Department Spotlight: eReserves

Did you ever wonder how those eReserves materials show up on your Moodle course pages, and who put them there? There’s more to it than you might think. The staff members in the eReserves department work hard all year round to secure the rights to digitize articles and book chapters that end up on Moodle each quarter. We asked the eReserves team, Joel Stockamp and Natalya Pashkova, to fill us in on what it’s like to work in the eReserves department.

What services are offered by the eReserves Department?
Natalya Pashkova
Natalya Pashkova

Electronic Reserves, or eReserves, is a service that enables Fuller students and faculty to access book chapters, journal articles, and other short assigned readings, from any location, simply by logging into their course page in Moodle. Before print materials can be digitized and uploaded to Moodle, we have to secure permission from rights holders. This involves contacting publishers and literary estates–a very important process that ensures we follow copyright laws.

What is the difference between Reserves and eReserves?

Reserves are the physical materials selected by instructors that are held behind the Circulation desk. Users may borrow materials placed in physical Reserves for a checkout period of 2 hours.

Remember that the “e” in eReserves stands for “electronic.” eReserves course materials become available to students online a week before the beginning of each term. They can be accessed in Moodle for the duration of each course. The use of eReserves materials is limited by our licensing agreements and permissions as well as by U.S. and international copyright laws. Due to these restrictions, at the end of each term, materials are removed from the eReserves block in Moodle.

If I have trouble accessing an article on eReserves, whom should I contact?
Notebook

Please contact eReserves staff Joel Stockamp and Natalya Pashkova at ereserves@fuller.edu or 626.396.6065. Our office hours are: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

There are also tutorials on Moodle that explain how to access eReserves materials, under the main tabs “Students” and “Faculty”: https://moodle.fuller.edu/my/

For general Moodle help, you may contact The Office of Distributed Learning at moodle@fuller.edu.

Where can I learn more about copyright information?

A good resource if you want to learn more is the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright: http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq_copyright.html

What do you enjoy about working in the eReserves department?
Joel Stockamp
Joel Stockamp

JOEL: Our department enables students to have access to a more diverse range of materials than they would get if they just relied upon textbooks, and it is rewarding to be a part of that. The field of copyright law is undergoing dramatic changes and reinterpretations due to the introduction of digital materials. Because this is an unsettled argument, this department is able to respond creatively to new and old demands, and this keeps the work fresh.

NATALYA: I love working in a fast paced environment and solving problems. Doing my work well and being creative in this process really makes my day. With the help of today’s technology we are able to bring many library and research resources to users’ fingertips. While the geeky side of my work has its joys and challenges, I enjoy interacting with students and faculty the most. Working with such a knowledgeable and diverse audience is a very rewarding experience.

When we seek permissions from publishers and authors, we often expand our search and contacts around the globe. Currently, we have contacts with many publishers in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia. That means we have to tailor our correspondence in different languages. Our multilingual colleagues in the Hubbard Library often give us a hand with writing correspondences in other languages.

As any librarian, I like to seek and find information that is not easily obtainable. Sometimes a process of locating copyright holders and negotiating agreements with them requires thinking outside the box and pursuing different paths. Just recently, I have secured copyright permissions from a Fuller alumnus, a former British Ambassador, and an agency that handles permissions and licenses for the literary estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If some day you become an author, the Fuller eReserves office might contact you.

Department Spotlight: Information Access Services

Happy New Year!  We hope that the winter quarter is off to a good start for you.  The Information Access Services team is here to help with your library-related needs.  For those who don’t know who the IAS Department is and what they do, we asked Information Access Service Manager, Nathan Yearian, to fill us in.

What is the Information Access Services department and where is it located?

IAS is the public-facing department responsible for interacting with patrons, maintaining the publicly accessible collections, and retrieving requested material from the closed stacks. We are located on the first floor of the David Allan Hubbard Library, just inside the main entrance. You may also find us in the stacks shelving books or walking around, straightening up. Feel free to ask us for help around the building if you are having trouble locating a book or need help navigating the library.

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The Information Access Services desk at D.A. Hubbard Library

What services are offered by the IAS department?

At the IAS desk, we assist patrons with borrowing, renewing, and returning books. The IAS desk is also where you can check out Reserve books, request books from Storage or Special Collections, and get basic research help and (very) basic tech support. For in-depth research help, we refer users to our Reference Department.

The IAS team can teach you how to search the library catalog, help you book a group study room, and set up your library computer and printing account. We will do our best to answer any question you have, and if we can’t directly help, we can guide you to the right person or department.

Who is on the IAS staff?

The IAS staff consists of a combination of current Fuller students and alumni representing all three schools (SOT, SOP, and SIS), as well as degreed and career library professionals. Our diverse backgrounds and varied experiences make us a well-rounded team able to assist users with their myriad library needs.

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Books waiting to be shelved.

