The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Articles

  • Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook

    Rutgers University Libraries to Screen Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook
    Followed by Panel of Experts
    National Voter Registration Day
    Tuesday, September 22, 7 pm – 8:30 pm

    “When you deprive people of the right to vote, the vote being the very fiber of this wonderful quilt we call a democracy…When you begin to tear away the threads, saying this person can’t vote, that person can’t vote…the next thing know, you will not have a democracy.” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

    The Rutgers University Libraries (New Brunswick) are observing National Voter Registration Day, September 22, by airing the documentary film Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook, an award-winning documentary that exposes the nefarious tactics used to suppress the vote and serves to spark discussion on the actions needed to protect our democracy. This event is part of a fall series to encourage campus-wide dialogue about the 2020 election. The American Issues Institute, producer of the film, will host the RU screening via its Zoom Webinar platform for a week prior to the screening, then from 6 – 7 pm on September 22, followed by a panel discussion from 7 – 8:30 pm about the issues. We encourage students, faculty, staff and community members to join the conversation.

    Discussion panelists will include:

    • Mac Heller and Tim Smith, the film’s producers
    • Lorraine Minnite, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Department Chair at Rutgers Camden and expert on voting rights. Author of The Myth of Voter Fraud, and Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters
    • David Greenberg, Professor of Media Studies and History, Rutgers-New Brunswick and author of a forthcoming book on John Lewis
    • Christabel Cruz, director of NEW Leadership® at the Center for American Women and Politics.
    • Chenjerai Kumanyika, Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Studies, Rutgers, Peabody winning producer of Uncivilpodcast and social justice advocate
    • David Goodman, Vice Chair, Andrew Goodman Foundation

    Following the event, the library will provide a link to a recording of the session and make it available to the Rutgers community.  It’s an opportunity for all of us to energize students, faculty and staff at this critical moment in our nation’s history when we’re isolated from each other but eager to join in discussions about the issues that will shape our collective future.

    Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, says of RIGGED, “I cannot think of a better moment for this powerful film. It reinforces the reality of voter suppression, which I think so many more Americans have begun to recognize and understand.”

    To register to watch the video and participate in the Zoom event, click here.

    To learn more about Election 2020, see the Library’s new LibGuide, produced by Sherri Farber and Nancy Kranich.

    For more information, contact Nancy Kranich, nancy.kranich@rutgers.edu

    RIGGED Trailer – 2 mins.
    https://vimeo.com/296045604 

    Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook – with Jeffrey Wright (NOV 2019)
    70 Minutes
    https://vimeo.com/371681258
    password: rigged

  • New Content for Library Tutorials!

    The NimblyWise and Credo Reference Library instruction tutorials have undergone some changes and enhancements for the fall.

    For Credo Reference:

    • The addition of APA Citations 7th edition tutorial.
    • The addition of AMA Citations – A tutorial, which includes a video and checkpoint assessments for practice, on American Medical Association (AMA) style has been added to the Understanding and Using Research Sources section.
    • The addition of Gray Literature – The Health Science Resources section has a new tutorial, which includes a video and checkpoint assessments for practice, on gray literature (information from non-commercially published sources that can have use in research, such as conference proceedings and dissertations).
    • The Revisions of PubMed Material – the PubMed tutorial, including the screencasts, has been refreshed where relevant to reflect PubMed’s redesign.

    Quiz questions on the new topics of AMA and gray literature have been added to appropriate assessment libraries.

    For NimblyWise:

    For the Library Tutorials web page:

    • Citation Styles – New tutorial on APA Citations 7th
    • New quiz on Chicago Manual of Style 17th
    • Getting Started with Research
    • New video on “Framing a Problem” and a new quiz on “Research Strategies”.
    • Presenting Research and Data -The previous video, tutorial, and quiz on Synthesizing Information have been replaced by a video on “Synthesis” and a tutorial and quiz on “Synthesizing Information for Academic Writing”.
    • Using Critical Thinking and Logic – New video on “Why Thinking Matters” and new tutorials on “Logical Reasoning” and “Analyzing Information”.

    Evaluating Information – The video “How to Identify and Debunk Fake News” and the quiz on “Fake News” have been retired by the vendor.

    For questions about Library tutorials, contact Maria Breger at maria.breger@rutgers.edu

    View the complete list of the Libraries Teaching & Learning topics.

  • Communications Department Site Overhaul

    One of my projects for the summer was transferring the Communications Department site off the old apps.libraries platform and over to the new Staff Resources site. It is now located here: staff.libraries.rutgers.edu/communications.

