Staff Highlighter: Lynn Bostwick

Now that Dell Medical has adequately settled in, related programs really need some extra support. Enter Lynn Bostwick, our new Liaison Librarian for Health Sciences.


What’s your background in libraries, and how did you decide on librarianship as a career?

I decided on librarianship as a career because I was inspired in part by my grandmother who worked at the law library at SMU in Dallas when I was growing up. I learned from her to never take the access to information for granted. I also worked for a time for a non-profit providing medical information and community resources to the public, and realized then that I enjoyed the work of helping people access the information they need, so librarianship was a good fit for me. My background is in academic libraries and is varied! It includes all different types of work from cataloging and metadata creation for digitized items to reference and circulation to collection development, instruction and providing research help.

What’s your title, and what do you do for the Libraries?

My title is Liaison Librarian for Health Sciences. I work with students and faculty in Nutrition, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health providing them with classes and research help. 

What motivates you to wake up and go to work?

Knowing I’ll have the opportunity to help someone or learn something each day. 

What are you most proud of in your job?

Providing a class to Nutrition students and seeing the results in their posters on display in the Union Ballroom.

What has been your best experience at the Libraries?

All the people I’ve met so far – super students, faculty and colleagues!
What’s something most people don’t know about you?

I LOVE football!

Dogs or cats?

I like dogs but have always had cats. We currently have a seal-point Siamese that rules our house. 

Favorite book, movie or album?

Tough question! Favorite album is Alkohol – Goran Bregovic. Years ago I got to see Bregovic perform with his band at Bass Concert Hall. 

Cook at home, or go out for dinner? What and/or where?

Both, but lately we’ve been going out to eat at Nori, a plant-based restaurant on Guadalupe that is so good!

What’s the future hold?

Catching up on travel post-pandemic and seeing more of the world!

Libraries Partners in Exhibition Celebrating Black Classicists

The University of Texas Libraries is collaborating with other local heritage institutions to highlight the contributions of Black historians to the study of antiquity.

“Black Classicists in Texas” is a free public exhibition, celebrating the life and work of classicists of color in Austin and Central Texas. In 1900, Reuben Shannon Lovinggood, the Chair of the Greek and Latin Department at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, made an impassioned argument against those who minimized the value of liberal education, especially Classics, for Black people. In the same year, Lovinggood became the first president of Samuel Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson University), and a pillar of the Austin Black community.

But he was not the only one.

The exhibition tells the story of Central Texas’ early educators of color and their passion for the study of antiquity. Explore images, archival materials, interviews, and current scholarship to find out more about Lovinggood, L.C. Anderson, H.T. Kealing and their vibrant community of scholars, students and public intellectuals. Learn about Classics and its place in historic debates on Black self-determination, and find out more about classical education in Austin today.

This exhibition is a collaboration between the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas Libraries, the Black Diaspora Archive at the LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, the Downs-Jones Library at Huston-Tillotson University, and the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center.Visit the three exhibition sites at the Benson Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, Huston-Tillotson University, and the Carver Museum.

For more information on the exhibitions, including a self-guided tour and additional resources, visit the Black Classicists in Texas website at https://bcatx.org/.

“Black Classicists in Texas” will be on view through December 22, 2023.


Over the past year, Adriana Cásarez, U.S. Studies and African Studies Librarian, played a key role in coordinating the “Black Classicists in Texas” exhibition project, and worked in partnership with Libraries’ colleagues Rachel E. Winston, Dr. D Ryan Lynch, Dr. Lorraine J. Haricombe, Shiela Winchester, Mary Rader, and Aaron Choate.

Casarez was interviewed about the exhibit on the Texas Standard, which you can listen to here.

The Missing Link: Peer Learning for Linked Data

Over the last decade, there has been a proliferation of initiatives by GLAM institutions (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) using Linked Open Data technologies to enhance access to their collections. From nation-wide collaborative campaigns, such as the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Wikidata Pilot, to paradigm-shifting implementations, such as the transition of the Library of Congress cataloging operations to a hybrid MARC and BIBFRAME environment, the growing availability of tools, ontologies and platforms are finally allowing cultural heritage institutions to explore the promises of linked data.

Librarians and archivists see the potential in Wikidata as a pragmatic solution for managing local authorities in a linked data environment; Wikidata is increasingly used for research and increasingly integrated into software applications, including Library Service Platforms like Alma/Primo.