How can users get help from an IAS staff member?

You may contact us in person at the IAS desk (our regular hours are Monday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.), by e-mail (lib-info@fuller.edu), or by phone (626.584.5618).

What do you want people to know about the IAS Department that most people don’t know?

When asked why they work at the library, the single most common response from the IAS team members is, “I enjoy helping people.” We are here to assist you, so please feel free to stop by the desk, and good luck with your studies!

Department Spotlight: Reference

Welcome back to school!  As a new academic year begins, we are sure you’ll be spending a lot of time studying in the David Allan Hubbard Library in the months to come.  If you are new to graduate-level research or if you are simply new to doing research at the David Allan Hubbard Library, our Reference Librarians, Jeff Waldrop and Bonggun Baek, would like to share some insights to ease you into research mode.

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Jeff Waldrop, Reference & Collection Development Librarian
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Bonggun Baek, Reference Librarian

What services are offered by the Reference Department?

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We offer reference materials in a variety of languages

The Reference Department offers four main services in English, Korean, and Spanish:

  • One-on-one (or small group) basic subject-related information literacy for graduate students (Worldcat Local, periodical databases, eBooks, dissertations, etc.)
  • Immediate training/consulting in finding resources for papers and assignments
  • Training and consultation with Endnote
  • Research training/Endnote seminars for doctoral and master’s students

The Reference Librarians also offer secondary help on a variety of topics, for example, citation styles, organizing research, basic note taking/writing, dissertation organization (research and writing), citation searching (looking up citations for authors), basic hardware/software help (Word, Excel, Pages, etc.), and many other topics.  We also have a part-time Mandarin-speaking collection development librarian who may answer research queries upon request.

How can patrons get help with research?

Bonggun ref desk
Reference Desk located in the Weyerhaeuser Reading Room

Library patrons eligible for research include Fuller students, faculty, staff, and alumni.  Eligible patrons are able to request research help by making an appointment either by phone (626.584.5612 for English and Spanish, or 626.584.5624 for Korean and English) or e-mail (lib-reference@fuller.edu).

The Reference Desk located in the Weyerhaeuser Reading Room (1st floor) is usually staffed from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, so no appointment is necessary for walk-ins during these hours.  Additionally, before 5:00 p.m., patrons may drop by Jeff’s office on the 1st floor (in the Weyerhaeuser Reading Room) or Bonggun’s office on the 3rd floor (just south of the elevators), for research assistance.

We are also on Twitter, so you can Tweet questions to @fullerlibrary.  Or you can text questions to 626.722.8902.

Can users get reference help online?

Absolutely!  There is an “Ask a Librarian” link on the Library Web page. You may also choose to e-mail us at lib-reference@fuller.edu, request a Google Hangout session, or view the Library’s InfoGuides (online Research Guides) located here: http://infoguides.fuller.edu/home.

What are some great tips for getting started when doing research?

Weyerhaeuser Room books and paintings
Print reference collection in the Weyerhaeuser Reading Room

It’s good to remember that most assignments call for two basic types of resources: books and articles, and each type of resource is found in a slightly different type of database.

For a basic article search, go to the Library homepage, click on the “Articles” tab, and type in the search criteria.

For a basic book search, go to the Library homepage, click on the “Books & eBooks” tab, and type in the search criteria.

Here are some basic searching hints:

  • Search terms should not be too broad, because the search will yield too many results.
  • Search terms should also not be too narrow or specific (e.g., do not type in a proposed thesis title, etc.) because the search will often yield little to no results.
  • Use short, specific, and succinct terms for the best results—let the terms broaden or narrow the main topic.
  • Use double quotes around exact phrases to increase relevancy when looking for a known item.
  • ​​Remember that not all academic resources are freely available on the Internet through Google search. ​We highly recommend that students start research from the Library Web site.
  • Organize your search. You can create an account on ​Worldcat and in databases to organize your resources. ​
  • Double-check the spelling when you do catalog/database searches, as misspellings may yield no results. Pay special attention to foreign words, names, and places.

Most importantly, ask for help!  You will be surprised at the various resources the library has to offer and we enjoy sharing those resources with our patrons.

What do you want people to know about the Reference Department that most people don’t know?

An interesting fact that most people probably don’t know is that we respond to reference inquiries from all over the world. We have received reference e-mails from over a dozen countries.

Another thing people may not know is that the Library can be accessed by going straight to the Library homepage, but it can also be accessed from Moodle (on the upper, dark-grey bar, click “Library,” and select “Library Resources”).  And remember that when doing research from off-campus, eligible patrons need to log into the Library’s databases by using their Fuller login username and password.

Finally, we want users to know that we are friendlier than we may appear to be!  See you in the Library.

Department Spotlight: Archives & Special Collections

If you have never been to the Fuller Archives & Special Collections Department, we would like you to know more about it.  We asked our Archives & Special Collections team, Adam Gossman and Yvette Mankerian, to answer a few questions about this very special part of the David Allan Hubbard Library.

