Facilities and Learning Technologies
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AUC Libraries and Learning Technologies consist of six different units: Main Library, Rare Books and Special Collections Library, Academic Computing Services, AUC Web, Center for Learning and Teaching, and Classroom Technologies and Media Services. The units combine to create an environment that provides the access, tools, content and services to support learning, teaching, research, scholarship, and personal enlightenment to the entire AUC community.
The mission of the AUC Library is to support the instructional and research needs of the AUC community. The Library provides the academic community with one of the largest English language research collections in Egypt, offering online access to 124 database titles, 39,600 e-books, and 44,745 full-text journals. Off-campus access is available for AUC faculty and students. The Main Library also has 403,722 print volumes (books and periodicals), nearly 1,432 current periodical subscriptions, and 2,696 media items, all with 3M RFID stock control tags. The online catalog is Innovative Interfaces Millennium. All stations in the entirely new Learning Commons provide a collaborative, technology-rich environment where library users have the tools and support to access, manage and produce information. It is maintained by the full support services of LLT's four units and other campus service providers. There are computer stations on all floors as well as over 50 wireless enabled laptops available for internal use. The Library is a member of OCLC and of the RLG SHARES Program, which along with the use of Ariel and Odyssey software, enables rapid document delivery from abroad. A required one-hour Information Literacy course instructs AUC freshmen in the essentials of how to research, locate, and critically evaluate information using library resources. Additional instruction is offered in all disciplines to students, faculty, staff and visitors in the Library Instruction Labs.
AUC Libraries are accessible online at: http://library.aucegypt.edu/
Specific Library Holdings that Support the Egyptology programs
LLT supports the programs in Egyptology through the Library’s collection development and maintenance, as well as a variety of facilities and services. The Main Library maintains a collection of resources specifically tailored to the Egyptology programs. The Rare Books and Special Collections Library also has an exceptional Egyptology collection and operates as a scholarly research facility and teaching resource center specializing in the civilizations of ancient, medieval and modern Egypt and the region. These include approximately 5,000 books, 7 journal subscriptions and 2 video titles. In addition, the resource collection includes 17 databases containing indexing and full-text articles from over 11,900 periodicals generally applicable to Egyptology. A subject specialist librarian selects relevant materials to continually develop and upgrade the Egyptology collections, with advice from departmental faculty.
The Egyptology collection at the Rare Books & Special Collections Library (RBSCL) is one of the most comprehensive research libraries in Egypt for the study of ancient Egypt. The core of this collection are the personal libraries of celebrated Egyptologists Labib Habachi and Selim Hassan. Later additions were the libraries of Belgian Egyptologist Constant de Wit and Egyptian Shehata Adam. The Collection covers all aspects of Egyptology (including Coptic studies) and includes publications and excavation reports produced by such institutions as the Service des Antiquities de l’Egypte, the Egypt Exploration Society, the Institut Français d'Aachéologie Orientale du Caire, and the Deutsches Archaeologische Institut, Abteilung Kairo. In general, the library’s materials cover ancient Egyptian architecture, fine and applied art, religion, science and technology, epigraphy, language and literature (including Coptic) and papyrology. We have books in many languages, mostly Western but also a substantial collection in Arabic. RBSCL open stacks contain over than 7,400 Egyptology titles, (this number does not include duplicates and multiple volume materials. The library has a unique collection of the early literature on Egyptology before it became an independent discipline such as the works of Athanasius Kircher, Frederik Ludwig Norden, James Bruce, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, and of course the Description del’ Egypte.
The RBSCL subscribes to most of the respected international Egyptology archaeology journals including 93 titles related to the subject.
