook titles that were suitable for the Tadoku course. But that didn’t stop Azusa and the Tateuchi East Asia Library (TEAL) team from going the extra mile to procure the full order of requested books for this class. After an extensive search, Azusa and Saori Tachibana, an acquisition specialist, helped rush-order 51 eBooks available for purchase.  However, they wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this heroic feat without the work the planning and negotiating the Libraries had done BEFORE COVID-19.  Earlier in the year, Faye Christenberry, the UW Libraries Collection Strategy and Licensing Librarian, worked miracles with the vendors to create new eBook license agreements—without her work, none of the new eBooks would have been ready on time for remote learning.

But Azusa and team didn’t stop there. They continued their search for open-source materials, locating an additional 272 titles to meet and exceed the class goal of 200 books. For students to access these books, they had to be catalogued first. Ebook cataloging requires more advanced skills than typical cataloging. So when the pandemic hit, TEAL’s Chinese Cataloging and Metadata Librarian, Jian P. Lee, changed up the training schedule to teach these critical skills and ramp up training for Keiko Hill, a new Japanese Cataloger/Tateuchi East Asia Library Serials & Electronic Resources Librarian. Keiko quickly learned the procedures and successfully cataloged all of the purchased eBooks by the second week of the spring quarter. Amazing!

They continued their search for open-source materials, locating an additional 272 titles to meet and exceed the class goal of 200 books.

It is nearly impossible for even a seasoned cataloger to catalog so many eBooks in a few days—so while Keiko cataloged, Azusa wanted to provide a way for students to view/access books immediately. Rather than just copy all the titles into an excel spreadsheet (the easiest solution), she thought about it from the students’ point-of-view. She knew seeing the books visually would help to encourage more reading, so she took the extra step of copying 378 individual books (information and book cover images, when available)  into her LibGuide page, which was completed two days before the quarter began. Azusa’s student assistants also helped to save the day—one working in Seattle, and another working remotely from Tokyo. Two students from both sides of the Pacific worked tirelessly for a week straight to achieve this amazing feat of Librarianship!

“I attended the first session of the Tadoku class to explore the LibGuide page with the students. I was very happy to see the students reading the books from the Guide with curious eyes.” – Azusa Tanaka, Japanese Studies Librarian

But there are more Libraries superheroes in this story who helped save the day, even after spring quarter started, and not all of them were Librarians.  When one of the eBook platforms’ remote access was not functioning, Mike Reynolds from Libraries ITS quickly figured out the complex technical issue and corrected it so students could continue to access the eBooks from home.

They trained staff before the pandemic so they could jump right in to use the platform, which has been an essential tool during this crisis.

Christine Tawatao, head of Libraries web services and UW librarian Dan Mandeville, Nordic Studies & Linguistics Librarian helped many of our librarians to maintain and develop their LibGuide pages. They trained staff before the pandemic so they could jump right in to use the platform, which has been an essential tool during this crisis. Corey Murata and the entire collections team are constantly working on new e-resources: databases, electronic platforms purchasing, and subscriptions. Heather Spence from the Libraries financial office helps pay the invoices (note: Remote learning cost more than $100,000 in unplanned Libraries expenses to support remote teaching and learning this quarter.)*

Whether it’s a resource from TEAL, or any of our 16 UW Libraries, providing one eBook takes a team of Libraries superheroes!

*If you would like to support the Libraries COVID-19 Emerging Needs Fund, you can make a contribution HERE.

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Stories

The Magic of UW InterLibrary Loan

May 21, 2020

book out of a magic hat

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.

Image Source: The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) helps Interlibrary loan obtain items from around the world.

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 each other. For example, libraries that have never loaned eBooks have changed their policies to do so, ILL staff have been sharing tips and tricks to make sharing resources easier during this time, and there has even been a group of volunteers from around the world who have agreed to provide free articles to libraries that don’t normally participate in ILL. What does that mean for you at UW? It means we are still here, working every day to ensure our students and faculty are getting accessible materials delivered directly to their accounts—even when campus is closed.

We are working every day to ensure our students and faculty are getting accessible materials delivered directly to their accounts—even when campus is closed.

Some people think that ILL is closed right now because the Libraries buildings are closed and there is no access to physical materials. Not true! The ILL staff are all working remotely, providing the same level of service as always. In fact, we have processed 11,194 requests this quarter.  That is about equal to the number of requests we had by this time of Spring Quarter 2019, a total of over 13,000 requests.

The ILL staff are all working remotely, providing the same level of service as always. In fact, we have processed 11,194 requests this quarter.

