It's Academic

It is often said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. After over twelve years in higher education, I’ve come to realize that the spring semester as a whole is very much a lion in contrast with the latter part of the fall semester.

While the fall semester frequently gets off to a slow start with new students and faculty, by the time midterms have wrapped, there’s only a small break for Thanksgiving before final exams. The spring semester, however, seems to always be a whole different kind of animal. We start back in late January, after a lengthy holiday semester break, just in time to have the month of February sprinkled with snow delays and closures, to be continued often through March as well. Throw in flu season, spring break, and by the time everyone has regained a sense of normalcy, it’s time for Easter break (especially for those of us at institutions with a religious component) before we ever hit the home stretch of final exams and graduation. 

Does anyone else sense this disconnect with the spring semester as a whole? How do you combat it? How do you overcome and create a sense of “normalcy” for yourself, staff, faculty, and more importantly, the students? How do you stay motivated?

Ask any cadet on our campus and they can tell you exactly how many academic days are left on the calendar before graduation! Do we embrace their countdown, and have one posted in the library? Turn it into an advent calendar of sorts?

Do we take everything one day, and one event at a time? Simply clicking off items as if they’re grocery items on a shopping list can leave us feeling empty, unsatisfied, or simply wondering what we’ve forgotten.

Is there a magic formula? Or is it simply a matter of “que sera sera” (whatever will be will be)?

I’ve always been one to say that the Beatles are wiser than Idina Menzel, and to “let it be” rather than “let it go”. The best we can do is guide our students through to the finish line and graduation, perhaps providing quick brain-breaks along the way.

We’re already planning our extended hours coverage for final exams, even though we haven’t yet celebrated National Library Week, and we’ve teamed up with Campus Activities for “stress busters” during finals as well.

So – ask me how many days til the therapy pets arrive, and I can tell you it’s 43 calendar days! Ask me what’s on the agenda for the next week, and I honestly don’t know! 

 

Copyright is a scary word for a lot of folks. Many people aren’t sure what all it entails, how it matters for their own product, or what the consequences of not adhering to copyright regulations are. As a faculty librarian, I’m often asked questions about copyright, and while I sometimes have to send them to librarians who have specialized in copyright, most questions I receive can be answered with a short lesson in Creative Common Licenses. By leveraging command of what Creative Commons is and how it can be used in student work, librarians can gain entrance into more courses for both copyright and other information literacy skill instruction sessions.

A lot of faculty at my institution have heard of Creative Common licenses, but aren’t really sure what they are or how they work. However, more and more faculty are encouraged to have their students create products that involve some type of digital media. Whether it’s podcasts, portfolios, or digital narratives, students are increasingly engaged in the digital arts. While they may use their own content, sometimes students are wont to “borrow” content they find online. Often that content is copyrighted. A quick lesson in how to find and use free licensed content is a valuable tool for an academic librarian to offer to faculty and students, and a good way to promote librarian help and instruction in classes that may not normally ask for it.

Over the past year, I’ve been approached about doing more information literacy sessions that involve a short piece on copyright. At first I started talking about Creative Commons licenses for just a few moments during those sessions, but soon after faculty began to approach me directly with questions about Creative Commons. I found a lot of useful resources made by my Penn State Media Commons colleagues, but also created some of my own content to share with students. While a lot of resources dive into how to find Creative Commons or other free licensed material, understanding why Creative Commons and copyright exist is a starting place I’ve had more luck with. I’ve found that students are especially appreciative of the knowledge that what they create is theirs; they own it, and they can promote it how they want. While we mainly talk about class projects, I always bring up the importance of following copyright on any creative content our students are producing, whether its a personal interest or an academic assignment, and stress that their creations are also copyrighted. This then ties back into the idea of giving credit to whomever has created the original work or written the article, and also lets me tie in lessons on proper citation and why it matters but that citing something does not automatically mean you’re following copyright regulations, too. Faculty have been happy to have a brief lesson on copyright that they don’t need to plan, and I’m happy to get more class time with courses I have not worked with previously.

