University of South Carolina Libraries - News

Library Workshop, Intro to Zotero Free Online Citation Management Software

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:21:45

May 20, 2013 12:17 PM

Monday, June 3, 2013

3:30 - 5:00 pm

Thomas Cooper Library, Level 3 Multimedia Classroom

Organize your research with Zotero and you’ll never have to track down a missing source again! Zotero lets you save and edit citation information and PDFs and create bibliographies right from your browser. It even works with Word to incorporate citations into the text of your paper. Learn the basics of this free tool including setting up a library, collecting citations, and citing as you go in Word.

Bring your personal laptop for hands-on practice – just make sure the Firefox browser is installed before the session.

Online registration

Jak Smyrl Collection comes to USC Libraries

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:08:39

May 14, 2013 12:19 PM

USC Libraries is now home to a collection of more than 5,000 images, plus correspondence, sketchbooks, and even early elementary-school artwork by The State newspaper’s first staff artist, Oscar Jackson “Jak” Smyrl (1923-2007).

In 1949, while he was still a student at the University of South Carolina, Smyrl was hired by The State newspaper to perform a variety of duties, including writing and illustrating articles. He was named staff artist in 1955, a position he held until he retired in 1986. He is perhaps best known for his satirical maps of various places in South Carolina, his design of the USC “Fighting Gamecock,” and cartoons dealing with the Carolina-Clemson rivalry. A dog with a broken tail was his trademark image.

“Jak was the first artist who worked with The State newspaper, and he met every deadline at The State for 37 years,” said Betty Smyrl, his wife. “At first, he did everything: he wrote articles, illustrated all the reporters’ articles, touched up photos for the photography department. When he became the staff artist, his focus was on illustrating articles about the people and events in his beloved home state. People of all walks of life loved his work and it appealed to so many people. I still have people approach me and tell me how much they miss Jak’s work.”

Smyrl truly was an artist of the people.

“For many South Carolinians, including the countless thousands who saw the vibrant creativity of his work on a near daily basis, Jak Smyrl truly was their state’s everyman artist,” said Henry Fulmer, Director of South Caroliniana Library, where the materials will reside. “The South Caroliniana Library is proud to celebrate through Jak’s collected papers, drawings, notes, sketches, and doodles the creative genius of the man and the legacy which lives on today, more than a quarter of a century after his retirement.”

The Smyrl Collection, purchased for USC by the South Caroliniana Society, is being processed now and will be available to students and scholars alike.

“Jak had done a good job of arranging his work; he had already laid a lot of the groundwork,” said USC Archivist Edward Blessing, who is processing the collection. “We are arranging it by subject. Many of the items are undated, and from a research standpoint it makes sense to arrange them by subject instead of chronologically. For example, one of the categories is maps, and his most famous is ‘A Caricature Map of South Carolina.’ He spent months working on it, and there is no white space left on the page. He filled a sheet of paper with this map. His other maps included Pawley’s Island and Hilton Head. The collection includes all the originals map sketches and all of his color separation work.

“Another category is music,” Blessing said. “Jak played the trumpet, and we have recordings and photos of him playing jazz. He designed and illustrated album covers for a jazz band, and we have those covers, too.

“There is also his correspondence. He kept so much of the correspondence he received, and his family members kept what he sent them. Being able to see both sides of his life is valuable to a researcher. I’ve come to know him through his items, and now I feel like I’m able to help carry out his vision and make the items available to future generations.”

Mrs. Smyrl is pleased that her husband’s life’s work is now at USC.

“I’m so glad I made the decision to let USC acquire the collection because I know it will also be preserved and taken care of,” she said. “This will be Jak’s legacy. He had such a zest for life and wanted to experience everything. He was a marine during World War II, he learned to fly a plane, he went scuba diving, he took a trip around the world. All of his adventures and thoughts and feelings went into his work. Now more people will see it.”

Several items from the collection are currently on display in the South Caroliniana Library’s Olin D. Johnston Room, with plans for a larger exhibit in the near future. A private celebratory event will take place Tuesday, May 14. The collection is expected to be open to the public by the end of May. In 2014, USC Press will publish a biography and coffee table book about Smyrl’s life and work.

Above, Smyrl's depiction of the Big Thursday showdown as it appeared on the cover of The State Magazine on October 15, 1950.

MIRC names new interim director

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:04:00

May 14, 2013 12:18 PM
USC Libraries’ Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC) has named Heather Heckman, shown at left, as its interim director effective May 15. Heckman is moving into the position previously filled by Mark G. Cooper. A search for a permanent director will begin in July.

MIRC strives to preserve our global moving image heritage, diversify understandings of moving image culture, and envision a better future by encouraging new interpretations of the recent past. Its collections include Fox Movietone News, Chinese Film, Regional Film, and Science and Nature Film.

"MIRC is a truly innovative moving image archive, and Mark has done an incredible job steering it during the last four years,” Heckman said. “I'm honored to serve as steward for its daily operations and special projects as we search for a permanent director."

Heckman has been assistant director and curator at MIRC for two years. She came to USC from the University of Wisconsin, where she was Interim Assistant Director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. She is finishing her PhD in film studies in the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Communication Arts, where she also earned master’s degrees in Library and Information Studies and Communication Arts.

At MIRC, Heckman has been in charge of Science and Nature Films and Regional Film Collections. She has worked to develop MIRC’s digital repository of archival film, done fundraising for digitization projects, and processed the Roman Vishniac papers, photos and manuscripts.

Cooper is returning to his position as a professor in Film and Media Studies and English in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“I look forward to returning to research and writing projects I have set aside for the last for four years, and I am confident that I am leaving direction of the unit in exceedingly capable hands,” Cooper said. “It's an amazing team. I'm sure they will continue to accomplish wonders.”

