for further information contact:

Jo-Ann Michalak, Director of Tisch Library

617-627-3345

First Annual Berger Family Technology

Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Medford, MA, February 4, 1998 - The first annual awards totaling $42,500.00 from the Berger Family Technology Transfer Endowment were announced today at Tufts University's Tisch Library as a result of a competitive proposal process. The Berger Family established the endowment to retrain today's library staff to function in the increasingly high tech digital library and also to prepare students and faculty to effectively use technology. It is believed that the endowment is the first of its kind to train library staff and faculty in new technology.

The two successful proposals are: "A Biologist's Guide to Library Resources" and "Digital Practicum: A Database and Web Site on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Richard III."

According to co-coordinators Associate Professor Sara M. Lewis and Reference Librarian Regina Raboin, the two central goals of A Biologist's Guide are to teach students to develop and hone effective search strategies to identify relevant sources, and to critically evaluate these sources. This project will allow for expansion of an existing tutorial for the Introductory Biology lab website to support numerous intermediate-level biology courses. Student evaluations of the existing website indicated that the web-based tutorial provides a markedly improved tool for teaching students how to find and access information. Teams of Biology faculty, reference staff and student programmers will work in collaboration to design new tutorials in three major subdivisions: ecology & evolution, physiology & cell biology, and biochemistry & molecular biology.

These discipline-specific tutorials will emphasize: 1) advanced search strategies with links to databases, 2) descriptions and links to discipline-specific online journals, and 3) links to discipline-specific web resources.

According to the authors of the Digital Practicum proposal, Greg Crane, Professor of Classics and founder of Perseus, one of the oldest digital library projects, Kevin Dunn, Professor of English, and Laura Walters, Head of Collections at Tisch Library, the initial activity will involve 5 weeks of "hands-on" seminars in which nine librarians learn the basic technologies to construct the websites on Julius Caesar and Richard III. The seminars will cover Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML), Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), Standard Generalized Mark-Up Language (SMLG) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Participants will tag different Variorum editions of the two plays including all personal and place names. Upon completing the seminars, the librarians will have an opportunity to work on projects to further enrich their new skills. These include selecting and adding digital visual materials, music, and costuming information.

A Berger website has been established. There will also be a celebratory dinner in 1999 to honor the recipients, who will report on the results of their project to the Advisory Board, and to announce the next annual awards. It is planned that the results of all awarded projects will be submitted for publication to professional journals, as well as highlighted in Tufts print and electronic publications.

The Berger Family has been a generous donor to Tufts University. Over the years, they have contributed to the renovations of Tisch Library and established an endowed professorship in the College of Engineering. Members of the Berger Family Technology Transfer Endowment Advisory Board are: Amy Friedlander, the representative of the Berger Family and Editor of DLIB; Jay Lucker, former director of MIT Libraries and a member of the Tufts Library Board of Overseers; Mel Bernstein, Vice President, Arts, Sciences & Technology; Ioannis Miaoulis, Dean of Engineering; Susan Ernst, Dean of Natural & Social Sciences; Leila Fawaz, Dean of Arts & Humanities; Klaus Miczek, Chair of the Library Committee; Vincent Manno, Co-Chair, Faculty Computing Committee; David McDonald, Dean of Information Technology and Libraries; Jo-Ann Michalak, Director of Tisch Library. Persons wishing to contribute to the endowment are encouraged to contact the Development Office at Tufts University.