Exhibits at Harvard's Semitic Museum

The Semitic Museum at Harvard was founded in 1889, and now houses more than 40,000 artifacts from museum-sponsored excavations in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia. The Museum is dedicated to the use of these collections for research and teaching about Middle Eastern archaeology, history, and culture.

I recently met with Jill Letteney, Collections Liaison at the Museum, and she made known to me the exhibits currently on display. Given their depth and breadth, I think most readers of this blog will find them interesting, and we encourage you to make your way over to the Museum to learn even more. These in-person and virtual productions include:

The Cesnola Collection from Ancient Cyprus (an online publication)

The Coinage of Ancient Judea (a digital exhibition)

Egypt: Magic and the Afterlife

Engaging Roman Glass (a digital exhibition)

The Houses of Ancient Israel: Domestic, Royal, Divine

Monuments from Mesopotamia: The Propaganda of Kings

Nuzi and the Hurrians: Fragments from a Forgotten Past

I'm planning a visit to see these and other treasures the Museum holds. Hope to see you there!

At your service,

Cheryl

Borrow Direct Comes to Harvard

As of today, the Harvard Library is offering the Borrow Direct service to the University’s faculty, staff, and students. Borrow Direct lets you borrow books and other circulating library materials not available at Harvard from the libraries at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale.

You use your current ID, PIN, and established library privileges to request items from Borrow Direct online. You'll get expedited delivery of:

* books and printed music not owned by Harvard libraries
* books and printed music currently unavailable at Harvard; e.g., charged out, lost, missing, at the bindery, etc.
* books and printed music that normally circulate from the Borrow Direct partner collections

Most Borrow Direct materials will arrive in four business days. You'll receive an e-mail notice when a requested item is available and you'll be given the option of choosing one of 14 pickup locations:

* Andover-Harvard Theological Library
* Baker/Knowledge and Library Services
* Cabot Science Library
* Countway Library of Medicine
* Fine Arts Library
* Gutman Library
* Harvard Kennedy School Library and Knowledge Services
* Harvard Law School Library
* Harvard-Yenching Library
* Lamont Library
* Loeb Design Library
* Tozzer Library
* Widener Library
* Wolbach/Harvard-Smithosonian Center for Astrophysics

You can return your Borrow Direct materials to any Harvard Library. In late July, Harvard will become a Borrow Direct lender, offering other Borrow Direct patrons access to collections in the Countway Library of Medicine, Andover–Harvard Theological Library, Widener Library, and holdings for those libraries held at HD.

At your service,
Cheryl

The Pentagon Papers Were Released at Noon Today!

The "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force" (otherwise known as the Pentagon Papers) was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. Portions of the report were to the press in June 1971, but publications of the report that resulted from these leaks were incomplete and low-quality.

Today, on the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives and the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, have released the complete Pentagon Papers report: 48 boxes of about 7,000 declassified pages, with 34% of the report becoming available for the first time.

Want to read them? The PDFs are available here. Happy reading!
At your service,
Cheryl

New e-Resources in Harvard Libraries

These resources were added to e-Research at Harvard Libraries in May 2011:

Bibliothèque Bibliographique des Littératures Francophones Européennes (BIBLIFRE)
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:bblfe

Detroit Free Press
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:proqhdfp

Encyclopedia of medieval philosophy
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:GEN_9781402097287

Gallup Brain
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:gallup

John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:johnjohnson

Patrimonio cultural de España
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:ptcle

ProQuest Civil War Era
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:proqcwe

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Boston Globe, 1872-1979
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:bostonglobe

SPIE Digital Library - eBooks
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:spiedlib

Tax Analysts web services
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:TaxAnalysts

Please let me know if you have any questions about them or any other library resources.
At your service,
Cheryl

These resources have been added to E-Research @ Harvard Libraries during April, and can be seen in the "New E-Resources" list. (To access the New E-Resources list: from Cross Search, click on "New E-Resources" under the Quick Sets pull-down menu), OR just click the links below:

BCC Research
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:bccrsrch

Government Finance Statistics
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:imfgfson

International Inventory of Musical Sources: RISM Series A/II
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:rismopac

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-2001)
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:proqhtoi

At your service,
Cheryl

LibX for Google Chrome

Do you use Google Chrome as your browser of choice? Then here's good news for you: a bet version of LibX for Google Chrome has just been released.

To install the add-on in Google Chrome, open Chrome and follow the instructions provided here: http://lib.harvard.edu/tools/libx_chrome.pdf

LibX is a browser toolbar add-on that allows you quickly to search a number of library resources. For more information and for links to the Firefox and IE versions of LibX, just visit the Harvard LibX page, at: http://lib.harvard.edu/tools/libx.html
At your service,
Cheryl

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt: it's available to you online

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt has been added to the Harvard Libraries portal, so you can search it 24/7/365 from anywhere in the world with your Harvard ID and PIN. The Encyclopedia presently holds over 600 original articles written by leading scholars, offering information on ancient Egyptian civilization from the predynastic era to its eclipse in the seventh century CE. Subjects covered include "art, architecture, religion, language, literature, trade, politics, everyday social life, and the culture of the court."

