Resources in the Databases list include a wide variety of types of material and cover every academic discipline. Some of the things you will find are:

collections of peer-reviewed journal articles in JSTOR
news from broadcast, print, and internet sources in Lexis Nexis
early books from Eighteenth Century Collections Online
encyclopedias AccessScience and Grove Art for specialized topics
collections of eBooks in engineering from Knovel
extensive company information from Mergent Online

Browse the Databases list for complete listings and descriptions of the more than 300 online sources available.

If you have questions about which might be useful for your research, you can always Ask a Librarian for recommendations.

The meeting will bring to campus about 150 health sciences librarians and other information professionals from the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. The last time the MAC conference was in Morgantown was in 1993.

“We are looking forward to hosting the conference to show off our new Health Sciences Library and Learning Center, as well as the rail trails and Wharf District near the Waterfront Place Hotel,” said Susan Arnold, Director of the Health Sciences Library and Local Arrangements Chair for the conference. “Our theme is ‘Almost Heaven—Exploring New Vistas’.”

While attendees will have time to venture out during their visit, much of their time will be spent at the Health Sciences Center. On the agenda are continuing education classes to be taught in the Health Sciences Library’s computer classroom, a reception to be held in the commons area near the Pylons, and tours of the new facility.

Participants will also gain some insight from Dr. Anne Cather, Associate Dean for Student Services and Professional Development at the WVU School of Medicine, who will give the conference’s keynote address. In a talk titled “A Credit Check on Your Balance,” Cather will explain how the lifestyles we choose to lead have a large impact on our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

“We have assembled a program that is fun and educational,” Arnold said. “We expect our colleagues to enjoy their stay in Morgantown and to return home with new ideas and perspectives they can use in their own libraries.”

The workshop will cover introductory information on the patenting process, preliminary patent searching including classification, Public PAIR, and hands-on instruction in using the U.S. Patent Office’s online database of patents from 1790 to the present.

For more information, contact Marian Armour-Gemmen, 293-9758, or marmour@wvu.edu.

By Katlin Stinespring

West Virginia University students can now experience more of Don Knotts’ background beyond Barney Fife, his character on “The Andy Griffith Show.”

Knotts’ widow, Francey Yarborough-Knotts, is fulfilling his wishes to donate various belongings and memorabilia to his alma mater.

“Throughout his life, (Knotts) maintained pretty close ties to Morgantown and always considered himself a West Virginian and a fan of WVU. (Yarborough-Knotts) is following through on his behalf,” said John Cuthbert, curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection.

Yarborough-Knotts’ donations include photographs, personal letters, stories and jokes, articles and brochures, promotional materials, and programs from different plays Knotts starred in around the country.

She also donated his personal scripts from his guest star role on the classic television show “Matlock.”

In addition to various memorabilia and scripts currently on display in the WVRHC, many of which represent his days on “The Andy Griffith Show,” these new items will be added later in the fall.

“Most people are not aware that he constantly traveled and did theatre performances around the country. It shows a side to Don Knotts’ career that people are not familiar with. He is only known for his Barney Fife character,” Cuthbert said.

One unique item is a gold watch given to Knotts by Andy Griffith when he left the show.

The number five is engraved at the top and below the words, “See, we thought we’d put 5 on it because you’ve been here 5 years.”

This was intended to be written as if Griffith’s character Andy Taylor was speaking directly to Knotts as Fife.

This latest donation is the third of similar gifts donated to the WVU Libraries.

The initial donation was from Knotts just one month prior to his death when the WVU Libraries contacted him about the possibility of donating some representations of his life and career.

At the time, he donated personal scripts from the movies “The Reluctant Astronaut” (1966), “The Love God” (1968), “The Shakiest Gun in the West” (1967), “How to Frame a Figg” (1970) and “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo” (1976).

“Our Don Knotts collection is important because it helps to create a full picture of Don Knotts and his accomplishments as an actor of stage, screen and television, and as a comedian. Don Knotts not only had an impressive career, but he also had a tremendous impact on television, movies and the world of comedy,” said Monte Maxwell, development representative of WVU Libraries.

Students, faculty and community members can view this collection by visiting the sixth floor of the Downtown Campus Library and registering in the WVRHC, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

In addition to the current display and these new items, a major expansion of the Don Knotts collection is planned for 2009 in the Davis Family Gallery in the Downtown Library Complex.

