Announcements & News

From Bergen Community College:

Bergen Community College Opens New Library at Lyndhurst Campus

By Michelle Strassberg

Bergen Community College is proud to announce the opening of a new library at its Lyndhurst/Meadowlands campus.  We are excited about being able to offer reference, instructional and service support in this beautiful, new space.

 

The library is currently open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  The library houses reserve textbooks and electronic databases available to support BCC students and faculty attending classes at the Lyndhurst campus, as well as a growing circulating collection.

 

The library services offered will mirror those already available at the main campus including (but not limited to): 

  • A Smart Classroom where library instruction is taught by existing BCC library faculty;
  • A reference librarian available to assist students and faculty with their course-related questions;
  • A Service Desk where reserve textbooks are available for in-library use;
  • Circulating collection;
  • 25 computer workstations with printing capability;                             
  • One silent and three group study/media viewing rooms;
  • A selection of newspapers, magazines and journals;
  • Copy machine.

The Lyndhurst library can be reached at (201) 301-1248.

For more information about the Lyndhurst campus library, contact Rong Wang, Interim Dean of Library Services, at (201) 447-7130 or email: rwang@bergen.edu.

Michelle Strassberg is a Reference Librarian at Bergen Community College’s Sidney Silverman Library.  

 

From Kean University:

The Kean University Library is pleased to announce the newest addition to its digital collections: a unique online database that houses the publications of non-profit organizations which focus on New Jersey public policy issues. This collection, which we call the New Jersey Public Policy Collection (NJPPC) allows users to access these documents and research materials from one centralized, easy to use location. The texts of the documents are fully searchable and are catalogued with subject headings similarly to a book in a library. Trevar Riley-Reid, a recent MLIS graduate, assisted by Kean University graduate student Janelle Payne, created this collection to allow users to access a variety of publications pertaining to economic growth, education, social justice, health care, and criminal justice. To access these files, users can navigate directly to the New Jersey Public Policy Collection here:

http://cdm15353.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15353coll3

There are currently close to 200 documents in this remarkable collection which includes such titles as Beat High Bank Fees: A Consumer Guide to Shopping Around and Building Bridges between Academic Institutions, Business and Government to Bring Innovation to the Marketplace.

This fully searchable database is compiled of files derived from a variety of non-profit organizations from across the state of New Jersey in an effort to provide information on policy reform and solutions for researchers and the public as a whole to make use of. Kean University is intent on making the resources of these organizations more accessible to the people of New Jersey and beyond. Currently, the recommended browsers for viewing the database are Internet Explorer 8.0+, Google Chrome 12+ and Mozilla Firefox 5+ on PC; and Safari 5+ and Firefox 5+ on Mac. The recommended viewer for PDF files is Adobe® Reader® version 8.0+.

This project is an effort by Kean University to encourage further inquiry and exploration of the issues studied by these organizations. Unlike some of the other databases that are only accessible to students, the New Jersey Public Policy collection is available and free to the public via the internet.  The NJPPC is constantly being expanded and is available at all times for access. We ask that you take the time to utilize this new and informative collection and to let your patrons know about it. We also ask you to let us know of any organizations with whom you work that might be interested in allowing the Kean University Library to load its documents into the NJPPC.

For further information or if you have any questions, comments, or additional information to add to this collection, contact:

Trevar Riley-Reid, 908-737-4642, or treid@kean.edu

Janelle Payne, payneja@kean.edu

 

From William Paterson University:

Cheng Library at William Paterson University hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony in March to celebrate the grand opening of both the Nexus room in the Periodicals Department and thePreview room in Media Services. It was also an opportunity for Cheng Library to formally thank the Student Government Association (SGA) for selecting Cheng Library as the recipient of their generous gift of $67,300.00 allocated at the end of the 2011 academic year.  Members of the SGA expressed their views on how the library should spend the funds and the end result was the creation of the Nexus room and renovations to the Preview Room, along with purchasing additional JSTOR Collections that added nearly 400 journal titles to the library’s collection.

 

The Nexus room in the Periodicals Department was conceived as a news center and in place of old microfilm and microfiche readers, there is soft seating and tables along with a large flat screen television with live news broadcasts and a display for current magazines and newspapers. A special feature of the room is the murals designed specifically for the space by students in a graphic design class. The Preview Room in Media Services now has state of the art equipment for listening and viewing and includes four boom-rocker chairs and two flat screen televisions equipped with DVD/VHS players, CD and Blue Ray players. The room is also equipped with four new carrels and leather chairs featuring the same equipment used with the boom rockers. Furnished and decorated in bright colors, the room is quickly becoming a popular spot for students who were used to sitting in wooden chairs to watch videos or listen to music required for a class. While the physical improvements to these two areas are quite visible and already in use by students, the additional journal titles available from JSTOR will benefit students both on and off campus.

