People

Milton Watkins, Regenstein Entry Attendant, 1925–2016

A dedicated member of the University of Chicago Library staff for nearly two decades, Milton Watkins warmly greeted students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors at the Regenstein entry desk between 1992 and 2012. He died of multiple myeloma on April 13 at the age of 90.

Milton Watkins

Milton Watkins in front of Regenstein Library (Photo by Kiku Hibino)

Often referred to as the “Face of the Place,” Milton was the first person most people saw when entering the Joseph Regenstein Library.  He was able to make everyone who entered the Library feel welcome—students, faculty, and staff (some of whom came at exactly the same time each day), alumni, prospective students and their families, visiting scholars, and the occasional tourist who wanted to see Regenstein or Mansueto. He provided expert assistance when requested to both first-time visitors and long-time library users.

Milton began working at the University after a very full life.  He grew up at 38th and Federal on the South Side, attending Edward Hardigan Grammar School and Wendell Phillips High School.  Following graduation, he served in the U.S. Army as a radar technician and troop instructor between 1944 and 1952. After returning to Chicago, Milton wed his fiancée Mary, who survives him.  Milton worked for the American Maize Products Company for 30 years; he also worked for the United States Post Office for 27 years as a postal clerk.  It was only after these retirements that he came to the Library.

Outside of the Library, much of Milton’s time was spent sharing in the ministries of St. John Church-Baptist at 48th and Michigan, where he served for many years as a deacon.  Milton’s dedication to the service of others as a church deacon carried over to his work at the Library.  He was a wonderful listener and helpful counselor whose smile and laugh could cheer up almost anyone.

For those entering Regenstein who Milton saw every day, his cheery “How are you doing?” made the day special.  For Library staff, his big smile and his reminder that “there’s a lot to do in a big place like this” also helped to make the work day special.  His friendly presence created a welcoming environment throughout the entire Library.

In addition to his wife, Mary, Milton is survived by his son-in-law Daniel Adams, his grandchildren (Danny Adams, Sheena Adams, Quintin Adams), and his great grandchildren (Devon Adams, Jordan Davis, Danyel Adams).  Milton’s daughter and Daniel’s wife, Anita Watkins-Adams, died in 2012.

A memorial visitation will be held on Saturday, April 23 at St. John Church-Baptist, 4821 S. Michigan beginning at 10 a.m. until the 11 a.m. funeral service.

William Alspaugh, area studies librarian, 1942-2016

William Josiah AlspaughWilliam Josiah Alspaugh, known to his Library colleagues as Bill, died on January 24, 2016 at the age of 73 after a lengthy and varied career at the University of Chicago Library.

Bill worked in the Southern Asia Department from 1978 to 1997. One of Bill’s notable academic accomplishments was his collaboration from 1978 to 1981 with Maureen L. P. Patterson in compilation of the much-lauded South Asian Civilizations: A Bibliographic Synthesis, published in 1981 by the University of Chicago Press. From 1981 to 1997 he served as Assistant to the Bibliographer for Southern Asia. He also served as Associate Editor of South Asia Library Notes and Queries. His engagement during the 1980s and early 1990s in the preparation of the Indological Books in Series database was of pivotal importance, as was his contribution to the subsequent preservation of books described in that resource. Many of our graduate students benefited from his intelligence and generosity as a South Asia reference librarian.

Bill started working at the East Asian Collection in 1997, initially part-time, and soon assumed the duty of Chinese Bibliographer full-time. Later, he became Chinese Bibliographer/Cataloger, splitting his time between collection development, public services, and cataloging. For more than 10 years, he built the Chinese studies collection in western languages while also selecting many titles in Chinese language. Bill’s knowledge of the research resources for Chinese studies, especially those in western languages, was of great benefit to many graduate and undergrad students through the reference and consultation services he provided.

Bill retired from his Chinese Bibliographer/Cataloger position in 2008, but remained as a part-time Chinese cataloger until May 2011, and then again from March 2013 to 2015. Throughout his years with the East Asian Collection, Bill made great contributions, making a large number of newly acquired Chinese books accessible to patrons through his efforts in original cataloging.

After retirement in 2011, he volunteered at Cheena Bhavan, the Institute of Chinese Language and Culture, in Santiniketan near Calcutta, cataloging their Chinese collection.

