Category: article

In addition to providing support for the pursuits of all members of the Boston College community, the library staff is also very active in creating their own scholarship on a wide range of topics. Below are just a few of the many works recently published by members of our staff.

Senior Digital Scholarship Librarian Anna Kijas recently contributed several publications that range in disciplinary and subject matter. These publications include a lengthy blog post, “Engaging in Small Data Rescue,” Libraries+ Network, June 16, 2017, in which she describes data rescue efforts at Boston College during Endangered Data Week (April 17-21, 2017), as well as several initiatives for data rescue or data archiving of federal agency data, aims and strategies in rescuing IMLS and NEH data, and the actual workflow of pulling data and creating records in a shared CKAN repository.

In the article, “An Introduction to Getting Started in the Digital Humanities for Library Professionals,” Music Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 20, Iss. 1, 2017, Kijas focuses on how activities that library professionals already engage in, such as digital asset management or metadata creation, can be leveraged in digital humanities work and skill-sets further developed through suggested online tutorials and resources.

In the area of musicology, Kijas published a book chapter entitled, ‘Teresa Carreño: “Such gifts are of God, and ought not to be prostituted for mere gain”‘ in Musical Prodigies: Interpretations from Psychology, Music Education, Musicology and Ethnomusicology, ed. Gary McPherson. Oxford University Press, 2016. In this chapter, she discusses nineteenth century perspectives about child prodigies related to health, intelligence, gender, and exploitation as evidenced in the criticism and reception of Teresa Carreño’s early U.S. concert tours (1863-65).

Betsy Post, Head of the Digital Libraries Program, wrote a working paper entitled “Embedding Metadata in PDF Finding Aids to Enhance Discoverability,” which describes an initiative to make it easier for Google and other search engines to find and index our Burns Library finding aids.

Head Librarian for Assessment & Outreach Carli Spina wrote an article for Theological Librarianship entitled “Libraries and Universal Design.” The article, which will appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal, offers an overview of the topics of Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and suggests options for libraries that are interested in applying these concepts to their own spaces, services, and programs.

Chelcie Rowell, Digital Scholarship Librarian & History Liaison, co-authored an article published in College & Undergraduate Libraries entitled “Project Management for Digital Projects with Collaborators Beyond the Library” with Theresa Burress. The article argues that librarians and their diverse collaborators can apply project management practices to a broad range of research, teaching, and learning projects with collaborators beyond the library. It offers two case studies to illustrate this argument, one from each author’s experience: creating a community biodiversity wiki for West-Central Florida and redesigning an interdisciplinary first-year seminar around creating 3-D models of historic Venetian buildings. She also published a review of Linked Data for Cultural Heritage in Technical Services Quarterly.

Burns Librarian Christian Dupont has published the first two articles in a series of eight on Burns Library’s renowned Irish collections in the Irish Arts Review, Ireland’s leading art and design quarterly. Each vignette examines a thematic selection of artworks, situating them in their historical and social contexts by drawing on archival evidence. The first installment, for the summer 2017 issue, features the stained glass windows that Boston College librarian Terence Connolly, SJ commissioned for the James Jeffrey Roche Room in Bapst Library in 1951—a reflection of the nationalist sentiment in Irish art that flourished around the establishment of the Republic and its contemporary resonance among the Irish of Boston. The second contribution, for the fall 2017 issue, considers the irony behind the Library’s use of monies from a defunct revolutionary Catholic nationalist organization (a club named after Fenian John Boyle O’Reilly) to purchase a deluxe set of hand-colored aquatint engravings depicting Anglo-Irish architectural monuments of Georgian Dublin.

Emily Singley, Head Librarian for Systems & Applications, co-authored an article for the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship with Jane Natches. Entitled “Finding the Gaps: A Survey of Electronic Resource Management in Alma, Sierra, and WMS,” the study sought to determine whether libraries that have implemented a next-generation library system are able to complete electronic resource management (ERM) workflows entirely within that system. Responses indicated that there are gaps in workflows and that many libraries are still performing core ERM tasks outside these three systems. The study concluded that these systems may require further development before they are able to fully support complex ERM processes.

When a researcher, colleague, tenure committee or conference organizer tries to find you on the internet, will they find what you want them to find? Will the scholarship they find be accessible to them?

You can take control by consciously curating your scholarly identity and by making more of your work openly accessible.

