McKillop Library - Newsbrief

Message from the Director

Dawn Emsellem, Director of Library Services

McKillop Library Newsbrief for Faculty Fall 2023

Welcome back! Members of the library team have been onsite all summer, providing library services while the building has been closed during the first-floor renovation. The renovation work is on track for the library to open at semester start, and we’re thrilled with the results. The new first-floor spaces are beautifully designed. We expect the renovation to fulfill years of student requests for a variety of spaces for studying.

As of this Newsbrief’s printing, the furniture hasn’t been delivered, but below you can see a glimpse of the new spaces and the transformation of the first floor into the new Allen Family Learning Commons. In addition to the Information & Library Services Desk (formerly the Circulation Desk), this space is now home to the Center for Advising, Career and Life Design; the Academic Center for Excellence, including the peer subject tutors and writing center; the Office of Student Accessibility Services, and the Salve Compass program.

The library team’s offices have moved to the second and third floors. Please drop by and visit! New office assignments are listed in the library directory.

Renovation: Collection Moves

The renovation necessitated the relocation of several collections in the library, and the library team took advantage of the upheaval to provide better access to others.

New Release and thematic displays: first floor
Browsing Collection: 2nd floor
Reference Collection: 2nd floor
Periodicals and Newspapers: 2nd floor
Graphic Novels/Non-Fiction and Comic Books: 2nd floor
DVDs: 3rd floor, first two stack ranges of compact shelving
The Auchincloss and other Special Collections previously housed in Rm. 109 have been moved to Archives & Special Collections (Rm. 023) on the garden level of the Library.

The renovation also allowed us to create another instruction space on the second floor, which you will find in our study room booking tool.

E-Resources Update

Access World News Research Collection is a newly available database which provides current and archived news content, with backfiles beginning in the 1980s, from more than 13,800 news sources spanning over 200 countries and territories. Includes all the content previously found in the database America’s News.

Beyond our existing subscriptions to the databases PsycArticles and PsycInfo, the library also now provides access to an extended range of dates for Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and new access to Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.

Resources available to support research related to the women, gender, and sexuality include LGBTQ+ Rights from HeinOnline and the Independent Voices magazine archives for feminist and LGBT magazines.

E-Resources Update, continued

Social Explorer provides location-based data, and tools to visualize and interact with data. Users can create maps, charts, reports and downloads, and explore thousands of built-in data indicators related to demography, economy, health, politics, environment, crime and more

The New York Times digital edition allows all Salve community members to create their own account for access to the New York Times website.

The library’s access to JSTOR ebooks includes over 135,000 scholarly ebooks from academic publishers around the world, including university presses, public policy organizations, and independent presses.

The BioOne database is no longer available. A number of the most-used journals from this database are currently still available in other databases including Academic Search Complete and JSTOR.

Planned Cancellation: If you use Films on Demand, please reach out to Ingrid Levin as the library is planning to cancel this database in AY 24-25. We should be able to purchase licensing to specific films if they are required class viewing, but we need to hear from you!

Intellectual Freedom Celebration in October

McKillop Library and staff and faculty colleagues are planning a campus celebration of intellectual freedom during the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, October 1-7 and througout the month of October. Please watch for updates and encourage your students to attend these events about importance of intellectual freedom.

Rhode Island, like much of the rest of the United States, has seen efforts to censor reading material grow in the last year, which included bipartisan proposed legislation stating, “Any school librarian involved in providing such books deemed "obscene" could face two years in prison and a $1,000 fine.” Another group of legislators proposed legislation to protect librarians from being held personally accountable for the reading materials they provide.

In the United States, librarians’ professional ethics include a strong commitment to intellectual freedom. The ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement, first released in 1953 and reaffirmed in 2004, states

The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times like these.

As attempts to censor reading materials grow, Salve Regina librarians join with our university community to reaffirm and educate our community about the importance of intellectual freedom and the need to defend this core democratic ideal in the face of recent attacks. Essential to this principle is an informed and information literate public.

McKillop Library collects materials to support Salve Regina University’s curriculum. In service of this mission, librarians seek to provide representation of the diversity of thought within the disciplines taught at Salve. If you have recommendations for purchase, please contact your librarian.

Welcoming…

The library welcomed Liza Tietjen in May. Liza joined the team as our new University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, and previously served as Head of Digital Projects & Metadata at Providence College. The Archives is excited to be partnering with History and Art History faculty this fall to bring archives and special collections into the classroom and teach primary source research skills. If you’re interested in primary source research support for a class, please reach out to Liza Tietjen, University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian: elizabeth.tietjen@salve.edu or x2172.

In July we said goodbye to Special Programs and Instruction Librarian Gretchen Sotomayor, who created wonderful events and displays for four years. Until her replacement is hired, please direct all events-related questions to Dawn Emsellem.