FALL 2013
Connecting with Students Through Video Projects
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Stevens Institute of Technology
By Romel Espinel
“Getting Started With Your Research” was a collaborative project between Web Services & Research and Reference Services here at Stevens Institute of Technology and students from Pratt SILS in an instructional technology class. We wanted to create a video that would be used in a flipped classroom, where first year students enrolled in CAL 103 would watch the video before they arrived at their instruction session by a librarian. The hope is that the content of the video will free up librarians during their sessions for more active learning to take place in the class and less lecturing. Also, the videos would provide tools for students anywhere and anytime from our web site. The 3 videos pack a lot of information within a short period of time and attempt at guaranteeing some of the ACRL standards and outcomes.
Rider University
By Heather Dalal
We partnered with college students to create a series of videos called The Rider Libraries Minute. At first, we wanted to video record interviews students talking about positive things about the library. When trying to develop a plan and incentives, the Dean of University Libraries at Rider suggested that we should have a focus group. The focus group was attended by only students who loved the library and visited 5x a week. The most disheartening discovering was that our library-loving students were unaware of our most expensive and useful resources! We grew very concerned with this problem. Then we happened upon a commercial for the Rider University Libraries on YouTube created by a film & media major at Rider. We showed the film student the Arizona State University Library Minutes as something we wanted to emulate. He was eager to help and gain the experience. This film student worked for us over the summer with librarians and other student workers. He modeled the entire process for us and helped us transition from making traditional tutorials and screencasts to filming and producing videos. Because students are in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes the videos are free of library jargon, simpler, and more appealing than traditional tutorials. This semester we have been marketing and promoting these videos though librarians, faculty, student clubs, and social media. Rider librarians have been playing these videos in their instruction sessions and embedding them into their research guides. We partnered with classroom faculty to make videos on advanced topics, which led to faculty to embrace a flipped classroom model. Students came to these research instruction sessions more engaged and prepared. The Rider Libraries Minutes are available at http://guides.rider.edu/trlm. Check out our two side projects: the offbeat, Lost in the Library (http://guides.rider.edu/litl) and interviews with Rider Librarians, Know Your Librarian (http://guides.rider.edu/know). Catch out presentations on this project this at the VALENJ 2014 Conference and 2014 Distance Library Service Conference (Denver).
Has your library used video for marketing or instruction? Share them with your colleagues in the next newsletter!
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From the President, Gracemary Smulewitz:
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NJLA CUS/ ACRL-NJ has hosted excellent programs recently that have been very well received. The VALE Shared Information Literacy Committee and ACRL-NJ User Education Committee sponsored a presentation and mini-workshop on Curriculum Mapping. Also, the NJLA CUS program on job shadowing is well under way at many institutions and feedback is very positive. ACRL-NJ, SCARLA, the Student College, Academic and Research Libraries Association, and Rutgers University Libraries are co-sponsoring a panel discussion to explore the issues of open access dissertations and theses, embargoes and the impact on publishing. The program will be held on December 4th at Alexander Library, in the Scholarly Communication Center. There will be a small reception at 6 p.m. followed by the program from 7 p.m.- 9 p.m. Please save the date. ACRL-NJ has a new Legislative Representative. Adriana Kuzyszyn of Middlesex County College will report on legislative issues addressed by ACRL and how they relate to the academic libraries of New Jersey. A new Legislative tab has been added to our website as well as an RSS feed. The 2013 ACRL legislative agenda includes a watch list of issues most relevant to Academic Libraries. Some agenda items are:
Check out the Legislative tab to learn more. The Annual VALE Users’/NJLA CUS/ACRL-NJ Conference "Libraries as Leaders: Off the Ropes and Into the Ring", will be held on Friday January 10, 2014, at Rutgers University, Busch Campus Center in Piscataway, NJ. Mark your calendars. We anticipate having more engaging programs throughout the year. Look for the announcements on listservs and on our website. |
2013 continues to be a collaborative year for NJLA CUS/ ACRL-NJ. There has been a successful outreach for new members by many committees. Welcome and thank you to all new committee members for getting involved.
Bloomfield College Opens New Learning Hub
In January 2013 Bloomfield College opened a student-oriented collaborative work space in the campus library which has been dubbed the Learning Hub. A substantial renovation of the library building in 2012 (paid for with a federal Predominantly Black Institutions (PBI) grant) installed a new art gallery, motion capture studio, and student radio station, as well as the Learning Hub. Inspired by Information or Learning Commons at other institutions, the Hub is an adaption of the concept of a Commons to the specific circumstances of the Bloomfield College Library. Library Director Dan Figueredo emphasizes that the intention was never to build another classroom or computer lab - two readily familiar rooms on any campus - but rather a space in which students would be encouraged to work together on whatever they were interested in. That goal of successfully encouraging self-directed student work seems to have been achieved. Groups of nursing students studying together, or video game development students plotting out the design of a game, are a common sight in the Learning Hub. Sandy Van Dyk, a history professor, says that she likes to work with her students in the Learning Hub because of the atmosphere: "students are there with purpose, serious work is going on around". She attributes that to there being an understanding from the beginning of what the Learning Hub could and should be for. Read more....