    On the site you will find a variety of useful resources, from logo files and presentation templates, to flyers and signage, to style guidelines, to helpful tips and tricks. You may be particularly interested in the new Event Planning Guide (updated with a section on best practices for online events!) and the downloadable Zoom/WebEx backgrounds.

    Please have a look around and let me know what you think. I’m always looking for feedback on improvements and suggestions for new content. Thanks!

  • Recapping Summer SAPAC

    In a year of many firsts, this summer saw RUL’s first Summer SAPAC talk series. After a discussion in the Spring Central Forum, SAPAC co-chairs Janet Croft and Bart Everts decided to send out a call for summer talks. SAPAC talks are a way for library faculty and staff to discuss research, programming, innovations, and more with a friendly audience of colleagues, and Summer SAPAC turnout was high. Bart Everts from the Robeson Library hosted the talks.

    6/9: A Modest Proposal: Trusted Pick-Up Points for Interlibrary Loan for Distant Users
    Janet Brennan Croft

    6/23 An Environmental Scan of Artists’ Book Collections: An Ontology for Visualization
    Sonia Yaco

    7/22 Digital Badging
    Grace Agnew, Mei Ling Lo, Ryan Womack

    8/11 The Library Freedom Institute: Becoming a Privacy Advocate
    Katie Anderson

    8/14 Closing the Transactional Distance in an Online Graduate Course through the Practice of Embedded Librarianship
    Leslin H. Charles

    8/18 “Agitation of the Question”: James McCune Smith’s Nomination for Fellowship to the New York Academy of Medicine, 1847
    Robert Vietrogoski

    8/25 From Digital to Computational: The Current and Near-Future State of Technology and Data Storage and How We Manage our Virtual Lives
    Isaiah Beard

     

     

  • Personal Librarian Program Enters Its Second Year

    Student success librarian Samantha Kannegiser of the Paul Robeson Library kicked off the Personal Librarian Program, now in its second year, on August 28 with a “Meet Your Personal Librarian” event. The Personal Librarian Program is run in collaboration with the Student Success Coach office, part of the Department of Student Academic Success on the Camden campus. Through this program, the library personally connects with over 400 students per year.

    As part of this program, our Scarlet Scholar students have a dedicated librarian throughout their first academic year. Personal Librarians Katie Anderson, Samantha Kannegiser, Julie Still, and Zara Wilkinson are each paired with a Student Success Coach to provide targeted outreach to a select cohort of students, sending timely emails with tips, tutorials, library updates, and events. Library processes, terminology, resources, and services can overwhelm new students who are unfamiliar with academic libraries. Our goal is to relay information to students when it is most needed, making them comfortable asking questions of librarians, navigating library resources, and attending library events with their peers.

    We are looking forward to another year connecting with our students through the Personal Librarian Program and hope to eventually expand the initiative to include more of our first-year undergraduates.

  • Rutgers Connect: Recent Changes and Enhancements

    Some recent changes and enhancements in Rutgers Connect have been announced by OIT. Several are highlighted and described here. Please do not hesitate to contact IIS at support@rulhelp.rutgers.edu if you have questions or comments about these enhanced or new features, or anything related to Rutgers Connect. 

    Login Upgrade:

    Rutgers Connect now allows you to log in with any of your aliases. You are no longer limited to logging in with NetID@libraries.rutgers.edu, and can now use any of the email addresses connected to your account including NetID@libraries.rutgers.edu, NetID@rutgers.edu, or firstname.lastname@rutgers.edu 

    Send Later Option in OWA:

    Microsoft has added a new “Send later” feature for Outlook on the web (OWA) that allows you to schedule your messages to be sent later. This feature was previously only available in the Outlook Desktop Client. To access this feature while composing a message, navigate to the dropdown arrow beside the Send button, click on the ‘Send later’ option, and you will see a pop-up that will allow you to choose the date and time for scheduling the email. Until the message is sent, it will appear in your Drafts folder where you may change or cancel the message.

    End Meetings and Appointments Early in OWA:

    Already available in the Desktop Client, Microsoft is now adding the “end appointments and meetings earlier” setting to Outlook on the web. This setting allows you to end all the events you schedule earlier, with a pre-determined time for events that are under or over 60 minutes. This buffer helps you take breaks in back-to-back meetings. This can be enabled in calendar settings, under the “Events and Invitations” tab.

    OneDrive File Size Increase:

    Microsoft has increased the maximum size from 15GB to 100GB for files uploaded to OneDrive. For uploading very large files, Microsoft recommends using its OneDrive Desktop client. 

