Eastern New York)
ACRL Chapter
Fall 2013
Volume 37, Number 2
IN THIS ISSUE
How One Library Redefined Itself to Support Digital Scholarship - p.2
From Learning Commons to Makerspace - p.5
Automated Content Delivery Systems and the User Experience - p.6
Big Data and Data Science - p.8
Call for ENY/ACRL Board Members - p.10
Core Curriculum to Benefit from “Assessment in Action” Project - p.11
Partnering with Human Resources/ Health Literacy Programming - p.12
User-Centered Strategy for Connecting Patrons with New Materials p.13
Reflections on Digital Literacy - p.16
ENY/ACRL Brown Bag Lunches - p.17
Notes from the Field - p.18
Photo by Edmund Garman
Letter from the President
Fall is here and with it comes a new academic
year, filled with possibility.
The Brown Bag Lunch series continues this
year, with sessions at the University at Albany
on October 30°, Clarkson University on
November 1%, and SUNY College of
Environmental Science and Forestry on
November 7°. The topic for discussion is
MOOCs (massive open online courses). The
brown bag lunches are a great way to get
together informally with colleagues in the
region. Directions and details on how to register
are available on the ENY/ACRL web site.
The Program Planning Committee, headed by
Andy Krzystyniak from Skidmore College, has
made excellent progress in planning for our
2014 spring conference. The conference will be
held on Monday, May 19" at SUNY Oswego,
and will focus on the First Year Experience, so
mark your calendars. | encourage you to share
your experience with others by presenting a
poster session or lightning round.
In other news, we have two new Board
members. Jennifer Fairall, Assistant Librarian,
Coordinator of Cataloging & Metadata Services
at Siena College’s Standish Library, is our new
Archivist. Many thanks to Jennifer for
volunteering. Susan Kline, who had been our
Archivist since 2011, has taken a new position
as Project Archivist at Columbia University
Libraries. We are grateful to Susan for her
service and wish her all the best in her new
position. We also welcome Ali Larsen, Serials &
Web Resources Librarian at Siena College's
Standish Library, as Government Relations
Chair, and thank Bill Walker of Bard College for
his service.
The strength of our organization depends on
the involvement of our members, and we are
lucky to have so many committed and
enthusiastic volunteers. If you haven't been
involved, please consider volunteering for a
committee, or running for election to the Board.
It’s a great experience.
| look forward to seeing everyone at the spring
conference. /ane Kessler, ENY/ACRL President
How One Library Redefined Itself to
Support Digital Scholarship
Joanne A. Schneider, University Librarian and Professor in the University Libraries
Colgate University
The Need for Change
Digital technology is transforming how libraries must function to promote learning, advance knowledge
and provide access to important information resources. These changes compel library leaders to rethink
central goals and reconsider longstanding practices. Focus on the advancement of institutional strategic
initiatives and distinguishing what is essential from that which is expendable is necessary. At Colgate, we
have posed fundamental questions of practice and reconfigured our positions and organization. By
realigning staff skills and core services, we have been able to help the university meet a strategic goal of
providing enhanced support to faculty and students for digital scholarship.
Re-I magining the Library
Colgate had an early vision for re-inventing library services based on changing information technologies.
In 1999, the Chief Information Officer and the University Librarian announced a new initiative to provide
coordinated support to faculty who wished to rethink courses combining information literacy pedagogy
and the use of technology to enhance student learning. The initiative was called the Collaboration for
Enhanced Learning (CEL) and was composed of an alliance of four technologists and three librarians.
The librarians would provide expertise on finding, organizing and managing information and the
technologists would contribute knowledge of delivering information using technology. In theory, a
librarian and a technologist together would meet with interested faculty to discuss their goals and map
these to appropriate information literacy objectives and technology tools.
The model experienced modest early success - particularly around the use of Blackboard as a learning
management system and diffusion of the Libraries’ information literacy program within the curriculum -
and was adopted by the campus in 2002 as a university strategic goal.
The means of realizing the goal became a renovated and expanded “library for the future”. The new
Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology would feature the co-location of library and
technology staff and new cutting-edge technologies and was scheduled to open in 2007.
Redefinition and Reengineering to Support the Vision
In 2005, with construction underway, the Libraries seriously appraised our readiness to carry out the
vision in the face of several obstacles. First, Colgate had long taken pride in “doing more with less” and
“being lean and mean” regarding staffing. As a result, with 14 FTE librarians, 2800 students and 264
faculty members, the Libraries had consistently ranked in the lowest quartile of our benchmark group of
libraries in terms of staffing per faculty and student. Second, our information literacy program had
deeply penetrated the curriculum resulting in significant instruction loads for most librarians. With a flat,
traditional organizational structure and a greater proportion of librarians in cataloging and collection
management than in public services units, it was difficult to see how we would provide the necessary
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staff resources to support CEL without engaging in significant change prior to the new facility opening in
2007.
Without the time to do a major reorganization, we instead decided to create a cross-functional affinity
group that teamed librarians across traditional department lines to collaborate on developing support for
digital scholarship, publication and archiving. Governance changes followed such as creating a small
senior management team, establishing the provision of support for digital scholarship and digital
publishing as strategic priorities, and creating qualitative goals for librarians in teamwork, collaboration,
360-degree communication, and leadership. Finally, we updated our collective awareness of
proficiencies needed to create digital libraries by reading research reports from organizations such as
the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), OCLC and EDUCAUSE.
With a more collaborative management structure in place and support for digital scholarship and digital
publishing as priorities, we then focused on obtaining new skills. The easiest way to do this was by
reengineering vacancies as they occurred and hiring people with new expertise in digital learning and
media, data management, mapping and instructional design. Additionally, some librarians in existing
positions sought change through retraining and redefinition. As a result, over the past eight years, 13
positions have been either re-engineered or redefined.
Inventory of R i 1 and Redefined P.
As an outcome of reengineering and redefinition, the concentration of librarian positions have been
shifted from cataloging and collection management and, enriched with new skills, relocated to the
Reference and Instruction and Special Collections and University Archives departments where they are
available to support both the Libraries’ information literacy program and work with technologists on CEL
projects. As a complement to CEL work, librarians with reengineered duties have created digital access
platforms that archive and showcase digital work. Based on these efforts, we have been successful in
obtaining added budget support for 1.5 FTE incremental librarian positions and for two sequential two-
year temporary archives and digital projects librarian positions despite losing a position in 2009 to the
economic downturn.
Currently, the CEL group is larger than ever with five librarians and five technologists plus one visual
resources coordinator from the Art and Art History Department. Two additional librarians are available to
support CEL projects that involve research in the Special Collections and University Archives. The group
has developed a mission statement and a nuanced project management process that consistently
involves identifying learning and teaching objectives and capturing assessment results. |n the past two
years, the institutional role of CEL has become more formalized by having been repeatedly leveraged as
a resource in recent strategic planning reports and featured in a successful Mellon grant application
supporting faculty collaboration in the classroom involving the digital humanities.
Providing Support for Digital Scholarship
A key objective of Colgate’s “library for the future” has been support for “digital scholarship” which
means work that is interdisciplinary, involves critical engagement with scholarship and is multimodal in
terms of being integrated with digital platforms and methods. The researchers involved are both faculty
and students. Librarians draw upon their traditional expertise in inquiry-based negotiation relationship
building, information literacy pedagogy, digital content management, and archiving. Routine assessment
has been uniformly positive. Faculty goals for enhanced student engagement with and communication
4
about scholarship have been met. Students report working harder overall while doing more research
and putting more effort into formulating theses and arguments of interest to a broader audience beyond
their professor.
