Weeding Out the Dogs
Leslie Stebbins
Reference Librarian and Coordinator of the Library Intensive Program

In the now famous New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner, one dog in front of a computer says to another, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Though the original cartoon was about email, the same can be said for web sites. Students who now rely on the web for everything -- from ordering a cup of coffee to applying for graduate school -- expect that researching their paper topic is only a matter of logging on to their favorite search engine. The result is what faculty members around the country have recently been heard grumbling about -- student research papers based solely on web pages, "dogs" included.

Faculty members are trying various ways to cope with the lack of scholarly resources in the bibliographies of student papers. Some tell their students not to include any web pages in their bibliographies, while others limit the number of web pages that can be cited. But these restrictions do not address the deeper issue, that students are generally unprepared to conduct research when they enter college. As in the past, the resources in high school libraries differ greatly from the extensive collections available at college libraries. To add to the mix, many high school librarians who lack funds encourage students to rely heavily on the nonproprietary web to find information. The result is that students are often unable to distinguish between proprietary resources carefully selected by the library and web pages indexed by their favorite search engine.

Some faculty members at Brandeis use the Library Intensive Program to provide their students with the skills they need to conduct library research and to evaluate resources in print or electronic form. The program involves librarians working with faculty members to provide course-specific research instruction, so that students are exposed to the strategies needed to conduct research within the context of a particular course and discipline.

The program involves:

• meeting with a librarian during intersession to discuss your course needs
• devoting one to three class sessions to library instruction
• requiring your class to do some type of library research for a paper or project

Each library intensive course is unique, but usually involves both a conceptual overview of library research for a particular discipline, as well as specific tools related to the research needs of a course. For students whose searching style is often "Ready, shoot, aim!" librarians cover web and database search strategies, as well as help students develop evaluative criteria for web sites and other resources.

In the Library Intensive Program, librarians teach students both to conduct effective research and to weed out the "dogs" on the Internet, so that faculty don't have to see them in bibliographies at the end of the students' research papers.

To find out more about the Library Intensive Program, or to sign up for Spring semester (DEADLINE: 12-8-00), contact Leslie Stebbins, Coordinator, Library Intensive Program for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences or Sally Wyman, GIS Librarian and Coordinator, Library Intensive Program for the Sciences.

Bessie K. Hahn Inaugurated as the Brandeis National Women’s Committee University Librarian

On Friday, October 27, Bessie K. Hahn was inaugurated as the first Brandeis National Women’s Committee University Librarian. Bessie joins the prestigious ranks of a small number of University Librarians throughout the country who have been honored with an endowed Chair.

Members of the National Board of the Brandeis University National Women’s Committee, as well as several administrators, faculty and staff of the University attended the celebration. Featured speakers included Jehuda Reinharz, President of Brandeis University, Irving R. Epstein, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Gayle J. Wise, President, Brandeis University National Women’s Committee, and Ms. Hahn. A reception followed in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall of the Brandeis University Libraries.

--Mark Alpert

New Manager for the Gerstenzang Science Library

The Brandeis University Libraries is pleased to announce the arrival of Jonathan Nabe, Manager of the Gerstenzang Science Library. Jonathan comes to us from the State University of New York, Stony Brook. His last position was that of Head of the Chemistry Library and Biology Librarian. He earned his B.S. in Zoology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and his Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

In between degrees Jonathan served in the Peace Corps in Togo, Africa, as a Fisheries Extension Agent. Following that, he worked as a wildlife technician for the Forest Service in California and as a marine biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. While at SUNY Stony Brook, Jonathan wrote book and Internet site reviews for Choice and published articles in Library Journal and Science and Technology Libraries. Please join us in welcoming Jonathan Nabe to the Brandeis community.

--Kathy Button

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at Brandeis

Brandeis has now joined the rapidly growing ranks of research institutions offering geographic information systems (GIS) technology. Finding use in many different academic disciplines, this technology brings essential analytical and mapping capabilities to virtually any type of data having some level of location information. Resulting from a collaboration between the Brandeis Libraries and Information Technology Services, GIS software, data, user support, and training are all available now in the Science Library's Hughes Cluster.

