Gutman Library has joined JSTOR’s Open Community Collections, an initiative that makes content from Special Collections around the world discoverable alongside relevant books, articles, and primary source materials on JSTOR.
Visit the website to browse the five collections: Textile Industry Postcards, Textile Trade Postcards, Textile Woodblocks, Philadelphia Postcards, and Textile and Costume Collection.
Learn more about Special Collections, search for a specific item, or browse each collection’s materials.
Pam Walter (second from right) with her three daughters and husband
Finding quiet space Now a shared family dance Tiptoes, muted steps
After reading the haiku, the team at Humans of the Hospital, a podcast series, reached out to learn more about Pam’s situation at home.
Listen to the podcast with Pam, “COVID STORIES: A Medical Writer’s Haiku. Her Daughters Home, Son Far, & Phone Calls in the Closet,” and many more at JeffersonCovidStories.com.
PolicyMap COVID-19 Quick Maps is a new, freely available application focused on answering crucial questions faced by communities dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 virus. Choose from predesigned maps with background blog posts or create your own.
They also provide a sneak peek at the beta platform coming soon to Jefferson’s PolicyMap (via Scott Library or Gutman Library). Improvements include data discovery, map customization, and increases in the number of zoom levels and layers in multilayer maps. Use Jefferson’s version for full access to proprietary indicators and to upload your own data.
Data in the COVID-19 maps, which are also available in the legacy app, include:
COVID-19 Daily Cases and Deaths (counts, rates, and weekly averages) as reported by the New York Times.
Social Vulnerability from the Centers for Disease Control. This includes an overall index created by the CDC, as well as the underlying four categories of indicators used by the CDC in the creation of this index: socioeconomic status, household composition, and disability status, minority status and language and, housing and transportation.
The public health & medical eBook collection can be accessed anywhere and includes very recent publications from 2018 – 2020. The collection encompasses an extensive range of topics, including infectious diseases, health policy, forensic medicine, pharmacy, environmental health, child psychology, nutrition, and gender studies. Chances are if you are looking for an eBook on a medical or health topic, this collection has an eBook for you!
Explore the Collection There are a few ways you can access the collection:
Then, you can browse by sub-discipline via the left-hand side menu
Or, search for a specific eBook via the library website search: Gutman Scott
Highlights of the Collection Highlights include over 300 eBooks on the topic of oncology, over 200 on neurology, 180 covering cardiology, 100 on infectious diseases, and more.
Need Help? If you need help accessing the collection or a specific eBook, contact us via email or Live Chat.
Congratulations to Daniel Verbit, Scholarly Communications Librarian, at Paul J Gutman Library for recently getting published in the Medical Reference Services Quarterly journal.
Library liaisons from three universities distributed an anonymous survey to graduate occupational therapy students to gauge preferred methods of communication when conducting research. This article discusses three findings: whom the students prefer to turn to when seeking research assistance, which methods of communication students prefer, and how long students spend searching before asking for assistance. From 193 responses, the liaisons reasoned that students prefer consulting with their peers before seeking help from librarians or faculty or instructors and they prefer assistance face-to-face. Additionally, the majority are willing to research from 30 min to one hour before seeking research help.
As the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and public health crisis continues, it is essential to capture and preserve related research, academic and scholarly work, and personal stories crafted by our Jefferson community. Archiving this material will help researchers and historians learn and reflect, and allow public health experts to prepare for the future.
By preserving the work of our Jefferson family, we can study the pandemic’s impact on our healthcare system, teaching and learning institution, and the broader community.
Jefferson Libraries (Paul J Gutman Library & Scott Memorial Library) is already preserving COVID-19-related content by archiving Jefferson websites and social media content, capturing Jefferson’s official internal and external communications, and accepting Jefferson-produced research and scholarship on COVID-19. The latter is all publicly available in the Jefferson Digital Commons (JDC).
Spread the Science, NOT the Virus: An interactive seminar series organized by Drs. Frasso & Patel and Robert Wilson of Jefferson College of Population Health’s Master of Public Health Program
Coronavirus Papers A growing collection ofpapers written byfaculty in Jefferson’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies
Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Disguise An article written by an Abington-Jefferson Health clinician and colleagues that covers the quarantine of healthcare providers in a tertiary community hospital
The JDC is a place to hear the stories, recount the milestones, capture the breakthroughs, and remember the voices of this pandemic. Stay up-to-date on the latest COVID-19 stories by visiting the JDC and clicking on the COVID-19 button often.
Submit Your COVID-19 Content To submit your scholarly work or research focused on COVID-19, contact us.