ILL is still requesting scans from libraries that are able to provide them.  We are requesting ebooks when they are available.  We are finding alternative resources when the item you need is not available or digitized. We are providing book chapters from digital collections for UW courses.  Depending on what you’re looking for – we may be able to get it to you in under an hour or at the most, a few days’ time.

So join your fellow Huskies (3,300+ and counting!*) and request something from Interlibrary Loan.  During these times, when it feels like just about everything is shut down— know that you can count on us.  Request that item you’ve been trying to find and see what a magical experience ILL can be!

And just for fun- because we are Libraries, and we love data–

The top 10 journal requests for ILL this quarter:

  • Nature catalysis
  • New England journal of medicine
  • Journal of telemedicine and telecare
  • Neurology
  • The American review of respiratory disease
  • The International journal of periodontics & restorative dentistry
  • Journal of Alzheimers disease
  • Seminars in musculoskeletal radiology
  • The American surgeon
  • Clinical and experimental rheumatology

The top 10 books:

  • The origins of racism in the west
  • Crossing the chasm.
  • The shaping of social organization: social rule system theory with applications
  • Massive and Irreparable Rotator Cuff Tears
  • Comparative mysticism: an anthology of original sources
  • The Marketing Imagination
  • The Spanish Enlightenment revisited
  • Mind over magma: the story of igneous petrology
  • Topographies of whiteness: mapping whiteness in library and information science
  • Geology of north-west Borneo: Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah

Whatever you are looking for—if it’s possible to get it to you, we will.

Just like always, ILL is here for you, Huskies.

 

 

*3,326 people requested items from March 30th through May 13th  as reported by ILLiad data

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stories

Accessibility Is Essential for Remote Learning

May 21, 2020

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 area.  As we made the temporary transition from in-person to remote learning for our users, I have been amazed by the efforts of UW Libraries staff to ensure our students and faculty have adequate access to library resources in spring quarter.

The UW Libraries has done considerable work to improve accessibility. It has been going on for many years and will continue ongoing, as equity and inclusion are core to the Libraries’ strategic plan; enhancing equitable environments for research, learning, and working.

One way we are making that happen is through the Libraries Accessibility Working Group. The group has hosted accessibility workshops covering a range of topics from improving digital accessibility to understanding the roles of service animals. Currently the group is working on a 5-year accessibility plan to remediate accessibility issues within the Libraries.

How are Libraries continuing to address accessibility for remote learning?  The good news is… a lot!

Staff members, including students, are working remotely, leading projects to make improvements to many of our vast electronic resources.

Here is a list of a few of the projects that we have going on right now:

  • captioning videos for the libraries YouTube channel
  • captioning and transcription for work in our Moving Image collection
  • developing an accessible template for transcription of oral history projects
  • keyboard testing of library E-resources in our A-Z database lists
  • improving the accessibility of PDF files on our web site and in Special Collections
  • performing accessibility audits of third-party platforms for purchase consideration

There are many more projects that we have in progress and we acknowledge there is still much to do when it comes to addressing the body of work required to improve accessibility for remote learning.  Our staff are incredibly dedicated to this work—I see progress every day that demonstrates a collective belief that accessibility is as essential to remote learning as it is to face-to-face learning.

Be sure to check out how the UW accessibility community is celebrating today and services offered across campus HERE.

For questions about UW Libraries accessibility initiatives and projects, feel free to email me:  [email protected] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stories

2020 UW Libraries Student Video Contest Winners Announced!

May 20, 2020

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 “heart” the UW Libraries (#IHeartUWLibraries)?  Due to COVID-19, we extended the contest deadline to allow students to consider the online learning environment and how the Libraries continue to support students remotely.

There were many excellent submissions all with different creative approaches and personal perspectives.

Special thanks to the Libraries Excellence Fund who generously funded the cash awards for the winning videos. The Libraries Excellence Fund provides support for activities, projects and programs to enhance the overall excellence of the UW Libraries, including services, speakers, publications and special projects.

Now, we are excited to share the winning results!

FIRST PLACE

“Access” by Long Tran

“I wanted to produce a video highlighting my Vietnamese heritage and research while highlighting valuable library resources. It was an opportunity during this quarantine for self-reflection, creative expression, and experimentation since my academic journey from undergraduate through graduate school has always centered on personal development and self-discovery. I cannot stress how much I relied on the UW Library for this purpose.”

– Long Tran, Graduate Student, UW Cinema Studies

SECOND PLACE

“Love Letter to the Libraries” by Joshua Winiarski AND Robie Rivera

In this light-hearted love letter to the Libraries, we get a snapshot into the undergraduate experience that captures so many reasons why students “love” the UW Libraries.  With an emphasis on Odegaard Undergraduate Library, we see how the Libraries provide essential spaces and tools to support students and learning.

