The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Feature

  • 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.

  • Introducing the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries on Social Media

    Facebook page
    The @RutgersHSL Facebook page.

    Matthew Bridgeman and Sarah Jewell are leading the teams behind the new Facebook and Instagram pages representing the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries. Matthew Bridgeman, an information and education librarian at Robert Wood Johnson, has both professional and personal experiences with Instagram. He began the Instagram account at Middlesex County College. In two years he grew the library’s presence and even had a post shared by the New York Public Library. The NYPL also has a great article on creating Instagram posts to be engaging called 20 Ways to Make People Fall in Love with your Instagram. He sees Instagram as a way to begin a discussion with students and faculty with creative photography.

    Sarah Jewell, an information and education librarian at the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences, primarily has experience doing social media for organizations outside the professional sphere. In the past, she has volunteered to do Facebook, Instagram, and WordPress work with writing and meditation-based organizations. “I see social media as a great vehicle for expressing passion about important work,” Sarah says. “When you express enthusiasm through this media, it is contagious, and it gets others excited about the work to be done.”

    Instagram
    The @RutgersHSL Instagram page.

    Some resources that Sarah uses to guide her social media efforts include the Rutgers Libraries Social Media Resources (which she helped create) and Young and Rossmann’s book titled Using Social Media to Build Library Communities. As the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries staff is just getting the Facebook and Instagram accounts off the ground, she has been reaching out to her regular contacts to spread the word about the new way to communicate with the libraries. She was thrilled to see the Rutgers School of Public Health post on both Facebook and Instagram a promotion of the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries pages.

    The primary goals of the Facebook and Instagram accounts are to promote library resources, services, and events to the Rutgers University community and to engage with the students, faculty, and staff of the seven schools under RBHS. The new Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries Facebook and Instagram accounts are off to a running start. The accounts’ plans are to keep a constant scheduled flow of content celebrating the students, faculty, and libraries from the schools of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. If you have not already followed them, connect with them now as they begin this adventure.

    Matthew Bridgeman and Sarah Jewell

  • This Month in the Agenda – July 1997

    Twenty-one years ago, all hands were on deck as the Libraries were gearing up for the implementation of a new library system. Sound familiar? Here’s a snapshot of the Agenda from July 1997.

    With a Little Love from Our Friends
    Agenda July 1997
    Merit awards for 1997. See any names you recognize?

    Below are some notes we recently received from members of the Friends of the Rutgers University Libraries. We thought you might like to see them too!

    Letter #1

    Yesterday (Sunday, May 25th) I walked in the rain to the Alexander Library. Absolutely everything was closed – the caravans at the bus stop, the food shop further up, clearly all the teaching buildings. I met not one person on College Avenue.

    But the library was open, and there were people going in and out, using it.

    We get a publication from the Library of the University of Michigan, which announces the library to be the center of the university. Truly, I believe yours is, and truly I thank you for acting as though it is!

    Letter #2

    I have been a Friend of the Library for several years….

    I continue to actively use several branches of the Library on a regular basis. I have been particularly impressed with the caliber of the reference librarians at the Dana Library. It has been a satisfying association for me.

    Thank you for your assistance.

    The Agenda 19, no. 13 (July 6, 1997)

    LIS Teams, Assemble!

    We have had a wonderful response to the several calls for people to become involved with the training program for the new LIS coming later this summer. Nearly seventy people from all over the library system have volunteered to participate in some aspect of the training program.

    We have compiled all the information from the completed “LIS Training Committee Questionnaires” returned to us by the volunteers and have worked with each of the LIS Implementation Chairs to place volunteers into the training teams for the Circulation/Reserves, Cataloging and OPAC modules. The remaining teams, Acquisitions/Fiscal Control and Serials Control, will be announced shortly.

    Based on volunteer’s questionnaire responses, each team will be divided into smaller working groups to write documentation, develop scripts, test scenarios, conduct sessions and assist trainees at the computers.

    The Agenda 19, no. 13 (July 6, 1997)

    Connie Abroad

    Partially funded by “Chun Hui Plan,” a government grant from China, Connie Wu at LSM went to China for a lecture tour in June. She and four presenters from other universities and information companies visited three top ranking universities in China: Fudan University, Zhejiang University and Hangzhou University. Connie presented three topics: (1) Internet Overview and Its Applications and Resources; (2) Electronic Publishing and Its Impacts; and (3) Challenges to Librarianship. More than 400 academic and public library directors and librarians from several provinces attended these workshops. Since her presentations interested the audience Connie has already received several invitations for next year’s lectures after she came back.

    The Agenda 19, no. 14 (July 20, 1997)

  • Sunsetting the Library Catalog Committee

    LCC wordle
    The LCC began as the Public Access Committee when the Libraries were planning to implement the new Unicorn library information system from Sirsi in 1997.