MIRC welcomes use of its collections. Located at 707 Catawba Street, MIRC is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. More than 3,000 hours of rare archival material are available to view on videocassette and DVD.

‘Gettysburg: History and Memory’ exhibit now open in Hollings Library

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:45:54

May 8, 2013 11:18 AM

A new exhibit at the USC Libraries marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg with a pairing of items from two major Civil War collections.

“Gettysburg: History and Memory” marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on July 1 - 3, 1863. The exhibit will be on display in the Hollings Special Collections Library through July 31.

“It’s a battle that we remember differently from the other major engagements of the war,” said Jeffrey Makala, exhibit curator. “It is often described as the war’s turning point. We know it was the largest engagement of the war, and the costliest in terms of casualties. And the dedication of the battlefield and President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was delivered just four months later, so we have essentially been commemorating this battle from its inception.”

The exhibit is drawn from two major Civil War collections housed in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections: one formed by Civil War historian Francis A. Lord, who taught at USC for many years, and one formed by military historian Dr. Robert S. Chamberlain.

“The items on display show the complicated military history of the war, reveal tactics and training tools. There are books that officers and common soldiers would have had and used. There are also regimental histories, firsthand accounts (some as early as 1864), and tourist guides to the battlefield,” Makala said. “The true highlight is a first printing of the Gettysburg Address, dated 1863 and printed as a small, bound pamphlet. It includes Lincoln’s and Edward Everett’s addresses, the two featured speeches delivered at the dedication ceremony of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1863.

“We have been lent some remarkable manuscripts from USC’s South Caroliniana Library, including the diary of a Northern soldier taken from the battlefield with the evidence of a bullet hole running through it,” Makala said.

Special talks and other events are also planned to coincide with the exhibit, including presentations by some of USC’s 19th-century historians.

The Hollings Library is accessed through Thomas Cooper Library, the main library on the USC campus. Hours are 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday. For more information, including driving and parking instructions, visit http://library.sc.edu/hollings.

An audio tour is available for this exhibit.

Award for Undergraduate Research Winners

Wed, 08 May 2013 09:21:06

May 8, 2013 9:10 AM

The University Libraries Award for Undergraduate Research recognizes excellence in student projects that use library collections, resources and services. We are pleased to announce this year's recipients! In the photograph, left to right: Theresa Krupka, Hannah Bradford Miller, Matthew Kuhn, and Joseph DuRant.

Black Track (First Year Students and Sophomores)

First Place, $400
Joseph DuRant
"Robert Burns and Britain's First African Voter"

Garnet Track (Juniors and Seniors)

Top Prize, $500
Matthew Kuhn
"The Hidden Faith: Catholic Persecution in Early South Carolina"

Top Prize, $500
Hannah Bradford Miller
"Turkish Youth Perceptions of Turkey's EU Accession Negotiations and Identity: Research in Vienna, Austria and Istanbul, Turkey"

Third Place, $200
Theresa Krupka
"Body, Mind, and Heart: Defining Female Beauty in Heath's Book of Beauty"

Congratulations to the recipients and all the amazing students who submitted a project.

MIRC's Babe Ruth footage appears in opera

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:35:50

May 1, 2013 11:19 AM

Moving Image Research Collections’ (MIRC) Benjamin Singleton got a phone call in October from Richard Maltz, who teaches music theory at USC Aiken. He needed footage of baseball great Babe Ruth.

"We have a lot of Fox Movietone News footage of Babe Ruth, so I put that footage on DVDs for him, and he viewed it and picked portions that he liked," Singleton said.

Fast-forward a few months, and now those clips are being featured as part of a multimedia presentation in Bambino, an opera composed by Maltz that will be performed at USC Aiken’s Etherrredge Center on May 3, 4 and 5, and at USC Columbia’s Drayton Hall on May 10, 11 and 12. The production is performed by a blend of students and professionals, and it is produced by Opera at USC.

“I was looking specifically for Babe Ruth in a Red Socks uniform,” Maltz said. “I grew up in Boston, and I have been to a lot of games at Fenway Park and was familiar with the ‘Curse of the Bambino.’ I always thought it would make a great story for an opera.

“Ben probably sent me a couple hours of footage of Babe Ruth,” Maltz continued. “I’m telling the story from the point of Babe Ruth being a Red Sox member, and of him being in Fenway Park. I found some of that film, and some of him later in his career. I found some of him signing a contract with the New York Yankees, and of him as an older man. It will be projected during the opera, along with images from other sources, including other libraries. Some of the images I had to purchase from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“The Movietone footage was made available free to me, which is a pretty cool thing,” Maltz said. “This library is on the USC campus and it provides this service free of charge to a USC faculty member, which helped me finish this project, which is my first opera. It was a real stroke of luck for me."

The image above is from "Fox News outtake A8282. September 1, 1925." Babe Ruth stands on the rooftop of his New York City apartment. Yankee Stadium can be seen over his right shoulder.

USC Libraries contribute to Digital Public Library of America

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:51:05

Apr 26, 2013 10:18 AM

The USC Libraries are contributing content to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which launched in mid-April.

The DPLA is a free, online portal to all the print books, manuscripts, magazines and digital texts from libraries, archives and museums across the nation. The United States has no national digital library, but more than 40 state digital projects and numerous large content repositories currently operate in the country. The DPLA has chosen seven of those, including the South Carolina Digital Library (SCDL), of which USC is a part, to be pilot hubs.

SCDL brings a collection of historically rich documents, with topics ranging from the Civil War and slavery to the development of the U.S. Park Service. USC Libraries is one of seven collaborating SCDL partners, including Clemson University and South Carolina State Library.

View DPLA at http://dp.la and SCDL at http://www.scmemory.org.

New single-stream bins are in the library

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:55:54

Apr 12, 2013 10:30 AM

Seventy new single-stream trash and recycling containers have been installed in Thomas Cooper Library.

