The Word for 2020 is Resiliency

The ability to carry on in the face of adversity is crucial, particularly in difficult times such as these.  With severe economic, political, environmental, and public health challenges surrounding us, it is vitally important to cultivate resiliency.  Maya Angelou once said “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”  And Helen Keller’s words of wisdom resonate beautifully all these many years later: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”  We all need to consider ways to relieve stress, remain optimistic, and be grateful for the small things.  To help you find your way to resiliency, have a look at the resiliency-related titles listed on our WU Reads Reading Guide.  And although you currently can’t come to the library to pick up a print book, all of these titles are available as ebooks!


Faculty Colloquium: Joyce Millen

Please join us on Thursday, April  2, at 4:10 p.m. at this URL:

https://willametteuniversity.zoom.us/j/861290433

for our ninth Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Two-Part Presentation and Discussion:
Ethnomedicine and Comparative Health System Responses to COVID-19

Presenter: Joyce Millen, Associate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies and Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership

Joyce Millen

Abstract: Before COVID-19 altered all of our lives, I had been planning to present this early April 2020 faculty colloquium on ethnomedicine—a branch of medical anthropology concerned with the cross-cultural study of health, illness and healing. But with the advent of this pandemic, I suspect more of us may be interested in a discussion about comparative health systems in response to COVID-19. Therefore, I will begin with a bit of my former plan, to examine the nexus between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and western medicine, but then I will spend the latter half of my presentation discussing how different countries around the world are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. What might the divergent responses tell us about specific countries, and what might the varied responses tell us about the state of global health more generally?

I suspect that many of us will continue to ponder these questions—the differing levels of preparedness and response—for years into the future. My hope is that we may begin a discussion at the colloquium that will spark new questions and conversations we can build upon as the pandemic unfolds and eventually ends.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators


What IIIF We Could

By Michael Spalti, Associate University Librarian for Systems mspalti@willamette.edu

The phrase “International Image Interoperability Framework” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. You might also guess that it’s irrelevant to researchers, educators, librarians, museum curators, and students. But there’s more to tell.

IIIF (pronounced triple-eye f) was first conceived in 2011 as a collaboration between The British Library, Stanford University, the Bodleian Libraries (Oxford University), the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Nasjonalbiblioteket (National Library of Norway), Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library, and Cornell University. It has since grown into broader international collaboration and consortium.

IIIF solves a problem that has accrued over the last two decades. Willamette University’s digital collections offer a small but meaningful example. The digital images created from materials in the University Archives and Hallie Ford Museum include around 15,000 items that are accessible to anyone, anywhere. While this is great, it comes with a caveat. These materials are accessed through the software tools that we provide. In many cases, the software is unique, designed to work well with our collections and not portable into other contexts. It’s similar to the old problem of “you can work on this file using program X but not using program Y.” The opportunities for sharing and creativity are limited by software, protocols, and file formats.

Here’s an example from the world of medieval manuscripts. It’s a sad fact that, in the past, illuminations have been cut from manuscript pages by unscrupulous collectors and sold for profit. In some cases, the stolen illuminations have found their way into other library collections. With digitization and a bit of scholarly sleuthing, it’s possible to discover and view these stolen details from a distance, but how do you reconstruct the manuscript in a virtual setting?

Book of Hours in IIF Viewer

One of the many applications of IIIF is online manuscript reconstruction. Using an IIIF-compliant viewer you can create (and publish) a manuscript page that is virtually intact. This example from the Biblissima project uses the Mirador image viewer. It shows two accurately positioned images: one is the full manuscript page and the other the missing illumination. The images come from two separate repositories that could be located anywhere in the world. The only requirement is that the repositories and the image viewer “speak” IIIF as a common language for sharing, comparing, annotating, and in this case, layering image views. IIIF can also be used to aggregate content for machine learning applications that can transcribe, translate, or look for patterns in images.

Within the IIIF community there is much work to do. In addition to improving and extending the framework, software projects that implement IIIF must be continuously maintained and new features and capabilities added. Still, nine years after the project began, an impressive amount of progress has been made.

Coming to the Library Soon

As part of the Hatfield Library’s transition to a new digital repository we plan to make our image collections IIIF-compliant. The initial IIIF support has been developed in-house using open source software contributed by other organizations (most notably at the MDZ Digital Library team at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, Germany) and capabilities provided by the new DSpace 7.0 repository (which is still under development at the time of writing).

The transition to a new digital repository platform is a practical necessity. The addition of IIIF adds some excitement. While most users will experience IIIF passively as the default image and document viewer for our new repository, there are more interesting possibilities for teaching and research. Here’s another example, continuing in the medieval manuscript theme.

