PROMOTING INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN PSET

Last May, The Global Policy Research Institute (GPRI), the Purdue University Libraries, the Purdue University Press and the College of Liberal Arts received an award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to ‘catalyze the teaming of humanities and social sciences faculty members with colleagues from the sciences, engineering, or technology fields to address the kind of large scale, public policy problems referred to as...Grand Challenges.’ As part of this process, a workshop was held May 1, 2014 to facilitate conversations among faculty from across the university, including libraries faculty. Participants grouped themselves by areas of interest, with Libraries faculty participating in each group. Several PSET faculty ended up contributing to grant proposals that resulted from the workshop, utilizing their strengths to contribute to the success of the proposals and demonstrating the role of information professionals in tackling society’s Grand Challenges.

Here are some brief synopses of the projects and PSET faculty members' contributions to those projects.

Local and Global Perspectives on E-Waste (Amy Van Epps, Nicole Kong)
This project investigates the health and cultural impacts of the products of the electronics industry, particularly, the sharply increasing amount of e-waste created by obsolete or otherwise at the end of their life devices. The role of the Libraries in this project broadly focuses on improving knowledge management. Amy and Nicole contributed in many ways, from setting up a shared EndNote library, creating a PURR instance for the team, designing a geodatabase to integrate multidisciplinary data, to supervising graduate students in carrying out data collection from the field and the literature.

Sanitation in Developing Countries (Charlotte Erdmann)
Appropriate sanitation is still a challenge in much of the developing world, and the impacts are not just in managing disease, but also public safety (e.g., getting up in the middle of the night to travel to communal bathrooms). A large portion of the project is a review/analysis of the literature on open defecation, and Charlotte leveraged the project to acquire the VantagePoint data mining software as part of a University Non-Laboratory Research Equipment request, the first such award for the Libraries. Using the VantagePoint software, Charlotte is harvesting information from the scholarly literature, organizing and visualizing the content so the PI’s can understand, manipulate and develop policy statements related to the social and environmental implications of sanitation practices in developing countries.

Equitable Water Policy Decisions Using Big Data (Nicole Kong)
This project will create decision-making tools to promote long-term availability of water in a region, taking into account equity, social stability and conservation of local flora and fauna, utilizing hydrological and social big data. Nicole’s component of the project focuses on supervising a graduate student to create the GIS component, creating an integrated geodatabase that allows access to interdisciplinary data, developing a web-based visualization tool to make it easier for decision-makers to interpret the data and models, and a system for analyzing spatio-temporal patterns of water availability and social feedbacks.

Resilient Communities: Strengthening Post-Disaster Recovery by Understanding Interdependent Social and Physical Networks (Megan Sapp Nelson)
This project focuses on creating models to understand how social networks (meaning friends, family and acquaintances, not Facebook and Twitter) can overcome damage to the built environment in the aftermath of a storm. Utilizing techniques learned from her recent research on data information literacy and just-finished sabbatical work, Megan found a role on the project interviewing disaster response specialists affiliated with both government and non-government agencies about their role in responding to the March 2, 2012 severe storms and tornadoes that hit four counties in Southern Indiana. Sandy Galloway and Dianna Deputy have also been doing amazing work transcribing all of the interviews for this project.

LCSSAC WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS

The Libraries Clerical Service Staff Advisory Committee (LCSSAC) was formed in 1993 to serve as a communication link between the Libraries’ administration and the clerical service staff. To learn more about LCSSAC, visit the page on the Libraries intranet. From this site you can contact any member of LCSSAC, check on Library events, access the By-Laws, read minutes from monthly meetings and use the LINK Letter to make suggestions and voice concerns.

Each library unit has been assigned to a district with a representative being elected to a three year term by members from their district. A sixth district is represented by an at-large representative elected to a three year term by all clerical service staff.

Please extend congratulations to new members:

Roger Strater
hawken@purdue.edu

District 5
Digitization & Metadata, Interlibrary Loan, Resource Services, Information Technology

April Maybee
amaybee@purdue.edu

District 6
At-Large (All Libraries' clerical and service staff)

Continuing members include:

Cheryl Oliver
csmith68@purdue.edu

District 1
Circulation/HICKS Repository, Life, Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences (PNHS), Veterinary Medical Sciences (VETM)

Dan Rotello
drotello@purdue.edu

District 2
Administrative Office (ADMIN), Advancement Office (ADV), Auxiliary Services (AUX), Business Office (BUS), Human Resources Office (HR), University Press (PUP), Copyright Office (COPY)


Ann O’Donnell
atodonne@purdue.edu

District 3
Archives & Special Collections (ASC), Humanities, Social Sciences and Education (HSSE), Hicks (HIKS), Parrish Management and Economics (MEL)

Dianna Deputy
deputyd@purdue.edu

District 4
Aviation Technology (AVTE), Chemistry (CHEM), Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS), Engineering (ENGR), Mathematical Sciences (MATH), Physics (PHYS)

If you have suggestions, concerns, etc. please feel free to send a LCSSAC LINK Letter to lcssac@purdue.edu. Not sure what the LINK Letter is, check it out here.

Thank you to retiring members, Connie Richards and Allen Bol for their dedication to making LCSSAC a success.

DONNA FERREL TO RETIRE

On May 19, 1986 Donna Ferrel came to Purdue University as a staff member in the Purdue University Libraries and after 29 years she will be retiring on May 29, 2015. Donna spent 27 years in ITD and the last 2 years in Acquisitions.

Congratulations Donna and thank you for your dedication and service to Libraries.

THANK YOU PURDUE LIBRARIES

Dear Colleagues,

AROUND THE LIBRARIES

For the past five years the PSET staff and faculty have filled “survival” bags for their student employees. Bags are filled with drinks, chips, candies, Ramen noodles, crackers, cookies, granola bars, popcorn and many other assorted treats to help their students survive finals! This semester PSET had 49 student employees.

The donations are voluntary and coordinated by the PSET morale team along with the help of many others!

Pictured left to right: Dianna Deputy, Terry Wade, Sandy Galloway and Angie Ewing.