The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Feature

  • Dana Library Transformation Project

    3D render of building
    An architectural rendering of the exterior addition.

    These are exciting times for Dana Library. Last month, we began a series of renovations that will address the highest priorities for improving the library that were identified through the Rutgers University–Newark strategic planning process several years ago. The changes will make the library more user friendly in numerous ways, including finally fitting out the third floor, which has been shell space since the construction of that wing decades ago.

    The results of this project involve enhancements that will create new study and learning spaces for students, facilitate ease of access to the collections and departments within, and the construction of a new center to support teaching faculty:

    Construction fence around building
    Construction on the library began in March and is scheduled to be completed in April 2020.
    • An addition to the library is being built to better facilitate the flow of traffic to all five floors of the building. A larger stairwell and high-capacity, high-speed elevator are being installed to allow for large groups of people to move up and down the stairwell with ease, as well as shorten elevator wait time and accommodate more people.
    • The centerpiece of this project is the construction that will take place on the third floor. This includes additional quiet study space for our students and the new P3 Collaboratory for Pedagogy, Professional Development, and Publicly-Engaged Scholarship at Rutgers University–Newark. This open study space will provide an additional 60+ seats, along with numerous conveniently located outlets for devices.
    • This construction will also allow us to enhance our archives spaces and services. A space will be created to house the new Dana Archives departments providing our local university archives collections with a formal home. The Dana Archives and IJS will share the newly created reading room that will accommodate a larger number of classes and independent researchers at one time.
    • This is topped off by an iconic architectural feature on the plaza side of the building that will serve as a beacon to campus visitors, students, faculty, and staff alike.

    Construction has already begun and is scheduled to be completed in April 2020. I’ll plan to deliver updates from time to time in the Agenda, but if you want the latest information as it’s available, head over to the Dana Library Transformation Project blog, where we post updates at least once a week after our meetings (and don’t forget to sign up for the email list to receive alerts when new posts are published).

    Thank you for following along on this journey toward the future of Dana Library!

  • This Month in the Agenda – January 1981

    This month we take a look at what the new year brought to the Libraries in 1981.

    Movin’ on Up

    A recent Association of Research Libraries report by Kendon Stubbs entitled “The ARL Library Index and Quantitative Relationships in the ARL” provided some indication of the relative standing of the Rutgers University Library system in this illustrious group. In 1978-79, based on volumes held, volumes added, microforms, serials, materials expenditures, Rutgers ranked nineteenth out of 98 institutions. It ranked higher than Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and a number of other outstanding institutions.

    The Agenda 3, no. 1 (January 5, 1981)

    That’s a Lot of Math

    The final recommendations of the committee for parking lot 34 (rear of Alexander Library) have been accepted and will be implemented in calendar year 1981. The committee consisted of four members: Don Luck of Technical Services, chairman; Jean Koyen of Alexander Library; Donald King of the Library School; and Michael Farley of the Library Administration. The recommendations of the committee are as follows:

    1. The parking lot will be redesigned to accommodate five additional parking slots….
    2. As lot spaces become available the following formula will be used to assign vacant positions. A point system will be established based on the following: Total points equal salary range plus years of service, plus five points for a subcompact/compact car plus ten points for each Alexander area employee carried in a car pooling arrangement. For example, if Jane Smith is a Range 10, has a subcompact car, carries one passenger who works for the library system at Alexander, and Jane has worked for the system for six years, she will accrue a total of 31 points.

    (Points)                (Range)                (Sub)                     (Pool)                    (years)
    (TP=                       10+                         5+                           10+                         6              = 31)

    She will be ranked along with all others who have applied for a sticker and the stickers will be assigned according to those with the highest total points.

    The Agenda 3, no. 1 (January 5, 1981)

    Get Oriented!

    The Staff Development committee is sponsoring an all day orientation for new employees on January 16, 1981. Hendrik Edelman and other library administrators and staff will welcome new employees and introduce them to various aspects of the University Libraries. The orientation will be held in the New Jersey Room beginning at 9:30 a.m. Employees hired since January 1, 1980 are invited to attend. Bring a brown bag lunch. Coffee and dessert will be provided.

