Ex Libris: News From the Library

30 March 2015 Comments Off on Ex Libris: News From the Library

This will be a very busy week for Bilkent Library! It is Turkey’s 51st Library Week, when we acknowledge and celebrate the role of libraries and librarians in our daily and professional lives.

As usual, Bilkent Library has a number of activities planned. Over the past weeks, we have held a Library Week poster competition, “The Library of Tomorrow, Today,” and on Monday of this week, a prize-giving ceremony for the three best submissions took place. The posters were judged anonymously by a jury consisting of librarians along with faculty members Funda Şenova Tunalı (COMD) and Adam Pekalski (GRA). The rector, Prof. Abdullah Atalar, was on hand to congratulate the winning participants and give them their prizes. The winners were: first prize, Anıl Karasaç (COMD); second, Övgü Cansu Şahin (EEE); and third, Görkem Bozkurt (PHYS). Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all students who submitted posters and also to the judges.

In addition, on Tuesday this week, there will be a concert by students from the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts in the Art Gallery at lunchtime, and our annual Library Week group reading activity, “Bring Your Book, Let’s Read Together,” will take place on Wednesday starting around 12:30 p.m. (The reading activity will be held outside, on the grass and plaza between the Library and the Rectorate building—if the weather is fine!) For more information about Library Week at Bilkent, please see our website:

http://library.bilkent.edu.tr/activities/libraryweek-activities/.

On Thursday this week, Prof. Orhan Güvenen, director of the Institute of World Systems, Economies and Strategic Research (DSEE) and chair of the Department of Accounting Information Systems (ACC), will present the second Lunchtime Lecture for the spring semester, “Some Comments on Transdisciplinary Science Methodology.” In this talk, Prof. Güvenen will argue that, for optimal problem solving in the physical and social sciences, a new, more transdisciplinary methodology is necessary. During the late twentieth century, changes within academia and in many research fields began requiring a greater level of collaboration between experts from more than one discipline. The consequent multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies offered only limited solutions, in which scientists transmitted data and expertise between disciplines but continued to work in parallel, resulting in individual conclusions and partial analyses. In contrast, transdisciplinary methodology can achieve a far higher degree of integration between academic fields and result in optimal analyses. Examples from nanoscience and nanotechnology may be cited, but Prof. Güvenen will suggest that such a transdisciplinary methodology should have a wider application throughout academia. The lecture will take place in the Art Gallery, at 12:40 p.m. on

April 2, and will be in English. Lunchtime refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you all at the Library this week for at least one of these events!