On March 3rd, 2021, in collaboration with University Libraries Digital Projects, the SBU Center for Digital Humanities hosted a “Digital Humanities Show & Tell” presentation entitled “Mirador 3.0 IIIF Image Viewer for Digital Collections and Research.” Chris Sauerwald, Multimedia Specialist, presented the event via Zoom videoconference. Attendees virtually toured the SBU Libraries Digital Projects and Exhibits website and learned how the new open source Mirador 3.0 image viewer which is now integrated into all of SBU Libraries’ digital collections presented in Omeka S 3.0 can be used. More information is available at this link.
https://library.stonybrook.edu/2021/03/04/iiif-and-mirador-viewer-for-digital-collections-and-research/Stony Brook University Libraries invites you to visit a new digital collection, entitled, Mirroring Hope: The Bhungroo Irrigation Technology Oral History Project. The digital collection is built from the research of Peg Spitzer (formerly Christoff) Interim Undergraduate Director, Institute for Globalization Studies and Senior Lecturer, Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University (SBU), and Jamie Sommer, former PhD student at SBU and currently Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida (USF). Peg and Jamie went to Gujarat, India to learn more about how an innovative irrigation technology, called Bhungroo (“straw” in English), was empowering women there after an earthquake in 2001 followed by monsoons devastated the region. Their research presented in this digital collection including an oral history project, narrative and research essays, and a visualization project by Schema Design, LLC, has already inspired others to start their own research projects and propose similar irrigation systems in, for example, Kenya, Vietnam, and Costa Rica.
https://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/s/mirroring-hope-bhungroo-oral-history-project/page/welcome SBU Libraries Escape Room
SBU Libraries held another escape room event called Escape the Library Mystery Tour. Hosted through Zoom, it featured four librarian-designed games that teams had to navigate in fifteen minute time slots. Each game was designed via Google Forms and featured a scripted scenario involving 4-5 challenges with questions that had to be answered. Players registered as teams and were sent to a Zoom breakout room for each game. In the room, the librarian host shared their screen and read through the scenario, leaving time for the teams to talk amongst themselves before giving their final answer. The librarian then entered their answer and moved them through the form.
In all, twenty-three students and staff participated. We are doing some follow-up surveys but evidence shows that many were graduate-level students. This meshes with some of what we saw in our fall game, suggesting that this type of activity is not primarily a new-student/library orientation event but appeals to a wider demographic. And as in the fall, some participants followed up and asked to be kept informed when new games were offered.
We will continue our experimentation with escape rooms - be they synchronous or asynchronous, virtual or (eventually) in-person. The response to what we've done so far is encouraging and we will work to find the right balance of time and staff investment to meet student interest.
In personnel news:
Diane Englot, Head of Resource Sharing, retired after 31 years at SBU.
Tara Grynne, Office Assistant, retired after 27 years at SBU.
