Geisel Library, University of California San Diego, USA
Geisel Library is the main library building of the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) Library.
It is named in honor of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife. Dr. Seuss was a popular American children’s author and illustrator. By one estimation, over 60 million copies of his books have been sold in the world. Among his most popular titles are The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, and Hop on Pop.
The Thammasat University Library owns a copy of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, shelved in the Fiction Stacks of the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit campus.
The subject of The Lorax is how greedy corporations can cause environmental damage. As the book memorably states:
I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees,
Which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please!
As it deals with industrial, economic, and environmental issues, The Lorax may be of interest to TU students in the Faculty of Economics, the Program in Environmental Science, and the Thammasat Business School.
The TU Library also owns copies of the film inspired by The Lorax, with voice actors including Danny DeVito, Zac Efron, and Taylor Swift. It may be viewed at the Rewat Buddhinan Media Centre of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus, and also at the Puey Ungphakorn Library.
The TU Library also owns books about the work of Dr. Seuss, including copies of The Seuss, the whole Seuss, and nothing but the Seuss: a visual biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel by Charles D. Cohen. It is shelved in the General Stacks of the Boonchoo Treethong Library, Lampang campus, the Pridi Banomyong Library, the Puey Ungphakorn Library, and the Thammasat Library, Pattaya campus.
Thailand and Dr. Seuss
There is a special connection between The Kingdom and Dr. Seuss. A recent biography, Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay Jones, is available from the TU Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service. It describes how Geisel interrupted his writing of children’s books around the time of World War II to create political cartoons to express his views about the danger of world events. In November 1941, he began drawing cartoons warning of Japanese aggression against Siam.
While Dr. Seuss’s concern about Siam has largely been forgotten in Thailand today, he remains very popular. Many schools in Thailand are inspired to teach small children to enjoy reading by using the books of Dr. Seuss. Last year, the American School of Bangkok (ASB) a private Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 school offering education based on an American curriculum with an international perspective, celebrated the start of Reading Month 2018 with Dr. Seuss. ASB students and teachers were encouraged to dress up as their favorite Dr. Seuss characters and literary activities were planned involving Dr. Seuss stories.
The year before that, students at Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Chiang Mai also celebrated Dr. Seuss and his books in the school library.
Library events in San Diego
Geisel Library houses over 7 million volumes. It also contains the Mandeville Special Collections and Archives, which houses the Dr. Seuss Collection, which contains original drawings, sketches, proofs, notebooks, manuscript drafts, books, audio and videotapes, photographs, and memorabilia. The head of the UC San Diego Library system is Erik T. Mitchell, Ph.D.
As his website explains,
My research focuses on the use and impact of information in educational, cultural memory and cultural heritage communities. I am particularly interested in the intersection of new technologies, collections and information services and how we balance those elements to find, use and create new knowledge.
Dr. Mitchell earned a bachelor of arts degree in literature at Lenoir-Rhyne College, North Carolina, USA, followed by a master of science degree in Library & Information Science at the University of South Carolina and a Ph.D. in Information & Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The TU Library owns a copy of Dr. Mitchell’s book, Cloud-based services for your library. It is shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, and deals with such subjects as cloud computing and virtualization in libraries; the landscape of cloud computing and virtualization adoption; software as a service and platform as a service; and infrastructure as a service. His more recent book, Metadata standards and web services in libraries, archives, and museums: an active learning resource, may be obtained by the TU Library ILL service.
New initiatives
In July, The UC San Diego Library announced that it was collaborating with Texas Digital Library to transform digital preservation possibilities for sensitive data:
The UC San Diego Library is embarking on a new effort with the Texas Digital Library (TDL) to co-create a blueprint for the first nationally Distributed Digital Preservation (DDP) service for private and sensitive data. This initiative was recently awarded a one-year, $87,384 grant by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Libraries and archives have built robust community-driven networks for preservation of all types of content except sensitive data. As a result, personally identifiable information (PII) or personal health information (PHI) in the custody of libraries, health science centers and archives, is at an escalated risk of loss. The goal of this project is to develop a nationwide model for a DDP service that would close gaps in current preservation offerings for sensitive content.
“The exponential growth of digital data brings with it a number of management and preservation challenges,” said Erik Mitchell, the Audrey Geisel University Librarian at UC San Diego. “This initiative will enlist experts across relevant sectors including health care, higher education, digital storage and preservation, and legal experts to ensure the development and launch of this DDP service will be relevant to a broad variety of national stakeholders.”
Texas Digital Library (TDL) is a consortium of Texas higher education institutions. As its website states:
- Mission
The Texas Digital Library is a consortium of Texas higher education institutions that builds capacity for preserving, managing, and providing access to unique digital collections of enduring value. Our empowering technology infrastructure, services, and community programs:
Support research, teaching, and digital curation efforts at our member institutions
Facilitate collaboration amongst our community and with external partners
Connect local work to a global ecosystem of digital library efforts
- Values
Mission driven
We spread the cost of shared infrastructure among members who pool resources to expand access to research, storage, and curation tools for students and faculty. We are not a commercial vendor but are a partner, committed to our mission of enabling access and preservation of cultural heritage and scholarly materials for academic libraries in Texas.
Service oriented
We connect under-sourced, under-staffed libraries to affordable, open source technology solutions with secure storage and persistent services. We focus on providing services that meet real needs of libraries as effectively and quickly as possible.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)