At your service,
Cheryl

Send Us Your Feedback, Please!

Mary Beth Clack and I would very much appreciate any feedback you'd care to send us about the new Library Grad Guide: A Guide to Library Resources for GSAS Graduate Students. Anything not there that you'd like to have on it? Anything there you don't want on it? Want more pictures? Want more video? Want falling toasters...? Do you like / hate / feel completely ambivalent about it?

Our only goal is for the page to serve you folks, so please let us know how we can improve it.
Me (Cheryl): claguard@fas.harvard.edu,
Mary Beth: mclack@fas.harvard.edu.

At your service (and we mean it),
Cheryl

The NEW Library Grad Guide: A Guide to Library Resources for GSAS Graduate Students

Please do check out the new Library Grad Guide: A Guide to Library Resources for GSAS Graduate Students, at: http://guides.hcl.harvard.edu/gradguide. Our goal with this guide is to provide a dynamic (yet stable and on-going) resource to graduate students throughout GSAS. As you'll see, we are now including sections for Arts and Humanities, the Sciences, and the Social Sciences, in addition to general tools that will be of help to all grad students.

Please let me know if there's any information or links you'd like us to add to the guide -- we enthusiastically welcome your suggestions and ideas. To get started, you might want to take a look at this video from the new site.

At your service,
Cheryl

Tools of the Trade

I’d like to direct your attention to a web resource (an e-book, essentially) a couple colleagues of mine (Susan Gilroy, ably assisted by our web designer, Enrique Diaz) recently created to serve Harvard freshmen — it’s Tools of the Trade: A Library Starter Kit for Harvard Freshmen. It's a literate, pragmatic, and frankly, beautiful guide to doing research, well worth a read. Take a look for excellent advice and information, as well as the pleasure of seeing a very well-done web-based research tool.

At your service,
Cheryl

RefWorks Workshops

RefWorks is a citation management tool that simplifies the “busy work” of research. It can import citations directly from HOLLIS and library databases; create your bibliography in the format you choose; and insert citations or footnotes in your text as you write.

Librarians of the Harvard College Library will offer these 50-minute training sessions in the basics of RefWorks at Lamont Library:

Tuesday, September 7, 3:00pm (Room B30, Lamont Level B)

Wednesday, September 15, 2:00pm (Room B30, Lamont Level B)

Thursday, September 23, 4:00pm (Room 310, Lamont 3rd Floor)

Tuesday, September 28, 2:00pm (Room B30, Lamont Level B)

All Harvard students, faculty, and staff are welcome, but registration is necessary because space is limited. To sign up, contact one of the instructors:
Steve Kuehler (kuehler@fas.harvard.edu)
Chris Lenney (lenney@fas.harvard.edu)
Kerry Masteller (kmastell@fas.harvard.edu)
Liza Vick (lizavick@fas.harvard.edu).

For general tips on using RefWorks and other citation tools, such as EndNote and Zotero, go to http://isites.harvard.edu/citationtools.

At your service,
Cheryl

New Library Liaisons

Just to let folks know: my responsibilities have changed since last year, and I will no longer be a library liaison to the East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department. Ray Lum (rlum@fas.harvard.edu) will continue to be a library liaison to the Department, and he is joined by:

Mikyung Kang, Librarian for the Korean Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library, mlkang@fas.harvard.edu, 617-495-0572

Xiaohe Ma, Librarian for the Chinese Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library, xhma@fas.harvard.edu, 617-496-2810

Kuniko McVey, Librarian for the Japanese Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library, kmcvey@fas.harvard.edu, 617-495-3395

Sharon Yang, Head of Access Services, Harvard-Yenching Library, yang8@fas.harvard.edu, 617-496-3623

I have enjoyed working with members of EALC very much, and I am sure the Department will be well served in future by the liaisons from Harvard-Yenching Library.

Best wishes,
Cheryl

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe Online Version launches

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research today launched the Online Edition of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, whose aim is to “make accurate, reliable, scholarly information about Eastern European Jewish life universally available online free of charge.” This online edition contains the information from the printed 2008 YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (published by Yale University Press), which provides the history and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe from the beginning of their settlement in the region to the present. But there’s added content in this online edition: interactive maps, more color photographs, rare letters and documents, video and audio clips.

At the home page, researchers can Explore a Topic by clicking into pages on Arts, Daily Life & Places, Language & Literature, History & Politics, and Religion. Each of those subsequent pages includes an essay, slideshow (or other visual element), a short “teaser article,” and links to other articles. There’s a Media Gallery with almost 1,400 items, each linked to related articles including: 50 audio recordings ranging from cantorial, klezmer and theatrical performances to children’s choral music and excerpts from wedding services; 70 video clips including street scenes, horses and cattle, brass bands, public gatherings, political events, children at school and summer camp: and 192 new documents from the YIVO archives that have never before been presented to the public, including such items as: letters from Leon Trotsky; manuscript notes by Sholem Aleichem; an invitation to a service at the Great Synagogue in Warsaw in honor of a visit from the President of Poland in 1930; and a ration card from the Warsaw ghetto.

