February is Black History Month

Check out these great informational resources:

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Posting/Publishing your Research? A brief guide for students at Puget Sound

Whether in print or on the Web, follow these guidelines

Step 1

Have you read the University Policy on Intellectual Property Rights?
https://www.pugetsound.edu/policy-intellectual-property-rights
which covers rights of faculty, students, and staff. This policy will help you understand the next steps.

Step 2

Ask Yourself these questions:

  1. Are you working with a faculty member on a faculty run, faculty-supervised or faculty-sponsored project? 
    If so, the faculty member owns the Intellectual Property.  You cannot post this
    research without the permission of the faculty member.  In addition, faculty members
    are expected to acknowledge your assistance or co-authorship when appropriate. 
  2. Are you completing work while acting as an employee of the University or as an elected officer of the Associated Students of the University of Puget Sound? 
    If so, you must check with your supervisor or department head prior to posting the work.
  3. Did you receive external funding from a grant, a foundation or a private donor? 
    If so, you must conform to the requirements of the external agency.
  4. Have you voluntarily transferred your creative work (Intellectual Property) to the University or a Faculty Member?
    If so, you are no longer the owner of the intellectual property.
  5. Have acknowledged all your sources and provided proper citations? 
    Link to: https://research.pugetsound.edu/citation

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Research Marathon at Collins Library

Join the Collins peer research advisors and a librarian for two nights in November.

Nov. 18, 7:00pm to 10:00pm, in Library 146: Get a head start on research projects and papers before the Thanksgiving break!

Nov. 30, 7:00pm to 10:00pm, in Library 146: Make progress on projects after some time away!

Research Marathon at Collins Library
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Artifacts of Service: A Veteran’s Day Pop-Up Exhibit, Nov. 8-12, 2021

Collins Memorial Library and the Archives & Special Collections will be presenting a pop-up exhibit in the East Reading Room during the week of Veteran’s Day, November 8th-12th. The pop-up exhibit will feature reproductions of articles, documents, scrapbooks and other archival materials that show the history of military service at Puget Sound. The exhibit will also feature images of creative works, including artists’ books, which illustrate veteran’s experiences during wartime. Between 11am-1pm on Wednesday, Nov. 10th and Thursday, Nov. 11th, Archivist & Special Collections Librarian Adriana Flores ‘13 will be displaying original archival materials and answering questions about the items.

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Collins Library Links: Open Educational Resources, Open Textbooks, and Open Pedagogy

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Open Educational Resources, Open Textbooks,
and Open Pedagogy
November 2021

This year several faculty and staff members are participating in the AAC&U Institute on Open Educational Resources. Jane Carlin (Library), Margot Casson (Educational Technology) Heidi Morton (Education), Melvin Rouse (Psychology), and Ben Tucker (Library) are attending workshops, engaging in conversation and working to understand and improve the landscape at Puget Sound in order to create an environment where our students can best benefit from OER, open textbooks, and open pedagogy.

Collins Memorial Library has been supporting and promoting open educational resources for several years now, and our efforts have continued to gain momentum. A subset of the open access (OA), the open educational resources (OER) movement was largely inspired by the need to share and customize affordable resources for teaching and learning. Per SPARC’s definition, OER are “teaching, learning, and research resources released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others.”

OER can take many forms: lesson plans, assignments, games, or interactive media, but open textbooks have generated the most interest and publicity. Adopting open textbooks is a proven means of reducing costs to students and improving student performance and retention, especially those with greater economic need.

While OER are extremely powerful instruments of learning, open pedagogy plays an essential role in bridging the gap between content and transformational learning for students. Open pedagogy, also known as open education practices (OEP) invites students to participate in the co-creation of knowledge that is contributed to the commons through open licensing. Instructors can engage students in this creating sustainable assignments including development of texts in a similar fashion to the open source community.

Links

  • OER Explained
    An overview defining open educational resources as teaching, learning, and research resources released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OERs can be full courses, course materials, lesson plans, open textbooks, learning objects, videos, games, tests, software, or any other tool, material, or technique that supports access to knowledge.
  • Finding OER Content
    While there is no single centralized directory of all OERs, this page links to useful repositories of open textbooks and other OERs. This includes regional and disciplinary repositories.
  • Creative Commons Licenses
    Creative Commons are extremely important in the realm of Open Education, both for using existing materials and licensing newly created materials. This page is a useful introduction to a variety of Creative Commons licenses a variety of Creations.
  • Creative Commons for Creators
    For those looking to create OERs, and/or integrate OERs, this page will help you decide what Creative Commons license to use. It also provides great information about how to cite Creative Commons resources, including the Open WA Attribution Builder.

Need Information? Don’t forget the Collins Memorial Library – Library Guides
Questions? Contact your liaison librarian
Comments: Contact Jane Carlin, library director
Remember – Your best search engine is a librarian!

Connect with us!