THIRD PLACE

“I Heart Remote Resources” by Maryana Wu

In this highly artistic visual story, we see all of the familiar Libraries spaces in a new way while understanding how Libraries are still here for students during remote learning.

HONORABLE MENTION:

“Found In Translation” by  Rachel Kisela and Luke Bandagosa

The cinematic storytelling in this video transports you to a love story made possible entirely by the UW Libraries.

Check out and share the winning video submissions and other entries on the UW Libraries YOU TUBE Channel.

The annual UW Libraries Student Video Contest typically takes place in February annually. Mark your calendars for next year and follow us on social media to find out about next year’s launch date.

 

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Stories

Recommended Reads for Equity – Evolving the Collection for Remote Engagement

May 12, 2020

As students in the iSchool’s Library and Information Science program, we have been working at UW Libraries during our tenure here. Our capstone project is focused on the UW Libraries Recommended Reads for Equity collection, an initiative that was launched in 2018 with the support from a UW Diversity and Inclusion Seed Grant and the UW Libraries. 

Recommended Reads for Equity is a collection of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)-focused books curated by members of the University of Washington community and housed in Odegaard Library; however many books have recently been made available online here. The collection provides a platform to share the diverse voices of the University of Washington community — to reflect ideas and personal reflections about EDI through literature and one’s personal connection to it. Contributors come from all backgrounds including undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty, alumni and everyone affiliated with the UW across its three campuses and global community. 

One of the most unique aspects of the collection are the personal recommendations that accompany each book. Together, the collection and recommendations reflect the diverse values and experiences of our University of Washington community, helping to define what equity, diversity, and inclusion mean through books that communicate those values in ways that resonate with one’s own experiences: 

book cover“I read [Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates] to better understand issues of equity in America and why and how institutional racism still persists. Though this book did help me better understand racism in America, it also offered an unintended but cherished lesson… I never understood my father’s fear completely or his broken way of parenting as well as I have in reading (this book).”

-Anonymous

 

 

“[So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo] is written by an incredible local activist. Her book is framed in an approachable way, and is welcoming for folks who are new, but open, to talking about race. I personally found it helpful for framing my own conversations with other people who might not be as deeply interested involved in social justice. It’s honest and direct and really, really great.”

-Gabriella D.

 

Sonya Renee Taylor
Sonya Renee Taylor

 “One area of diversity that we often overlook is size/weight/body, and how we are overtly instructed from a young age what kind of bodies are “normative,” lovable, and worthy of inclusion. [Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body is not an Apology] takes the concept of radical body love and directly links it to the struggles of various intersecting identities and sites of oppression. She’s doing incredible work in this area.”            -Lauren C. 

 

Anyone can contribute to the collection. If you would like to add your voice to this collection, recommend a book here. 

Highlighting University of Washington members’ collective and individual voices is a primary goal of the collection and our capstone project. In this work, we have explored new ways to bring the community into the collection, while growing and sharing the collection across the three UW campuses. Since its inception, the collection has grown to well over 100 books that span the gamut of genres. 

Since the Libraries physical collections have been inaccessible to users during the COVID-19 campus closure, we have adapted the collection in order to increase use and engagement: 

  1. We are hosting an online exhibit of video book recommendations created by students and UW Libraries staff, offering short book descriptions along with personal reflections. The recommendations get to the heart of a book’s messaging, and allow for easy sharing and community dialogue. 

  2. We have enhanced the Recommended Reads for Equity’s webpage to highlight which books in the collection are available electronically.
  3. We are purchasing electronic copies of books already in the collection to expand availability online and continuing to purchase new books that are not already held by UW libraries. The inclusion of more online materials will make the collection more readily accessible to UW Tacoma users, UW Bothell users, and online students in the long-term.

This collection compliments other EDI-based reading and collection work happening across our UW campus community such as UW Bothell’s Community Reads program and UW Tacoma’s REAL Lit[erature] Book Club, both of which are continuing as remote/online programs.

We feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to help engage the community in discussion around equity, diversity, and inclusion through this collection. Through this work, we hope to bring purposeful, community-wide dialogue and internal professional reflection on equity, diversity, and inclusion into our network, our jobs, and the library community. We believe that our work on this project better equips us to support and implement EDI-focused projects in our future careers. We hope to use our relevant skills and techniques in collection development, outreach, student services, and assessment to continue to support equity, diversity, and inclusion in our future roles.

Next year, new UW Libraries graduate assistants will become curators of the Recommended Reads for Equity collection, continuing to engage the UW community in sharing their voices and perspectives, reflecting what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to them. The collection is meant to be flexible, to continue to evolve and change as our community changes, and new voices, new books, and new community members add to and shape the collection. 

