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The Bell Ringer: This is the story of Victor Rodriguez, star track athlete and San Antonio educator. From his earliest days in South Texas in the 1940s he broke many barriers. As a football player and track star he set records and won trophies at Edna High School, at Victoria College, and at North Texas State College. At each stage of his education, he often found himself the only Mexican American in his group. He developed his sports prowess from nine years of early morning running to the church in Edna, to ring the bell before Mass. He earned the first Hispanic scholarships as an athlete at both Victoria Junior College and North Texas State College. After graduating in 1955, he began a career in the San Antonio School District, ultimately retiring in 1994 after twelve years as Superintendent of the District. As a pioneer Mexican American educator in San Antonio, he brought dignity and respect to the people of the Westside, where he remains a role model today.
Rare Integrity: A Portrait of L. W. Payne, Jr.: Leonidas Warren Payne, Jr. (1873-1945), counted Robert Frost among his friends and a member of the inner circle of poets who embraced him and sought his advice. He altered forever the perception of Texas when he created the Texas Folklore Society that continues to record, publish, and promote Texas history, myth, music, and customs. He guided J. Frank Dobie back into The University of Texas fold, where Dobie produced his finest work and established a voice for Texas literature. L. W. Payne, Jr., influenced generations of American school children through his anthologies that became basic English textbooks. Drawing upon Payne’s own writing, interviews with former colleagues and students, and private letters lain undisclosed since Payne’s death, Rare Integrity reveals a portrait of a man whose great gift of creative generosity and warmth of heart enabled him to see a person as the person wished to be seen.
John B. Denton: the Bigger-than Life Story of the Fighting Parson and Texas Ranger: Denton County and the City of Denton are named for pioneer preacher, lawyer, and Indian fighter John B. Denton, but little has been known about him. He was an orphan in frontier Arkansas who became a circuit-riding Methodist preacher and an important member of a movement of early settlers bringing civilization to North Texas. After becoming a ranger on the frontier, he ultimately was killed in the Tarrant Expedition, a Texas Ranger raid on a series of villages inhabited by various Caddoan and other tribes near Village Creek on May 24, 1841. Denton’s true story has been lost or obscured by the persistent mythologizing by publicists for Texas, especially by pulp western writer Alfred W. Arrington. Cochran separates the truth from the myth in this meticulous biography, which also contains a detailed discussion of the controversy surrounding the burial of John B. Denton and offers some alternative scenarios for what happened to his body after his death on the frontier.
Proud Warriors: African American Combat Units in World War II: During World War II, tens of thousands of African Americans served in segregated combat units in U.S. armed forces. The majority of these units were found in the U.S. Army, and African Americans served in every one of the combat arms. They found opportunities for leadership unparalleled in the rest of American society at the time. Several reached the field grade officer ranks, and one officer reached the rank of brigadier general. Beyond the Army, the Marine Corps refused to enlist African Americans until ordered to do so by the president in June 1942, and two African American combat units were formed and did see service during the war. While the U.S. Navy initially resisted extending the role of African American sailors beyond kitchens, eventually the crew of two ships was composed exclusively of African Americans. The Coast Guard became the first service to integrate—initially with two shipboard experiments and then with the integration of most of their fleet. Finally, the famous Tuskegee airmen are covered in the chapter on air warfare. Proud Warriors makes the case that the wartime experiences of combat units such as the Tank Battalions and the Tuskegee Airmen ultimately convinced President Truman to desegregate the military, without which the progress of the Civil Rights Movement might also have been delayed.
Texas Ranger Captain William L. Wright: William L. Wright (1868–1942) was born to be a Texas Ranger, and hard work made him a great one. Wright tried working as a cowboy and farmer, but it did not suit him. Instead, he became a deputy sheriff and then a Ranger in 1899, battling a mob in the Laredo Smallpox Riot, policing both sides in the Reese-Townsend Feud, and winning a gunfight at Cotulla. His need for a better salary led him to leave the Rangers and become a sheriff. He stayed in that office longer than any of his predecessors in Wilson County, keeping the peace during the so-called Bandit Wars, investigating numerous violent crimes, and surviving being stabbed on the gallows by the man he was hanging. When demands for Ranger reform peaked, he was appointed as a captain and served for most of the next twenty years, retiring in 1939 after commanding dozens of Rangers. Wright emerged unscathed from the Canales investigation, enforced Prohibition in South Texas, and policed oil towns in West Texas, as well as tackling many other legal problems. When he retired, he was the only Ranger in service who had worked under seven governors. Wright has also been honored as an inductee into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame at Waco.