As for visual resources, the RBSCL has 5,440 slides of ancient Egyptian monuments, whether in situ or in museums. Among these are 88 rare glass negative slides from the Selim Hassan Collection showing the masterpieces of Egyptian monuments in the British, Hildesheim, Turin, Louvre and Cairo Egyptian Museums. Also, the RBSCL has 258 black and white vintage postcards featuring photographs of ancient Egyptian monuments taken at the turn of the 20th century. The Underwood & Underwood stereograph (101 sets) and 1,300 black and white photographs are an extraordinary collection of the earliest photographs of Egyptian monuments. We also have created a database of over 4,000 vintage 19th and early 20th century photographs in our collections including many featuring ancient monuments.Library Facilities:
The Rare Books and Special Collections Library was inaugurated in 1992 in a restored turn-of-the-century villa on Sheikh Rihan Street. A branch of the AUC Library, it operates as a scholarly research facility and a teaching resource center specializing in the civilizations of ancient, medieval, and modern Egypt and the region. The current holdings of over 35,000 books and extensive collections of manuscripts, photographs, maps, and architectural plans attract researchers from around the world and are used in an active program of exhibitions. Egyptology, Islamic art and architecture, and travel literature represent the strengths of the special book collections, which include those of K.A.C. Creswell, Max Debbane, Selim Hassan, Labib Habachi, and Mahmoud Saba. Major archival collections include the K.A.C. Creswell Photograph Collection of Islamic Art and Architecture, the Van-Leo portrait photograph collection, The Aziza Hussein collection of social and political papers, and the architectural records of Hassan Fathy and Ramses Wissa Wassef. The library also houses the AUC University Archives.
The Rare Books and Special Collections Library is available online at: http://lib.aucegypt.edu/screens/rbscl.html
•Adaptive Technology
The AUC Library has established consortial relationships with several other libraries and institutions in Egypt. For example, students and faculty may access the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Library, which contains over 25,000 books that focus on archaeology, Egyptology, medieval and modern history, as well as the libraries of the German, Netherlands-Flemish, and French Institutes in Cairo.
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The lab will support the following activities:
- Offering a new graduate course on digital epigraphy (Spring 2020)
- Incorporating digital recording of archaeological finds in existing undergraduate and graduate courses on Museology - Archaeological Methods and Theory - Bio-archaeology
- 2 21' IMAC computers
- 2 22' WACOM HDQ Cintiq
- 2 IPADS
- 1 Canon Camera
- Skeletons for comparative anatomy for archaeozoology and physical anthropology
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The mission of the Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT) is to promote excellence in teaching and to facilitate the effective application of technology to the teaching/learning process. The Center keeps a spotlight on teaching through a variety of programs, services, workshops and lectures, including the Faculty Development Institutes, a bi-weekly newsletter, instructional design consultations, formative assessment activities, classroom action research and the Student Technology Assistant program which provides one-to-one training and support for faculty who want to use diverse instructional technologies. CLT is also a strong advocate of academic integrity on campus and contributes to its enhancement by administering the plagiarism detection software Turnitin.com as well as conducting dedicated workshops for both faculty and students.
Center for Learning and Teaching is available online.
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University Academic Computing Technologies is responsible for supporting and promoting the effective use of computing and information technology in education and research. Through a collaborative effort with the Center for Learning & Teaching, UACT provides a computing platform to support teaching and research, and links the effective usage of technology to Academia.
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UACT also provides 'value-added' computing facilities, such as open access labs & service centers with appropriate equipment & configurations to support different activities & modes of interaction, as well as Adaptive Technology setups which are aimed at providing computing facilities to the visually impaired. Other facilities include specialized training and multimedia labs.
In addition to its academic role, UACT provides basic end-user services to the AUC community: a stable, secure & productive computing environment, high-quality & timely technical support, software, tools, licensing agreements, internship programs for students, and computer training for general-purpose productivity tools. Services to the AUC community also include web development and web hosting services. A strong working relationship exists between UACT and the Communications and Marketing staff whereby the Communications and Marketing provide content for the AUC website and UACT provides the technological services.
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Classroom Technologies and Media Services provide instructional technology support to all academic departments of the University. On the New Cairo Campus, CTMS provides instructional and presentation support for 224 classrooms, labs and meeting rooms, five video conference equipped classrooms plus limited event and conference support. On the Tahrir Square Campus, CTMS supports fifty-six smart classrooms and lecture halls, twenty-two of which are specialized for videoconferencing, student computers or language instruction. Technical assistance and training in the use of media is available to all faculty and students.
AUC Classroom Technologies and Media Services is available online.
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The mission of Web Communications is to strengthen the university’s web presence, particularly at top levels of the site, and to increase global awareness among prospective students and other audiences essential to AUC’s academic mission. Focus is on the institutional web as a primary communication and information medium, particularly among international faculty, supporting recruitment and enabling academic units to share information and activities worldwide. In coordination with Academic Computing Services and other units, Web Communications engages in strategic planning and provides guidelines and resources for site development by academic programs and administrative offices.