    Microsoft Teams New Meeting Experience:

    Several new features have been implemented in the new Teams experience. To enable them, select your profile picture at the top of the Teams app, then Settings > General. Select “Turn on new meeting experience” and restart Teams. The new experience includes features such as pop-out meetings by default, meeting control changes, user interface changes, large gallery view (up to 49 streams), and Together mode. Detailed information about these changes can be found here.

    Screen Recording Now Available in Stream:

    Directly from Microsoft Stream, you can now create short screen recordings of up to 15 minutes, including your camera and microphone, without additional software. To utilize this feature, Select Create > Record screen in Microsoft Stream. More details can be found here.

    View Sign-ins:

    Microsoft now lets you view your sign-ins via https://mysignins.microsoft.com/. Though this information has always been logged, you can now view your own recent activity.

     

  • Notes from Libraries HR

    Past Workshops

    Returning to Rutgers Safely:  Wear Your Mask, Watch Your Distance & Wash Your Hands

    Information Sessions on COVID-19 Health and Safety Precautions were held earlier this month hosted in partnership with Rutgers Environmental Health and Safety (REHS).  Subject experts and instructors Peter Skeels, REHS, Manager of Health and Safety Services and Christine D’Angelo, MPH, Health and Safety Specialist II, spoke about safety precautions intended to mitigate the risks of the spread of COVID-19 as staff, faculty, and certain students begin to return to work on campus and offered knowledgeable tips.

    The sessions were intended for employees returning to buildings onsite.   Attendees had the opportunity to choose among various sessions and ask questions.   All staff and faculty are expected to follow university policies and guidelines in order to sustain a healthy campus.  It is important that we all diligently adhere to these health precautions. If you have any questions or need more information, please contact REHS at 848-445-2550.

    As a reminder, the state is requiring additional compliance training regardless of any previous medical, health, or professional training you may have taken. The specific module can be accessed through your compliance training page under “Safety Short: Coronaviruses and COVID-19”:  https://rutgersu.percipio.com

    Additional University-wide COVID-19 Information can be found in the Returning to Rutgers guide and here for health and safety.

    Understanding the Manager’s Role Under FFCRA

    Earlier this month, essential training on understanding the manager’s role in employee leave options under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”) and understanding the manager’s role in Accommodations, was provided in a recorded presentation to supervisors.  The session was intended to explain university policy as it relates to leaves of absence to ensure supervisors are giving the correct information and support to employees.

    Employees who are expected to return to the workplace and who wish to seek a reasonable accommodation, should contact Office of Employment Equity (for Staff) or Academic Labor Relations (for Faculty).

    Supervisors had the opportunity to choose to attend various virtual drop-in sessions and ask questions hosted by Libraries HR.

    Employees with specific questions should make appointments by contacting Libraries HR:

    Michele Petosa, Coordinator of Human Resources at (848)-932-5949 or email rulhr@rutgers.edu

    Erica Parin, Administrative Assistant at (848)-932-5947 or email rulhr@rutgers.edu

    Additional information from the NJDOL, DOL, and University Human Resources is below:

    A message from Occupational Health on Influenza Vaccinations:

    “Occupational Health remains committed to keeping our faculty and staff safe during this global COVID-19 pandemic.  We strongly encourage all Rutgers employees to receive a flu shot this year.  Those employees who have not returned to campus should receive their vaccine at their local pharmacy which is provided at no cost with most medical insurances.  For those currently on campus, we will have 3 curbside outdoor flu clinics at the Hurtado Health Center located in New Brunswick.  We will partner again with Walgreens to assist with providing vaccinations at these clinics, so employees should bring their medical insurance cards at the time of the visit.  Occupational Health will provide any uninsured employee with the vaccine free of charge.  As parking and hours are limited, on campus employees may also consider receiving the vaccine at a local pharmacy.  Due to COVID-19 infection control concerns, this year we will not be able to schedule any off site vaccination clinics.  All graduate students should contact Student Health for their flu shot.”

    The curbside outdoor flu clinics will be located in New Brunswick, at this time no clinics are currently scheduled for Newark or Camden.    Additional information will be shared as we learn more, including dates and times—Be on the lookout for announcements from Libraries HR!

    Rutgers Occupational Health offices by location:

    • Rutgers–New Brunswick, Rutgers–Newark, and Rutgers–Camden: 848-932-8254
    • Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) Newark: 973-972-2900
    • RBHS New Brunswick/Piscataway and University Correctional Health Care: 848-445-0123 ext. 2
    • Robert Wood Johnson Medical School faculty and staff: 732-235-6559 

    Stay safe!