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Open Access Journals

Image chart

Over the last few decades, the subscription cost of scholarly serial publications has grown at a rate far outpacing the rate of inflation. Caused largely by the concentration of academic journal publishing residing with a handful of commercial publishers, these price increases and the resulting strain it has caused for subscribing libraries, has become known as the serials crisis. This crisis has resulted in reduced access to scholarly journals for many institutions, and caused a budget shift away from monographs, and other resources, as libraries struggle to maintain access to desired journals.

The commercial publishers’ preferred business model of bundling a large number of journal titles together for a discounted aggregated package further complicates budget decisions for libraries, resulting in subscriptions to unwanted journals in order to access essential ones.

These practices, combined with budget restrictions, often result in impediments to free and open scholarly communication. OA journals, which provide free and unfettered access to their content, act as an alternative model that can alleviate some impediments to scholarly communication.

The Great Divide of Copyright Status image


OA journals use Creative Commons and other open licensing to permit open sharing of scholarly work without making the work public domain.  You can read more about Creative Commons Licensing on the library’s Scholarly Communications LibGuide.

Muddying the waters of OA and subscriptions to scholarly journals are a wide spectrum of hybrid options. Some journals allow authors to archive pre- or post-publication versions of articles on institutional or subject repositories after an embargo period. This model is sometimes referred to as green OA, in contrast to fully open OA journals that are referred to as gold OA. Furthermore, other journals use a pay for OA model where a publisher requires payment from the author for an article to be made freely available on the journal’s website. This can help increase access for readers, but often at a steep price for the author or their institution.

Collins Library provides access to many hundreds of OA Journals that are searchable in Primo, our online discovery tool.

Further Reading

Scholarly Communications LibGuide

SPARC

Creative Commons

Directory of Open Access Journals

By Ben Tucker

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Open Access (OA) Books

Similar to OA journal publishers, OA book publishers provide readers free access to scholarly monographs. Collins Library is a founding member of one such publisher, Lever Press. Supported by a consortium of liberal arts institutions focused on, and renowned for, excellence in both research and teaching, Lever is grounded in three essential commitments:

  • To be a digitally native press;
  • To be a peer-reviewed, open access press that charges no fees to either authors or their institutions; and
  • To be a press aligned with the ethos and mission of liberal arts colleges.

Lever Press’s model is based on member liberal arts college libraries paying annual dues to the press which cover its operating costs. Lever’s books are then made available at no cost to all readers in a digital format using a Creative Commons License of the author’s choosing.

Lever’s stated values are in alignment with the academic pursuits favored at Puget Sound. Lever Press’s value statement reads:

“As a press aligned with the ethos and mission of liberal arts colleges, we seek out, identify, evaluate, and advocate for transformative scholarship that spurs creative dialogue within and between traditional fields of inquiry, emphasizes disciplinary innovation, draws upon new models of collaborative research, and strives to reach the broadest audience possible. We value:

– leadership and the courage to push existing boundaries
– diverse voices and viewpoints
– the principles of equity and social justice
– building community among our members and beyond
– continuous learning

By living our values we will be responsive to the needs of readers, authors, and member institutions, share our liberal arts focus broadly, and engage globally with others in the exchange of new scholarship.”

“Open Access Week 2012” by OpenEdition is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In addition to support from Collins Memorial Library, Brett Rogers, Associate Professor and Chair, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, serves on Lever Press’s editorial board. The editorial board reviews proposals at various stages of the publication process, and votes on books to move ahead in the production pipeline. The editorial board also discusses programming that increases awareness of the press and its publications, and issues of institutional membership.

Further Reading

Lever Press

Directory of Open Access Books

Open Book Publishers

Open Humanities Press

– By Ben Tucker

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Sound Ideas: Open Access at Puget Sound


Sound Ideas represents the scholarship and creative works of the faculty, staff and students of the University of Puget Sound. Organized and made accessible by Collins Memorial Library, Sound Ideas demonstrates our institutional commitment to helping enrich the global academic community through sharing and collaboration.

Sound Ideas provides faculty members a venue for posting iterations of their published work, in compliance with their publishers’ license, resulting in increased user access, as well as providing a means of complying with the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act. Faculty members who are unsure about what a publisher’s license permits in relation to posting work on personal websites or institutional repositories can contact their liaison librarian for a consultation.

Faculty members can self-submit their work to Sound Ideas if they’ve retained the required rights. First time users will need to create an account, while returning users can simply login, fill out a form with descriptive information, and upload their work.

Sound Ideas content is accessed by users around the world

Notable scholarly collections:

  • Faculty Scholarship in Sound Ideas 
    This collection acts as a partial index of faculty members’ published works. Where possible, we have provided links to summary or full text versions of these works.
  • Conferences & Events in Sound Ideas 
    The University of Puget Sound is host to many conferences and special events throughout the year. These collections include program information, proceedings and videos from the events.
  • Race & Pedagogy Journal
    This peer-reviewed OA journal provides a forum for cultivating  critical discussions around the issues of teaching and race in an effort to mitigate the effects of discrimination and structural racism, and thereby, improve education for all students. R&PJ is managed and edited by the University of Puget Sound under the auspices of the Race and Pedagogy Institute.


