Michigan Tech’s Van Pelt and Opie Library subscribes to the Chronicle of Higher Education. This valuable resource is available to all current faculty, staff and students and is available here.
The Friends of the Michigan Tech Library are currently selling note cards depicting scenes from the historic copper mining district. The Keweenaw note card set is available for purchase at the library service desk on the first floor. The cost is $12 per set plus applicable sales tax.
Also available, the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library blanket displaying past and present buildings on campus. The cost is $65 plus applicable sales tax.
Check out these items and support the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library!
The Van Pelt and Opie Library is piloting a Presentation Capture Toolkit that students, faculty, and staff can use to record lectures and presentations, develop brief software tutorials, and participate in other streaming or communication activities (Skype, etc.)
The Toolkit consists of a microphone headset and a Surface Pro touchscreen tablet with the following specialized software:
- Panopto Recorder – record and upload video presentations to Huskycast
- Camtasia Studio 8 – edit and share your content as a portable video file
This tool kit may be reserved online here or at the Library Service Desk.
Learn more about the Computers and Technology available at the Library.
Below are the winning student photos from the 6th Annual Winter Carnival Photo Contest. Devin Kohn, the photographer of the grand prize winning photograph, received a $200 Amazon gift card. Bhargar Ram, the second place prize winner, was awarded a Friends of the Michigan Tech Library blanket, and Bryan Lowney, third place prize winner, won a 3′ x 4′ poster print.
As in previous years, the winning photographs were chosen by the student assistants of the Van Pelt and Opie Library.
1st Place
Devin Kohn
2nd Place
Bhargar Ram
3rd Place
Bryan Lowney
In order to determine if service can be improved and the availability of computing can be increased, a pilot project involving the computers on the third floor of the library has been implemented. These computers will automatically lock if left idle for 10 minutes and logout after 45 minutes of inactivity.
This project will run from 2/25/16 through 3/31/16.
Please contact library@mtu.edu if you have any questions or would like to comment.
The Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections is currently accepting applications for its annual Travel Grant Program, which brings in scholars and researchers external to Michigan Technological University to work with the Archives’ collections. Financial support for the Travel Grant Program is provided by the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library, a support organization for the library and archives of Michigan Tech. Grants are awarded for up to $750 to defray the costs of travel to visit and conduct research in Houghton, Michigan.
The Michigan Tech Archives houses a wide variety of historical print, graphic and manuscript resources related to the Copper Country and Michigan Technological University. Subject coverage includes university and campus life, regional towns and cities, local industries and businesses, as well as social organizations, events and personalities of the Copper Country and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Primary topical research areas include the western Upper Peninsula, industrial history, particularly copper mining and its ancillary industries, social history, community development along the Keweenaw Peninsula, transportation and the environment. Finding aids for some of the collections can be found here: http://www.mtu.edu/library/archives/collections/.
To apply for funding through the Travel Grant Program please visit the program website: http://www.mtu.edu/library/archives/programs-and-services/travel-grants/
Applications are due on February 29, 2016. Award recipients will be notified by March 31. The successful candidate must complete their travel by December 9, 2016. Electronic submission is preferred.
For further information, please contact:
Lindsay Hiltunen, Senior Archivist
Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections
J. Robert Van Pelt and John and Ruanne Opie Library
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, MI 49931
Phone: (906) 487-2505
E-mail: copper@mtu.edu
Please join us for visiting scholar David Brown at 4:00 pm on Monday, November 16 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus. This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
In this presentation, Brown will discuss his dissertation research which focuses on historical accounts of student life and the ways in which those accounts can inform scholarship and teaching in the modern era. He is especially interested in collective experiences and instances where student life has taken on distinctive character and expression, such as in the case of Michigan Tech’s Winter Carnival. In addition to meaning, methodology will also be an important component of the talk. Brown will show how archival research is a valuable tool for studying college student life and provide an example of an exercise that challenges students to consider campus history and their place in it.