Reminder: Blackboard shuts down at Jefferson on June 30, 2020. Let the Academic Commons help transfer courses from Blackboard to Canvas at Canvas Camp workshops.
We originally conceived of Canvas Camp as an in-person event where you could focus on building a single course in Canvas over the course of one day. The pandemic forced us back the drawing board to reimagine Canvas Camp. Rather than a day-long event, we have imagined the event as a series of four scaffolded online workshops that build upon one another and provide participants with hands-on development of specific skills. Online workshops will be held on:
Tuesday, May 19 Friday, May 29 Monday, June 8 Tuesday, June 9
While the skills addressed in the workshops build upon previous workshops, you are free to treat them as stand-alone workshops when you register. For all workshops in the Re-imagined Canvas Camp, participants should focus on a single specific course. Course materials should be available from Blackboard, in the cloud, or on the participant’s personal computer.
Read each workshop description below and register for workshops HERE.
Canvas Camp: The Course Overview & Syllabus(Recommended order: 1 of 4) This workshop focuses on the first course components your students will see in a Canvas course: the home page, course overview, syllabus, and instructor information.
Participants will:
Update basic course details, instructor information, and post the syllabus
Learn to effectively use the features of the Rich Content Editor
Canvas Camp: Migrating Content from Blackboard to Canvas(Recommended order: 2 of 4) This workshop focuses on getting course content from Blackboard to Canvas, with attention to different approaches to migration depending on which elements of the course need to be copied and whether there are any issues with the size of course files.
Participants will:
Learn about characteristics of Blackboard courses that might complicate the migration of content to Canvas
Practice using a bulk file download or export to copy course content and/or files to Canvas
Canvas Camp: Using and Organizing Modules(Recommended order: 3 of 4) This workshop focuses on Modules, the basic organizing mechanism for all Canvas content. Based on how you structure your course (e.g. by week, topic, unit, etc.), you will practice setting up Modules to present and sequence your content for students.
Participants will:
Use Modules to contextualize and organize course content for easy access by the student
Learn about adaptive release features such as prerequisites and requirements to further customize students’ trajectory through the course
Canvas Camp: Creating and Grading Assignments(Recommended order: 4 of 4) This workshop focuses on the tools available to collect student work and assess student learning, including Assignments, Quizzes, and Rubrics. In addition to practice creating these components, you will explore the Gradebook and Canvas’ grading interface, SpeedGrader.
The Photography Services team of the Academic Commons is proud to present all Jeffersonians with a library of free stock images. The library includes photographs of people (students, faculty, etc.), places, and things (medical equipment, Jefferson branded items). Note: Not all images found on the PHOTO SERVICES website are free to download. Only images found in the free stock image gallery are accessible for free.
To download images from the free stock library: 1. Click on an image to enlarge 2. Hover over the upper left-hand corner of the image 3. Click on the last choice in the drop-down menu “DOWNLOAD” to download the image to your desktop
Please credit “Thomas Jefferson University Photography Services” when using these images.
Learn more about the Photography Services team at the Academic Commons and how they can help you! Services include medical, surgical, and research photography, studio and special event photography, photo retouching, passport photos, and more!
Today kicks off Preservation Week, a public awareness initiative that works to promote preservation and conservation. Preservation Week highlights the value that libraries and museums play in sharing history and providing perspective.
The history of Jefferson and African American graduates
Stories from Jefferson’s first women graduates
Genealogy resources
Celebrate Preservation Week by investigating your family history at Jefferson, discovering what Philadelphia was like in the 1800s, and exploring papers and notes from medical greats like Thomas Mütter, Samuel Gross, and George McClellan.
Every April, we celebrate National Library Week, an annual event that highlights the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening communities.
Help Jefferson Libraries (Scott Memorial Library & Paul J Gutman Library) celebrate this year’s theme – Find the Library at Your Place – and you could win a $100 Visa gift card!
How to Celebrate& Enter the Challenge Give the libraries a shout out on Twitter (@SMLibrary_TJU & @GutmanLibrary)!
Post about a favorite resource, helpful library worker, book club, etc., or share about how the library has made a difference while you’ve been social distancing at home. Tag the Jefferson Libraries in your post and use hashtags #NationalLibraryWeek and #ThankYouLibraries.
Not on Twitter? Post on the ALA’s Facebook page and make sure to tag the Scott Memorial Library (@scottmemoriallibrary) and use the hashtags.
At the end of National Library Week, the American Library Association (ALA) will pick one post, and the contributor will win a $100 Visa gift card. The promotion ends Saturday, April 25, at noon. A winner will be announced on ALA.org.
