UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State has become the first educational institution in the world, and the second location in North or South America, to partner with Short Edition of Grenoble, France. The innovative agreement developed by the Penn State University Libraries will deliver short, original pieces of Penn State creative writing into the public’s hands, encouraging direct community engagement with and conversation about writing by Penn State faculty, staff and students.
“This partnership is an experiment in connecting Penn State’s literary creators one-on-one with individuals visiting several of University Park’s busy portals, and the University Libraries is excited to be the conduit supporting this new means of conversation about the arts and humanities in our community,” Barbara I. Dewey, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, said. “We see the partnership with Short Edition as the first step toward a growing number of thoughtful and creative exchanges, beginning with the installation of Short Edition dispensers around the University Park campus and the development of the online content management platform.”
Penn State University Libraries’ agreement with Short Edition has enabled the development of a custom website. Soon, Penn State authors of short pieces of creative writing — faculty, staff and students at all campuses — will be able to upload their short-length content for delivery through the Libraries’ short story dispensers. Readers then can visit the site to offer a response, encouraging community engagement and conversation about writing.
Short Edition’s short story dispenser prints text based on length of reading time — one minute, three minutes or five minutes. The reader presses a button based on the desired read-time length and receives a narrow printout similar to a shopping receipt.
Five Short Edition story dispensers have been installed: four on the University Park campus and one in downtown State College. Initially, two will be installed on the first floor of Pattee Library and Paterno Library, near the Commons Services desk and the Curtin Road entrance, and one each at two branch library locations: the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library, 111 Stuckeman Building, and the Physical and Mathematical Sciences Library, 201 Davey Lab. In addition, one Short Edition story dispenser has been placed in Schlow Centre Region Library, a public library serving the greater State College community located at 211 S. Allen St. in downtown State College.