Last year proved to be defining in terms of success with teams of librarians and technologists providing
support for faculty in 29 courses involving digital scholarship projects (612 total students). These
projects included digital video narratives posted to YouTube, visual literacy posters ingested in our
scholarly archive, Digital Commons @ Colgate, Google Earth mapping, Wikipedia articles, and podcasts
made available through iTunes. The numbers achieved represent a significant increase over previous
years. Since fall 2008, librarians have been working with technologists on a fuller range of digital
projects that have involved a total of 42 faculty members and 1,485 students working on 62 projects.
The Vision Diffused
For the Libraries, this represented success in an eight-year effort to transform librarians’ skills in
delivering information fluency across formats and digital platforms. Moreover, for the university it
signified the realization of an early vision to provide “one-stop shopping” for integrated support for
faculty who were interested in combining pedagogy with emerging information technologies to improve
student engagement in learning.
In summary, the work done by librarians to support digital scholarship has allowed the Libraries to help
the university make progress in meeting its goals for the use of digital technology to enhance student
learning and to be diffused across the faculty and the curriculum. Significant discipline was needed to
distinguish the essential from the expendable along with sustained focus on realigning resources with
the university's strategic objectives. However, we recognize that we cannot stand still. As long as
information technologies keep evolving, the librarians will need to continually develop new skills and
value-added services.
Below: a CEL team at work
From Information Commons to Makerspace
Emily Thompson, Learning Technologies Librarian, SUNY Oswego
MakerSpaces: they're all the rage these days. This trend started in public libraries, but is starting to
creep into academic libraries. In these days of ever smaller budgets, | would like to propose we re-
examine the Learning or Information Commons. If we do so, we can see that there isn’t much
difference between a MakerSpace and an Information Commons. It’s not so much the name of the
space as it is the spirit of problem solving, creativity, and ingenuity that infuses these library services.
According to Bailey & Tierney (2006) and Britton (2012), both ideas combine expertise and tools to help
their patrons learn something new. The Information Commons focuses more on technology, writing
centers, and collaboration, while MakerSpaces combine tools and machines with knowledgeable patrons
and library staff to help users make something new. At the core of both ideas is the desire to help users
learn how to do something. The difference is that the Information Commons focuses primarily on
traditional academic work, while a Makerspace supports that work as it changes to include projects like
videos and podcasts.
In order to support these projects, libraries’ Information Commons have invested in computers,
software, microphones, cameras, and spaces for recording and editing. The only thing needed to cross
over into a Maker mentality is expert support. This support often takes the shape of student workers,
but here at Penfield we have added a librarian position as well. This librarian is available for individual
appointments and teaches one-shot workshops on the basics of multimedia creation. This encourages
projects professors would ideally like to assign, but may have shied away from without dedicated
support.
While MakerSpaces have become conflated with 3D printers, laser cutters, and robotics, these machines
are not necessarily required. We have a MakerBot Replicator 2 at Penfield, and it has proved itself to be
an asset, but it would not be right for every library. There has to be someone who is willing to maintain
it and teach others how to use it. More importantly, there has to be a base of users beyond one
department who are interested. The informal rule of thumb here is, “Tell me three departments besides
yours who will use it.” For 3D printing, the answer here was Art, Theatre, Human-Computer Interaction,
Psychology, and Biology. Other machines may be something departments choose to invest in for
themselves -and that’s okay. This is one of the advantages of being part of a larger, formal learning
community: the machines will still be somewhere on campus.
Although our Information Commons may not be called MakerSpaces, full of power tools, table saws, and
sewing machines, they can still embrace the movement. All we need to do is shift focus slightly: from
research and writing, to making scholarship. From there, we can decide what tools and support our
students need to jump start their creativity.
Beagle, D. R., Bailey, D. R., & Tierney, B. (2006). The information commons handbook. New York, NY:
Neal-Schuman
Britton, L. (2012, October 26). A Fabulous Labaratory: The Makerspace at Fayetteville Free Library.
Public Libraries Online. Retrieved from http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2012/10/a-fabulous-
labaratory-the-makerspace-at-fayetteville-free-library/
Automated Content Delivery Systems
and the User Experience
Beau T. Bradley
Circulation, the process of getting things into patrons’ hands, is an aspect of library service that has
varied little over time or across institutions.
While the typical circulation model is still valid, changes in both our patron base and current technology
are necessitating a change in our content delivery systems. Our patrons are increasingly accessing data
and our collections from mobile devices, and are in turn using these devices for creation purposes. We
should also take note of our retail cousins, video rental chains, and how the brick and mortar
manifestations of such entities have largely died in favor of vending machines that fulfill the same
purpose. These changes should serve as indications to librarians striving for the optimal user experience
that alternate content distribution systems are a viable and necessary addition to libraries.
Three options in particular are low cost, entry-level options for libraries wishing to explore the
possibilities of these alternative delivery mechanisms; book vending machines, Zine Machines, and
LibraryBoxes. Each option reflects the changing expectations of our patron base, and will allow us to
capitalize on new trends while also highlighting collections and services in an innovative fashion. While
these are just a few of the options for entry into this new model of service, they are also the most likely
to elicit a strong, positive response from our patrons.
Book vending machines are likely the most familiar and accessible of the technologies discussed here.
Many libraries have already implemented the idea, and documentation of these efforts has been widely
distributed. The idea is to make use of vending machines that are more commonly employed to sell
snacks to instead accept library card swipes in exchange for the hottest new titles. These systems can
be deployed either within the library or at small, satellite locations. Book vending machines allow
librarians to highlight collections, and are often employed to quickly and easily garner interest in new
acquisitions. This idea is interesting, but limited. However, there are much more innovative ways in
which to seize upon this concept.
Librarians at the University of lowa found themselves with a problem. On one hand, they had an
excellent collection of zines. On the other, their patron base had very little interest in zines or zine
creation and culture. To remedy this, a collaboration of librarians, students, and the Art Education
Department produced the Zine Machine, a repurposed snack vending machine that now vends zines
created and submitted to the library (see links at the end of this article for more information). As a
result, the library now fosters a zine creation community that feeds the machine and, by accepting
donations from any source, supports the entirety of zine culture. While this solution only handles
physical objects, there is another technology that supports digital distribution as well.
The LibraryBox is a repurposing of the PirateBox technology originally conceived by David Darts (see
links). Jason Griffey took the idea of the PirateBox, an anonymous wireless access point where files can
be both uploaded and downloaded to any number of devices, and adapted it to create a small, portable,
wireless digital library (see links). A LibraryBox is made up of a wireless router and a portable memory
device running specialized software that allows for the digital resources stored on the memory device to
7
be distributed to anyone accessing the LibraryBoxes’ wireless network. The LibraryBox software comes
with a selection of ebooks that are in the public domain, though a librarian maintaining the collection
can add any number of digital files for distribution. With the collection in place, the LibraryBox can be
deployed anywhere in the library or, with the addition of an external power source, made into a mobile
distribution point.
Each of these technologies presents an innovative way of distributing content. They can serve to
highlight collections of varying nature, and will draw in patrons who are curious about the new devices.
These devices can also become influential additions to our libraries and the community. A recent article
on Slate.com (see links) details the way in which iPads are put to use in Swiss classrooms. Swiss
teachers do not focus on the iPad as a method of delivering content to their students. Instead, the
iPad’s input functions, including the touch screen, camera, and microphone, are utilized to allow
students to create and to log their educational progress. What goes into the iPads becomes vastly more
important than what is coming out of them. This is the mentality that librarians should have when
implementing their own content delivery systems. Instead of focusing on what is going to come out of
these machines, we should instead focus on what we can put into them. This mentality is what makes
the Zine Machine so successful. The Zine Machine, by functioning as an outlet for the zine community,
has fostered larger interest in creating and reading zines. The LibraryBox can also serve as a platform
for fostering creative efforts within the library, such as student publications, artistic endeavors, or
scholarship.
