Brainstorming:

Every December, our team of 30+ Library staff members, comes together to make an overview of the year, celebrate successful projects and services, note the weaknesses and most importantly, engage into conversations and exchange of ideas about the coming year. It’s our SWOT analysis with a lot of brainstorming. 2020 has been a challenging year in many ways, one that tested our ability to be agile and remain motivated and focused to stand up to expectations, despite the odds. 2021 remains a surprise! We keep our moral high, our goals ambitious but down to earth at the same time and our priority as strong as ever: support the KU community, with innovative services, various resources and strong research support. Our brainstorming will turn into tangible goals – follow us to see the results.

Library Virtual Study Space (VSS) – New Service

We present an exclusive service for the KU Community: Library Virtual Study Space. Our doors might remain closed, but this doesn’t mean we can’t offer you a bit of a “studying at the Library” feeling through technology. The Library virtual study space creates a communal study area, having a Library staff member to support you.

Join us every day from Monday to Thursday, between 6:00-8:00 pm. Log in to Zoom and spend 2 hours studying, virtually surrounded by other KU members. Our staff members are skilled in different disciplines and can help you with your research needs while studying or writing your assignments. You can find the detailed monthly program and the Zoom link and in the website.

Library Instruction Program

Even if we started the semester a bit later than usual and totally online which is a first time attempt, our Reference team along with the participation of some more colleagues, have been offering instructions and seminars on various topics. The infographics below give you an idea of how the semester has been so far.



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SKL launches Research Data Management Webinar Series

Horizon 2020 Open Research Data Pilot, which purposes to improve and maximise access to the research data generated by EU-Funded projects is implementing policies for RDM and data sharing. But good data management skills are useful far beyond complying with funder requirements: well-managed data force good scientific practice and sharing well-formed, well-described data increases research impact.

Research Data Management (RDM) webinar series is a weekly training program aiming to introduce KU researchers, PhD students, research administrators and faculty members to the Concept of RDM, the funder requirements, various tools of RDM and how to benefit from the Koç University Research Data Repository (KU-RDR).
Four-week long webinars advise on strategies for successful RDM, resources to help manage data effectively, choosing where to store and deposit data, the ERC H2020 Open Data Pilot and the basics of data management and archiving, along with understanding the Library’s role and support in the RDM process.

Weekly learning objectives: Introduction to Research Data Management, Data Backup and Storage Solutions, Working with Sensitive Data and How to use repositories for data sharing and searching for existing datasets.

Please follow the Library’s Instructions and Events Calendar to register and join to the sessions.

For more information on RDM and for questions, please contact Çiğdem Yıldırım at cyildirim@ku.edu.tr

New Collaborative Collection Projects in Digital Humanities for 2021

Suna Kıraç Library continues to expand its contents in terms of archives and digital collections in 2020 by adding new special collections to its archive and collaborating on different collection projects with other departments of Koç University. In this matter, we gladly announce that two ongoing collection projects with the collaboration of MAVA and ARHA departments are coming to its final stages by 2020 and will be available online at Suna Kıraç Library Digital Collections website in 2021.

MAVA Photograph Exhibitions Collection will include photographic works of over 100 Koç University students in 11 different exhibitions which have been curated by Laleper Aytek since 2010. With the intention of making student works more visible and accessible, the collection aims to house the artistic productions of Koç University students in this regard and to contribute to the cultural memory of the University. The content of the collection will grow in parallel to the new exhibitions to be organized in the upcoming years. For more information about the project, please contact Mustaf Ergül at mergul@ku.edu.tr

ARHA Trips Collection will include photographs of historical sites, monuments and artefacts which were taken by Koç University students during the yearly trips organized by Dr. Nikos Kontogiannis and Dr. Ivana Jevtic from ARHA Department in previous years. As a start, the photographs taken during Vize and Göbeklitepe trips will be included in the collection at the first stage and become accessible online. The project sets an example by presenting Koç University students’ perspectives and contribution in terms of documenting Turkey’s cultural heritage and the collection will also serve as a source for related ARHA Department courses. For more information about the project, please contact Mustaf Ergül at mergul@ku.edu.tr