Digital Vatican Library Book

The image above shows the IIIF image viewer provided by the Digital Vatican Library. I initially loaded a full manuscript from the Vatican’s collection. Next, I selected a page from the manuscript and zoomed in to detail. Then I clicked “ADD VIEW” and provided a Web address (URL) for a book of hours manuscript in Willamette’s rare book collection. The local manuscript loaded into the Vatican viewer. I navigated to a page and zoomed in to compare page details. It would be simple to reverse the process, using a local IIIF viewer to capture, save, and publish these comparisons in a class web page or online publication. (Full disclosure: because the book of hours is not in my test repository as of writing, I actually loaded a copy of a Willamette alumni publication into the Vatican viewer to test the functionality, which does indeed work!)

IIIF can be used across all disciplines. For those in the humanities, the IIIF Consortium and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute have partnered to offer a workshop on IIIF for those interested and able to attend.


Chuck Williams Collection Update

By Rosie Yanosko, Processing Archivist, ryanosko@willamette.edu

This spring, the Chuck Williams Collection will open for research. Charles Otis “Chuck” Williams was an environmental activist and professional photographer who was of Cascade Chinook descent and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. His collection, which primarily document his activism, careers, and writings, are held in the Willamette University Archives & Special Collections, while his photographs, which document a plethora of tribal communities, cultural celebrations, and landscapes in the Pacific Northwest, are held in the Oregon Multicultural Archives at the Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Research Center. This LSTA grant-funded project seeks to preserve and make accessible his papers and photographs.

Born on July 20, 1943, in Portland, Oregon, Williams and his family moved to Petaluma, California several years later. Williams was interested in animals and nature from an early age, and his collection includes a charming childhood scrapbook titled “The Nature Part of the World”. After graduating high school, he took engineering classes at a community college and worked full time as a draftsman/technician, eventually landing a job at Johnson Controls and working on projects for NASA and Boeing. Despite his success, Williams realized he wasn’t cut out for this career path and went on to serve with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic and AmeriCorps VISTA in El Paso, Texas. In 1973, he earned a BA in Art from Sonoma State University. Soon after, he began travelling the U.S. extensively, ultimately spending seven years touring the National Parks System (he managed to visit every park in the contiguous U.S.) in his camper van while honing his writing and photography skills. As he travelled, he sent notes to the environmental organization Friends of the Earth (FOE), informing them of issues he noticed while exploring the parks. This caught the attention of FOE’s founder, David Brower, who offered him a position as the organization’s National Parks Representative. While serving in this position, Williams lobbied for stronger protections for national parks and helped establish the Golden Gate and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Areas. He also wrote articles for FOE’s’s journal, Not Man Apart. His papers from this period contain a manuscript for a book he was writing on the National Parks, as well as research files on the U.S. National Parks Service, and research gathered while writing his article “The Park Rebellion” for Not Man Apart. In the late 1970s, Williams moved back to his native Oregon to take care of his ailing father, and became involved with the fight to preserve the Columbia River Gorge.

salmon fishery

In the early 1980s, Williams co-founded the Columbia Gorge Coalition, a grassroots environmental group that started the campaign for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. In an article for Earthwatch Oregon in February 1979, Williams summed up the conflict in the Gorge: “Most conservationists agree that strong federal action will be needed to preserve the Gorge. Like Lake Tahoe, the Gorge is shared by two states that seldom see eye to eye, and nearly fifty local jurisdictions spread up and down both sides of the river have never been known to agree on anything. A national scenic area managed by the National Park Service is the most likely proposal.” While Williams and the Coalition wanted the Gorge to be protected from development and managed by the National Park Service, affluent activist groups in Portland favored fewer restrictions on development and thought the land should be managed by the U.S. Forest Service. To help bring attention to the cause, Williams wrote, photographed, and largely self-financed the publication of his book, Bridge of the Gods, Mountains of Fire: A Return to the Columbia River Gorge. After years of contention, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act was passed in 1986. Williams did not think the National Scenic Area (NSA) provided necessary protections and considered the legislation a failure, but continued to fight for stronger protections. He worked with his family to preserve their land allotment in the Columbia Gorge, ultimately establishing the land as the Franz Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Williams went on to serve as the Public Information Office Manager and Publications Editor for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fishing Alliance (CRITFC), an organization that coordinates management policy and provides fisheries technical services for the Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Nez Perce tribes. Williams’ position at CRITFC led him to begin photographically documenting various tribal and cultural celebrations throughout the Pacific Northwest. In the mid-1990s, he co-founded and managed the Salmon Corps, an AmeriCorps program that worked with Native American youth to restore salmon habitats and riparian areas in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. After leaving the Salmon Corps, Williams was able to devote more time to his photography and writing. He continued to photograph cultural festivals and celebrations in the Pacific Northwest and exhibited them in the Columbia Gorge Gallery, which he operated out of his home in The Dalles. Proceeds from prints sold were shared with the subjects of his photographs–a testament to the depth of his care for his community. Williams also designed calendars commemorating Celilo Falls and offered slideshows and presentations on the histories of Native American Tribes in the Pacific Northwest. In 2013, Williams, along with David G. Lewis and Eirik Thorsgard, co-authored the chapter “Honoring our Tilixam: Chinookan People of Grand Ronde” in the book Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia.