Times Remembered: the Final Years of the Bill Evans Trio: In the late 1970s legendary pianist Bill Evans was at the peak of his career. He revolutionized the jazz trio (bass, piano, drums) by giving each part equal emphasis in what jazz historian Ted Gioia called a “telepathic level” of interplay. It was an ideal opportunity for a sideman, and after auditioning in 1978, Joe La Barbera was ecstatic when he was offered the drum chair, completing the trio with Evans and bassist Marc Johnson. In Times Remembered, La Barbera and co-author Charles Levin provide an intimate fly-on-the-wall peek into Evans’s life, critical recording sessions, and behind-the-scenes anecdotes of life on the road. Joe regales the trio’s magical connection, a group that quickly gelled to play music on the deepest and purest level imaginable. He also watches his dream gig disappear, a casualty of Evans’s historical drug abuse when the pianist dies in a New York hospital emergency room in 1980. But La Barbera tells this story with love and respect, free of judgment, showing Evans’s humanity and uncanny ability to transcend physical weakness and deliver first-rate performances at nearly every show.
Dirty Eddie's War: Based on the World War II Diary of Harry "Dirty Eddie" March, Jr., Pacific Fighter Ace: Dirty Eddie’s War is the true account of the war-time experiences of Harry Andrew March, Jr., captured by way of diary entries addressed to his beloved wife, Elsa. Nicknamed “Dirty Eddie” by his comrades, he served as a member of four squadrons operating in the South Pacific, frequently under difficult and perilous conditions. Flying initially from aircraft carriers covering the landings at Guadalcanal in August 1942, he was one of the first pilots in the air over the island and then later based at Henderson Field with the “Cactus Air Force.” When he returned to combat at Bougainville and the “Hot Box” of Rabaul, the exploits of the new Corsair squadron “Fighting Seventeen” became legendary. Disregarding official regulations, March kept an unauthorized diary recording life onboard aircraft carriers, the brutal campaign and primitive living conditions on Guadalcanal, and the shattering loss of close friends and comrades. He captures the intensity of combat operations over Rabaul and the stresses of overwhelming enemy aerial opposition. Lee Cook presents Dirty Eddie’s story through genuine extracts from his diary supplemented with contextual narrative on the war effort. It reveals the personal account of a pilot’s innermost thoughts: the action he saw, the effects of his harrowing experiences, and his longing to be reunited with the love of his life back home.
The Ranger Ideal Volume 3: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1898–1987: Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 3, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the twelve inductees who served Texas in the twentieth century. In the first portion of the book, Ivey describes the careers of the “Big Four” Ranger captains—Will L. Wright, Frank Hamer, Tom R. Hickman, and Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas—as well as those of Charles E. Miller and Marvin “Red” Burton. Ivey then moves into the mid-century and discusses Robert A. Crowder, John J. Klevenhagen, Clinton T. Peoples, and James E. Riddles. Ivey concludes with Bobby Paul Doherty and Stanley K. Guffey, both of whom gave their lives in the line of duty. Using primary records and reliable secondary sources, and rejecting apocryphal tales, The Ranger Ideal presents the true stories of these intrepid men who enforced the law with gallantry, grit, and guns. This Volume 3 is the finale in a three-volume series covering all of the Texas Rangers inducted in the Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas.
Endangered But Not Too Late: The State of Digital News Preservation: Right now, a clock is ticking on the longevity of your news content. … For born-digital content, it’s a clock that could strike midnight at any moment when a disk drive or database fails, a power supply dies or a server is corrupted or compromised, wiping out content in the blink of an eye. This report includes a User’s Guide to finding and understanding what’s in each section, followed by a concise Background on how the switch to digital publishing, and the collapse of old business models helped fuel the upheavals that developed into today’s preservation problems. A summary of the Methodology used in this research comes next, followed by the report’s Findings, Recommendations, Conclusion and Appendices.
Transitioning to the Next Generation of Metadata: This report synthesizes six years (2015-2020) of OCLC Research Library Partners Metadata Managers Focus Group discussions to trace how metadata services are transitioning into the “next generation of metadata” and the impact on future metadata services and staffing requirements.
2019 Web Almanac: HTTP Archive's Annual State of the Web Report: The Web Almanac is an annual state of the web report combining the expertise of the web community with the data and trends of the HTTP Archive. The Web Almanac is a project organized by HTTP Archive. HTTP Archive was started in 2010 by Steve Souders with the mission to track how the web is built. It evaluates the composition of millions of web pages on a monthly basis and makes its terabytes of metadata available for analysis on BigQuery48.