The containers — with one side marked "Recycle" for disposal of items that can be recycled, the other side marked "Landfill" for trash — are part of a pilot project to see if containers that offer one-stop disposal can be more effective at keeping recyclables out of landfills.

The new containers accept:

Mixed paper, plastic and aluminum in the "Recycle" side
Other items that cannot be recycled in the "Landfill" side

The project is being spearheaded by the USC Department of Facilities.

Now Online: Mental Measurements Yearbook and Tests in Print

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:52:44

Mar 26, 2013 2:42 PM

This online resource combines two related reference works: Mental Measurements Yearbook and Tests in Print.

Mental Measurements Yearbook (coverage is from Volume 9 forward, updated monthly) offers descriptive information and critical reviews of more than 2,000 commercially-available standardized English-language educational, personality, aptitude, neuropsychological, achievement and intelligence tests. Earlier print volumes are available in Thomas Cooper Library, Reference Z 5814 .P8 B932.

Tests in Print is a comprehensive bibliography to all known commercially available tests that are currently in print in the English language. Volumes of Tests in Print from 1961 to present are also available in Thomas Cooper Library, Reference Z5814.E9 B8.

Oral History and Digital Collections create new exhibit

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:17:36

Mar 25, 2013 1:00 PM

Shivar Spring Co., a Fairfield County business that operated from 1907 to 1957, is the subject of a new digital exhibit created by USC Libraries. Shivar Spring Co. produced and sold ginger ale and mineral water. The company's logo -- a man and his dog standing near the natural springs -- is shown here.

Andrea L'Hommedieu, USC's oral historian at South Caroliniana Library, and Matthew W. Shepherd, a digital assistant in Digital Collections in Hollings Library, recently completed the online exhibit, “Shivar Spring Co. & Tom McConnell: A Shared Story.”

“The exhibit intertwines the history of a now defunct Fairfield County business, Shivar Spring Company, with the life story of Mr. Tom McConnell, who spent all of his 85 years in the small town of Shelton, South Carolina,” L’Hommedieu said. “The project was a great collaboration between the Office of Oral History and Digital Collections.”

The exhibit features postcards, business letterhead, a booklet promoting the company’s mineral water, an oral history interview with the last known living employee, photographs of the spring house, cisterns, bottles, and a resources page for additional information about the company, including advertisements, news stories, patent records, related books and an obituary.

View the exhibit at http://library.sc.edu/digital/collections/shivar/index.html.

Student book art is exquisite -- and highly collectible

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:49:13

Feb 28, 2013 2:59 PM

“Visit the library” was at the top of Eliot Dudik’s list of things to do once he arrived on campus as an art instructor in 2011.

“I wanted to check out the special collections,” said Dudik, whose courses include ARTS 564 The Art of Bookmaking.

“I met with Jeffrey Makala, and he offered to show some of those collections to my students. As a class, we visited the Irvin Department early in the semester, and it was a huge benefit for the students to be able to see some of the handmade books in the libraries’ collections.”

Later in the semester, Dudik was struck by the level of artistry, creativity and originality he saw in his students’ book art. And he is at least a fair judge of art -- he was recently named “One of the 100 New Superstars of Southern Art” by The Oxford American magazine.

“My students were making some incredible things,” Dudik said. “For the final project, students make any kind of book they want using the techniques they’ve learned in class. The course is open to anyone across campus. I’ve had students from the math department, English, criminal justice, and other areas of the art department, and they all bring a different experience to the class and create all types of books."

When Dudik talked to Makala about housing some of the books created in the class, Makala was interested, certainly, but wanted to see how the work was progressing.

“I wasn’t expecting this quality of student work,” Makala said. “The sheer range of what everyone did amazed me. Some of the books are photography, some are memoir, others employ graphic design or screenprinting. Many of them are elaborate pop-up or cut-out books. Any of these books a collector would find attractive and want to buy.

“I’m now building a student archive from every iteration of the class,” Makala said. “Students in the course make two copies of their books; they are required to be able to reproduce it and make a small edition. If they want to be part of the library collection, they submit three copies. And most of the students have."

“We’ve bought student photography books in the past, but we have never accepted student art en masse,” Makala said. “To date, we have approximately twelve books. They will be cataloged and available to patrons. I see a lot of studio art students on a semester basis, and these books will also be part of our teaching collection. And because they are so visually interesting, I can guarantee we’ll have them on exhibit in the future.”

Makala will have more books to add in the not-too-distant future: ARTS 564 will be offered again this fall.

In the photo, above: Untitled, by student Ting Ting Young, features a series of elaborate cut-outs such as the carousel shown here, which has tiny paper pieces that move with gravity as the wheel turns, mimicking the movement of human riders. Other student work includes a patchwork brochure made from recycled materials and bound with a used guitar string; a storybook filled with sketches; a photographic essay of one student's hometown in England; and a book of photographs dedicated to a student's father and bound in a pair of his faded blue jeans.

Scottish literature scholar Dr. Ross Roy passes away

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:12:48

Feb 21, 2013 1:19 PM

Dr. G. Ross Roy, Curator of the Scottish Literature Collection and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at USC, died at his home Tuesday, February 19.

"Ross was a world famous scholar and a great gentleman who worked every day of his life to make our Scottish Literature collection the best," said USC Libraries Dean Tom McNally. "I don’t think that I have known a kinder, gentler man that Ross. I am quite sure that I have not known anyone as devoted to our library as Ross."

Dr. Roy was known to many as the Curator of the Scottish Literature Collection and Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He came to the University of South Carolina in 1965 as Professor of English and Comparative Literature. In 1989, he transferred his Scottish Literature Collection to the University of South Carolina’s Rare Books and Special Collections Department.The G. Ross Roy Collection of Scottish Literature is the largest collection of Scottish Literature outside of Great Britain, with especially strong holdings of materials by and about Robert Burns.