In many ways, these technologies are novelties; fun ways for our patrons to access our materials. If
used correctly, though, these technologies can foster creation in our communities, while also reaching
out to patrons in a manner that they are both familiar with and more likely to embrace. By
implementing an automated content delivery system, libraries give themselves new options for
distribution of material and innovative ways to enhance the standard circulation model; all at a low point
of entry.
Links
Zine Machine http://www.lib. uiowa.edu/preservation/zine/
Pirate Box http://wiki.daviddarts.conyPirateBox_ DIY
LibraryBox http://jasongriffey.net/librarybox/index. html
Slate Article http://tinyurl.cony d6wixaf
Save the date! The 2014 ENY/ACRL
conference will be held on Monday,
May 19" at SUNY Oswego.
data x (big + science + sets) =
big data + data science + data sets
David Fuller, GIS and Data Librarian, Union College
Anyone introducing the topic of “big data” usually does so with a measure of skepticism and an
observation that analyzing large amounts of data is nothing new. Then, follow by explaining that what is
actually new is the rate at which data is being produced by both machines and humans and the
relatively inexpensive storage devices needed to preserve it. George Dyson quipped that the era of big
data began when the cost of storing data became less expensive than the decision to throw it away.
Once we have it we should do something with it. Is there anything useful that can be done with data
besides analysis? The existence of all that data, and open-source software tools like Hadoop that
facilitate access, has given rise to a new profession known as “data science.” The term was introduced
in a 2001 paper by William Cleveland, then with Bell Labs, who called for a new super-science of
statistics which includes coding (computational algorithms) and visualizations. This definition still stands,
though you might include familiarity with business practices and an ability to develop and communicate
a narrative based on the [presumed] intelligence gathered from analysis. Necessary software skills
might include familiarity with javascript, Java, Python, and a statistical analysis package (“R” is usually
recommended because of the availability of libraries like “ggplot2” for visualization). The specific tools
and methods may change but the practice of analyzing big data is not going away.
The purpose of data science is to improve processes and make better decisions. Loan officers that may
have once made a decision based on a firm handshake now have 20 or 30 data points to evaluate. The
ability to more accurately predict the arrival of an airplane is estimated to save the airlines $60 million
dollars every minute. Facebook, a pioneer in using data science, redesigned its user interface after
discovering certain factors that may cause users to stay active. They centralized the news feed and
began updating in real time rather than batch, among other things.
In October 2012, the Harvard Business Review published “Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st
Century”, a description that puzzled many practicing Data Scientists. By their own account they spend
80% of their time “wrangling” with data in order to get it into a form that is suitable for analysis.
Additional time is spent developing and debugging their code. Whatever time is left over may then be
spent in data exploration, the development of models, hypotheses and actual queries. The use of big
data computing tools makes it possible to view the landscape and texture of a big data set first before
making any assumptions. A positive correlation may be noticed where one wasn’t expected. This sort of
“ground-up” approach is different from the more traditional method where a hypothesis was needed
first, before the painstaking process of collection and analysis could begin.
New York University already has announced a program in Data Science and Columbia University is
pioneering it as an academic discipline. Rachel Schutt has a blog detailing her struggles to define and
develop an introductory course. UC Berkeley announced this past July an online Master’s Degree
beginning in January 2014. This is all due to a shortage of data scientists. The McKinsey Institute
estimates that by 2018 there will be a shortage of up to 190,000 data scientists and another 1.5 million
analysts and managers who are schooled enough to make wise of the data in decision making.
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A job shortage in an era of high unemployment? What can academic librarians do? As always, we can
begin by educating ourselves and understand that data science is inter-disciplinary. We can assist
patrons in finding and using data. Some knowledge of statistics is helpful along with the understanding
that statistics are only really useful when combined with subject expertise. Knowing how to find and
evaluate data, the version of data being used, who is responsible for it and how to cite it represents the
core of data literacy. An academic library is ideally situated at the crossroads of the curriculum to
provide support for inter-disciplinary skills like these.
The phenomenon of big data and the field of Data Science are coincident with an explosion of publicly
available data sets and analytical tools on the web. A “data set” generally refers to a collection of raw
(unprocessed, unaggregated) microdata. A single completed Census form is an example of microdata.
The term can also refer to the collection of data used for a particular research project. Organizations like
the Pew Charitable Trust now make their data sets available along with their reports. Gallup will soon be
doing the same. Organizations like the World Bank, the United Nations, etc., are making data sets
available. Quandl is a search engine which indexes a growing list of over 400 data set providers. Data
sets may seem peculiar at times. You find downloadable files like “Amtrak Ticket sales, October 2007”.
It may seem odd for librarians accustomed to evaluating resources based on coverage and
completeness but a file like this can be useful for researchers or software developers in a variety of
ways. Data is effective in samples. The practice of making research data available is also growing
among academic institutions. The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
provides a hosting service for data sets. Dryad is another hosting service, with an emphasis on medical
and scientific research. Data curation is another emerging field. Purdue University offers a directory of
Data Curation Profiles as well as a toolkit. Nesstar, a Norwegian company, offers a client/server
software solution for data curation which includes the ability to search other Nesstar servers on the
internet.
In his 2010 TED Talk, “The year open data went worldwide,” Tim Berners-Lee refers to a movement
toward open government and the sharing of data which is now visible at sites like data.gov. Perhaps
even more significant than all of this freely available data is the development of linked_open data which
is stored in formats like RDF (Resource Description Framework). This means, among other things, that
the data can be related semantically and queried more easily by applications other than a web browser.
It isn’t hard to imagine statistical computing engines that can perform interactive queries in real time
across a diverse array of data sources. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has already converted the 417
data sets on data.gov to RDF format and uses a new language “SPARQL” (pronounced “sparkle”) for
queries.
RDF data can be represented as a graph and stored in a graph database. Graphs are data structures
consisting of nodes and edges which is ideal for representing relationships. Facebook, for example, is a
large graph consisting of profiles (nodes) and friends (edges). The entire WWW can be represented as a
graph with pages (nodes) and hyperlinks (edges). Graph databases are more flexible than traditional
relational databases and provide a model that more closely resembles real world situations. With a
graph database it isn’t necessary to plan an exhaustive schema ahead of time. New nodes can be added
and relationships defined continually without affecting the existing structure. As the database grows,
performance remains relatively constant since the majority of queries are local to the data already being
accessed. Relational databases, on the other hand, degrade in performance as the data set grows.
10
Google’s Knowledge Graph is an example of a graph database being used to improve the user
experience. Its mantra is “people search for things not strings.” Could this be Web 3.0?
Links
Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity
2013 DataEdge Conference at UC Berkeley
Rachel Schutt's Blog
Linked Open Data
Google Knowledge Graph
Call for Board Members
Do you have good ideas for programs? Enjoy working with friendly and knowledgeable
colleagues? ENY/ACRL is always looking for volunteers who would like to be involved with a regional
professional organization. If you have an interest in being part of the program planning committee,
running for a board position, or getting involved in some way with ENY/ACRL please let a member of
the Nominations & Elections Committee know! The benefits include meeting people from regional
colleges and universities, as well as creating and participating in professional development
opportunities.
