Upcoming Events

Students studying on the lawn behind Eaton Library, 1952(Photograph included in gallery display)

150th Celebratory Events

A series of encased exhibits will present views and information pertaining to the Tufts libraries over the years. Displayed in the library lobby, the first will feature the architecture of the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering libraries. Later exhibits will shift the focus to literary figures and library technology. What did the first Tufts library look like? Who assembled its first collection? When did its first computer arrive and what did it do?

A gallery of photographs running alongside the reference desk corridor will offer a look at several important aspects of Tufts' history including student life, student/community activism, and academic life. The images have been chosen for historic interest and aesthetic merit from the large collection of photographs housed in the university archives. How tall was Jumbo compared to a human being? What did a Tufts dorm room look like in the 1920s? What causes have Tufts students rallied for in the past? Take a look and see.

Library-sponsored events will continue the celebration this spring. Plans are underway for a Tisch Rooftop Cafe featuring music, readings, and other forms of entertainment highlighting Tufts' past and present. Information that invites participation is forthcoming. Also, a John Holmes Poetry Walk for Friends of the Libraries will take place during Commencement week.

Additional Fall Events

On November 6, the library will present an "Evening of Mysteries" with two mystery authors: Michelle Blake, a lecturer in the English Department, and Katherine Hall Page, a Master's graduate from Tufts in 1974. Earth Has No Sorrow, Blake's second title in the Lily Connor series, was published by Putnam in June 2001; Body in the Moonlight, Page's eleventh title in the Faith Fairchild series, was published by William Morrow in July 2000. An exhibit featuring the books of these authors will be on view in the Tisch Library lobby from August 31 through November 6.

On November 27, Miriam Nelson of the Tufts Human Nutrition Research Center (HNRC) will speak on her most recently published book: Strong Women Eat Well, published in July 2001 by Putnam. Her publications will be featured in a lobby exhibit from November 12 to January 10. A third authors talk for Friends of the Libraries is planned for March 6.

More Activities and Exhibits

CourseInfo Provides for Library Links

Professor Klaus Miczek of the Psychology Department notes that he uses these options frequently and is interested in learning new shortcuts for making papers available to students over the Web. Professor Miczek often has students compare recent with older research, a process that should become easier to facilitate through CourseInfo as JSTOR and other aggregators add a broader range of back issues of academic journals to their collections.

Professor Kent Portney of the Political Science Department says that "linking articles seems to work very nicely. When I assign readings to students in this way, they seem willing and able to access them. I regularly see students carrying the printed copies of the articles." Professor Portney credits Neal Hirsig of ITS with being particularly helpful in working out the technical issues involved in linking.

Library staff were gratified to note, in last year's report of the Arts and Sciences Library Committee to the Faculty, the following statement: "The committee has been impressed by the continuing collaborative efforts between library staff and faculty in several academic departments." Latest partnership developments include the following:

A Berger Family Technology Transfer Award was recently granted to the Tisch Library, the Tufts GIS Center, and the Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE) to work jointly to design a "Mystic Watershed Collaborative Clearinghouse." The proposal submitted by the group describes the endeavor.

Members of the CFN Berger grant project team celebrate with Fred Berger (back center) the project's conclusion

In another partnership effort, library staff have endeavored to work cooperatively with teaching departments to offer specialized orientation to their graduate students at the start of the year. Departments ranging from Philosophy to Chemistry and from Urban and Environmental Policy to Engineering made a joint effort of this undertaking as the fall term began.

The Windows on Research Advising Program has also provided several exciting opportunities for faculty and librarian collaborations. First-year students in classes such as Energy for the 21st Century, Forensic Environmental Chemistry, and The Chemical Revolution have benefited from faculty and librarians working together to provide guidance in research sources, skills, and tools.

New Electronic Databases

New Print Acquisition of Note: The Ellesmere Chaucer Facsimile

Tisch Library has acquired a beautiful facsimile of this manuscript, to be housed in Special Collections for study by Tufts faculty and students. The Ellesmere facsimile was purchased through the generosity of the Joseph and Elizabeth Whittemore Gift Fund for the Tisch Library's collections.

The Ellesmere manuscript was produced early in the 15th century, and along with the Hengwrt is considered an authoritative text that has been relied upon to edit standard editions of the Canterbury Tales. Rosalyn Rossignol wrote in Chaucer A-Z (N.Y., 1999) that "scholars use the Ellesmere text because it ... has the least number of problematical or 'corrupt' lines, and because the order in which the tales appears makes the most sense." The Ellesmere is valued also for its lavish illustrations: besides its beautiful scrollwork and other decorations, all of the pilgrims, as well as Chaucer, are depicted in the margins of the text, often faithful to personal details related in the Prologue. The Ellesmere portrait of Chaucer is one of the earliest known of the author.

The facsimile was produced to mark the 75th anniversary of the Huntington Library. It is a full-size, full-color facsimile, printed with gold inlay by Yushodo in Japan, on high quality, long-life paper imported from England, with the binding done in the U.S.A. The original camera work was done at the Huntington Library by the Huntington's principal photographer.

To arrange a classroom session with the new Ellesmere Chaucer facsimile, please contact Christopher Barbour, Humanities Bibliographer, at 7-2398 or christopher.barbour@tufts.edu.

And the Word of the Day is _________ ?

(Look for these in the A-Z list of databases accessible from the Tisch Library homepage.)

A simple way to become acquainted with these databases with minimal time expenditure is to call up the "word of the day" in one and the "biography of the day" in the other. (The biography is easily found, but on first calling up the OED database, you will need to click on "Oxford English Dictionary" at top left to find the "word of the day" link.) Even when the information is basically familiar, you will likely be pleased with both the style and substance of the lesson. Needless to say, each database has intriguing features that more sustained and complex use reveals.

New Document Delivery Scanner a Plus

Jennifer Hartman in Document Delivery makes use of new scanner

The use of this scanner will enable the Tisch Document Delivery office to continue providing improved services to institutions in the Boston Library Consortium and across the country. As its lending statistics have increased in response to such improvement, Tufts, in turn, has received faster service from other libraries that have Ariel and now the Minolta PS 7000 to assist in supplying items requested by Tufts library patrons.

Tisch Library is working on further technological improvements to benefit its document delivery patrons, both here and elsewhere.

Contributors to this issue:

Edward Oberholtzer

Regina Raboin

Christopher Barbour

Ann Marie Ferraro

J. D. Sloan (photographer)

Editor: Margaret Gooch