Bill was fluent in Mandarin, Hindi, and French. He also studied Tamil language. He was a merit scholar during his secondary education in Oklahoma City. Bill received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and attended Stanford University where the Air Force sent him to the Defense Language Institute. There he studied Mandarin and subsequently monitored mainland China radio broadcasts from Taiwan and Okinawa. After discharge, he worked for Aetna for several years before returning to the University of Chicago for graduate study in the Department of East Asian Studies and, while a graduate student, to work in the Library. He earned a master’s degree in library science from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School while working in the Library’s Southern Asia Department.

Bill was an intellectual shaped by his studies in the University of Chicago’s College and his years of close collaboration with colleagues in the Library, faculty, and our students. He said that he read articles in scholarly journals with a relish and zeal comparable to that exhibited by others in their reading of mysteries.

Bill is survived by a sister, Elizabeth Beasley, and two nephews, Robert Barrett Beasley and Charles Emory Alspaugh II.

Library launches new residency program

Kaitlin Springmier joins UChicago as Resident Librarian for Online Learning

The University of Chicago Library launched a new residency program this fall that will expand staff expertise in new and rapidly developing areas of librarianship. The program is designed to bring top recent graduates of library and information science programs and relevant graduate programs to Chicago for two-year residencies focused on particular areas of expertise.

“This new residency program provides up-and-coming librarians and information specialists with an exciting opportunity to share new skill sets while collaborating with experienced colleagues to advance the development of twenty-first century library services,” said Brenda Johnson, Library Director and University Librarian.

Kaitlin Springmier

Kaitlin Springmier, Resident Librarian for Online Learning

The first resident in this new program, Kaitlin Springmier, joined the Library in September as Resident Librarian for Online Learning. She came to Chicago from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she completed a Master of Library Science and worked as an Instruction Assistant at the UW -Madison Memorial Library. She has experience creating interactive e-learning tutorials and using new instructional designs, including embedded librarianship in online courses.

“We’re delighted that Kaitlin has joined the Library,” said E-Learning Librarian Julie Piacentine. “She is familiar with key research on developing online learning and has experience designing modules that achieve specific learning outcomes.”

Springmier will work with reference librarians and subject specialists to develop, implement, and assess multi-media e-learning tools, resources, and services that support research, teaching, and learning at the University. High priority projects include development of a mini-course on tracking citations and creating bibliographies, as well as more specialized tutorials designed to meet the needs of students working in specific disciplines.

“This residency will help us increase the amount of self-service help that’s available whenever students need it,” Piacentine explained.

This first residency was made possible by generous gifts from Library Visiting Committee members Preston Torbert and Diana Hunt King, who saw the value of educating students in how to navigate complex and rapidly evolving online research environments.

Visit youtube.com/user/uchicagolibrary to see the latest online tutorials offered by the Library.

Growing the Residency Program

The Library has developed a set of possible residencies that could allow it to offer additional services in a wide variety of areas, as funding becomes available. Among the proposed positions are a Bioinformatics Resident Librarian who would support students and faculty who collect and analyze complex biological data such as genetic codes. A Data Services Resident Librarian would help students and faculty to use statistical databases, geographic information systems, data visualization, and other tools for field research, such as software for processing interviews and ethnographic field notes. A Digital Archivist Resident Librarian in the Special Collections Research Center would work with the University Archivist and the Archives staff to plan and implement a strategy for systematic transfers of electronic records to the Library Digital Repository. A Clinical Law Programs Resident Librarian would help to provide law students with legal research skills training that supports their work in experiential clinical programs in areas such as environmental law, international human rights, corporate law, civil rights, employment discrimination, and juvenile justice.

The residency program is expected to change over time as funding for new positions is obtained and the needs of the Library evolve.

 

PhD student interns gain new perspectives at the Library

When the call went out for summer internship ideas for the University of Chicago’s Graduate Global Impact program, librarians on campus recognized a dual opportunity. PhD students could develop new perspectives on scholarship by working with librarians on important projects, while the work they accomplished could enhance the Library’s offerings for its many users.

Special Collections Intern Ellen Ambrosone with blueprints

Special Collections Intern Ellen Ambrosone with blueprints (Photo by John Zich)

Four interns—Rafadi Hakim, Ellen Ambrosone, Marco Torres, and Eric Phillips—were hired for summer 2015. Through their internships, they gained new insights into the local and global impact of librarianship and scholarship.