SCARLA Provides Education and Opportunities for Future Academic Librarians
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By Cassidy Charles & Jennifer Hunter SCARLA, the Student College, Academic, and Research Libraries Association, organizes lectures series, speakers, events and workshops at Rutgers University for students’ exploration and understanding of academic librarianship. While SCARLA is a fairly new organization, in its third year, membership and interest have been growing as activity has increased. Last year, one of SCARLA’s goals was to increase student awareness and experience with library and information literacy instruction. To that end, members: This year, SCARLA is continuing to provide resources, speakers, and events that will help future academic librarians learn about the profession’s hot-button issues, network, and gain experience. At meetings, we frequently have guest speakers who illuminate various aspects of academic librarianship. We have also started an article-share On December 4, SCARLA is co-sponsoring an MLIS program colloquium with NJLA CUS/ACRL-NJ about the developing role of institutional repositories and the impact of embargoes on theses and dissertations to stakeholders, which includes libraries, graduate students, and publishers. All are welcomed to attend what is sure to be a lively event. Work is already underway on planning a panel for this year’s NJLA conference. The organization hopes to bring together students who have had internships at academic libraries and their supervisors to talk about the value of the internship experience for both the student and the organization. Keep up with SCARLA member activities such as internships and events on our blog where we discuss our different experiences starting out in the field of academic librarianship. You can find us on the web at http://scarla.rutgers.edu. Cassidy Charles & Jennifer Hunter are Co-Presidents of SCARLA at Rutgers University. |
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Change at Rowan University Libraries
By Scott Muir
Rowan University recently incorporated two medical schools. One is a new medical school affiliated with Cooper University Hospital and called Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU). The other school, once part of the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey [UMDNJ], is now know as the Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine (Rowan SOM). CMSRU, located in downtown Camden, admitted its first class in August, 2012 and now has a total enrollment of 114 students. Rowan SOM, located in Stratford, has an enrollment of over 600 students. The impacts of these changes on the Rowan University Libraries have been profound. We now have colleagues on two additional campuses. The staff size increased by 50%, going from just under 40 employees to over 60. Having come from an organization that merged the libraries on four campuses into a single entity, I am familiar with many of the considerations. While my experience involved merging four administratively separate campuses of the same organization and this merger involved libraries from previously; separate organizations those principles of merging still apply. Read more...
Museum Pass Program @ RVCC
by Susan Falciani
This fall, the Evelyn S. Field Library at Raritan Valley Community College has introduced our Museum Pass Program, by which students, faculty and staff can borrow dual passes to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania museums. Modeled on the programs of many New Jersey county library systems, the Museum Pass Program offers our students, particularly those taking arts classes, opportunities to visit these museums free of charge any day of the week.
Both the increasing costs of museum admissions--even with student IDs admission can be between $15-$18--and the fact that RVCC offers nearly a dozen dedicated art history courses and over 50 art studio courses make the idea of offering museum passes to our students attractive. The Arts faculty, some of whom assign museum visits as part of their syllabi, has been very enthusiastic about the idea. Over the summer, thanks to a grant from the RVCC Foundation, we purchased passes to the Guggenheim, the New York Historical Society, the Frick, the Brooklyn Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, the Museum of the City of New York, the Montclair Art Museum, and the African American Museum of Philadelphia. The reservation system is online through the Library website and eligible borrowers pick up their passes the day before their scheduled museum visit, and return them the day following.
As the semester has progressed, the rate of reservations has increased, and thus far the passes to the Guggenheim and the Museum of the City of New York have been the most popular. This is information we will take into account as the academic year moves forward and we consider what passes to purchase for next year that most reflect the needs of the college community. The Library has been promoting the program on social media, on posters across campus, and with the help of the Arts faculty in their classrooms, and as Winter Break approaches, we will be sending out email reminders that a museum visit can be a great way to spend a cold winter day!
Susan Falciani is a reference librarian at Raritan Valley Community College.