Some options available to you are online identifiers, profile systems, sharing platforms, academic social networks, and monitoring tools. The Libraries’ new Scholarly Identity guide provides information on all these tools and techniques, but here are some suggestions for boosting your visibility:

Get an ORCID ID and use it

ORCID at BC allows you to register for an ORCID ID and link it to your BC ID. ORCID has become the primary standard identifier for academic authors. It solves any name ambiguity issues with a permanent identifying number that can be displayed on your publications. As BC rolls out its new faculty profiles, your ORCID ID will be added as an identifier right below your email address. These IDs are clickable links to your profile. It is easy to import publications from Scopus, CrossRef and Google Scholar into your ORCID profile with no manual entry. As you continue to publish and submit your ORCID with your manuscript, publishers will push the metadata for your article directly to your profile – keeping it up to date with no input from you. An added bonus is that, when you fill out your Faculty Annual Report, you can import citations from ORCID into your Works report, again with no manual entry. Find out more on our ORCID at BC guide.

Create a Google Scholar Profile

In Google Scholar, go to My Citations and create a profile by filling out a brief form. When you click the + sign to add citations, Google scholar will suggest articles it thinks might be yours. You select the ones you want in your profile. An added bonus of Google Scholar is that it will show you how many citations each article has in other Google Scholar-indexed items, and provides links to those articles. It also calculates and displays your h-index, a measure of author influence. You can import the metadata about your articles into your ORCID profile by copying the BibTex version of the citations from Google Scholar and importing that file into ORCID.

Share your work

There are many types of sharing platforms, archives maintained by Boston College, disciplinary repositories and academic social networks.

At Boston College, we offer two online archives for your work. eScholarship@BC can display most file formats and will accept working papers, conference presentations, creative works, scholarly articles, theses, dissertations, and multimedia. Works in eScholarship@BC are openly available to anyone in the world. This global open access repository aligns with the educational and social justice mission of Boston College. There is ample evidence that works that are openly available receive higher citation counts. You will receive a permanent link to each of your works to embed in your CV or website, and views and downloads are displayed for each work. All of the work in eScholarship@BC is digitally preserved for the long term.

Boston College also makes available the Boston College Dataverse, a repository for all kinds of data. It is hosted on the Harvard Dataverse platform. The data can be openly accessible or private, and it is possible to set terms of use for the data or to require permission. Each dataset receives a digital object identifier that can be used to site the data.

Disciplinary repositories are also an option. Many physicists deposit in arXiv, social scientists in ICPSR, and new disciplinary repositories are appearing at a fast pace. Your Subject Librarian can help you identify the one that meets your requirements.

Are Academic Social Networks (ASNs) a good choice?

The two most popular ASNs, ResearchGate and Academia.edu, are both praised and reviled, sometimes by the same scholars. Both allow you to share whatever you want regardless of copyright status. Both get visibility for your works from your colleagues. But, both are commercial companies. They are both actually dot-coms, despite the deceptive name. They have no preservation goals, so if they disappear, your work may too. They also may seek to monetize the data they contain. Many scholars also find their constant stream of emails annoying, yet hard to resist. A Forbes article published earlier this year drew attention to the pitfalls of these networks. By contrast, institutional repositories such as eScholarship@BC are able to publish authorized versions of your scholarship, ensuring that links you share with colleagues will always work.

Monitor your impact

Monitoring the growing impact of your scholarship can help you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts to create a robust, visible scholarly identity. You can check your citation counts in Google Scholar and also calculate your h-index in Scopus and in the free Harzing’s Publish or Perish application. You can set up a Google Alert, to be notified when your name is mentioned on the Web.

There are also new tools, such as the Altmetrics browser bookmarklet that will analyze the social media impact of your work including mention in blogs, news, tweets, policy papers – sources that traditional metrics don’t measure.

There is more information about each of these tools and techniques on the Scholarly Identity guide. There is a lot to choose from, and you can use multiple tools to get the word out on your work. The guide suggests factors to consider in making your choices, and your Subject Librarian is happy to help.

If you have specific questions or would like to know more, we will be hosting a Coffee and Code presentation on Scholarly Identity on October 26th at 3:00 PM in O’Neill 217.

Most important – take control of what others find when they search for you!

Over the summer, the Boston College Libraries took advantage of once-in-decades opportunities to acquire two exceedingly rare and important volumes that help to illuminate controversies surrounding the practice of prayer on the Iberian peninsula during the sixteenth century and their repercussions among followers of Ignatius of Loyola. Further research also promises to add to our knowledge of how the early Jesuits conducted the formation of their members.

