Penn State: Libraries to host virtual, local World Digital Preservation Day events on Nov. 2. “World Digital Preservation Day, held annually on the first Thursday of November, celebrates best practices in archiving and storing digitized and born-digital content. Penn State University Libraries is hosting several virtual and University Park in-person events Thursday, Nov. 2.”
Penn State University News: Libraries amplifies ‘Black History and Visual Culture’ with digital collection. “Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections Library has launched the Black History and Visual Culture digital collection, a celebration and remembrance of Black life at Penn State campuses, broadly across the United States, and around the world.”
Penn Today: Penn Libraries receives archive of writer, activist, and historian James G. Spady. “The University of Pennsylvania Libraries recently acquired the archive of James G. Spady, a writer, historian, and activist who shed light on understudied aspects of African American history, and whose legacy and intellectual output made him a salient and influential African American figure in his own right.”
Penn State: New at-home, saliva-based COVID test as effective as PCR in preliminary analysis. “To bridge the gap between accuracy and convenience, Penn State researchers have developed an at-home, saliva-based testing platform that can provide results in 45 minutes. In preliminary tests, the platform detected the COVID-causing virus with the same level of sensitivity as PCR tests. Their results published this week (Aug. 3) in ACS Sensors.”
PennState University Libraries: Libraries launches ROAM, an expanded open educational resources repository. “Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing unit recently launched ROAM, a newly expanded online publication service for openly licensed educational materials authored by Penn State faculty. Short for “Repository of Open and Affordable Materials,” the platform builds on a service created and previously hosted by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) that published most of the college’s courseware free of charge for anyone to access. ROAM will extend EMS’ vision to include content from all disciplines and campuses across the University.”
Penn State: Multi-university project to focus on language and history of the Choctaw Nation. “Working with a ‘rare and rich’ digital archive of 19th-century Choctaw language court documents, Penn State history scholars and graduate students are partnering with linguists from the University of Florida on a multi-faceted initiative called the Choctaw Language and History Workshop. The project, which promotes a new model for graduate students studying Native American history, will have multiple deliverables, including several scholarly articles and a Choctaw language dictionary developed in consultation with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.”
Penn State News: University Libraries, Penn State Wilkes-Barre digitize Hayfield estate records. “Numerous historic records from the Hayfield estate, where Penn State Wilkes-Barre is located, have been digitized and are now easily accessible to the public. The digitized Hayfield estate records contain various material from 1925 to 1945, including correspondence, financial records and architectural drawings related to the estates owned by John C. and Bertha R. Conyngham, in particular the construction of their estate on Hayfield Farm.”
Penn State News: Online course shapes COVID-19 curriculum in schools nationwide. “In February 2021, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Penn State released an online course called ‘The Science of COVID-19.’ Led by faculty in the College of Education’s Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS), the course was designed to give middle- and high-school students an opportunity to learn about how scientists approach and tackle a novel virus. Since then, the free course has reached about 2,500 teachers and students in all 50 states in the nation, and plans are underway to modify the course so that it remains timely and relevant for years to come.”
Penn State News: Penn State offers new online certificate in financial engineering. “As more companies continue to rely on mass data sets to solve critical financial issues and guide important business decisions, professionals who can analyze complex data to support business ventures will be more in demand. Those interested in increasing their knowledge of quantitative data analysis and management to gain an edge in this competitive field can now do so through a new online credential from Penn State.”
Penn State News: Libraries’ digital exhibit highlights Penn State participation at Olympics. “‘Olympic Lions: A History of Penn State’s Participation at the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ digital exhibit, now open for viewing, uses the most inclusive definition of a Penn Stater as it looks at the University’s history of Olympic involvement. Whether an athlete competed as a Nittany Lion during their college career or came to the University later in life as a coach or faculty member, Penn State’s involvement in the Olympics spans more than a century.”
Penn State News: $1.2 million NSF grant to create search engine for online privacy research. “A team of Penn State-led researchers recently received a $1.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to build a search engine and other resources that can make the web safer for users by helping scientists scour billions of online documents to more efficiently collect and classify privacy documentation.”
Penn State News: Penn State center to advance AI tools to accelerate scientific progress. “A recently approved research center will unite Penn State researchers to explore the use of artificial intelligence as a tool to dramatically accelerate the scientific process, an initiative that the center’s organizers say could rapidly accelerate scientific progress.”
Daily Collegian: How Penn State University Press tackled the coronavirus pandemic through comics. “With the term ‘comics,’ one might think of superheroes saving the day or the Sunday strips in the local newspaper. But Penn State University Press has ventured into deeper comic territories with its ‘Graphic Medicine’ series, which covers an array of health topics depicted in comic book form — from what it’s like to suffer from Parkinson’s disease to what being on life support is like. After seeing success with ‘Graphic Medicine,’ the Penn State University Press announced the creation of ‘Graphic Mundi,’ a new imprint that would encompass ‘Graphic Medicine’ along with other heavy subjects, according to a Penn State news release. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, the debut of ‘Graphic Mundi’ was pushed back. This hindrance would end up being the inspiration for the imprint’s debut release, ‘COVID Chronicles.’”
Penn State News: New tool could help lessen bias in live television broadcasts. “From Sunday morning news shows to on-air pregame commentary in sports, live telecasts draw viewers into real-time content on televisions around the world. But in these often-unscripted productions, what the audience sees is not always what the producer intends — especially in regard to equity of on-air time for subjects based on their race or gender. A team of researchers, which includes Syed Billah from Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, has developed an interactive tool called Screen-Balancer, designed to assist media producers in balancing the presence of different phenotypes — an individual’s observable physical traits — in live telecasts.”
Penn State News: Global Building Network online bibliography produced by University Libraries. “Established in 2018, GBN coordinates a worldwide effort to engage and convene a transdisciplinary group of stakeholders and partnerships to accelerate the development of research, education and case studies on the benefits of high-performance buildings. It aims to advance building science, construction processes and building management to create an international framework that will make buildings more sustainable, more efficient and healthier for people.”
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