For questions and more information on the Recommended Reads for Equity project contact Emilie Vrbancic.

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Stories

Insights from Going Public: Opening Scholarship to All

April 28, 2020

UW Libraries inaugural Going Public event launched in 2017 as a forum for sharing ideas and exploring ways researchers communicate their work to the public through the media. In the following years, other topics were explored–like public scholarship, citizen science, and community-based participatory research. Hosting events like this is central to UW Libraries mission and vision advancing research for the public good. As Libraries work has evolved far beyond a mechanism to provide resources alone, we strive to help researchers and students create and share new knowledge. We see access to information as a universal right, not a privilege available only to the few who enter our institutions or to those who can pay for it.

This year’s theme “Opening Scholarship to All,” focused on equity in the production of and access to scholarship. The symposium featured a keynote address from Nikkita Oliver, a social justice advocate working at the intersection of arts, law, education, and community organizing. Some know Oliver through her campaign for Mayor with the Seattle People’s Party, and others are familiar with her because of her opposition to the King County youth jail or her directorship of Creative Justice, an arts organization for youth affected by the school-to-prison pipeline.

When the planning committee started brainstorming about “dream” keynote speaker possibilities, Nikkita Oliver was at the top of our list, and we were so grateful she was willing to participate. Given the restrictions for public gatherings, we decided to shift the event to a virtual forum. Everyone involved adapted quickly to plan for the event in an entirely new format. This was one of the first events the Libraries held virtually after our public spaces were closed. Given the incredible response from more than 269 registered participants, we were glad that we decided to move forward remotely.

Oliver’s keynote was definitely a highlight—a layered, complex, impassioned composition that led us from ancient libraries, to the first libraries in the United States, and to the Central Seattle Public Library Branch in Seattle, a place that Nikkita said she loved. Other sessions explored equity in data visualization, equity in open education resources, and public scholarship. Each session brought forth different points of views and engaging discussions. Below are just a few of the interesting questions and insights from each session. To see and hear the complete sessions, visit the Going Public web page here. 

Reconsider the cliché “knowledge is power.”

  • The ability to decide what we view as knowledge is a power. How do we decide whose knowledge is power?
  • Consider the concept of gate-keeping and the exclusionary side of libraries—aspects that are more segregationist, punitive and carceral—as opposed to ones that are built on reparation, transformation, and trust. 
  • Imagine a system of libraries that would represent a People’s University, a place that would bring about healing and creativity. A place that wouldn’t just be open to the public but radically and powerfully for it.
  • Watch Going Public: Welcome & Keynote Address – Nikkita Oliver

How do we re-imagine our disciplinary constructs?

  •  The Center for an Informed Public is using partnerships with libraries and town halls to engage the public in a meaningful way around coronavirus misinformation. 
  • Strengthening academic discourse can’t just happen within the walls of the academy. We need to reimagine and reconfigure our disciplinary constructs to engage with the public.
  • Public scholarship can begin long before the research starts. Note who your public is. Work with the community and keep community needs in mind as you develop your research process.

How do we avoid oversimplification of data practices?

  • Numbers are always placeholders for something, or in most cases someone else
  • When we are invisible in the data, we don’t exist.
  • Think about equity when selecting data visualization tools. Is it an open source tool? Can anyone access the tools to reproduce your work? Using open tools and open data will help your scholarship go public.
  • Having data is power and sharing data is sharing power.
  • Watch Going Public: Equity in Data Visualization – Negeen Aghassibake

How can OER shape equity in the classroom?

How can we develop a diverse design process for research?

  • Start with the needs of the community. Work together in partnership to align the research with their mission, values, and needs.
  • Involve community leaders and share materials developed openly with them throughout the research process.This allows you to adapt your process in real time.
  • NOTE: These highlights are from the panel discussion that was not recorded.

These are just a few of the thought-provoking themes and ideas that participants discussed at this year’s Going Public. You can access the complete recorded sessions here. 

Thank you to all of our dynamic speakers:

  • Chris Coward, Senior Principal Research Scientist, TASCHA and Center for an Informed Public UW Information School
  • Jason Young, Senior Research Scientist, TASCHA
  • Negeen Aghassibake, Data Visualization Librarian, UW Libraries
  • Lauren Ray, Open Education and Psychology Librarian, UW Libraries
  • Gillian Harkins, Associate Professor, UW English Department
  • Clarita Lefthand-Begay, Assistant Professor, UW Information School
  • Linda Ko, Associate Professor, UW School of Public Health
  • Jenny Muilenburg, Research Data Services Librarian, UW Libraries

Special thanks also to our co-sponsors:  the eScience Institute, the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Technology & Social Change Group, the Center for an Informed Public, and the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies for their support.

