Streamlined Summit Requesting through Search It

Content from the thirty-seven libraries within the Orbis Cascade Alliance (Summit) is now fully integrated through the single search interface of Search It, and as a result of this integration, the Alliance rolled out the enhancements to the Summit requesting process on January 20, 2015.  Some of the benefits of these enhancements are that patrons will experience fewer authentication requests and increased availability awareness of Summit items at the point of request.

Search It is WSU’s search interface that retrieves results from databases and catalogs found in academic libraries across the Pacific Northwest. In Search It, all content available to WSU students, staff, and faculty is immediately accessible, and all other content from the neighboring thirty-six institutions can be requested and quickly delivered. The full integration of the Summit catalog into the Search It interface will create new opportunities for enhancements and improvements that will benefit those who use these library services.  

For those of you that have used the Summit search interface (http://summit.worldcat.org) for discovery should note that this URL will no longer be available after 1/19/2015.  If you want to search WorldCat, you can find WorldCat via FirstSearch and WorldCat for non-WSU affiliates on our Find Databases A-Z page or, if you prefer,  WorldCat results are also integrated into the Search It  search scope that is labeled Everything + (beta).

If you would like to give feedback regarding this change, or anything related to Search It, please use the form provided at the bottom of every page in Search It and provided here for convenience:  http://libraries.wsu.edu/search-it-feedback

With a combined 65 years of service to WSU Libraries, husband and wife Lou and Kay Vyhnanek will retire Friday, Dec. 19. A reception will be 3-5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18, in Terrell Library atrium.

At WSU’s 10th annual Employee Recognition Reception on Dec. 10, the couple joined more than 560 staff and faculty celebrating a length-of-service milestone in 2014 – hers for 35 years, his for 30.

“We appreciate and recognize their many contributions to the libraries, to WSU and to the profession,” said libraries dean Jay Starratt. “Kay helped the libraries broaden access to scholarly research through her work on the WSU Research Exchange, a digital repository for WSU research.

“Lou forged strong relationships within WSU’s Department of History as an associated professional historian and liaison librarian, instructing generations of WSU students in the process,” Starratt said. “Both also devoted considerable time and effort to the American Library Association, particularly its Reference and User Services Association.”

For the full story, please visit https://news.wsu.edu/2014/12/17/reception-dec-18-library-duo-kay-and-lou….

The passengers aboard the S.S. Spokane cruising through Alaskan waters in 1903 probably didn’t give their lunch menu much thought beyond what they would have to eat. Granted, its totem-pole shape was interesting – a clever play by cruise company marketers to remind them of where they were sailing and maybe to buy a miniature souvenir while on shore.

Most of those menus would have been ignored, though – left on tables or thrown away. But one made it back from turn-of-the-century Alaska to wind up in Washington State University’s Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections.

The menu and other bits of the printed detritus from MASC’s collections are showcased in a new exhibit, “Ephemera: Yesterday’s Trash, Today’s Archive,” opening this month and running through March. An opening reception is set for 3-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, in the MASC main lobby.

“Ephemera” is part of WSU common reading events for the book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Edward Humes. For more about the book and other events, visit http://commonreading.wsu.edu/.

Trevor Bond, head of MASC, said he hopes the exhibit will impress on viewers the ubiquitousness of ephemera – the minor, transient documents of everyday life. Those paper scraps go unnoticed most of the time.

“Most printed ephemera are intended for short-term use, to be consumed and then discarded,” he said. “We all have ephemera: the receipt in your pocket, the flier handed to you on Terrell Mall that you accepted out of politeness, or perhaps a bookmark for this very exhibit.”

For details about the exhibit, read the full story at https://news.wsu.edu/2014/12/11/jan-22-reception-ephemera-exhibit-detail….

Not every librarian can say she met Peter Graves on the set of the “Mission: Impossible” TV show during the late 1960s in Hollywood or that she helped bring an infamous book thief to justice. But WSU Libraries’ Eileen Brady has done both – and much more.

In fact, after 31 years, there aren’t many mysteries or problems that Brady, Owen Science Library’s preservation manager and research librarian, can’t solve.

Need to know how to save water-damaged books and journals by freeze-drying? Brady figured that out in 1986, enlisting the late John Guido – head of Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections  – WSU’s food services department and the College of Veterinary Medicine to help with the task.

Did Charles Darwin contend that animals and babies couldn’t feel pain in his landmark “On the Origin of Species?” Yes, he did, as Brady discovered for Vicki Croft, former head of the Animal Health Library and fellow retiree this year, who asked Brady to answer the question for a WSU student.

“When I think of Eileen’s strengths and achievements within WSU Libraries, these come to mind: her excellence as a reference librarian; her collegiality to her co-workers, particularly as a mentor to new librarians; and her user advocacy,” Croft said.

“I know of no other WSU librarian with her range of expertise and knowledge in subjects from the sciences, engineering and agriculture to the humanities and social sciences,” she said. “She is a Renaissance librarian, one who can ferret out answers to the most difficult questions.”

Brady’s versatility and can-do spirit will be celebrated at a retirement reception 2-4 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12, in Owen Science Library’s main lobby. For the rest of Brady’s adventures, read the full article at https://news.wsu.edu/2014/12/11/reception-dec-12-renaissance-librarian-e….

