Gleeson Gleanings

New! Text A Librarian

Kelci — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:34:37 +0000

Quick, save this number in your phone or scan this QR code!

Start your text with the word: gleeson

Example:
gleeson What are the library hours on saturday?
(after your first message to us, you don’t have to use the word gleeson any more).

Give it a shot and send us a text—we would love to hear from you!

More info, including other ways to contact us, can be found on the Ask A Librarian Web page.

Library program on Black Nationalism

John Hawk — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:51:12 +0000

The Gleeson Library is pleased to co-sponsor with the African American Studies Program a faculty reading on Thursday, February 2^nd with University of San Francisco Associate Professor James Lance Taylor, who will read from his recent work Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama (2011). Professor Taylor is also co-editor of the forthcoming book, Something’s in the Air: Race and the Legalization of Marijuana. His current research is on Peoples Temple, Jim Jones, and Black America. Professor Taylor is a noted political commentator on U.S. and San Francisco politics for national and Bay Area media and has served as a policy consultant for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The program begins at 5:00 on Thursday, February 2 in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Learn about Gleeson Library

Joe Garity — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:12:22 +0000

New to USF? Or a current student but you are a little unsure where everything is in the library? Join us for a library tour. The tours last about 30 minutes and a library staff member takes you around the building, shows you where things are located, and discusses some of the library’s services available to you.

We’re giving tours on:

Monday January 23 @ 3pm

Tuesday January 24 @ 12 noon

Wednesday January 25 @ 2 pm

Thursday January 26 @ 10 am

No need to sign up for anything–just meet us in the library’s lobby at those times. Everyone is welcome!

What’s up with the Wikipedia black out?

Kelci — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:55:14 +0000

When I logged into WordPress to edit a blog post this morning, I encountered the following screen:

What’s up with that? Turns out WordPress, along with sites such as Twitter and most notably Wikipedia, are raising awareness of pending legislation in the House and the Senate that could cause censorship of the Internet. The original aim of the bills, abbreviated as SOPA and PIPA [click to access the text of the bills], was to stop piracy of movies and music online, but if passed in their current form, the bills could be invoked to shut down any Web site without due process.

Indeed, as librarians and informational professionals, we do not condone censorship. However, being opposed to these bills cannot be summed up as being opposed to censorship — the bills are complex pieces of legislation. We here in Gleeson Library encourage you to research the issue and scrutinize your sources. Does the source have something invested in winning or losing? Does the source have a history of slanting the news? Does the article seem sensationalist or over the top? Does it get you more mad than informed? I found the FAQ on Wikipedia explaining the black out to be very informative and nonbiased, in line with what I perceive as the mission and values of Wikipedia as an organization.

A colleague of mine, Jean Hewlett, had two other great suggestions for nonbiased facts:

[A] good explanation is by Sal Kahn of KahnAcademy:
This one sounds kind of like your high school civics teacher
explaining it at great length.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc

For more detailed legal analysis, here’s a page of links to articles by the staff of the Berkman Center at Harvard:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7327

The question still remains: What are you going to do while Wikipedia is blacked out today? How about using some of these real academic encyclopedias the library subscribes to? We got lots of them!

USF Book Club: February and March Selections

Kelci — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:44:42 +0000

Howdy! The USF Book Club picked its next two selections:

Friday, February 17, 2012 (12-1 pm): Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

How to get the book: Request it through Link+ (it’s in high demand right now, so you might need to get creative with how you request it — large print, as a double edition, etc.), get it at SF Public, or check out our Kindle or one of our iPads to read it digitally.

Meet us in the seminar room of Gleeson Library (#209)

Friday, March 16, 2012 (12-1 pm): The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

How to get the book: Request it through Link+ or get it at SF Public. Unfortunately it is not available in e-format.

Since we like to read books of all genres, we decided to do a children’s book, and that’s why we chose Hugo Cabret, considering the recent attention the book has received due to the movie.

For this meeting, we’ll be on the third floor of the library — room 314.

Are you wondering about the Book Club? Click on over to our wiki page where most of your questions will be answered. Or, send an email to kbaughmanmcdowell@usfca.edu to sign up for the mailing list.

Public Access to NIH Funded Research at Risk

Carol Spector — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:02:46 +0000

A controversial bill called the “Research Works Act” has been introduced in Congress. This bill would end the current policy (that has been in effect since 2008) that requires any research funded by the NIH be made freely available to the public via Pub Med Central one year after publication in a journal.