Dr. Roy was born and educated in Montreal and earned degrees from Concordia University, the University of Montreal, the University of Strasbourg, including two earned doctorates from the University of Paris and the University of Montreal. In 2002, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, and in 2009, a second honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. His edition of The Letters of Robert Burns (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) remains the standard edition in use today. He founded Studies in Scottish Literature, the first scholarly journal in the field of Scottish Literature, and served as its editor for forty-five years, with Lucie Roy as the associate editor. Not long after publishing the final volume, Dr. Roy began to plan for the new series of Studies in Scottish Literature. The first volume of the new series, edited by USC faculty members Dr. Patrick Scott and Dr. Tony Jarrells, has just been published.

Read more about Dr. Roy's life and legacy at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestate/obituary.aspx?pid=163189103#fbLoggedOut.

Librarians greet new faculty

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:43:57

Feb 7, 2013 12:43 PM

New teaching faculty and library faculty liaisons enjoyed getting to know each other over wine and cheese in the Hollings Library Program Room on Thursday, January 24. They were able to share information about faculty teaching and research needs and library services and resources. Several new faculty members received a hands-on demonstration of library online services and e-resources from their department librarian liaison.

University Libraries hopes to repeat this reception for new faculty each spring semester. In the meantime, any faculty member may use the Book A Librarian service to schedule an appointment with a librarian or contact a librarian liaison directly from the liaisons’ webpage.

Exhibit highlights the ABC’s of ABC books

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 08:27:03

Jan 29, 2013 3:20 PM
A fundamental language tool takes center stage in “Abecedaria! Fine Press and Children’s ABC Books,” a varied and visual exhibit opening soon in USC’s Hollings Library.

“We are taking the notion of what an ABC book is and exploring how it is treated by fine press printers and children’s authors, and how other writers and artists conceptualized the alphabet,” said exhibit curator Jeffrey Makala, Librarian for Instruction and Outreach in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

The idea for the exhibit began when the USC Libraries received a collection of miniature books from Martha Zachert, a retired USC library science professor.

“Many of those books, about 100 of them, are ABC books,” Makala said. “They are delightful books, and I began to think about other ABC books we had in our collections, and how they could be combined to create a multi-faceted exhibit.”

“Abecedaria!” looks at how the alphabet has been treated and interpreted by educational publishers, children's authors and illustrators, artists and fine press printers. It shows historical and contemporary ABC books, as well as examples of artists' books and modern fine printing, early schoolbooks and primers, and other graphic works that explore the nature, design and meanings placed upon the 26-letter Roman alphabet.

Exhibit items include 21st-century books on the ABC’s of places: A is for Africa, A is for the Americas, The Desert Alphabet Book, and P is for Palmetto. There are books on the ABC’s of animals: Slipper’s ABC of Fox Hunting (1903), ABC of Birds (1916), and ABC of Dogs (1940). There is even the Santa Claus A.B.C. Book (c. 1900).

“We have a medieval manuscript page featuring the letter ‘C,’ a 19th-century children’s book printed on cloth (shown in the photo here), and an 1870 French accordion book, Le petit monde alphabet,” Makala said. “Several exhibit items date from 1880 to 1920, which is considered the Golden Age of Children’s Literature. We have several versions of Kate Greenaway’s A Apple Pie, which is a fairly lavish book.”

Other items include Your Highway ABC Book, an advertisement via alphabet produced by ESSO Oil Company in 1935, a typography book from 1974 titled Printer’s ACEDEDARIUM, and the 2008 darkly illustrated The Dangerous Alphabet, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Gris Grimley. And then there is the small volume, roughly three inches by three inches, that is all about one letter and simply titled, E.

The items on exhibit are chiefly drawn from the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, many from the Martha Jane Zachert Collection of Abecedaria and Fine Press Printing, donated by Dr. Zachert in Spring 2012, and from the Department's historical children's literature collection, the Augusta Baker Collection, the William Savage Textbook Collection, and the Clyde C. Walton Collection of Fine Printing.

Pat Feehan, an associate professor in USC’s School of Library and Information Science, was the featured speaker for the exhibit's opening event on Tuesday, February 5.

“I teach early childhood materials courses, which among the many genres are alphabet books,” said Feehan, who has crafted a special ABC Prezi presentation for the event.

“I teach librarians how to bring books and children together in just the right developmentally-appropriate way, and in the under-five group, the alphabet is pretty important because it is the very building blocks of language and literacy," Feehan said. "Jeffrey has been a welcome visitor to the course. He has brought many of these beautiful, old, children’s materials to display and discuss. It is fantastic for students to be able to see these books.”

The exhibit opening will take place in the Hollings Library Program Room. The Hollings Library is accessed through Thomas Cooper Library. The exhibit is on display in the Irvin Department Gallery through April 27. For more information, visit http://library.sc.edu/hollings.

Workshops to hone your research skills

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:56:50

Jan 18, 2013 9:00 AM

The focus is on graduate students and faculty researchers with the spring series of library workshops. Register to attend an upcoming workshop.

- Introduction to Journal Citation Reports, find Impact Factors

- Introduction to Zotero, free citation management software

- Keeping Up With Your Research: RSS Feeds and Email Alerts, have new research delivered directly to you

- Research Impact, covers strategies for deciding where to publish (including impact factors) and methods for finding who has cited your work

- Research Readiness, highlighting library services and resources of special interest to graduate student researchers

- Web of Science Seminar, discover the features of this multidisciplinary database that allows new ways to analyze your results and search for cited references

Check http://guides.library.sc.edu/workshops for the schedule and description of workshops along with online registration.