History of National Library Week Created by the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Book Publishers, National Library Week started in 1957. The first National Library Week was observed in 1958 with the theme “Wake Up and Read!” The 2018 celebration marked the 60th anniversary of the first event.
With social distancing, the Jefferson LabArchives team is no longer holding in-person or lab help, but we’re now set up to start offering them online, via Zoom.
Mark your calendars!When?
Dates: Monday, April 20, Wednesday, April 22, and Friday, April 24 Time: 2-3pm IS&T help will be available on Monday and Friday
You can upload larger files (up to 4 GB each) directly to LabArchives
There is no limit to the total amount of data in your notebook. However, each individual file must be less than 15GB. Note that files larger than 250MB are not indexed for searching. Use tags and the description field to improve findability. These large files are stored in Jefferson’s institutional Box account and will display with a generic Box icon
You have access to the Jefferson Users Group Notebook
What if I Need Help?
If you need more specific “how to” info for LabArchives features, you can ask specific questions here: support@labarchives.com or if you wish to set up a training session for your group contact: LAsupport@jefferson.edu
LabArchives Team
Gary Kaplan, Associate Director, Library Information Services, Scott Memorial Library | Academic Commons Mike Suda, IS&T Manager, Information Services and Technology Jessica Gutierrez, Program Manager, Office of Research Conduct & Compliance
Take a break from the conference calls, online meetings, and Collaborate Classrooms for COMMON THREADS!
Join Jefferson and the Woodmere Art Museum (virtually) on Thursday, April 23, at 1 pm for COMMON THREADS: African Objects of the Textile & Costume Collection.
This event is in collaboration with the Woodmere Art Museum. To learn more about Jefferson’s Design Center and Textile & Costume Collection, visit our website.
Access to Blackboard will end on June 30, 2020, as Thomas Jefferson University transitions learning management systems (LMS) from Blackboard to Canvas.
Canvas, the university’s new LMS, is already in use by many instructors and learners in courses and communities (groups).
Faculty If you have not yet reached out to the Academic Commons to start transitioning your courses from Blackboard to Canvas, contact us today!
To learn more about Canvas, our timeline for implementation, and what you can do to prepare for the transition, read this article.
BOOKMARK COMMONLY VISITED WEBSITES YOU ACCESS FROM BLACKBOARD
Bookmark to your website browser or add to your favorites list any links that you commonly visit from the Blackboard Homepage. Canvas will NOT maintain these “Staff Links” (right) and resources, so save them to your files before June 30.
Early on in the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists and leaders from governments around the world called for scientific publishers to make research on the coronavirus accessible to all, writing in an open letter that access to information was “vital” to efforts to combat the global crisis posed by the virus.
Publishers responded, and now librarians and information professionals are working hard to keep track of the number of journals that have made access to their published research on COVID-19 free of charge, at least for the “duration” of the emergency. The availability of scientific information and data on COVID-19 has far surpassed the efforts surrounding prior outbreaks, such as the Zika virus or Ebola, to leverage the power of open access for a public health emergency. Some scientists are talking as if a new model of disseminating scientific information has arrived to stay, one that relies less on traditional journal publication to slowly disseminate information, and instead leverages the power of social media and preprint servers to release information quickly so it can be evaluated and then used by scientists all over the world.
The COVID-19 crisis has “shone a spotlight on Open Access,” and the benefits it can bring to society. However, open access advocates are mindful that right now this is only set to be a temporary change, and that work is still needed to harness the momentum of this event to change our current culture of scholarly publishing. The open access provided by publishers is still limited in some significant ways. Not only is it temporary, but access to articles on coronaviruses, in general, is still limited, and researchers also still have limited access to the background research sources that are cited in papers on COVID-19. According to the European branch of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), “this approach potentially blinds research from other work that could be vital” to solving our current global health crisis.
In Europe, a movement to make access to government-funded scientific research open access from day one of publication, called Plan S, is well underway and ready to be implemented next year. However, US-based organizations that advocate for open access, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, remind us of the importance to continue pushing for changes in state and federal laws to “make open science the default” in the United States and the world. As SPARCEurope writes, we must continue to work towards:
“eliminat[ing] barriers such as high OA publishing prices and embargoes. [W]e need open licenses, more FAIR research data shared and a sustainable open science infrastructure to support our efforts well into the future…Only then will we be better prepared for the next crisis; and able to truly accelerate solving some of the world’s most pressing health, sustainable energy, agriculture or climate problems”
