New Home for Optometry Library

In preparation for the new health sciences library to be open in 2017, the print collection of books and bound journals located at the Weston A. Pettey Optometry Library will be moved to the MD Anderson Library. The collection will be fully searchable in the catalog, and users are encouraged to locate books using the online catalog search and request feature. There will be a daily courier service between libraries when these materials are needed. Items can be sent to any branch library or delivered directly to departmental mailboxes for faculty of academic departments with no branch library. Alternately, users may access the collection in the basement of the MD Anderson Library. For more information, contact the Optometry Library at 713.743.1910.

At the end of the Fall 2016 semester, the staff and services of the Optometry Library will move to the Doctors of Texas State Optical Alumni Education Center, Room 186 Auditorium, on the first floor of the University of Houston College of Optometry (located in the recently constructed Health and Biomedical Sciences Building 1). While the Optometry Library is in its temporary location, it will continue to provide full library services to the faculty, staff, and students of the UH College of Optometry. The space will include reserve materials, a computer lab, study spaces, models, and microscopes.

The new health sciences library will be located on the second floor of the forthcoming Health and Biomedical Sciences Building 2. In addition to optometry, the library will serve other programs including pharmacy, graduate nursing, and new health professions programs such as physical therapy. Features of the new library include four study rooms with large, flat screen monitors that can be connected to laptops, a conference room, a classroom, and both group and quiet study spaces. Resources such as computers, microscopes, white boards, and anatomical models will be available. While the library will house course reserves, only a small print collection will be located there.

Name the TDL Data Repository Contest

From the Texas Digital Library website:

The Texas Digital Library (TDL) will launch a new data repository service in Fall 2016 for the benefit of faculty, students, and staff and its member institutions. The data repository is an implementation of Dataverse, an open source data repository platform developed at and used by Harvard University. The Dataverse software platform allows researchers to publish, cite, and preserve their research data.

The TDL Dataverse Implementation Working Group needs your help to name the new TDL data repository. Help us to do this great new service justice by giving it a name that conveys its contributions to Texas researchers and libraries.

Entries will be reviewed by the TDL Dataverse Implementation Working Group and the contributor of the winning name will receive a $50 Amazon gift card.

Submit your ideas by Friday, August 5th.

For more information about the data repository, see the following information sheets:

Researcher Information Sheet

Librarian Information Sheet

Libraries, Engineering Collaborate on New Makerspace

The department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the MD Anderson Library at the University of Houston are partnering to develop an exciting new makerspace. The goals of this collaboration are to advance student success, foster entrepreneurial spirit, and rekindle the culture of learning through tinkering and invention.

The makerspace, to be centrally located on the first floor of the MD Anderson Library within the Learning Commons, will offer a highly accessible and specially equipped area for building objects and devices combined with a social culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration. All students on the UH campus, regardless of their college or department, are encouraged to explore the space and all that it offers.

Low-power electronics, embedded computing, signal processing, sensors and low-power actuators, and the emerging field called the Internet of Things will be the focus of the MD Anderson Library makerspace. While electronic devices and computers pervade our world, the science and engineering behind them tend to hide in plain sight of their users; particularly K-12 students, their parents, and national policy makers. Electronics and computers have been miniaturized down to the nanoscale, commoditized, deeply embedded, and hidden within a wide range of consumer products. Smartphones pack an unprecedented suite of sensing, imaging, computing, and communication capabilities that were unthinkable not long ago. Yet, the younger generation is at risk of growing up oblivious to the sciences of the digital world even as they remain the most ardent users. Electronics and computing form the valuable science behind our modern world and must be made visible to the next generation of inventors.

Kits consisting of electronic and small mechanical parts, cables, books, and electronic learning materials to help students build meaningful projects will be available through the makerspace. Students will be able to experiment with these kits in the library makerspace or check them out for use elsewhere. The library will also provide a set of basic electronics test and measurement tools, for example, oscilloscopes, digital multi-testers, function generators, logic analyzers, and controlled power supplies, along with instruction manuals.

The new makerspace will open in the MD Anderson Library Learning Commons in the Fall 2016 semester.

Nominate Your Favorite UH Librarian

Who is your favorite librarian at the University of Houston Libraries?

Nominate an outstanding UH librarian for the 2016 I Love My Librarian Award. Nominations are open through September 19.

The award, coordinated by Carnegie Corporation of New York, The New York Public Library, The New York Times and the American Library Association, recognizes the transformative power of librarians and libraries. UH Libraries users and supporters are encouraged to submit recommendations for exceptional UH librarians who have made a positive impact on the university or in the community.

Up to 10 winners will receive a $5,000 cash award and a $500 travel stipend to attend a ceremony in their honor at Carnegie Corporation of New York on November 30, 2016.