The first is a manuscript previously unknown to scholars of Jesuit history and spirituality. It appears to have been produced in Spain around 1580. Small in size, fitting comfortably in the palm of one’s hand, its 222 leaves nevertheless contain excerpts from three dozen sources, most of which have never been traced. Other texts in the volume, such as a collection of 24 exercísios (“exercises”) that reflect the inspiration of Ignatius and include borrowings from Francis Borgia, the third Superior General of the Society of Jesus, also contain passages not found elsewhere. Texts that can be traced to printed editions from the time contain significant variations with respect to those printings. Most notable in this category is a Spanish summary of the Jesuit Constitutions (a comprehensive set of statutes governing the Society and the conduct of its members written by Ignatius in Latin first printed in 1591) and other “rules,” including the Regulae scholasticorum, later referred to as the Ratio studiorum, the foundation for the Jesuit educational curriculum. The contents of the manuscript and its neat transcription by a single hand suggest that it might have been compiled as a reference manual by a Jesuit “tertian master” who was responsible for training Jesuit “scholastics” during the final stages of their formation, or by a prefect of spirituality at a Jesuit college or community. Jesuit manuscripts from this period almost never appear on the market, making this a particularly exciting acquisition.

The second work we acquired is an equally small volume published in Portugal in 1553: the second edition of Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises issued by the royal printer at the University of Coimbra. Nine copies are known to exist—only three outside of Portugal—making the second edition even rarer than the first published in Rome in 1548. Previously in private hands, ours is the only copy to have been offered for sale in at least 70 years. Its title page features a woodcut that presents an early rendering of the Jesuit seal characteristically encircled by alternating straight and wavy sun rays, yet with a twin-leafed plant beneath the central “IHS” monogram (representing the name of Jesus) where three nails symbolizing the Crucifixion would be placed in subsequent versions. Ignatius composed his Exercises as a guide for leading retreats consisting of structured meditation, prayer, and contemplation, typically lasting four weeks.

What both works have in common besides their Jesuit origins is the milieu of controversial approaches to prayer in which they were produced and used. A confluence of religious reform movements in Spain during the sixteenth century promoted various forms of contemplative or mystical prayer. Leaders of the so-called alumbrados (meaning “illuminated ones”), like Isabel de la Cruz and Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz, were suspected of heresy and brought before the Inquisition. Church officials believed that their teachings ran counter to the life of action and the practical exercise of virtue and good works, which they generally considered ideal for lay Catholics. Ignatius was likewise interrogated for his association with alumbrados. He was never convicted, nevertheless elements of contemplative prayer in his Exercises, especially the experience of “consolation” (an intense feeling of God’s love), bear traits of his exposure to contested mystical practices.

Our copy of the 1553 Exercises includes a handwritten annotation on the front flyleaf that may provide further evidence of their association with the practice of contemplative prayer. The inscription reads: “Do Recholhim[en]to / De Coimbra.” The key word “recholhimento” (“recolhimento” in modern Portuguese) may be translated literally as “recollection.” The inscription may indicate that the volume belonged to a Jesuit house or was kept among other prayer books in a room therein reserved for meditation, with the letters “ba” beneath the inscription perhaps indicating a shelf location. A second possibility is that the inscription may have been added as a kind of summary title reflecting the owner’s way of classifying of the contents of the work: “About Recollection / [the edition] Of Coimbra.” In either case, the inscription could suggest a connection to disputes concerning the nature of Ignatian prayer. Yet another possibility, based on the opinion of experts who believe the handwriting dates to the 17^th or 18^th centuries, is that the inscription refers to a convent of contemplative nuns, known as a “recolhimento,” of which two were founded in Coimbra around 1700. In that case, the inscription may have been added to indicate its acquisition at some point by the convent, perhaps following the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal in 1759.

In addition to adaptations of Ignatian works, the manuscript we acquired includes several texts that encourage contemplative prayer, such as a series of instructions for meditating on the Passion of Christ and the love of God. Most of these ancillary texts are not attested elsewhere, yet they resemble the kinds of meditations that were prevalent in Spain at the time. Their presence helps to situate the manuscript in the context of contemporary debates about modes of prayer.

Concerns about the emphasis on contemplative prayer mounted in the Iberian Church during the late sixteenth century. Within the Society of Jesus, matters came to a head during the 1570s when Superior General Everard Mercurian prohibited the reading of works on mystical prayer, and insisted on an ascetical interpretation of the Exercises. Ignatius himself never considered contemplation and action to be opposed, but the recovery of the image of the founder of the Society and his followers as “contemplatives in action” came only in the twentieth century thanks to studies by Karl Rahner, SJ and his brother Hugo Rahner, SJ.