Jen Wochner is New Music Librarian for Digital and Audio Services

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:29:52

Jan 17, 2013 4:08 PM

Jennifer “Jen” Wochner has joined the Music Library as the new Music Librarian for Digital and Audio Services. Her duties include updating the Music Library web pages and social media presence, working on all Music Library digital projects, working with the music special collections and archival materials, producing access copies of audio materials and acting as the technological liaison for the Music Library. Jen comes to USC from the University of New Hampshire where she served as a music cataloger for two years.

Prior to her time in New Hampshire she was Archivist/Librarian at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City for two years. While studying at the University of Iowa, Jen worked as a research assistant for the International Writing Program Archives. Jen also had the pleasure of serving as a music office assistant at the 2000 summer Bowdoin International Music Festival in Brunswick, ME.

Jen received her Bachelor of Music in Viola Performance from the University of Iowa in 2001 and her Master of Arts in Library and Information Science also from the University of Iowa in 2005. She is currently completing her Master of Arts in Music Studies (history) from the University of New Hampshire. Jen is a Certified Archivist, a title she earned from the Academy of Certified Archivists in 2009. During her graduate school years, Jen created and hosted a weekly two-hour music history show, Time Tracks, for KRUI at the University of Iowa. She focused on blues, folk, jazz and other vernacular American music from 1900-1970. The show highlighted trends in music across genres in context with advances in recording technology and concurrent historical events in a way that would engage the general public.

Jen is originally from Kansas City. She has since lived in Iowa, Oklahoma, Maine and New Hampshire. We are very happy that she has added South Carolina to her list. Jen has traveled to 40 of the 50 states, Great Britain, and southern Africa (South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe). In addition to travel, she enjoys cooking, movies and music performances. We are pleased to welcome Jennifer Wochner to the USC family.

New Online Acquisition: Old Newspapers

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 09:38:04

Jan 11, 2013 11:18 AM

Four newspapers join the University Libraries’ subscription to ProQuest historical newspapers:

Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945)

Chicago Defender (1910-1975)

Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002)

Washington Post (1877-1996)

The Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier are two important African American newspapers that complement our existing access to the New York Amsterdam News, another ProQuest historical newspaper, and the African American Newspapers collection from Accessible Archives.

See all of the Libraries’ online newspaper resources.

Photo credit: NS Newsflash on Flickr

Henry Fulmer named Director of South Caroliniana Library

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 09:27:44

Jan 4, 2013 7:20 AM

Henry G. Fulmer has been named Director of the South Caroliniana Library, located on the USC Horseshoe. A three-time USC graduate and thirty-year USC Libraries employee, Fulmer began his new duties January 2.

“Henry is the perfect candidate to lead South Caroliniana Library,” said USC Libraries Dean Tom McNally. “He has thirty years of experience, combined with knowledge of not just the library’s collections but also the individuals who support the library. He’s been instrumental in the success of the library in the past, and he can now take the library to the next level.”

Built in 1840 as the central library for South Carolina College, South Caroliniana Library is the oldest continuously occupied academic library in the United States. Today the library serves as the repository of the Palmetto State’s documented history and literature. Students and faculty of the university, as well as researchers from around the world, visit the library to study the books, newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, maps, audio recordings and visual images preserved there. Its five major research divisions are published materials, manuscripts, university archives, oral history and visual materials.

Fulmer might have stuck with his original plan to pursue a doctorate in music – if he hadn’t taken a part-time job as a graduate student assistant in the library’s manuscripts division.

“I felt at home the moment I walked into the library,” said Fulmer, a native of Fountain Inn, S.C. “My paternal grandmother had been the child of a Civil War veteran. As a young child, the tales I wanted to be told were not the classic imaginary fairy tales but stories about how things were done in the past. My grandmother also was the collector and preserver of family artifacts, so I grew up surrounded by historic items, just as I am here at South Caroliniana Library. Feeling that connection to the past, to history, has always been a part of my life. At USC, I’m helping to collect and preserve the state’s heritage for future generations of citizens and scholars.

“My abiding interest in and concern for the conservation treatment of archival and special collections materials also began at USC,” Fulmer said. “When I was a graduate assistant my primary task was to carry out the hands-on preservation work then done exclusively in-house on manuscript collections. After becoming a permanent staff member in 1981, I had the responsibility for training student workers in those delicate tasks. And for years afterward, I participated in bench work conservation demonstrations.”

Since 1992, Fulmer has been the library’s Curator of Manuscripts. He has seen the addition and acquisition of numerous materials, including the papers of General William C. Westmoreland and, most recently, Mary Boykin Chesnut’s Civil War photograph albums.

Fulmer has a bachelor’s degree in applied music, a master’s degree in English, and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of South Carolina. He is active in a number of professional organizations, including the South Carolina Archival Association. He currently serves as treasurer on the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors. He also is the organist-choirmaster at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Columbia.

“I have appreciated the opportunity to work with Henry, beginning when he first came to the library as a graduate student,” said Allen Stokes, who has served the South Caroliniana Library as director for more than a quarter of a century. “Henry’s been a great colleague; he is wonderful with donors, wonderful with the collections, and much admired by the staff.”

Cooper-Davis Fellow gets a world of experience

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:24:43

Dec 4, 2012 2:22 PM

When Caroline Sanders chose a minor in library science as an undergraduate, she didn't know it would have a major influence on her life.

“Business management majors have to choose a minor study area," said Sanders, who completed her bachelor's degree in business management at USC in May 2012. “I worked at a library one summer when I was in high school and I enjoyed it, so my advisor suggested library science as a minor. I loved that first library science course, and now I’m getting a master’s degree in it.”

Sanders is the recipient of this year’s Cooper-Davis Fellowship for Under-Represented Groups in Librarianship, co-sponsored by Thomas Cooper Library and the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS).