The presentation will feature an appearance from Sir Richard Roberts, PhD, FRS, who was the joint winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering split genes and RNA splicing. Currently working at New England Biolabs, he was one of 26 Nobel Prize winners to sign the Open Letter to the U.S. Congress in support of taxpayer access to publicly funded research.

The event will also mark the launch of the new “Voices of Open Access Video Series.” Key members of the research community, including a teacher, librarian, researcher, student, patient advocate, and a funder, will speak on why they are committed to Open Access.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it is gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it. Recent mandates by funders, including that of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (the world’s largest research funder), which now requires that all their funded research be placed in an openly accessible database, have further strengthened the prospects for Open Access to all research.

The WVU Libraries have an Open Access webpage at www.libraries.wvu.edu/open-access with information about Open Access publishers available to WVU faculty with reduced fees, and recordings of previous presentations at WVU about open access. For more information, contact Susan Arnold at susan.arnold@mail.wvu.edu, or John Hagen at john.hagen@mail.wvu.edu.

This lesser-known aspect of Knotts’ acting career is chronicled in the latest gift of memorabilia from his widow, Francey Yarborough-Knotts, to the WVU Libraries’ West Virginia and Regional History Collection.

“Don Knotts had a very long and broad career in live theater,” said John Cuthbert, Curator of the WVRHC. “This donation is quite extensive and provides a comprehensive look into Don’s career, including his early career.”

Among the gems are a thick stack of playbills, many with covers bearing Knotts’ wide grin, that mark his work in dozens of stage productions over a span of decades.

Don Knotts, a Morgantown native and WVU alum, starred in dozens of plays during and following his stellar television and movie career.

Few people probably know that the Morgantown native starred in performances of classics such as On Golden Pond, Harvey, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, You Can’t Take It with You, and The Odd Couple. In The Odd Couple, he took on the role of Felix Unger to Art Carney’s Oscar Madison.

“People knew the well-known characters on TV, but Don had a whole other life in the theater,” Yarborough-Knotts said. “That is what he seemed to thrive on and that was who he was.”

Even during his later years, Knotts still loved hearing the roaring laughter of a live audience. At the same time he was doing voiceovers in movies such as Chicken Little, he regularly performed in plays and in shows with his old friend Tim Conway.

And while he was always writing new material, he liked to draw on bits that he created back in Morgantown. A favorite involved calling a make-believe football game.

“Don was such a working actor when I knew him,” Yarborough-Knotts said. “He was always putting on these shows. He was always creating them and going out on the road and doing them. And that was the way he was since he was 13 years old.”

Along with playbills, she also donated boxes of articles and promotional materials, pictures of Knotts on stage, personal letters and writings, pages of hand-written stories and jokes, multiple Matlock scripts, his Screen Actors Guild card, and a scrapbook of photographs and newspaper clippings compiled by TV Land.

The piece de resistance is a watch that Andy Griffith presented to Knotts upon his departure from The Andy Griffith Show. Yarborough-Knotts said it was one of the few items Knotts treasured enough to store in a safety-deposit box.

The watch was especially meaningful because of the humorous personal message Griffith and the show’s producers had engraved on the back. Along with the number 5 are the words: “See, we thought we’d put 5 on it because you’ve been here for 5 years.”

“They were being funny, and that sounds just like Andy,” Yarborough-Knotts said.

John Cuthbert, Curator of the WVRHC, displays an inscribed gold watch Andy Griffith presented to Don Knotts when he left The Andy Griffith Show.

Griffith and Knotts met and became friends during the Broadway run of No Time for Sergeants. They reunited for the silver screen version and then The Andy Griffith Show. Griffith later invited Knotts to join him for several episodes of Matlock.

Yarborough-Knotts’ donation of memorabilia is the third such gift to the WVU Libraries. She previously donated several items in early 2007. The first gifts came in January 2006, just one month before Knotts’ death. He donated his personal copies of scripts for The Reluctant Astronaut (1966), The Love God (1968), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1967), How to Frame a Figg (1970) and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1976).

Currently, an exhibit of scripts and other memorabilia is on display in the WVRHC. Plans call for a new exhibit highlighting some of the latest additions to be up early this fall. A major exhibit is in the works for 2009 in the Davis Family Gallery in the Wise Library.

“We’re very proud to be able to represent his life here in the West Virginia Collection and to provide the opportunity for people to learn about his life and amazing career,” Cuthbert said.

He ranks Knotts among the most famous WVU alumni and Morgantown natives.