A luncheon program celebrating these rare and remarkable acquisitions will be held in Burns Library in conjunction with the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies on November 1. For further information, and to register, please visit: http://libguides.bc.edu/burns-events/rare.

The author wishes to thank the following for their research assistance and comments: João José Alves Dias, Cristiano Casalini, Barton Geger SJ, Elspeth Healey, Terence O’Reilly, Claude Pavur SJ, Richard Ramer, Mário Santiago de Carvalho, and Barry Taylor. The acquisition of the Jesuit manuscript was made possible by donations received in memory of John J. Burns, Jr., Class of 1953.

The Libraries are delighted to announce three fall events that dovetail with the collections of the John J. Burns Library’s Irish Music Archives. This exciting slate of music-themed programs begins with an international symposium in September, followed in October by two presentations with live music.

Nótaí/Notes: Music and Ireland, a Research Symposium

On September 23, a full-day symposium organized by the National University of Ireland Galway and Boston College will capitalize on music-related scholarship happening globally. The Nótaí/Notes: Music and Ireland  research symposium will begin at Boston College on Friday, September 22 with a reception at the Burns Library. Friday’s reception will include a brief presentation by harp historian Nancy Hurrell and a musical demonstration on an early 19th-century Egan harp. Attendees will also have the opportunity to become acquainted with the Burns Library’s extensive Irish Music Archives.

The full-day program on Saturday September 23 will take place in the Gasson Hall Irish Room. Keynote speakers will include Helen O’Shea (University of Melbourne) and Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway). Panel sessions will include presentations on Patrick Kavanagh’s “On Raglan Road,” the Willie Clancy Summer School, the piper Shaun O’Nolan, and more. A brief performance of Irish traditional music will cap off the day’s events.

Findings from the Nótaí/Notes symposium will be included in a special themed edition of Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies in 2019. The symposium is cosponsored by Comhrá Ceoil, Centre for Irish Studies at NUI Galway, together with the Boston College Libraries and Boston College Center for Irish Programs. Additional funding is provided by the Irish Research Council New Foundations program.

Celebrating The Séamus Connolly Collection of Irish Music

On the first anniversary of The Séamus Connolly Collection of Irish Music, Séamus Connolly returns to campus on Thursday, October 12th to give a multimedia presentation with live performance at the Cadigan Alumni Center. A collaboration between Connolly and the Boston College Libraries, the Connolly Collection offers a window into the collaborative nature of digital scholarship projects. The evening will feature live music performances by Séamus Connolly on fiddle, Jimmy and Séamus Noonan on flute and tin whistle, and Shannon and Matt Heaton on vocals, flute, and guitar.

Connolly was a 2013 National Heritage Fellow and served as Sullivan Artist-in-Residence at BC from 2004 to 2015. His presentation will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the digital collection came together, with stories and music selections that pay tribute to his musical mentors.

The $20 registration fee includes the 6:00 p.m. reception and the 6:30 p.m. program. Free parking is available on the Brighton Campus. To reserve your seat, please visit the Alumni Education Series website.

Harp Studies: Perspectives on the Irish Harp

On Wednesday October 18th at 6:00 p.m., the Burns Library will host scholar/performers Helen Lawlor and Sandra Joyce. Lawlor and Joyce, who co-edited Harp Studies (Four Courts Press, 2016), will draw on new research into the history and music of the Irish national instrument. In a presentation with live music, they will describe how the music of the Irish harp has been used and interpreted as a symbol of Ireland, and demonstrate how the harp has been reimagined through poetry, song, literature, and film.

Singer Sandra Joyce directs the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Harpist Helen Lawlor lectures in music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Lawlor’s essay chapter in Harp Studies draws upon extensive research in the Mary O’Hara Papers in the Burns Library’s Irish Music Archives.

For more information on these programs, please contact Elizabeth Sweeney, Irish Music Archives events coordinator, at elizabeth.sweeney@bc.edu.

This summer we used the results from website analytics and usability tests that involved faculty, staff and students to create a new library homepage. The goal was to incorporate the look and feel of the new Boston College website design with all we’ve learned about how people use the BC Libraries to find information. The page has several new features:

One Search Box
The most prominent change is that we now offer one simplified search, front and center, with links to more specific searches for Books, Articles, Journals, etc. Enter your search to find books, journals, articles, databases, films, music, laptops, and other material, along with recommendations of research guides, websites, and librarians to help you with your research.

Updated menus
We know many people want quick access to their library account in order to renew items or check due dates, so we’ve added an Accounts link to the top menu. Just below that, the highly sought-after link to library Hours appears in the black bar. A full display of today’s hours at each library appears in the footer as well.