New UX and Web Content Strategy Coordinator at UH Libraries

The University of Houston Libraries welcomes Daniel Pshock, the new user experience and web content strategy coordinator in Web Services.

Please describe your role at UH Libraries and talk about some of your professional goals and/or research areas.

I balance my time between user research, experience design, and content strategy. Working in the Web Services department, this means conducting research on user expectations and needs for the library’s website and web systems, as well as running assessments to evaluate how well our website meets those needs. My goals include making library interactions more enjoyable overall by designing web systems that are accessible, easy-to-use, and attractive. The library’s digital space is essentially its largest branch location — my ultimate goal is making it a location people want to visit.

Please share a bit about your background and interests. How do these inspire and shape your approach as a librarian?

My background is in human-computer interaction (HCI) and user experience (UX) design — I have a bachelor’s and master’s in information science both with an HCI focus from the School of Information & Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. I got interested in UX in undergrad and took all the courses on it that I could fit into my schedule and had a few UX roles as a student. It wasn’t until I was already in graduate school that I considered applying my skills to the library world. There are real design issues in libraries today, particularly in library search experience and in creating a “guiding hand” as users traverse large collections, and these sorts of challenges led to my interest in librarianship. My professional ethos of user advocacy, meaning putting user needs first, is behind my entire approach as a librarian. Luckily, librarians all over the world have been user advocates for centuries, whether they know it or not, so I’m easily among like minds at UH Libraries.

Please describe your first impressions of the University of Houston.

UH is slightly larger than my alma mater, so I was first struck by the size of the campus and the student body. The diversity of the UH community (and of Houston in general) was also something I was never aware of until I first traveled here and got familiar with the area. There are no cities of Houston’s caliber in my home state of North Carolina either, so there are really no university systems analogous to the UH system. It’s been very interesting seeing how UH operates in that regard and learning where it fits into higher education in Texas in general.

Please discuss the role that UX plays in student success.

For most UX designers, there are a handful of metrics used to measure performance: sales, sign-ups, conversions, etc. Working for a library that serves a large academic community means student success, and indeed the research success of anybody on our campus, is the most important metric for the work I do. Providing a strong user experience means ensuring everything about a system is designed to allow users to complete tasks and reach their goals — everything from the layout of user interfaces to the words you read on a screen or a sign. All of these factors in the library contribute to the success of students in their work and studies, and its how I measure the quality of the designs or strategies I produce.

What is your favorite book/movie/cuisine/hobby?

Book: A Death in the Family by James Agee
Movie: 101 Dalmatians
Cuisine: Anything with peanut butter
Hobby: Drawing and painting

Malone Appointed to Peer Review Committee

Andrea Malone, librarian of modern and classical languages, and ethnic studies at the University of Houston Libraries, has been appointed as a reviewer on the Library Science Peer Review Committee for the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

Malone joins other experts who represent a range of specializations and institutions in evaluating applications for the 2017-18 academic year.

July 2016 New Databases

The following databases are now available from the University of Houston Libraries:

Science In Context
Science in Context features authoritative information for assignments and projects, and provides detailed coverage of popular subjects. From earth science and life science, to space, technology, mathematics and science history and biography. Delivers integrated content through 150+ comprehensive reference sets from Gale Encyclopedia of Science, Chemical Elements, Science in Dispute and Macmillan Science Library. Also includes more than 22,000 topic overviews, 7,000 biographies, 1.5 million periodical articles from noted publications like Science Weekly, Science News and The Science Teacher, 16,000 images and videos, 170+ detailed experiments, 8,100 biographies, and two dictionaries. is a fully web-based online data and mapping application that gives you access to over 15,000 indicators related to demographics, housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs and more. Data is available at all common geographies (address, block group, census tract, zip code, county, city, state, MSA) as well as unique geographies like school districts and political boundaries. Data comes from both public and proprietary sources.

Texas Legal Forms
Texas Legal Forms provides a wide selection of legal forms specific to Texas across the most popular legal areas. Includes real estate contracts, wills, pre-marital agreements, bankruptcy, divorce, landlord tenant and many others.

Lippincott’s Maternity Nursing Video Series
This video series demonstrates maternity nursing care covering different specialty areas of delivery and care. Nurse, patient and family interviews are included. Prenatal care: Addresses family adaptations to pregnancy, ways to promote a healthy pregnancy, and nursing management of at-risk pregnancies. Labor and delivery: Begins from the moment of admission and addresses the nurse’s role in assessment, monitoring, pain management, emotional support, stabilization of the newborn, and maternal-neonatal bonding. Cesarean delivery: Covers several labor scenarios, including nursing care during an emergency C-section, and planned C-section. Postpartum care: Presents three normal range cases, from 12 hours to 6 weeks postpartum, with emphasis on maternal and newborn assessment, pain management, and family teaching.