Sherar Fall, Oregon

During his storied career, Chuck Williams was a tireless advocate for the protection of countless rivers, forests, parks, and animals, earning him the nickname “Wild and Scenic Chuck” (in Chinook Wawa, “chuck” means river). He consistently placed environmental causes before his own well being, and this took a toll on his health and finances. In 2015, Williams was diagnosed with lung cancer, and on April 24, 2016 he passed away. Williams was a diligent record keeper and his collection contains a wealth of materials pertaining to grassroots environmental activism, the histories of Native American Tribes in the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. National Parks Service, tribal fisheries, and other subject areas. His collection also provides a crucial counter-narrative to the prevalent discourse surrounding the creation, passage, and effects of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act. Willamette University Archives & Special Collections will open the Chuck Williams Collection for research in the coming months–please stay tuned for updates.


Update on Library Services

Dear Colleagues,

We hope the following guidelines and services will enhance access to the MOHL’s resources, including physical collections, while the library is closed.

Prioritization of requests:

1) Items to be put on reserve for an entire class (creating a scanned copy)

2) Items for Seniors completing a thesis

3) Items for Faculty

Digital Collections – Digital books and periodicals remain accessible from campus and remotely. If you have difficulties please contact us at library@willamette.edu for assistance.

Interlibrary Loan:

1) Requesting and borrowing of articles (digitally) continues via ILL button in the library catalog. Fulfillment may be delayed.

2) Requesting of physical items from Summit and ILL has been discontinued indefinitely. Summit has shut down until further notice and the vast majority of institutions have discontinued physical ILL lending as well.

Items in the Mark O. Hatfield Physical Collection:

1) Digital Course Reserves– Faculty, please contact library@willamette.edu or your liaison librarian to discuss getting items digitized for posting in WISE.

2) Articles from the bound print periodicals – Please use the “scan on demand” button in the library catalog (see example). We will email you the scanned article as soon as we can.

3) Book chapters – please send the full citation including chapter(s) needed to library@willamette.edu. We will scan the chapters and return them to you as quickly as possible via email. There is no turnaround guarantee.

4) Full Books (Seniors completing a thesis or faculty) – please send the full citation to library@willamette.edu.

a. Living within 60 miles of Campus: Indicate “On-Campus Pickup” in your email subject heading, and we will pull the book, check it out to you, and send you a numerical pickup code associated with the book via email. (For privacy reasons we won’t label books with your name). It will be placed on a book cart in the library vestibule for you to pick up. You will have 2-days to pick it up once you receive the email. Once we check it out to you, you are considered responsible for the book. You will need a valid ID to access the vestibule.

b. Living more than 60 miles from campus: Indicate “Deliver via Mail” in your email subject heading. We will check it out to you and send you an email indicating the item(s) we have sent. Once we check it out to you we will consider you responsible for the book, including returning it to the library. Be sure to include your mailing address in your email.

Note: For items, you have right now, you can return Summit or Willamette items to our book drop or hold on to them until the library re-opens. The library will not be charging any fines. You still will be responsible for any lost items.

Please direct any questions to library@willamette.edu or cmilberg@willamette.edu.

