Healey Keynotes

Accessibility Resources

The Curriculum Resource Center (CRC) has collaborated with the Equity & Excellence in Higher Education committee for the past two years to focus on Universal Course Design. This collaboration has resulted in the CRC obtaining the following resources:

Boardmaker Software

• "The premier software among educators for creating printed symbol-based communication and educational materials”.
• It is a graphics database that can be used to build a Communication Board in any language.

Braille/Print Children’s Books

• The CRC receives 12 Braille / Print children’s books a year, through the National Braille Press book-of-the-month club. Each book has print words and illustrations, with an overlay of Braille.

Kidspiration and Inspiration Software

• "Strengthens critical thinking, comprehension and writing across the curriculum".

Kurzweil 3000 software

• Can convert most PDFs to readable documents (for students with visual impairment or blindness)
• Enlarges words on the screen
• Has sophisticated Screen Reader
• Scans and digitizes print documents, making them screen readable

Math Window

• “Math Window consists of a magnetic board and tiles that allow blind students to build and solve math problems”.

In addition to the tools above, a resource map, Accessibility Resources at UMB, is now available at the Healey Library in print, Braille and large print, thanks to the Equity & Excellence committee (Carol DeSouza, Ginny Perelson, Kirsten Behling, Lori Mateljan, Marilyn Day, Stanley Dick, Tikeon Sealey, Valerie Carroll & Valerie Haven).

Please visit the Equity & Excellence website, to find information about Universal Course Design at UMB, such as:

• Introductory Universal Course Design video (filmed at UMB)
• Tutorials explaining how to incorporate UCD strategy into a course
• UCD instructional tools, technologies, assessment, resources & environmental strategies

Moving forward at the Healey Library

A few weeks ago, University Librarian Daniel Ortiz  was happy to announce that the Healey Library had joined the Fenway Libraries Online (FLO.)

We have already begun to enjoy the fruits of this alliance; recently the staff at FLO regenerated the keyword index for Healey Library's Voyager catalog; upgrading subject headings, author names, and words in titles. 

This will make searches of Voyager faster, more relevant, more robust, and allow you to find what you need on our shelves!

Dr. Ortiz, the staff of Healey Library, and the staff at FLO, are working on many more improvements in the coming months.

Soon, we will soon a new way to access eJournals will be introduced, making finding that important research article that much easier. We will be rolling out a complete upgrade of our Voyager catalog as well!

Summer 2008 is going to be an exciting time at the library, stay tuned for more announcements from Dr. Ortiz!

Morrie Schwartz's library is coming to Healey

The Healey Library is to receive the personal library of Morris Schwartz, the late Brandeis professor made famous by his award winning book, Tuesdays with Morrie.  The book, also made into a successful 1999 film, chronicles the final months of Schwartz's remarkable life.  At the age of 78 he was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal illness commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Rather than fearing death Schwartz faced it as a learning opportunity and shared his experiences with audiences on national television and radio. His appearance on Nightline prompted former student and sportswriter, Mitch Albom, to reconnect with his favorite professor. The two began meeting weekly in Schwartz’s Brookline home and their talks about life and death became rich content for the best selling book.

Schwartz’s library is a life-long academic collection of approximately 2,000 books primarily in the field of sociology and related disciplines. The collection has been generously donated by Schwartz's widow, Charlotte Schwartz, who chose Healey Library because of her friendship with Robert Hutchins, a retired UMB Sociology professor.

Healey Library Joins Fenway Libraries Online

FROM: Daniel Ortiz, University Librarian

---

I am pleased to announce that Healey Library has recently joined Fenway Libraries Online (FLO), a group of academic and special interest libraries in the Boston/ Cambridge area.

For twenty years, FLO has implemented state-of-the-art library systems and provided its member libraries with new opportunities for cooperative collection development, particularly in the acquisition of electronic databases. By joining FLO, the university community will have access to more than a million books and other materials, which will be added to the list of resources in Healey Library.

Additional institutions that are part of the FLO membership include: Emerson College, Emmanuel College, Lesley University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Museum of Fine Arts, New England Conservatory, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Wheelock College.

I want to thank Provost Paul Fonteyn, Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance, Ellen O’Connor, as well as all the UMass Boston deans for providing guidance and support in making this significant decision.

New Name and New Directions

The Healey Library Beacon will now be know as Healey Keynotes. The name change reflects our latest additions to the library resources, Healey Library's Keys to Success. This website contains subject guides which incorporate Facebook, instant messaging, RSS  feeds and other Web 2.0 tools. The blog is also be going in a direction, posts will be written by various library staff members. By including more staff members, we hope to share the diversity of our experience.

Facebook Resources

As part of the Healey Library’s process of reaching out to the students of UMass Boston, we have created discussion groups (called GroupKeys) in FaceBook, that are aligned with the new SubjectKeys that are on LibGuides. The SubjectKeys with a group have a link to the FaceBook page.  So if you are a student in a particular subject, or know someone who is, please have them check out the SubjectKeys and join the GroupKeys on FaceBook!

New Database

We added a new health related subscription to the library's collection. Cochrane Collection Plus provides access to a collection of databases which focus on the effects of health care and evidence based medical practice. It is a comprehensive source of data for anyone in the medical field. The collection of databases, which is provided by EBSCO, includes:

• NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED)
  
  • Information on the costs and effects of drugs, treatments and procedures

• Health Technology Assessments (HTA)
  
  • Information about completed and ongoing health technology assessments (studies of the medical, social, ethical and economic implications of healthcare interventions) from around the world

• Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR)
  • Full text articles, as well as protocols focusing on the effects of healthcare

• Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE)
  
  • Abstracts of published systematic reviews on the effects of health care from around the world

• Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
  
  • Bibliography of journal articles and conference proceedings as well as other sources on controlled trials

More books online

The Boston Library Consortium (BLC), of which the UMass Boston is a member, will partner with Open Content Alliance (OCA) to build a digital library of its members’ materials. According the BLC press release, “The Consortium will offer high-resolution, downloadable, reusable files of public domain materials. Using Internet Archive technology, books from all 19 libraries will be scanned at a cost of just 10 cents per page.” OCA was created to provide public access to a digital collection of the world’s knowledge and the BLC is their first large-scale consortium partner.

In related news, the New York Times reports on the freedom of access to digital collections. See "Libraries shun deals to place books on web".

How are we doing?

Here your opportunity to tell the library how you feel about our services. The Healey Library has begun using LibQUAL+™, a web based survey on library service quality. This survey was first used at UMass Boston in 2003 and we are asking all Healey Library users to participate again. The survey will run from Monday, October 22^nd to Friday, November 16^th.

Participants who give their email address will to eligible for prizes. The library will award one grand prize of a $500 gift certificate from Amazon.com to a randomly drawn email address from all of the email addresses submitted. There will also be 2 second prizes of a $200 gift certificate from Amazon.com. The prizes will be awarded in December.

Click here to take the survey.

These books are never overdue!

The Healey Library has over 25,000 eBooks available through the catalog. Search the catalog and access books through our eBook subscription services as well as individual titles. Some examples of the titles available are:

Advanced Nursing Skills: Principals and Practice written by Molly Courtenay.
from NetLibrary

In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disastersing written by Merrill R. Chapman . 
from books 24x7

Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740-1830 edited by Thomas Keymer and Jon Mee.
from Cambridge Collections Online

VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever edited by Jim Craddock.
from Gale Virtual Reference Library

In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean written by Daniel Pauly and Jay Maclean
from eBrary

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus by the editors of American heritage dictionary.
from xreferplus

Other sources of free eBooks include:

Internet Archive was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.

Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks.