Libraries and Canon-Formation: the Case of English in the Collections of the Library of the Faculty of Humanities, Lisbon University

Abstract: The project for researching the role played by libraries in canon-formation (namely through their policies regarding the creation, organization, preservation, and utilization of the collections) will be presented and discussed. We selected the Library of the Faculty of Humanities, Lisbon University, a modern academic library, created in 1859, by royal decree of D. Pedro V, following his canonical choice. Actually, the two contemporary rulers of new Britannia— Prince Albert, his cousin, and Queen Victoria—held this king in high consideration for his outstanding contribution to Portuguese modernisation. Representing various fields of study, the collections were decisive to canon-formation in the Faculty of Humanities. Thus, we have been trying to answer the following questions: who has been creating, organizing, preserving, and utilizing the collections, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards? When, where and how? Presently, we are studying the collections in English, namely the works belonging or referring to the long nineteenth century. Richard Garnett’s “The International Library of Famous Literature” (London, 1899) is our first case-study. The anthology determined the Western literary, cultural and visual canon at the turning of the century, as evidenced by comparing it to the Portuguese and Spanish editions, published at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Between Library and Research Centre: Metadata and Criticism

Abstract: In order to promote the transfer of information and the development of knowledge, university librarians should proactively work with the academic community in well-organized transdisciplinary teams—involving teachers, researchers, students, and experts in various subjects. The concept of this very innovative practice has been developed and tested by the Faculty of Humanities Library, Lisbon University, and the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies, focusing on the role played by libraries in canon-formation. We will now proceed to build an interactive website to publish our theoretical perspectives along with bibliographic records (UNIMARC format), including metadata related to marks of use. Furthermore, Richard Garnett’s “The International Library of Famous Literature” (London 1899), bio/bibliographical essays on Garnett as a scholar and librarian, and critical essays on the anthology will be published there. A link to the English edition is the next follow-up. Finally, two volumes of the Portuguese anthology (ca. 1910), based on the English one will also be made available on the website.

World Cultures in English(es) at the School of Arts and Humanities Library, University of Lisbon: the Communication Platform Architecture and Its Critical Analysis

We will consider the architecture of the communication platform prototype, "World Cultures in English(es)" (WCE), in relation to the interaction among different types of media and audiences. Such an architecture has emphasized the need for an interdisciplinary team of scholars, librarians, and Information Technology experts who have conceived the prototype. This prototype was developed using PHP and MySQL, and is based on the University of Lisbon server. The "World Cultures in English(es)" is an Open Access platform bringing together different types of documents—written, audio, visual, multimedia, and electronic—and aims at educational, cultural, social, and economic inclusiveness, namely in terms of users with special needs. The WCE platform strongly implies social commitment through reliable information and forms of communication adequate to different kinds of audiences. The "World Cultures in English(es)" prototype will be tested by different audiences from different schools and universities, leading to the necessary adjustments.

Reducing task’s redundancy – the strategy of Faculty of Pharmacy Library to centralize all scientific research

Introduction – Based on a previous project of University of Lisbon (UL) – a Bibliometric Benchmarking Analysis of University of Lisbon, for the period of 2000-2009 – a database was created to support research information (ULSR). However this system was not integrated with other existing systems at University, as the UL Libraries Integrated System (SIBUL) and the Repository of University of Lisbon (Repositório.UL). Since libraries were called to be part of the process, the Faculty of Pharmacy Library��� team felt that it was very important to get all systems connected or, at least, to use that data in the library systems. Objectives – The main goals were to centralize all the scientific research produced at Faculty of Pharmacy, made it available to the entire Faculty, involve researchers and library team, capitalize and reinforce team work with the integration of several distinct projects and reducing tasks’ redundancy. Methods – Our basis was the imported data collection from the ISI Web of Science (WoS), for the period of 2000-2009, into ULSR. All the researchers and indexed publications at WoS, were identified. A first validation to identify all the researchers and their affiliation (university, faculty, department and unit) was done. The final validation was done by each researcher. In a second round, concerning the same period, all Pharmacy Faculty researchers identified their published scientific work in other databases/resources (NOT WoS). To our strategy, it was important to get all the references and essential/critical to relate them with the correspondent digital objects. To each researcher previously identified, was requested to register all their references of the ‘NOT WoS’ published works, at ULSR. At the same time, they should submit all PDF files (for both WoS and NOT WoS works) in a personal area of the Web server. This effort enabled us to do a more reliable validation and prepare the data and metadata to be imported to Repository and to Library Catalogue. Results – 558 documents related with 122 researchers, were added into ULSR. 1378 bibliographic records (WoS + NOT WoS) were converted into UNIMARC and Dublin Core formats. All records were integrated in the catalogue and repository. Conclusions – Although different strategies could be adopted, according to each library team, we intend to share this experience and give some tips of what could be done and how Faculty of Pharmacy created and implemented her strategy.