History of Campus Buildings

For more than a semester I have had one of my beloved student workers (Liz Staino 2007) working on pulling together all of the bits of information on the campus buildings we had into one list.  Today I put it up as a webpage based on that information. When I announced it on the faculty and staff listservs I instantly got positive feedback.

You see when I arrived there was this notebook…  It had a typed list of the buildings about in the order of the current list. (organized by date built) Much of the information came from that list.  But it also had articles from student newspapers, alumni newsletters, individual building histories done by the Druid Society (Hobart Sr. honor society) and the miscellaneous list that seemed to come from buildings and grounds.

Liz pulled all those together for me, and organized “the notebook” with dividers.  She also checked the current Colleges’ webpage for more information and documented where the information came from.  I then formatted the whole thing for the web, and went through the current campus directory to verify addresses and add theme house information to student housing.

A big thank you to Liz.  I believe this page will be well used.

Core Copyright (TM)

On Wednesday April 4 and 11 I attended an RRLC workshop on copyright, taught by K. Matthew Dames. I’ve been a librarian for almost 30 years. In that time I must have attended at least one session on copyright at least every 3 years, this was by far the very best!

Kevin took us right to the portions of the copyright law that apply to us and showed us how to break them down into the rule, the conditions, the exceptions and the exceptions to the exceptions. Looking up all words “defined” in the law is also important. (circle all defined words) He was clear that everyone is going to break it down differently, but it still leads to a much better understanding of what you are reading.

e.g. He broke down the Rule of section 107 of fair use to

the fair use of copyrighted work…is not an infringement of copyright

I was most concerned with Section 108 of reproduction by libraries and archives.

He recommended a website on dates for works becoming public domain, done by Peter Hirtle. Also Kevin does a blog type web page on copyright issues called Copycense.

If you every have the opportunity to take this workshop or Kevins class at SU, I highly recommend it!!

HWS Archives T-shirts

We got our t-shirts, here are some photos to prove it!

Rare Books and Special Collections

Last week a attended an RRLC workshop on rare books and special collections lead by Pablo Alvarez, curator of rare books at the Rush Rhees Library of the University of Rochester.  I was fascinated as he took us through the history of books with examples from the collection.  I had a fair background before the workshop and was stunned at how much I hadn’t known.

I walked away with some new ideas.  Pablo contacts professors when he has an item he believes would be helpful to a course and offers to do a session on the topic.  I have jumped at opportunities to interact with class when they have come to me, but I’ll try to be more proactive.

Pablo does a online exhibit he calls “Book of the Month” where he has digital images and gives background on special items in his collection.

He recommended at online brochure from ALA Rare Books Section on “Your Old Books.”

As he was talking about special collections I had the thought that some day we could pull the books given to Hobart College by Rev. Benjamin Hale from the S.C.C. to make a special collection.

It was great to network with others “in the business”, as always.