Monthly Archive Index for KSL News Blog

See It & Believe It: Take This Tour @ KSL!

You've seen Case Tour Guides leading potential students & families through KSL, but now there's a new tour guide—a virtual one!

• He made his debut Tuesday, March 30th
• He was a big hit with Engineering Communications class students
• He led them through the 30 miles of movable shelving at KSL...
• in under 48 seconds...

Take a look & see how he did it, and watch for him again, real soon!

Or watch it on the new Kelvin Smith Library page on Facebook & become a fan!

Reading Henry Petroski

Inventions & Patents, Technology innovations, Civil engineers and more—these are some of the subjects treated within the works of Henry Petroski, the Case 2010 Distinguished Lecture Series.

A quick study of Petroski's books owned by Kelvin Smith Library also gives you additional subject words so you can find more books like them. Use a "subject" search on the Case Catalog for Engineering (plus Case studies, System failures, Design, History, Social aspects of, Political aspects of), Problem-solving, and of course the Bridges, Pencils, Toothpicks, and Books.

Discover his articles—search for Petroski as an author in our non-engineering databases (ABI/Inform, or many ESBCO databases like Academic Search Complete) & find articles from Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, Technology and Culture, Scientific American, Business History Review, Design News, the Futurist, and many more.

Get a glimpse into the author's mind and interests of engineering, culture, innovations & human involvement in it all by looking at his book titles below, owned by Kelvin Smith Library & found on the Case Catalog:

Beyond engineering : essays and other attempts to figure without equations
The essential engineer: why science alone will not solve our global problems
The toothpick : technology and culture
The Book on the Bookshelf
Paperboy : confessions of a future engineer
Small things considered : why there is no perfect design
Success through failure : the paradox of design
The pencil : a history
When engineering fails [videorecording]
Pushing the limits : new adventures in engineering
Remaking the world : adventures in engineering
Invention by design : how engineers get from thought to thing
Engineers of dreams : great bridge builders and the spanning of America
Design paradigms : case histories of error and judgment in engineering
The evolution of useful things
Beyond engineering : essays and other attempts to figure without equations
To engineer is human : the role of failure in successful design

Scholarly Communication Lecture April 9

Johanna Drucker (UCLA) comes to Case for the April 9 Scholarly Communication Lecture Series at KSL. Digital Humanities Fellow 2008-09 at the Stanford Humanities Center, Dr. Drucker worked on a project there called "Diagramming Interpretation" and she continues to explore the environment of humanities, digital scholarship and the roles for various collaborations & partnerships.

Dr. Drucker's lecture discusses her experiences as a co-founder of SpecLab, a digital humanities laboratory at the University of Virginia, her work at UCLA, and her interests in history of the book, print culture, information, and more.

Friday, April 9
12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Kelvin Smith Library 2nd floor O'Neill Reading Room
Print & share the lecture flyer with interested colleagues!

The Kelvin Smith Library Scholarly Communication Lecture Series is free of charge to the Case Western Reserve University community and Ohio academic and library communities. Reservations are not required, however seating is limited and is on a first-come basis.

The 2009/2010 Scholarly Communication Lecture Series is generously funded by the Mario M. Morino Fund for the Innovation and Application of Advanced Information Technologies and the David R. Bender Endowment Fund for Library Staff Development.

Announcing the 2010 Freedman Center Fellows Program

Case full-time faculty are invited to apply to the 2010 Freedman Center Fellows Program, designed to support and enhance the use of new technologies in research and teaching. This year's Seminar Week is May 10th - May 14th, in the Kelvin Smith Library.

Informational Meeting:
Learn about the criteria & guidelines for the 2010 program that supports innovative scholarly or creative projects. Interested applicants for this year's program should attend a meeting on Friday, April 2 at Noon to learn more about requirements, application instruction forms, stipend information & other program details about the May 10-14 seminar week:
Friday, April 2, Noon
KSL 2nd floor Dampeer Room
RSVP for Stone Oven lunch by Wednesday March 31, or call Tom Hayes (368-6513)

Full time teaching faculty chosen for the 2010 Freedman Center Fellows Program will experience an immersive instruction week that includes Freedman Center services, guidance, hands-on sessions in GIS, metadata, TEI, copyright and more.

The Freedman Center is a partnership between the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the Kelvin Smith Library (KSL).

Do You Zotero? Learn How in a Free CaseLearns Class!

