From our Library family to you all, many warm wishes for a happy, prosperous, successful, fun and above all HEALTHY new year! May this be a year to heal the difficulties 2020 carried and help us create 365 happy days!

Our monthly newsletter continues with information about the collection, our services and events.
Enjoy!

Relax with Mindfulness Session During the Pandemic Period!

Dear KU Community,
For the first two weeks of January, we planned mindfulness events in collaboration with members of the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) team and the Global Learning Leadership Program (GLLP). Suna Kıraç Library and the students invited members of the KU community and also a professor outside KU, to lead several sessions. Many thanks to our supporters!

Join our events to learn easy yoga techniques that you can do at home, get some useful information about food and nutrition and learn relaxation techniques while studying/working at your desk.

All sessions will be held on Zoom and are combined with our Virtual Study Space sessions. You can join to relax before studying or you can study with us in the VSS and then continue with the mindfulness session.

Find the session/-s you like the best by clicking on the poster and join our team!

To join the VSS, click on the link
Zoom ID (KU Authentication Required): 996 2866 9993
Passcode: 478562

*Please note that all events will be in Turkish.

Will the Green Open Access Route Slow Down the Progress of Open Access?

Recent claims support that the green OA route will slow down the progress of Open Access and this is sth all researchers should pay attention to. But, is it a real case or just an attempt by some publishers to protect revenues and maintain control of the system? Find the documented response to this claim from COAR, which underscores the critical role of Open Access repositories in accelerating innovation in scholarly communications and the adoption of Open Access and Open Science.

Open Research Europe: Rapid and Transparent Publishing of Horizon2020 Project Outputs

Open Research Europe is an Open Access publishing platform for the publication of research stemming from Horizon 2020 funding across all subject areas. The platform makes it easy for Horizon 2020 beneficiaries to comply with the Open Access terms of their funding and offers researchers a publishing venue to share their results and insights rapidly and facilitate open, constructive research discussion. Click the visual above for the detailed representation of the publishing process.

A New Digital Exhibition: Cem Magazine and Cemil Cem as an Opponent Caricaturist

A new digital exhibition "Cem magazine and Cemil Cem as an Opponent Carricaturist", consisting of the selections from Cem magazine is available on SKL Digital Collections Website. The digitized issues of this magazine is also in Turkish Cartoon Prints Collection. Founded by the cartoonist Mehmet Cemil Cem, the magazine was published on Thursdays at the time, mainly on political, literary, and illustrative humor. 22 issues in our collection are made up of the second series dating from 1927-1928. You can visit the issues of Cem magazine here.

Ulla C. Johansen Donation – A New Print Collection in KU Libraries

Back in 2014, Koç University received a valuable collection comprising images, notes and diaries, and an extended genealogical map of nomadic Yörük tribal families collected during the fieldwork of the ethnologist Ulla Johansen in Turkey in 1956-57. In 2015, these materials were digitized by the Koç University Suna Kıraç Library and can be found in The Ulla Johansen Anatolian Ethnology Digital Collection.

Recently, we were lucky to also receive 785 volumes of her print collections, which includes books, catalogs and journals of ethnological interest. Among the books, there are her own publications being translated in to Turkish. Our Cataloging team is processing the material and you will be able to locate it in our collection some time later in 2021.

SKL Book Club

Let’s continue our reading tradition in 2021! January brings to you not one, but two books!
Join us in the "1^st Book Club Meeting" of the year, with The Bell Jar, by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed.
RSVP: Thursday January 7th, at 4pm.
Registration link

A Room of One’s One by Virginia Woolf is our 2^nd book for this month. Woolf addressed the status of women, and women artists in particular, in this famous essay, which asserts that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.
RSVP: Thursday January 21st, at 4pm.
Registration link

The Best Books of 2020

Adding some good reads in our (long, we want to believe!😉) reading lists, can always be included in the New Year’s resolutions. Surveys have shown that reading was one of the most preferred and highly appreciated activities of people in 2020. Long lasting staying at home offered the opportunity to many, to spend their time with the company of a good book. Here is a compilation of sources for the best books for 2020. Browse these ones and create your own “read it already” and “to read” lists. And don’t forget we host a bilingual Literature collection, so you can always find the novels you want from the online catalog and borrow them.

ANAMED Library Talks

Our guest speaker for January is Nükhet Varlık, who will bring to light the issue of pandemics, based on her recent work “Plagued Legacies: Rethinking Black Death Narratives”. Along with Tunahan Durmaz, she will present cases of pandemics since the Ottoman years in a discussion about how we can evaluate the long-standing legacy of the past plagues that continue to shape, to be able to fight them. To register for the talk, please click on the link.

For those enjoying the ANAMED Library’s talks series, we are happy to announce that we have scheduled all talks for 2021. Speakers from Turkey and abroad, scholars of different fields will join us to offer insightful talks about new publications, projects and research. Find out more about the talks in the joined poster.

ANAMED Library Podcast: Burada Konuşmak Serbest

The librarianship guest of ANAMED Library Podcast in December was the former head of Özgen Berkol Doğan Library who now supports as a volunteer, İrem Ünsal Bozkurt. In this podcast we discussed the the purpose of establishing this science-fiction library, their accomplishments, the collections and various events. We also talked about the advantages and disadvantages of being the only science-fiction library in Turkey. We hope you will enjoy this conversation!

The archives guest of ANAMED Library Podcast in December was the director of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) in Istanbul, Zeynep Simavi. In this podcast we discussed the history of ARIT’s archive which contains the American Board Archives, the extension of the collection, the digitization processes, and curatorial projects. Ms. Simavi also gave tips to researchers on how to access the archive efficiently to locate the information they need, she shared insights on developments in the archives sector and offered a few suggestions about further improvements. We hope you will enjoy this conversation!

Meet our Staff: Facility Management and Building Security Team

Feriha Kayacan Dur - Facility & Stack Management Supervisor

Hello all! I’m Feriha and it was back in 2001 when I started working at Suna Kıraç Library as a Circulation Services Assistant. In 2007 I continued as Reserve & ILL Librarian, respectively. In 2013 I was promoted to a Head of Administrative Services and most recently, since the beginning of 2019 I have been working as the Facility & Stack Management Supervisor.

I have 19 years of library experience in user services, course reserves, document supply (ILL), building and facility maintenance, event organization, staff schedule, work&study students program, library activity reports and digitization projects.

Working with work&study students is the favorite part of at my job. It is very pleasant and pleasing to meet new students every semester, to teach them the details and requirements of the job, and also to see their development and contributions. We are always grateful for their support to the library.

Please feel free to contact me any time at fkayacan@ku.edu.tr with questions or if you need any help.

Engin Akkaya - Security Officer

I’ m Engin Akkaya, I have been working at Koç University since 1999. I’m the building and security officer in the Suna Kıraç Library, where I do my best to provide order and silence, make sure that the building is used the best way possible and maintain the library as a suitable study space to users.

During this pandemic period, I missed warning students to be silent during the final and exam times at the library 😷📚😂

Throughout the day, I help students and users with questions such as which floor and where they will work, or which floor is suitable for that specific person, and at the same time, I’m responsible to create a nice environment and provide equal working space for the users by walking around the library frequently and making sure everything is in a good condition.

You can always contact me for questions about the Library building and safety regulations, at eakkaya@ku.edu.tr