A full list of board positions is available at http://enyacrl.org. This year, there will be elections for:
e Vice President, President Elect & Program Chair
(3 year term; responsibilities include coordinating the conference and programs (first year),
leading the organization as President (second year), and in the third year, serving as Past
President and chairing the Nominations & Elections Committee, among other activities)
e Secretary
(2 yr term; responsibilities include taking minutes for Board meetings and participating in Board
activities, among other activities)
¢ Treasurer
(2 yr term; responsibilities include handling the organizations’ finances and participating in Board
activities, among other activities)
e Membership Chair
(2 yr term; responsibilities include processing new memberships, maintaining the membership
database and participating in Board activities, among other activities)
If you have questions or need additional information, please contact any of the Nominations and
Elections Committee members (listed below). We look forward to hearing from you.
Tasha Cooper, Past-President, nacoop01@syr.edu
John Cosgrove, Nominations & Elections Committee member, jcosqrov@skidmore.edu
Katherine Moss, Nominations & Elections Committee member, mossk@mail.strose.edu
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Le Moyne College’s Core Curriculum to Benefit From
“Assessment in Action” Project
Kelly Delevan, Instructional Services/CORE Librarian, Le Moyne College
As Instructional Services Librarian at Le Moyne, | am tasked with developing and implementing a plan to
integrate library instruction across all disciplines at the College. Our library has had a strong information
literacy program embedded in the Sciences for some years, but we've struggled with reaching students
in other departments. When the Le Moyne faculty voted to implement a new core curriculum, | saw an
opportunity to get in on the ground floor!
Information Literacy Embedded in the Core
First Year students entering Le Moyne College this fall are taking Core 100, the first course in a new
core curriculum that embraces Information Literacy (IL) as a learning goal. Core 100 is a first year
seminar that introduces students to the ethos of a liberal arts education by guiding them to reflect on
their personal engagement with the course material. Students are encouraged to develop a variety of
communicative and critical thinking skills and competencies, including written and oral expression and
information literacy. The library is playing a lead role in cultivating information literacy in the new core
by partnering with faculty to deliver IL instruction to all students taking the first year seminar. This
marks the first time that all students entering Le Moyne College will receive library instruction!
Assessment in Action
While this is a great achievement for our library, we needed to be sure that we had a plan to assess the
program and communicate our results to our institution. The timing couldn’t have been better when
ACRL called for applicants to the Assessment in Action program. | knew Le Moyne would be a perfect fit
and was thrilled to get the opportunity to design an authentic assessment project with support from
fellow librarians and experts in the field.
The assessment project is being conducted as part of the program “Assessment in Action: Academic
Libraries and Student Success” which is undertaken by the Association of College and Research Libraries
(ACRL) in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research and the Association of Public and
Land-grant Universities. The program, a cornerstone of ACRL's Value of Academic Libraries initiative, is
made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
At the 2013 ALA Annual Conference | joined representatives from 74 participating institutions from the
U.S. and Canada for two days of workshops focusing on assessment design, team leadership, and
institutional collaboration. I’m leading a campus team comprised of four librarians, the Assistant to the
Provost for Student Learning Assessment, and the Core 100 Seminar Director in a project to assess the
impact that IL instruction has on student selection of sources in Core 100. Direct and indirect
assessment methods will include a rubric aligned to ACRL IL standards, focus groups, and student
surveys.
We are currently teaching an Information Literacy session in all 34 sections of the Core 100 class. The
instruction session is centered on source evaluation. After the session, students complete an assignment
that requires them to locate and evaluate sources relative to the content of their Core seminar.
Instruction is expected to be completed in late October and data collection for the assessment project
will begin in November. Data analysis will commence in the spring semester and results will be reported
at ALA 2014 in Las Vegas this summer. Look to future newsletters to see how it all turned out!
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Partnering with Human Resources to Offer
Health Literacy Programming for Staff
Janet Pease, Syracuse University Libraries
The single largest expense for most organizations is employee salaries and fringe benefits, including
health insurance. As these costs skyrocket it makes even more sense for employers to protect their
investment in staff by promoting good health through the creation of a healthier work environment and by
increasing staff awareness and use of quality health resources that are available to them in the workplace.
The library can take a leadership role in partnerships with Human Resources (HR) and other campus
organizations to improve employee health!
Focusing on Syracuse University (SU) staff, the goals for this collaboration are to 1) increase awareness of
the library's health and wellness-related resources and increase the visibility and use of library collections;
2) help make positive improvements in employees’ health and wellness; and 3) establish partnerships with
the University’s HR Department and other areas of the university to raise the libraries’ profile with
university administration.
Building on previous participation in campus advisory groups and faculty liaison work in my subject
assignments, | had an opportunity to include a question about the library in a staff wellness survey that
was administered by HR in late January 2013. The purpose of the survey was not only to find out what
people would like to see for programming, but was also a chance to find out how aware the staff was of
what was already available to them. For example, there was a rollover on the Health and Wellness Library
Resources awareness question that included a description of what we have: “The library provides free
health and wellness related materials (video/audio, print and electronic books, journals).” Over 50% of
employees completed the survey, which was impressive and showed widespread interest in the topic. |
subsequently proposed offering an introductory session for staff called “Finding Credible Health
Information on the Internet.” (HR offers one hour “Staff to Staff” sessions about once a month and all
proposed classes must be vetted and approved by a committee there.) HR approved the session and |
presented it in March 2013. The attendance was capped at 40, but ultimately 42 staff members registered
for the class. The feedback was positive and some suggestions for future topics were made, including
finding reliable complementary and alternative medicine resources and finding rankings of health
specialists.
One of the more disappointing things | learned was that despite all the work we do to promote ourselves,
many staff are still not aware that they can use the library or that the library would have anything of
interest to them unless they are a student. So, much more work needs to be done in marketing our
resources and services. Some of the other things | have learned so far:
1. It is not necessary to spend a lot of money to put something like this together. Libraries can
repackage and promote what they already have using pamphlets, LibGuides™, linking to other
administrative and campus groups’ websites that offer services to staff and asking them to link to
yours. (Resources such as the Wellness Essential Collection in Books 24x7™ are no-brainers!)
. Include free online health resources that you have evaluated for quality.
3. Look at government and professional associations for free training and teaching materials. The
National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region (NN/LM, MAR), the CDC Healthy
Worksite Initiative, and the Medical Library Association all have robust resources that can be
adapted to just about any work environment.
N
13
Integrating LibGuides, Catalog links, and Delicious: A User-
Centered Strategy for Connecting Patrons with New Materials
Patrick Williams, PhD, Associate Librarian, Syracuse University Libraries
“What's new in the library?” is a frequent question to anyone working in collection development. My
unsatisfying stock answer to this question is “lots of things,” but until recently, | didn’t have another
way of directly addressing the question—a question whose answer truly differs with each patron who
asks it. It is a question that illustrated of two related and all-to-familiar problems for many of us:
1. Patrons are generally unaware of the depth, scale, & continuity of our collection development
activities.
2. We have few adaptable, systematic ways to display new materials to patrons.
This article reports on a method | have been using to promote awareness of new materials in our library
that has resulted in benefits to both patrons and librarians in my library.
Visibility of New Materials
| don’t mean to imply that patrons are completely ignorant about what is coming in—they may be aware
of the acquisition of items they've requested, or, aware that certain titles they were looking for have not
arrived, but there is no easy way for them to provide them with a fuller picture of what's coming in.
Additionally, within the walls of the library, we're already fairly good at promoting new books. We have
a small new book section, which experiences heavy circulation, but there is nowhere near enough space
to showcase everything. This section also tends to be a victim of its own success: as soon as enticing
new titles are added to the shelf, the can be quickly checked out by patrons.
Our catalog does have a new titles feature, but it's something that can easily overwhelm a user if they
happen encounter it. The most general search for the last week’s acquisitions, for example, includes 350
titles, with no support for filtering by subject. Furthermore, many of the titles are not “new” in the sense
patrons expect, but just those which have been newly added to the catalog. It’s a great resource for
librarians, but it’s not really what patrons expect.