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Stories

Listen and Learn: Exploring Oral Histories at UW Libraries for #preswk

April 27, 2020

It’s Preservation Week 2020!

Honorary co-chair: Bestselling author, educator and cultural critic Roxane Gay will share her years of experience as a writer, storyteller and social commentator during Preservation Week.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of Preservation Week®, a public awareness initiative that aims to promote preservation and conservation in communities with the help of libraries, institutions and museums. Preservation Week inspires actions to preserve personal, family, and community collections in addition to library, museum, and archival materials. It also raises awareness of the role libraries and other cultural institutions play in providing ongoing education and outreach.

Here at UW Libraries, we’ve put together an itinerary for the week – fun, daily activities designed to encourage learning and exploration of oral history and preservation; there’s a little something for all ages and interests!   In addition, we’ve highlighted some links to oral histories within UW Libraries collections – personal favorites, timely historical accounts and more. Enjoy!

Weekly Itinerary:

  • #MotivationMonday: Start strong. Check out the Libraries’ Oral History collections online from Special Collections, Bothell,  and Tacoma in celebration of our theme “Preserving Oral History”, follow honorary chair Roxanne Gay and #preswk on Twitter, and register for the webinars below.
  • #TipTuesday: Attend a how-to-do Oral History Webinar at 11 a.m. from the experts at StoryCorps and learn how to conduct your own oral history, using the StoryCorps Connect tools as way to reach out to friends and family during social distancing.
  • #TGIF: Stretch goal–attend the 8 a.m. digital preservation webinar from the Library of Congress (LOC), but luckily it -and the four other Preservation Week webinars from LOC will be archived for later listening. Realistically,  do a little personal digital archiving on your email inbox and call it a week.

UW Libraries Featured Oral Histories

The University of Washington Libraries greatly recognizes the importance of oral histories as an important primary source for historical narratives. The following links represent just a fraction of the stories that live within our oral history collections. To explore more, check out the Libraries’ Oral History collections online from Special Collections, Bothell,  and Tacoma.

Remembering the 1918 flu pandemic – first-person accounts from Washington locals.  

The following interviews include conversations referring to the 1918 flu pandemic.

UW Tacoma Oral History: Founding Stories

UW Tacoma founding staff with one of the first graduates on the roof of Perkins Building, 1991. Courtesy of UW Tacoma

Founding Stories is a project to develop a new digital oral history collection comprising interviews about the founding of the UW Tacoma campus. The project has already created close to 50 hours of audio on oral histories related to campus history. Listen to Excerpt highlights on SoundCloud including a special audio story about the Black Student Union, and  interviews with Claudia Gorbman,professor emerita and Steve Smith on the unique undertaking of building an urban-serving university, education in Washington state and the South Sound and connections with the local community.

UW Libraries Special Collections: South Asian Oral History Project (SAOHP)

South Asian Oral History Project (SAOHP) represents one of the first attempts in the U.S. to record pan-South Asian immigrant experiences in the Pacific Northwest using the medium of oral history. This initiative not only has the goal of preserving the history of South Asian immigration to the region, but also of making these historical resources/material available to everyone. The collection, completed by UW South Asian Studies Librarian, Deepa Banerjee, has been featured in several prominent exhibits including an Ellis Island exhibit running through 2021 and an audio installation created in partnership with the History Channel and ESI Design called “The Peopling of America Center” for the Ellis Island National Immigration History Museum in New York.

UW Ethnomusicology Archives: Vi Hilbert Collection

The collections in our Ethnomusicology Archives also include oral histories that give us a unique understanding of culture, place and time through words and music. Vi Hilbert (1918-2008) was a member and noted elder of the Upper Skagit tribe. Her first language was Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language found in the Puget Sound region of western Washington state. Hilbert played a major role in the revitalization of the language and culture of the First People of the Pacific Northwest. She became known as a teacher, storyteller, publisher, and public speaker. For over 40 years she built and maintained a research archive of cultural materials.

Listen to the Hilbert collection here, and learn how it is being used by UW scholars in “The Language of the Land”, a profile of UW lecturer Tami Hohn (pictured right).

UW Bothell: Community Voices

Community Voices is a collection of oral histories and interviews conducted by – and with – University of Washington Bothell students, staff, faculty, and community members. Represented in the collection are histories of international students, students with disabilities, founders of UWave Radio, staff who maintain campus facilities, staff who work with students, and Bothell community members who experienced the downtown Bothell fire of 2016. These histories expand the breadth and depth of the recorded history of the University of Washington Bothell and the surrounding community.

Enjoy learning about our oral histories this week! For questions about any of our archives, just ask us!

