The Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) at the UMass Amherst Libraries was recently awarded $250,000 from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize a suite of collections documenting the history of disability in America and the growth of the disability rights movement.

The Visibility for Disability Project will provide a freely-available and fully-accessible digital foundation for exploring the experience of disability in the United States and the evolution of the disability rights movement. The resulting digital archive will draw upon 19 collections, representing over 130 linear feet of material and 150 years of American history. Through the personal papers of activists and the records of organizations devoted to disability, this project will reveal the social, intellectual, political, and cultural background of disability and the evolution of new forms of cross-disability, rights-based activism within the broader civil rights struggle. Among the collections included are the records of International Center for the Disabled and Clarke School for the Deaf, and the personal papers of pioneers in the psychiatric survivors movement, Judy Chamberlin and George Ebert.

In January 2019, CLIR announced the award of over $3.8 million to fund 17 projects for 2018 Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards. More than 40 institutions located in 17 states and one U.S. territory will be involved in the projects covering subjects ranging from endangered languages and displaced peoples to health issues, architecture, and fisheries. This is the fourth group of projects supported by the Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards program, which in turn is generously supported by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program, successor to the Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program, supports the creation of digital representations of unique content of high scholarly significance that will be discoverable and usable as elements of a coherent national collection.

AMHERST, Mass.—UMass Amherst, in partnership with Northern Essex Community College, Worcester State College, and Holyoke Community College, was recently awarded a $150,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Performance Incentive Fund (PIF) program. The project, “Massachusetts Open Education: Achieving Access for All,” focuses on building capacity for open educational resources (OER) across the state.  

OER are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets used for teaching, learning, assessment, and research. Besides addressing student concerns over increasingly high textbook costs, OER allow faculty to adopt innovative pedagogical practices, such as designing learning materials tailored to their classes or involving students in the creative process. 
 
“OER awareness has been steadily increasing throughout academia and the textbook industry,” said Marilyn Billings, Head of the UMass Amherst Libraries Scholarly Communication Department and principal investigator of the grant. “This grant gives us an opportunity to expand that awareness by increasing OER adoption, adaption, and creation throughout Massachusetts state schools.”

In addition, the project will seek applications from community college, state university, and UMass instructors to join a team developing OER course materials for a General Education (Gen Ed) Foundation course that is part of the Mass Transfer Block. This collaboration offers direct benefits to faculty and students at the 28 public higher education institutions in the Commonwealth.

Interested faculty may register here for workshops for Massachusetts Open Education Regional Training, held on the following dates:

• Feb. 1: Northern Essex Community College
• Feb. 8: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Mar. 12: Bridgewater State University
• Mar. 14: Worcester State University

For more information, visit the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education website.

Jeremy Smith, Digital Project Manager at the UMass Amherst Libraries, contributed to a recently published book titled OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians.

The book “is a perfect primer for anyone working with open educational resources (OER) on a university or college campus,” says Smith. “OER are teaching materials (textbooks, syllabi, readings, course outlines, slides, notes, videos, workbooks, lab manuals, etc.) that are released with an open, non-exclusive, copyright. The book contains an amazing amount of useful real-world examples from knowledgeable faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and advocates.”

Smith contributed to two chapters in the book. “Open Partnerships: Identifying and Recruiting Allies for Open Educational Resources Initiatives,” a chapter written by Smith and fellow collaborators Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Matt Ruen, and Sarah Beaubien, “addresses working with campus partners like students, administration, faculty, fellow librarians, instructional designers, etc. to develop a successful OER program.” Smith also wrote a solo chapter, “Seeking Alternatives to High-Cost Textbooks: Six Years of The Open Education Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,” in which he “discusses the history of the UMass Amherst Open Education Initiative, which began in 2011 and offers grants to faculty to adopt, adapt, or create OER.”

The book itself is open access, made available under a creative commons license for free download. Smith believes that this is an opportune moment in academia for such a guide to be published.

“As OER becomes increasingly popular on colleges campuses in the United States as well as the world, it is important for new practitioners to have a resource that gives them the tools to mount a successful OER effort on their campus,” he says. “The book can also be a resource for people on campus who wish to address issues around college affordability, student success and retention, and revolutionary pedagogical practices.”

Closed on Saturday, 11/17, and Sunday, 11/18

Open 8-4 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 11/19-11/21

Closed Thursday, 11/22

Open 8-4 p.m. Friday 11/23

Closed on Saturday, 11/24

Open 11 a.m.-12 a.m. (midnight) Sunday, 11/25

Open into regular schedule 8 a.m.-24 hours Monday, 11/26

Check here for full list of UMass Amherst Libraries hours.

anoElection Day is November 6, and the UMass Amherst Libraries have you covered. Here are a few of our resources to help prepare for Tuesday:

Voting Resources Available Freely Online

Polling Locations for Massachusetts can be found here.

Ballotpedia provides information about the upcoming election, including a preview of what your ballot looks like.

The Election Protection Coalition is the largest and oldest nonpartisan election protection organization that helps to ensure all voters have the opportunity to vote.