The UT Linked Data Learning Group, an informal community of practice at The University of Texas at Austin, composed of professional staff working in archives and libraries, convenes monthly to address the need for pragmatic ways to integrate linked data into routine workflows. We collaborate to build knowledge, skills, and institutional support for linked data initiatives in our respective institutions.

In 2022, group efforts focused on building knowledge and skills around Wikidata. Some members of the UT Linked Data Learning Group have been exploring and using Wikidata in various projects in recent years. This group aspired to leverage those members’ knowledge and skills to train other staff through a hands-on peer learning experience, with intentions to expand awareness and surface opportunities for integrating Wikidata into existing and future work. To that end, group members designed and delivered a 2-day virtual Wikidata Workshop on January 12-13, 2023.

Workshop Outcomes

Goals achieved:

  • Staff familiarity with Wikidata and Linked Data
  • Enhanced linked data ecosystem relevant to Texas Cultural Heritage
  • Expanded impact of Handbook of Texas diversification efforts (adding & enhancing Wikidata entries about Texas women)

Building a community of practice – campus representation among 36 registrants:

  • UT Libraries Content Management unit
  • UT Libraries Access Systems unit
  • UT Libraries Branch & Borrower Services unit
  • UT Libraries Stewardship department
  • UT Libraries Alexander Architectural Archives
  • UT Libraries Benson Latin American Collection
  • Harry Ransom Center
  • Briscoe Center for American History
  • Tarlton Law Library
  • Texas Digital Library
  • School of Information

Hands-on peer learning to build new skills:

  • 21 active editors contributed to Wikidata throughout the workshop. Some continued with contributions after the workshop.
  • 31 new items created in Wikidata for entries represented in the Handbook of Texas
  • 74 existing Wikidata items updated with data from the Handbook of Texas
  • 835 new references for Wikidata statements citing the Handbook of Texas as a source
Infographic of workshop outcomes

Individuals involved in designing and delivering the workshop: Melanie Cofield, Head of Access Systems, University of Texas Libraries (UTL); Brenna Edwards, Manager for Digital Archives, Harry Ransom Center; Paloma Graciani-Picardo, Metadata Librarian and Head, Printed & Published Media, Harry Ransom Center; Katie Pierce Meyer, Head of Architectural Collections, UTL; Michael Shensky, Head of Research Data Services, UTL; Yogita Sharma, Alexander Architectural Archives team member, UTL; and Elliot Williams, former DPLA Metadata Aggregation Outreach Coordinator for Texas Digital Library.

Bike to UT Day

On April 20, the Libraries participated in Bike to UT Day, an event promoting cycling and celebrating bicycle commuters and human-powered transportation at UT Austin.

Sean O’Bryan, Britt Wilson, and Andrew Nolan attended the event and promoted UT Libraries’ “Pick It Up” service and LibHub delivery while displaying UT Libraries’ delivery bicycle. The event was well attended despite the rainy forecast and many attendees stopped to talk about the delivery bike and UT Libraries’ services.

Sean O’Bryan and Britt Wilson

Always a conversation starter, the bike was especially of interest to passing Faculty, Facilities staff, and library supporters many of whom took pictures of it. Also, the event turned out to be a good recruiting venue as we were able to recruit an enthusiastic new student worker for LibHub who is excited about being able to move requested library resources around campus by bicycle.

All in all, it was a successful event and good PR for the Libraries’ “Pick It Up” service. See the video below.

Middle East Special Collections Beyond a Special Collections Library

Next year, I’ll have been a librarian for 10 years, and there are many things that I’ve come to learn and appreciate in my time in the profession. I’m a subject specialist, the liaison librarian for Middle Eastern Studies at UT Austin. I manage library services for researchers interested in the Middle East as well as collections from or about the Middle East. I also coordinate services and collections for the History department. Both roles have allowed me to consider and question the boundaries that researchers and librarians alike have maintained regarding the types, priority, and value of library collections, particularly our physical collections. While all cultural heritage has value, it is usually what we call special collections or rare books that are the most highly prized. They tend to cost more, there are fewer of them, and they require special handling because of their age and/or material. Special collections are often stored in a separate and distinct space, served by dedicated and highly trained personnel, and permitted for use in controlled circumstances. What happens, however, when a valuable, rare item is kept in the regular stacks of the library’s general collections? How did it get there and why would a librarian keep it there? I want to explore these questions with two examples from the Middle East collections at UT Libraries that have allowed me to design new approaches to teaching and learning with the special collections in our stacks.