Performance and Accountability Report: Fiscal Year 2018: The Performance and Accountability Report (PAR), an annual agency requirement from the Office of Management and Budget, presents the agency’s program and financial management results, key accomplishments, and new initiatives during FY 2018.
Public Libraries in the United States Survey: Fiscal Year 2015: The Public Libraries in the United States Survey (PLS) examines when, where, and how library services are changing to meet the needs of the public. This FY 2015 PLS summarizes the reported data provided by 98 percent of public libraries and outlets in the United States.
National Digital Infrastructures and Initiatives: A Report on the 2017 National Digital Platform at Three Forum: The report provides details on IMLS digital library funding since 2015 and explains three focal areas identified within the digital library infrastructures and initiatives portfolio of the National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.
Positioning Library and Information Science Graduate Programs for 21st Century Practice: IMLS convened a meeting in November 2017 to discuss strengthening the formal education component of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The report summarizes issues and themes from that meeting.
Everything Less Vast Than Love—Let Go Of: Compilation of original poetry and artwork by Haj Ross, a linguistics professor at the University of North Texas.
Descriptive Metadata for Web Archiving: Literature Review of User Needs.: The OCLC Research Library Partnership Web Archiving Metadata Working Group was formed to recommend descriptive metadata best practices for archived web content that would meet end-user needs, enhance discovery and improve metadata consistency. This report is a literature review of user needs related to descriptive metadata for web archiving.
News on the Margins: Surfacing Marginalized Voices in the News Collections of Libraries, Archives, and Museums: This report documents the design, methods, results, and recommendations of News on the Margins, a Fall 2017 pilot project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and undertaken by the Educopia Institute in partnership with the Digital Public Library of America. The News on the Margins project takes as its primary concern the accessibility and survival of historically significant news records created by and for marginalized communities.
Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2017: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent grant making agency and the primary source of federal support for the nation’s approximately 120,000 libraries and 35,000 museums and related organizations. IMLS helps ensure that all Americans have access to museum, library, and information services. The agency supports innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement, enabling museums and libraries from geographically and economically diverse areas to deliver essential services that make it possible for individuals and communities to thrive. The agency’s mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, learning, and civic engagement and to provide leadership through research, policy development, and grant making.Those goals are reflected in this year’s report as IMLS continues to be an outstanding steward of federal funds. IMLS will continue to look for ways to achieve even greater impact on library and museum services throughout the United States.
Open Digital Preservation Training and Professional Development Opportunities: Interest in digital preservation training and professional development opportunities is extensive, however, a common understanding of the open materials – ones that are freely available for use online – and how they might be used most effectively is still limited. The digital preservation community, those who shepherd digital collections through the lifecycle for a variety of organizations, would benefit from a common understanding of freely available open training materials. Digital preservation continuing education is valuable to a number of organization types, from small to large, as well as a wide range of practitioners at various points in their careers. Museums, libraries, and archives of all sizes benefit greatly from freely available continuing educational materials on digital preservation topics, as do many other organizations with an interest in preserving digital content for future use. Frequently, learners new to the profession are uncertain as to where to acquire specific digital preservation knowledge, issues, and skills. Similarly, working professionals may need to expand their roles or desire to broaden their knowledge and skill-set. Training to meet these needs necessarily occurs outside of formal educational settings, relying on the learner’s ability to locate resources that are relevant to their goals. It is the purpose of this report to begin establishing a common understanding of the types of open digital preservation training materials available, to identify topics around which additional materials should be developed, and recommend ways to increase the effectiveness, use, and reuse of open training materials.
State Library Administrative Agencies Survey: Fiscal Year 2016: The State Library Administrative Agencies Survey: Fiscal Year 2016 report provides highlights of the Fiscal Year 2016 State Library Administrative Agencies (SLAA) Survey, which collects financial, staffing, and service information from every SLAA in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
NDP at Three: The NDP at Three report describes grants and explores themes which emerged from the first three years of grant-making under the national digital platform (NDP) funding area in the IMLS Office of Library Services.