“In terms of his contribution to American culture, Don Knotts was absolutely an icon in the field of television,” Cuthbert said. “He won Emmys every year for his role as Barney Fife, which is arguably one of the best know characters in television history.”

By Ryan Hoffman

By the start of the Fall 2009 semester, the West Virginia University Evansdale Library will feature a brand new coffee house and other renovations.

“The whole idea is to reconfigure the first floor,” said Mary Strife, Evansdale Library director.

Although the numbers are not final, the renovation, including the cafe is expected to cost between $750,000 and $1 million, Strife said.

The money will come from the Office of the Provost and WVU Libraries, although the details are not yet final.

The spending plan must be finalized by June 30, 2009, the end of the fiscal year.

All monies must either be spent or designated to a specific area of spending; otherwise the funds will be lost.

“We are very excited about the renovations and hope that it is a very busy summer for us,” Strife said.

Bidding on the project is set to start in April.

The still unnamed coffee shop will be run by the Mountainlair, similar to the Downtown Library Complex’s coffee shop, Eliza’s.

“We could potentially have a name-the-cafe contest open to students in the next year,” Strife said.

The Evansdale cafe will look more like a Starbucks or a Barnes and Noble cafe rather than Eliza’s.

It will have large leather chairs, will use lighter wood colors to give it a contemporary feel and feature an outdoor patio near the front doors of the building.

“We want to make it a place where students want to hang out, get a cup of coffee before class or meet with professors,” said Shelley Johnson, interior design manager for WVU.

She added that the Evansdale Library is not used as much as it could be because of its out-of-date look.

The new first floor layout aims to give the library a more open feel by adding new carpet, fresh paint, larger study spaces, a new front desk and furniture on wheels for easy mobility.

The new tables and chairs will make it possible for students to work in groups without the hassle of moving heavy furniture.

“We have had conferences where people have talked about flexible work areas, so we figured if we are going to redo that carpet we might as well reconfigure the space,” Strife said.

The project is still in the planning phase and all the materials still need to be ordered.

There is still time for student input.

Strife is looking for students to participate in focus groups to voice their opinions on the renovations.

The groups are scheduled to meet next week, and on Monday and Tuesday undergraduate focus groups will meet at 6 each night.

A focus group for graduate students will meet Wednesday at 6 p.m.

“We are looking for students who use the Evansdale library to participate in the groups,” Strife said.

To participate in a focus group, contact Mary Strife at mary.strife@mail.wvu.edu.

By Katlin Stinespring

The West Virginia University Libraries are mailing 10 books this week to Fort Wayne, Ind. to be digitized for public access from any location via the Internet.

This plan is part of a grant project which makes digitized copies of books available online on www.archive.org, and makes out-of-print or out-of-copyright books available to anyone. The books are scanned and imported to the online archives.

The University is sending books selected from the rare books collection, many of which are written on the history of West Virginia, WVU and the Civil War.

The digitization of the rare books makes the content more accessible, where in the past, patrons had to make an appointment or in some cases, come to Morgantown.

“Rare books in the WVU libraries are not for browsing because it causes too much damage to the pages. But when it’s online, an entire class of students could read the whole book prior to a lecture or the professor could pull the book up during class,” said Monte Maxwell, the Development and Public Relations Representative of WVU Libraries.

Other books selected are from the Appalachian collection, which is one of the top three collections in the United States of Appalachian-themed books.

“What is interesting in the instance of rare books or archives is that you may be able to see notes that previous readers made, such as the actual author of the book or historical figures,” said Maxwell.

When placed online, the books are formatted as flipbooks and the pages remain unchanged from what they were long ago.

“Just like when someone opened this book in the 1800s, you are seeing exactly what they saw hundreds of years ago,” said Maxwell.

Dean of WVU Libraries, Francis O’Brien also chose older materials collected by a previous dean about Africa.

In the future, the WVU Libraries will be able to choose additional selections to be digitized for online browsing and research.

O’Brien said the archiving program is particularly important to developing countries and people who live far from research universities or other institutions.

When the hard copies show up on the computer screen, it’s in a flip book format – exactly as they would appear in one’s hand.

The copies remain original along with any kind of notations or library identifications.

“It’s not the same as looking at the primary source material, but for most references (the digitized books) will be fine,” O’Brien said.

Once the book is placed online, keywords can be found using a search function. The book displays clickable yellow tabs on the edges of the pages which signify the keywords.

