Did you know that there’s a library in that new snazzy big green building down the hill? Yes, the two-level Carl J. Shapiro Library in the Shapiro Campus Center is the place to be for R and R and R (Rest, Recreation, and Research). The Brandeis University Libraries and Information Technology Services have worked together to create a warm and welcoming space, which will provide selected undergraduate library research services, 24-hour computer cluster access, the ITS Help Desk, and comfortable study space.

While librarians will not be holding regular hours in the Shapiro Library, reference librarians will hold office hours and research consultations during the end of semester busy periods. Librarians will also offer onsite workshops on conducting online research, navigating full-text databases and E-Journals, and other subjects customized for campus student groups. In addition, students have the option to submit an online request to arrange for an individual consultation with a reference librarian.

Even though reference librarians will not be available in person at the Shapiro Library during most of the semester, they will soon be available virtually - 24 hours a day. The Libraries plan to launch a real-time reference chat service this fall that will allow researchers in the Shapiro Library (as well as elsewhere on campus and at home) to communicate online with librarians in real-time. The service will be available 24/7, staffed by Boston area librarians during business hours and by librarians around the country the remainder of the time. More information on this new service will be announced shortly.

The lower level of the Shapiro Library is outfitted with 3 iMacs, as well as comfortable seating. In the upper level, there are 15 Dell PCs, tables for quiet study, and two group study rooms. The ITS Help Desk, in a move from the Feldberg Communications Building, will also be located on the lower level of the Shapiro Library. The students staffing the ITS Help Desk provide computer support for Brandeis students and assist with the basics of navigating the Libraries' online resources.

We look forward to meeting and working with the entire Brandeis Community in this new space!  

Research in the humanities seems to be getting more and more complicated. New humanities resources are published everyday in a variety of formats, and new research tools and research methods appear with greater frequency. Knowing where or even how to start looking for humanities materials is becoming an ever-greater challenge. In order to meet this challenge, the Brandeis University Libraries is creating the Library Center for Humanities Research, where humanities scholars can find resources, tools, and support for their complicated research projects.

The Library Center for Humanities Research is located on the second level of the Farber Library, in close proximity to the microfilm collection. Our microfilm collection nearly "doubles" the holdings of our print collection, and most of the items in this collection can be considered primary sources in the humanities. Some of our major microfilm collections include Early English Books, 1475-1700, Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, and Early American Newspapers, a collection of over 700 newspapers issued in various states between 1690-1820. These collections can be difficult to find and use, so our microfilm collection is often underutilized. More than once I have told a stunned graduate student that we have in microform items for which he or she traveled a great distance to see at another library on the assumption that it was the only place to see them. The Center will work to draw more attention to our strong microfilm collection and help those who need assistance in identifying and using these complicated microfilm resources.

Another goal of the Library Center for Humanities Research is to offer a state-of-the-art facility that centralizes the modern-day tools humanities researchers need to perform in-depth research. To this end, the Libraries will soon be purchasing and making available a digital microfilm scanner that will enhance the use of our deep microfilm resources. With this new machine, library users will be able to digitize any microfilm or microfiche image and then download the image to a disk or e-mail it to themselves. The Center will also offer a computer workstation connected to the Web, so that humanities researchers can seamlessly go from using a microfilm collection to using a computer where they can access primary sources available through the Internet or locate other primary sources housed in our library.

The Center will also lend support to humanities researchers with complicated research projects. Already, we have created a web site entitled Primary Text Research in the Humanities to help students conceptualize the idea of a primary text and to offer tips and subject guides for scholars conducting primary text research. The Center will also offer a series of workshops on various humanities research topics. The first of these workshops, "Researching American Newspapers and Periodicals, 1865-1945," will be held on Thursday, November 6, from 3-4pm in Farber 2. In addition, the Humanities Librarian, Anthony Vaver, has relocated his office to the Library Center for Humanities Research, so that researchers involved in long-term, complicated research projects can stop by or make an appointment for an individual consultation session with him.

For more information about the Library Center for Humanities Research, or to make an appointment to discuss your humanities research project, contact Anthony Vaver at vaver@brandeis.edu or call him at 6-4642.  

Interlibrary Loan revolutionized library service, giving researchers access to materials that they otherwise would not have had. Now the Brandeis University Libraries is taking traditional interlibrary loan one step further. Beginning in January 2003, the Brandeis University Libraries will offer faculty a Journal Article Delivery Service, soon to be known as JADS, for articles from journals not held by the Libraries. This new service will bypass the intermediation of the Interlibrary Loan department. Articles that are available electronically can be downloaded directly to one’s desktop.

The Brandeis Libraries will enlist the services of two commercial document providers to allow faculty access to many journal titles not currently owned by the Brandeis University Libraries. The biggest advantage in using these commercial vendors is their access to electronic journals whose licenses prohibit traditional lending. Most publishers allow commercial suppliers to provide articles from electronic journals because a copyright fee is included in the purchase price. Furthermore, by using desktop delivery, commercial vendors can provide many articles faster than traditional interlibrary loan services.

One of the commercial document providers we plan to use is CISTI, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, which is part of the National Research Council of Canada. CISTI is one of the world's major sources for information in science, technology, and medicine. Their database is updated weekly and information is often available before regular distribution of a journal issue. Journal articles from most titles in the database are available from at least 1993. Many of the journals are available electronically. For more information and to view the lists of available journals, check the CISTI Source webpage.