WSU Libraries and the Office of Undergraduate Education will team up for a class this spring that teaches university students to be more selective about the information they get off the World Wide Web – and to become more effective researchers in the process.

A one-credit course first offered in 1995, UNIV 300: Accessing Information for Research helps students better understand the modern information landscape, including scholarly communication and the Internet. They learn important concepts and skills related to information access and evaluation, such as advanced database search techniques and choosing sources that are credible, relevant and accurate.

UNIV 300 will be offered Monday and Wednesday afternoons Jan. 12-March 4. Priority registration for spring courses begins Monday, Nov. 10.

For more about the course, read the article at https://news.wsu.edu/2014/04/14/course-teaches-students-to-be-selective-researchers/#.VF0lCcmEzng.

Even the aborigines of Australia’s Tanami Desert claim to have seen UFOs.

A researcher then with the University of Pretoria wrote of the Warlpiri people and their beliefs regarding close encounters in a 2007 article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Eirik Saethre’s paper is one of the wonderful oddities to be found in Washington State University Libraries’ Paranormal Page (http://libguides.wsulibs.wsu.edu/content.php?pid=328983).

Anyone with a yen for something to do other than egging houses or chaperoning costumed and sugar-amped kids door to door this Halloween can’t go wrong with a little trip through the virtual stacks – and imaginative musings – of electronic projects librarian Jane Scales. She started the Paranormal Page because the topic is of interest to students – both academically and as part of popular culture.

“It may seem strange that the paranormal would be considered part of academia, but it actually makes a lot of sense,” she said. “Professors sometimes use examples of false science, urban myths or superstition to help students understand the necessity for critical thinking. Anthropology, history and folklore are academic areas of study that sometimes consider the role of legends as well.”

For more about the library guide, see the WSU News article at https://news.wsu.edu/2014/10/31/tales-from-the-crypt-on-wsu-libraries-pa….

A recent federal grant of $698,605 will help Washington State University continue to provide training to local tribal archives, libraries and museums in preserving their cultural assets through digital archiving technology.

The grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services will also support a new tribal digital archives curriculum coordinator in the WSU Libraries.

The libraries and College of Arts and Sciences are creating a three-year project, the “Tribal Stewardship Cohort Program: Digital Heritage Management, Archiving and Mukurtu CMS Training.” An earlier IMLS grant helped WSU build the foundation for the project, the “Sustainable Heritage Network” (http://www.sustainableheritagenetwork.org). More about its scope can be found at https://news.wsu.edu/2013/10/10/powering-cultural-preservation-new-grants-expand-archiving-of-indigenous-treasures/#.VD77cRYXOVo.

Members of seven Indian tribes from across four states participated in the second regional SHN workshop, which was held earlier this month at Holland Library on the WSU Pullman campus.

To read more about the project, visit https://news.wsu.edu/2014/10/20/grant-continues-support-of-indigenous-cu….

Patti Hirahara’s favorite photo among the more than 2,000 taken by her father and grandfather during World War II shows an older man standing on a road in the middle of a camp, rows of barracks stretching ahead of him toward the distant, leveled-off top of Heart Mountain near Cody, Wyo.

It is a lonely image, made lonelier by the knowledge that the man – like Hirahara’s family and 10,000 other Japanese and Japanese Americans – was interned at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, forced to leave behind a home, work and possessions after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

“Of all the photos in the Washington State University George and Frank C. Hirahara Collection, this photograph, for me, depicts what life was like at Heart Mountain,” Patti Hirahara said.

Hirahara, of Anaheim, Calif., donated the collection of Heart Mountain photos to her father Frank’s alma mater in 2010. A National Park Service grant the following year funded the collection’s digitization and preservation – giving the public access to the documented weddings, cultural events, sports, funerals and more that took place under barbed wire and the watchful eyes of guards.

Now WSU is delving into the history of Japanese American internment through a series of exhibitions and events, thanks in large part to Hirahara’s efforts to promote her family’s ties to the Heart Mountain story.

“This photo collection shows how the people lived and tried to make a normal life for themselves under difficult circumstances in Heart Mountain,” she said. “It is my hope that these photos will continue to be seen and used for years to come to tell the story of these Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II and that, through them, WSU will continue to be part of the Japanese internment conversation for future generations.”

For more details on the campus-wide events, read the story at https://news.wsu.edu/2014/10/08/family-photos-inspire-events-about-japan….

In “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash”—Washington State University’s common reading book for 2014-15—readers learn that the average American throws away about 7.1 pounds of trash every day. Over a lifetime, that’s 102 tons of garbage.

WSU Libraries and the university’s waste management department are sponsoring an exhibit through Oct. 12 in the Terrell Library atrium case to show how WSU makes a dent in those numbers by reducing, reusing and recycling waste.

“Garbology at WSU” is part of common reading events for the book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Edward Humes. For more about the book and other events, visit http://commonreading.wsu.edu/.

“We want people to gain an understanding of what is going on already at WSU to help divert waste from the landfill,” said Jenna Bracken, exhibit co-organizer and a waste management intern.

“All of our waste goes somewhere, whether it’s a landfill, recycling center or one of our compost piles on campus,” she said. “Viewers of the exhibit can take ownership of their own 102-ton waste legacy and implement waste minimization techniques that fit their lifestyles.”

For the full story, visit the WSU News link at https://news.wsu.edu/2014/09/19/through-oct-12-exhibit-details-efforts-t….