On November 15th, National GIS Day, was celebrated at Brandeis and across the country. Presented and supported by the Libraries and Information Technology Services, and co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program and the Heller Graduate School Program in Sustainable International Development (SID), this event introduced the Brandeis community to the possibilities of GIS technology in support of the curriculum and research. Brian Donahue (Environmental Studies) displayed his historical land use study of Concord, Mass. Other displays included a Guatemalan archeology research project of Ryan Arp, GIS Graduate Student Assistant, student research being conducted in the Heller Graduate School Program in Sustainable International Development (SID), a watershed management demonstration project in support of Attila Klein's Aquatic Ecology class, and mapping of Brandeis student matriculation data. Additional workstations displayed a variety of projects and web sites, including collections of data sites (U.S. Census, World Bank, United Nations Environmental Programme/Global Resource Information Data (UNEP/GRID) Clearinghouse, Massachusetts Geographic Information Systems (Mass GIS), etc.), interactive Internet mapping sites, the Massachusetts Electronic Atlas, and others.

GIS is already in use in classes in the Environmental Studies Program and in the Heller Graduate School Program in Sustainable International Development (SID). If you are interested in exploring the possibilities of using GIS in support of a class or your research or would just like to know more, please call or email Sally Wyman, GIS Librarian (736-4722; wyman@brandeis.edu).

--Sally Wyman

In Memoria

Rosalie Katchen, Hebraica Librarian at Brandeis University Libraries, passed away on September 11th. She earned a B.A. in English at Yeshiva University, an M.A. in Jewish history at New York University, and an M.S. in Library and Information Science at Simmons College. She came to Brandeis in 1978. She had a true love of Hebraica librarianship, and in particular, of Hebraica cataloging.

Rosalie worked closely with Library of Congress as the coordinator of the NACO Hebraica Authority Funnel Project, and with the Research Library Information Network on issues of Hebraica cataloging. She presented papers at annual meetings of the Association of Jewish Libraries and the International Federation of Library Associations. She published articles on matters related to Hebraica cataloging in Judaica Librarianship and in the RLIN Focus. She was a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the International Research Institute on Jewish Women at Brandeis.

Rosalie also led the efforts to implement the automation of the Library’s Hebraica catalog. Rosalie’s work served as a model for other libraries. She was an excellent instructor, and frequently participated in the Library’s bibliographic instruction program. As a result, many students have learned how to use the Library’s rich Judaica Resources. She was greatly respected by all who knew her and will be deeply missed by her colleagues and friends at Brandeis and in the Library world.

--Charles Cutter

Hazel Loinger Coven, Archives Special Projects Assistant, passed away on September 26th. Hazel came to Brandeis University in January of 1975 originally to work in the Accounting Office. She transferred to the University Library in May of 1978 to handle general bookkeeping, accounts payable, and student payroll. Hazel continued to serve the Library in this capacity until July of 1998. In 1998 Hazel began a new career in the Library working for the newly established University Archives as the Special Projects Assistant.

Hazel received both a Bachelor of Science in Statistics and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from St. John' College. She always enjoyed art and music, particularly opera, was an avid reader, and a member of the Brandeis University National Women's Committee. She will be greatly missed.

--Martha Barry and Lisa Long

Staff Notes

Ann Frenkel, Manager of the Goldfarb Reference Department, gave the keynote address at the Nordic Federation of Research Libraries Associations Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, May 2000. The conference topic was Reference Services in the Electronic Age (Referansearbeidet i det elektroniske miljø) and Ann gave her presentation on "Reference Services at Brandeis University Libraries: Responses to User Needs." She outlined how in the last decade Brandeis University Libraries has responded to user needs not simply with one solution, but with a whole mosaic of "virtual" services and resources, including new network capabilities, email reference and electronic reserves.

Judith Pinnolis, Reference Librarian for Publications and Training, has been named national chair of the Jewish Music Roundtable of the Music Library Association. This summer, Ms. Pinnolis delivered a paper at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on the topic, The Internet and Jewish Music: Technology in Service of Culture for the Third London International Conference on Jewish Music. The paper explored applications of web technologies to music libraries. She has also reported on library resource activities, including bibliographies, research guides, links to finding aids of special collections world-wide in Jewish music, and web resources. In addition, Ms. Pinnolis had an article published in Reader's Guide to Judaism (Fitzroy-Dearborn Publishers, 2000) on "American Jewish Music." Ms. Pinnolis maintains an independent website called "The Jewish Music WebCenter" at http://www.jmwc.org/ which recently received special notice in an Hadassah Magazine column, and which also received the Digital Librarian's Award from Argus Clearinghouse in June, 2000.