At the request of the faculty in my departments, | began investigating methods for alerting patrons to
the new titles a way that made sense for them, as users, and for me, as a librarian. What | decided |
needed was a user-friendly, low-threshold tool for discovering new, relevant materials without the need
to search, filter, or physically visit the library.
As the heaviest user of this tool myself, | had my own list of demands. It needed to be sustainable,
flexible, and harmonious with my own work practice—something that leveraged what | was already
doing and didn’t demand much of my time for processing and analysis. What | came up with was an
approach that leans on some very familiar systems to create customized, sharable, and straightforward
lists of new materials.
14
Building Blocks
This method for promoting new books links my review of our monthly Orders and Approvals reports
with persistent links to catalog records for new books. | then share the new books | choose, via
Delicious, through custom lists that | can deploy anywhere | like, most visibly in a LipGuide.
It’s an approach that demands the use of several different technologies, to be sure. But once in place,
only about ten seconds is required to add a book to the list. Most of this process was already part of
something | was doing—reviewing firm orders and approval plan titles coming in each month.
Here's how the process works: | open an O&A report and our catalog in a separate browser window. |
go through my reporting funds in the report to select books I'd like to add. | don’t select them all—I
skip “not-necessarily-new” items like reprints and replacements. Once | navigate to the persistent link
for an item, | click the bookmarklet to add my
link to Delicious, and cut and paste to item's
call number to accompany the link.
After that, | include a few tags based on the
subject headings or local interests. After
submitting the like, the title automatically
appears in whatever categories it fits on my
LibGuides for new books and | am on to the
next title.
On the primary LibGuide | have built for this
process, New Books of Interest _to English
Department Faculty & Students, | have a
central list for everything in the subject area,
with smaller boxes around the guide
highlighting particular tags. When a patron
clicks the link to the title, they're brought
directly to the catalog record.
There is also a tab on my guide which points
patrons to lists of books grouped as tags.
When someone clicks on early_modern, for
example, they are taken to a list (at
Delicious.com) of everything in that category.
The Big List
This list includes highlights of SUL’s new acquisitions that are likely of
interest to English Department faculty and students. For more focused
lists of new titles, see the other boxes on this page, or click the
Explore new titles by topic tab at the top of this page
> Crime and punishment in the Middle Ages and early modern age :
mental-historical investigations of basic human problems and
social responses / edited by Albrecht Classen and Connie
Scarborough.
Ptig82.C72 C75 2012
The complete poems of James Dickey / edited with an introduction
by Ward Briggs ; foreword by Richard Howard.
PS3554 132 2013
> Acompanion to David Foster Wallace studies / edited by Marshall
Boswell and Stephen J. Burn.
P$3573.A425635 265 2013
Clavics / Geoffrey Hill.
PREO15.14735 C53 2014
Charles Bukowski, outsider literature, and the beat movement /
Paul Clements.
PS3552.U4 2625 2013
Caribbean women : an anthology of non-fiction writing, 1890-1980 /
edited by Veronica Marie Gregg.
HQ1501 C365 2005
> The Cambridge companion to the Victorian novel / edited by Deirdre
David.
PRE71 .C17 2012
A third tab in this guide supplies feeds for some of other categories to which users might wish to
subscribe.
Benefits of this Approach
These lists and tags prevent users from having to sift through pages of irrelevant titles, and any title
they click on can be immediately requested for hold or delivery or can be recalled in the case it is
checked out. Furthermore, patrons can subscribe to the RSS feed for a subject so they needn't
remember to visit the guide for updates.
15
There are also benefits to me. While | was already going through the O&A reports, this process forces
me to pay more systematic attention to what’s coming in (or not coming in), in terms of both my firm
orders and my approval plan. It also allows me to choose which new materials get promoted or don't. |
can use these lists to push electronic resources and trials, and | am able exclude materials that don’t
need to be on these lists. Most importantly, I’m able to keep a fresh stream of new materials coming
throughout the year. I’ve heard from others in the library that these lists have helped them to choose
materials to showcase in library displays and recommend to patrons.
Setting Up Your Lists
For this particular approach, you'll need a Delicious account and access to edit a LibGuide. Once you
install the “Add to Delicious” bookmark to your browser's toolbar, these are the steps you need to
follow.
Navigate to the persistent link to a new item in your catalog.
Click the “Add To Delicious” bookmarklet.
Cut and paste the call number of the item into the “Your Comment” field.
. Add tags from the subject headings to the “Tags” field.
Click “Add Link”.
VRWNE
In order to include your lists on a LibGuide, you'll need to copy two pieces of code into the “Plain-Text
Editor” of a box in the desired position on your LibGuide. The code snippets and instructions for
customizing them (to include your account and style preferences) are available at
https: //gist.github.comyactivitystory/.
Once you add the customized code snippets for your LibGuide, each new title you add to your Delicious
account will appear automatically.
Going Forward
| have to admit that it feels a bit quaint, in 2013, to be promoting the use of these artifacts of early
Web 2.0—Delicious social book marks and Tag Clouds—but | really believe they have been useful in this
situation, and they have been stable for the couple of years I’ve employed them. However, there are
definitely pitfalls to relying on free, third-party tools. | suspect that Delicious will not be around in its
current form forever, and one never knows when the feature set will change. For that reason, my future
plans for this project include experimenting with Zotero instead of Delicious as a mechanism for sharing
catalog links.
Additionally, I’ve only been able to assess how much these lists are being used through LibGuides data
and through anecdotal evidence. In the future, I’d like to explore the use of Google Analytics and
FeedBurner to get a sense of how, when, and where patrons are using these lists.
16
Reflections on Digital Literacy
Matthew Gunby
On May 20, 2013, | participated in the lightning round presentations at ENY-ACRL's Conference on User
Experience. My focus was on the impact of academic libraries on digital literacy. This was the second
lightning round presentation | had given since beginning as an MLIS student at Syracuse University in
July of 2011. For this reason, as well as practicing for a significant amount of time before the event, |
felt confident about my presentation. However, the one element that differed from both my Pecha
Kucha presentation at NYLA and my practice presentations was that this was the first time | had a
projector involved. As a result, | stood directly in front of it, and it was only from feedback from my
audience that | realized this as quickly as | did and | shifted out of the way. This caused an immediate
dip in my confidence; however, | was pleased by how relatively quickly | recovered.
So, while this made the event far more memorable to me, | mention it here because | believe it is an
incredibly important insight into presenting and instruction. We can and should put as much preparation
into a presentation or lesson as we can. However, we must also recognize that particularly if
technologies and a diverse audience are a part of our activity we might need to adapt to unexpected
occurrences. Part of this comes with experience, but part of it is personality related. | believe that
instructors need to be effectively adaptive, and that this trait should be gauged and instructed far more
than it currently is.
| mentioned that technologies can often present unexpected challenges, and while dealing with these
challenges in the moment is incredibly valuable, as information professionals it is incredibly important
that we are as tech savvy as possible. | believe there are two primary components to this. First, there
are a number of resources available to librarians. ACRL and ALA provide great opportunities online for
technical training. There are also free resources such as Coursera and W3C that give tutorials. There are
also tech tutorials on YouTube and wikis both through Wikipedia and educational institutions.
Many consortia provide technology training through membership in organizations such as lynda.com and
on-site training. The value of in-person technology training can often be understated, but having
someone knowledgeable in a technology roaming a room and helping with specific questions is
incredibly important. Perhaps the greatest challenge of the age of online learning is not access to
information (though | do not wish to understate the need for democratic access to information), but
how this information can be presented in a palatable, memorable and salient way. Technologies such as
screen-sharing can enable some of this direct interaction but one of the goals of online learning, to
reach as many students asynchronously while limiting the number of instructors, is obviously not met in
this one-on-one interaction.
