C&RL News November 2020 474

N e w s  f r o m  t h e  F i e l dDavid Free

Rochester Institute of Technology 
preserves Hebrew wood type
The Rochester Institute of Technology 
(RIT) is preserving a rare collection of 
Hebrew wood types used by the Jewish-
American press at the turn of the 20th cen-
tury. The collection will be made acces-
sible online for students and scholars in 
advance of 
a digital 
and print 
publication. 

E u r o -
pean Jew-
ish refugees 
a r r i v e d  i n 
the United 
States in the 
late 19th /
early 20th 
c e n t u r i e s 
and created 
a  t h r i v i n g 
J e w i s h -
A m e r i c a n 
press in ma-
jor cities like 
New York, 
P h i l a d e l -
phia, and Chicago. The Hebrew wood 
types in the Cary Collection include sets 
from one of the longest-running Yiddish 
daily newspapers still in publication, The 
Forward.

RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection will 
print, digitize, and publish its collection 
of 30 different wood types of the Hebrew 
alphabet with a grant from the Rochester 
Area Community Foundation’s Historic 
Preservation, Restoration, and Literature 
Fund. The foundation is supporting the 
initial preparatory work needed to create a 
digital and print monograph of the Hebrew 
wood types, including typesetting, printing, 
cataloging, and digitizing the collection. 
More information is available at https://

www.rit.edu/news/rit-cary-graphic-arts 
-collection-preserves-hebrew-wood-type.

Choice launches redesigned 
Choice360.org website
Choice has announced the launch of an en-
tirely rebuilt version of its public-facing web-
site, Choice360.org. The new site’s updated, 

contemporary 
design and 
intuitive in-
terface make 
a c c e s s i n g 
Choice con-
tent faster and 
easier than 
ever. The 
key feature 
of the new 
Choice360 is 
ease of navi-
gation. In 
support of 
this, Choice 
staff have 
r eorganized 
all content, 
including ar-
chived mate-

rials, into easily navigated sections: Media, 
Choice Picks, Choice Research, Blog (The 
Open Stacks), and Products. These sections 
provide rapid access to Choice’s most pop-
ular webinars, podcasts, white papers, Lib-
Guides, guest editorials, subscription prod-
ucts, and more. With new material appearing 
on the site almost daily, Choice360 is an ideal 
source for information about current industry 
trends and for librarian-focused professional 
development tools. The redesigned site is 
available at https://choice360.org.

LYRASIS, Columbia University 
Libraries announce Virtual Copyright 
Education Center pilot project
LYRASIS and the Columbia University Librar-

These Hebrew wood type letters spell the word “wood.” The letters 
are part of a rare collection of 30 different Hebrew wood type alpha-
bets housed at the Cary Graphics Arts Collection. Image courtesy of 
the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection.

https://www.rit.edu/news/rit-cary-graphic-arts-collection-preserves-hebrew-wood-type
https://www.rit.edu/news/rit-cary-graphic-arts-collection-preserves-hebrew-wood-type
https://www.rit.edu/news/rit-cary-graphic-arts-collection-preserves-hebrew-wood-type
https://choice360.org


November 2020 475 C&RL News

ACRL 2021 Conference moves to virtual due to COVID-19
The ACRL Board of Directors has announced 
that the face-to-face portion of the ACRL 2021 
Conference scheduled for April 14-17, 2021, in 
Seattle, Washington, has been canceled because 
of the serious health risks posed by COVID-19. 
ACRL 2021 will continue as a virtual-only event.

“ACRL’s highest priority is the health and 
safety of our community,” said ACRL President 
Jon E. Cawthorne of Wayne 
State University. “The Board 
feels that moving ACRL 
2021 online is the best op-
tion to ensure that safety 
while continuing to provide 
the high-quality, interactive 
programming you’ve come to expect from our 
conference.”

The virtual  ACRL 2021 Conference will be 
held over approximately the same dates in April 
2021. More details about the virtual conference 
are forthcoming.

“While the Conference Committee is 
understandably disappointed that ACRL 2021 
cannot happen in person, we are excited to 
channel our efforts into taking the confer-
ence virtual,” ACRL 2021 Conference Chair 
Beth McNeil noted. “We are grateful for your 

support and patience while we work through 
the details and look forward to welcoming 
everyone safely to the virtual event this spring.”