CaseLearns classes this month range from DVD Authoring to Author's Rights. Enhance your skills & learn more about how to make a research poster, use RSS feeds, learn the best new features of Word & Excel, create pages with Dreamweaver, learn TEI, or use ArcGIS. Learn how to Zotero, and manage your reference citations in a new way!

More awaits you, on the CaseLearns Semester Calendar. You'll find a schedule of classes, the policies (registration, attendance, no-shows), a link to the Spring brochure, and more.

Choose the Calendar.
Click on a class to read more about it.
Click on the Register button.

Register for a class today. It can be the best hour of your week!

Spring classes range from 45 minutes to 3 hours for hands-on sessions, and are offered Sunday through Friday, through May. New CaseLearns classes are offered each semester.

Special Collections--New Da Vinci Acquistion

KSL Special Collections displays the beautifully bound facsimile of the Leicester-Hammer Codex. Written in the early 1500s, Codex Leicester encompasses Leonardo Da Vinci's writings regarding astronomy, science, and water, and is the most highly valued Leonardo codex in recent years. In 1994 the original was purchased by Bill Gates from the Armand Hammer estate for $30.8 million.

Handwritten in Italian by Leonardo with many accompanying drawings and diagrams on hydraulics & hydrodynamics and more, the Codex Leicester is a marriage of art and science and a window into Da Vinci's mind. This purchase will provide a valuable supplement to studies in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

A new special display case on the 2nd floor of Kelvin Smith Library showcases this new acquisition named after Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, who purchased the original in 1717. Currently in its display case on the 2nd floor, The Codex later will be available in the Kelvin Smith Lilbrary Special Collections Department.

KSL's facsimile of Codex Leicester is a numbered edition and was reproduced in Rome, Italy, on "Acquarello" paper and is hand-bound in gold-embossed leather. The reproduction is from TREC International.

Census 2010 in Ohio--KSL Exhibit Cases

Portrait of America...that's the 2010 Census, and it's in our hands. Exhibit cases at KSL showcase census sheets from 1900 and show what the 2010 Census can do for Ohio.

Whether it's scientific research, employers, rent structures, or college & university tuition, grants, loans, the importance of census data is far-reaching. Exhibit cases display results of prior census data in maps of housing, nursing homes, college dorm residences and much more.

Our U.S. Constitution requires a census count of America, and it's vital that residents participate. A motto of U.S.Census 2010 is "we move forward when you mail it back."

For more on the U.S. Census and how it works, why it's important, confidentiality, FAQs, key dates and the ability to read the site in many languages, look at the library exhibit cases and the U.S. Census 2010 site.

The Ohio Census might be one short, though...since there's someone new around the library. He's seen below and was caught on film as he visited the exhibit..if you haven't seen the Census exhibit yet, this 47-second mini-movie will get you started!



Free Access to Women & Social Movements U.S. 1600-2000: Research Spotlight March 2010

Celebrate Women's History Month with free access to 400 years’ worth of Women and Social Movements in the U.S. 1600-2000, Scholar’s Edition from Alexander Street Press. Until March 31, Case faculty, students & staff can freely explore a unique collection of primary resources in this KSL March 2010 Research Spotlight.

Whether your interest is economics, politics, sociology, religion, history, education, ethnicity, antislavery or the antebellum South, you can Browse and/or Search in a wide variety of categories.

- Browse Documents, Projects, People, Social movements, and much more.
- Create graphs & tables based on your own criteria.
- Use the Chronology for a good overview of women's issues over time.
- Enjoy the featured selection text and image collections. This month you can read the women's pages "Mainly for Women" from the Western Producer newspaper, 1923-, complete with news items, fashion & advertisements.

Alexander Street Press offers this database to Case until the end of March. Enjoy Women and Social Movements in the U.S. 1600-2000, the March 2010 KSL Research Spotlight!

USG @KSL Midterm Study Break March 2 & 3

Get a mid-term Study Break at KSL, courtesy of USG. Undergraduate Student Government has offered KSL Mid-Term Study Breaks for several years, offering beverages and dry snacks to power you through the evening hours and your mid-term exams.

Stop by the table in the Kelvin Smith Library Lobby, Tuesday & Wednesday, March 2 & 3
9:00 pm - Midnight, or as long as the snacks last!

USG@KSL is a KSL pre-approved event.