As a Cooper-Davis Fellow, Sanders will receive training and mentoring to serve as an active participant in departments throughout Thomas Cooper Library.

“I’ll spend one semester working in Reference, one semester in Cataloging and Processing, and one semester in Collections and Acquisitions,” she said. “It has been fun and informative so far, and it really adds to my previous library experience. That first library job was as a summer reading assistant in my hometown of Union, S.C. That is a great little library – it was named Best Small Library in 2009 – and I loved the work."

Sanders is rotating on a semester basis through public services, technical services, and collection development, gaining practical experience in many facets of librarianship.

“An experience like this fellowship will teach me a little about every area in an academic library,” she said. “The field is always changing, so I’ll have to keep up with the changes, but this fellowship will give me a good overview of the field and a solid foundation of knowledge about how academic libraries work. And since this is my first time living on my own, the stipend is helping with everything, even basic needs like food and gasoline.”

Though she’s worked in the Libraries for just a few weeks so far, students already ask for her by name at the Reference Desk.

“My friends and my friends’ friends know that I’m in graduate school to become a librarian, so when they need help with their research, they come to me," she said. "I like it because I like to help people find the information they need.”

To qualify for the Cooper-Davis Fellowship, candidates must be fully admitted to the master’s program in the School of Library and Information Science, be a member of an under-represented group in librarianship, and be able to work 15 hours per week for 40 weeks in the University Libraries. Benefits include a stipend, a tuition discount, and professional experience in a major research library.

For more information, visit http://library.sc.edu/cdfellow.html.

Take an audiobook along for the ride.

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:04:39

Nov 14, 2012 3:00 PM

Check out the audiobooks available at Thomas Cooper Library. The discs are shelved in the Browsing section nearest the library exit.

Get your car in shape for the road trip by consulting the Auto Repair Reference Center, one of the new DISCUS databases available from libraries across the state.

untitled photo by Kathy Weaver

Factiva, new business and news database

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:15:10

Nov 13, 2012 1:00 PM

Springs Business Library is pleased to announce the addition of Dow Jones’ Factiva, which is now available to USC Columbia faculty, staff, and currently-enrolled students, both on and off campus.

Factiva is one of the top business resources and is used in almost 80% of Fortune Global 500 companies. The database covers information on industries, public and private companies, business and management topics, and historical and current news. Factiva will now be the access point for The Wall Street Journal, allowing access to the reputable news source from 1979-present in full-text both on and off campus.

Factiva is also a valuable research tool for many other areas, including political science, media studies, technology, social sciences, journalism, and more. Factiva is a full-text, multimedia resource with images, charts, and audio/video content from 150+ sources.

Content available in Factiva includes:

· 3,500+ newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, The Globe, English version of Al-Jazeera, and much more

· 4,200+ journals and magazines such as The Economist, Forbes, ComputerWorld, Newsweek, and L’Express

· 25 million profiles of public and private companies

· 10,000 pictures added weekly from sources like Reuters, McClatchy-Tribune, and Fairfax Photos

· EUR-Lex Database provides direct access to European Union Law containing directives, treatises, legislation, and case law from the EU

· 700 continuously updated newswires featuring news from Dow Jones, Reuters, The Associated Press, PR Newswire, and more

Please contact Kathy Snediker or Emily Doyle at the Business Library if you have any questions. Stay tuned for training opportunities, and in the meantime, below are links for help in using Factiva.

· Factiva Quick Reference for tips on Searching, News, and Companies/Markets

· Factiva Inside Out Guide

· Factiva LibGuide from ProQuest

Portrait project takes shape at South Caroliniana Library

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:23:41

Oct 12, 2012 11:49 AM
A South Caroliniana Library project is painting a more complete picture of the 52 18th- and 19th-century portraits in the library’s collection.

“Thirty-eight of the portraits are on display in the first-floor Manuscripts Room and the second-floor Kendall Room,” said Laura Hughes, who completed the project as part of her museum curator certificate. “This is Jonathan Maxcy, first president of South Carolina College. Here’s USC President James Rion McKissick. General Andrew Pickens. Mrs. Robert Woodward Barnwell, or Eliza Barnwell. Anna Jane White. James Woodrow, who was Woodrow Wilson’s uncle and one-time president of USC.

“My job was to research and expand the information about all of the portraits,” she said. “Some lacked artist information, others lacked the subject or date.”

A large part of the project was putting the information into a database, said Beth Bilderback, Head of Visual Materials Collections and project supervisor.

“This project has taken us from information on loose paper to a computerized database,” she said. “Laura’s first task was to take the information she had collected and create adequate, uniform labeling for all of the portraits: subject’s name, who they were, and the artist. That information went into a database, along with information about each portrait’s condition and conservation needs, and that will be a great help to us.”

This fall Hughes is developing a brochure and print catalog, which will be important resources for library visitors.

“This project has provided us with a lot of information on our collection, and we feel it will greatly enhance future research into art in South Carolina,” said Henry Fulmer, Head of Manuscripts. “When we have scholars and other visitors come into the library to see the portraits, we’ll be able to provide them with more complete information.”

In the photo above, Beth Bilderback, Laura Hughes and Henry Fulmer stand next to a portrait by William Harrison Scarborough. The oil on canvas depicts Mary Hart Brockington and Peter Brockington Bacot, ca. 1835-40.

More databases are available to you

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:59:57

Sep 4, 2012 3:30 PM

through the USC Libraries’ membership in the PASCAL consortium, Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries, and participation in DISCUS coordinated by the South Carolina State Library. Go to the Libraries’ Article Databases page for access to all of them from on or off campus.

Several are in areas for which we previously did not have online databases:

Fuente Academica (scholarly journals from Latin American and Spanish publishers, covers all subject areas)
International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text
Women’s Studies International

Others expand coverage of our existing databases.