If you have problems while voting, call:

English: 866-OUR-VOTE

Spanish: 888-VE-Y-VOTA

Arabic: 844-YALLA-US

Asian and Pacific Languages: 888-API-VOTE

American Sign Language: 301-818-VOTE

You can also find the Coalition on Twitter and Facebook.

The Federal Election Commission provides election news and information.

The National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) has a page of voting information where you can check your registration.

The US Congress website has a list of the bills being considered this session, among other information.

The US Election Assistance Commission has resources for voters, including information in multiple languages.

UMass Amherst Libraries Resources

Congress Collection is a collection of facts about the activities of Congress, such as biographical data and voting habits of current members, and how members are rated by interest groups.

CQ Weekly (aka CQ Magazine) is a publication detailing and analyzing the activities of the U.S. Congress (articles tend to be short and to-the-point); searchable by topic.

Questions? Contact Lisa DiValentino, Law and Public Policy Librarian, at ldivalentino@library.umass.edu, or Laura Quilter, Copyright and Information Policy Librarian, at lquilter@library.umass.edu.

Call for submissions! Undergraduate Sustainability Research Award

Deadline: February 22, 2019

All currently enrolled undergraduate UMass Amherst students, part or full-time, are eligible. Submit your project here.

Papers, theses, design and multimedia projects, and art that present research of a sustainability topic (environmental, social, and/or economic) will be accepted. The first prize recipient will receive a $1,500 scholarship, and two second place winners will receive $750 scholarships. Winners will be honored at a spring sustainability event in the UMass Amherst Libraries.

Applicants must be nominated by a UMass Amherst faculty member. Projects created from spring 2018 through fall 2018 may be submitted for review.

The award promotes an in-depth understanding of sustainability topics, research strategies, and the use of library resources, providing participating students with vital skills they will carry into future academic and vocational endeavors.  The award is funded by the UMass Amherst Libraries national award-winning Sustainability Fund.

Winners of previous awards are accessible in the Sustainability Student Showcase on ScholarWorks, the University's digital repository.

For more information, contact Madeleine Charney, Research Services Librarian, 413-577-0784,mcharney@library.umass.edu.

COMING SOON:
ONE stop for questions. Go ahead - Ask Us!

You spoke; we listened! Based on your feedback, in partnership with Information Technology, we're refreshing part of the Learning Commons in the Du Bois Library:

Fall Semester 2018

Lower Level and Floor 25

W. E. B. Du Bois Library

Following on the heels of the Summer of Love, 1968 seemed like a world apart. It was a year of social experimentation and optimism, but also a year of rebellion, assassination, political agitation, and violence. It was a year of Nixon and Agnew and hippies and revolutionaries. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, the exhibit will draw upon the social change collections in the Libraries' Department of Special Collections and University Archives to explore a watershed year in American history.

September 24-December 13

Reception: Tuesday, September 25, 3:30-5:30 p.m.

Science and Engineering Library, Lederle GRC Lowrise

This is the latest in a series of exhibitions that highlights the artwork of UMass Amherst Worker Artists. The Building Bridges Public Art and Engagement Initiative recognizes workers who may clean the restrooms, serve food in dining halls, tend the grounds, or engage in clerical and administrative tasks, and aims to celebrate their artistic talents in a way that enriches the university community. The exhibition brings together more than 20 artists from across campus.

Building Bridges is a campus engagement initiative funded by the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

The exhibition is co-organized by the UMass Amherst Libraries and Labor/Management Workplace Education, Human Resources.

The UMass Amherst Libraries are pleased to welcome the next group of Du Bois Fellows to campus.

Through a generous grant awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst Libraries, in collaboration with the Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), is able to offer these post-doc fellowships to assist scholars in conducting research in the archives and collections of the Libraries.

Among the approximately 15,000 linear feet of manuscripts held by SCUA are many valuable collections for the study of social change in the United States, including the papers of the most important exponent of the politics and culture of the twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois. Since the arrival of the Du Bois Papers at UMass Amherst in 1973, SCUA has become the steward for a number of collections in which Du Bois is a central figure, including those of his associates James Aronson (acquired 1990), Katherine Bell Banks (2004), Lillian Hyman Katzman (2010), and Catherine A. Latimer (2015), as well as the papers of scholars who studied Du Bois, including William Strickland (2014) and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Levering Lewis (2014). Additionally, there are several collections in which Du Bois appears as a direct influence, including the papers of the educator Horace Mann Bond (1979) and the records of the African America Institute, an organization that for over 60 years has promoted educational and economic ties between African nations and the United States. Of these, Du Bois, Aronson, Banks, Katzman, and Bond are all fully digitized and available online free of charge.

Dr. Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center, hopes that these scholars will 'build collaborative moments' together, discussing their work and learning from each other as they delve into the collections for their respective projects.

PHOTOGRAPH: Left to Right:

Front: Richard D. Benson II; Camesha Scruggs; Juliana Goes; Lisa McLeod; Josh Myers; Dr. Whitney Battle-Baptiste

Back: Phillip Luke Sinitiere; Benjamin Nolan; Marc Lorenc; Thomas Meagher