Public Libraries in the United States Fiscal Year 2014: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s approximately 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums and related organizations. Our mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. Our grant making, policy development, and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive. As part of its mission, IMLS conducts policy research, analysis, and data collection to extend and improve the nation’s museum, library, and information services. IMLS research activities are conducted in ongoing collaboration with state library administrative agencies; national, state, and regional library and museum organizations; and other relevant agencies and organizations. IMLS research activities are designed to provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of the status and trends in library and museum services and to report timely, useful, and high-quality data to Congress, the states, other policy-makers, practitioners, data users, and the general public. Accordingly, IMLS is responsible for providing policymakers, researchers, and the general public with information about public libraries in the United States. Public libraries have a long tradition of serving as community anchors—providing a wide array of services and resources in communities. The Public Libraries Survey (PLS), under the Museum and Library Services Act of 2010 administered by IMLS, collects annual data about the ways in which public libraries serve their communities. Since 1989, the PLS has documented the ways that modern public libraries have responded to an increasingly diverse public with broader information needs. This information not only helps to identify areas of activity and community engagement but also can uncover opportunities for further services and reach. The PLS is a national census that collects information from public libraries in 50 states, the District of Columbia, …
Museum Assessment Program Evaluation Report June 2017: The Museum Assessment Program (MAP) is a cooperative agreement between IMLS and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Since its inception in 1981, MAP has helped more than 5,000 small and mid-sized museums of all types strengthen operations, plan for the future, and meet standards. In the spring of 2017, AAM commissioned an evaluation of the program. The final report includes an executive summary, background and methodology, data analysis, and case studies.
The Web as History: The World Wide Web has now been in use for more than 20 years. From early browsers to today’s principal source of information, entertainment and much else, the Web is an integral part of our daily lives, to the extent that some people believe ‘if it’s not online, it doesn’t exist.’ While this statement is not entirely true, it is becoming increasingly accurate, and reflects the Web’s role as an indispensable treasure trove. It is curious, therefore, that historians and social scientists have thus far made little use of the Web to investigate historical patterns of culture and society, despite making good use of letters, novels, newspapers, radio and television programs, and other pre-digital artifacts. This volume argues that now is the time to question what we have learnt from the Web so far. The 12 chapters explore this topic from a number of interdisciplinary angles – through histories of national web spaces and case studies of different government and media domains – as well as an introduction that provides an overview of this exciting new area of research.
Advancing the National Digital Platform: The State of Digitization in US Public and State Libraries: The publication summarizes the results of a needs assessment and gap analysis of digitization activities by public libraries and state library agencies in the United States. The report outlines key findings from surveys of U.S. public libraries and state library agencies, and provides observations and recommendations for future exploration in the area of supporting digitization efforts in public libraries.
Bureaucracy: A Love Story: Bureaucracy usually only becomes visible when it stops working—when a system fails, when an event gets off schedule, when someone points to a problem or glitch in a carefully calibrated workflow. But Bureaucracy: A Love Story draws together research done by scholars and students in the Special Collections at the University of North Texas to illuminate how bureaucracy structures our contemporary lives across a range of domains. People have navigated bureaucracy for centuries, by creating and utilizing various literary and rhetorical forms—from indexes to alphabetization to diagrams to blanks—that made it possible to efficiently process large amounts of information. Contemporary bureaucracy is likewise concerned with how to collect and store information, to circulate it efficiently, and to allow for easy access. We are interested both in the conventional definition of bureaucracy as a form of ordering and control connected to institutions and the state, but we also want to uncover how people interacted—often in creative ways—with the material forms of bureaucracy.
Connecting Soul, Spirit, Mind, and Body: A Collection of Spiritual and Religious Perspectives and Practices in Counseling: This edited volume presents spiritual and religious perspectives and practices that can be integrated into counseling, written by experts in the field. Included are topics such as transpersonal experiences, prayer, meditation, and non-traditional spiritual approaches.
The lost generation: World War I poetry selected from the Donald Thomas War Poetry Collection: Donald Lee Thomas was born in Dallas, Texas in 1943. Before graduating high school he enlisted, at age 17, in the U.S. Navy, serving several tours of duty before being ordered to Vietnam in 1968. There he served as part of Medical Unit Self-Contained Transportable ONE, a joint Navy and Marine Corps crew which operated an experimental inﬂ atable hospital with jet turbine engines. He was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal with Combat “V” for his service in Vietnam. In 1972 Mr. Thomas graduated with a Master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences from the University of North Texas and brieﬂy joined the library faculty of the University of Arizona before being accepted for commissioning in the Navy Medical Service Corp in 1973. In his ﬁrst commissioned position as Assistant Chairman of the Educational Resources Department at the Naval Medical Center of Bethesda, Maryland his duties included management of the professional library. Mr. Thomas retired from the Navy in 1986 to pursue his interest in librarianship. He served in faculty librarian positions at Baylor Health Science Library and Texas A&M University before taking an administrative position with the Harris County Public Library System where he has responsibility for Financial Services to 26 libraries. The University of North Texas Libraries acquired the Donald Thomas War Poetry Collection in 2015. The collection contains over 900 volumes focusing on war poetry, speciﬁcally English and American poetry related to World War I. Although the collection includes many well-known poets, the strength of the collection is in work produced by lesser-known poets which were less frequently collected by libraries and diﬃcult if not impossible to ﬁnd today. During the 40 years Mr. Thomas has been a collector he has established relationships with booksellers overseas and become quite adept at ﬁnding “hidden treasures” which others might …
Special Education: A Beginner's Guide to Serving All Students: This collection of writings from preservice teachers at the University of North Texas is intended as a brief guide to special education. Through an interview with special education expert and diagnostician, Jennifer Cantu, M.Ed., unpack nuances within the field of special education. Intended to be both a starting point and an ongoing reference source for educators new to service of special needs students, this book seeks to instill a sense of direction, pride, and accomplishment as ones take some early steps toward effectively serving special education learners. The book also show what special needs students can achieve through individualized accommodations and modifications. The four main sections of the book include: Understanding the basic rights and language of special education -- Understanding disability conditions and demonstrating how to meet the individual needs of a student -- Interview with a special education expert, Jennifer Cantu, diagnostician, Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, Texas -- Acquiring special education certification in Texas.