Universities are one of the key places where the debate on instructional design is taking place, and
many of their libraries are taking an active role in this debate, particularly in how it relates to literacies.
This brings me to the topic of my presentation: digital literacy and how the academic world can impact
it (slides are available on Slideshare). Many academic libraries have effective information literacy
programs but, with incredibly diverse students, if we are not also looking to their digital literacy needs,
we may not accomplish our overarching goal of helping our community be effective learners and
ultimately effective professionals. This means having more adaptability in information literacy courses,
particularly those designed for freshman and others just beginning their student career.
lL?
Academic libraries are part of their university, and the university is part of its broader community. This
varies from school to school, but in general, both private and public academic institutions are anchors in
their communities. Providing a space and technologies for these communities can be incredibly valuable.
They can also help in evaluating services and providing trainers or training in digital literacy support.
Many digital literacy programs in public libraries involve one-on-one training with a librarian, but are
there ways that we can reach more learners, and at the same time place librarians in a position where
they can be best utilized?
Academic libraries can also aid twelfth graders as they prepare to make the transition towards college.
This is a focal point of a Megan Oakleaf article in Teacher Librarian. Digital literacy could become an
increasingly important focal point of this. Part of the reason for this is that there is a misconception that
digital emergence and digital literacy are connected. Using Facebook does not mean that a student
understands how to effectively find information online or even that they know how to use Facebook
appropriately. However, students may be ashamed to admit this or they may believe they are digitally
literate.
The final area | would like to address is why academic libraries need to be a part of the digital literacy
movement. Philosophically, digital literacy is a part of librarianship. This is a matter of social justice and
equity. It may be one of the largest civil rights movements of the twenty-first century. | note a number
of references in my presentation that show how digital literacy is impacted by a number of factors:
ethnicity, age, education level, and economic standing. As libraries and institutions of higher learning,
we must be at the forefront of this movement and | believe that through broad collaborations and wide
reaching efforts we can play a fundamental role in the future of digital literacy.
Oakleaf, M. Owen, P. (2010). Closing the 12-13 gap: Schools and college librarians supporting 21*
century learning. Teacher librarian. http: //meganoakleaf.info/oakleafowensyllabi. pdf
Brown Bag Lunches
The ENY/ACRL Brown Bag Lunch Series, which began in 2007, is an opportunity for librarians within a
region to gather informally for lunch, discussion, and networking. This year’s Brown Bag events will
focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Will this online mode! develop into a recognized
education tool within higher education or is it simply marketing hype? Are MOOCs better geared
towards educating the public or can they be utilized in emerging online classroom environments? Come
join colleagues from your area to discuss the possible benefits and pitfalls MOOCs present to institutions
of higher learning. Events will be held at:
¢ University at Albany on Wednesday, October 30";
¢ Clarkson University on Friday, November 1°;
¢ and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) on Thursday, November 7*,
Please visit the ENY/ACRL website for additional details and updates: http://enyacrl.org.
Notes from the Field
Colgate University
In September Melissa Hubbard joined the
Colgate University Libraries as the new Rare
Books, Manuscripts, and Digital Projects Librarian.
Melissa holds an MA in English from University
College London, and an MSLS from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For the past five
years, she has served as the Rare Book Librarian
at Southern Illinois University, where she
managed a major backlog cataloging and
organization project, and grew the Special
Collections instruction and outreach program
substantially. She currently serves as the Senior
Web Editor for the Rare Book and Manuscripts
section of ACRL.
Francis Kayiwa joined the Colgate University
Libraries as Systems Librarian in September. He
has a BA in History from St. Bonaventure
University and a MLS from SUNY Buffalo. For the
past 12 years he was Library Systems
Coordinator at the University of Illinois at
Chicago. He has extensive experience managing
UNIX servers and was responsible for
coordinating the national 2012 Code4lib meeting
in Chicago.
University Librarian Joanne A. Schneider was
invited speak on work in the digital humanities in
liberal arts settings targeted at undergraduate
teaching and research to members of the Five
Colleges Consortium in Massachusetts at the
Digital Humanities for Liberal Arts Colleges
Symposium on J une 18, 2013.
Peter Rogers, Information Literacy and Social
Sciences Librarian, took part in a panel discussion
on Shale Gas Development at the Annual Meeting
of the Association of Environmental Studies and
Sciences held on June 19-22 at Duquesne
University in Pittsburgh. He spoke on Hydro-
Fracking Maps and Counter-Maps, and the
information resources discussed in his
presentation are available here.
Emily Hutton-Hughes, Head of Collection
Development, was invited to speak at an ALCTS
Pre-conference on Shared Print Monographs in
Chicago on June 27, 2013. Her talk was entitled:
“The Lady or the Tiger: the timing of the MOU in
a shared print archiving program’.
College of Saint Rose
The College of Saint Rose is pleased to announce
that we have hired a new Library Director,
Andrew Urbanek. Andrew was most recently
the Director at Herkimer Community College.
Andrew has also worked as a librarian at SUNY
Canton, SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Oswego.
Welcome Andrew!
Empire State College
This fall, Sara Hull will be heading up an Empire
State College pilot study to test a new service,
SIPX, based out of Stanford University that offers
the potential to replace traditional eReserves
systems, and streamlines the copyright
permissions process for articles and other
materials used in online courses.
College libraries participate by providing SIPX
with access to their institutional holdings. SIPX
uses this information to create an integrated
system that also connects to: royalty-free and
public domain content, providing users with "one-
stop" access to a wide variety of documents;
real-time copyright information; and manages
direct requests for copyright permission to
publishers whose materials are not included in
the above.
Instructors find articles or other documents
through a simple search in SIPX, and embed links
to those articles in the course syllabus.
Students click on the provided link, are
authenticated for applicable discounts, pay any
necessary royalties, and then access the digital
content for electronic reading, printing, or both.
Hamilton College
Hamilton would like to welcome two new
colleagues.
In early June Beth Bohstedt assumed the role
of Director, Library Access Services at Hamilton.
Beth oversees circulation, interlibrary loan and
operational aspects of the Burke and Music
libraries. She has a BA in Education from the
University of Northern lowa and a MS in LIS from
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She
comes from Grinnell College (IA), where her
accomplishments included introducing significant
changes to the configuration of circulation
supervision, designing and implementing a peer
mentoring program at the public service desks,
and _ initiating collaboration among interlibrary
loan departments of selected lowa college
libraries. Beth recently co-authored a chapter on
student engagement with academic libraries in
Excellence in the Stacks: Strategies, Practices and
Reflections of Award-winning Libraries.
Lisa A. Forrest serves as Burke Library's newly
appointed Director of Research and Instruction
Services. A Minnesota native, Lisa arrives to
Hamilton from SUNY Buffalo State. She is the
recipient of the Excellence in Library Service
Award from the Western New York Library
Resources Council (2008) and a fellow of the
Western New York Library Resources Council's
Leadership Institute, led by immediate-past ALA
President, Maureen Sullivan (2009). Lisa's
scholarly writing has appeared in a variety of
publications, including American Libraries, A
19
Leadership Primer for New Librarians (Neal-
Schuman Publishers), Journal of Library
Innovation, Thinking Outside the Book
(McFarland), Urban Library Journal, Writing and
Publishing: The Librarians Handbook (ALA
Editions), and Job Stress and the Librarian
(McFarland). Her academic interests include the
use of innovative technologies in library
instruction, library leadership, and creative
programming and outreach. Lisa's creative
writing has been featured in a variety of small
press publications, including the Buffalo News,
Damn the Caesars, eco-poetics, —elimae,
foursquare, The Great Lakes Review, Hot Metal
Bridge, Kadar Koli, WordWrights, and Yellow
Edenwald Field. Other honors received include
Pushcart nominations, the “Best of Buffalo: Best
Poet” award (ArtVoice, 2011), and the National
Public Radio News Directors Incorporated
(PRINDI) Award for her radio commentary. Lisa's
first collection of poems, To the Eaves, is
available from BlazeVox Books.