On November 1-5 2000, Creative Arts Librarian Darwin Scott was among the ca. 3,500 attendees at the conference "Musical Intersections" held in Toronto. This one-time "megameeting" brought together members of fifteen music societies from a variety of disciplines (musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, music pedagogy, American music, librarianship, etc.) for papers, panel sessions, demonstrations, concerts, and stimulating conversation on nearly every musical topic currently addressed by academe. As a member of the American Musicological Society’s Committee on Career-Related Issues, Darwin moderated a panel discussion on "The Music Librarian as Teacher," during which four librarian-musicologists (from Brandeis, Harvard, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Illinois) related how teaching forms an integral part of a music librarian’s workweek. Brandeis’s new Dean of Arts and Sciences Jessie Ann Owens and Darwin also presented an overview of the course they team-taught on early music performance practice as part of Brandeis’s Library Intensive Program.

About To Be Shelved
Anthony Vaver, Humanities Librarian
Darwin Scott, Creative Arts Librarian

• Michael Thibodeau and Jana Martin. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Branding and Design in Cigarette Packaging. Abbeville Press, 2000.

Filled with over 300 striking images of cigarette advertising, this book documents how for over a hundred years the cigarette industry has hired some of the world’s cleverest designers to make smoking appeal to the widest audience possible. The accompanying text asks and answers numerous questions, including "How much has the packaging contributed to the fact that cigarettes are still consumed with fervor by people all around the world regardless of class, culture, and the well-known health risks?"

• Ian R. Bartky. Selling the True Time: Nineteenth-Century Timekeeping in America. Stanford UP, 2000.

Prior to the adoption of Standard Railway Time by railroads in 1883, timekeeping was a local matter with no uniform system for coordinating times and public activities. In the middle of the nineteenth century, for example, Boston had three authoritative times, which differed from one another by seconds and minutes. Bartky looks at how the need by railroads to establish precise time standards to govern their operations led to competition among entrepreneurs trying to make money by selling time.

• Mark Evan Swartz. Oz before the Rainbow.: L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Various stage and screen dramatizations of Baum’s story preceded and influenced the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. This book comprehensively documents all of the pre-1939 material, with illustrations containing many rare photographs, film stills, sketches, theater programs, and movie advertisements. Productions covered in the book range from the 1902-03 Broadway and Chicago premieres, to the show’s evolution during its U.S. tour, to the silent films of 1908, 1910, and 1925 (where Dorothy was depicted as a flirtatious flapper). "A detailed case study of adaptation and commercialization in the formative years of American mass culture."

• Steve Pile and Nigel Thrift, eds. City A-Z. Routledge, 2000.

This book offers a compendium of short pieces of writing that reflect on myriad aspects of urban culture, geography, and sociology, all arranged alphabetically. The arrangement conveys a sense of the city in that unlike entries are placed side by side: a meditation on Car Crashes sits next to an entry on Cats; Petrol Stations lies next to Pigeons; and Tunnels is preceded by Trees.

• David Isay and Stacy Abramson, text. Harvey Wang, photography. Flophouse: Life on the Bowery. Random House, 2000.

At one time, close to one hundred thousand men found shelter each night in a flophouse in the Bowery. Today, fewer than one thousand men inhabit the handful of flops left in this infamous skid row. Isay, Abramson, and Wang chronicle this vanishing world with visual and textual portraits of men who remain down on their luck, showing their diverse backgrounds and various tales.

• Thomas Parsons and Iain Gale. Post-Impressionism: The Rise of Modern Art 1880-1920. NDE Publishing, 1999.

Although it has the look and feel of a deluxe coffee-table book, this gorgeously illustrated volume is a scholarly overview of one of the most exciting periods in the history of modern painting. Amidst the 405 plates, the authors present in great detail the social-historic background against which Post-Impressionism evolved and also trace its reverberations outside France, with special emphasis on the spectacular revolution it created in Russia.

• Tom Kuntz and Phil Kuntz, eds. The Sinatra Files: The Secret FBI Dossier. Three Rivers Press, 2000.

Records the life of an American icon under government surveillance by alternating actual texts and editorial commentary. Under J. Edgar Hoover’s watchful eye, the FBI gathered extensive files (1,275 pp.) on Sinatra for several decades as agents investigated whether he was a draft-dodger, Communist, or front for organized crime. The files were released in December 1998, and this record enhances our understanding of "the second half of the American century--the Cold War, popular culture, the cult of celebrity, Camelot, and the FBI’s mania for investigating American citizens--all personified by the most dominant entertainer of the era."

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