Yet, another digital collection project of students under SKL Digital Collections is that of ARHA Oral History Collection run by Prof. Dr. Lucienne Thys Şenocak, Faculty of ARHA CSSH. Regarding this field of research, Donald Ritchie explains in his Doing Oral History, “Oral History collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. An oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format. Recordings of the interview are transcribed, summarized, or indexed and then placed in a library or archives.”
That being said, ARHA Oral History Collection at SKL aims to collect audio-visual materials, transcipts of interviews, photos, ephemera, etc. Digital archiving serves as a platform to preserve oral accounts as primary sources and intangible cultural heritage by means of historical research conducted through recorded interviews between narrators with personal experience of historically significant events and interviewer. Its preliminary studies started in 2017 and technical infrastructure of this collection has already been set, ready for students to add their projects. For more information about the project, please contact Senem Acar at senemacar@ku.edu.tr

Virtual Book Club

Our Virtual Book Club continued with the suggestions KU Community. In November we read two books of Albert Camus; The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus. We should admit though, that two books of Camus’ in a month was a challenge for all!
For our first Virtual Book Club Talk, The Plague, one of our Exchange Student helped us to moderate the session. She was in Germany!! Thank you Naba! Last week we talked about The Myth of Sisyphus and absurdism. The book was deep, complex and oddly inspiring for us.
The Virtual Book Club allows us to meet the KU Community even they are not in the campus or even in İstanbul. We thank all KU members who joined the previous talks and shared their thoughts with us.

In December, we will read the books of Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoevsky, important names of Russian literature. You can find the detailed information below;

SKL Virtual Book Club Talks - The Diary of a Madman / Nikolai Gogol Date: Thursday, 3rd of December Time: 16.00-17.00 Registration Link

We will be very pleased with your participation.

International Games Week

Suna Kıraç Library has been joining the International Games Week event since 2017. During the pandemic it was hard to organize a games event online. Again, with the help from the KU FRP Student Club and dear Emrah Göker we managed to organize online events for two days.

We usually organize board games events for the IGWatSKL. This year we included a Fantasy Role Play (FRP) game as well. Students played Dungeons & Dragons online. We also played Coup, through a website. It was a fun event, however, we missed the events we organized in the Seminar Room.

New Book on Digital Libraries, a Comprehensive Reference

Handbook of Research on Digital Libraries: Design, Development, and Impact, published in Turkey as Dijital Kütüphaneler Araştırmasının El Kitabı: Tasarım, Kurulum ve Etki by Hiperlink in 2020, will be available at SKL library collection soon. This reference book was translated by professionals in the information science and librarianship based in Turkey, one of whom was our colleague Senem Acar, Digital Archivist at SKL. Acar’s contribution in the first chapter introduces the Digital Library System OpenDLib developed in ISTI-CNR to support digital libraries. It addresses the characteristics of the content that this system can manage as well as the system architecture paradigms and technologies used in the development of this system.

The City Basilica of Tlos – a new publication in AKMED Series in Mediterranean Studies

The ancient city of Tlos, located on the western slopes of the Akdağlar, is an important Lycian settlement that stands out with its wide hegemony area in the mountainous region, on which it rests and its geographical position dominating the Xanthos Valley.

Tlos was among the important episcopal centers established in the Lycian region during the Christian period. City Basilica of Tlos, built in the second half of the 4th century AD, is one of the earliest basilicas in Anatolia. Built in the style of the cruciform basilicas of the period, the building measures 55x34x20m. The 600 m2 mosaic floor made in the opus tessellatum technique, covering the floor of the basilica like a carpet, along with murals, architectural elements, inscriptions, coins, seals, ceramics, glass, and anthropological findings, present significant information about the historical process of the basilica, which had been used until the 13th century AD with renovation completed in different periods.

In this book, City Basilica of Tlos is presented to the academia with the chapters of 17 academicians from different disciplines in the light of historical data and archaeological findings obtained within the scope of the studies carried out so far.

