UH Special Collections Winter Book Club

University of Houston students, staff, faculty, and alumni are invited to join UH Libraries for a discussion of The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

Readers will gather on Thursday, December 7 from 12 noon – 1 p.m. in the Special Collections Evans Room at the MD Anderson Library. Lunch will be provided but registration is required.

For more information, contact Lisa Cruces.

IMLS Grant Awarded for Content Migration Toolkit

A multi-institutional project team has been awarded a 2017 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grants for Libraries award.

The University of Houston Libraries, in collaboration with Stanford University, DuraSpace, Indiana University and the Digital Public Library of America, received the grant LG-70-17-0217-17 to develop a toolkit that will help institutions accomplish complex system migrations. Focusing primarily on migrations from CONTENTdm to Hyku, the toolkit will allow institutions to better understand their digital library ecosystems and how they can prepare for migration. The toolkit will include content such as documentation on the theoretical approaches to migration, instructions on how to conduct a needs assessment based on analyzing metadata structures and understanding system requirements, best practices for preparing repository data for migration, and specialized tools to assist users with migration to Hyku.

This project was made possible in part by the IMLS, which is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and approximately 35,000 museums. The mission of IMLS is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning­­­­­, and cultural and civic engagement.

National Leadership Grants for Libraries support projects that address challenges faced by the library and archive fields and that have the potential to advance library and archival practice with new tools, research findings, models, services, or alliances that can be widely replicated.

New Digital Collection: Montrose Voice

The Montrose Voice digital collection preserves and presents issues of one of Houston’s most notable LGBT publications. Over 250 issues from throughout the publication’s history are preserved in this collection, ranging from May 1981 to July 2006.

Known at various points in its run as the New Voice and the Houston Voice, this local paper was one of many started by Houston publisher Henry McClurg. As with some of McClurg’s earlier publications, the Voice had a Houston focus but national interest. Its contents included syndicated columns and cartoons, editorials, letters from readers, news items, classified and graphical ads, and community calendars. While later issues focused more on gay-friendly entertainment and nightlife options in the Houston area, during its early decades, the Voice was a significant source of information on current political and social events. A number of gay-owned and gay-friendly business and civic organizations advertised in the Voice‘s pages, letting readers know where they could find welcome both in and out of Montrose, Houston’s gayborhood.

Issues presented in this collection contain pieces dealing with a number of issues of Texan and national LGBT interest, including: the emergence of HIV/AIDS as a major health threat, including government and medical responses; political activism and campaigns of notable LGBT Houstonians, including Annise Parker, Glen Maxey, Larry Bagneris, Phyllis Frye, and Ray Hill; legal cases surrounding Texas Penal Code Section 21.06, including Baker v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas; the development of and controversies surrounding Houston’s Pride Week celebrations; local and national LGBT-related crimes, including the murders of Paul Broussard, Marion Pantzer, and Matthew Shepard; and the spread of civil unions and marriage equality throughout the United States and Canada before the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

The original materials are owned by the Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of LGBT History.

Harvey Help: Textbooks for Students

A letter to all UH faculty:

—

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, many of our students have been deeply affected by hurricane Harvey.

Textbooks can be a heavy financial burden at the best of times and may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle to affected students returning to UH. In an effort to assist these students and lessen their financial burdens, UH Libraries encourages faculty to consider the following options:

1. Submit a list of your assigned textbooks to the UH Libraries’ Course Reserves service. The Libraries will obtain as many textbooks and course materials as possible and place them on reserve at the service desks at either M.D. Anderson Library, the Jenkins Art & Architecture Library, or the Music Library or in Blackboard through ARES Course Reserves system.
2. Please send your textbook title(s) and as much additional information (i.e., author/editor, publisher, edition, etc.) as possible to libreserves@uh.edu so that these materials can be made available to students. You may also send a copy of your course syllabus.
3. Find electronic books and journal content through UH Libraries
4. Supplement your curriculum with free, online textbooks from the Open Textbook Library or OpenStax that can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost and cover a wide variety of topics/subject areas. These open textbooks have been faculty-reviewed and are used at multiple higher education institutions. Learn more by visiting the Open Textbook Library or OpenStax.

Thank you for helping us help students at this difficult time!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Nora Dethloff, Head of Research Materials Procurement at ndethloff@uh.edu

 
Best,

Lisa German
Dean of University Libraries
And Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair
University of Houston
4333 University Dr.
Houston TX 77204-2000
713-743-9795
Lagerman@uh.edu