Duggan Library Blog

Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi is a memoir that chronicles his life as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the Civil War. The Rivers Institute just purchased a fine copy. It is a first London edition in the original red cloth. It was published by Chatto & Windus in 1883 and precedes the American edition of the same year. Portions of the publication first appeared in Old Times on the Mississippi in 1876. You are welcome to come and take a look at it in the Archives.

The Rivers Institute at Hanover College, in celebration of the bicentennial of the first successful steamboat to navigate the Ohio River, has purchased a rare copy of The Navigator.
The 1811 edition of Cramer’s The Navigator, gives an early account of the Lewis and Clark expedition and contacts twenty-seven woodcut charts of American inland waterways. The book also holds directions for navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and includes descriptions of river towns, villages, harbors and settlements.
2011 marks the bicentennial of an event that changed the course of history in North America and the world. The Steamboat The New Orleans travelled down the Ohio River from Pittsburg encountering along the way the Great Comet of 1811, the greatest earthquake ever recorded in the continental United States and even a vast squirrel migration. Coming upon the Falls of the Ohio, The New Orleans was forced to turn around and go back up river, proving that it could be done and helping to bring North America into the Industrial Revolution.

If so, this time of year must make you really nervous! Samhain (sometimes called Samain) was an ancient Pagan festival, where giant fires were built to frighten away the dead walked the Earth on that night. Over time, the ritual migrated into prayers for those who died “unpure” and eventually was called Halligan in England; the night before it was All Hallow’s Eve.

Maybe you suffer from aelurophobia (fear of cats) or spectrophobia (fear of ghosts), coimetrophobia (fear of cemeteries) or, if you’re a vampire, phenogophobia (fear of daylight).

We all have our fears and Halloween is the perfect (or worst, depending on whether you enjoy being scared) time of year to get spooked.

Me? Aerophobia, algophobia, apiphobia… (and that’s just the A’s) Wonder what I’m afraid of? You’ll have to come over to look them up, unless, of course you have sophophobia (fear of learning).

Source: Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears and Anxieties (Refc RC 535 D63 1989)

- Kelly

This week is the first International Open Access Week. As the organizers say, “Open Access Week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. The now-annual event has been expanded from a single day to accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward open, public access to scholarly research results.”

While the traditional model of production and dissemination of scholarly and expert research is going strong (we need only witness the continuing, increasing costs of our subscription scholarly journals and research databases), the Open Access movement is gaining stride to remove many of the cost barriers to access to research literature. You can read more about Open Access and Open Access Week here.

The Duggan Library uses and provides access to several Open Access resources, and many more can be found by searching “open access journals.” Here are just a few to get you started.

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
Includes over 4000 scientific and scholarly journals

Free Medical Journals

Highwire Press
A division of the Standford University Libraries, enabling free access to peer-reviewed journals

As we have entered into a another academic year with new services and resources, a revamped look to the first two floors, an emphasis on marketing and publicizing, and making the very best use of funds, the thought occurred to me that while I think the library is indispensable nevertheless there may be some who might ask, “what’s so special about the library?”
 
My first response might be “we are not special, just different”.  Of course, I could also quickly point to our mission and overwhelm you with lots of examples in defense of that mission but I think considering the (valid) question from a broader perspective is worth exploring.  Here are a few items, in sum, that I believe substantiate this idea of being different (different not being better or worse, just different).
 
Sure it is a dedicated building but is the library for research or simply a quiet place to study?  The library (as a physical entity) is rightly, I believe, a place for each activity, though to find a happy medium in this tension with respect to open hours will always be a personal one.  There would be a few users who would live in the library were it open 24 hours (not physically healthy I would suspect) while there are some users who never darken the doorway (not intellectually healthy I would caution).  In any case we continue to provide weekend and evening (with reference assistance) hours for however you need to use the facility.
 
Are librarians staff or faculty?  Again, the answer is both.  As terminally-degreed (M.L.S.) professionals  we are administrative appointees (12 month contracts) at the College, but with faculty status.  This means, among other things, we are active on campus in committees, participate in faculty meetings, and teach (not only providing curricular support via library instruction sessions but also from time-to-time have been involved with teaching for-credit courses).  Though ours are not tenure track positions we can apply for administrative leaves (a sabbatical if you will), receive Faculty Development Grants, and attend/participate in professional conferences with the College’s support.  On the other hand we provide statistics, administer budgets, do evaluation, manage student workers, maintain a web presence, order materials, and other jobs (yes, even paper pushing) typically defined as administrative.
 
So, is the library an administrative or academic unit?  In a sense, we are a combination.  The library is an administrative department [as evidenced by policies and procedures ] under the umbrella of Academic Affairs, serving equally all academic departments. We provide academic support to students and collaborate with faculty.  Concomitantly, we rely on other campus departments, like IT, Physical Plant, and the Business Office, et al, to provide that support properly.  However the library is categorized, without productive partnerships we simply could not meet user needs at the level you expect and that we hope we provide.
 
Additionally, though our primary purpose is serving existing students, we are also available to the community (for example, many local school children have enjoyed campus visits arranged through the Archives) as well as involved professionally at the state level through our consortial participation with PALNI (library system including PantherCAT) and ALI (many online databases).  Are these academic or administrative responsibilities?  Staff or faculty tasks?  Ownership or access modes?  Are such demarcations important?  If so, when and why?
 
After giving this some thought, I guess I have reached the conclusion that the library is the educational equivalent of the hybrid car; shifting between dual functions for maximum efficiency, no matter the landscape.  Although I don’t believe we are special (for that implies a notion of greater importance) I can say that we are a bit different. While such seeming ambiguity might challenge assumptions and expectations of some, I think recognizing the library’s distinctiveness is a key to successfully fulfilling our mission as we strive to reflect the very best that Hanover College has to offer.

Ken