Locating Egypt in Türkiye

Dale J. Correa reviews the holdings at Turkish vendor Librakons in Istanbul.

In summer 2022, I had the honor to represent UT Libraries on an acquisitions and networking trip in Istanbul and Ankara, Türkiye. I met with a private collector in Istanbul, to whom I had been introduced by one of our regular Türkiye vendors, and purchased a number of titles in Arabic that had been published in Egypt. (It is perhaps curious that I’d go looking for Arabic in a country where the principal language in Turkish, and I’ve written about how and why I do this here.) One of those titles was al-Fath: Sahifah Islamiyah ‘Ilmiyah Akhlaqiyah, an intellectual journal circulated in the early 20th century. This journal is a crucial, backbone source for the intellectual, political, and legal history of the Middle East. It covers a variety of topics, including modernist Islamic thought, modern Egyptian history, Arabic language, British colonial history, Palestine and Zionism, Ottoman history, ethics, and the moral landscape of early 20th century Egypt. It is often cited by intellectuals of its time period (indicating its contemporary import), but it’s not widely available for research consultation in North America . Although North American scholars—including several at UT Austin in the departments of Middle Eastern Studies and History––have seen this title cited, and desired to consult the periodical themselves, many have been unable to do so. Only three North American institutions, including UT Austin, can claim to have a complete copy, while a handful of others have some volumes but not others. Considering the journal was published from 1926 – 1948, such spotty coverage is often inevitable. Additionally, al-Fath has not been digitized (which runs contrary to the growing researcher expectation for the digital availability of such essential materials).

When I brought al-Fath to the UT Libraries, I knew there would be a significant community of interest around it and that it would be an ideal locus for scholarly exchange. I partnered with Dr. Samy Ayoub (Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the UT School of Law) to prepare and host a reading workshop on al-Fath for faculty and graduate students in January 2023. Over the course of the fall semester, the UT Libraries’ Content Management department was able to complete the description and processing of al-Fath, getting it into the stacks in record time for researchers. This gave Dr. Ayoub and me time to prepare for the workshop with the help of Dr. Ahmad Agbaria (the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies), who specializes in 20th century Arab intellectualism. While these two faculty members selected passages and legal cases for workshop attendees to read and interpret, I prepared a display of contemporary periodicals from our collections to provide greater context and comparison for al-Fath.

At the one-day workshop, faculty and graduate students with advanced reading knowledge of Arabic came together to unearth the treasures of this periodical for a new audience. Dr. Ayoub introduced the conceptual framework of the workshop and the thinking behind the selection of passages to read. Dr. Agbaria provided an excellent introduction to the scholarship of the period and the biography of al-Fath’s founding editor, Muhibb al-Din Khatib. I took the attendees through the acquisitions process for this title and introduced contemporary works from our collections, demonstrating the great company that al-Fath keeps in the stacks. These titles include Akhir Sa’ah, al-Qiblah (another journal edited by Khatib), Jaridat al-Balagh al-Usbu’i (a selection of which is now part of UT Libraries’ Digital Collections), and al-Muqtataf. We then spent the morning reading passages together, taking turns leading the discussion. For the afternoon session, we divided into small groups to read reports of legal cases and then share out our analysis with the others.

The workshop’s attendees walked away with a greater understanding of 20th-century Arab scholarship and legal thinking, and intimate familiarity with a (new-to-them) text that they can use in their teaching and research. Even faculty who have been with the university for most of their careers learned from the introductions and book display about materials helpful for their research that they hadn’t known were in our collections. The graduate students had the essential experience of close-reading a text in Arabic, which is a skill that they will need for their thesis and dissertation research . In many ways the workshop followed a classic philological approach by focusing on reading a text. However, through collaboration, and by combining the expertise of scholars 1) in a range of fields within the discipline of Middle Eastern Studies and 2) of different experience levels, we were able to read al-Fath in its own context, building the bigger picture against which to lay our understandings of discrete intellectual and political trends.

