NEWSLETTER

 Issue: 2025 - 9

The weather is slightly getting chillier, and autumn is at the door- September is the month we dedicate all our efforts to the preparations for the new semester! The library trainings are getting updated, new students are added to the library system, a new Treasure Gallery Series’ theme is announced, and SKL Textbook Swap Books are listed and counted. Our physical space also undergoes small maintenance works. We are excited to welcome all old and new students to the library and wish a restful and entertaining month of September for all before a Fall semester of new classes, friends, and events.

SERVICES

The SKL Textbook Swap Campaign Donations

RESOURCES

Hüseyin Sermet Public Works Engineer Archive

Koç University Suna Kıraç Library Archives presents a highly valuable collection that sheds light on the history of engineering in twentieth-century Turkey: The Hüseyin Sermet Public Works Engineer Collection.

Born in 1907, Hüseyin E. Sermet began his engineering education at Robert College and graduated in 1929 from the Civil Engineering Department of Purdue University in the United States. Upon returning to Turkey, he worked at the Ministry of Public Works (Nafıa Vekâleti) in the Highways and Bridges Department, contributing to the early Republican period’s transportation and infrastructure projects.

In 1938, he served as a project engineer in the Turkish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, designed by the renowned architect Sedad Hakkı Eldem, gaining valuable international experience. After working as a chief project engineer at Preload Corp. in New York in 1940, he returned to Turkey, where he began his career at Koç Ticaret AŞ in 1947 and continued until his retirement in 1975 as the General Manager of Otokoç AŞ.

Content of the Collection

Reflecting both Sermet’s professional and personal life, this collection comprises more than 900 photographs.

It includes original images of the construction process of the Turkish Pavilion and the atmosphere of the fair; rare photographs documenting the construction of reinforced concrete and steel bridges across Anatolia in the 1930s; scenes from bridge construction sites; working environments of engineers and laborers; and visuals illustrating the technical possibilities of the period.

This collection is not only an engineering archive but also a visual testimony to Turkey’s modernization story. While the infrastructure projects of the 1930s reflect the Republic’s vision of development, the 1939 New York World’s Fair highlights Turkey’s international representation at the time.

For researchers, students, and history enthusiasts, the collection offers a unique resource in both technical and cultural terms.

SKL Treasure Gallery Series New Theme: Cornell Fleischer

Suna Kıraç Library proudly announces the 14th theme of its Treasure Gallery Series: Cornell Fleischer. Fleischer (October 23, 1950 – April 21, 2023) was an American historian and the Kanuni Süleyman Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at the University of Chicago. He was a well-known professor of Ottoman studies with a wide range of impact on many students and researchers in this area. He was a beloved professor, and his students, who are today’s important professors, decided to donate his personal book collection to Koç University upon his death. In November 2024, the collection was shipped to İstanbul from the US, and up until now, 570 books from his collection have been catalogued and made available to researchers.

During the last four months of 2025, with a series of webinars, social media posts, and exhibitions, we will commemorate the late professor’s memory and scholarly heritage.

Stay alerted for our announcements!

EVENTS & EXHIBITS

New Book Exhibition: 10 Novels That Will Sharpen Your Mind

For the month of September, thinking that we all need to “sharpen” our minds before the new semester starts, we offer our community a new book exhibition showcasing “10 Novels That Will Sharpen Your Mind”. The book list we exhibit is formed by Keith Oakley, a cognitive psychology professor from the University of Toronto, and Ingrid Wickelgren, a freelance science journalist.

ANAMED Library Talks

Catherine Keane, Alkiviadis Ginalis – More than a Church: Late Antique Ecclesiastical Complexes in Cyprus on September 9 at 6 PM via Zoom.

ANAMED Library Community Lecture

Oreste Lubrano, Renato Capozzi, Federica Visconti - Reasons and Modes of Intervention for the ‘Poleis’ of Ionia on September 10 at 6 PM at ANAMED Library.

ANAMED Library Podcast

ANAMED Library Podcast - Burada Konuşmak Serbest: Tuğba Güleryüz, İTOSAM Dersaadet Kütüphanesi.

Listen here.

OPEN SCIENCE

Open Access Week 2025: Who Owns Our Knowledge?

Suna Kıraç Library will join the global community in celebrating International Open Access Week on October 20–26, 2025. This year’s theme, “Who Owns Our Knowledge?”, raises an important question about how knowledge is created, shared, and recognized. It challenges us to reflect not only on who has access to education and research but also on how communities can reclaim control over the knowledge they produce.

At Suna Kıraç Library, we will use this week to spark conversations about how open access can empower our academic community. Events will focus on making research more visible, sharing knowledge beyond paywalls, and strengthening community-driven approaches to publishing. We will also showcase opportunities available to KU authors through the library’s open access services.

Further details about the program will be shared in the coming weeks. Please follow our social media channels for updates and look out for the formal announcement of our Open Access Week event.

NEWS

Summer Internship at SKL

Last month, Suna Kıraç Library welcomed 4 summer interns from İstanbul, İstanbul Medeniyet , and İzmir Katip Çelebi Universities. In Suna Kıraç, our interns are provided with a very detailed training program where different library professionals share their insights about their specialty with the students. Moreover, the interns take an active part in collection maintenance and inventory control work, and at the end of their internship, they research and present a contemporary information science topic of their choice to the SKL team. Therefore, they get a chance to practice firsthand what they learn during their university education.

We thank all our interns for their efforts and wish them success in their future endeavors!

A.I. Company Pays Unprecedented Amount to Set Copyright Case

Anthropic, a leading A.I. company, agreed to pay $1,5 billion to settle a copyright case against authors. The company accepted that the articles and books are downloaded and used to train AI in a way that creates copyright infringement. The case is believed to be a milestone for one because of the amount paid, and second, for setting an example for similar cases.

To read more about the case, please visit this link.

USEFUL INFORMATION

Beware the Fraudulent Scientific Papers

A recent article published in The Economist urged readers to be careful about fraudulent scientific papers. According to statistics presented in the article, it takes 15 years for the number of scientific articles to double; however, the number of articles thought to be fraudulent doubled every 1,5 years since 2010. The research shows that the journal editors may be the ones to blame for this worrying state of scientific publishing.

To learn more about physicist Dr. Luís Nunes Amaral and his team’s research backing the Economist article, you can click here.

Koç University Suna Kıraç Library
Rumelifeneri Yolu, 34450, Sarıyer-İstanbul
T:+90-212 338 13 17 F: +90-212 338 13 21
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