Ingenta is a British-based document delivery service, providing researchers with access to an impressive collection of academic and professional journals from all major disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities. Over 8,000 institutions from around the world rely on Ingenta for managed access to academic and professional content. Coverage varies with the journal title, but is strong from 1998 onwards. As with CISTI, many journals are available electronically. For more information about Ingenta and to browse their list of available publications, check the Ingenta webpage.

Both CISTI and Ingenta offer table-of-contents and alerting services. When faculty members sign up for this service, they can identify journals and subject areas of interest and receive, by email, current tables of contents for specified journals, as well as weekly lists of recently published articles in their topics of interest. From these lists, specific articles from journals that are not owned by Brandeis can be ordered directly from the vendor. The cost for this service will be covered by the Brandeis University Libraries, up to $50/article (including copyright fees).

If you are a Brandeis faculty member and you think that JADS could help you with your research needs, or if you just want more information about this pilot project, please contact Sue Swanson, Librarian for Access Services (phone: 736-4620 email: swanson@brandeis.edu).  

The Library bids farewell to four staff members who have accepted positions at other educational institutions. Each of these individuals worked tirelessly to make improvements in their departments and meet the challenges of developing a research library.The library staff misses their good cheer and counsel, and we wish them much success in their new positions.

Lisa Long, University Archivist, is now the Ezra Stiles Special Collections Librarian, Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, RI.

Deborah Margolis, Reference Librarian/Information Desk Coordinator, has become Library Director, Joseph Meyerhoff Library at Baltimore Hebrew University, Baltimore, MD.

Jonathan Nabe, Manager, Science Library, has been appointed Reference Librarian/Liaison to the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.

Eliot Wilczek, Associate Archivist, has become the Records Manager, Tufts University, Medford, MA.  

Performance of The Threepenny Opera
Creative Arts Festival
June 14, 1952
Brandeis University  

While the Big Dig reshapes physical Boston, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) has been reshaping "Boston" in other ways. The BLC, a cooperative association of nineteen academic research libraries to date, has expanded so that its membership now includes academic libraries from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. Indeed, the Library world is redefining what it means to be a Bostonian.

The Boston Library Consortium has been around since 1970. Test your knowledge of the BLC by taking this short quiz.

1. Name the four original members of the BLC.
2. Which of the following institutions belong to the Boston Library Consortium?:
   1. The University of Connecticut, Storrs
   2. The University of New Hampshire
   3. Williams College
   4. Harvard University
3. How many volumes are held within the Boston Library Consortium?
4. What is the significance of 24 x 7 = 168?
5. How do you borrow materials from a BLC library?

Answers.

1. Brandeis University, Boston College, Boston University, and Tufts University.
2. The first three - a, b, and c - are the newest members of the BLC. Harvard is not a member.
3. 31 million (compare to Harvard’s 14 million items).
4. As part of a BLC initiative, 168 is the number of hours per week that any member of the Brandeis community will soon be able to consult virtually with a reference librarian.
5. BLC cards are available at the Brandeis University Libraries and will allow you to borrow materials from other BLC member libraries.

• Joe L. Kincheloe. The Sign of the Burger: McDonald’s and the Culture of Power. Temple University Press, 2002.

Who doesn’t know the meaning of the "Golden Arches?" The rise of this cultural icon is chronicled in this well researched book, which makes for very interesting reading as to how this corporation used advertising strategy to develop into one of the world’s most recognized names in the fast food industry.

• Barbara Haber. Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals. The Free Press, 2002.

Barbara Haber - Curator of Books at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and one of America’s most respected authorities on the history of food - has spent years excavating fascinating stories on the ways in which meals cooked and served by women have shaped American history. She unearths cookbooks and menus from rich and poor, urban and rural, long-past and near-present. A fascinating history of women and food.

• John D. Wright. The Language of the Civil War. Oryx Press, 2001.

This reference work compiles the slang, nicknames, military jargon, idioms, colloquialisms, and other words that were used, and often originated, during the American Civil War. Not only can one learn the meaning of words like shote ("a derogatory slang name for a lazy or worthless man"), but also learn such historical tidbits as greased pig contests were staged in some camps, although Confederate soldiers were usually too hungry to play with their food before eating it.

• Andrew Kimbrell, ed. Fatal Harvest: the Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Island Press, 2002.

This coffee-table size book boldly illustrates America’s agricultural crisis. So-called "modern" corporate farm practices poison our landscapes and devastate rural communities, while an estimated 800 million people go hungry each day. The book ends, however, with an essay by Wendell Barry entitled "Hope."

• Albert-Laszló Barabási. Linked: the New Science of Networks. Perseus, 2002.

For those interested in the history of the World Wide Web and the Internet Society, Barabási aims to show the reader a Web-based view of nature, society and business. The book offers a new framework for understanding issues such as democracy on the Web, the vulnerability of the Internet, and the spread of deadly viruses.

• Stacy Wolf. A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical. University of Michigan Press, 2002.

A provocative book ("The Sound of Music could be called a lesbian ur-text") that explores women and musicals from a feminist, lesbian perspective by reinterpreting the lives, careers, and performances of four of the most famous women in American musical theater and film history: Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, and Barbra Streisand. The book focuses on the "Golden Age" of Broadway musicals from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, when each of these women portrayed a particular version of femininity that was innovative in its time.

• David Craven. Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910-1990. Yale University Press, 2002.

A profusely illustrated book that documents the political aspects of Latin American art from the standpoint of three historic revolutions: Mexico (1910-1940), Cuba (1959-1989), and Nicaragua (1979-1990) and their impact on the visual arts worldwide. Far more than an "art book," this brilliant study of popular culture, cultural democracy, and the socialization of art is a must read for anyone studying the revolutionary movements in Latin America and their effect on artistic expression.