    With the implementation of Alma and Primo, the Rutgers University Libraries bid a fond farewell to the Library Catalog Committee. Recent LCC “emeriti” are: Stephanie Bartz (New Brunswick Libraries, chair), Natalie Borisovets (Rutgers–Newark/Dana), Melissa De Fino (Central Technical Services), Joseph Deodato (Shared User Services), John Maxymuk (Rutgers–Camden/Robeson), Bob Warwick (Integrated Information Systems, retired), and Yini Zhu (Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences/Smith).

    The committee began as the Public Access Committee (shortened to PAC) when the Libraries were planning to implement the new Unicorn library information system (LIS) from Sirsi in 1997, which replaced an aging Geac catalog and Innovative (III) acquisitions system. At that time, “PAC” was one of several subcommittees of the LIS Committee tasked with implementing the new system.

    The first meeting of the Public Access Committee was held in April 1997. Although the name of the chair was not recorded in the meeting minutes, in attendance were the following.

    • Emily Fabiano, Alexander Library
    • Harriet Hemmasi, Cataloging
    • Rhonda Marker, Cataloging
    • Tracey Meyer, Database Management
    • Pat Piermatti, Library of Science & Medicine
    • Bob Warwick, Systems Department
    • Mark Witteman, Systems Department (Unicorn systems administrator)

    By fall 1998, Ann Scholz-Crane (Robeson Library) was chair of the group and it was Ann who asked Sam McDonald to place PAC meeting notes on the web. Minutes from October 1998 through the final meeting in July 2017 were made available in Staff Resources.

    In 2000, the committee was revitalized and reconstituted under Harriet Hemmasi, then acting associate university librarian for Technical & Automated Services. It became the IRIS Public Access Committee (IPAC). A new charge was issued and new members were added. Just two years later, in 2002, the charge was once again revised as the committee was moved from technical services to public services under the aegis of Jeanne Boyle, associate university librarian for Public Services & Communications.

    The final major transition for the committee took place in 2011, when the Libraries discontinued the name “IRIS” for the library catalog. The committee, which had been under the leadership of Stephanie Bartz since 2005, received a revised charge and changed its name to Library Catalog Committee.

    During its long tenure and multiple transitions, there have been many, many others who have served on this committee. Thank you, each one!

    Stephanie Bartz and Rhonda Marker

  • Milestone Celebrations for Rutgers University Libraries Staff (2018)

    Back in April, we acknowledged the Libraries faculty who are celebrating milestone employment anniversaries in 2018. Today, we celebrate staff who have reached their own milestones. Congratulations to you all and thank you for all you do for the Libraries!

    10 Jonathan Embres (Robeson Library)

    Jennifer Holland (Collection Development and Management)

    Kim Kaiser (Technical and Automated Services)

    Maria Kostic (New Brunswick Libraries)

    Erica Parin (Libraries HR)

    Ed Smith (Technical and Automated Services)

    Katrina Zwaaf (Technical and Automated Services)
    20 Teodoro Oblad (Smith Library)

    Suzanne Posluszny (Technical and Automated Services)

    Yini Zhu (Smith Library)
    30 Caroline Foote (Dana Library)

    Dorothy Grauer (Dana Library)

    Susan Killough (Technical and Automated Services)

     

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  • This Month in the Agenda: May 1999

    Coming Full Circle
    newsletter
    The Agenda, May 2, 1999.

    As many of you know, a group called the Web Advisory Committee (WAC) has been working to redesign the Rutgers University Libraries’ website…. The Rutgers Libraries’ web pages provide information about library collections, services, and personnel and facilitate communication and work among library faculty and staff. The redesign of our website will produce the flexibility we need to accommodate our current and future digital library and give our users an information tool that is more intuitive to use. Specifically, WAC expects the new website to provide important new features such as the following: 1) better integration with the university’s recommended “look & feel” for websites, resulting in a shorter learning curve, 2) improved and more intuitive navigation, and 3) new sources such as the “Digital Library Projects” and “Friends and Supporters” pages.

    The Agenda 21, no. 9 (May 2, 1999)

    Destined for Success

    We are pleased to report that Fernanda Perrone of Special Collections and University Archives (SC/UA) has been awarded an undergraduate research fellow from the Vice President for Undergraduate Education’s Rutgers Undergraduate Research Fellows Program.

    The Undergraduate Research Fellow, Carlos J. Ron, will work with Fernanda on the “Documenting Inter-American Cooperation Project” and specifically on the Frances Grant Papers, which include the archives of the Inter-American Association for Democracy and Freedom and the Pan-American Woman’s Association.

