I am delighted to report that a project to revitalize Linderman Library has
been given the go ahead by President Gregory Farrington to proceed to the next stage.
This $15 million project will showcase humanities collections and programs
at Lehigh, will re-purpose existing Linderman spaces to provide
new classroom and group seminar space, will create
a cafe and commons space, will provide handicapped acc
ess to the building
and easier navigation within the building, and will include the installation of
new heating and air conditioning systems to ensure the preservation of the
collections and a comfortable environment for students, faculty and staff. The
transformed Linderman Library will be outfitted to serve for many years into
the future as an attractive and lively intellectual center and humanities library for
the campus.
This good news is especially timely since we are also celebrating the 125th anniversary of Linderman Library which began construction in 1877 as a memorial to founder Asa Packer's daughter Lucy Linderman. It was dedicated the following April and, with the large addition in 1929, has served as Lehigh's first library, its only library (until 1968), and now its humanities library. To celebrate Linderman's current and future role as intellectual center for the campus, we will be sponsoring concerts, exhibits, speakers, a birthday party, and a campus-wide reading program, "On the Same Page Lehigh". Some of these events are described elsewhere in this newsletter. The "kickoff" event will be a concert by the South Mountain Brass under the direction of Paul Chou at 4:15 pm on Thursday, February 6th. Please join us!
Returning to the Linderman revitalization, the next step and the biggest challenge will be to raise the money for the project. Over the fall semester, we will work closely with the Development staff to create the fund-raising plan for Linderman. The Development Office has project managers for every significant fund-raising project to coordinate all the aspects needed to raise substantial funds. Jean Farrington will take on the special assignment of fund-raising project manager for the Linderman project reporting jointly to Vice President for Development Bonnie Devlin and myself.
Simultaneously, Assistant Vice President for Facilities Tony Corallo will begin the necessary steps to select an architect for the project. This will be done following standard Lehigh practice and will mean working closely with representatives from a number of university offices and departments, including Library and Technology Services, and identifying several architectural firms to interview. Once a firm has been recommended to the trustees and then approved, approximately a year of design work will follow. The design process will be overseen by Tony Corallo and Facilities Services.
I hope the entire Lehigh community will share in my enthusiasm for this news.
Being given "a go" on the Linderman Library project is a testament to the
hard work done by a large number of people including both LTS staff and
Lehigh faculty; it is also a recognition of the centrality of both the humanities
and libraries at Lehigh University.
Portal Pilot Hones Training, Content for Implementation
by Sherri Yerk-Zwickl
The latest phase of the Lehigh University portal implementation involves
pilot testing of the portal by selected students, faculty and staff. Over
a period of six weeks, twelve one-hour sessions were held in which participants
received a brief overview of the features and were invited to spend the remaining
time engaged in exploring the portal environment. For those people interested
in testing but unable to attend a session, instructions on testing the portal
“solo” were provided. Participants were encouraged to complete an online
survey or email their comments at the completion of their testing.
The goal of the pilot test phase is to gather feedback on the functionality
aspects and the informational content provided through the portal. Although
the portal is easy to use, the feedback provided by the participants will
guide the creation of future training sessions focused on advanced features
as well as the development of content to be presented through the portal.
At present, portal content is available through two areas, known as “tabs”
and “channels”. The tabs are arranged across the main portal page,
and are used to categorize the information displayed on that page, similar
to organizing a physical file drawer with tabbed folders. Under each tab,
various columns designated as “channels” are displayed. Each channel is a
self-contained “window” to an information area. Some of the channels that
have been developed to-date include: weather information, Lehigh News, Campus
Announcements (which would eventually replace the System Bulletin emails),
Personal Announcements (which will be used to send targeted announcements
to smaller groups of people), external news from various news outlets such
as the New York Times, NBC, Science News Daily, etc., Lehigh University information
links, and various entertainment channels. The initial content displayed
through the portal is viewed as a starting point; information received through
the pilot testing phase will serve to guide the future development of content.