The skills these interns developed in the Library can help them in a wide range of environments in the future. “The primary objective of the internship program is to provide graduate students with flexible training that can help them prepare for careers in academia, nonprofits, government, and industry,” said A-J Aronstein, Associate Director of Graduate Career Development and Employer Relations. “The kind of skills that one develops in the Library—including digital skills, coding, and archival research—are just as vital for jobs on the tenure track as they are for jobs in other fields.”

Digital South Asia Library Intern Rafadi Hakim

A PhD student in Anthropology, Rafadi Hakim, was hired to help expand and enhance the presentation of data and texts in the Digital South Asia Library (DSAL). His projects ranged from writing a grant application with librarians to adding digital facsimiles to the DSAL website.

Hakim jumped at the chance to be involved in the digital humanities. “Sometimes as a student, I feel I’m spending so much time fine tuning small parts of my own paper for just a few people,” he said. But, when working on the DSAL, he explained, “It’s not just about this exclusive circle. It’s massively helpful to people in different countries.” His work this summer required thinking about how to best serve students, scholars, and others with varying degrees of fluency in South Asian languages and varying amounts of Internet bandwidth.

Hakim also appreciates the new perspectives on scholarship that he gained from working with James Nye, Bibliographer for Southern Asia, and Laura Ring, Cataloger and Assistant South Asia Librarian.   “It’s nice to get some mentoring from people in addition to the faculty in your own department,” he said.

Rafadi Hakim

Rafadi Hakim examines an image that will be added to the Digital South Asia Library. (Photo by John Zich)

 

Special Collections Intern Ellen Ambrosone

Over the last several years in particular, Special Collections has received an enormous influx of architectural drawings. “They’re hanging on racks; they’re in drawers; they’re in archival boxes,” said Kathleen Feeney, Head of Archives Processing and Digital Access. “Our best estimate is that there are 117,000 of them. We know we have them from the entire history of the University, from landscape drawings to electrical plans, but when we hired Ellen, we didn’t have a strong inventory.”

Ambrosone, a PhD candidate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, welcomed the opportunity to participate in the first phase of a multi-year project to preserve and make these drawings accessible. She began the compilation of an inventory of the drawings, so that researchers can more readily understand what is available.

Processing Archivist Ashley Locke Gosselar, who helped to direct Ambrosone’s work on the project, emphasized its importance. “Our campus—and the city at large—is renowned for its architecture. What Ellen is doing is helping to preserve that legacy.”

Ambrosone expects to use the skills she developed in her own work, and to share her knowledge with others. “Having a working knowledge of archiving and processing the collection makes me a more well-rounded scholar,” she said. “I’m thinking about how I can incorporate this experience into my teaching to show students how the work scholars do is often built on work done by library professionals.”

Citation Analysis Intern Marco Torres

History PhD candidate Marco Torres joined the Library this summer to analyze citations used in recent UChicago Latin American studies dissertations. “One of the goals of the project is to help us make decisions about what resources should be purchased in the future based on the type of materials PhD students are using,” explained Ellen Bryan, Reference Librarian and Head of the Dissertation Office.

Torres’s own dissertation proposal was approved shortly before his internship began. He plans to go to Mexico City to do research on the labor movement in the late 1930s and its role in Mexican politics. He particularly valued the opportunity to discover the kinds of sources recent graduates used in studying Mexico.

“A lot of what we do as scholars is to look at bibliographies and see patterns in them,” Torres said. “Getting that recent bibliography is not so easy, sometimes.” One unexpected trend he observed was that recent political science bibliographies cite trade publications outside the social sciences, in fields such as medicine.

ACASA Intern Eric Phillips

History PhD student Eric Phillips first met June Farris, the Library’s Bibliographer for Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies, when consulting the Library’s Archives of Czechs & Slovaks Abroad (ACASA) for a seminar paper on the transformation of Pressburg into Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak half of newly independent Czechoslovakia in post-World War I Europe. He is studying the Czech language and preparing to write his dissertation on the economic history of interwar Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Eric Phillips

ACASA Intern Eric Phillips (Photo by John Zich)

Farris mentioned to Phillips some time ago that ACASA needed to be reorganized. New materials were waiting to be integrated into the original schema devised by early collector Zdenek Hruban, and old materials needed to be rehoused to make room for them. During his internship, Phillips immersed himself in this project. He was delighted to be the first to go through Professor Hruban’s papers and fascinated to see a copy of the Nuremberg testimony of Petr Zenkl, a mayor of Prague, who was sent by the Nazis to Buchenwald concentration camp.