Strengthening Networks, Sparking Change: Museums and Libraries as Community Catalysts: This document brings together the preliminary literature and practice survey with the experiences and vision of those working to spur change in their communities every day. It catalogs how these efforts are initiated and sustained; the tools and methods available to assess community need and evaluate impact; and the skills and competencies required to implement and sustain new efforts successfully. It also uses the concepts of social wellbeing and collective impact to situate museums and libraries as critical sites within broader institutional and interpersonal networks of community resources. These are complementary conceptual frameworks to help museums and libraries contextualize and tailor their efforts to catalyze positive change. Together. The document is divided into the following sections: • The Introduction traces the increasing importance of anchor institutions (typically universities and hospitals) to contextualize the evolving efforts of museums and libraries and the broad content areas in which they are expanding their activities. It also presents the social wellbeing and collective impact frameworks that are referenced throughout the document. • The Continuum of Museum and Library Community Initiatives describes the types of efforts that can improve social wellbeing for residents. This section catalogs key considerations for museums and libraries as they design community-focused efforts. • Understanding Assets and Challenges, and Evaluating Impact summarizes effective methods for assessing community assets, needs, and approaches to evaluating the impact of museum and library efforts to promote the wellbeing of their communities. • Building Capacity to Support and Spark Change reviews the requisite skills and competencies required of community-centered institutions and provides considerations for obtaining them through staff development, hiring practices, or partnership. • The Conclusion summarizes key themes from each section to highlight opportunities for museums and libraries to catalyze change in their communities going forward.
Understanding Metadata: What is Metadata, and What is it For?: This book provides a comprehensive overview of information about an item's creation, name, topic, features, and more updates NISO's 2004 advice on the subject and follows on the Research Data Management Primer published in 2015. It demystifies a type of information that is ubiquitous in our lives but that can be challenging to produce, store, and understand. Coverage includes topics such as metadata types, standardization, and use in the cultural heritage sector and in the broader world. The Primer is accompanied by plentiful examples of metadata at work.
State Library Administrative Agencies Survey: Fiscal Year 2014: The State Library Administrative Agencies Survey: Fiscal Year 2014 report provides a view of the condition of state library administrative agencies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for Fiscal Year 2014. The data includes state library agency identification, governance, public service hours, service outlets, collections, library service transactions, library development transactions, services to other libraries in the state, allied operations, staff, income, expenditures, and electronic services and information. State libraries administer federal funds through the IMLS Grants to States program and play a crucial role in helping libraries within their state meet the demand for content and services by establishing statewide plans for library services, investing in technology and content, and providing support for local programming. While the state libraries continued to offer a wide array of library services in 2014, the study results showed a multi-year pattern of decreases in revenues, expenditures, and staffing that coincided with the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The revenue from federal, state, and other sources to state library agencies totaled $1.1 billion in FY 2014, a 17 percent decrease in revenue from FY 2004.The report is useful to Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), policymakers in the executive and legislative branches of federal and state governments, government and library administrators at the federal, state, and local levels, the American Library Association and its members or customers, library and public policy researchers, the public, journalists, and others.