The purpose of the portal is to facilitate the delivery of highly personalized
information, access to Web services such as email, calendaring, Web for Banner
and Blackboard, and group-communication tools to clients based on their role
at the university and customizable to their personal preferences. The Luminis
portal software was licensed from Campus Pipeline after an extensive product
review. It was recently announced that the Systems & Computer Technology
company (SCT), whose Banner product has been implemented at Lehigh for an
entire range of administrative and student services, will be acquiring Campus
Pipeline, paving the way for additional future enhancements to be made available
through the portal. The portal will be implemented on January 6, 2003.
Norton Anti-Virus Available
by Gale Fritsche
Library and Technology Services has signed a contract with Symantec for the corporate edition of Norton Anti-Virus. Norton Antivirus will permanently replace Command Anti-Virus upon its license expiration in May 2003. Similar to the Command, the new Norton license will cover Faculty/Staff campus and home computers as well as students and public sites. Norton Antivirus is available for Microsoft Windows 95 or higher and is also available for Macintosh OS 9 and OSX. The primary advantage of Norton Antivirus is that the Norton product updates and virus definition files will be set to automatically update from the Symantec website. This update method reduces the time and expense of managing the updates at Lehigh. Another advantage is that Norton supports the Macintosh platform.
The Command Antivirus license expires May 20, 2003. All users at lehigh who want a University supported antivirus package must uninstall Command Antivirus and install Norton by this date. Norton Antivirus may be obtained for on-campus Windows computers through the "install software" option located on the Windows START menu, through the Lehigh Norton website at http://www.lehigh.edu/security/norton or the circulation desk in Fairchild Library. For on-campus Macintosh users or off campus Windows and Macintosh users, the installation media is available through the Lehigh Norton website above or the circulation desk in Fairchild Library.
Before installing the corporate edition of Norton Antivirus, all antivirus
software packages must be removed. This includes Command Antivirus as well
as any commercial Norton Antivirus packages (typically pre-installed on
new computers). When a commercial version of Norton is removed, there are
two parts that must be uinstalled - the Norton program itself as well as
Norton Live Update program. Installation documentation is available on the
Lehigh Norton website listed above. For questions or installation assistance,
please contact the departmental LTS computer consultant (staff/faculty),
the WIRED consultant (for students) or the help desk.
Technology Research Learning Center Welcomes Faculty, Staff, Students
(photographs by Steve Lichak)
|
At the November 5th TRLC open house Bruce Taggart
sets off "virtual fireworks" to celebrate. The fireworks
began on the plasma screen and moved to a second
projection screen in the demo classroom. The room
includes "SMARTboard" technology. |
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LTS staff Tim Foley and Neil Toporski chat with Professor of Education M. J. Bishop and University of Georgia Professor Thomas Reeves. Reeves was on campus to evaluate the Clipper Project for the Mellon Foundation. |
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Instructional Technologist Grace Chiang explains the use of Camtasia software to visitors. Camtasia is an easy-to-use application for recording and producing instructional video in digital format. |
Frances Mayes to Speak February 26th
Frances Mayes, author of three best-selling books about Italy, will
speak on the Lehigh University campus on February
26th 2003 as part of the celebration of the
125th anniversary of Linderman Library.
Under the Tuscan Sun, written by Mayes, remained
on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. It was followed by
the memoir, Bella Tuscany, also an international best seller. Mayes has
a masterful ability to communicate the Photo by Steven
Rothfeld "sense of place" that makes beautiful settings memorable
and meaningful. Mayes will speak at 8 pm in Packard
Auditorium. Her talk is sponsored by the Friends of the Lehigh Libraries.
A widely published poet and essayist, Frances Mayes has
written five books of poetry, most recently Ex Voto.
She is also the author of The Discovery of
Poetry, a college textbook published by Harcourt Brace Publishers. Formerly Professor of
Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, where she directed
The Poetry Center and chaired the Department of Creative
Writing, Mayes now devotes herself full time to writing. Her first
novel, Swan, set in Georgia, where she grew up, was published
in October 2002. This and several other books by Mayes
are available at the Lehigh University Bookstore.