Proposal deadlines for ACRL 2021 remain 
unchanged. Contributed paper, panel session, 
preconference, and workshop proposal noti-
fications are expected to go out by the end 
of December 2020. The deadline for Light-

ning Talk, Poster, Round-
table, TechConnect, and 
Webcast submissions 
has been extended to 
Monday, November 9.  
ACRL 2021 scholarship 
applications will also be 

automatically transferred to consideration for 
scholarships for the virtual conference.

“We are disappointed not to be together 
with our colleagues in Seattle,” added ACRL 
Interim Executive Director Kara J. Malenfant. 
“But at the same time, we are excited to funnel 
all of the enthusiasm, creativity, and terrific con-
tent to create a virtual event that is informative, 
engaging and memorable for the community.”

Additional information and updates on 
ACRL 2021 are available on the conference 
website at https://conference.acrl.org/..

ies’ Copyright Advisory Services are join-
ing forces to pilot a new Virtual Copyright 
Education Center. This pilot will introduce 
a robust progressive curriculum designed 
to enable cultural heritage professionals 
to move beyond a basic understanding 
of copyright. An initial copyright course 
will be made free of charge and distrib-
uted publicly. Advanced classes will be 
distributed through LYRASIS Learning, 
the LYRASIS online continuing education 
platform for libraries and knowledge pro-
fessionals worldwide. 

The pilot will include business planning 
with the goal of developing a sustainable ser-
vice model and will be the first pilot delivered 
through the new Research and Innovation 
division of LYRASIS. 

The project is the product of a $30,000 
LYRASIS Catalyst Fund award to Columbia 
University Libraries’ Copyright Advisory Ser-
vices in 2017 that funded research into the 
feasibility of a Virtual Copyright Education 
Center. The pilot will run between September 
2020 and June 2021. 

Springshare launches Pickup Manager 
tool
Springshare has launched Pickup Manag-
er, a new LibApps tool designed to help 
libraries improve workflows around the 
pickup of library holds. Pickup Manager 
combines Springhare’s scheduling and 
communication features and fully inte-
grates them with the integrated library 
systems (ILS) holds functionality. The end 

https://conference.acrl.org/


C&RL News November 2020 476

ACRL releases “Fostering Change: A Team-Based Guide”

ACRL announces the publication of “Fostering 
Change: A Team-Based Guide,” by Brianna Mar-
shall, director of Research Services, University 
of California-Riverside; Dani Brecher Cook, 
director of Teaching and Learning, University 
of California-Riverside; and 
Cinthya Ippoliti, university 
librarian and director, Com-
munity College of Denver, 
Metropolitan State University 
of Denver, and University of 
Colorado-Denver.  

D e ve l o p e d  o ve r  t h e 
course of a year with leader-
ship from ACRL’s New Roles 
and Changing Landscapes 
Committee, this open access 
guide is a practical tool for 
teams immersed in the labor 
of leading change in the li-
brary and on campus. The goal of the New Roles 
and Changing Landscapes Committee is to help 
the academic and research library workforce 
effectively foster change in academic libraries 
and higher education environments. 

“There is nothing more empowering than 
working with your colleagues to change your 
library and your campus for the better,” says Erin 

Smith, chief information officer at Westminster 
College and chair of the New Roles and Chang-
ing Landscapes committee. “At a time when 
so many things are completely beyond our 
control due to a global pandemic, this guide is 

a powerful, practical tool for 
academic library workers who 
know they still have important 
work to do despite the fact 
they can’t do it the same way 
they have always done it.”

“Fostering Change” takes 
you and your team step-by-
step through understanding 
change, building engage-
ment, and creating and insti-
tuting the change, allowing 
you to pick and choose dif-
ferent aspects of the pro-
cess that resonate most. It’s 

intended to help place people at the center 
of every change process and give individuals 
across academic libraries the tools to spark, 
lead, and sustain change, no matter their 
organizational position. “Fostering Change” 
is packed with exercises, templates, and 
resources to use as you plan and execute 
change.

result is an affordable and user-friendly 
pickup management platform. 