Banking on Ephemera

Before the pandemic, I began accepting donations of Middle East banking and finance materials: pamphlets, brochures, reports, and guides. These formats are the kind usually produced only once as an annual bank report, or a visitor’s guide to a financial institution that would’ve been updated regularly (and the outdated copies destroyed). For their impermanent nature, they are known as “ephemera” in the library world. They are inherently rare, as they were produced only once and in limited numbers. On top of that, most people would probably dispose of such materials in their personal possession. Think about the last time that you visited a tourist site and received a map or brochure––did you keep it? If you did, had it been folded or creased, beaten up at the corners from use? To find such materials at all, and then to find them in pristine condition, is rare indeed. I am sincerely grateful to the donor, UT Austin Emeritus Professor of Government Clement Henry, for his generous gift, which has made UT Libraries a destination for research on Middle East banking in the 20th century.

In accepting the gift of these materials, I recognized that they would be something to advertise widely to increase their accessibility. The UT Libraries’ Digital Stewardship department created superb images of some of the donated materials, as well as of some of our existing Middle East bank-related holdings, which I was able to turn into a digital exhibit. I also had the opportunity to build a physical exhibit in the Perry-Castañeda Library Scholars Commons, which was on view from November 2022 – March 2023. The physical exhibit featured some materials from the digital exhibit, and a number of other items that are better appreciated in person. One of those items is a map of the Turkish Central Bank branches and country infrastructure in the Central Bank’s 1955 annual report. A bank report is probably not the first place a researcher would think to find a map of Turkish financial and transportation infrastructure, which is why I wanted to highlight these materials for researchers at all levels of experience. My role as librarian is to make critical connections between researchers and the materials that will make a difference for their scholarship, and my day-to-day observations from our collections are essential for that work. The digital and physical Middle East banking exhibits were ways that I could demonstrate the scholarly utility of ephemeral, often neglected materials such as these.

Poster advertising the exhibit launch lecture with Dr. Clement M. Henry.

To honor the launch of the exhibits and the efforts of Dr. Henry to donate his incredible personal research collection to UT Libraries, the UT Libraries hosted a lecture by Dr. Henry titled, “Banks in the Political Economies of the Middle East and North Africa.” I sought to build upon the exhibits and Dr. Henry’s lecture by holding two “study hours” in the days preceding the main lecture event. Partnering with faculty in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, I brought two advanced undergraduate courses into the Perry-Castañeda Library Learning Labs to physically engage with our Middle East banking collection. I pulled a selection of materials that I hoped would be fascinating and created an exercise for the students to do in small groups. A tangential benefit of the Middle East banking collection is that it is in English, French, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and comes in a variety of formats from monographs to pamphlets to serial reports. There’s a little something for everyone, and language does not need to be a barrier to understanding. This was the intention of the original authors of the bank reports and pamphlets, of course, who sought to broaden the investor base of their institutions.

As primary sources, these materials represent a period of rapid change and interaction with the conceptualizations and implementations of the term “modernity.”  Students in two very different courses on the contemporary Middle East were able to handle these rare and special ephemera and consider such issues as: choice of language(s); paper quality; color versus black and white images; length; frequency of publication; and choice of topics covered in the material (some of which were quite political). At a time when many students engage with library collections in a primarily digital form, and often with secondary sources that may only summarize the primary essence of the research, these study hours became precious moments for students to connect with the different, unfamiliar medium of ephemeral print and determine for themselves what it signifies to have access to these materials.

Keeping Special in the Stacks

So what happens when a valuable, rare item is kept in the regular stacks of the library’s general collections? It gets used and appreciated. Researchers access it more readily, students can stumble upon it while working on a term paper, and the item itself remains in a context of similar and complimentary works. It adds value to its shelf and stacks row and makes exploring the floors of the university library that much more interesting. There is almost no barrier to access, particularly in the public university environment of UT Libraries, and so even the most novice of researchers has a chance to benefit from this material. As Middle Eastern Studies Librarian, I intend to keep adding special and rare materials to our collection, not simply or only as a means of distinguishing the UT collection from others, but also because it is possible and currently a beneficial practice to make these materials available to all researchers who walk in our doors. I believe that the value of these items exists in the perceived tension between their rarity and their easy physical access, and I ask readers of this blog post to reconsider the hierarchy of rare and general collections.


Dale J. Correa, PhD, MS/LIS, Middle Eastern Studies Librarian & History Coordinator, University of Texas Libraries

Reflections on Libraries in 2023

Friends,

As we celebrate National Library Week at the close of another long academic year, I want to take a moment to reflect on recent developments in the world of libraries and technology.