For reactions, see this ProPublica article and New York Times op-ed piece.

For the publishing industry’s perspective, see this statement from the Association of American Publishers.

Text of the bill is available here.

Library Hours – Spring 2012

Colette Hayes — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:40:40 +0000

Gleeson Library/Geschke Learning Resource Center’s
Hours for Christmas Break, Intersession, and Spring Semester 2012
are now posted on the library’s website here:

http://www.usfca.edu/Library/Hours/

Merry Christmas, and we’ll see you in the New Year!!

Photo by Shawn Calhoun

This year, Gleeson Library’s “Book” Christmas Tree reached 9ft 9in tall. We used close to 700 National Union Catalog books to build the tree, and estimate that this royal tannenbaum weighs over 3000 pounds. We decorated the tree with apples, popcorn (which we strung ourselves), cinnamon sticks, candy canes,
and old card catalog cards.

USF Book Club: The History of Love

Kelci — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:23:01 +0000

Do you read? Do you like discussing what you read in a casual environment? Then come to a USF Book Club monthly meeting!

The next book we will discuss is The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and we’ll meet on January 13th (Friday the 13th!) from 12 noon – 1 pm in the Seminar Room (#209) of Gleeson Library. We welcome people from the entire USF Community — students, staff, and faculty.

To get the book, request it through Link+ (arrives in about 4 business days), get it at SF Public, or check out an iPad or Kindle over the break, both of which have the e-book loaded on them. Request your copy soon — many libraries close over the holidays, so don’t wait.

The last words of this haunting novel resonate like a pealing bell. “He fell in love. It was his life.” This is the unofficial obituary of octogenarian Leo Gursky, a character whose mordant wit, gallows humor and searching heart create an unforgettable portrait. Born in Poland and a WWII refugee in New York, Leo has become invisible to the world. When he leaves his tiny apartment, he deliberately draws attention to himself to be sure he exists. What’s really missing in his life is the woman he has always loved, the son who doesn’t know that Leo is his father, and his lost novel, called The History of Love, which, unbeknownst to Leo, was published years ago in Chile under a different man’s name. Another family in New York has also been truncated by loss. Teenager Alma Singer, who was named after the heroine of The History of Love, is trying to ease the loneliness of her widowed mother, Charlotte. When a stranger asks Charlotte to translate The History of Love from Spanish for an exorbitant sum, the mysteries deepen. Krauss (Man Walks into a Room) ties these and other plot strands together with surprising twists and turns, chronicling the survival of the human spirit against all odds. Writing with tenderness about eccentric characters, she uses earthy humor to mask pain and to question the universe. Her distinctive voice is both plangent and wry, and her imagination encompasses many worlds.

–Publishers Weekly

Author Nicole Krauss will be at the JCCSF on Sunday February 26 to deliver a keynote for Book Fest. Get your tickets quick because it will probably sell out.

One of the book club members sent me this glossary that she said can be very helpful when reading The History of Love… she’s Jewish and even she was enlightened by some of the entries.

Still craving more Krauss? They have a page dedicated to her on NPR!

Also for next time, the book club would like you to bring a list of children’s books you adore, or books that greatly influenced you when growing up. We just might break another taboo and do a children’s book for February!

Have a great holiday season and we’ll see you all in the new year!

Global Update, the Library Newsletter

Kelci — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:03:12 +0000

If you’re reading this, you’re acquainted with Gleeson Library’s blog, Gleeson Gleanings, which is an excellent way to keep up to date with the library haps. But, did you know the library also publishes a newsletter twice a year, called Global Update?

We just published the Fall 2011 issue of Global Update and I invite you to take a look! Whether you’ve missed the blog posts over the past few months or if you just want a succinct run down of library news, Global Update will quench your desire for library information and hopefully surprise you in some way too!

Click the image below to open the new issue (PDF).

Or you can go to this page and browse the archive of past newsletters.

USFconnect Login

Randy Souther — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:46:53 +0000

Effective immediately, log-in to Library resources (off-campus access to databases; view your library record, etc.) is now using USFconnect username and password for those with a USFconnect account. This replaces the Name / USF ID# log-in that the library has used for several years.

There is an alternate log-in screen for those without a USFconnect account (Fromm Students, Special Access patrons, etc.).

We hope the inconvenience will be minimal and will be outweighed by the benefits.
Benefits include having one less set of credentials to remember, and increased security: it is much easier to change the USFconnect password than it is to change the USF ID.