“For the last two summers, I’ve been going to the archives in Prague and trying to navigate them. It’s been a challenging experience,” Phillips said in August. “Now I’m on the other side, learning how archives are organized.”

“Being a historian, archival research is the ultimate goal, so the more you do of it, the more competent a researcher you are, and the more it can help you develop themes in your area,” said Farris.

Hakim, Torres and Phillips’s internships were sponsored by the Division of the Social Sciences Emerging Leaders Initiative. Ambrosone’s internship was sponsored by UChicago GRAD.

Recent awards mark latest in D’Angelo’s long history of service and accolades

Significant honors that recognized members of the D’Angelo Law Library staff this year were the latest in a string of accolades for the University of Chicago’s law librarians, whose dedication to their field has long been marked by service to local and national library groups.

Todd Ito

Todd Ito

This spring, Lorna Tang, who retired in June as the Associate Law Librarian for Technical Services after 38 years at the D’Angelo, was given the Chicago Association of Law Libraries (CALL) Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Law Librarianship Award, and Foreign and International Law Librarian Lyonette Louis-Jacques was given the Global Legal Skills Award for Outstanding Contributions to International Legal Skills Education, as well as a top marketing award from the American Association of Law Libraries, the profession’s national association. Todd Ito, the D’Angelo’s Coordinator of Instruction and Outreach, was also elected Vice President/President-elect of Chicago Association of Law Libraries, becoming the most recent D’Angelo librarian to hold a top leadership position with the organization.

“The D’Angelo librarians have always had a strong commitment to service in professional law library associations,” said Sheri Lewis, Director of the D’Angelo Law Library. “This commitment is reflected not only in the awards bestowed on University of Chicago law librarians but in the ongoing respect from colleagues who actively seek and rely upon D’Angelo leadership in the professional community.”

Tang—who managed her staff through two major renovations of the library building, each time reorganizing work spaces and revising workflows—was the third librarian associated with the D’Angelo to win CALL’s lifetime achievement award.  The award, also given in 2013 to retired D’Angelo Law Library Director Judith M. Wright and in 2012 to former D’Angelo librarian Judith Gaskell, recognizes an “outstanding contribution to the Chicago law library community” and “consistently high levels of noteworthy professional contribution.” Tang became a member of CALL in 1977 and served on numerous committees.

Louis-Jacques received her award at the Global Legal Skills Conference, which is a leading international gathering for global skills education. She was honored for her 2013 book, International Law Legal Research, which was designed to show how to research sources of international law and help schools create stand-alone courses in international law legal research. She also won the 2015 Excellence in Marketing Award, Best Newsletter from AALL. It recognized the Chicago Association of Law Libraries’ CALL Bulletin, which Louis-Jacques co-edited.

Ito, who has been involved with CALL since he moved to Chicago in 2006 to work at the D’Angelo, also became the organization’s incoming Vice President and President-elect this spring.

“CALL has enabled me to connect with so many colleagues at other law school libraries, as well as at law firm, court, government, and public law libraries in the area,” Ito said. “Other AALL chapters are very spread out geographically, and the close proximity is a real benefit. We see each other at business meetings and other programs throughout the year, so we get more of a chance to get to know each other. That has made it easy for me to be able to reach out to another academic law librarians in the city to discuss what they’re doing with legal research instruction, or to talk to a law firm colleague about what legal research databases they’re using.”

The D’Angelo Law Library has a long history of high-profile accolades and appointments, for example:

  • AALL’s Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award—one of the highest awards a law librarian can receive—has been given four times to a law librarian who has worked at the D’Angelo. Former D’Angelo librarians Nancy Johnson (2012), Adolf Sprudzs (2000), Elizabeth Benyon (1992), and Leon M. Liddell (1989) all received this honor.
  • Five members of the AALL Hall of Fame at one time worked for the D’Angelo: Wright, Johnson, Benyon, Liddell, and Sprudzs.
  • Librarians associated with the D’Angelo have won nine major awards from the CALL, including three for lifetime achievement. Lewis also won the Agnes and Harry Reid Award for Outstanding Contribution to Law Librarianship in 2011.
  • Two D’Angelo law librarians have served as president of CALL. Margaret Schilt, the Associate Law Librarian for User Services, in 2014 – 2015, and Lewis in 2008 – 2009.
  • All of the D’Angelo librarians have held leadership positions in CALL at some point. Head of Cataloging Patricia Sayre-McCoy served on the Executive Board and has chaired several CALL committees and is now on the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2016 AALL Annual Meeting. Common Law Bibliographer Bill Schwesig led the CALL’s Internet Committee for several years. Catalog Librarian Michael D. Brown and Faculty Services Librarian Thomas Drueke have participated in CALL committees.
  • At the national level, Louis-Jacques also has been on the AALL Executive Board and she, along with Lewis, Ito, and Sayre-McCoy, have chaired AALL special interest sections and/or committees. Interim Head of Technical Services Julie Stauffer is a co-editor of the Technical Services section bulletin.
  • Reference and Virtual Access Librarian Connie Fleischer currently is serving on the Illinois Government Depository Council, an advisory group to the Illinois State Library on government information issues.
  • Sprudzs, a former D’Angelo Foreign and International Law Librarian who was instrumental in building and expanding the D’Angelo’s foreign law collection, was a founding member and former president of International Association of Law Librarians in 1959.