Social Circumstance and Aesthetic Achievement: Contextual Studies in Richard Wright’s Native Son: This collection of essays on Richard Wright’s Native Son developed from a research-oriented, upper- division University of North Texas Honors College course, spring 2015. It contains the following seven chapters: Chapter I: The Cognitive Dissonance of Bigger Thomas (by Rachel Martinez) Chapter II: The Equal of Them: Violence and Equality in Native Son and “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” (by Molly Riddell) Chapter III: Above the Sceptered Sway: Holy Justice, and the Trials of Bigger and Shylock (by Alberto Puras) Chapter IV: Through His Eyes: Critical Analysis of Wright’s Native Son and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (by Rachel Torres) Chapter V: Perceptual Misadventure: Becoming Rather than Enacting the Stereotype in Wright’s Native Son and Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (by Stormie Garza) Chapter VI: Psychologically Rather than Physically Dismembered: Reconsideration of Self-conception in Native Son and Moby-Dick (by Yacine Ndiaye) Chapter VII: Specious Dialectic in Wright’s Native Son (by Nicholas Grotowski). The student authors have exhibited burgeoning skills as historical contextualists, mindful of the author’s times, social circumstance, personal reading, narrative point of view, and aesthetic achievement, evidenced by six of these essays having been accepted for presentation at the annual conference of the American Studies Association of Texas.
2016 Performance and Accountability Report: The FY 2016 Performance and Accountability Report for the Institute of Museum and Library Services comes as IMLS begins a yearlong celebration marking its 20th Anniversary. In the last 20 years, IMLS has worked to benefit libraries of all types: public, research, academic and tribal; and museums of all disciplines: history, botanic gardens, aquariums, science and technology centers, children’s museums and zoos. With the help of a range of partners, IMLS has inspired libraries and museums to advance innovation, learning and civic engagement. That work will continue into the coming years as libraries and museums are urged abd encouraged to “Reimagine the Future” and how they can best serve the communities in which they reside. Those goals are reflected in this year’s report: to continue to focus on creating a nation of learners by preserving and providing broad public access to collections and content; and promoting policies that ensure robust library, museum, and information services for all Americans. IMLS continues to be an outstanding steward of federal funds and will continue to look for ways to achieve even greater impact on library and museum services throughout the United States.
"Independent Original and Progressive": Celebrating 125 Years of UNT: Joshua C. Chilton first described UNT as “independent, original and progressive” in his inaugural speech opening the university in 1890. In the 125 years since then the university has more than lived up to his expectations. The University Archive holds countless photographs, artifacts and publications which tell the remarkable story of UNT from its beginnings in a downtown hardware store to its place today as the one of the nation’s largest public universities. This book features stories about the people and events that helped to define the character and spirit of UNT. Each story is illustrated with photographs and artifacts specially chosen from the Special Collections department and the Music Library, both part of the UNT Libraries, whose staff are proud to share these wonderful memories with you.
Making+ Learning in Museums and Libraries A Practitionaer's Guide and Framework: Many libraries and museums have recently invesetd resources to implement maker programs or makerspaces. This project deﬁnes “making” as building or adapting objects using real tools and real materials and engaging learners in the process of using these tools and materials. While these programs and spaces serve a variety of goals, they overwhelmingly serve as sites of ambitious learning. As the maker movement grows by leaps and bounds, the ﬁeld itself knows relatively little about how to support learning within these spaces. This report introduces a framework to support learning in library and museum makerspaces. There are three elements to the framework: purpose; people; and pieces and parts. Through a description of the framework, as well as case studies on how making and makerspaces are being implemented around the country, this document aims to share ways that we can nurture and grow conditions for learning within making experiences.
Stepping Up to the ConnectED Library Challenge: A Call to Action: In April 2015, President Obama launched the ConnectED Library Challenge to ensure that all school children have access to the learning resources available in public libraries. The report highlights the responses of communities across the nation to answer the White House’s challenge to public librarians, superintendents, and public officials to collaborate so that every student has access to the many learning resources of their local library. The report outlines the conditions gleaned from these responses that point to indicators of successful partnerships and some of the many different forms these collaborations are taking.
The UNT Music Library at 75: Selections from Its Special Collections: The UNT Music Library boasts an interesting and vastly varied assortment of musical treasures in its special collections. This commemorative volume celebrates its 75th anniversary with a brief history of the Music Library and a selection of items from its unique collections.
Using Web Archives in Research: An Introduction: The purpose of this book is to gather and make available knowledge about the use of web archives for research. It is written in a Danish context and adapted to the needs of Danish researchers but can also be useful for other researchers. The book serves as the course material for NetLab’s workshops. The structure of the book is therefore inspired by the modules of the NetLab workshops, but it can easily be read independently of the workshops. The book will be continuously updated with relevant new research in web archiving, for which reason it will be made available in several different versions in the longer term.