Assessing Information Literacy Skills in Unique Populations at Two Institutions
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By Jaimie Donnelly & Cara Berg INTRODUCTION In July 2012 two New Jersey academic librarians, both from private small institutions, presented posters at the annual VALE Assessment Conference. Cara Berg (formerly Cara Scotto), Information Literacy Librarian at Felician College, presented a poster on an evaluation on the information literacy instruction and quizzes provided to her first year college students. Jaimie Donnelly, Technical Services and Social Sciences Librarian and Transfer Seminar instructor at Georgian Court University, presented a poster on a sample study of the results of online information literacy tutorial quizzes given to transfer students during a transfer seminar course. Both of our posters targeted the assessment of students in unique populations-freshmen and transfers. Both populations are attending these institutions for the first time and come with unique challenges to their group. We felt that collaboration would be a great way to compare these two assessment methods and populations, as well as gain new ideas. Read more... |
About the Editors
The co-editors of the NJLA ACRL/CUS newsletter are: Joan Dalrymple of Bergen County Community College and Sharon Whitfield of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.
Publications, Presentations & Announcements
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Ma Lei Hsieh, Pat Dawson, Sharon Yang, and Melissa Hofmann, Rider University: Rider University librarians published their co-authored articles in the the following peer reviewed journals in the summer and in the fall:
Ma Lei Hsieh and Pat Dawson - "What Five Minutes in the Classroom Can Do to Uncover the Basic Information Literacy Skills of Your College Students: A Multiyear Assessment Study.” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 8.3(2013): 34-57.
Ma Lei Hsieh and Sharon Yang - “Faculty-Librarian Collaboration in Improving Information Literacy Skills of Educational Opportunity Program.” Reference Services Review, 41.2 (2013): 313-335.
Hofmann, Melissa A. “The Fairy as Hero(ine) and Author: Representations of Female Power in Murat’s “Le Turbot”.” Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies. 28.2 (2014). Forthcoming.
Lisa Rose-Wiles, Seton Hall University, and Melissa Hofmann, Rider University: Rose-Wiles, Lisa and Melissa A. Hofmann. “Still Desperately Seeking Citations: Undergraduate Research in the Age of Web Scale Discovery.” Journal of Library Administration. 53.2 (2013). Forthcoming.
Bonnie L. Fong, Rutgers University: At the ALA Annual Conference in 2013, Bonnie L. Fong presented the featured paper of the Science and Technology Section (STS) Research Forum. Her presentation was titled "Chain reactions: Improving research instruction for graduate science students."
Marta Deyrup, Seton Hall University: Deyrup, Marta M. and Maura Harrington, eds. The Irish American Experience in New Jersey and Metropolitan New York: Cultural Identity, Hybridity, and Commemoration. Lexington, 2013 Siemaszkiewicz, Wojciech and Marta M. Deyrup. The Polish Community of Wallington, NJ. Arcadia, 2013 Deyrup, Marta M. and Beth Bloom, eds. Successful Strategies for Teaching Undergraduate Student Research, Scarecrow, 2013
Institute of Jazz Studies Receives Literary Landmarks Designation from the New Jersey Center for the Book
By Harry Glazer
On October 23rd the Institute of Jazz Studies, based in the John Cotton Dana Library on the Rutgers-Newark campus, was honored as the New Jersey Center for the Book’s fifth Literary Landmark. The Institute, the world’s largest jazz archive, joins Newark Public Library, Paterson Public Library, the Walt Whitman Center and the Joyce Kilmer Tree site as a Literary Landmark designee. The award was presented by Renee Swartz, Chair and Director of the New Jersey Center for the Book which seeks to “celebrate books, libraries and the diverse literary heritage of New Jersey” and is affiliated with the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.
For more information on this story, please see:
Harry Glazer is Communications Director at Rutgers University Libraries.