Jefferson Community College
As part of a significant reorganization on campus,
the library is now part of a new Instructional
Support Division. Along with the library
department, the division includes the Scanlon
Tutoring Center. Both departments report to our
new Dean, J erilyn Fairman.
The physical move of the tutors into the library
area was completed two years ago and foot
traffic and demand for tutoring and library
services continue to rise. The library is a busy
place a great deal of the time.
Our first residence hall is taking shape at a rapid
pace and the campus expects our first residents
in the fall 2014 semester. We have begun
planning for accommodating what we think will
be a need for expanded hours.
We have one new employee this fall; Brooke
Hartle has joined our staff as a part time Library
Assistant. She is enjoying working with students
in a variety of capacities and comes to us with a
bachelor’s degree in information science and is
working on her master’s at Syracuse University.
In other staff news, Library Director Connie
Holberg has successfully obtained a grant from
the Northern New York Library Network for the
acquisition of 10 iPads that students will be able
to borrow and library staff will use for roving
reference. Assistant Librarian John Thomas has
been busy with increased embedded librarian
duties and campus Middle States Steering
Committee work.
This fall we have also had the pleasure of hosting
Brittani Ellis, a SUNY Potsdam student who is
considering a career in information science. She
has been involved in a series of projects,
including writing a_ significant amount of
documentation for a new collection in our
archives.
20
wonderful opportunity for Fran. She returns to
her home state, very close to her hometown, and
will take the helm of an impressive library on a
gorgeous campus.”
Siena College
Alison M. Larsen has published "Examining
Housing Policy: A Select Annotated Bibliography
of Housing Policy--Focused Periodicals" in 7he
Serials Librarian 65 (2013): 181-210.
Samantha Fagan has recently been hired as an
adjunct Reference Librarian.
Rensselaer Polytechnic I nstitute
Fran Scott, former Manager of the Architecture
Library and Reference and Instruction Services,
has left the Institute to accept the position of
Director of Library Services at Georgian Court
University in Lakewood, New Jersey.
Scott joined Rensselaer in January of 1994 as
Architecture Librarian. While here, she
established a world-class architecture library, held
leadership positions in the Art Libraries Society of
North America (ARLIS), and implemented the
New Reference Model at Rensselaer, including an
online reference knowledge and _ metrics
database. According to Library Director Bob
Mayo, “While her leadership as Manager of the
Architecture Library and Reference and
Instructional Services -plus experience as
Architecture Librarian - will be missed, this is a
Skidmore College
Susan Zappen, Associate College Librarian for
Collections, will be presenting her paper, More or
Less, on November 6 in the Serials Resource
Management Preconference at the 33 Annual
Charleston Conference: Too Much is Not Enough!
Skidmore is pleased to announce that Yvette
Cortes, Fine Arts Librarian, has been promoted
to the rank of Associate Librarian.
Congratulations Yvette!
Kathryn Frederick recently presented for the
Capital District Business Librarians Group and the
South Central Regional Library Council. She also
published an article in the June/July issue of
Computers in Libraries.
SUNY Binghamton
In June, Dean John M. Meador, Jr. was a
keynote speaker at the "Development Forum for
Academic Libraries in China 2013" sponsored by
the Society for Academic Library, Library Society
of China in Changchun. The title of his
presentation was "A Survey and Critique of
Trends among Academic Libraries in the U.S.A."
In June at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago,
Ben Andrus presented as part of the New
Members Round Table President's Program Panel
Discussion on "Job Searching while Juggling a
Part-time Job"; Rachel Jaffe presented "Using
and Enhancing Embedded Metadata" for the
Metadata Interest Group; and Anne Larrivee
moderated the Anthropology and Sociology
Section's discussion on "Studying Ourselves:
Libraries and the User Experience."
In June, Julie Wang and Bern Mulligan had
the following chapter published in 7he Global
Librarian (ACRLUNY & METRO, 2013): "A Global
Book Exchange: Creating Partnerships across the
Sea."
21
http://www.oswego.edu/Documents/librai
tter/At_Penfield_issue_18.pdf
Newsle
SUNY Potsdam
College Archivist Matt Francis resigned his
position in June to assume a new job at Penn
State University as Archivist for Collection
Management. While we are excited for Matt and
the new opportunities that await him, he will be
sorely missed. SUNY Potsdam currently has a 6
month hiring freeze for all positions. We are
optimistic that the search for a new archivist may
begin sometime in January.
Music Librarian Edward Komara (SUNY
Potsdam) spent J anuary-J une 2013 on sabbatical,
co-writing with Greg Johnson (University of
Mississippi) the book 100 Books Every Blues Fan
SUNY Oswego
Penfield Library is pleased to welcome our new
Online Instruction/Instructional Design Librarian,
Brandon West. A recent MLIS graduate of
Texas Woman's University, Brandon also has an
MEd in Educational Technology from Grand Valley
State University. He has hit the ground running
and we are excited about his plans for our online
instructional offerings.
Our MakerBot 3D printing program has been
going since March. So far we've printed
everything from skulls to squirrels, but we're
most excited to see students starting to make
their own models.
We're also pleased to announce a second round
of our Faculty Research Grants. 16 faculty
members were given $400 each to purchase
materials of their choice for the library.
Please check out our newsletter for more exciting
news!
Should Own. \t consists of 100 entries for the
best books about blues music, each of which
contains a bibliographic heading, a description of
the featured book's contents, a contrast and
comparison to other blues books, and collector's
points if it appeared in multiple editions. The
order of entries is according to historical
coverage, presenting first the overviews, then the
books about the 1890s, those about the 1900s,
those about the 1910s, and so forth. Through
this arrangement, a kind of literate history of the
blues emerges. A historical introduction and a
bibliographic afterword about blues reference
books round out the volume. The manuscript was
submitted to Scarecrow Press that J une, and it is
scheduled for publication in January 2014.
Discovery Metadata Librarian Abby Smith was
very busy this summer implementing the College
Libraries instance of EBSCO's Discovery
Service. "Ask Max", the name we have chosen
for the discovery service is a nod to SUNY
Potsdam's mascot, Max C. Bear. The discovery
search box is now featured at the top of the
College Libraries website and users may select
"Ask Max" or "BearCat", our local catalog. "Ask
Max" went live at the beginning of September,
and student response, so far, has been very
positive.
User Services Librarian Elizabeth Andrews has
been leading a total overhaul of SUNY Potsdam's
first-year library orientation. After years of
inviting students to a 2-hour library open house,
we're launching an asynchronous, team-based
murder mystery called Library Quest in fall
2013. Over a six-week period, students enrolled
in First-Year Success Seminars will come to the
library to play an online game, explore the
building for clues, and take an associated Moodle
quiz to receive course credit. In early
September, Elizabeth and her librarian working
group (Nancy Alzo, Carol Franck, and Abby
Smith) successfully implemented Library Quest
for the first wave of players.
What's especially notable about this project is our
collaboration with faculty members and graduate
students from outside the library. Two students
enrolled in a course called “Simulation and Games
in Teaching and Learning” conceptualized the
game structure, and one stayed on as a summer
intern to build the online game. The course
instructor has lent us his expertise in game
design and beta testing. We've also coordinated
with our Director of Student and
Family Transitions to communicate instructions to
FYSS instructors and students.