    The Agenda 3, no. 2 (January 12, 1981)

    That’s a Lot of Interests
    Map of Libraries Special Interest Groups, 1981
    Map of Libraries Special Interest Groups, 1981

    The Agenda 3, no. 3 (January 19, 1981)

    Calling All Bibliomaniacs

    The auctioneer’s gavel will signal the start of “Bibliomania ’81,” the first annual fund raising event sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries. Scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 3 at Records Hall on the College Avenue Campus, the auction will feature fine collectible items; antiques, coins, stamps, books, works of art, maps, and rare wines, as well as other quality items and services.

    The Agenda 3, no. 4 (January 26, 1981)

  • This Month in the Agenda – November 1998

    Agenda november 1998It may be hard to believe, but November 1998 was two whole decades ago! What was happening around the Libraries?

    Dana Puts High Schoolers Online

    16 Newark Central High School students… participated in an innovative computer-usage-training program conducted last year by Dana Library and Rutgers-Newark’s Institute for Outreach and Research in Urban Education. This program was conceived by Dana Library Director Lynn S. Mullins and Professor Jean Anyon of the Institute.

    [T]hey learned about navigating the internet, searching government and university websites, finding websites on research topics, and using the networked indexes available at the Rutgers University Libraries…

    After the semester long course was completed, the Rutgers-Newark Teaching Excellence Center was asked to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The center’s director, Ken Kressel conducted focus group sessions with the 16 students and four Central H.S. faculty members and reported afterwards that “This program received the most collective and heartfelt endorsements of any instructional activity I have studied in nearly four years of doing focus groups at Rutgers.”

    The Agenda 20, no. 22 (November 1, 1998)

    Let’s See Some ID

    The RUconnection Card Office is ready to start issuing the new photo ID card for regular library faculty and library graduate assistants on the New Brunswick campuses starting November 23 through December 11. If you have any questions, please contact Sandy Troy.

    The Agenda 20, no. 23 (November 15, 1998)

    Live to Serve… and to Instruct

    Learning and instruction take a myriad of forms in the Rutgers University Libraries of the 1990’s, from traditional to technological, from distance learning to digital.

    The Instructional Services Committee (ISC), composed of instruction coordinators and/or librarians skilled in instruction or instructional technology, was formed last month to keep track of the range of instructional offerings at RUL, and help develop new opportunities.

    Members of the committee are: Jeris Cassel, Helen Hoffman, Kevin Mulcahy, Ann Scholz-Crane, Julie Still, Thelma Tate, Bobbi [sic] Tipton, and Irwin Weintraub.

    The Agenda 20, no. 24 (November 29, 1998)

  • Ninja Warrior Report

    Participants in this program, from the School of Arts and Sciences’ Students in Transition Seminar, were walked through a series of library related activities including five minutes of copyright, playing a memory game to learn about Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA), making a button to learn more about copyright and SCUA, playing a game to learn about what is available for check out at the circulation desk, how to find an article and a PDF, and more. Over 160 transfer students participated in this project and 105 assessment surveys were collected.

    From a quick analysis of the assessment spreadsheet, each activity was mentioned more than once as a positive experience. Many students enjoyed button making, copyright, finding a PDF, and the unique items found in SCUA. Many students liked the overall feel of this interactive experience.  Also, it was noted multiple times that many students’ favorite aspect of the library was the people who work there. Last but not least, many students—including the passport stamper from the STS program—expressed during the event that the library event was the best so far and many participants thanked us for the opportunity to learn while having fun.

    Should you have further questions about this event, please contact Mei-Ling Lo mlo@rutgers.edu or Megan Lotts megan.lotts@rutgers.edu.

  • Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections

    Digital storage meeting at the Library of CongressStoring and preserving digital content continues to be a significant expectation of libraries and cultural centers around the country. To better understand these needs, as well to see what digital archivists around the country are doing to meet this challenge, the Library of Congress holds an annual meeting called “Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections.” The DSA meeting brings together technical and industry experts, IT and subject matter experts, government specialists with an interest in preservation, decision-makers from a wide range of organizations with digital preservation requirements, and recognized authorities and practitioners of digital preservation. The meeting is by invitation only, and for the past two years Rutgers has been invited to take part in the conversation. The most recent meeting was held on September 17 and 18.

