The Library

In addition to the database resources we will be covering in just a moment, we also have a range of in-person resources available to you all as U of I students.

Events

We host a variety of events at the library which may be helpful for you all in your development, such as the Information Landscapes annual series that is freely available for anyone to attend. This year, I contributed to this series with workshops on using geolocation tools and methods to identify archival images that lack location metadata and a workshop / resource on discovering copyright free media to enrich your presentations. Nearly all of our faculty creates workshops for this series and it covers a very diverse amount of material that may be of interest to your studies.

We are also celebrating our 25th anniversary of GIS Day at the library, an event which brings together scholars, students, professionals, businesses, and the public to discuss geospatial technologies and demonstrate their many uses. I also created a presentation for this event on the different tools available now for creating aerial time lapse videos, something that could certainly help enrich scientific presentations.

We also curate a series in our DataHub called Tech Talks, which cover a range of technologically oriented material, ranging from creating your own static sites using GitHub, modelling data visualizations so they can be more easily understood by the public and creating text mining tools using Python to help understand vast amounts of text before taking a closer look at each part of the text individually.

We also just started hosting the long running Renfrew Colloquium at the library in the first floor “living room” area that has a big success so far and hosted a wide variety of really interesting speakers that have ranged from “Climate-Smart” Agriculture and Marketing, to composing music for silent film and the architectural value of Idaho’s fire watch towers.

Physical Spaces

In addition to private study and conference rooms you are welcome to reserve for individual and group study, the library also maintains unique technical resources to help enrich your work. This includes The Studio, where you can use audio/visual production equipment to record, edit and digitize audio and video projects and even has equipment for green screen and an E-Glass recorder for creating presentations. A full list of resources can be found at this link in the presentation site.

There is also the Making, Innovating and Learning Laboratory (or the MILL) that has 3D printers, vinyl cutters, sewing machines, VR headsets and a laser cutter available for reservation and regularly hold really fun, interactive events that are a great way to meet people on campus and learn new disciplines.

We also maintain a large academic archive at the U of I library that can be a valuable resource for primary documents to help make your work stronger and add historic contrast. You can search the archive at a collection (not item) level through this Archives West portal and, if you find something of interest, contact our excellent archivists at libspec@uidaho.edu with the details, who can schedule you a time to review the materials in person at the first floor meeting room. Just this year, I have collaborated with Special Collections on two CALS-related, Gary Strong Fellowship recipient projects on the Plant, Soil, and Entomological Sciences Records and the WWAMI Scrapbook digital collections.

Which leads me to my corner of the library, the CDIL. Every year, we work with undergraduate, graduate and faculty recipients of the CDIL and Berry Fellowships, and I would highly encourage you to apply this year if you are interested in building a site to help enrich your research and develop your technical skills!