Elizabeth has received IRB approval to assess the
results of the Moodle quiz and run a follow-up
student survey that measures both retention of
content and overall enjoyment of
the activity. She hopes to share results from her
study sometime next spring or summer.
22
Syracuse University
Effective on July 1, 2013, the Library's official
name changed from "Syracuse University Library"
to "Syracuse University Libraries." There were
several reasons for this change. Among them
helping to move the Syracuse University
community away from its Bird-centric orientation;
helping to identify the network of facilities we
manage for members of the SU community;
beginning to adjust notions of principal or special
collections being tied to a specific building, and
instead begins to foster inclusion of our
collections within a system of facilities; facilitating
future conversations about movement of
collections to the Library Facility on South
Campus.
The National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH) has awarded the Syracuse University
Library a $280,000 grant for phase two of a
project that created a digital scholarly edition of
the works of Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer.
The new project, entitled "Marcel Breuer,
Architect: Life and Work, 1953-1981" will unite
source materials from the latter half of Breuer's
career, during which his services were sought by
powerful business, governmental, and_ religious
institutions. These new source materials will be
integrated in the Marcel Breuer Digital Archive
web portal created in the first phase of the
project, which was funded by an NEH grant in
2009.
The Syracuse University Libraries Learning
Commons Department hosted a panel on
“Interesting Reference Transactions” on August
8. The panel was moderated by Abby
Kasowitz-Scheer, Syracuse University Libraries,
and panelists included Michael Pasqualoni,
Syracuse University Libraries; Jane Verostek,
Moon Library, SUNY College of Environmental
Science and Forestry; Christine Demetros,
Barclay Library, SU College of Law; and Amy
Slutzky, Upstate Health Sciences Library.
Panelists answered questions about odd and
challenging questions as well
experiences.
as rewarding
Nicolette A. Dobrowolski presented a poster
titled /nspiration, Influence and Interpretation;
integrating special collections in performing arts
instruction, at the 54° Annual Rare Book and
Manuscript Section of ALA Preconference held in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, J une 25-26, 2013.
Jenny Doctor and her husband, composer
Stephen Ferre were featured live on the Society
for New Music's (SNM) Fresh /nk program, a
weekly radio program dedicated to airing
contemporary compositions, on April 7 in the
WCNY-FM studios.
Sophie Dong returned to Syracuse as Catalog
Librarian in Acquisitions & Cataloging. Previously
she worked at the University of Georgia Libraries
and at Princeton University Firestone Library in
the past 11 years. Sophie is not new to the
Syracuse University Libraries -- she did her MLS
internship and served as a temporary cataloger in
the same department that she's working in now.
To her, this is the place where she started her
professional career. Sophie holds an MLS from
Syracuse University (2001), a graduate certificate
in musicology from the Chinese Academy of Arts
(1995, Beijing, China), and a BA in music
education from the Hebei Normal University
(1987, Shijiazhuang, China).
Linda Galloway, Janet Pease, and Anne
Rauh had an article accepted inScience &
Technology Libraries. "Introduction to Altmetrics
for Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM) Librarians" will appear in the
fall issue.
Neyda Gilman the new Resident Librarian in the
Learning Commons, is originally from Utah where
she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in
Medical Laboratory Science from the University of
Utah. She worked as a Medical Technologist for
five years in Salt Lake City, Portland (OR), and
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Cooperstown before deciding to return to become
a librarian. Neyda received her MLS from the
University at Buffalo this past February.
Marianne Hanley, recipient of the 2013 Jan
Merrill-Oldham Professional Development Grant
given by the Preservation and Reformatting
Section (PARS) published an article for ALCTS,
The Association for Library Collections and
Technical Service Newsletter Online. The article
gives a summary of her adventures while
attending ALA Annual in Chicago which was
funded by a grant from the American Library
Association.
Steven Hoover presented on several panels and
workshops. Among them the workshops “Flip It,
... Flip It Good!: Adapting the Flipped Classroom
Model to One-Shot Library Instruction Sessions
with Understanding by Design” and “Meet Us on
the Corner of Intentional and Strategic:
Integrating Information Literacy Learning through
Curriculum Mapping,” and the panel “The One-
Shot Mixtape: Lessons for Planning, Delivering,
and Integrating Instruction,” all held at the ACRL
Annual Conference, April in Indianapolis, IN. In
addition participated in the panel discussion
“Lessons for the librarian: 10 tips for teaching
the one-shot instruction session” at the ALA
Annual Conference in J une.
Yuan Li, Suzanne Guiod, and Suzanne M.
Preate published the chapter “A case study in
Open Access Journal Publishing at Syracuse
University: Library and University Press
partnership furthers scholarly communication,” in
the Library Publishing Toolkit, edited by Allison
Brown, Cyril Oberlander, Katherine Pitcher, and
Patricia Uttaro, Geneseo: IDS Project Press, 2013.
The book is available as a free download or in
paper for purchase.
Stephanie McReynolds will be joined the
Libraries on September 16 as Subject Librarian
for Business/Management. Stephanie comes to
Syracuse from Hickey College, a business college
in St. Louis, Missouri where she served as
Librarian. Stephanie also worked as a library
technician in the Government Information
department of the St. Louis Public Library.
Stephanie holds a MA in Library Science from the
University of Missouri-Columbia, and a BA summa
cum laude from St. Louis University. She is an
active member of the Special Libraries
Association.
Anne Rauh was elected to the officer track of
the Engineering Libraries Division of the American
Society for Engineering Education. ASEE is an
organization made up of engineering faculty,
librarians, and other academics interested in
engineering education. The Engineering Libraries
Division is the primary professional organization
of librarians supporting academic engineering
programs. The officer track is a four year
commitment beginning with secretary/treasurer
for a year, program chair, president, and finally
past president.
Nancy Turner spoke at the October 4th fall
meeting of the Western New York chapter of the
Art Libraries Society of North America on
“Libraries and Assessment: Goals, Directions and
Challenges” held at the in Painted Post, NY.
Amy Vanderlyke joined the Syracuse University
Libraries on August 26 as new Copyright
Librarian. Amy holds a JD from Syracuse
University College of Law; an MS in New Media,
an MA in Magazine, Newspaper and Online
Journalism, and an MS in Instructional Design,
Development and Evaluation - all from Syracuse
University; and a BA in J ournalism from the SUNY
College at Oswego. Amy most recently worked at
the Sugarman Law Firm, LLP as an Associate
Attorney while also teaching as an adjunct
professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public
Communications. Previously she worked for the
New York State Office of Science, Technology, &
Academic Research as a_ senior Research
Associate, and taught as an adjunct professor of
Journalism at the SUNY College at Oswego.
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Peter D. Verheyen presented the webinar
Archival 101: Dealing with Suppliers of Archival
Products during ALA’s annual Preservation Week
on April 25. In addition, he was one of 11 binders
and book artists from the US and Europe invited
to interpret an historical binding for the exhibition
and catalog entitled Limp bindings from the
Vatican Library. Exhibit venues include the
Dalarnas Museum and Stankta Eugenia katolska
férsamling, in Sweden and the Swedish Institute
of Classical Studies in Rome, Italy. In addition to
participating in the exhibition, Peter edited the
technical sections of the catalog.
Patrick Williams was selected to attend the
NEH Office of Digital Humanities-funded Early
Modern Digital Agendas Summer Institute at the
Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC in
July. This three-week program focused on
extending the early modern corpus, organizing
major digital projects, and defining new
approaches to early modern scholarship using a
variety of analytical, literary, and linguistic tools.
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