    The first thing glaringly clear from our discussions was the increasing need for digital storage across all of our peers. From the few terabytes of data that Rutgers Libraries store in our repository, to the dozen or so petabytes stored by the Library of Congress, our digital collections continue to grow, and the demands for storage increase. This is driven by an increasing appetite for digital data from our patrons, but is also the effect of researchers and artists having greater access to digital authoring tools. We are now in the age where smartphones and tablets already in the hands of our user base can capture images, documents, and video in stunning quality—but with a cost in terms of larger file sizes.

    To meet this challenge, storage makers continue in the short term to refine the technologies we are already familiar with. Reasonably-priced tablets and laptops are now shipping with solid state drives reaching a terabyte in capacity. Fourteen-TB traditional hard drives are now hitting the market. And for long-term backups, tape continues to rule, with 30TB tape cartridges costing about $200 each. At the institutional level, libraries are beginning to cooperate and pool resources to distribute their storage needs across multiple datacenters, for redundancy and additional capacity.

    The not-too-distant future holds some different approaches, as well. In particular, research is ongoing to move beyond hard drives and tapes, and to begin storing data at the molecular level, using polymer chains. Even DNA sequencing is showing significant promise as a long-term method for archiving and preserving data.

  • This Month in the Agenda – September 2001

    Movers and shakers at the Libraries in September 2001. See any names you recognize?

    A lot of things can change in 17 years… but then again, some things never do. What was happening at the dawn of another fall semester for the Libraries in 2001?

    A Fall Greeting… and a New Colleague

    The Summer was not as quiet as usual – we implemented a new look for the Libraries’ home page; authority control was introduced into IRIS; circulation notices will now be sent via e-mail; and Media Services transferred responsibility for smart classrooms and equipment delivery in New Brunswick to the Teaching Excellence Center, and introduced web forms for requests across all campuses.

    …

    We completed a successful recruitment for an AUL for Digital Library Systems and hired Grace Agnew, who will be joining us in January. This is an important position as we examine more closely how the Libraries technical infrastructure is organized and deployed to support the Digital Library Initiative…. We look forward to Grace’s leadership, and her participation in these discussions as we continue to move “aggressively, but intelligently towards the creation of a new library system.”

    Got Training?

    With the arrival of a system-wide Training and Learning Coordinator, Marilyn Wilt, the Libraries need to plan and coordinate on an ongoing basis an effective library human resource development program. With this goal in mind, Associate University Librarian for Administrative Services Samson Soong convened a new Training and Learning Advisory Committee…. Members thus far include Ann Montanaro, Ned Richards, Gracemary Smulewitz, and Julie Still.

    The Agenda 23, no. 18 (September 16, 2001)

  • Latino New Jersey History Project

    New Jersey has a remarkably diverse, though largely understudied, Latino population.  In 2016, according to the American Community Survey, people who identify as Hispanic or Latino were estimated to number over 1.7 million making them nearly 20 percent of all New Jersey residents.  Yet we know very little about their roots. Who are the Garden State’s Latinos? What is their history? This summer, seven Rutgers undergraduates and history Ph.D. student Carie Rael worked with Lilia Fernandez, Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Latino & Caribbean Studies and History, to find out as part of the Latino New Jersey History Project.  Their goal was to research, document, and record the history of New Jersey’s diverse Latino populations. Along the way, they received important assistance on digital tools and platforms from New Brunswick Libraries personnel Stacey Carton, Jan Reinhardt, and Francesca Giannetti.

    The students used a variety of sources and methods. They gathered census data, for example, to produce maps and tables enumerating Latinos throughout the state, its counties, and its main cities and towns. Some were surprised at what they learned. While we might expect Newark, Elizabeth, and Paterson to have large Latino enclaves, few realized that New Brunswick is 56 percent Hispanic and West New York is 78 percent Hispanic (both as of 2016).  The town of Bridgeton in South Jersey has one of the largest concentrations of Mexican immigrants in the state. Census data revealed unexpected trends and unlikely settlement destinations.

