Also referred to as “assistive technology,” AT enables people with disabilities to use information technology resources to eliminate learning barriers and reach their full potential. Penn State’s adaptive technology resources support tasks such as reading an assignment, listening to a textbook, enlarging a syllabus, or printing a Braille copy of a page or computer file. Click here to learn more.

Meaning the “first infancy of printing,” incanabula refers to the typographic books printed by Gutenberg’s moveable type press before 1500. In total, 15 million volumes were produced before the start of the 16th century. Consequently, Penn State libraries’ have their own unique piece of incredible incanabula, which was printed in Venice, Italy in 1476 (in fact, it’s the University Libraries’ oldest book).

The Burney Collection is a full-text, fully searchable digital archive of nearly 1,270 newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom. Collected by the Reverend Charles Burney (and now made available by the British Library) this unique collection represents the largest single archive of 17th and 18th century news media in the world.

Interlibrary loan is the sharing of materials between libraries. Member institutions participate in interlibrary loan to better serve their patrons by borrowing materials that the library doesn’t have the resources to purchase, nor the space to house.

The CAT is Penn State University Libraries’ catalog that contains information about the millions of library materials that Penn State owns (whether physically or by copyright) and specifies which resources exist in what locations.

The Knowledge Commons is a one-stop-shop for Penn State students to complete assignments, access state-of-the art technology, and consult with reference librarians. An innovative collaboration among University Libraries, ITS, and Media Commons, the Knowledge Commons officially opened in Pattee Library in 2012.

ITS Classroom and Lab Computing provides facilities, support, and services for student computing labs and technology classrooms throughout Penn State.

To order Marcus' special Starbucks brew, repeat after me: double tall, cinnamon dolce, non fat, no whip, extra hot mocha. Yum!

CIC is the academic consortium of the universities in the Big Ten Conference (plus the University of Chicago). The CIC’s mission is to advance academic excellence through collaboration across its top-tier research universities, resulting in increased academic opportunities for students and enhanced professional opportunities for faculty and staff.

Simply put, metadata is data about data. It is descriptive information about a particular data set, object, or resource, including how it is formatted, and when and by whom it was collected. The underlying concepts of metadata have been in use for as long as collections of information have been organized. For example, the information structure for materials in library card catalogs is a type of metadata that has served as a collection management and resource discovery tool for decades.

This program is an institutional initiative to address digital content and data management needs in areas such as digital library collections, scholarly communications, electronic records archiving, and e-research data management. Building on existing services and infrastructure, the program is developing a suite of discovery, preservation, curation, archival, and storage services. Click here to learn more.

The Nielsen Claritas PRIZM data is a customer segmentation system for marketing purposes that was developed using U.S Census data. The system categorizes American consumers into 66 geodemographic segments in order to help marketers discern consumer likes, dislikes, lifestyles, and purchases. Find out if you belong to Blue Blood Estates, Bohemian Mix, Middleburg Managers, White Picket Fences, or Park Bench Seniors here.

Founded in 2010, CURATEcamp is a series of “unconference”-style events that focus on connecting practitioners and technologists interested in the practice of digital curation. There are no spectators at an unconference—to be successful the event relies on its attendees to generate content by giving a demo, presenting a talk, or participating in a roundtable.

A partnership between Penn State Press and University Libraries, the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing leverages new media technologies to advance scholarly communication at Penn State. ODSP is currently working on moving scholarship (such as research publications, monographs, and conference proceedings) to a digital environment.

This online, crowd-sourced bibliographic resource provides librarians with a registry of research data repositories to help them discover and access digital research content. Currently undergoing beta-testing, the Databib platform challenges the concept of a traditional bibliography by integrating with social networks and Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 environments.

OCR is the electronic conversion of scanned images of handwritten, typed, or printed text into machine-encoded text. Among its various uses, the technology has also been applied to create reading machines that read text out loud to the blind.

Digital curation involves the maintenance and preservation of research data in order to protect, ensure the long-term value, and mitigate the technological obsolescence of digital content.

The Co-Location Center (Co-Lo) is a secure, climate-controlled facility available to Penn State departments and units for housing their computer systems. The Co-Lo was created to meet the University’s demand for a machine room that met crucial environmental conditions for storing machinery such as a raised floor, conditioned air, uninterrupted power supply, and secured physical access.

Digital library architects design and develop technical architectures for preserving an institution’s digital assets, such as research data, electronic records, and digital library collections.

PSUThesi is a thesis software package that is available to Penn State students to help them produce their dissertations, master theses, or Schreyer Honors theses by providing an array of helpful templates, styles, toolbars, and functions for document formatting.

Digital Library Technologies provides IT systems and services to support the teaching, outreach, and research mission of Penn State and the University Libraries. DLT provides technical leadership in research and development of digital library initiatives, explores and evaluates the suitability of new technologies to support library programs and services, and supports workstation and network services for University Libraries.

An online repository services platform is used to store and deliver digital library collections, student and faculty papers, research data, electronic business records, and much more.

Digital repositories house a range of digitized and born-digital content (including books, papers, theses, and other academic works) with the purpose of their long-term preservation. Many digital repositories have now been made available to the general public with minimal access restrictions.

Ruby programming language is essentially a purist computer language, wherein everything, without exception, is automatically an object. This object-oriented language is simple enough for beginners to understand while, at the same time, powerful enough for more experienced programmers. Ruby is used by programmers to create all types of applications ranging from networking programs to game libraries and more.

The electronic database is home to significant works printed during the 18th century, bearing witness to the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions. ECCO is one of the most ambitious digitization projects ever undertaken and contains over 180,000 titles.

With the advent of new technologies, the nature of scholarly communication has expanded beyond traditional print formats to include other means of dissemination such as email, pre-print servers, e-journals, e-books, e-reserves, distance learning, and more. Scholarly Communications Services at Penn State offers guidance on issues relevant to research and scholarship done by the Penn State community, such as copyright, author rights, open access, and management of research data. The office also consults with faculty and students on digital projects.

Named after Penn State’s first president, Evan Pugh Professorships are the highest honor that the University bestows on its faculty. Since 1960, only 62 faculty members have been honored for their excellence and creativity in teaching, research, and service to the institution.

ScholarSphere is the name of the a repository services platform that is part of the Libraries’ Content Stewardship initiative enabling members of the Penn State community to deposit, search, and provide access to their scholarly works. (See repository services platform.)

Geocaching is a realworld, outdoor treasure hunting game played with GPS-enabled devices. Participants travel to a predetermined set of GPS coordinates in order to locate the geocache (container) hidden at that particular location.

Screen reading programs are software programs that allow blind or visually impaired users to read the text that is displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer. A screen reader is the interface between the computer’s operating system, its applications, and the user.

A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information in the form of maps, globes, reports, charts, and more.

Authored by Kit Hume, Rob Hume, and Judy Milhous, the Short Guide to London Restaurants is now in its 15th edition. Beginning in 1984, during a year’s sabbatical in London, the authors ate their way through the cities’ renowned dining establishments and noted their
experiences at each restaurant.

Google Books is a free, online service that lets any user search and read the complete text of books and magazines that Google has scanned and stored in a digital database. The initiative has been criticized for potential copyright violations, yet praised for its potential to promote the democratization of knowledge.

Born in 1775, Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, historian, and teacher during the Victorian era. He was regarded as a controversial social commentator based on his appraisal of economics as a “dismal science.” He was a lifelong lover of libraries and reading.