To access this freely-available site, just go to: http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org, but be prepared to want to spend a lot of time there — it is a truly remarkable resource.

At your service,
Cheryl

EEBO Interactions; a new social forum

ProQuest has just launched EEBO Interactions, a Web 2.0 social networking community those goal is to connect scholars working with the database Early English Books Online (EEBO) in an online forum. It enables scholars around the world to share their informed ideas about the works in the collection.

Contributions can consist of a simple comment on the date of a work, or be as lengthy as full essays complete with bibliographies and links to other research resources. Contributions will be reviewed by an editor to ensure that they’re relevant and appropriate, and that other users may edit or discuss them.

Anyone with an interest in the print culture of the Early Modern period can search and read the contents of EEBO Interactions. Harvard scholars can register and create a profile in EEBO Interactions to communicate with colleagues via email and create and edit contributions.

Take a look at EEBO Interactions; I’ll be interested in hearing your reactions to it.

At your service,

Cheryl

Graduating This Spring? Sign Up for an Alumni RefWorks Account

Harvard graduates can sign up for an alumni account that will allow the use of RefWorks as long as Harvard continues to subscribe to it. To create an alumni account, just go to the Harvard Citation Tools iSite: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=citationtools&pageid=icb.page334472.

You can find instructions at that page for backing up references and creating your own alumni account.

At your service,
Cheryl

Maps with an Attitude

Tomorrow a new exhibition opens at the Harvard Map Collection: Maps with an Attitude: Cartographies of Propaganda and Persuasion, explores ways maps have been used to express points of view by examining more than a dozen maps which framed major conflicts of the 20th century, from World War I to the Bosnian War.

Items on display include a pre-World War I map depicting the nations of Europe as individuals; a World War II map, produced just after the start of the blitz in England, portraying the number and site of every English bombing raid in Germany; a 1955 map produced by Time magazine portraying communist China and the U.S.S.R. as a red-hued landmass looming over Japan, South Korea and U.S.-controlled Formosa; and a map portraying Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995, ringed by Serb tanks and rocket launchers.

Maps with an Attitude: Cartographies of Propaganda and Persuasion will be on display in the Harvard Map Collection in Pusey Library through August 14, 2010. Click here for the Map Collections' hours, and click here for directions to the Map Collection.

At your service,
Cheryl

Harvard Undergraduates Eligible for MIT Borrowing Privileges

As of April 5, 2010, Harvard undergraduates are eligible for MIT borrowing privileges (HCL and MIT have had a reciprocal borrowing program for faculty, staff, and graduate students since 1995). Harvard students can enroll for MIT library privileges either online at the HCL web site or in person at the Library Privileges Office in Widener Library Room 130 (M-F, 9am – 4:45 pm), where you’ll just need to present a valid Harvard ID.

You’ll receive a form to complete and take to the Hayden Library at MIT (14W-100, 160 Memorial Dr., Cambridge) where you’ll get a library pass valid through the end of the spring term. You can borrow from the Dewey (social sciences and management), Hayden (humanities), Lewis Music, Library Storage Annex (by appointment only), and Rotch (architecture and planning) libraries. This pilot for undergraduates will be assessed after 14 months, with both Harvard and MIT collecting data and conducting surveys to determine the program’s value.

For additional information about MIT borrowing privileges visit the HCL website or just call the Library Privileges Office at 617-495-4166.

At your service,
Cheryl

Do You Use JSTOR? Tell Me About It, Please

If you use JSTOR for your research, and have particular likes and/or dislikes about the current version of the database, please let me know what they are. As you can see from this blog post at my other blog, for Library Journal, I have some issues with it, and their Associate Director for
Education & Outreach has invited me to talk with her and one of their product managers about the database. I would like to gather information from scholarly researchers on what works well for you, and what might not work so well, so I can share it with the JSTOR folks.

You can simply comment to this blog, or to my e-Views blog, or send me e-mail directly (at: claguard@fas.harvard.edu) if you have any information you'd like to share.

Thanks for your help, and I continue to be --
At your service,
Cheryl

Books in Books: an online exhibition

Houghton Library launched today a new online exhibition, Books in Books: Reflections on Reading and Writing in the Middle Ages. It's a joint project of the Houghton Library and Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, and Chair, Medieval Studies Committee, and is a complement to the General Education Program course “Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 16, Openings: The Illuminated Manuscript” taught by Professor Hamburger. A physical exhibition of the same name opens April 5th in Houghton Library.

If you're interested in medieval manuscripts, take a look at Houghton's Digital Medieval Manuscripts, a good resource for studying the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Western Europe. It gives strategies for searching Houghton's medieval manuscripts plus links to bibliographies related to these materials.

At your service,
Cheryl

Exploring Reading Online: New Site

Reading: Harvard Views of Readers, Readership, and Reading History is "an online exploration of the intellectual, cultural, and political history of reading as reflected in the historical holdings of the Harvard Libraries." The site contains over 1,200 books and manuscripts which offer over 250,000 pages of web-accessible materials about reading.

Take a look to find out more about this hot intellectual and cultural topic.

At your service,
Cheryl