“Librarians are born collaborators and rely on their professional networks both to keep current on new developments in legal information but also to enhance library services. We all have many stories about impressing a faculty member or student by getting a hidden gem for them,” Lewis said. “Law library associations are part of the secret to our success—it is not only what you know but who you know.”

A University of Chicago Law School news release

Alumni honor Ray Gadke with named student internship

The longtime keeper of the Library’s microforms—and longtime wearer of Hawaiian shirts—becomes the namesake for a new student internship

Ray Gadke

Ray Gadke. (Photo by Hannah Gitlin)

On a Thursday in late June, Raymond Gadke, AM’66, walked into a restaurant filled with a sea of Hawaiian shirts, and those shirts were filled with University students and alumni of different ages. When Gadke, himself dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, sat down amid this sea, John Boyer, AM’69, PhD’79, the dean of the College, presented him with a giant check for $75,000.

This was the culmination of a fundraising effort to establish an internship honoring Gadke, a longtime University of Chicago Library staff member. More than 50 alumni—many of whom were in the room, wearing those Hawaiian shirts—raised $75,000 to create the Ray Gadke Internship Fund Established by Friends of Ray to Endow Undergraduate Internships (as it says on Gadke’s plaque commemorating the occasion). The fund will be part of UChicago’s larger Metcalf Internship Program, which offers undergraduate students paid experience in their chosen field. The Metcalf program was established in 1997 by University trustee (and Gadke internship donor) Byron Trott, AB’81, MBA’82.  

Brooks Dexter, AB’79, MBA’84, led the fundraising effort for the internship honoring Gadke. Now managing director at corporate finance advising firm Duff and Phelps, Dexter was, once upon a time—like nearly all those who gave money to the internship fund—a College student working for Gadke in the Reg’s microforms library. “For more than 40 years, Ray has been helping undergraduates make the journey from College to the next step in their lives,” Dexter says. He calls Gadke a friend and a mentor. “Those of us in Ray’s employ were known as ‘Ray’s Rangers.’” For the past 15 years, Gadke has sent a daily email of “fun facts” to his network of friends and former employees, “including a happy birthday wish to any Rangers with a birthday that day,” Dexter says. (The August 3 email, which stretches to 15 pages, notes that on that day in 1492, “Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos [Spain, not Illinois] with his three ships, seeking a westward route to India and China” and that in 1946, “what some historians consider the first ‘theme park’ in the world, Santa Claus Land, opened in Santa Claus, Indiana.”)

And why the Hawaiian shirts? Because Gadke wears them just about every day, and has ever since he saw Elvis Presley in the film Blue Hawaii. “I had worn button down shirts and stuff like that, but I thought, these are nice, and I got in the habit of wearing them,” he says.

Gadke’s job title is reading room manager, but he has worn many hats during his time at the University. He arrived in the 1960s as a history graduate student, studying the role of religion in American immigrants’ assimilation, an interest that he has maintained and that inspired his sizable collection of religious figurines from shuttered Chicago-area churches. During Gadke’s academic research, he’d met a number of local priests, and when the Archdiocese of Chicago decided to close some of its churches, “one of the pastors called me and told me, ‘I’ve got a church full of statues, what can I do with them?’ And so I said, Hey, that’s kind of a neat idea,’ and so I started acquiring them.” Gadke keeps a few of these statues in his office on the third floor of the Regenstein Library, but says that walking into his apartment, which has about 45 of these statues, kind of feels like walking into a church.