It’s impossible to understate the importance of libraries in our society. Libraries are not just buildings that house books, but they are cultural and educational centers that foster learning, creativity, and community engagement. In the face of recent challenges, libraries have remained steadfast in their commitment to serving the public.

We recognize that libraries across the nation are facing challenges and opportunities in the current environment of censorship, legislative initiatives that seek to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices, and the rise of artificial intelligence as a potential paradigm-shifting development in technology. 

The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago, and a number which nearly doubles the 729 book challenges reported in 2021.

Libraries have traditionally been viewed as bastions of free speech and intellectual freedom, but the challenge of censorship in the current political environment is an ongoing concern. National Library Week is a time to celebrate libraries and all that they stand for, and also an opportunity to redouble our commitment to the principles of the free exchange of ideas.

On another front, legislatures across the country are considering laws that would prohibit colleges from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or staff; ban mandatory diversity training; prohibit institutions from using diversity statements in hiring and promotion; or prohibit colleges from using race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions or employment. As of this writing, 34 bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country – 2 have final legislative approval, 1 has been signed into law, and 5 failed to pass. 

We will continue to promote and implement IDEA concepts (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) in our collections, programs, and services, including in efforts to acquire and promote materials from diverse perspectives, provide programming that reflects the interests and needs of diverse communities, and create an inclusive environment for all patrons. Our role in advancing DEI efforts and promoting equity and inclusion for our community is too important.

Despite the challenges, libraries continue to provide access to information and resources to all members of the community regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and freedom of speech remains unwavering, and we will continue to provide a safe and welcoming space for all.

We’re also watching with great interest developments in the field of artificial intelligence, especially ChatGPT and similar innovations. Though the sudden leaps in technology can be accompanied with a fear of the unfamiliar, libraries can consider ways to leverage nascent developments for the greater benefit of our users and staff. Improved search capabilities can speed the process of uncovering information. Algorithms can analyze user histories to suggest tailored results. There’s great potential for enhancing accessibility for users with differing needs, and for analyzing behaviors in ways that will facilitate improvements in the user experience. And there are possibilities for automating internal processes that can free up human resources for other high-value work. 

Great care, however, needs to be taken when considering the adoption of novel technologies to ensure that their use doesn’t negatively impact information literacy. Transparency in and understanding of how systems work, and how they select and organize results is key to avoiding biases and recognizing the limitations of new technology. New technologies should never be considered replacement for critical thinking; as such, AI should be a tool to augment this most important element in the development of new knowledge, and libraries can play a role in reinforcing the importance of critical thinking skills. And new technologies should be constantly re-evaluated to identify and address shortcomings in their systems.

Artificial intelligence can potentially be a powerful tool to augment and enhance traditional library resources, and by taking a responsible approach to adopting this development, we can leverage it for the benefit of students, faculty and researchers.

We are not daunted by challenge, and we welcome whatever opportunities arise. 

Thank you for your continued support of libraries. We look forward to serving you now and in the future.

With gratitude,

lorraine j. haricombe | Vice Provost and Director, UT Libraries, University of Texas, Austin.

Los del Valle Oral Histories Available at Libraries’ Collections Portal

The Benson Latin American Collection at The University of Texas at Austin has made a significant oral history archive featuring voices of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and Northern Mexico available online through the Libraries’ Collections Portal.

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley history professor Manuel F. Medrano launched the Los del Valle Oral History Project in 1993 with the goal of collecting and preserving historical memories in the Rio Grande Valley, a region that has been historically underrepresented in archival and published research. Many of the original interviews were broadcast in edited form on local public access television. The collection of nearly 300 videos was transferred to the Benson Latin American Collection in 2015.

Raw footage of an interview with Dr. Américo Paredes, 1995. Dr. Paredes discusses how his parents came to Brownsville, his advice for writers, and the publication of his dissertation \With a Pistol in His Hand.

“By making the Los del Valle Oral History Project fully available online, the Benson highlights the immense intellectual and cultural contributions of the people of the lower Rio Grande Valley to the state of Texas,” says John Morán González, J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of American and English Literature and former director of the university’s Center for Mexican American Studies. “Scholars, students, and the general public now have access to key figures and ideas that will surely enrich our understanding of this unique borderlands region.”