Business

Entrepreneurial Studies Source
Small Business Reference Center

Consumer Health

Alt Health Watch
Consumer Health Complete
Health Source – Consumer Edition

Humanities

Jewish Studies Source
Religion and Philosophy Collection

Literature

NoveList Plus and NoveList K-8 Plus
Literary Reference Center
Bloom’s Literary Reference Center
Play Index

News

AP NewsMonitor Collection
Newspaper Source Plus

Political Science

International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center
Political Science Complete

And others are upgrades that include more full text content or expand the time coverage of databases we previously had.

Academic Search Complete
Business Source Complete
Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text
Essay and General Literature Index (1983 to current)
Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text
Index to Legal Periodicals & Books Full Text
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text
MEDLINE with Full Text
Readers’ Guide Full Text Mega

Elevator renovations underway

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:10:11

Aug 30, 2012 5:10 PM

Thomas Cooper Library elevators are undergoing major renovations. Work will be done on one elevator at a time leaving two elevators operational. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to improve the library.

Kathy Snediker is interim head of Business Library

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:21:42

Jul 27, 2012 7:15 AM

Kathy Snediker is the new interim head of the Springs Business Library. Kathy has been a librarian in the Reference Department of Thomas Cooper Library since 2011.

Before coming to USC, Kathy served as the Associate Director of Library and Instructional Technology Services at Newberry College, Newberry, S.C. She previously worked as a part-time librarian and as an intern in Thomas Cooper Library and as a library assistant at the Coleman Karesh Law Library at the USC School of Law. Prior to studying Library Science, Kathy worked in corporate environments as an operations manager and team leader.

Kathy received her MLIS from the University of South Carolina in 2007, and she received her BA in history from the University of Virginia.

Streaming vintage video is easy on new MIRC site

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:16:51

Jul 24, 2012 7:19 AM

Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC) has unveiled a new digital repository at http://mirc.sc.edu that lets the public stream MIRC film and video collections quickly, easily and at no cost to the user. The site is a rich resource for students, scholars, historians, filmmakers and anyone interested in viewing vintage film.

MIRC, which is part of the University of South Carolina Libraries, is home to several film collections, including the Fox Movietone News Collection, Chinese Film Collection, Roman Vishniac Science Film Collection, Science and Nature Films, and Regional Film Collections.

The new site was designed to fulfill the preservation and access functions that are central to any moving image archive, said Heather Heckman, MIRC assistant director.

“Ease of access for users was foremost,” she said. “Our primary goal for Phase I of the Digital Video Repository project was to give people access to more videos in a faster, easier and more rational way. Every film added to the site is accompanied by a revised and expanded catalog record, designed to improve findability.”

Ultimately, MIRC plans to make all of its collections available through the Digital Video Repository site. Several hundred film clips from the Fox Movietone Collection alone are already up on the new site and available to stream. Users can watch newsfilm footage that documents both major milestones and ordinary moments of the 20th century, from aviation milestones of the 1920s to early sound recordings of prominent writers like George Bernard Shaw, from World War II to Vietnam, and from the rising cost of candy after the Great War to folk music performances during the Great Depression. They can explore the home movie collections of the famous country music husband-and-wife team Lulu Belle and Scotty Wiseman, as well as those of famous South Carolinians like Anna and Archer Huntington. They can watch Roman Vishniac’s psychedelic recordings of microscope life, sample animation from the People’s Republic of China, or consult oral histories by female veterans.

Phase II of the project, which will kick off later this year, emphasizes preservation of the films.

“Digital video preservation is a challenge, but it’s an increasingly important one,” Heckman said. “The Digital Video Repository will store high-resolution digital surrogates for the films in MIRC’s care. This protects the fragile originals, which MIRC will continue to store in temperature- and humidity-controlled vaults. The surrogates will be stored according to best practices for digital preservation, ensuring that they will be available for decades to come.”

The highest priority collection for MIRC to digitize and make available to the public is the entire Fox Movietone News Collection. A fundraising effort to make that happen is underway now.

The MIRC ACE winner is...

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:05:25

Jul 24, 2012 7:11 AM
Third-year media arts major Nick Sullivan doesn’t apologize for the fact that his compilation of Fox Movietone News clips is funny.

“Pure comedy was intended,” he said of his project for Media Arts 371 The Moving Image. “If someone finds a message in there, then great, but I wasn’t really going after one.”

There is no need to apologize, anyway. “The Cold Milk Wars” is amusing and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It is also the latest winner of the Moving Image Research Collections Award for Creative Editing MIRC ACE).

“I was surprised that I won,” said Sullivan, who is from Simpsonville, S.C. “Honestly, I’m not sure why. There were a lot of really good clips made by other students, lots of artsy pieces, and mine was just comedy. Comedy isn’t a genre that typically wins a lot of awards.”

One reason for the win could be the continuous, vintage-style voiceover.

“We were all given the same clips and told to choose whatever clips we wanted and make some sort of coherent video out of it,” explained Sullivan, who used Adobe Premiere CS 3 editing software. “It didn’t necessarily have to have a narrative behind it, but it had to have some sort of coherent feel. Since it was a bunch of old clips I thought it would be good to do a kind of 1930s or 1940s radio voice over it.”

Several instructors teach MART 371 in the spring semester, with each instructor selecting three or four student films to submit for the MIRC competition. Jen Tarr, media arts instructor, taught Sullivan’s class.

“The course assignment is about learning how to make connections visually,” said Tarr, who has taught the course for six years. “We want students to learn to use formal elements, as well as rhythm and motion, to make connections between the different pieces of film. Each student is given the same archival footage to pull from: a variety of images from the University’s Fox Movietone News Collection. Then they complete films of about a minute in length.”

Sullivan taught himself how to edit film while he was in high school and discovered he wanted to go into the field.