David Brown is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky. Under the guidance of noted historian of higher education Dr. John Thelin, Brown’s research focuses on historical and contemporary accounts of college student life and students’ meaning-making activities during their college years. In addition to his research, he also teaches at the University of Kentucky; last year he was a recipient of one of UK’s Outstanding Teaching Awards.
Brown’s research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Van Pelt Library. Since 1988, the Michigan Technological University Archives Travel Grant program has helped scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the Archives.
For more information, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at 906-487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or visit on the web athttp://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/.
The talk that was to take place on Tuesday, October 27 at 4 pm has been postponed. We are trying to reschedule the talk for later this semester. Please check back or call the Michigan Tech Archives at (906) 487-2505 for more information.
————————–
As part of the “Black Voices in the Copper Country” project, the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections will be hosting a talk by Dr. Michelle S. Johnson, a Community Historian with the Michigan Historical Center in Lansing. The talk, “Exhibits for New Century: Researching the African American Experience in Michigan from the Copper Country to the Capital,” will explore the historical center’s Exhibits for a New Century project, which is an interpretive exhibit documenting the African American experience across the state. Johnson will also discuss the methods and meaning behind the exhibit as well as a statewide research initiative to uncover and share African American narratives in Michigan history, such as the grant-funded project taking place at the Michigan Tech Archives. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Johnson has executed extensive work on securing and promoting spaces where socially marginalized people express their autonomous and authentic selves. As co-founder and executive director of Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, she collected and oversaw the collection of numerous oral histories around issues of place, community, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality and history. Johnson served as the Freedom Trail coordinator for the State of Michigan from 2000-2008 and consults on 19th century history projects in the state and the mid-west region, especially the Underground Railroad. She researches, writes and lectures for academic and public settings on aspects of African American culture in Michigan. Her scholarship includes a community project in Loughman, Florida researching, interpreting and performing the work of Zora Neale Hurston. Named WIDR’s “most beloved DJ,” Johnson has appeared as a weekly host for Slip Back Soul for 9 years as DJ Disobedience.
This talk is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Due to the generosity of John (Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, 1961) and Ruanne Opie, the improvements to the Van Pelt and Opie Library’s second floor have been completed and new collaborative spaces are ready for the fall semester.
Different types of moveable furniture at varying heights will enable students to find and design work spaces that best meet their needs for collaborative work. The second floor now has over 200 new seats of all different shapes, sizes and heights.
Power outlets have been added to walls, pillars, desks and chairs. These options mean that students will no longer need to leave laptops or cellphones on the ground in order to charge them, or stretch power cords from device to socket.
The 3D printer, wide format printer and wide format scanner have been moved to a centralized location which can be seen in the far right corner of this image, behind the row of Macs.
3 of the 5 double sided whiteboards added to the second floor. These boards are surrounded by movable chairs and tables that will providing the option for students to shape their own collaborative environment. Markers can be borrowed from the Library Service Center.
The old loft area, but with newly revealed functionalities: This redesigned space has four different styles of work space. Collaborative desktop computers that can seat up to three people per desk (seen in the foreground), a multi-user computer bar (back left) and booth style seating (back right). All 14 of the computers in the loft are accessible 24 hours per day, with an active HuskyCard.
Not seen in the image above, this alcove-turned-groupwork area in the loft is home to two double sided white boards and four comfortable chairs with built in power.
Near the Rehki bridge, the lob30.by has a new couch, a charging station and two express station computers.
Library 244 has been transformed to an innovative library instruction space that utilizes flexible technology and furniture to provide options for various pedagogical techniques in teaching information literacy and other library instruction.
Instructors can enhance their teaching by using copyrighted material including films/videos, art, publications, charts and graphs and more. U.S. Copyright Law, including the TEACH Act, guides classroom use including provision for Fair Use. Join us as we review the basic parameters of the legal use of copyrighted materials and familiarize you with the services available from the library when you need them.
This librarian-led workshop will be held on Tuesday, October 13th at 1:00 p.m. in room 242 of the library. No registration is necessary. For questions, please contact Nora Allred at nsallred@mtu.edu or 7-3208.