Lippincott’s Pediatric Nursing Video Series
This series consists of three documentary-style videos demonstrating nursing care of children and families. Each video covers five age groups — infant, toddler, pre-school, school age and adolescent. Nurse, patient and family interviews are included.

Taylor’s Video Guide to Clinical Nursing Skills
“With more than 12 hours of video footage, this updated series follows nursing students and their instructors as they perform a range of essential nursing procedures. The Third Edition includes brand new footage to reflect current best practices and to address changes in procedures and equipment, in addition to two new skills. From reinforcing nursing skills to troubleshooting clinical problems on the fly, this dynamic video series shows nursing students and their instructors engaged in realistic nurse-patient and student-instructor interactions. Ideal as a stand-alone learning tool or as a companion to textbooks in the Taylor suite, these engaging videos parallel the skills in the textbooks and are organized in topical modules for easy reference.”–Publisher website.

Bryan Museum Exhibit: La Cruz Blanca

A special exhibit at Galveston’s Bryan Museum features items from the University of Houston Libraries Special Collections’ Leonor Villegas de Magnón Papers. A digital collection is available online.

Magnón, a Mexican citizen and life-long resident of Laredo, Texas, was a trailblazer and leading force on a variety of issues related to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Among her many accomplishments, Magnón founded and financed La Cruz Blanca (The White Cross) to provide more organized medical assistance to soldiers wounded in the Mexican Revolution. More details on this work can be found in her autobiography, La Rebelde (The Lady Rebel). In the years after the Revolution, Magnón opened a bilingual school for children and contributed to female civic organizations in the US and Mexico, traveling back and forth from Laredo until her death in 1955.

“It’s fantastic that more people are getting to know about the Magnón Papers and women’s contributions to history, said Lisa Cruces, Hispanic Collections archivist. “We hope that with the increase in awareness, more scholars will visit our archives and make use of this rich material.”

The new exhibit, which opened June 18, also includes artwork by Mexican painter Diego Rivera and other artifacts pertaining to the Mexican Revolution, loaned by museums, historical societies, and private collections.

In Memoriam: Alice Evans Pratt

Alice Evans Pratt, a longtime friend of the University of Houston Libraries and Houston Public Media, passed away in June.

Mrs. Pratt created the Emily Scott Evans Endowed Professorship in the Special Collections and Archives Department that was occupied for many years by former head of Special Collections Pat Bozeman, and also supported the construction of the Emily Scott and Joseph Wood Evans Training Room classroom that has served to introduce thousands of UH students to the library’s rare books, archives, and manuscripts in support of teaching and learning on campus.

“I was saddened to learn of Alice Pratt’s death,” said Bozeman. “I owe so much to her personally and for her many kindnesses to, and in support of, Special Collections. Mrs. Pratt had a very sharp mind and a fine sense of humor, and I always enjoyed our conversations.”

New Digital Collection: Burdette Keeland Architectural Drawings and Photographs

Burdette Keeland, Jr. was an influential Houston architect who left a legacy as a designer, an educator, and a member of the Houston Planning Commission. At the peak of his practice, from 1950 to 1980, Keeland produced some of the city’s best modernist architectural design. Yet he will also be remembered for his four decades on the faculty of the University of Houston, where he dedicated himself to mentoring the next generation of architects. This digital collection provides a sample of five of his imaginative works, including architectural drawings and renderings, photographs, clippings, and audio interviews.

A 1950 graduate of the University of Houston, Keeland quickly developed a successful architectural practice. As with many architects of the period, his work of the 1950s reflected the influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Keeland’s innovative design for the Fred Winchell Studio and Apartments (with Harwood Taylor, 1953) combined a professional office with rental apartments on a small city lot. Two years later he produced his best-known work, a steel-frame residence for homebuilder W. K. King, featured in the 1955 Meyerland Parade of Homes.

In the 1960s Keeland’s work expressed other trends in architectural design. He interpreted the Brutalist aesthetic in the Essex-Houck Office Building (with Herman F. Goeters, 1962), where his tight grouping of masonry towers gave this small office building a sense of the monumental. In the Williams Beach House of 1967 (with Alan Rice), his crisp, shed-roofed volumes evoked the barnlike structures of California’s iconic Sea Ranch development.

Keeland experimented with new ideas in his own house on Ferndale Street. In 1976 he transformed a modest 1930s house into an urban retreat for his family. He made further changes in the 1980s and 1990s, but the rear courtyard received the most attention. He showed his flair for artistic and whimsical details in the over-scaled metal column that supports a second floor overhang; a few feet away a vine-covered spiral staircase offered access to a roof-top office and observation deck.

The original materials are available in UH Libraries Special Collections in the Burdette Keeland Architectural Papers.