 

More than 70 people attended the ribbon cutting ceremony and Cheng Library Dean Anne Ciliberti expressed her gratitude on behalf of the library and students for the SGA’s generosity.  Describing the donation as one of the highlights of her long and distinguished tenure at William Paterson University, Dean Ciliberti personally thanked current and former members of the SGA for helping to improve the resources in the library and beyond for all students. 

 

From Rutgers University:

Two Rutgers Librarians Serve as Leaders in Academic Initiatives

Rutgers University librarians James Niessen and Triveni Kuchi are recent appointees to academic posts. 

In January 2010 World History Librarian James Niessen was appointed director of the Institute for Hungarian Studies, part of Rutgers' Center for European Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences, and he served in this post for three semesters. Jim is eminently qualified for this role, having conducted graduate work in Hungarian history and lived in Hungary in the 1980s for one and a half years.

Under Jim's leadership, the Institute conducted five public programs that featured guest speakers that addressed Hungarian topics and attracted Rutgers faculty and members of the New Brunswick area Hungarian community. Jim also developed a website (http://hi.rutgers.edu) and email distribution list for the institute, collaborated with the Hungarian Alumni Association, and consulted with Hungarian institutions about ways to enhance Rutgers' course offerings related to Hungary.

Jim also led a team of colleagues in the Rutgers University Libraries that created an online archive of papers from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief, which assisted 40,000 refugees from Hungary who arrived in the United States after the revolution of 1956. Camp Kilmer, a large part of which is now on Rutgers' Livingston campus, was the processing point for these refugees, who fled from the brutal Soviet repression of the movement for Hungarian democracy.

In September 2010 Social Sciences Librarian Triveni Kuchi assumed the position of director of the South Asian Studies Program, a post in which she continues to serve. Triveni brings to this post her experiences and perspective as a former native of India, who received her MA in Economics from the University of Bombay.

Faculty members who teach about and/or conduct research on the nations of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet established the South Asian Studies Program in 2003. Faculty members affiliated with the South Asian Studies Program come from the anthropology, art history, cinema studies, English, geography, history, religion, sociology, and women's and gender studies departments of SAS; the School of Business in Rutgers Newark and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The Program seeks to broaden interest in the South Asian region through interdisciplinary courses, speakers' series, and public events.

Under Triveni's leadership the South Asian Studies Program has hosted seven public programs, including a two-day multi-disciplinary Rutgers South Asia conference "Beyond Nation States: Networks, Communities, and Diasporas" in spring 2011 and a series of events featuring prominent Indian playwright, actor, and director Girish Karnard in fall 2011.

As director of the program Triveni also serves as an advisor to students seeking to major or minor in South Asian Studies, works closely with the South Asian Studies Program executive committee and the Rutgers Global Advancement and International Affairs centers (GAIA) to expand South Asia related activities, currently chairs the Rutgers International Academic Partnership Program (IAPP) Faculty Strategic Planning committee on India, supports a South Asian Junior Faculty working group, and helps to select the winner of the annual Chakra Graduate/Undergraduate paper award and recipients of research and travel awards to faculty studying topics in this area.

Through Jim's and Triveni's work with their respective centers, they built strong ties with individual faculty members and academic departments, increased awareness of the Libraries and their resources on campus, and worked closely with faculty to advance the interests of specific disciplines.

Submitted by Harry Glazer, MCIS, Communications Director at Rutgers University Libraries. 

 

ACRL Women & Gender Studies Sections Awards Rutgers Librarians

The winners of this year’s ACRL Women and Gender Studies Section (WGSS) Award for Significant Achievement in Woman’s Studies Librarianship are Kayo Denda, Alicia Graham, Rhonda Marker and Li Sun of Rutgers University Libraries, and Kirsten Canfield and Lucy Vidal of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University.  The group created the CWGL Poster Collection portal, which provides access to approximately 300 posters from women’s rights organizations.  This unique resource will be valuable to researchers, faculty, students, and the general public.  The winners will be recognized with a plaque at the ALA Conference in Anaheim in June.  The portal is accessible at http://cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/additional.html.  More information about the winners and the award can be found at http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/denda-marker-sun-vidal-graham-and-canfield-win-2012-acrl-wgss-significant-achievement-award.

 

Submitted by Harry Glazer, MCIS, Communications Director at Rutgers University Libraries. 

 

Institute of Jazz Studies Receives $165,000 Grant

The Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS), based in the John Cotton Dana Library on the Rutgers-Newark campus, received a $165,000 grant awarded by the Council on Library and Information Resources, for cataloging hidden special collections and archives. The two-year project will involve cataloging five archival collections of prominent women in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, Annie Ross, Victoria Spivey, and Wilma Dobie.  Additional materials regarding early jazz bandleader Fate Marable will also be made accessible.  IJS plans to create online finding aids for these collections in order to assist researchers in discovering and accessing the records and artifacts in each archive. Vincent Pelote, Head of Technical Services/Sound Archivist in IJS, is the principal investigator for the project. 

 

Submitted by Harry Glazer, MCIS, Communications Director at Rutgers University Libraries. 