ANAMED Library Talks

November brought to our Library talks series Ivana Jevtic and Koray Durak with a talk about their publication Identity and the Other in Byzantium. The trifold model of the Byzantine identity – Greek culture, Christian Religion, and Roman imperial framework – has almost become a cliché in the definitions of Byzantium. Yet, the steady growth of scholarship on the Self and Other in Byzantium calls for fresh critical assessments. The speakers presented the most salient perspectives presented in this book and discuss the contribution of Identity and the Other in Byzantium to the scholarship in the field. You can listen to the talk in ANAMED Library’s Soundcloud account.

The year will be completed on December 2^nd with a talk by Leslie Peirce, about her book Empress of the East: How a Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire, which has recently been published in Turkish under the title Hürrem Sultan. The woman we know as Hürrem Sultan became a mother during the first year of Süleyman I’s reign. As the concubine mother of a son, she was now ineligible for further intimate contact with the sultan because her job now was to focus wholly on the prince’s training. But Süleyman’s decision to make Hürrem his sole consort (and mother of six) thrust her into a thorny maze of politics. The talk will be moderated by Zeynep Simavi. You can participate in the talk using the following link to register.

ANAMED Library Podcast: Burada Konuşmak Serbest

The November menu of the "ANAMED Library Podcast: Burada Konuşmak Serbest" podcast included the paradigm of a public library and a well-known archive.

As a first guest, we hosted Jale Özdemir, the director of the Muhtar Özkaya Public Library. We talked about the Muhtar Özkaya Public Library’s services and what improvements can be made in public libraries in general, to better serve their diverse users. You can also find answers to topics such as the users profiles of public libraries, how an ideal public library should be, and the reflection of the neighborhood culture on the public library. You can listen to the podcast in our Spotify account.

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Our second guest was the SALT Library and Archive director, Sezin Romi. In this podcast titled “The Archive of SALT Research”, we discussed various topics such as the history of SALT Research's Archive, the current projects, Open Data policies and studies on data visualization. To discover the details, listen to this podcast!

Meet our staff - Information Services Team

Sina Mater – Information Services Team Leader

Dear SKL Newsletter Readers,

My name is Sina and I have been working in the Suna Kıraç Library (SKL) since 2005. Some of you may know me as the Winged Librarian but it’s been already more or less 15 years since my first day and many things have changed. I started to work in the SKL as a part-time student being a Circulation Assistant and some years later, I was promoted to a Reference Librarian, then to Senior Reference Librarian and finally in January 2019 I gained the title “Information Services Team Leader”. Basically, you could say that I worked in both the User Services and the Technical Departments of the Library. Almost all the graphical design works, the promotional materials you see from the library’s channels are coming out from my own personal kitchen. Now I’m responsible for the Digital Collections, Archives & Special Collections and the Library’s Technological Services. From the perspective of Technological Services, our aim is to adapt our library to the digital transformation era and create new e-services on your behalf while on the other hand, from the Digital Collections & Archives, our mission is to protect cultural memory, intellectual property and contribute to global scholarship through our unique archival collections which house more than 233.000 digital or born-digital archive materials. Click here to learn more!

Please feel free to contact me on anything about our services or your suggestions or new ideas via smater@ku.edu.tr

Didem Ülüş Bektaş – Multimedia Assistant

Hello all,

My name is Didem. I graduated from the Dokuz Eylül University Department of Graphic in 2009. I have been working at Suna Kıraç Library since 2014. Before that, I worked in many different areas such as, newspapera, a printing company and graphic agency. As a result I know how to use a Dark Room to develop photographs and create gravure printing and I also like to take photographs and do some art with oil painting. At the library my job is digitizing and retouching (keeping the archival materials as original as much according to the restoration rules) for the Rare Collections & Archives. My work includes a wide variety of materials such as delicate archival documents from the 14^th Century to the newest born-digital images.

We, the Digital Collections & Archives Team, work together towards a common purpose: to protect our history and share it for the next generations.

You can always contact me at dulus@ku.edu.tr