Los del Valle (Spanish for “those of the Valley”) is a term used to describe Mexican Americans who live in the rural South Texas, especially those in Hidalgo, Starr and Cameron Counties. These predominantly Mexican American communities, some of which predate the modern border between Mexico and the United States, represent a vibrant culture along this historically fluid border. Interviewees come from both sides of the modern border, and include writers Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, Carmen Tafolla and Oscar Cásares; scholar and folklorist Américo Paredes; educator Juliet Garcia; artist Carmen Lomas Garza; and accordionist Narciso Martínez. Other subjects include shrimp boat workers, Charro Days participants, World War II veterans and filmmaker Gregory Nava. These interviews cover a wide range of topics, from the early days of settlement in the region to the Chicano Movement and beyond.

An interview with Carmen Lomas Garza, a Chicana artist born in Kingsville, Texas, who talks about her art career. Lomas Garza talks about racial discrimination toward Mexican American families, and shares the influence and involvement of the Chicano movement in her life.

“Professor Manuel Medrano and his team have gifted us with an important resource that helps us understand the history of the Rio Grande Valley. By doing so, it places the RGV in the context of Texas and, more broadly, the U.S.,” says Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, director of the Voces Oral History Center and the Center for Mexican American Studies.

“Oral history is key in documenting the perspective of the Latino community—too few Latinos/as will leave diaries, letters, and other records to a publicly accessible archive,” says Rivas-Rodriguez. “But even in the case of people like Américo Paredes, who did in fact leave his papers at the Benson, oral history provides context that would otherwise be unattainable.”

Interviews with Members of the 124th Cavalry Regiment at the 30th Annual Reunion. Interviews with members of the 124th Cavalry Regiment and their wives about their background, their memories of World War II, and what the reunion means to them.

Learn more about the specific holdings in the Los del Valle Oral History Project at Texas Archival Resources Online, or browse the online collection in the Libraries’ Collections Portal.

Los del Valle Oral History Project Archive was digitized with funds from the Latin American Materials Project (LAMP), Center for Research Libraries.

Staff Highlighter: Kristin Walker

The UT Libraries is one of the largest global lenders in the world. How do those materials make it from here to there, there to here, then back again? Resource Delivery Librarian Kristin Walker knows. Let’s find out more about her work and her world.


What’s your title, and what do you do for the Libraries?

Kristin Walker: Head of Resource Delivery for Interlibrary Services. I manage the department that includes Interlibrary Loan, Get a Scan and Remote Delivery. We borrow and scan research materials for the UT Austin community. Our department fills in gaps within the UT Libraries’ collections and we are able to obtain almost everything for our users. We also ship books to graduate students and faculty that are in remote locations, provide scans for faculty to use in their course materials and we digitize UT Austin dissertations and theses.

What motivates you to wake up and go to work?

KW: I am motivated by knowing that so many UT Austin researchers depend on our department to supply them with the critical materials needed to complete their projects. It feels good to know that we can help them or make things easier in some small way.

What are you most proud of in your job?

KW: I am most proud when Interlibrary Services is mentioned as one of the most valuable services provided by the UT Libraries. 

ILS seems to be a bit of a quiet giant. How important is your department?

KW: Interlibrary loan is considered a critical library service to supplement library collections. No library owns every book or journal, so libraries share their collections with each other. A lot of what we do is behind the scenes, but it is all very necessary to the UT Austin community. It may seem like a mysterious process from the outside, but we use a mix of automation, research and a high level of staff training to make our work seamless to our users.

What has been your best experience at the Libraries?

KW: The best part of working at the Libraries is the people you interact with on a daily basis. My department interacts in some way with almost every other department in the Libraries and this has given me a wholistic insight as to how all of the parts work together.


What’s something most people don’t know about you?

KW: I love K-Dramas (Korean TV shows) and I’m learning Korean on Duolingo.

Dogs or cats?

KW: Cats! I currently have two black cats.

Favorite book, movie or album?

KW: Favorite Book: The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer ISBN: 978-0684830797

Favorite Movie: Wings of Desire; Director Wim Wenders

Favorite Album: Aladdin Sane by David Bowie

Cook at home, or go out for dinner? What and/or where?

KW: I usually cook at home. I attempt a lot of Asian inspired recipes, but I also make simple soups and tray bakes.

What’s the future hold? 