 

Rutgers University Libraries Launch New Mobile Website

Rutgers University Libraries has introduced a new mobile website accessible from all smart phones at:  http://m.libraries.rutgers.edu. The site offers a streamlined version library catalog, a link to hours and directions, and the option to chat with a librarian. The mobile website will also be available from the Rutgers Mobile App that is scheduled for release by the university's Office of Information Technology.

The mobile library website's catalog began as a project of the Libraries' Web Board. It utilized an independent study undertaken by Antonio Barrera, a student at the School of Communications and Information (SC&I), under Dr. Jacek Gwizdka - a faculty member at SC&I and a member of the Web Board. Barrera designed a first iteration of the catalog for mobile devices, which became the basis for what is currently offered on the Libraries' mobile website.

The Libraries are proud to have tapped into this trend and invites feedback. Please write to rulweb@rulmail.rutgers.edu with your comments and suggestions. The website will continue to evolve as future releases of the mobile library site will provide greater functionality.

The core developers of the new mobile website were Yuhwei Ling, Mary Ann Koruth, Sam McDonald, and Bob Warwick of the Libraries' Integrated Information Services (IIS). Christopher Sterback (IIS) and Joseph Deodato (Digital User Services Librarian) contributed to the design and testing of the site.

Submitted by Harry Glazer, MCIS, Communications Director at Rutgers University Libraries. 

 

 

From NJLA ACRL/ CUS Research Forum:

 

Sharon Q. Yang, Systems Librarian, Rider University and Melissa A. Hofmann, Bibliographic Control Librarian, Rider University, have been selected as this year’s recipients of the NJ Research Award granted by the NJLA CUS/ACRL-NJ Research Committee.  The winning article is: “Next Generation or Current Generation?  A Study of the OPACs of 260 Academic Libraries in the United States and Canada,” published in Library Hi Tech, 29(2), 266-200.

Yang and Hofmann’s article discusses the results of their study which identified the progress made in the efforts to model current online public access catalogs (OPACs) after the next generation catalog (NGC) in academic libraries in the USA and Canada.  A formal presentation of the award will take place at the College and University Section’s luncheon at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 during the NJLA Annual Conference at the Revel Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.

This year’s selected presenters for the 2012 NJLA Research Forum are:  Diane K. Campbell, Rider University, for her research entitled “The Second Stage of an Investigation of Environmental Scanning Practices by Entrepreneurs” and Sharon Whitfield, The College of New Jersey, for her research entitled “Micropayments & Article Rentals:  How These Services May Impact the Library.”

Karen Pifher is Co-Chair of the Research Committee and is the Branch Director of the Peapack & Gladstone Library, Somerset County Library System. 

 

From NJLA ACRL/CUS Tech Section:

The NJLA College and University Section (CUS) Technology Committee is pleased to announce that the NJLA CUS/ACRL-NJ Technology Innovation Award winners for 2012 are:

“RUanalytic: Video annotation tool: enabling learning, transforming scholarly publication,” led by Chad M. Mills, Rutgers Digital Library Architect, Grace Agnew, Associate University Librarian for Digital Library Systems and Yang Yu, Rutgers Library Database Architect. 

The RUanalytic Team will demonstrate their project at the Technology Innovation Forum on Tuesday, June 5th, at the NJLA Conference in Atlantic City, NJ.

 

They will be joined by this year's nominees for the Award, who will also demonstrate their individual projects:

 

  • Creating a Library Community in Blackboard Project – Steve Shapiro and Shunfa Li (Montclair University)
  • Embedding LibGuides into SOCS Project – Sharon Whitfield and John T. Oliver (The College of New Jersey)
  • The Implementation and Application of CORAL: An Open Source ERM System Project - Yongming Wang and Jia Mi (The College of New Jersey)
  • UMDNJ University Libraries—Going Mobile Project – Jenny Pierce and Yingting Zhang (UMDNJ)

 

The Technology Innovation Award will be presented at the College and University Section Luncheon on Wednesday, June 6th.  Please join me in congratulating the winners and nominees for the award at the NJLA 2012 Conference.  Registration information is online at: http://njlaconference.info/  The early registration deadline is May 18th.

 

Ray Schwartz, Chair of the NJLA CUS/ACRL-NJ Technology Committee, is a Systems Specialist Librarian at the David and Lorraine Cheng Library at William Paterson University

From ACRL:

Proposals are due May 11 for ACRL 2013 in Indianapolis, April 10-13, 2013.  Details are on the conference website.  Keynote speakers are Geoffrey Canada, Henry Rollins, and Maria Hinojosa.

ACRL will debut four new discussion groups at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim this June:

  • Digital Humanities
  • International Perspectives on Academic and Research Libraries
  • Leadership
  • Student Retention

Complete details on ACRL discussion groups are available on the ACRL website.

From ALA:

Early bird registration ends May 13 for the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, June 21-26.  Registration, a preliminary program, and more are available on the conference website.