Arab Fest 2014 (1: Announcement and News Release)
VT University Libraries are hosting two ARAB FEST events in the new Multipurpose Room (MPR), showcasing Arab art, Arab library resources (including the newly acquired Muslim Bookshelf Collection), and a panel discussion about “Busting Arab Stereotypes” with an Arab comedian MC!
(Before reading on, try this link to the soundtrack Noha made as background music for the Arts and Fashion Show: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10655912/Arts and Fashion Show.mp3] . It will transport you to the Middle East and North Africa, guaranteed!)
A number of our University Libraries colleagues have assisted a coalition of VT Arab student clubs to promote the ARAB FEST 2014. Pictured above, left to right, are Noha ElSherbiny, VT engineering student and main student coordinator, in a planning session in the Multipurpose Room with members of the library’s Graphic Arts Team Kimberly Bassler, Somiah Lattimore, and Scott Fralin; Neal Henshaw can be seen testing the equipment in the background; students from Lebanon, Palestine, and our own library co-worker Amber discuss Arab Fest 2014 preparations in the International Outreach Initiatives Office; Noha is introduced to Brian Bolton, Director of Cranwell International Center (CIC), who immediately offers to partner with the University Libraries to help with the events; and Paul Hover, Faculty Advisor, Arab Fest 2014, during an Egyptian Conversation Club gathering. Mainstays Monena Hall and Scott Fralin are organizing the library promotional and educational displays before and during the fest, and more: Scott is running the lights on the “runway” for the men and women models of Arabic fashion, and Monena is practicing her pronunciation of Arabic because she is the MC for the event!
Partners
The events are sponsored by Cranwell International Center, Egypt Friends, Cedars of Lebanon,The Moroccan Club, Middle Eastern Student Association, Friends of Palestine, Saudi Student Club, United Arab Emirates Club, and University Libraries.
In addition to the two library events, three more evenings complete a whole week of cultural experiences, culminating in an Arab Fest Dance Night on Friday.
The following is a news release with more information on all five events: Read more…
South African Strategic Collaboration
(This YouTube is a 16 second video clip of some of our colleagues at the CPUT in South Africa. It will transport you instantly to the Southern Hemisphere! Take a moment to meet the people with whom we are forming a collaborative working relationship, folks that may now be considered new arrivals to our library. After all, they are appearing more and more regularly, sometimes bigger than life, on our large monitors using apps like Skype, so their electronic presence is already a fact. Consider the clip a long distance “handshake & hello” made especially for us. Also pictured above are the South African team members with views of the university and the city.)
Virginia Tech University Libraries announces strategic partnership with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) Libraries.
International collaboration has long been one of VT University Libraries’ outreach initiatives, and Dr. Tyler Walters, Dean of the VT University Libraries, has sought out and sealed the partnership by signing, along with Dr. Elisha Chiware, Director of CPUT Libraries, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). He was assisted by Lesley Moyo, Head of Reference and Instructional Services, who is friends with Chiware and was instrumental in introducing the two deans at a conference.
Two teams are gearing up to collaboratively produce an international MOOC–from different sides of the globe.
During the MOU process, an exciting opportunity to produce meaningful instructional content coincidentally presented itself that would instantly pitch the two libraries together in a tight-scheduled project. An “open education” effort, the project is the first in an agreement for strategic collaboration between the South African institution’s academic library and our own.The job, inspired and facilitated by Stanford University’s Prof. John Willinsky during his visit to VT, is to design a MOOC module for Student Publishing Skills.
VT Deans’ Forum on Global Engagement
A second opportunity emerged in a call for presentations and posters at the VT Deans’ Forum on Global Engagement, also with a spring deadline, which subsequently resulted in a slot on a panel discussion event awarded to the library team.
Abstract: Student Publishing Skills: An Open, Global Learning Module
The VT team consists of Philip Young (contact person, pyoung1@vt.edu), Anita Walz, Jennifer Nardine, Scott Pennington, and Paul Hover. The University Libraries is contributing a learning module on student publishing to the international course “Open Knowledge,” organized by the Public Knowledge Project. The course, scheduled to begin in September 2014, will be taken for credit by students in Ghana, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., and by anyone around the world with an internet connection as a non-credit MOOC.
Read more…
By HaveLanguageWillTravel • 2. Strategic Global Collaborations, 3. International Events, 5. International Librarians • 0