#YourLibrary

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Stories

Libraries’ Installation The Age of the Kampuchea Picture Wins a Center for Research Libraries Primary Source Award

April 26, 2020

“Every time I remember Elizabeth Becker’s pictures, I cannot help but see Pol Pot’s total control of the production and consumption of these images; his vision of Kampuchea saturates them all.  I cannot see beyond it.”

–Adrian Alarilla

The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) has awarded the 2020 Primary Source Award in the Research category to  a collaboration between the Libraries’ Southeast Asia Section, artist Adrian Alarilla, and Anthropology Prof. Jenna Grant on the video installation The Age of the Kampuchea Picture.  The award recognizes “the innovative application of methodologies to open or expand avenues of scholarly research in the social sciences or humanities.” The installation is based on the notes and photographs of New York Times journalist Elizabeth Becker’s historic visit to Democratic Kampuchea, which took place just a few days before the Vietnamese army overthrew the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in December 1978.

Becker began transferring her materials to UW Special Collections in 2007, when she realized their importance as evidence in the context of the United Nations Khmer Rouge Tribunal, to which she was called to testify.

Betsy Wilson, vice provost for digital initiatives and dean of University Libraries recalls meeting Becker in 2010.

“I met Elizabeth in Washington, DC to receive and personally transport a group of images back to UW Libraries for processing. It was one of many transfers that would eventually become the Becker Collection,” says Wilson. “She knew how special and rare the images were—representing her very unique experience and perspective as a photo journalist during an extraordinary time in history. We are grateful to Becker for entrusting such a unique collection to UW Libraries.”

When she gave her materials, she was also concerned about making them available to the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh, a research and visual training organization which she had helped establish with French Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh.  As a result of her request,   the Libraries digitized the photographs and notes from her trip.  The collection is available in UW Special Collections:  the Elizabeth Becker Cambodia and Khmer Rouge Collection, 1970-1988

exhibit folder
A photo of the installation at UW Libraries Research Commons in 2017

The Age of the Kampuchea Picture is an interactive video installation that was produced in 2017 in connection with the visit of Rithy Panh and Elizabeth Becker herself. The installation was a collaboration between the UW Libraries Southeast Asia Section, Adrian Alarilla, a Southeast Asia MA student in the Jackson School and Filipino-American filmmaker, and Prof. Jenna Grant, whose work in Anthropology has a focus on medical imaging in Cambodia.

Alarilla used Becker’s photographs, audio, and text to question the limits of representation under the authoritarian regime of the Khmer Rouge. The installation sought to express the violence of visuality that the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia projected through state power, and to explore the complex relationship between image, state violence and the ethics of representation. Elizabeth Becker’s photographs are haunting and ambiguous, even though most were clearly managed by her hosts.  At the time, the Khmer Rouge leadership was anxious to counter refugee narratives that were just emerging and spreading alarm in the international community about human rights abuses inside the country.

The audio file used in the installation is Becker’s interview with Ieng Sary. Known as ‘Brother Number 3’, Sary was Deputy Prime Minister in Charge of Foreign Affairs, and his interview is a remarkable testament to the regime’s hubris on the eve of its overthrow. He asks the journalists repeatedly whether they believe refugee reports or what they “have seen with their own eyes.”  The installation speaks to the question of what is allowed to be seen, what is hidden, and how we might seek the truth in that absence of seeing.  Alarilla has taken inspiration from Martin Heidegger’s essay “Age of the World Picture” to theorize the epistemological violence of state optics under the Khmer Rouge through his work.  This violence is embodied in its very absence; as Becker has noted in her subsequent writings about the trip, the pictures of real life are strikingly missing.

Our challenge as a library was to create an exhibit featuring the photographic evidence from Becker’s visit while acknowledging that its images are tainted as representations projected by the Democratic Kampuchean state order.  Alarilla’s work helped us address this challenge by creating an artistic installation that was both visually ambiguous and interactive. The installation comprises a video projection of a selection from Becker’s black and white images and a makeshift screen made of photocopied documents from her typed notes, arranged to form a rough map of Kampuchea.  The pictures show us an industrious self-sufficient nation with deep cultural history. But in our representation of these materials, the projection is interrupted: the screen is not blank or flat but is a fractured, multilayered representation of an outline of Kampuchea made of documents, many of which contradict the ordered intent of the overlaid photographic images.  There are blacked-out spaces on the map, representing locations of the “killing fields.”  The 12-foot map covered one glass wall of the Research Commons lobby, with the projection from the other side of the lobby. The dark holes in the screen represent the locations where the senselessness of genocide overcomes the rational images of Kampuchea that Pol Pot attempts to project. The projected images are distorted as passersby cast their own shadow on the screen.  We, too, in the U.S., are implicated.  We, too, are part of the picture.

