NJLA-CUS/ACRL-NJ Research Committee Annual Report, 2014-2015

Membership

Active committee members for 2014-2015 were Beth Bloom (Seton Hall), Heather Cook (Caldwell College), Cynthia Coulter/Chair (Hudson County Community College), Melissa A. Hofmann (Rider University), and Karen Pifher (Peapack & Gladstone Library). Membership dropped by half from the year before.

Meetings

There were no meetings. All communication was via email, Google drive, and Doodle Poll.

NJLA-CUS/ACRL/VALE User’s Conference

Cynthia submitted a poster proposal, which was accepted. The poster was displayed at the VALE Convention on January 9^th, along with handouts which detailed the Research Award & Form submission process, deadlines, etc. Cynthia tried to garner more members during this convention, but was not successful.

NJLA CUS Newsletter articles

Cynthia submitted an article for the Spring Newsletter calling for nominations for the 2015 Research Award & Forum.

Research Award and Forum winner announcement were sent to NJLA/CUS Newsletter Committee. The NJLA/CUS Marketing & Communications committee were contacted, to place announcement on Facebook and Twitter. Cynthia posted announcement to NJLA/CUS Drupal site.

Joan Dalrymple is planning to highlight the Research Committee in the next Newsletter. Cynthia sent her a short article about the history of the Research Committee and its function.

Cynthia submitted an article for the October newsletter about the new library building constructed at Hudson County Community College.

Award and Nominees

Requests for Research Award and Forum presentations nominations were sent by email to several library organization listservs, in November, December, January and February, for the February deadline. IN the future, this call for submissions should also be sent to NJLA/CUS Marketing & Communications Committee and Newsletter Committee. By The end of February, the committee received five award nominations and four forum nominations, with one nomination submitted for both categories.

NJLA 2015 Annual Conference

The 2015 convention was held at Ocean Place Resort & Spa in Long Branch, NJ. The theme was “Libraries On the Edge!” A formal presentation of the Research Award took place at the College and University Section’s luncheon on Wednesday, April 22, 2015 during a double afternoon session.

The winner of the 2015 NJLA/CUS and ACRL/NJ Research Award is Jane Johnson Otto, of Rutgers University Libraries, for her publication, “University Faculty Describe their Use of Moving Images in Teaching and Learning and their Perceptions of the Library's Role in that Use,” found in College & Research Libraries, 75(2), 115-144.

Three Forum submissions were chosen: Megan Demsey and Alyssa Valenti, of Raritan Valley Community College, for “Student Use of Keywords and Limiters in Web-scale Discovery Searching”; Dr. Judit Ward and William Bejarano, of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, for “Dues and Duties: Critical Edition of Historical Bibliographies”; and Gary D. Saretzky, of Monmouth County Archives, for “Nineteenth-Century New Jersey Photographers.”

Miscellaneous Participation/Presentations

Cynthia agreed to serve as co-chair for the next year, 2015-2016. Gracemary Smulewitz has joined the Research Committee as its co-chair. Susan Bucks has also joined the committee as member.

In June, Gracemary and Cynthia met with Elsevier to develop a seminar for promoting research, publishing, and grant writing for graduate level students, librarians, and faculty. This seminar will hopefully be schedules for fall of 2015.

Cynthia has written up a Research Committee Chair list of responsibilities, which will help transition future chairs. This document is posted on the NJLA/CUS Research Documents site, viewable with chair or co-chair permission level login.

ACRL Five-Year Goals and Objectives 

Through the presentation and explanation of their research, the speakers at the Research Award & Forum help to promote ideas, practices, and current pedagogical theories, not only in librarianship, but in student learning and faculty instruction.

The collaboration with institutions such as Elsevier help to provide seminars demonstrating research contacts, publication methods, and grant writing/money garnering methods, helping to promote research in  higher education.

Thus, the NJLA/CUS ACRL-NJ College & University Section Research Committee has helped to address the following recommendations of the ACRL Plan for Excellence:

• Increase research that demonstrates the value of academic and research libraries.
• To improve outreach to higher education organizations in order to articulate the value of libraries in higher education.
• Increase partnerships with other organizations to advance the impact of Information Literacy on student learning.
• Increase understanding of new models of information fluency as pedagogy evolves.
• Increase the ways ACRL is an advocate and model for open dissemination and evaluation practices. 
• Influence scholarly publishing policies and practices toward a more open system. 
• Enabling programs and services for education, publication, advocacy, and member engagement.