In 1971 Gadke was hired to supervise the microfilms collection, which is headquartered on the third floor of the library. Later his jurisdiction grew to encompass current periodicals as well, and now his job includes care of all of the library’s reading rooms: the periodical reading room on the second floor, the reference collections throughout the library, and and, of course, the microfilms.

Microfilms have been an important method of document preservation from the early 20th century through the end of the 20th century. After that, digitization took over, but microfilms remain important because of the volume of material they still store: newspapers, magazines, photographs, and countless other documents. Creating microfilms involved sliding individual documents under a projector and taking photographs of these documents using a film camera. This process, as Gadke explains, was equivalent to today’s digitization.

The University was one of the very first institutions to have an academic microfilm collection. Herman Fussler, AM’41, PhD’48, the former director of the UChicago Library system, started the University’s Department of Photoduplication, which produced massive amounts of microfilm in the basement of Cobb Hall (where the coffee shop is today) until its closing in 1995. Fussler created some of the very first academic microfilm when he sailed to Paris on an ocean liner full of microfilm equipment in order to catalog French Revolutionary newspapers from 1788 to 1791—film that UChicago still has. Though the University no longer maintains the Department of Photoduplication, microfilm still contains an amazing amount of knowledge about an incredible range of topics.

And Gadke himself has an amazing amount of knowledge about an incredible range of topics. At the library he helps patrons—students, scholars, visitors—find the research they need. “Everyone’s looking for something different,” he says. “People come from all over the world to use our collection. A lot of the things that we have, we are the only place in the country that has them.” That includes original copies of Revolutionary French newspapers, old Irish newspapers obtained for a professor studying Ireland, Armenian newspapers—as well as the good old Chicago Maroon. “We have people that want to look from the glory days of Big Ten football, want to come and read about Amos Alonzo Stagg and University of Chicago football. Right where we are”—he was standing in the Regenstein Library—”were football stands that held 40,000 people, and got up to 60,000.”

Gadke is approaching his 45th year working as a full-time staff member, which means that he’s worked at the Library for longer than any other man on the staff. When I asked him how it came to pass that he ended up working at the library, he told me, “It just kinda happened. You know, I got a job that I enjoyed, and it’s where I’ve been since.”

The article originally appeared on the University of Chicago Magazine website.

Meet new Business & Economics Librarian for Instruction & Outreach Emily Treptow

Treptow Emily2014Emily Treptow joined the University of Chicago Library on June 1 as the new Business & Economics Librarian for Instruction & Outreach.  She came to us from Michigan State University where she was a Business Reference Librarian from November 2012 to May 2015.

Below, Emily has answered questions about her plans for her work at the University of Chicago 

How do you envision working with faculty and students in your new role here?

I am very excited about my new role, which is also a brand new position at the library.  It was created with leeway for me to spend time outside the library to meet with students and faculty at the locations most convenient for them.  I will be available to travel to Booth’s Harper Center and Gleacher Center and to the Economics Department in Saieh Hall to provide research assistance via office hours and instruction.  I also envision leveraging this flexibility by attending relevant discussions and workshops on campus to better equip myself to build a program of outreach that will provide the research services that faculty and students need.  I hope to be involved in orientation sessions for new Booth and Economics students, in addition to providing increased point of need services and instruction.

Do you have a sense of what you’d like to accomplish in your first year at University of Chicago?

In my first year, I would like to spend time meeting with Booth and Economics students, staff and faculty to learn more about their needs and how I can create services to meet those needs.  I would also like use social media as another means for building these connections. 

UChicago faculty and students are encouraged to contact Emily with questions or requests for assistance with business & economics research, teaching and learning. You can reach Emily at etreptow@uchicago.edu or 773.834.3415.

Meet new Science Research Services Librarian Michelle Bass

michelle bassMichelle Bass joined the University of Chicago Library on July 1 as the new Science Research Services Librarian.

Michelle has a MSI from the University of Michigan School of Information and PhD from the University of Wisconsin – Madison School of Education. Michelle held a University Library Associate, Graduate Student Assistantship position at the Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan from August 2013-June 2015.

Barbara Kern interviewed Michelle about her experiences and plans for her work at UChicago.

How do you envision working with faculty and students in your new role here?