Some journal publishers allow authors to pay for individual articles to be fully Open Access. Fees vary, but can be significant at times. The University Enrichment Committee facilitates funding opportunities for faculty members seeking Open Access or other publication fees. Details can be found on the Faculty Research Guidelines Document.  

Further Reading

Sound Ideas

Sound Ideas Libguide

-By Ben Tucker

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It’s Open Access Week!

Collins Memorial Library is recognizing Open Access Week Oct 25-31.

Open Access (OA) refers to freely available, digital, online information. Open access scholarly literature is free of charge to the user and often carries less restrictive copyright and licensing barriers than traditionally published works, for both the users and the authors. “Introduction to OA” by University of Washington Libraries is licensed under CC BY 4.0

The Open Access movement was birthed from a conference of the Open Society Institute, where attendees drafted the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was published in early 2002. The initiative called for using new technology to develop an “unprecedented public good” through free exchange of scholarly literature. The document went on to describe this define this as Open Access:

“By ‘open access’ to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”

Open Access Explained, a short video from PHD Comic gives a great overview of the context in which Open Access provides important benefits.

Creative Commons

Copyright is the intellectual property law that protects a creative work from theft or misuse.  It is the creator’s legal claim to the works that he or she creates. By default, any original creative work is copyrighted to the creator when that work is expressed in a tangible form.  

Creative Commons’ easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”

Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.


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Collins Library Links: Collins Library Completes NEH Grant – Resources to Support Teaching & Learning

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Collins Library Completes NEH Grant
Resources to Support Teaching & Learning

https://www2.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/collins-memorial-library/archives/digital-teaching-collections/

In June 2020, Collins Library received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) CARES grant to create a suite of digital teaching collections. We transformed some of our most highly requested archival instruction sessions into digital teaching collections that include primary source materials and activities for undergraduate and K-12 students. There are eight digital teaching collections covering a wide variety of subjects. The collections are designed to be used independently or integrated into a class.  They serve as great starting points for student research and special projects, as well as opportunity to introduce topics to a class prior to a visit to the Archives & Special Collections. 

Kudos to our dedicated team of librarians who worked throughout the last year to create these important digital teaching resources that document Puget Sound collections and history and are also freely accessible to educators throughout the world.  Team members included:  Peggy Burge, Jane Carlin, Katy Curtis, Laura Edgar, Adriana Flores, Hilary Robbeloth and Angela Weaver, as well as our two Humanities scholars hired with grant funds, Helen Edwards and Brittany Kealy.  Each collection consists of:

  1. Introduction: The introductory page includes the date range of the materials, list of contributors, a “How to Use” guide, and a rotating gallery of select documents from the collection.
  2. Overview Essay: Want to understand how these archival items work together? Read our overview essay to better understand the greater context of the objects and the histories that surround them. 
  3. List of Sources: Visit the list of primary sources to read descriptive text that our librarians have written. These descriptions will help you better understand the object and will jumpstart your research. Click on the image to be taken to a digital database where you’ll find a larger version of the object, more details about it, and be able to download a copy to use for research.
  4. Teaching Guide: These collections have been designed with students and educators in mind. Visit our Teaching Guide to find discussion questions, activity ideas, and later this fall we’ll be adding complete lesson plans for K-12 and undergraduate audiences. 
  5. Additional Resources: The search for primary sources does not stop with one institution! We’ve listed other digital collections and repositories that have archival sources relevant to this topic as well as tips for continuing your research.

Abby Williams Hill: Artist and Advocate
This collection focuses on the life and work of landscape painter Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943).

Accordion Books: Interplay Between Form and Content
This collection focuses on accordion books, which are a specific type of artists’ book.
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Artists’ Books: Primary Sources to Foster Creativity and Imagination
This collection focuses on the art and form of artists’ books.
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Bringing Women’s Studies to Puget Sound
This collection focuses on the beginning of the Women’s Studies program at the University of Puget Sound.
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A History of Blackface and Minstrel Shows
at Puget Sound

This collection focuses on a history of black-face and minstrel shows at the University of Puget Sound.
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Japanese American Incarceration during World War II
This collection focuses on the experiences of Japanese American students at Puget Sound who were incarcerated during World War II.
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Systemic Racism in Greek Life at Puget Sound in the 1960s
This collection investigates systemic racism in Greek Life at the University of Puget Sound during the 1960s.
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Tourism and Conservation in the National Parks
This collection investigates the topics of tourism and conservation in American national parks in the early
20th century.

Need Information? Don’t forget the Collins Memorial Library – Library Guides
Questions? Contact your liaison librarian
Comments: Contact Jane Carlin, library director
Remember – Your best search engine is a librarian!

Connect with us!

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