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On the Move
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From Bergen Community College:Josh Weber joined Bergen Community College as a lecturer. He previously worked at the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Lynn Schott was promoted to Associate Professor. Joan Dalrymple was promoted to Associate Professor. Kate Hossain, previously at Passaic County Community College, was hired as Reference and Instruction Librarian. |
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From Caldwell College:Heather Cook joined Caldwell College as the Information Commons Librarian. She was previously a lecturer at Bergen Community College. |
From The College of New Jersey:Erin Ackerman has been appointed Social Sciences Librarian at The College of New Jersey. She was previously on the faculty of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). Amanda Cowell has been appointed Emerging Technologies Librarian at The College of New Jersey. Previously she was Digital Projects Manager for Project CHART, a million-dollar collaborative IMLS grant based at the Brooklyn Public Library. Andrew D'Apice is now Head of Circulation at Access Services for the TCNJ Library. You might remember him from such roles as Evening Circulation Supervisor at Rider University and Head of Circulation for Warren Township Public Library. |
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From Georgia Court University:Frances Scott is the new Director of Library Services at Georgian Court University. She was previously at Renssalear Polytechnic Institute in NY, where she was the manager of the Art/Architecture Library. Jaimie Donnelly, MLS, Technical Services & Social Sciences Librarian at Georgian Court University, was promoted to Faculty Librarian – Assistant Rank and obtained her Master of Liberal Studies in Art History from Fort Hays State University. |
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From Montclair State University :Darren Sweeper was appointed Head of Government Documents at the Harry A. Sprague Library at Montclair State University in September. Previously, he was the Governments Document Librarian at Seton Hall University. He holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice and Sociology, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ; an M.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University-Newark; and an M.L.I.S. from Rutgers University. |
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From Rutgers University:Leslin Charles has been appointed instructional design librarian at the Rutgers University Libraries. Adriana P. Cuervo has been appointed associate director of the Institute of Jazz Studies in the Rutgers University Libraries. Manuel Jusino has been appointed School of Communication and Information/Rutgers University Libraries Intern/Resident for 2013-2016. Laura B. Palumbo has been appointed chemistry and physics librarian in the Rutgers University Libraries. Jonathan Sauceda has been appointed music and performing arts librarian in the Rutgers University Libraries. |
Transitions at the College at Florham Library of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Florham-Madison, NJ
With the start of this new academic year, Fairleigh Dickinson University’s College at Florham Library welcomed a new Associate University Librarian / Director of Public Services, Gary Schmidt, to take this leadership role at the library of FDU’s Madison, NJ, campus. He replaces Maria Webb who retired in July. Since September 3rd, Gary Schmidt has got the library off to a fine start with introducing new initiatives, particularly in direct librarian-faculty communications. This is a key area of interest for Mr. Schmidt who worked to promote librarian-faculty liaison in his most recent previous position as acting director of the Ocean County College Library in Toms River, NJ, and on which topic he delivered a very well-received presentation at the January 2013 VALE-NJ conference.
Mr. Schmidt’s new insights and resourceful energies have already been of benefit to the library and the campus community. Colleagues, students, faculty, administration and staff are pleased to have Gary Schmidt at the helm of FDU’s College at Florham Library.
Submitted by Eleanor Friedl, Reference Librarian
Robert Lackie Named Department Chairperson at Rider University
It is with pleasure that I announce the appointment of Professor Robert J. Lackie as Department Chairperson of the Franklin F. Moore Library to begin September 2013. Robert earned his BS in English & Business Management at the University of the State of New York in 1992, his MLIS at the University of South Carolina in 1996, and his MA in Curriculum, Instruction, & Supervision at Rider University in 2000. Recently, Robert also earned a certificate of achievement for completing the Management Skills Series at Rider, and he is a current participant in Rider’s new Academic Leadership Development Program.
For the last 15 years, Professor Lackie has co-led the Franklin F. Moore Library’s course-integrated Research Instruction Program and served as Education Librarian, among other reference and instruction services programs and duties, earning tenure in 2004 and promotion to full Professor-Librarian in 2009. Additionally, he has served on a wide variety of advisory groups, task forces, and committees within the University, such as the Teaching & Learning Center and the School of Education Advisory Groups, the First Year Experience Task Forces/Discovery Program initiatives, the University Libraries’ Central Peer Support & Review Committee, LAPC, and UAPC, not to mention four years as Rider’s first Faculty-in-Residence.
Also active in various library and educational organizations, Professor Lackie has helped many professionals within the state: as a trainer/evaluator for nine years with the NJ Train-the-Trainer Group; as an executive board member and officer for seven years each with the Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative and the Phi Delta Kappa International Trenton-Area Chapter; as an officer for several years each with the NJLA User Education Committee, the Tri-state College Library Cooperative, and LibraryLinkNJ; and as an adjunct professor in Rider’s Communication & Journalism Department and adjunct professor and frequent guest lecturer in Rutgers’ MLIS Program. He is currently a LibraryLinkNJ academic library representative and an adjunct professor in the Princeton Adult School and in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program (sponsored jointly by the U.S. Department of Education & Rider).
A frequent presenter at library, education, and technology conferences and meetings, Robert has given over 550 talks, workshops, or webinars on a variety of topics around the United States, and he has authored or co-authored nationally-recognized Websites and blogs and been published within various professional and scholarly works. His 2009 co-edited book Teaching Generation M: A Handbook for Librarians and Educators has received excellent professional reviews and honors, and he will be co-publishing an identity theft prevention e-book in the summer of 2013. For his teaching, writing, leadership, and service to the profession, Robert has received several accolades, including the ACRL/New Jersey Chapter “2011 Distinguished Service Award,” the ALA “2006 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship,” the “2004 Rider University Award for Distinguished Teaching,” and the NJLA “2004 Librarian of the Year.” Please join me in offering best wishes to Professor Lackie.
Submitted by F. William Chickering, Dean of University Libraries