This fall, the Digital Scholarship Workshops will engage with emerging digital humanities technologies using census data to gain digital and data strategies, and also to present a picture of how digital scholarship research can engage with social justice issues.
Every semester, the digital scholarship team launches a series of workshops to assist students and faculty with Library resources and tools. This year, as the campus and BC Libraries take a sharper look at social justice issues, our workshops will use race and diversity data (e.g. US Census) to explore the affordances and constraints of tools and strategies for transforming data into narratives and images. Our first two workshops, which take place in September, will provide introductions to digital exhibitions and Geographical Information Services (GIS).
As the year kicks off, our workshops will focus on acclimating students to the new digital arsenal they have access to. See the table below for quick reference. More detailed descriptions follow.
(NB: SEPTEMBER 12 WORKSHOP WILL BE RESCHEDULED, DATE TBA)
BC Libraries has digitized 80 years of the Pilot. Learn about the publication’s history of different titles and editions, and get an inside look at the digitization process.
Whether in the business of creating fake or real news, every outlet is constantly looking for its base – a group of people with combined or similar interests who may see objective realities from particular perspectives. This was very much the case with the Boston Pilot. As Irish immigrants arrived in droves in the years leading up to and through the famine and troubles, the burgeoning Irish Catholic working class was struggling to find its way in Boston, much less America. The Boston Pilot served as a beacon for this community, spreading political and social ideas, while also providing a resource for reconnecting families, divided by cross-continental travel.
In 1829, The Jesuit, or,Catholic Sentinel, started publication as a periodical for Irish immigrants, and under the guidance of the Archbishop of Boston, Joseph Fenwick, Jesuit started to find its identity, eventually changing its name to the Literary and Catholic Sentinel in 1835, before becoming the much more well known Boston Pilot in 1836. Readership rose and fell as the decades brought the paper through the famine, troubles, and American Civil War until the archdiocese took over the paper officially in 1908.
Tom Wall, University Librarian, reflects on the hope and renewal that the start of the fall semester brings, with special emphasis on Ignatian principles relevant to scholarship and BC Libraries.
The fall term always seems to bring a feeling of hope and renewal to college campuses. For many people the season also begins a period of anticipation, with the holidays, the beauty of autumn, and meetings with family and friends. In some respects, it’s the time of year that most embodies the adage that “happiness is having something to look forward to.”
The influx of young minds to the academy brings new ideas and expectations as well, and if I could borrow an Ignatian metaphor, these emerging ideas and conceptions symbolize the heart; and conversely the University with its history and stability are more akin to the mind. Together, the convergence of the students (heart) and University (mind) form a compelling dynamic that is at once challenging and punctuated by optimism. When it works, we have the meta-instance of Ignatian consolation; when it struggles, we have desolation.
Ignatius offers a number of concepts I’ve been reflecting on lately in the context of anticipating change. In addition to consolation: accompaniment, mobility, and indifference.
Burns Library helped to sponsor the publication and first American launch of Nancy Hurrell’s groundbreaking study The Egan Irish Harps: Tradition, Patrons and Players in conjunction with the Irish Georgian Society.
The harp has been the symbol of Ireland since the Middle Ages, not quite as long as the shamrock and St. Patrick, but long before its appearance on the label of that other Irish icon, Guinness stout. Yet it may never have become the national instrument played in Ireland today had it not been for the ingenuity of an early 19th-century Dublin harp maker named John Egan.
Unlike concert harps, Egan’s new-style harps were small and portable. They retained the characteristic bowed pillar of medieval Gaelic wire harps on which they were modeled, but used gut strings and modern mechanisms to change keys. Recognizing the excellence of Egan harps, George IV granted the maker a royal warrant. Although patronized by royalty, Egan’s Portable Irish Harp, painted green with golden shamrocks, was also viewed as an emblem of Irish nationalist pride in post-Union Ireland.
Cover of Nancy Hurrell’s 2019 book on Egan Irish harps. Courtesy of Four Courts Press.
Recent acquisitions by Burns Library highlight the activities and writing of the Washington, D.C. “Mass Transit” poetry circle of the 1970s and 80s, including Irish American musician and writer Terence Winch and Welsh immigrant Doug Lang.
A 1973 Washington Post article profiling Mass Transit and Some of Us Press. Box 11, Folder 6, Terence Winch papers, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
For many of us, the political protest, music, and fashion of the 1960s and 1970s are the most recognizable aspects of the countercultural revolution. Yet the literature of the era also provides a window into that movement’s values, struggles, and the society it was trying to create.
As novelist, poet, and Boston College professor of English Suzanne Matson has remarked: “Literary movements are not just made up of their texts, but their personalities, events, social dynamics, and behind-the-scenes discussions of goals and motives.” Recent acquisitions by Burns Library preserve and bring to light the activities and writings of a group of poets in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. who began meeting over the Community Book Shop in the early 1970s. They would eventually become known as “Mass Transit” or the “Dupont Circle School.”
The group included Terence Winch, an Irish American musician and writer, whose papers were acquired in 2017, as well as Ed Cox, Michael Lally, Tim Dlugos, Tina Darragh, and Doug Lang, a Welsh immigrant whose papers were acquired earlier this year. Together they created a magazine, also titled Mass Transit, with a rotating editorship. Among the early contributors to Mass Transit was the future actress Karen Allen, of Indiana Jones fame, who befriended Terence Winch and others in the circle when she attended readings as an aspiring writer.