“I like directors Christopher Nolan and Edgar Wright,” said Sullivan, who is minoring in advertising. “Being a director would be my dream job. Getting a job in the industry and doing that the rest of my life would be my dream.”

Watch “The Cold Milk Wars,” and be prepared to laugh, at http://mirc.sc.edu/fedora/repository/usc%3A1917.

A unit of the University Libraries, MIRC welcomes use of its collections. Located at 707 Catawba Street, MIRC is open to the public 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday - Friday. More than 3,000 hours of rare archival material are available to view on videocassette and DVD.

'Mural' re-uses LP covers

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:20:02

Jun 18, 2012 7:18 AM

It's the only place on campus where Beethoven shares wall space with The Muppets, West Side Story, and Bill Cosby.

“We covered a wall in the Music Library with old, duplicate LP covers,” said Ana Dubnjakovic, Head of the Music Library. It's a project that she and Music Library employees Jessica Harvey and Joe Henderson recently completed.

“There were some unsightly marks on the wall that we wanted to hide, so we used removable sticky tacks to put up the album covers,” she said. “Our students and faculty loved the result.”

The Music Library is located on the second floor of the School of Music, adjacent to the Koger Center. See the "music mural" for yourself during the library's summer hours: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday - Friday; closed Saturday; 3 - 5 p.m. Sunday.

'Catch-22' author's desk is here!

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:20:02

Jun 8, 2012 11:07 AM

USC Libraries is now home to a desk and desk lamp owned by American author Joseph Heller. The items are on display, along with the typewriter Heller used to write his iconic novel Catch-22, in the Hollings Library through December 20.

Donated by his widow Valerie Heller, the desk and lamp arrived in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections in April. Along with the typewriter, which was acquired by USC in the late 1990s, the desk and lamp re-create the writing environment that yielded some of the best in 20th-century American writing.

“This old desk of Joe's shows much wear and tear,” Valerie Heller said. “When I came to East Hampton in the spring of 1982, the desk was in the main house and during the summer was moved over to a writing studio on the property. Joe would ‘escape’ the house to the studio to write in longhand on a lined, yellow pad and then transcribe to the typewriter.”

The Joseph Heller Papers, acquired by USC in 1997 with Heller’s active involvement and support, are the largest collection anywhere for research on his work, preserving more than 150,000 pages of drafts, revisions, typescripts and correspondence that document the author’s achievement over a period of 30 years. Highlights include the very first handwritten 100-page draft for Heller's novel Something Happened; the manuscript and edited typescript from Heller’s dramatization of Catch-22; and his final revisions for Closing Time, the last novel published during his lifetime. The archive contains many hundreds of pages charting Heller's creative process stage by stage through to publication. It is a uniquely rich resource both for scholarly research and for introducing students to the world of writing and publishing.

The addition of more personal items, such as the desk and lamp, adds yet another dimension to the collection.

“There is no better way to understand Joseph Heller as a writer and to study how he wrote than to be able to imagine more clearly where he wrote,” said Elizabeth Sudduth, Director of the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. “Our students can sit at his desk and actually type at his typewriter. When the late Dr. Matthew Bruccoli acquired the typewriter from literary critic and biographer Frederick R. Karl, it was in order to give students exactly that experience. We have a strong print collection and a fine manuscript collection, and material objects related to the collection enhance our ability to tell Heller’s story.”

Valerie Heller continues to add to the Heller collection. Her gifts include hundreds of translations of her husband’s works, including translations to Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, Sloveniana, Hungarian, Danish, Swedish and Finnish.

Joseph Heller's connection with South Carolina began during World War II when he trained as a bombardier in Columbia and Walterboro. His connection with the University of South Carolina began when he participated in the 1980 Writers Series program. He returned in 1995 for the World War II Writers Symposium. In 1996 Heller came back to accept the Thomas Cooper Medal and to deliver the principal address at the University’s F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Celebration.

Learn more about The Joseph Heller Archive at USC Libraries.

Bill Sudduth plays role in ASERL award

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:20:02

May 16, 2012 7:19 AM

USC Libraries' Bill Sudduth and his colleagues have created a program that recently won the 2012 ProQuest/GODORT/ALA Documents to the People Award.

The Collaborative Federal Depository Program (CFDP), part of the Association of Southeast Research Libraries (ASERL), develops and preserves comprehensive collections of government documents on a multi-state level. USC Libraries is part of ASERL.

The CFDP idea was originally conceived in 2007 and awarded an IMLS National Leadership Grant for Libraries in September 2009. The program is designed to transform federal depository library collections from general undefined and mostly un-cataloged collections into “centers of excellence” that focus services on a specific federal agency or topic.

“There is an assumption that there's a complete collection of government publications distributed by every agency in all libraries, and that’s not the case,” said Sudduth, head of Government, Information, Microforms and Newspapers, located on Level 5 in Thomas Cooper Library.

“Federal depository libraries simply cannot house such a complete collection, primarily because they face pressures including space issues for expanding user services, the realization that over 90 percent of current materials are available electronically, and retirements in the government information area are creating a loss of expertise,” Sudduth said.

“The goal for this program is for libraries to create a center where they can collect and provide expertise on an agency or subject area, and not have to do it all," he said. "These days, libraries are looking at putting together unique collections that fit their teaching and learning missions. This program saves time and helps the libraries build the collections they want to build.”

The three institutions currently involved in the project are the University of Kentucky, which is collecting Works Progress Administration (WPA) documents; the University of Florida, which has committed to collecting items about the Panama Canal Zone; and USC, which is focusing on the U.S. Department of Education since 1979.

“These three libraries provide an excellent model of the possibilities of what issues libraries will face in developing their own centers of excellence,” said Sudduth, who has served on the original ASERL oversight steering committee for the project since its inception. “We have a group of libraries in the Southeast that are also committed to becoming centers in the future.”