In November Grace Chiang gave a paper titled "What Kind of Support Do They Need? An Instructional Designer's Experience in Faculty and Student Support for Online Courses" at the annual meeting of the Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) held in Providence, Rhode Island.
Peggy Kane has accepted new responsibilities as Instructional Technologist for Distance Education effective October 2002.
Enterprise Systems Implementation (ESI) analyst Philip Lawrence gave a presentation in St. Louis this past summer entitled "SQL::Snippet — Enabling an OO Interface to your RDBMS". It will be published in the Proceedings of the 2002 Yet Another Perl Conference.
Gerald Lennon, ESI analyst, and Willa Ostrosky, Director of Information Systems in Lehigh's Development Office, gave presentations related to the use of Banner Web for Alumni Credit Card Giving using Touchnet at both the Mid-Atlantic Banner User's Group in Maryland and the Pennsylvania Banner Users Group (PABUG) in Harrisburg this October. They were joined in the PABUG presentation by Karen Knisely of Development. Lennon and Ostrosky also presented on the Alumni Directory and SCT Banner at the PABUG meeting.
Instructional Technology Team Leader Elia Schoomer has published "Design Models for Video Production" in College and University Media Review. Schoomer was also selected for a second term on the Consortium of College and University Media Center (CCUMC) Publications Advisory Board and as Associate Editor of the Leader, the newsletter of CCUMC.
Sharon Siegler and Brian Simboli, Engineering and Science Librarians respectively, coauthored "EndNote at Lehigh" in the Spring 2002 Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship. Brian co-authored another paper "Citation Managers and Citing-Cited Data", with Min Zhang in the summer edition of Issues, and gave a poster presentation about EndNote at the May Lehigh Valley Chapter meeting of the Pennsylvania Library Association.
In September 2002 Business College Team
Leader Sherri Yerk-Zwickl presented a session on Web Survey Tools
at the Pennsylvania Library Association workshop
"Measuring Library Service Quality" planned by
Sue Cady. Sherri also presented at the Pennsylvania Banner Users
Group meeting in October on "Selecting and Implementing
a Campus Portal." Tim Foley and Sherri Yerk
Zwickl presented a poster session at the national
EDUCAUSE meeting in October entitled "Redesigning
Freshman Courses for the Web. "
Reading Now: On the Same Page Lehigh
"On the Same Page Lehigh" is an opportunity for the entire
Lehigh community - students, faculty, staff, alumni, incoming first
year students, friends of Lehigh - to read the same one or two
books and discuss them together. Similar programs have taken place
across the country on many campuses and in many communities.
A "first" at Lehigh University, the program is being launched as
part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of Linderman
Library. What better way to celebrate a library?
The first book, City of Light by Lauren Belfer (Dial Press, 1999), was chosen because it is well-written, accessible, and casts in fascinating historical relief contemporary issues like the impact of technology on society and vice-versa, gender and class relationships, and individual integrity. To promote discussion there will be several "On the Same Page" book discussions scheduled for various venues (Jazzman's, the Humanities Center, etc.) beginning second semester. There will be an online discussion board for several weeks as well. All of this culminates in a visit by author Lauren Belfer to the Lehigh campus on April 1st.
City of Light is now available in paperback at the
Lehigh University Bookstore and there are several copies in the
libraries. This novel has also been published in hardback,
translation, audio book format, and large print. Pick up a copy and
enjoy some "leisure reading" over the semester break.
A second book, probably non-fiction, will be selected later in cooperation with
the First Year Student program in the Dean of Students Office.
A new exhibit in Linderman Library's Bayer Galleria displays "best sellers" from the decade after the opening of Linderman in 1878. The titles, selected from the Lehigh collection, appear in Frank Luther Mott's Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States. Also displayed are textbooks assigned at Lehigh in that era, several written by Lehigh's first president Henry Coppée, and theses required of every undergraduate. The exhibit can be viewed 1-5 pm Monday through Friday. It was curated by Science Librarian Brian Simboli and Special Collections Assistant Ilhan Citak.