Best Regards,
Craig Milberg
University Librarian


Faculty Colloquium: Ana Montero

Please join us on Thursday, March 19, at 4:10 p.m. at this URL:

https://willametteuniversity.zoom.us/j/405796806

for our eighth Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Ana Montero, Professor of Spanish
Ana Montero

Title: Channeling Laureola: Female Agency and the Influence of Cárcel de amor in Celestina

Abstract: Medieval literature scholars have often compared fifteenth-century Spanish best sellers Cárcel de amor (Diego de San Pedro, 1492) and Celestina (Fernando de Rojas? 499?) by focusing mainly on their specific representation of love, their respective embodiment of the genre of sentimental fiction, and the differences and similarities in the depiction of their main male characters. In this presentation, I will focus on the connection between the female protagonists and how, in both books, their sexuality is portrayed as pathological and in need to be controlled by masculine authority. Both Laureola, in Cárcel de amor, and Melibea, in Celestina, are regarded as ultimately responsible for their fate; the former suffered imprisonment in her father's fortress while the latter plunged to her death from the tower of the paternal manor. For different reasons and with different endings, both women resist the traditionally passive role expected of them within the context of patriarchal society. In this presentation, the goal is to analyze the potential interplay of political ethics and fiction. This will help to show that Cárcel de amor and Celestina probably evince complex reactions to the presence of a woman in power, queen Isabella I of Castile.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators


Access & Service Hours Change

Starting on Tuesday, March 17th as per Federal guidance, the Hatfield Library is closed indefinitely. We will still be offering online reference help and online research consultations.

Online Reference Service
Monday – Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

While fines will continue to accrue during the period of time the library is closed, once things return to normal, all fines for items that are returned will be waived. You can return Summit or Willamette items to our book drop or hold on to them until the library re-opens. You still will be responsible for any lost items.

Questions or concerns may be directed to library@willamette.edu.


Faculty Colloquium: Melinda Butterworth

Note, this event for March 12th has been canceled, and we will do our best to try and reschedule it at a later time.

Presenter: Melinda Butterworth, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Melinda Butterworth

Title: The Shifting Geographies of Vector-Borne Diseases in the United States
Abstract: Infectious diseases are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality across the globe, including in the United States. Global trade, travel, and climate change, among other factors, all further serve to reshape and reassemble our understandings of infectious disease geographies. As pathogens relocate, we work to predict where they will move next, and how to contain, manage, and respond to them. This is particularly obvious at the moment as the global community faces the COVID-19 outbreak, but the challenges experienced in its detection and containment are by no means unique. In this talk I will address the geographies of two diseases in the United States: dengue fever and Lyme disease. Drawing on mixed research methods, including a climate-driven mosquito model, surveys, and interviews, I discuss the work I have conducted with students investigating these (re)emerging diseases in the US, including environmental drivers, case detection, and the responses of citizen and health communities.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Also, remember to note the move to Thursday afternoons this semester.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators


You Are What You Eat!

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states on their website that “Good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle. Combined with physical activity, your diet can help you to reach and maintain a healthy weight, reduce your risk of chronic diseases (like heart disease and cancer), and promote your overall health.”  There is also increasing evidence that a healthy diet can improve brain performance and with midterms all around us, we need all the brain power we can get!  With all of this in mind, it seems fitting that we join in on this month’s celebration of National Nutrition Month.  This annual campaign by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics encourages “everyone to focus on the importance of making informed food choices, and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.” So help yourself to some leafy greens, grab an apple, and checkout these nutrition-related titles listed on our WU Reads Reading Guide.

“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.” – François de La Rochefoucald


Faculty Colloquium: Erik Noftle

Please join us on Thursday, March 5, at 4:10 p.m. in Ford Hall 102 for our seventh Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Erik Noftle, Associate Professor of Psychology

Title: Personality Dynamics and Development Erik Noftle

Abstract: In this talk, I describe two research efforts I completed during my sabbatical, which have to do with personality dynamics and personality development. Personality captures important, enduring psychological characteristics of a person, which are relatively consistent across situations and time, such as the traits of Extraversion or Conscientiousness. Personality dynamics concerns how personality functions: how it fluctuates across the short term, from moments to weeks. Personality development concerns how personality matures: how it changes across the long term, from years to decades. In one project, I examined how situation experience and trait-relevant behavior fluctuated within a representative span of daily life across three adult age groups: young adults, middle-aged adults, and retired adults. Results suggest that some fascinating changes in personality processes take place across the adult lifespan. In the other project, I tracked college students across the entirety of college and investigated how their personality traits affected–and were affected by—different aspects of adjustment to college. Results suggest that not only does personality predict how students are later faring when it comes to academics or their social lives, but also that how students are faring predicts their future personality traits. In sum, these findings contribute to a growing consensus that instead of personality being something about a person that’s pretty much fixed once one is a young adult, personality is, in fact, an aspect of a person that continues to be sensitive and responsive to the environment and dynamic across much of the lifespan.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Also, remember to note the move to Thursday afternoons this semester.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators


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