Captured German Military Maps of WWII: The Results of a Preliminary Survey from the Thomas R. Smith Map Collections, University of Kansas Libraries

Poster presented at the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Society, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 12-15, 2005

The Kansas Pocket Maps of Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell: A Case of Nineteenth-Century Promotional Cartography

Engineer Otis B. Gunn and surveyor, land agent, and lawyer David T. Mitchell each created a map of Kansas and its surrounding lands in 1859. By 1861 the two men were working together to publish Gunn & Mitchell's New Map of Kansas. Scott McEathron, of the T. R. Smith Map Collection at the University of Kansas Libraries, explores the publishing history of the 1861 map and its subsequent editions, which were published until 1866. He suggests that the primary market for the map was immigrants seeking land in eastern Kansas and secondarily participants of the Colorado gold rush

An Assessment of Image Quality in Geology Works from the HathiTrust Digital Library

This study assesses the quality of both images and text in a sample from the 2,180 works on geology from the HathiTrust Digital Library (multi-institutional digital repository)--an outgrowth of the Michigan Digitization Project and partnership with Google, Inc. A random sample of 180 (consisting of 47,287 pages) was made and reveals many patterns and characteristics of the digital manifestations of these works. The good news is that of the total 47,287 pages that were reviewed, only 2.5% had errors. The bad news, of the 180 works, 114 or 63% had at least one scanning error. It is important for librarians and readers to know the strengths and shortcomings of this repository in considering future decisions on both de-accessioning and remote storage of works from libraries

KU Libraries Digital Data Services Strategy

Contains an introduction, proposed model of support, examples of existing services, examples of new or enhanced services, and glossary

Systematic Review Methodology Workshop

This three-hour session was held in Watson Library in the Clark Instruction Center on September 13, 2019. Scott McEathron, Amalia Monroe-Gulick, and Michael Peper presented on behalf of the Libraries and Abbey Dvorak, Music Therapy presented the faculty perspective based on her systematic review project.In this introduction to systematic review methodology, the topics discussed include an overview to review projects and different types of reviews, an overview of the research process and team formation, how to develop an appropriate research question, search strategy, the screening process, analysis, and preparation of a manuscript

A Comparison of E-book and Print Book Discovery, Preferences and Usage by Science and Engineering Faculty and Graduate Students at the University of Kansas

See below for the accompanying dataset and the survey instrument used to collect the data.The availability of science and technology e-books through the University of Kansas Libraries is growing rapidly through approval plans, e-book packages, and electronic demand-driven acquisitions. Based on informal conversations with faculty, questions still lingered as to the acceptance of books in the electronic format by faculty and graduate students in the STEM disciplines. To learn more about book format preferences, a survey was distributed via e-mail to 1,898 faculty and graduate students in science and technology at the University of Kansas. The survey included questions focused on print book use, e-book use, format preferences, and demographics. A majority of the 357 respondents indicated a preference for print books indicating many of the oft-repeated comments about the disadvantages of reading books on a computer. Patrons using tablets were more inclined to access e-books. The survey indicated a continuing need to purchase books in both print and electronic formats, and to market the availability of e-books to University of Kansas patrons

Planning for the Lifecycle Management and Long-Term Preservation of Research Data: A Federated Approach

Outcomes of the grant are archived here.The “data deluge” is a recent but increasingly well-understood phenomenon of scientific and social inquiry. Large-scale research instruments extend our observational power by many orders of magnitude but at the same time generate massive amounts of data. Researchers work feverishly to document and preserve changing or disappearing habitats, cultures, languages, and artifacts resulting in volumes of media in various formats. New software tools mine a growing universe of historical and modern texts and connect the dots in our semantic environment. Libraries, archives, and museums undertake digitization programs creating broad access to unique cultural heritage resources for research. Global-scale research collaborations with hundreds or thousands of participants, drive the creation of massive amounts of data, most of which cannot be recreated if lost. The University of Kansas (KU) Libraries in collaboration with two partners, the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and the Great Plains Network (GPN), received an IMLS National Leadership Grant designed to leverage collective strengths and create a proposal for a scalable and federated approach to the lifecycle management of research data based on the needs of GPN and GWLA member institutions.Institute for Museum and Library Services LG-51-12-0695-1

John Clare and place

This chapter tackles issues of place in the self-presentation and critical reception of John Clare, and pursues it across a number of axes. The argument centres on the placing of Clare both socio-economically and ‘naturally’, and limitations exerted upon perceptions of his work. Interrogating criticism this chapter finds a pervasive awkwardness especially in relation to issues of class and labour. It assesses the contemporary ‘placing’ of Clare, and seemingly unavoidable insensitivities to labour and poverty in the history industry, place-naming, and polemical ecocriticism. It assesses the ways Clare represents place – in poverty, in buildings, in nature – and, drawing on Michel de Certeau, considers the tactics Clare uses to negotiate his place. It pursues trajectories to ‘un-place’ Clare: the flight of fame in Clare’s response to Byron; and the flight of an early poem in songbooks and beyond, across the nineteenth century