April starts with the Fool’s day, so watch out! The rest of the month includes 2 special occasions to celebrate.

Every year on April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day, which Atatürk made a present to all the world’s children, is celebrated with the same enthusiasm.

April 25 – May 1 has been celebrated as the International Preservation week, as an attempt to raise awareness about preservation needs in libraries, museums, and archives. The celebration promotes the role of libraries and other institutions in preserving personal and public collections and treasures. Suna Kıraç Library participates in the week with a series of events; we will make our announcements soon!

Don’t Miss Any Library Webinar! Visit The Online Calendar

Was there a webinar you would like to attend, and you saw the announcement about it rather late? Don’t wait until someone informs you about the offered webinars or until you read an announcement. Visit our online instructions and events calendar frequently and stay tuned! We schedule seminars, workshops, presentations and other events on a weekly basis, for you to have a clearer view. Every tile includes a brief description and the registration link.

New Database: Central & Eastern European Academic Source (EBSCOhost)

Central and Eastern Europe is used to define the countries in Central Europe, the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Europe (the Balkans) comprising Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Central & Eastern European Academic Source (CEEAS) is a research database of full-text scholarly journals published in central and eastern European countries. Multidisciplinary and multilingual, it covers nearly 630 full-text publications such as newspapers, academic journals, magazines, reviews, conference papers, books, trade publications with many subject’ business and economics, medical sciences, political sciences, law, library and information sciences, literature, linguistics, history, sociology. Some of the journals included are: Religion & Society in Central & Eastern Europe, Transylvanian Review, Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, Polish Sociological Review and publications. The database is accessible through the Library’s Databases webpage.

Open Access Resources Libguide

The Suna Kıraç Library Open Access Team is working to support and strengthen the transition to Open Access / Open Science through trainings and awareness-raising activities geared towards KU researchers, faculty and staff and additionally, to provide the necessary infrastructure to effectuate this transition. In this context, the team has prepared the Open Access Resources Libguide to provide the latest on Open Access resources including books, journals, theses, visual archives, free courses and more.

Plan S: What Changes for Horizon Europe Applicants?

What is Plan S? In the words of Coalition S—the international consortium of research organizations promoting the plan—it “requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms”. The European Commission supports Plan S and is a participant in its Coalition S group of funders behind the plan which means any research supported under Horizon Europe will need to be openly accessible immediately on publication, through a repository or on a publisher’s website. Read the full article to find all details about the publishing requirements and frame for books, monographs and articles, OA and hybrid journals, reprints, RDM support, FAIR principles and embargo period.

NGLP Releases “Scholarly Communication Technology Catalogue (SComCat)”

Created by Antleaf, COAR, and the Next Generation Library Publishing project, SComCat is a catalogue and knowledge base of scholarly communications open technologies including software and some essential running services. SComCat’s purpose is to assist potential users in making decisions about which technologies they will adopt by providing an overview of the functionality, organizational models, dependencies, use of standards, and levels of adoption of each technology. Find out more, in the related announcement.

ARHA Trips Digital Collection

The ARHA Trips Collection is a digital archive of photos taken by students and faculty from Koç University’s department of Archaeology and History of Art (ARHA) in the course of their field trips since Fall 2019. This ongoing ARHA project currently holds photos from two trips, first to Göbeklitepe and Urfa and second to Vize and Kıyıköy in Thrace. The photos capture archaeological sites, monuments and artefacts, as seen by the students, while at the same time documenting Turkey’s cultural heritage. The collection represents a valuable educational tool that can be used for teaching and research purposes. Its aim is to reinvigorate interest in ARHA-related topics and raise awareness about the material culture of Anatolian civilizations.

ARHA Department faculty members Ivana Jevtić and Nikos D. Kontogiannis, Suna Kıraç Library archive specialist Mustafa Ergül and ANAMED Library branch librarian Defne Gier worked for the realization of this project. Students compiled travel photos, catalogued and sent them to archivists. Archivists reviewed the catalogues and uploaded them to ContentDM. With all this foundational work completed, the collection may continue to be enriched and expanded with new material in the future. In its current state, consisting of a total of 100 images, the collection is ready and you can access it from the SKL Digital Collections Website.

The latest features in your new Web of Science (WoS)

WoS recently incorporated a new tool that visualizes the citation impact of an author’s research in a clear and understandable way. Author Impact Beamplots are graphical representations of the citation performance of an author's publications. Unlike single point metrics, Author Impact Beamplots help you:

• understand the narrative behind citation performance
• see performance change over time
• make more informed decisions about research impact and evaluation

Read the full article for more details. You can always ask your Liaison Librarian for help with your publications and the Publons profile.

SKL Virtual Book Club Talks in April

This month’s book is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.

Love is strange! We will read Florentino Ariza’s and Fermina Daza’s love story. Is this is a simple love story or is there more to discuss? Is it maybe about much more common vices that masquerade for love? Jealousy, obsession, desire, pity and vengeance.

If you are wondering about this love story written by one of the most prominent authors and you would like to share your experience from reading it, join us on April 22 at 4pm for one more virtual talk. Registration link
Take a look at the 2021 Books list

Meet our staff: ANAMED & NIT Libraries

Vasia Mole – ANAMED Head Librarian

Hello all,

I’m Vasia and I first entered the big door of Suna Kıraç Library, on a cold January morning back in 2016. I began as a Reference and Outreach Librarian at the main Library. My role in the Academic Engagement team was multifaceted, as I participated in diverse tasks and numerous projects: the educational program of the library, one-to-one research consultation meetings, course embedded library sessions as part of my Business & Economics Liaison position, creating Libguides, being the team leader in 3 international events – one of my favorite activities - , the preparation and editing of the Library's Newsletter – yes, the same Newsletter you are reading now - , the management of the Library's social media platforms, the creation of the Library Students Ambassadors team, to name some.