KW: There is much more emphasis on digital collections, open access and accessibility as they apply to interlibrary loan and document delivery. Long term, I see copyright laws being revised and modernized to account for digital items.

Open Education News

We may have put a bow on Open Education Week, but the work of OER continues, so we recognize a few achievements in those efforts.

University of Texas at Austin faculty member Dr. Jeanette Okur’s OER textbook, Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! received an honorable mention in the OER category for the 2023 MAFLT LCTL Innovation Award, a national award recognizing outstanding, innovative, and transformative uses of technology in the teaching of Less Commonly Taught Languages. The award committee commented that Jeanette’s work stood out “because of the impressive quality of the materials and focus on contemporary issues.” Congratulations to Dr. Okur both for the award, and for her work in promoting OER.

UT faculty members Dr. Josh Frank and Guillermina Ogando Lavin have published the first edition of their OER textbook, Business in Hispanic Life and Culture. The textbook was completed as part of the Open Education Fellows Program, and is intended to promote both Spanish language learning and business world knowledge. The OER Working Group, along with University of Texas Libraries, celebrates Dr. Frank and Professor Ogando Lavin’s accomplishment and continued work in developing OER.

Read, Hot and Digitized: Indian Princely States Online Legal History Archive

Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from the UT Libraries Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship. Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of, and future creative contributions to, the growing fields of digital scholarship.


As a librarian, I can’t help but love a good bibliography. 

The first professional book I purchased after getting my first bibliographer job was Maureen Patterson’s South Asia Civilizations: a Bibliographic Synthesis.  Over the course of many years, Patterson, the former Bibliographer of the South Asia Collection at the University of Chicago, enlisted the help of a small army of graduate students and library staff to identify and succinctly document citations of scholarly books and articles organized in the ways that academics think.  Arranged by broad chronological and thematic categories, Patterson’s Bibliography was a life-saver for me while in graduate school.  Whenever I ventured into unknown territory as a grad student, the Bibliography was the perfect launching pad, giving me recommendations to begin learning.  Since then, as a librarian often called upon to help people in areas less familiar to me, I’ve turned to Patterson’s Bibliography over and over to learn, explore, and discover.  My personal copy, now tattered and torn but always with lots of post-it notes and flags pointing me to particular areas, reveals just how helpful this work has been to me.

Author’s personal copy of South Asian Civilizations

And yet, as a print source, published only once in 1981, it is dated.  Not just in terms of content—the way we think about South Asia has certainly changed since 1981!—but also in terms of its static functionality.  Bibliographies are essentially curated lists of citations, that is, of metadata (“data about other data”).  The intersection of online metadata and citations, namely in and through tools such as citation managers such as Endnote, Procite, RefWorks, and Zotero, is fertile digital humanities ground wherein we can learn about new subject areas.

For example, I recently learned of a new bibliography for the study of legal history, the Indian Princely States Online Legal History Archive, or IPSOLHA.  IPSOLHA takes up the challenge of complex histories from the colonial period when there were “hundreds of semi-sovereign, semi-autonomous states across the South Asian subcontinent. Varying in size and authority, these states (sometimes referred to as native, feudatory, or zamindari states) were incubators for innovative legal, administrative, and political ideas and offered a unique counterbalance to the hegemony of British rule. Yet despite their unique history, studying these states is complicated by the scattered nature of their archival remains.” IPSOLHA’s intervention is to use the tools of the digital humanities “to build a database and collection of references to facilitate historical study of these states, with a special focus on their legal and administrative history.” 

Example of entries re: Princely States from Patterson’s Bibliography

Main collection of IPSOLHA, with options for sorting, display and visualization

Like Patterson’s Bibliography, IPSOLHA is built upon student labor to investigate and document publications; but unlike Patterson, IPSOLHA has used the dynamic citation manager tool, Zotero, to gather relevant references from both online and analog resources which are then uploaded into a database.  The database sorts and presents the references in static thematic categories, but also in ways that can be determined by the researcher, including by type, language, location and more.  At the time of this writing, IPSOLHA is primarily a discovery tool (like Patterson), but in time, the hope is that the discovery will lead to digitization projects and more online full-text access for researchers.

Display from IPSOLHA of Gazetteers

IPSOLHA is a fabulous place for both beginner researchers to get started, but also for more advanced scholars of princely India to find hitherto unknown source materials.  I encourage all to dive in and explore the possibilities.

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