Five issues of the Mass Transit magazine. Mass Transit, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
Will you be teaching an online or hybrid course? Here is how BC Libraries can help support your online teaching.
Many faculty and instructors are starting to plan for Fall courses. If you will be teaching an online or hybrid course, the BC Libraries can assist you in finding the best material and content delivery strategies appropriate for online students. As you design your course, we can review your reading list to make sure all the material you want to use in your teaching will be accessible to your students. We can also offer support for your students’ developing research skills with tutorials, embedded librarians, and synchronous online library instruction. This article will review some issues to consider and offer advice based on different types of teaching material.
This photo essay shows the results of the recent renovation of the digitization lab in Burns Library and some examples of the kind of work that goes on there.
The Digitization Lab, housed in Burns Library but part of Digital Repository Services, underwent renovation in 2017-18. This photo essay shows the results of that effort and some examples of the kind of work that goes on there.
Jack Kearney, Digital Archives Specialist, working in the renovated digitization lab, or digilab for short.
This is the view from the door into the renovated digitization lab. On the left is the Atiz BookDrive scanner; straight ahead through the doorway is the Digital Transitions RGC180 Capture Cradle and Phase One camera, for capturing large formats; on the right are areas for AV digitization and the forensic workstation (not visible in this photo). The old lab was only as big as the space you see on the left.
Paige Walker, Digital Collections & Preservation Librarian, working at the forensic station in the digitization lab, prior to acquiring the FRED forensic system.
The world of academic e-books is complex, but the staff of Boston College Libraries works hard to make the user experience as seamless as possible.
The first thing you need to know about academic e-books is that everything about them is different from the e-books you download to your Kindle or nook. The market structure, the file types, digital rights, platforms, interfaces… everything. It’s an unlucky accident that they share the same name, because patrons who encounter their first academic e-book are usually confused.
BC Libraries celebrates this year’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Contest awards, along with the contest’s 10 year anniversary.
This year Boston College Libraries celebrated 10 years of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Contest. Over 10 years ago, the libraries partnered with Research Services, ITS to promote the use of GIS at Boston College. GIS had reached a watershed moment where the confluence of the commercialization of GIS software, GPS data availability and a recognition of the value of spatial analysis for decision-making had opened up the use of GIS across disciplines. In 2002 the library began integrating GIS training into the Social Work curriculum, eventually expanding into Nursing and other areas. Researchers recognized that a GIS skill set was a valued part of resumes in every field.
Second annual GIS contest winners: Kevin Keegan ’11, Petr Yakovlev ’10, David Santaniello ’10 Photo credit: Gary Gilbert, Office of University Communications
In 2010 to further recognize the importance of GIS on campus and further expand exposure, the libraries initiated an annual GIS contest. The first year, the libraries recognized 3 undergraduate entries from Geology and Geophysics with a $100 Amazon gift certificate for first prize and GIS T-shirts for a tied second place.
By 2013, because of the increased number of entries, both graduate and undergraduate awards were established with $100, $50 and $25 certificates for each category for the top placed entries.
University Librarian Tom Wall at 2019 awards ceremony
Today, with close to 100 entries over the years, the submissions span subject areas including Biology, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Social Work, Economics, Environmental Studies, Psychology, Biology, Political Science, International Studies and Education. Winning posters are displayed in the O’Neill lobby during the awards ceremony each April, and then go on display for a year on Level 2, near the Digital Studio. They are also included in the Data Visualization Display in O’Neill with acknowledgement on the Digital Scholarship Group’s blog.
GIS Contest Winner posters on display outside the Digital Studio on O’Neill Library Level 2
We invite you to take a look at the winning entries deposited in the libraries’ digital repository, eScholarship@BC under Juried Student Work.
BC Libraries has made The New York Times available to all current faculty, staff, and students. Here is what’s available.
Boston College Libraries is very happy to remind all current faculty, students and staff members of the Boston College Community that you now can have unlimited access to The New York Times website by registering for a personal account. (Members of the BC Law community should review the registration recommendations in the guide.) If you already have a personal account, you are free to cancel that and use the library-supported access described here. Features include:
Content beginning with Vol. 1 (1851) – present
Unlimited page views/downloads/printing, except for content published from 1923 – 1980 which is limited to 5 views in a single day (for more in a day, use ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
Interactive media
Chinese Spanish language editions
Discipline-specific curricular support in 16 areas on the NYT in Education website
This new site-wide license has been a number of years in the making. Users have been requesting this access, and the library has wanted to supply it knowing how important resources such as this are for information literacy. Due to the large population to be served, pricing has been prohibitively high in the past. More recently, The Times has shown greater flexibility in working with the Libraries on pricing; their willingness to add in a 5-year license option with a reasonable annual increase was also critical here.
Once licensed, implementation brought its own challenges. Julia Hughes, Senior Bibliographer for Political Science/Area Studies, Leslie Homzie, Senior Bibliographer for Communications and Sociology, Sonia Ensins, Senior Bibliographer for Business and Terra Kallemeyn, Electronic Resources Acquisitions Librarian, worked hard to make the implementation as smooth as possible.
The fall term always seems to bring a feeling of hope and renewal to college campuses. For many people the season also begins a period of anticipation, with the holidays, the beauty of autumn, and meetings with family and friends. In some respects, it’s the time of year that most embodies the adage that “happiness is having something to look forward to.”