    Hudson county map

    With training from Francesca Giannetti, digital humanities librarian, students learned how to create thematic maps in Social Explorer and multimedia narratives integrating images, text, and multimedia embeds in ArcGIS’s Story Maps.  They learned about theories of place and space in spatial narratives, as well as elements of data and visual literacy through the strategic exploration of Social Explorer’s data sources, spatial geometries, and visualization types. Through the students’ mapmaking efforts, they were able to trace demographic changes over time, settlement patterns, and the migration stories of individuals and entire communities.

    Aguada

    Students also visited the Puerto Rican Community Archives (PRCA) at the Newark Public Library to learn about how the PRCA has collected more than one hundred oral histories over the past two decades and has gathered many archives and records of New Jersey’s Puerto Rican communities.

    Perhaps the most exciting part of the summer was completing oral histories with local residents. Shaun Illingworth and Kathryn Rizzi of the Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) provided training and guidance on ethical and practical considerations in conducting oral histories.  After extensive training, background research, and preparation, students went out and recorded oral history interviews with various Latino residents and community leaders. Some were able to interview members of their own communities, while others interviewed important figures like Board of Governors member and Rutgers alum Martin Perez, or Irving Linares, the publisher of a Spanish language newspaper in Newark for the past 40 years.

    Since the group created audio or video recordings of their oral histories, they also benefited from basic video editing training at the Douglass Media Library with Stacey Carton. Students attended a workshop that focused on Adobe Premiere video editing software (available at the Fordham spaces in Douglass Library), but also covered topics relating to storytelling, project organization, and the history of editing. They later utilized the Fordham spaces to continue working on their projects.  Jan Reinhart provided support with audiovisual equipment as well.  Using their video training, two groups of students were able to produce short videos—one on the history of New Brunswick and another on the Latino populations of Union City.  These will be posted online, along with the oral histories and map projects, so they can be made available to public audiences.

    The students and Professor Fernandez learned a great deal about New Jersey’s rich history. They discovered that the state’s sizeable Latino population is relatively recent, having grown mostly since the mid-1980s through migration waves that brought Mexicans, South Americans, Central Americans, and Dominicans to the Garden State. In 1970, for example, the census counted only 135,656 people of “Spanish origin” (what today we generally refer to as “Latinos” or “Hispanics”), compared to the 1.5 million the census counted in 2010. The largest subgroups, as of that year, include Puerto Ricans (27% of all Latinos), Mexicans (14%), Dominicans (13%), Spaniards (7.7%), Colombians (6.5%), and Ecuadorians (6.5%). Today, one in five Jersey residents identifies with some type of Hispanic or Latino ancestry.

    The project team included Amy Castillo (Criminology and Latino and Caribbean Studies ’20), Tania Mota (Journalism and Media Studies and Latino and Caribbean Studies ’20), Aracely Ortega (Sociology and Africana Studies ’20), Aziel Rosado (Mathematics and Latino and Caribbean Studies ’20), Kevin Rosero (History and Political Science ’19), Laura Sandoval (Sociology ’20), and Luz Sandoval (History and Public Health ’19).

    Their work is beginning to be shared online. The following are links to individual projects built using the Story Maps platform.

    Mota, Tania. “Mexican Settlement in New Jersey.”

    Rael, Carie. “Latinx of Hudson County, New Jersey.”

    Rosado, Aziel. “Puerto Ricans in New Jersey: A Grandfather’s Story.”

    Rosero, Kevin. “A Grandmother’s Journey.”

    Sandoval, Laura. “Latino History of New Brunswick.”

    Professor Fernandez plans to continue the Latino New Jersey History Project in the future to keep exploring and documenting the diverse and varied origins of the state’s Hispanic communities. The maps, oral histories, and other digital humanities elements will help make this history accessible to audiences beyond the university and beyond the state.

    Lilia Fernandez, Stacey Carton, and Francesca Giannetti

  • New Brunswick Libraries Acquire “The Big Book”

    Alcoholics Anonymous bookThe New Brunswick Libraries have acquired a first edition of “The Big Book,” the popular name for Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, written by the A.A. founder, Bill Wilson (or Bill W).