The Age of the Kampuchea helped strengthen Professor Jenna Grant’s connections to the local Cambodian American community; working with Cambodian American arts groups, we installed a Khmer language version of the installation at the Art of Survival festival in Seattle City Hall in spring 2018; and Prof. Grant was awarded a Whiting Foundation Seed Grant  for her public engagement project to bring Cambodian American and Cambodian audiences into dialog with the Libraries’ Becker Archive.

Our collaborative work with local communities and the Bophana Center, which also exhibited the installation in 2019, formed the basis for another significant, future project. Pending grant approval, the larger project would extend this work on visuality and reconciliation in a collaboration to bring the Libraries’ Southeast Asia archival collections into dialog with archives, memory institutions and visual artists in Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines, reaffirming the important role of archival collections in creative community memory projects.

For questions about the collection, and related future projects, please contact: Judith Henchy ([email protected])

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stories

Spring Quarter Survival Tip: Get to Know Your Subject Librarian

April 17, 2020

Do you know YOUR subject librarian? Have you ever utilized the Libraries’ consultation services for help with your research?  While UW maintains remote learning, our UW Libraries staff will be here to help you, huskies!  Beyond helping users find the electronic books and resources they need, Librarians are talking with students and faculty on the phone, online and over email to offer a wide range of support.

Elliot Stevens

Elliott Stevens, UW’s English Studies and Research Commons Librarian, gave us some insight into how subject librarians work with students and faculty, what online consultations look like, and some of his most useful research tips.

What is a subject librarian?

There is a designated librarian for every department at UW and literally hundreds of subjects, providing years of expertise and interdisciplinary practice. Subjects are kind of a starting off point for working across disciplines. For example, on any given day, my expertise in English could lend itself to a class on gender, women and sexuality studies or French literature for comparative studies. Every day is different.

As a subject librarian for English, I track what is happening in the department and monitor our library catalog to keep up with relevant journals, new books and to see what people are writing about. I update our English LibGuides. Specializing allows us to build a knowledge base over time, to understand trends and be aware of new resources as they become available, which can often save someone hours of research time.

What is a research consultation? 

Research consultations typically connect a subject librarian with a student for personalized help with research–identifying or narrowing a topic and finding resources in the Libraries or online (databases, etc.).  However, UW Libraries staff and librarians offer all kinds of one-on-one consultations for help with things like writing, guidance on copyright, publishing, creating citations and more. Remote consultations are not new–even when the Libraries are open, many consultations happen online; this is a routine part of what we do.

What happens during a research consultation?

Typically, I start with a research interview to collect information, find out what the student is interested in and what they’ve already consulted.  This can be done over email or on the phone. Once I have a sense of their interests and goals, I do my own research before we meet or talk again to review what I have found, and to point them to other possible resources.

For example, today, I met with a student on ZOOM, who came to me for guidance on a major research paper for her English honors program this quarter.  We spent about an hour talking about what she’s done already, and what she’s thinking about, and then I tried to get a sense of how she uses the libraries. Then I shared some of the tips and best resources to help with her particular project.

What do students need to prepare before a consultation?

All you need is curiosity and a willingness to talk to your Librarian. You do not need to have a topic. You do not need to have an outline or anything prepared ahead of time, but coming with a sense of what you’re most interested in and want to learn about is always helpful.

What are some tips that you share with students during a consultation? 

My best advice is outlined in the blog “7 Essential Tips for Research”.

How do you work to support faculty?

During routine operations, I will often lesson plan with faculty in order to visit their classes and do research instruction with students. I also order the books, journals, and databases that they need for teaching and research. 

What do you love most about your job?

It’s endlessly educational. To constantly get close to human ingenuity and creativity and curiosity–it’s a very special thing to experience every day. 

It’s endlessly educational. To constantly get close to human ingenuity and creativity and curiosity–it’s a very special thing to experience every day.  Through research, people are adding to human knowledge, or critiquing human knowledge, and that’s a very noble, important pursuit. 

I hope that every undergraduate will graduate feeling like they can do the work of an analyst, that they can really delve deeply into things, be organized, be creative, and pull information together in a cohesive way. If I can help someone to gain confidence and advance their analytic skills, that it is very satisfying.

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As this quarter of online learning continues, reach out to UW Libraries for a consultation with a subject librarian or other Libraries staff.  No matter your question or topic of research, a skillful member of the UW Libraries team is here to help– chat with us online, on the phone or over email!

About Elliott Stevens

In addition to being the English subject Librarian, Elliott Stevens supervises the Student Squad (the student workers in the Research Commons), teaches classes and collaborates on Libraries workshops and events with colleagues. He has an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Kansas and an MLIS from the University of Rhode Island. 

