October 2005 Number 76
Inside this issue:
Open Book Newsletter Celebrates 20 Years
In October 1985 Kay Young and then-Reference Coordinator Gretchen Pearson wrote the first library newsletter for the UW-Platteville community. The idea and editorial direction for the newsletter came from then-Library Director Jerry Daniels, and then as now, it's designed to be brief and to the point. Twenty years, 75 issues, and one title change later, Young continues to use the newsletter to, in the words of that first article, "alert you to the many new and exciting library services and resources."
Article topics over the years:
- Bring classes to the library for orientations (1985, and all years)
- Highlighting select federal and state government documents (1985, and all years)
- Custom illustrations by Madelaine Schmitt Weigel (1986-1994)
- Implementing the first online Library Catalog and barcoding each book (1986)
- Wisconsin Union book catalog, 365 card catalogs combined in WISCAT (1986)
- Microcomputers available for patrons (1986)
- Telephone directories on microfiche (1986)
- New carpeting in the library (1987)
- New microform copiers, 5 cents per page (1987)
- Library displays of scholarly publishing by UW-P community members (1987-98)
- Check-out system computerized (1988)
- Indexes now on CD-ROM (1988)
- Remote access to online Library Catalog (1988)
- Photocopied Interlibrary Loan (ILL) articles now mailed (1989)
- Collection development, evaluating, withdrawing, adding materials (1990)
- Average cost of book in 1980 - $24.64
- Avg. cost of book in 1989 - $38.16
- Avg. cost of journal sub in 1980 - $34.54
- Avg. cost of journal sub in 1990 - $93.45 !!
- Interlibrary Loan staff fill 9,000 requests (1990)
- New-List of new titles received (1991) Today's List of Current Reading Books
- Renew checked out books by phone (1991)
- 2848 participants attend how-to-do research classes in the library (1991)
- Library patrons check out or browse items 194,930 times in one year (1992)
- Browse the Internet using Gopher (1993)
- New e-mail reference service (1993) Today click "Ask a Librarian" from Library's hompage.
- Telnet to the library's new book catalog (1993)
- New public access terminal to Internet (1993)
- Access 12 libraries’ book catalogs online (1994)
- Telephone directories on CD-ROM (1994)
- Librarians field 10,700 ref questions (Fall 1995)
- New Main Floor computer lab (1995)
- New library CD-ROM lab (1995)
- Record numbers attend library classes-4,649 participants in 240 sessions (1995)
- New library web page on how to cite Internet resources in papers (1996) Writer's Resources
- New EBSCO full text journal database (1996)
- Internet campus training by librarians (1997)
- New library learning lab (1998)
- More terminals for e-mail by Ref Desk (1998)
- Electronic delivery of journal articles (1999)
- New 34-vols. Dictionary of Art available (1999)
- New web-based Library Catalog (1999)
- Instructional Materials Laboratory (IML) moves to Doudna Hall (1999)
- New "Plagiarism Prevention" web page (2000)
- Reserved materials now online (2002) Click "Course Reserve" from the Library Catalog.
- Borrow books throughout UW system (Universal Borrowing, UB) (2003)
- New interlibrary loan (ILL) service called ILLiad (2003)
- ILL articles sent online (2004)
- Find It! service-finding journals online, printed, or through ILL (2004)
- Wireless connections in the library (2004)
- Great new reference books (all years)
- Spotlight on indexes-printed, on CD-ROM, then online and full text (all years)
- Federal and state government publications, many now online (many years)
- Library offers huge map collection (all years)
- Southwest Wisconsin Room-what these collections offer (all years)
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
The goal of the UW Digital Collections Center (UWDCC) is to "work cooperatively with library and technology staffs to create and preserve online research resources according to professional standards." Images, photos, rare books, maps, manuscripts, videos, and audio materials are now digitized and archived-and are therefore widely available.
Examples of materials available through this vast resource relate to the history of Wisconsin agriculture, the story of Madison, Wisconsin’s Civil War experience, East Asian studies (collection of unpublished photos depicting life in China and Hong Kong between 1930-60), history of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a collection of Wisconsin folksongs.
Banned Books Displays in the Karrmann Library and in the IML
Karrmann Library Display
IML Display
Staff Picks - What We're Reading
Reviewed by Jennifer Snoek-Brown, Reference Librarian
Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth by Marjorie Heins
Available General Collection, 3rd Floor Z658.U5 H42 2002
This well-researched and engrossing book presents a chronological history of censorship to protect children from "indecent" materials, from Ancient Greece to the current computer age. Marjorie Heins, a First Amendment lawyer and founder of the National Coalition Against Censorship's Free Expression Policy Project, offers a clear focus and methodically dismantles arguments for age-based censorship. She backs up her anti-censorship stance with historical texts and case laws.
Heins also uses common sense to point out the most extreme outcomes of censorship; for example, Internet filtering software blocks access to Edward Lear's classic children's poem, "The Owl and the Pussycat", because of the word "pussycat".
In a time of increasing pressure to shield materials, Heins has raised a refreshing and rational voice for tolerance and freedom of expression.
Kay Young, Editor
608.342.1134
young@uwplatt.edu