    Since it was first published in 1939, in an edition of 4,650 copies, “The Big Book” has sold over 30 million copies, making it one of the best-selling regularly updated books of all time. The Library of Congress named it one of the 88 “Books that Shaped America.” The fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous, took its name from the book’s title.

    The Rutgers copy of “The Big Book,” so called for the thickness of the paper in the original edition, was probably the one reviewed by E.M. Jellinek through a project, also launched in 1939, funded by a Carnegie Corporation grant that essentially birthed the field of alcohol studies. As Jellinek reflected in a piece written for AA Today,

    One day that year, I found on my desk a book with a yellow and red dust cover. Its title was Alcoholics Anonymous. With a sigh, picked it up and said to myself: “some more crank stuff.” But I hardly read a few pages when I realized that I had one of the precious gems before me.

    After the Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS) moved from Yale to Rutgers in 1962, the book became part of the McCarthy Collection, named after Raymond McCarthy, the director of education and training at CAS. The annotations are believed to be in his hand.

    An unassuming trade book bound in red cloth, “The Big Book” hardly resembles the “precious gem” it is. From across the room, it might be mistaken for a copy of Webster’s Desk Dictionary. However, due to its historical significance, copies of the first edition regularly sell for five and even six figures. For comparison,  a copy of Webster’s A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language,  a first ed. of Webster’s first dictionary (1806), is priced at $4,063, a Babylonian clay tablet from Syria, ca. 1600-1500 BC, which provides a list of fish used for teaching purposes, is valued at $1,500-$2,500 and a Coptic-Greek glossary, written on vellum in Egypt in the sixth or seventh century, likely intended for use by a professional scribe in the civil service, is estimated at between $12,000 and $18,000. Moreover, the profound emotion “The Big Book” stirs in the A.A. fellowship surpasses the admiration of even the most devoted logophile.

    William Bejarano, former senior information specialist at CAS, recalls preparing for the center’s annual Summer School of Addiction Studies, which traditionally included an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. “John,” who was running the meeting, asked if the rumor that the center owned a copy of “The Big Book” was true, and if he might see it.

    “We were taken aback by his response — jaw agape, he treated the item almost as a sacred text, going so far as to kiss the cover and speak in hushed tones.”

    After being cataloged and preserved in a conservation housing, “The Big Book” will safely repose in Special Collections and University Archives, along with The King James Bible, and the editio princeps of Homer.

    Michael Joseph, Judit Ward

    Further reading:

    Bejarano, W., & Ward, J. (2015). AA and the Center of Alcohol Studies: Our story. SALIS News, 35(3), 10-12.

    Bejarano, W., 2015. CAS Archives: A First Edition of the AA “Big Book”. CAS Information Services Newsletter, 9(3) 6-10.

    Ward, J. H., Bejarano, W. & Allred, N. (2016). Reading for Recovery (R4R): Bibliotherapy for addictions. Substance Abuse Library and Information Studies, 3, 50-69.

  • Government Documents Repatriation Project

    Puerto Rican government documentAlexander Library’s collection of uncatalogued government documents from Puerto Rico has found a new home… in Puerto Rico. Along with a small amount of related material from the equivalent collection at the Library of Science & Medicine, similar groups of documents from states like Louisiana and Hawaii have also been offered to libraries in those states. I conceived of this repatriation project in response to the natural disasters that have affected libraries across the United States and its territories.

    Jane Canfield, a librarian at Puerto Rico’s Biblioteca Encarnación Valdés at Pontificia Universidad Católica, was the first name that came to mind when the project was considered. Canfield has given multiple presentations to the government documents community about the damages and conditions in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017. Her response to the initial contact about the project was enthusiastic, and she ultimately accepted all of the items that were offered. Ranging from a 1905 edition of the Register of Porto Rico to a 1990 Bibliografia fitopatologica Puertorriquena, 1878-1989, 178 individual items were sent.