Balancing quick links with instruction
Our library users have diverse needs and we aim to meet those needs by offering quick links along with guidance.  Experienced users will quickly find our most popular databases, along with a link to our full list of more than 800 databases. Those who are unsure of where to start can find help in the Start your Research section with links to subject research guides and course guides. Below that, we continue to offer quick links to our most popular services and now brief descriptions have been added.

Highlighting our collections
In order to spark interest and encourage exploration of our rich collections, we’ve added large eye-catching images and videos across the page. You’ll see highlights from our collections including exhibits, digital collections, and faculty publication interviews. We are very proud of all the libraries have to offer and we hope you’ll find interesting examples highlighted here.  Check back frequently since we’ll feature new collections throughout the year.

Feedback
As always, we welcome your feedback. Your comments, questions, and suggestions help us continually improve our site and get you to the information that you need. Use the FEEDBACK link on the top bar to send us your ideas. Thank you!

The BC Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Group hosts a series of workshops each semester for faculty, students, and staff to learn more about digital tools and methodologies. The series, Coffee & Code, is open to the public. While no previous experience is required, certain workshops do have recommended prerequisites. We ask that participants sign up for sessions on the digital scholarship site. All workshops take place in the Digital Studio, room 205 in the O’Neill Library.

This fall, Coffee & Code sessions include workshops on visualizing temporal data on timelines, creating online maps, textual analysis, and more:

September 21, 11 am – 12:30 pm: Visualizing Temporal Data with Timeline.js
In this session, you will learn how to transform data in your spreadsheets into a timeline using Timeline.js.

October 11, 11 – 12:30 pm: Text Analysis with Voyant
Voyant-tools.org is a free, web-based suite of tools that enables a range of textual analysis techniques. Used imaginatively, it can guide inquiries into author attribution, semantic biases, and writing style. In this session we’ll apply Voyant’s features to different kinds of texts, discussing the nature of textuality and how to combine digital textual analysis with traditional close reading, and end with an introduction to topic modeling. Along the way we’ll investigate how to use textual analysis and tools like Voyant in classroom assignments and your own research projects.

October 24, 11 – 12:30 pm: Visualize your Data on an Interactive Map
This session will introduce participants to the basics of using geographic data to create a visualization (map) with Carto, a web-based mapping and analysis tool. Several types of map layers will be explored. This session may be of interest to participants who are interested in visualizing historical data for humanities or social science projects or classroom use.

October 26, 3 – 4:30 pm: Managing Your Online Scholarly Identity
As a part of Open Access Week, Boston College Libraries presents a primer on managing Scholarly Identity for researchers. Topics will include pros and cons of different scholarly profiles such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate, ORCID, and Google Scholar. We will also cover how to most effectively share your work to increase your scholarly impact and monitor impact metrics. Students and faculty at all stages of their professional careers are encouraged to attend.

November 2, 11 – 12:30 pm: Teaching through Annotation with Hypothes.is
This session explores web annotation as a strategy for teaching and learning. You will be introduced to Hypothes.is, which allows individuals and groups to publicly or privately discuss any web page—from the popular press to literary works and scholarly journal articles. By creating annotations and participating in interpretive conversations, students develop traditional close reading skills, as well as newer forms of digital and media literacy. Participants will gain hands-on experience creating annotations using Hypothes.is and leave with specific strategies to use Hypothes.is in the classroom.

This fall, Boston College is rolling out campus-wide access to Read&Write software for all interested students, staff, and faculty. This application features a customizable toolbar that offers reading, writing, studying, and research support tools embedded within common applications, including Microsoft Office tools (such as Word and PowerPoint) and internet browsers.

The tools are designed to help all students work more efficiently and productively, but also provides particular support for individuals with disabilities and English Language Learners through its unique combination of features. Some of the most notable features include text-to-speech, highlighting, and voice note functionalities. Additionally, the software offers a dictionary as well as vocabulary and study skills tools so that you can consult these resources without leaving your document. For English Language Learners, Read&Write offers translation tools and a picture dictionary that make writing a more efficient and seamless process. This software offers a wide range of tools to support students’ success and help users build independent learning skills; it is available for both computers and mobile devices.

Any member of the BC community can download Read&Write for their own computers and devices or if you want to direct patrons to the tool, go to the Read&Write software page. For additional support and information, you can also direct interested patrons to the LibGuides page about Read&Write. If you have any questions, please contact any member of the Accessibility Committee.