    The Agenda 21, no. 9 (May 2, 1999)

    Lending a Hand

    Libraries Essay Contest #3 Winner
    Student Category

    This semester I am working on my Senior thesis. I had never really spoken to a Librarian at Dana and was, at first, a bit reluctant because they always seem so busy. I decided to approach the reference desk with a question on obtaining an obscure government pamphlet that was going to be helpful in writing my paper. Their pleasant attitude hit me like a tidal wave of fresh air. Two big smiles greeted me and I immediately felt very comfortable. I was so pleasantly surprised!

    I am used to living in a society where everyone is in a rush and not many people sincerely want to help. The Rutgers Librarians that helped me, that day, were quite the opposite. They showed great eagerness to help me and that’s something I really appreciate.

    The Agenda 21, no. 10 (May 16, 1999)

    Have a Reservation?

    The Electronic Reserves Working Group is happy to announce that RUL will start to provide electronic access to some documents on reserve this summer….. We will begin by providing electronic access to photocopies of sample exams, overheads, syllabi, problem sets, and lecture notes submitted by instructors for Reserves. Documents will be scanned on the Minolta PS 3000 in the Copy Center in New Brunswick, set up on the library’s web server, and delivered as Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) files in the Reserve module of IRIS. All Rutgers libraries will participate in the electronic reserve services….. Some libraries may scan and process documents for electronic reserves on-site in the future.

    The Agenda 21, no. 11 (May 30, 1999)

  • Communicators Network Social Media Panel

    Last month, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the Rutgers Communicators Network titled Social Media – Industry and Platform Trends for Owned and Paid Content. You can check out a recording of the event below:

    While some of the discussion may not be directly applicable for units with limited or nonexistent budgets for social media advertising, here are some of my broader takeaways for social media at the Libraries:

    • Developing a voice and building relationships. Ultimately, social media needs to be social. Developing a friendly and authentic voice can help us seem more approachable and available, and allow us to cultivate a sense of community around our accounts. Attending to this may, in the long run, prove more effective for our strategy than the successful implementation of any given campaign. We might even get a research question or two out of it!
    • Leveraging influencers. While there may not be many opportunities for us to develop formalized, paid partnerships with influencers such as those discussed in the panel (see here for an example of one of Mary Chayko’s students advertising for a hair product), we should still think about creatively leveraging user-generated content in our approach to social media. We also have a unique resource—namely, expertise—at our disposal. Is there a way for us to position our librarians and their research as influencers in the broader academic community on social media?
    • Understanding your audience and goals. As with any form of communication, understanding your audience is a key to success. Who are you trying to reach, and where are they likely to hang out online? What are the actions you ultimately want them to take? What would return on social media investment look like for your unit? Identifying the answers to these questions can help make your effort worthwhile.
    • Benchmarking. You may be interested in reading RivalIQ’s 2018 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report, which was discussed during the event. It has some useful information on best practices and trends in social media for higher education.

    Do you have your own ideas for how we can improve social media at the Libraries? Feel free to reach out and let me know.

  • Rutgers Day 2018

    Rutgers Day was last weekend and, by all accounts, it was another tremendous success. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped pull these great activities off! If you missed out on the fun, enjoy this collection of sights from our different locations.

    • group photo
      The theme of the RBHS booth this year was “Fishing for Quality Health Information.” Credit: Yingting Zhang.

  • Simplifying Routine Digital Projects

    poster
    The Digital Projects Template Working Group presented an interim report poster at the last State of the Libraries.

    Digital projects have been an integral part of the services that Rutgers University Libraries have provided over the past decade. Making some of our resources available online adds to the discovery and accessibility of those holdings, providing a valuable service to our patrons. The digitization of physical items also provides an additional layer of preservation, protecting the original item from additional wear, while ensuring the content lives on.

    In light of this, the Digital Projects Template Working Group was formed in September 2017 to streamline and simplify the process for individual units, empowering them with the knowledge to embark on their own routine digital projects as their resources permit.  We’ve worked hard during this time to document what types of items and collections make up a potential “routine” project; provide technical information on file formats and digitization standards; offer up minimum required descriptive metadata; and provide recommendations on rights statements. With this simplification documentation, we hope that there will be less of a bottleneck for routine digitization projects.

    While the Digital Projects Template Working Group has completed their work, we realize that libraries also need guidance about the process to begin carrying out this work. Cabinet determined that a group will develop a workflow for routine digital projects.  That effort is already under discussion.

    Central units will provide support for these routine digital projects in the areas of digital preservation assessment, accessibility, and search portal and website creation. Shared User Services can consult with directors and project managers to answer questions about whether a digital project is routine, or perhaps more complex. We encourage everyone to visit our website and review the recommended guidelines for digital projects.