    Louisiana government documentHurricane Katrina, the floods of 2016, and other storms made Louisiana the first candidate in the continental United States to be considered for the project. A list of material from Louisiana and New Orleans was shared with a librarian at the University of New Orleans (UNO), who in turn shared it with other Louisiana libraries. While not all of the documents found a new home, more than 78% of the publications were requested and subsequently sent to UNO for dissemination. The University of New Orleans, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Loyola University, Nicholls State University, and the State Library of Louisiana were all able to fill gaps in their collections.

    A final response from the library at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, which suffered major damage in a 2004 flood, is forthcoming. Additional states, including Texas and Florida, may be considered when time permits.

    Although the original source of the documents may be lost to history, many were likely obtained via mailing lists or gift and exchange programs. Returning them to their points of origin is a small effort to assist in the rebuilding of collections damaged by hurricanes, floods, and other disasters.

    Special thanks go to Tom Glynn for reviewing the historical material before it was offered; to Elena Schneider, and others in the Shipping & Receiving department, who investigated shipping options, packed the boxes, and delivered the materials to the university department that handles US postal mail; and to Dee Magnoni, who graciously agreed to fund the shipping costs.

    The forgotten collection of state documents is a little less forgotten. The hope is that we run out of disasters before we run out of documents.

  • Reflections on ALA 2018

    As I’m sure you’re all aware, the annual American Library Association conference was held last month in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rutgers was well represented, with plenty of posters and presentations being delivered by folks from the Libraries (check out our Faculty & Staff News page for more details). I reached out to our colleagues for their takeaways from the conference—here’s what they had to say.

    • poster presentation
      Tara Maharjan (l.) and Megan Lotts (r.) presented on using a button maker for outreach to students. Credit: Megan Lotts.

    Katie Anderson: I had the opportunity to learn more about ACRL’s Signature Initiative on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) during the ACRL Leadership meeting. Everyone is encouraged to take this quick poll (open until July 13, 2018) for feedback on priorities. Along with the many business meetings for my section (Anthropology and Sociology Section), a highlight of the conference was a program addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in academic libraries. Three panelists presented an engaging and thought-provoking program to a packed room entitled “When to Speak Up, When to Listen: Allyship, Race, and Communication in the Academic Library”.

    Megan Lotts: What I enjoyed most about our poster session was learning more about what’s happening at other libraries, as well as sharing what we are up to at Rutgers. I also met a woman who is on a design team in Newark, I think within the libraries, and she was excited to take home a Rutgers button, so she could wear it to her next meeting. Kind of warmed my heart, total cheese, but true story. It was also great presenting at the same time as Jordan. I learned more about my RU colleague’s work, and we got to take pictures of each other!

    Christie Lutz: It’s tough to beat the food and architecture (and heat) in New Orleans, but at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) conference I had a great experience presenting on the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive and chatting with people about music scenes and special collections. And I conducted some inadvertent collection development—I met a conference attendee from the University of Delaware who is married to a former Court Tavern bouncer, and she texted him right away about my presentation and it looks like he’ll be donating! I attended some thought-provoking sessions as well, in particular on challenges and new ways of thinking in archival collection management, and challenges and opportunities in working with underrepresented communities in developing their own archives.

    Tara Maharjan: What I took away from the conference was that a lot of people stopped by and mentioned that their institutions already had a button maker, but were not really using it.  People were surprised that we were using it to promote collections, talk about copyright, collaborate with departments, as well as a fun tool to engage with students. I also learned that I apparently talk with my hands in a lot of photos!

    Lily Todorinova: I am the incoming chair of the Emerging Technologies Section (ETS), which is part of the ALA Reference & User Services Association. As part of my section, I attended an interesting session regarding formal vs. informal project management, how to make a decision matrix, as well as “rightsizing” projects. It was super useful.

    Zara Wilkinson: My co-authors and I presented at the Library Research Round Table (LRRT) Research Forum. The forum had a total of four presentations, so we got to hear about a group of diverse research projects, from first generation college students’ experiences using the library to the resources and repertoire knowledge catalogers rely on in their day-to-day work. I enjoyed the breadth of topics and methodologies, especially in the context of our own project, which examined academic librarians’ experiences with research and their successful development of research skills and confidence.