The Kelley Center staff invite you to see a selection of federal government publications in our new exhibit for Black History Month. The national theme for 2018 is African Americans in Times of War.
The exhibit case is in the elevator lobby between the GDC and DMC.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Preamble to the Constitution, signed, Sept. 17, 1787, ratified, June 21, 1788.
Happy Constitution Day! Staff from the Kelley Center for Government Information, Data and Geospatial Services are hosting an event on Thursday, Sept. 15th to celebrate Constitution Day. At the same time, volunteer voter registrars will be helping folks register to vote! This dual-purpose event will spotlight key elements in our country’s founding and governance structure. In addition to the four-hour event, two exhibit cases in Fondren Library showcase materials on each of these topics. The “Voting” exhibit can be found in the first floor elevator lobby, and “Constitution Day” is located in the basement elevator lobby. Materials in the exhibit cases are borrowed from the Federal Depository Library collection held at the Kelley Center for Government Information, Data and Geospatial Services.
Join us Thursday, September 15th, from 1 – 5 pm, at the lobby in front of the Circulation Desk. Those attending the event are encouraged to share their thoughts about the Constitution through social media, and enter the raffle for a chance at a cool prize.
For more information about Constitution Day and Elections, see the extensive resources found on our LibGuides: http://libguides.rice.edu/constitution_day and http://libguides.rice.edu/elections_voting
Did you know that there are over a dozen national parks in Texas? The nearest park is the Big Thicket National Preserve. The newest one, designated in 2015, is the Waco Mammoth National Monument. This year is a great time to visit a national park and celebrate the National Park Service’s 100th Anniversary!
The National Park Service was created in 1916 by an Act of Congress and signed by President Woodrow Wilson. Beyond the natural areas, the federally designated parks include historical areas, battlefields, rivers and trails and the White House, covering over 400 sites, and 84 million acres. Find parks using this handy map.
The Mission of the National Park Service
The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resourcesand values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The National Park Service cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resource conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world.
The NPS is an agency under the Department of the Interior. As a federal depository library, the Kelley Center includes numerous NPS publications, including annual reports, maps and research reports on topics ranging from Hurricane Katrina to bike trails to NPS facility management. The agency supports preservation, conservation and heritage management with research and community engagement. The NPS hosts a variety of programs and activities to increase awareness of America’s national parks, and the work of the NPS.
As you make travel plans for Spring Break and summer, consider visiting a national park! There is something for everyone! Here is a list of national parks located in Texas. In Fondren, there are two exhibit cases which showcase materials from the Kelley Center about the NPS. They are located on the 1st floor and basement elevator lobbies. Stop by the Kelley Center to check out even more!
Explore, learn, be inspired, and have fun!
Follow the NPS on twitter #NatlParkService #FindYourPark or their website, www.nps.gov
Did you know that on this date, 100 years ago, the design for the Coca-Cola bottle was patented? This familiar contoured shaped bottle was designed after the cocoa pod, the 
main ingredient in chocolate! You can read more about this patent, or see it on display at the National Archives.
A big part of what we do in the Kelley Center is helping the public search for patents. As a patent depository library, that is one of our mandates. Siu and Linda offer patent searching classes on a regular basis to entrepreneurs from Rice and the Houston area. In addition, this year, we hosted two widely attended training sessions given by staff from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Our Rice affiliates are productive and garner numerous patents. To support their work and bring more visibility to the library and Rice community, the Rice patents are now deposited in the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive. This project seems to be a first among libraries and one that is sure to garner much attention. Along with the Kelley Center’s Linda Spiro, Siu Min Yu and me, contributors to this project were Scott Carlson, metadata coordinator; Monica Rivero, digital curation coordinator; Lisa Spiro, executive director of digital scholarship services; and Shannon Kipphut-Smith, scholarly communications liaison.
Joining the Kelley Center staff this fall is Yen-Nhi (Annie) Pham as our Government Information and Data Specialist. Annie is a recent graduate of UH with a degree in Anthropology and is currently pursuing her masters’ degree, also at UH, in Sociology. In this part- time position, Annie will be working at the Kelley Center desk as well as building library services for government agency datasets.
Spring and summer have been a busy time for the Kelley Center for Government Information, Data and Geospatial Services staff as will be the fall. Kathy Weimer, whom we welcomed as department head in January, is guiding the Kelley Center to expand its offerings related to data services and data management. You can learn more about Kathy from an article on page 7 of the Spring 2015 edition of News From Fondren.
Planning and carrying out new opportunities for intellectual property training has also been the focus of the department. In addition to our regular monthly patent search classes, on May 19 Michael Hydorn and Daphne Joseph from the Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), came to Fondren to offer patent and trademark search training to those at Rice and from the greater Houston Area. As part of the event attended by around 100 people, representatives from local organizations who assist with intellectual property and business procedures described their services. Also, after months of planning, Rice patents became available in the Digital Scholarship Archive this summer creating a much easier and more complete way of finding them and collocating patents with a researcher’s other scholarly body of work. Members of the group making this happen included: Linda Spiro and Siu Min Yu, Government Information Librarians; Scott Carlson, Metadata Coordinator; Monica Rivero, Digital Curation Coordinator; Kathy Weimer, Head, Kelley Center for Government Information, Data and Geospatial Services; Lisa Spiro, Executive Director of Digital Scholarship Services; and Shannon Kipphut-Smith, Scholarly Communications Liaison. On August 7 the department hosted a celebration to highlight the availability of Rice patents in the repository and the 225th anniversary of the first United States patent. Additionally, on September 16 from 1:30-3:00 pm Craig Morris, Educational Outreach Attorney for Trademarks at the USPTO, will speak in the Kyle Morrow Room in a free program entitled Trademark Basics: What Every Small Business Should Know Now Not Later.
With the advent of Fondren’s new web pages, content that was available on our government web pages on the old site is in the process of being moved to LibGuides. If you are having trouble locating information, please ask at the government information desk or call 713-348-5483.
Staff in the Kelley Center, Technical Services, Shelving and the Library Service Center have had a busy eight months relocating collections in preparation for the upcoming renovation of Fondren’s basement.
LSC staff began pulling nearly 30,000 volumes from the Q-TC call number range in October 2014, allowing Shelving staff to do a quick and effective compaction of these collections. Over 110 SFU were emptied in anticipation of the microfilm collection being relocated to the southwest area of the basement.
Kelley Center staff, working with extensive support from staff in Technical and Research Services, began identifying microfilm (and a modest number of print government documents) for housing off-site. This process resulted in the relocation of over 80,000 reels of microfilm to the LSC, with additional materials withdrawn due to chemical breakdown of the film base (aka the vinegar syndrome).
During this intense process, accessions to the LSC from the Woodson had been on hold, but the flow of archival materials from Fondren to LSC has resumed. With all of this activity, it is not surprising that the LSC celebrated a specific milestone: in February 2014, the LSC passed the 1 million collection items count – the off-site collection now stands at nearly 1,100,000.
The Kelley Center for Government Information and Microforms is devastated by the loss of department head Esther Crawford to breast cancer. Esther was a warm, joyful, and innovative boss who was not afraid to try new things herself while encouraging and supporting others to do likewise. She was incredibly intelligent but never condescending and had the enviable knack of being able to ask just the right incisive question at just the right time. Her leadership, support, and friendship will be sorely missed.
The department is planning a celebration of Esther’s life on Monday, March 31, the day after her birthday. We’ll email details via LibStaff when planning is complete.