One of my main goals in this new position is to serve as a welcoming “concierge” between faculty and students and the information professionals working in the library, particularly when it comes to data information literacy and data management services.   I want to be knowledgeable about the topics and discussions going on across departments and fields of study as they relate to research services and create opportunities for me to share and suggest new technologies and databases, software options, and trends with faculty and students.  I hope to be involved in orientation sessions for new graduate students in all science departments and continue my participation and relationship building with students and faculty throughout the year through my attendance and contributions to monthly seminars and brown-bag lunches across centers and schools.  Getting students interested and invested in the importance of data information literacy and research service best practices will be a main goal complemented by building relationships with faculty who are interested in becoming advocates and partners in sharing a passion, and respect, for research services.

Michelle, what originally got you interested in science libraries?

This is one of those times when I can say “I blame my mother” and mean it as a wonderful compliment.  My mother has worked at medical libraries for nearly forty years.  I knew that there were other kinds of libraries out there in the world beyond my local public library and school’s media center growing up.  However, my interest in science librarianship as a professional option was really cultivated over the past two years through my experiences working at the Taubman Health Sciences Library at the University of Michigan and networking with many medical and science librarians at national and regional conferences.

What are some of the highlights of your time as a Graduate Student Assistantship at the Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan?

Traditional health sciences library-focused highlights included instruction sessions with students in their first through fourth years of medical school and the opportunity to work with the Associate Dean of Medical Student Education to craft many of these sessions.  I was the information professional lead on a systematic review on the effects of bullying on LGBTQ students and worked with a Public Health and School of Information professor on creating a data management plan for an extensive scoping review of consumer health informatics literature.  I was also encouraged and able to take continuing education and professional development courses including PubMed for Trainers and Expert Searching.  As a member of the social committee, I was a co-organizer of the Donut Madness bracket challenge during the NCAA March Madness tournament and am proud that this delicious event is now an annual tradition at Taubman Health Sciences Library.

What are the key challenges or trends that you see in libraries today?

A key challenge facing academic libraries today is expanding the concept of what defines a library.  For me, a library is defined by the people who work in them and the skills and information they make accessible in addition to the materials they hold within their walls.  Importantly, they are not confined by the walls of their physical library spaces but rather move and travel with the services and knowledge shared by information professionals representing their library as institutions wherever they go.  With respect to the librarianship profession, I think a major opportunity is presenting itself as a generation of librarians prepare for retirement.  The curriculum of my mother’s master in library science degree and my own share few, if any, similarities beyond the fact that they are both American Library Association accredited.  It is up to both incoming professionals and long-standing pillars of the profession to proactively connect with one another to ensure institutional and professional knowledge is shared and cultivated to help rising leaders respond to the challenges ahead.

What do you like best about Chicago (the city) so far?

While Chicago definitely falls under the “big city” category, I have found that the distinct neighborhoods within the city make it much more manageable and inviting.  I decided to live in Hyde Park to be able to walk to work, and I have truly enjoyed getting to know my new neighborhood.  I’ve always lived in the suburbs and had to drive to shops and grocery stores; now, Treasure Island is a 7 minute walk and Hyde Park Produce is 15.  The Museum of Science and Industry is 2 blocks away and I’m a short(ish) bus or train ride away from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Shedd Aquarium.  So, a few weeks in, I have to say that getting to know the Hyde Park neighborhood has been the best part about Chicago, so far.

UChicago faculty and students are encouraged to contact Michelle with questions or requests for assistance with science research, teaching and learning. You can reach Michelle at mbbass@uchicago.edu or 773-702-8774.

Sandra Roscoe, Reference Librarian and Bibliographer for Current Fiction, 1947-2015

A dedicated member of the Joseph Regenstein Library’s Reference Department for 39 years, Sandra Roscoe helped generations of students and faculty members find the resources they needed. She died of a stroke on Friday, May 29 at the age of 67.

“Sandy was the consummate reference librarian,” said Jeffry Archer, Head of Reference Instruction and Outreach at Regenstein. “She was passionate about helping patrons, bringing her extensive knowledge of our institution and our print and electronic resources to bear on any question until the answer, resource, or right person was found to fulfill the patron’s need.”

Sandra Roscoe

Sandra Roscoe in 2009 (Photo by Lloyd DeGrane)

Sandy began work at the University of Chicago Library in 1975 as an Assistant Reference Librarian and was later promoted to Reference Librarian. Beginning in 1980, she had selection responsibilities for current English and American fiction.

“Sandy was such a great resource for students,” said Judith Dartt, AM’06, the Digitization Manager for the Library’s Special Collections Research Center. “When I came here as a graduate student, I always received the attention and help I needed from her. Sandy did wonderful work for Special Collections, too, during the time she provided reference support.”