Library of Congress: Strong Leadership Needed to Address Serious Information Technology Management Weaknesses: The Library of Congress has established policies and procedures for managing its information technology (IT) resources, but significant weaknesses across several areas have hindered their effectiveness: -Strategic planning: The Library does not have an IT strategic plan that is aligned with the overall agency strategic plan and establishes goals, measures, and strategies. This leaves the Library without a clear direction for its use of IT. -Investment management: Although the Library obligated at least $119 million on IT for fiscal year 2014, it is not effectively managing its investments. To its credit, the Library has established structures for managing IT investments—including a review board and a process for selecting investments. However, the board does not review all key investments, and its roles and responsibilities are not always clearly defined. Additionally, the Library does not have a complete process for tracking its IT spending or an accurate inventory of its assets. For example, while the inventory identifies over 18,000 computers currently in use, officials stated that the Library has fewer than 6,500. Until the Library addresses these weaknesses, its ability to make informed decisions will be impaired. -Information security and privacy: The Library assigned roles and responsibilities and developed policies and procedures for securing its information and systems. However, its implementation of key security and privacy management controls was uneven. For example, the Library's system inventory did not include all key systems. Additionally, the Library did not always fully define and test security controls for its systems, remediate weaknesses in a timely manner, and assess the risks to the privacy of personal information in its systems. Such deficiencies also contributed to weaknesses in technical security controls, putting the Library's systems and information at risk of compromise. -Service management: The Library's Information Technology Services (ITS) division is primarily responsible for providing IT services …
Report on the Maturity of the Library’s System Development Life Cycle Processes and Procedures: The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process applies to information system development projects ensuring that all functional and user requirements are met by using a structured and standardized process during all phases of a system’s life cycle. Systems developed according to information technology (IT) best practices are more likely to provide secure and reliable long‐term performance. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) engaged CliftonLarsonAllen’s (CLA’s) to perform an audit of the Library’s SDLC process to assess the maturity of the Library’s current policies and practices and to evaluate the efficiency of Information Technology Services’ (ITS) process for structuring, planning, and controlling the development of the Library’s vital information systems. This included an assessment of ITS’ compliance with the Library’s SDLC policy and the application of generally accepted IT best practices. In its report, CLA identified several weaknesses in the Library’s SDLC process that places the Library at risk of developing IT systems that are not adequately documented and lack cost and performance data needed to properly monitor and make prudent IT investment decisions. By optimizing its current SDLC process, the Library can mitigate these risks while improving efficiency and governance of IT system development.
Common Ground: Exploring Compatibilities Between the Linked Data Models of the Library of Congress and OCLC: Since 2011, OCLC researchers have been experimenting with Schema.org as a vehicle for exposing library metadata to Web search engines in a format they seek and understand. Schema.org is sponsored by Bing, Google, Yahoo! and Yandex as a common vocabulary for creating structured data markup on Web pages. OCLC’s experiments led to the 2012 publication of Schema.org metadata elements expressed as linked data on 300 million catalog records accessible from WorldCat.org.1 In 2011, BIBFRAME was launched by the Library of Congress (LC) as an initiative to develop a linked data alternative to MARC, building on the Library’s experience providing linked data access to its authority files. In the past year and a half, OCLC has focused on the tasks related to the use of Schema.org: refining the technical infrastructure and data architecture for at-scale publication of linked data for library resources in the broader Web, and investigating the promise of Schema.org as a common ground between the language of the information-seeking public and professional stewards of bibliographic description. BIBFRAME has focused on publishing additional vocabulary and facilitating implementation and testing. These new developments prompt the need to re-examine the relationship between the LC and OCLC models for library linked data. This document is an executive summary of a more detailed technical analysis that will be released later this year.
Danny the dragon: Children's e-book about Danny the Dragon who loses his fire. He learns and important lesson as he struggles to get it back.