The West Virginia University Libraries are among 14 institutions picked to participate in a book digitization pilot project. The goal of the project is to digitize a selection of rare and significant books from the participants’ collections and make the electronic versions available via the Internet.

“I hope books never go away, and I don’t think they will, but digitization makes a book available to anyone, anywhere in the world, who has an Internet connection,” said Frances O’Brien, Dean of the WVU Libraries. “I think that’s valuable for people who live a distance from a research library.”

William Rafter, Head of the Libraries’ Cataloging Department; Frances O’Brien, Dean of Libraries; Jo. Brown, the Libraries’ Appalachian bibliographer; and Harold M. Forbes, Rare Books Collection Curator; examine a sketch in one of the books selected for the book digitization pilot project.

The project is led by PALINET, an organization of hundreds of libraries, information centers, museums, and archives, that promotes library cooperation and resource sharing, and is partially funded by a $1 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Unlike other book-digitization projects currently underway, in which entire collections are being scanned and posted online, the PALINET Collaborative Digitization Service has a more defined mission and scope. Their focus is on providing free and open access to an array of rich cultural heritage materials belonging to the group’s institutions.

“This is an exciting time for PALINET members,” said Catherine C. Wilt, PALINET’s Executive Director. “Members will soon begin to create vital digital assets and share them through the Internet Archive, ensuring unprecedented open access to the important historical and archival resources in our region.”

During the pilot project, each institution will submit five to ten books to be digitized. After the pilot phase, the initial target will be to convert 60,000 books into digital format and place them on the Internet Archive, www.archive.org.

On this site, users can search by author or title to find a book. After selecting a book, the reader views the book as a flipbook and can flip through the pages with a few mouse clicks. Because the pages are scanned, users see vivid pictures of the actual pages, not simply typed text.

This means readers see all sketches or pictures in the original manuscript. The same goes for any dog-eared pages, underlined sentences, or scribbled notes in the margin.

“They are not sterilized images,” O’Brien said. “You’ll see the book as if you went to the library and requested the book. You see the bookplate, library ownership stamp, and any markings.”

The text of the virtual books is also keyword searchable. Type a word in the search box and the software flags the pages where the word appears and highlights the word on the page.

Another benefit of the project is preservation. Harold M. Forbes, Rare Books Collection Curator, said the chief dilemma for people who work with rare books and archives is allowing access and yet providing for the maximum amount of preservation.

“These books are old and they’re fragile, and there is always the difficulty of preserving a book that is used a lot. Maintaining that balance is essential. It’s a fine line that we’re always on,” Forbes said “Book digitization is a way of providing access and assuring preservation of the original.”

O’Brien is currently working with Forbes and Jo. Brown, the Libraries’ Appalachian bibliographer, to identify what books to send as part of the pilot. William Rafter, Head of the Libraries’ Cataloging Department, has compiled the books’ metadata, which is information that describes the book for cataloging purposes.

Books will come from the Rare Books Collection, the Appalachian Collection, and the Africana Collection created by former Libraries Dean Robert F. Munn. To avoid copyright concerns, the project is focusing on materials published prior to 1923.

Among the Libraries submissions are two volumes by Dr. David Livingstone, the famous missionary to Africa. There is, of course, also a major focus on West Virginia during the 19th century.
Along with a book on the creation of the state and one on sightseeing on 1850s’ railroads, Forbes is including two books that debate the medical benefits of West Virginia’s many natural springs.

Brown is contributing a biography of a revenue officer from the 1800s and a 1902 response to the hillbilly stereotype.

The exact number of books the WVU Libraries will submit throughout the overall project has not yet been determined, but Forbes doubts the Rare Books Collection will run dry of unique and interesting contributions anytime soon.

“These selections are just the tip of the iceberg. We have hundreds more,” Forbes said.

O’Brien is excited for the WVU Libraries to participate in the PALINET Collaborative Digitization Service. Although the WVU Libraries have won praise for several digital projects that librarians and staff have already developed, digitizing text is a new frontier. O’Brien welcomes the learning experience.

“We’ll learn something new that will be part of our digital future,” O’Brien said. “We’ll then need to make the decision of how much of our future text digitization is going to be.”

Student Affairs tutors will be available from 7-11 p.m. and will provide tutoring for chemistry, physics, biology, math, and statistics. Tutors from the WVU Writing Center will be available from 7-9 p.m. and will work with students to improve their writing.