For quick resources on fair use, copyright, and Creative Commons licenses, check these links:

• CreativeCommons.org “Licensing Considerations” https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/
• Stanford University Libraries “Welcome to the Public Domain” https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/
• Teaching Copyright “Copyright FAQ” https://www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/copyright-faq.html
• Penn State University Copyright Portal “What Constitutes Fair Use?” http://copyright.psu.edu/copyright-basics/fair-use/
• Penn State University Copyright Portal “Using Creative Commons Licenses” http://copyright.psu.edu/copyright-basics/creative-commons/

Literary art is powerful. As an editor & writer for the Pennsylvania (PA) Center for the Book at Penn State University Libraries who supports programs such as the PA Letters About Literature Writing Contest—in which an oft bullied 5^th grade winner in 2018 realized, “I can be brave, and change the way people view me… I can change the way I think of myself,” after reading Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe, for example—I’ve seen the transformative power of literature firsthand.

So when PA Center for the Book Assistant Director, Ellysa Stern Cahoy and Senior Director of Community Relations at Juniper Village Senior Living at Brookline, Katie Kensinger approached me for ideas on how to link Juniper residents with the local community through poetry, I jumped at the opportunity.

With similar poetry-centered community efforts already at work in the area—such as Being Heard, a writing program taught in low-income nursing homes that grew into the Ridgelines Language Arts nonprofit founded by Abby Minor, and the Free-Range Poetry of Hannah Inglesby, who writes on-the-spot poems for people in public places (both skilled, Poems from Life poets)—I knew I wanted to offer a new approach.

Katie was passionate about developing a project that would celebrate the uniqueness of each of her participating resident’s lives, with the goal of sharing their stories, not just with family and friends who would delight in learning something new and, perhaps, unexpected about their loved ones, but also with the general public to build community connections.

As a form, poetry lends itself to mining personal experience and emotional depth and to reflecting on life, both internally and externally, making it ideal for community projects. Being Heard guides participants in writing their own poetry and Hannah’s Free-Range poems are written in the moment, for example. In considering Katie’s hopes for her residents, I suggested an approach that pairs poets and residents one-on-one for personal discussions that then inspire the poet’s creation of a poem that celebrates the resident’s life.

In line with Juniper’s mission of “nurturing the spirit of life,” the project was named Poems from Life with Juniper Village. Now in its third consecutive year, Poems from Life yields shared stories and new friendships that foster community ties. Two of this year’s 18 participants: Joe Bueter and Dick Backastow, discovered common ground in their childhood experiences with Boy Scouts, referenced in Joe’s poem for Dick— to be unveiled Tuesday, April 9.

Poems from Life culminates in a celebratory event hosted by Juniper where poets reveal their work to residents in a reading, accompanied by poetry posters and chapbooks, among family, friends, and community members.

Steven Herb, Emeritus Director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, says:

“I was moved at each poem, which perfectly married literature with story, and in this case, the story of some very interesting older people. We all do live unique lives and the poetry shared those ultimately transcendent experiences beyond the walls of their rooms or houses or memories. I was quite moved, as was the entire audience.”

The 2019 Poems from Life with Juniper Village event will be held at 6:30pm on Tuesday, April 9, and is free and open to the public—join us!

Event Details:

Poems from Life with Juniper Village – Celebration & Reading (Free)
Drinks & Appetizers

6:30pm Tue, Apr 9
Willows Dining Hall
Juniper Village Senior Living at Brookline
1950 Cliffside Drive
State College, PA 16801
Facebook Invite

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book—sponsored by Barbara I. Dewey, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, and Penn State State University Libraries—is an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. It encourages Pennsylvania’s citizens and residents to study, honor, celebrate and promote books, reading, libraries and literacy.

For more information about the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Poems from Life with Juniper Village project, please email Nicole Miyashiro at nmm16@psu.edu, or visit https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/poems-life, where videos from its previous years’ celebratory readings can also be found.

Thanks everyone who participated in yesterday’s session. Session is linked here:

Please take the time to fill out the evaluation form here, where you can also leave comments for Amanda: https://goo.gl/forms/iGxw44os34R7g0MQ2

As always, a huge thank you to PaLA and the CRD for supporting this initiative, and for the PaLA members. Thank you Amanda for presenting, Amy for moderating, and Erin for closed captioning.

If you want to present with us, please contact anyone on the C&CS team, or fill out our form located on the C&CS page here:
https://crdpala.org/connect-communicate/