Features of the Pickup Manager in-
clude two-way communication with ILS 
holds and patron records, eliminating 
a lot of double-entry efforts with holds 
management; seamless and flexible 
scheduling of patron pickups with full 
SMS communication; powerful statistics 
and analytics around the holds service, 
helping libraries gain valuable insight 
into holds to enhance engagement with 
patrons; and integration with LibCal’s 
Equipment Booking module for pickup 
of equipment available for lending, for 

museum/zoo passes, and for similar “li-
brary of things” offerings. More information 
is available at https://blog.springshare.
com/2020/09/17/pickup-manager-coming 
-early-october/.

Poetry London launches digital 
archive
Poetry enthusiasts can now browse and 
search the complete back catalog of Poet-
ry London, thanks to a new digital archive 
created in collaboration with archiving 
experts Exact Editions. Available for insti-
tutional subscriptions, the fully searchable 
resource will grow with each new issue 

https://blog.springshare.com/2020/09/17/pickup-manager-coming-early-october/
https://blog.springshare.com/2020/09/17/pickup-manager-coming-early-october/
https://blog.springshare.com/2020/09/17/pickup-manager-coming-early-october/


November 2020 477 C&RL News

Tech Bits . . .

Brought to you by the ACRL ULS 
Technology in University Libraries 
Committee 
Are you in need of free organiza-
tional research software? If so, take 
a look at Mendeley from Elsevier.  
Mendeley is a client-based citation 
manager that will import single or 
multiple citations from the web, 
databases, or PDFs and help orga-
nize them into folders. In addition, 
you can attach and annotate PDFs, 
and Mendeley will create citations 
for them. Use the Mendeley Cite 
add-in to insert citations into Word 
documents and create bibliogra-
phies in a variety of styles. Mendeley 
Notebook, a note-taking tool, can 
help you build a research network 
through a diverse set of research 
groups. Mendeley also offers con-
nections to career development 
resources, as well as potential fund-
ing opportunities, and is available 
for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, 
and IOS. 

—David MacCourt
University of Massachusetts-Amherst

. . . Mendeley
https://www.mendeley.com/

sciences. They also include the imprints  
Nijhoff, Rodopi, Hes & De Graaf, and Hotei 
Publishing. Brill is one of many publisher-
direct options available for acquisition on 
the ProQuest OASIS online ordering plat-
form, long used by librarians to select and 
acquire academic content, and the Rialto 
marketplace built to unify and streamline 
selection and acquisition workflows for 
academic libraries. Librarians can choose 
ebooks and streaming video from a rapidly 
growing number of platforms within their 
usual ordering workflow.  

published and allows for seamless access 
to a treasure trove of work from emerging 
and acclaimed poets. A comprehensive 
search function allows readers to dive 
into digital issues stretching back to 1996 
at their leisure, while Exact Editions’ web 
and app platforms allow users to jump 
between years and decades at the touch 
of a button. Poetry London has risen from 
modest beginnings as a listings newsletter 
into one of the United Kingdom’s leading 
poetry magazines. 

Published three times a year, each issue 
features poems and reviews from London 
and far beyond, including work in trans-
lation. Learn more at https://institutions.
exacteditions.com/poetry-london.

Project MUSE adds seven journal 
titles
Project MUSE has added seven new titles 
to its platform. These titles are not includ-
ed in MUSE Journal Collections but are 
either open access or available to institu-
tions as individual title subscriptions. The 
titles are published by a mix of longstand-
ing university press partners and new par-
ticipating publishers. Project MUSE has 
been expanding journal hosting services 
and expects to announce more new titles 
on the platform over the coming months. 
New titles include the Journal of Appa-
lachian Health, The American Journal 
of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Capital-
ism: A Journal of History and Economics,  
CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and 
Performing Literature, Early Middle Eng-
lish, International Journal of Evangelization 
and Catechetics, and The Medieval Globe.

Brill ebooks now available through 
OASIS, Rialto marketplaces
A collection of more than 19,000 Brill  
ebooks through the ProQuest OASIS and Ri-
alto marketplaces. Founded in 1683, Brill is 
a scholarly publisher with a rich history and 
a strong international focus. Brill’s publica-
tions cover the humanities, social sciences, 
international law, and selected areas in the 

https://www.mendeley.com/
https://institutions.exacteditions.com/poetry-london
https://institutions.exacteditions.com/poetry-london