Since January 2020 I serve as the Head Librarian at the Library of ANAMED, one of the University's Research centers. My position as the Head Librarian requires a managerial role which I combined over the year with other tasks, working together with my colleagues in the main Library (offering online Library instruction sessions, organizing and hosting two international events and developing a digital study space). I oversee all Library operations working closely with Defne and Irem: reference desk services, collection development, reports, collection maintenance, inventory control, e-resources subscriptions, library instructions to the fellows, monthly library talks, participation in a library consortium and more. With the libraries closed due to the pandemic, we worked hard to provide distance services to the University community, with an emphasis on online research support and access to electronic resources. I like learning new things and improving my skills, so I recently completed a course in Research Data Management and I am currently working with Ertaç, the Head of the Health Sciences Library, on brushing up and further developing the Systematic Review Library service.

I hope I will be able to welcome you all in the Library, soon! Till then, use the Library Trackit to send us your requests and questions and follow us on social media to stay updated on our news. @anamed_library & @ANAMEDLibrary
Fun fact: this is a photo taken during my very first week at SKL!

Nathalie Defne Gier – ANAMED Branch Librarian

Dear all, hello!

I am Defne, the ANAMED Branch Librarian at Koç University. I work with Vasia and Irem.

I am a trained historian specializing in Byzantine history and a trained archivist. I am here to help with any questions you may have concerning historical sources and archive-based research. Having majored History at McGill University, I completed my first MA at Oxford University in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies and my second MA in Archive and Records Management at University College London (UCL). Before joining the ANAMED Library team I worked in various archaeological sites, research, and cataloguing projects. I am enthusiastic about sharing my experience and expertise with you.

I joined the ANAMED Library team in December 2019. My main responsibilities consist of providing support to researchers, processing membership applications, assisting in article requests, researching for collection development, contributing to the organization of national and international events and documenting the institutional memory of the ANAMED Library. Due to the temporary closure of the library space in March 2020, we have switched our working style, however, we continue to offer support to our community in various ways. One of our novel contributions, in collaboration with my colleague İrem Ünal, has been the ANAMED Library Podcast initiative in June 2020. In these podcasts we invite librarians and archivists to share their accomplishments with a greater community. This month we will complete our 20^th podcast! We have already started working on new exciting projects in 2021. Stay tuned! You can always send your requests for material and your questions about the library’s resources using the Library Trackit..

İrem Ünal, ANAMED & NIT Branch Librarian

Hello everyone,

I am İrem, the ANAMED & NIT Branch Librarian and I work in the same team with Defne and Vasia. I graduated from Marmara University, the department of Information and Record Management in 2013. I’m currently a master student at the same department. My experience in Librarianship has been shaped from working in several Institutions.

I started working at ANAMED Library in June 2016. I am responsible for the ANAMED and NIT cataloging process, I organize and deliver instructions to the ANAMED fellows, I am responsible for the ANAMED Library social media platforms and I support the collection maintenance. A new activity we started together with Defne, is the podcast series named ANAMED Library: Burada Konuşmak Serbest. In this podcast we invite librarians and archivists to share their accomplishments with a broader community. I’m looking forward to welcoming you all at ANAMED & NIT Libraries physical space, once we open our doors! Until then, we continue supporting your information needs distantly.

ANAMED Library April Talk

Koç University Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies (GABAM) and the Friends of Music Society in Athens, created a research framework of cooperation on Byzantine secular music tradition. They launched the Byzantine Musical Instruments (BMI) research project. The extensive investigation on primary and secondary resources revealed figures of musicians and musical instruments, featured on artefacts such as caskets, wall paintings, mosaics, wooden icons etc. but also on illuminations preserved inside Greek manuscripts, dated between the 2^nd and the 16^th century. All these depictions amounted to more than 400 visual representations, which were integrated at a functional and fully operational database open for researchers, hosted at the Suna Kıraç Library digital collections. During the April ANAMED Library talk, Antonios Botonakis (BMI Post-Doctorate Researcher at GABAM), Alexandros Charkiolakis (Project Coordinator and Director of the Friends of Music Society), Merve Özkılıç (Project coordinator at GABAM) and Senem Acar (Archive Specialist at Koç University Suna Kıraç Library) will present all stages of the process.

Tuesday, April 6 at 18:00 Registration link

ANAMED Library March Podcast: Burada Konuşmak Serbest

We completed ANAMED Library Podcast's 20th broadcast with Turkey's first city museum, Ahmet Piristina from İzmir City Archive and Museum (APİKAM), Museum and Exhibition Coordinator Emrah Sait Erda. In this podcast, we discussed many different topics, from the characteristics of being a city archive, to the foundation of an archive and the preparation of its exhibition, from scriptwriting, to the writing and design of the exhibition text. If you want to learn more about the half-cup story between the Galatasaray Göztepe match, the history of various venues in Izmir and how a city archive can affect its urban memory, you shouldn't miss this podcast! Click here

Our March's Library related podcast hosted Duygu Özdemir, the founder of 1Kitap1Mekan Instagram page. With her we discussed what does it mean to be a good reader, about her journey to the creation of 1Kitap1Mekan Instagram page, her brand she created to help village schools, about different reading cultures, about her favorite libraries and the future of libraries. We enjoyed a lot our discussion, we hope you will enjoy it too! Listen to in on Spotify.