Sandy received her B.A. in English Literature with distinction and honors from Mount Holyoke College.  After two years of graduate study in English at Clemson University, she went to University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she earned her M.S. in Library Science and was elected to Beta Phi Mu, the librarians’ honor society.

During the 1990s, Sandy participated actively in the development of the library catalog Horizon and served on numerous committees including the Media Review and Implementation and Digital Resources Delivery Group.  She enjoyed writing, edited the orientation newsletter in the early 1980s, and served as the Regenstein Coordinator of Public Information in the late 1990s, helping to supply information about the Library to campus publications and other media.  She served on the Reference Advisory Subcommittee of the Virtual Access Committee, and in the early 2000’s assisted with exhibition planning and provided reference service for Reader Services in Special Collections. 

“As our colleague, Sandy infused us with her excitement, sharing questions and resources that came to her while providing reference,” said Archer. “And she made us feel special, often bringing in baked goodies like her amazing ginger cookies.”

Sandy is survived by her brother-in-law, Kent Rigsby, and her niece, Dr. Dana Gossett. 

Donations in Sandy’s memory may be made to the University of Chicago Library’s Fund for Books, which supports the purchase of print and digital resources. To make a gift, contact the Library Development Office at 773-702-7695.

 

Alice Schreyer, Associate University Librarian for Area Studies and Special Collections, leaves UChicago

Alice Schreyer will be leaving the University of Chicago Library to join the Newberry Library as the Roger and Julie Baskes Vice President for Collections and Library Services on August 24. Alice’s last day at UChicago will be July 17.

Alice Schreyer

Alice Schreyer

“Alice has accomplished a tremendous amount for the Library since her arrival in 1991,” said Brenda Johnson, Library Director and University Librarian at the University of Chicago. Serving initially as Curator and then Director of Special Collections through 2011, she fundamentally reconceived and expanded collections, programs, and spaces to emphasize and encourage the use of rare and unique materials by faculty and students at all levels. Among the collections added to the Library during Alice’s tenure are the Saul Bellow Papers, the Barbara and Bill Yoffee Collection of African-American Children’s Literature, the Bibliotheca Homerica Langiana, and the Daniel Clowes Archive. Alice supported the retrospective conversion of Special Collections catalog records, the encoding of archives and manuscript finding aids in EAD, and the launch of the Aeon online request circulation system. An early champion of digitization of Special Collections materials, Alice led several grant-funded projects and helped guide the development and expansion of Library digital collections as co-chair of the Digital Collections Steering Committee. She also oversaw a transformative series of construction projects, including the reconfiguration that shifted Special Collections from three floors to two and created new stack and staff spaces on A-Level; the Rosenthal Seminar Room project that produced the Library’s first smart classroom; the HVAC project that addressed environmental needs of the collections; and the recently completed construction project that reshaped Special Collections’ first floor and created its new public face on the Mansueto pathway. She also directed Preservation from 2007-2011 as the Mansueto Library, with its new Conservation and Digitization Laboratories, was being planned and constructed.

Since 2011, the Library has benefitted from Alice’s leadership in a number of roles. She served as Assistant University Librarian for Humanities, Social Sciences and Special Collections from January 2012 to June 2014, creating the Library’s first unified humanities, social sciences, and area studies division; as Interim Library Director and Associate University Librarian for Area Studies and Special Collections from July to December 2014; and as Associate University Librarian for Area Studies and Special Collections and Curator of Rare Books since January 2015.  

Alice has also played a vital role in shaping special collections librarianship throughout the country. Before joining us, she worked at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Library of Congress, and the University of Delaware Library. She was the founding editor of the ACRL journal Rare Books & Manuscripts from 1988 to 1993 and a member of the ARL Task Force on Special Collections (2002-2006), for which she wrote “Education and Training for Careers in Special Collections Librarianship; A White Paper” (November 2004). Book collectors and librarians continue to refer to Alice’s essay, Elective Affinities: Private Collectors & Special Collections in Libraries (Chicago: University of Chicago Library, 2001), originally delivered at the Library of Congress and published by the University of Chicago Library Society. In addition to teaching courses on special collections librarianship from 2001-2012, she has served on the Board of Directors of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia since 2004, as Secretary from 2009 through 2014, and as Chair since January 2014.

“We will miss Alice greatly but are pleased to know that she will be nearby and that we will have the opportunity to collaborate with her as she takes on her new role at the Newberry,” Johnson said.
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