#YourLibrary

 

 

 

 

 

Stories

7 Essential Tips for Research: Advice From a UW Librarian

April 17, 2020

Whether you are a new undergraduate or a PhD student, navigating the Libraries vast resources can feel overwhelming, especially when you are working remotely. Fortunately, UW Librarians like me (Elliot Stevens, English Studies & Research Commons Librarian) are here to help.  My fellow Librarians and I regularly talk with students (over email, on the phone, or via ZOOM) to help them strategize their research process. To schedule a consultation, visit our remote resources page here. In the meantime, here are some of my best tips:

1. Start with a question and a conversation.  When you’re starting out, try to think beyond a topic alone. What interests you about the topic? What do you want to learn? THINK: really juicy, interesting, creative, spiky, audacious questions about your topic – open questions. Questions that scream for some kind of answer. Then, use Libraries resources to find a conversation on the topic–like an academic article, or in the media. Look at how others have approached similar topics and ask yourself:  What is my role in the conversation? Am I here to disagree? Am I here to critique? Am I here to amplify? Am I here to emphasize? Am I here to listen, to record or testify? Understanding how your research fits into the larger conversation can be a huge help in focusing your research.

2. Keep a research log. Create a “one stop shop” to document your research process. Use your research log not only to save your citations and relevant links, but also to write down your questions and ideas. Keeping everything in one place saves a lot of time when you want to revisit something or get stuck–you can always go back to past sources and thinking. At the same time, if you document as you go, you are building your citations and bibliography in real time, and this can help save a tremendous amount of time.

Many students do not realize that their UW accounts can be linked to Google Scholar.

3. Connect Google Scholar to your UW Library account. It’s very important to connect Google Scholar to your UW Library account to avoid having to pay for articles. Many students do not realize that their UW accounts can be linked to Google Scholar.  At the same time, it is important to know that Google Scholar is not a replacement for the Libraries catalog. I constantly go back and forth between the library catalog and Google Scholar- they complement each other, and together will provide more comprehensive and diverse content than just using Google Scholar alone. Learn how to connect your UW account to Google Scholar HERE.

4. Utilize dissertations. This really is one of my top “secret” tips, especially for undergrads who aren’t as familiar with dissertations and how to find them. If you find a dissertation about a topic, not only might the dissertation be interesting to read, but a dissertation is loaded with bibliography– hundreds and hundreds of citations and potential sources for your research. UW Libraries have a dedicated database of UW dissertations and a database of international and national dissertations. If you write a dissertation, you spend years and years of your life trying to find everything about it, so someone’s done that work for you.

5. Reach out to University scholars. When I reach out to experts (faculty, researchers, etc.),  it’s always amazing how often and how quickly they write back–our UW community is such a wealth of expertise and knowledge. If you come across the name of someone who has published a lot on a certain topic, don’t be afraid to contact them directly. They may have interesting insights or additional resources, and they can just be a really good sounding board for your questions.

6. Find the Advanced Search tool on the Libraries page. The search bars that we often encounter–the ones in Google, the ones in websites–are one-dimensional. The results can be a mixed bag. With the UW Libraries Advanced Search tool, you have the ability to fine-tune your search. For example, you could set “Toni Morrison” to “Any Field” and get things not only by her, but about her. If you set “Toni Morrison” to “Author/Creator,” then you get things only by her. In Advanced Search, you can specify dates or date ranges, so you could see what criticism of Morrison’s work looked like in the 1980s and compare it to other time periods.  You can also limit resources to electronic materials only, which is a crucial function, especially right now when there isn’t access to the physical materials in the Library. I like to think Advanced Search is like a spaceship with lots of buttons to push and levers to pull. The more you know about these things, the farther and faster you can take your ship.

7. Use Indexes. An index is a list of published articles within a certain discipline or topic. It provides bibliographic information such as author(s), title, name of journal and more.  For example, someone might want to search the database called the MLA Directory of Periodicals in order to find journals that are important in the world of modern languages and literature. Or, if someone were writing about Modernist poetry or the Anthropocene, they might want to search the library catalog, find a text about those topics, and then scour its index. If they were to find such an index, then they could start looking up its bibliography in the library catalog or in Google Scholar. Here is an example of a text with an index.

Need help with your research, or finding what you need? See our Remote Resources and Services for Spring 2020  or contact a subject librarian to schedule a consultation! 

#YourLibrary

About the author: Elliott Stevens

In addition to being the English subject Librarian, Elliott Stevens supervises the Student Squad (the student workers in the Research Commons), teaches classes and collaborates on Libraries workshops and events with colleagues. He has an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Kansas and an MLIS from the University of Rhode Island.

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