What services are offered in the Archives & Special Collections Department, and where is it located?

ADAM: When the Archives were founded in honor of the great missionary and ecumenicist, David du Plessis, it was set out to be a “center for spirituality.”  Since then, it has morphed into an extensive ecumenical archive with collections ranging from Pentecostal and Holiness movements to the papers of the former chaplain of the United States Senate, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, to the Orthodox Prayer Ministry led for so many years by Father Duane Pederson.

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The Wilbur M. Smith Reading Room contains the Library’s most old and rare books.

In addition to our Ecumenical Archives, we also have Fuller Theological Seminary Institutional Archives, which exist to retain material from throughout our various departments and campuses in an effort to preserve the precious history of Fuller Seminary as it is played out each day.

Our department is also in charge of Special Collections.  Unlike the vast majority of the materials in the Archives, special collection items are published material that have particular significance.  Practically speaking, the difference between the Special Collections and the Archival Collections is that a patron can check out material from Special Collections, whereas to reference archival material, an archivist must be present, and certain restrictions are put in place to protect the material from damage.

There is a middle ground–and that is the Rare Book Room.  We are also the gatekeepers to the rare books, which are the largest and most important of the Special Collections.   We treat the rare books as an archival collection, with restrictions and protective measures upon usage.

What is your role in the Archives?

ADAM: My job title is Archivist.  My role is to represent the Archives to donors, students, staff and faculty in a way that embodies what it stands for and what Fuller stands for.  A major job of any archivist is to retain information, but I also believe that part of my role is to retain the spirit behind the collections we retain.  I am infinitely curious about the people who created these collections and the people these collections are about.

YVETTE: I joined the Archives team as the Archives Digital Access and Preservation Librarian very recently to aid in the digitization efforts of the carefully preserved historical documents and artifacts belonging to the various donors as well as the institution. The accessibility of the variety of items, stemming from audio/visual to artwork to written sermons, will aid anyone who is looking to amplify his or her research or spiritual growth. Together with the Archivist, Adam Gossman, we hope to bring to light and give access to our wonderful collection.

What collection or single item is your favorite in the Archives?

Harnack Greek NT Cover
This Greek NT is one of Adam’s favorite items in the Archives.

ADAM: This I don’t have an answer for. There are many things that are completely awesome. We have a Chinese “coin” from the year AD 14. One of my other favorites is a Greek New Testament which was given to Adolph von Harnack’s nephew at his confirmation. Later, Harnack’s nephew grew up to be a staunch atheist, but his sister was a part of the resistance to the Nazis and actually fell in love with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s brother.

Father Duane Pederson gave us some sacred icons painted by a monk in prison, with special paint made from various products, like ketchup. They are quite beautiful. I have yet to figure out a safe way to display them.

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Dedication to Adolph von Harnack’s nephew, 1922.

YVETTE: Being new to the Archives, all collections and items are intriguing and amazing. I have to say that, at the moment, I am fascinated by the small collection of pottery housed in the Archives. These items are mostly from the Holy Land with a few from Iraq, before their museum was looted.

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Pottery in the Archives.
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Pottery in the Archives.

What do you want people to know about the Archives that most people don’t know?

YVETTE: The Archives facilities are state of the art, with climate controlled environment and ample shelving for the variety of items we house.  It is rich in Fuller Theological Seminary history as well as with individual donors who have been a major influence at this institution. This collection is growing not only by content but by being accessible to our faculty and students alike.

ADAM: The Archives are rooted in an effort to expand ecumenical dialogue through study and worship. On February 7, 1985, when many of Fuller’s current students were in diapers or not yet born, the David Du Plessis Center for Christian Spirituality was founded.

We are still very committed to the ecumenical goals originally established. The Center has morphed and evolved into the current Ecumenical Archives, in which several denominations are represented, including Eastern Orthodox as well as Presbyterian. We seek to expand our representation of various traditions of our great theological heritage.

In addition to the denominational collections we also have a Performing Arts section, which houses a collection of James Dean material and a Philip Shen original origami collection. We have a Missionary and Psychology section as well; an Ecumenical Section that houses material from the Southern California Ecumenical Council; and the expanding and growing collection of materials from the Berlin Fellowship that ministered in Germany during the Cold War.

We also have an expanding Media Archive, which includes photos of distinguished figures in Fuller Seminary’s history, and a vast collection of video material including Fuller’s institutional videos.

The most important thing for people to understand about our Archives is that we would love to show you around.

How can people visit the Archives and see the collection?

ADAM: Please make an appointment if you would like to visit the Rare Book Room, Archives, or Special Collections.  E-mail archives@fuller.edu or call 626.584.5311.  Please also visit our Web site: http://libraryarchives.fuller.edu/.