Economics: From the Dismal Science to the Moral Science: The Moral Economics of Kendall P. Cochran: Adam Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 and established the ethical foundation for The Wealth of Nations (1776) as well as the important role played by custom and fashion in shaping behaviors and outcomes. Kendall P. Cochran believed in Smith’s emphasis on value-driven analysis and seeking solutions to major problems of the day. Cochran believed that economists moved too far in the direction of analysis free of words like ought and should and devoted his career to establishing that economics is a moral science. A recent study by two Harvard professors, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Growth in a Time of Debt (2010), asserted that healthy economic growth and high levels of government debt are incompatible. These conclusions are associated with the austerity movement, which calls for policymakers to reduce government spending in order to reduce the government’s debt and improve long-term growth prospects. The austerity movement has been used to justify the sharp decline in public sector employment that has restrained job growth since the recession of 2007. In 2013, a graduate student named Thomas Herndon discovered an error in the calculations of Reinhart and Rogoff, publishing his findings in a paper co-authored by his professors, called "Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff." These findings call the entire austerity movement into question, causing many to reconsider the current obsession with reducing the government debt during a time of economic stagnation. Cochran would have held a celebration to toast Herndon and his professors for their work, not only for the sake of technical accuracy, but also because the policy prescriptions associated with the austerity movement are misguided and harmful to the unemployed and underemployed during times of economic hardship. Cochran’s articles are significant at this time because he is …
Emulation & Virtualization as Preservation Strategies: Between the two fundamental digital preservation strategies, migration has been strongly favored. Recent developments in emulation frameworks make it possible to deliver emulations to readers via the Web in ways that make them appear as normal components of Web pages. This removes what was the major barrier to deployment of emulation as a preservation strategy. Barriers remain, the two most important are that the tools for creating preserved system images are inadequate, and that the legal basis for delivering emulations is unclear, and where it is clear it is highly restrictive. Both of these raise the cost of building and providing access to a substantial, well curated collection of emulated digital artefacts beyond reach. This book advocates that if the above mentioned barriers can be addressed, emulation will play a much greater role in digital preservation in the coming years. It will provide access to artefacts that migration cannot, and even assist in migration where necessary by allowing the original software to perform it. The evolution of digital artefacts means that current artefacts are more difficult and expensive to collect and preserve than those from the past, and less suitable for migration. This trend is expected to continue. Emulation is not a panacea. Technical, scale and intellectual property difficulties make many current digital artefacts infeasible to emulate. Where feasible, even with better tools and a viable legal framework, emulation is more expensive than migration-based strategies. The most important reason for the failure of current strategies to collect and preserve the majority of their target material is economic; the resources available are inadequate. The bulk of the resources expended on both migration and emulation strategies are for ingest, especially metadata generation and quality assurance. There is a risk that diverting resources to emulation, with its higher per-artefact ingest cost, will exacerbate …
From Wright Field, Ohio, to Hokkaido, Japan: General Curtis E. LeMay's Letters to His Wife Helen, 1941–1945: In 1942, Colonel Curtis E. LeMay and his 305th Bomb Group left Syracuse, New York, bound for England, where they joined the Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force in war against Germany and her allies. Over the next three years LeMay led American air forces in Europe, India, China, and the Pacific against the Axis powers. His efforts yielded advancement through the chain of command to the rank of Major General in command of the XXIst Bomber Command, the most effective strategic bombing force of the war. LeMay’s activities in World War II are well-documented, but his personal history is less thoroughly recorded. Throughout the war he wrote hundreds of letters to his wife, Helen, and daughter, Jane. They are published for the first time in this volume, weaved together with meticulously researched narrative essays buttressed by both official and unofficial sources and supplemented with extensive footnotes. History remembers “LeMay, the Commander” well. From Wright Field, Ohio, to Hokkaido, Japan, will yield a better understanding of “LeMay, the Man.”
It's all the cat's fault!: Children's e-book about a boy who could not complete his homework because of a certain mischievous cat.Discover what happened to him and see how one thing can lead to another, and another, and another...
Mapping the Future of Scholarly Publishing: The National Science Communication Institute (nSCI) hosted a conference in late 2013 to explore the broad issue related to scholarly publishing. The Open Science Initiative (OSI) is a working group convened by the National Science Communication Institute (nSCI) in October 2014 to discuss the issues regarding improving open access for the betterment of science and to recommend possible solutions. The following document summarizes the wide range of issues, perspectives and recommendations from this group’s online conversation during November and December 2014 and January 2015. The 112 participants who signed up to participate in this conversation were drawn mostly from the academic, research, and library communities. Most of these 112 were not active in this conversation, but a healthy diversity of key perspectives was still represented. Individual participants may not agree with all of the viewpoints described herein, but participants agree that this document reflects the spirit and content of the conversation.
Near-Death Experiences While Drowning: Dying Is Not the End of Consciousness!: Due to advances in resuscitation and defibrillation practices over the past decades, people are returning from the brink of death in numbers unprecedented in human history. Of the millions of people who survive drowning each year, about 20% report a near-death experience (NDE): a reported memory of profound psychological events that contain certain paranormal, transcendental, and mystical features. NDEs are usually hyperreal and lucid experiences dominated by pleasurable feelings and more rarely dominated by distressed feelings. This book presents a summary of 40 years of research on NDEs. It contains 22 drowning NDE accounts and recommendations for how water safety professionals can use NDE-related information in their work with people they successfully resuscitate.

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