    Upcoming Reminders from Libraries HR

    As you prepare to embrace the Fall semester, reminders for employees can be found below as a new academic year is upon us!

    • Rutgers Employee First Initiative—University Human Resources is pleased to announce the Rutgers Employees First initiative. This initiative is intended to provide employees with tools and resources to support and promote employee wellness and build communities of interest around topics relevant to your needs and interests. To explore resources, please visit
    • Online Harassment Prevention Annual Training—All employees should receive an email from “Skillsoft”, a third party vendor, requesting you to complete online training regarding mandatory Harassment Prevention Education. The university uses a third party vendor, “Skillsoft”, as a provider of cloud-based learning and online training for it’s annual harassment prevention education.   Employees must complete this annual mandatory training no later than November 6, 2020.   If you have not yet received your personalized training link, employees may complete the training by logging in with their NetID This training is done on annual basis and is mandatory.
    • COVID-19 Compliance Training: The state is requiring mandatory compliance training regardless of any previous medical, health, or professional training you may have taken. Employees must complete this mandatory training by logging in with their NetID here.  The specific module can be accessed through your compliance training page under “Safety Short: Coronaviruses and COVID-19”:  https://rutgersu.percipio.com
    • Ethics Armor system-Outside Activity Questionnaire (OAQ)–As a reminder, all University faculty and staff members must complete an Outside Activity Questionnaire (OAQ) in the Ethics Armor system in accordance with University Policy.
    • Rutgers University employees (including legacy UMDNJ employees) should update their emergency contact information, home address, phone number(s), and or legal name changes with the Human Resources & Payroll system in your myRutgers Portal as follows:
    • Voluntary Self ID – Ethnicity/Race–We encourage you to take a moment to update your Race/Ethnicity demographic information. Although this two-item questionnaire is voluntary, we hope that you choose to complete it. The data from this survey helps us to build a modern and diverse workforce. Having the ability to benchmark our success in our hiring practices aids us in many ways. It helps us plan for our future state, as well as ensures federal and state affirmative action requirements are being met.
      • Please visit the myRutgers Portal at https://my.rutgers.edu/. Upon login, go to the Employee Self Service tab and click on Ethnic Groups under Personal Information to complete this short questionnaire.

    Any questions or concerns, please contact Libraries HR.

    Best wishes for good health and a safe year!

     

  • LibCal Isn’t Just Hours Anymore

    Many of you have heard of the LibCal application from Springshare, LLC, but did you know that it does more than one thing? LibCal is actually made up of five modules – Hours, Spaces/Seats, Appointments, and Events/Calendars. Each of these modules have benefit for libraries, librarians, students, faculty, and staff.

    RUL has been using the Hours module for several years to display the hours that each library, library unit and desk is open. The website homepage displays building hours for the current day, as well as links to the Camden, NBL, Newark and RBHS libraries. At the moment, all library buildings are marked as Closed.

    We’ve used the Spaces module to accept and track reservations of different types of spaces in our libraries. If you’re familiar with Group Study Rooms online reservations for nine of our libraries, you have seen Spaces. We can define different categories of Spaces. Alexander Library’s One Button Studio is a specialized type of Space that has its own category. We created a third category for the Click and Collect service.  After patrons use QuickSearch to find and charge out materials, they receive a link to reserve a time to pick-up their materials. Reserving that time is done in the LibCal Spaces module. A recent enhancement to the Spaces module is the Seats add-on. This feature allows specific seats to be reserved in libraries but is currently not used at Rutgers because our buildings are not open for library services.

    Some library employees have begun using the Appointments module, which enables staff to publicize time when they are available to meet with patrons. Currently, these meetings are for online appointments only. Rutgers faculty, librarians, staff, students, or non-Rutgers researchers can request an appointment.  When our libraries are again open, the Appointments module can facilitate scheduling on-site appointments at any of the campus libraries.  RUL staff can publicize their available hours on individual calendars, or be grouped by location or function, such as RBHS Librarians. You can see some current appointment calendars at https://libcal.rutgers.edu/appointments.

    We are just beginning to make use of the Events module. This feature allows us to set up calendars for any type of event at the Libraries. Some examples are RUL workshops, student instruction, RUL-wide events, and even lectures that are open to the public. As with appointments, this module operates with calendars and reservations. Events are displayed on calendars, and reservations can be accepted for events that require them. An example of NBL’s workshop calendar is at https://libcal.rutgers.edu/calendar/nblworkshops.

    For more information about LibCal and how it can help you provide library services to the students and faculty at Rutgers, contact the LibCal Admin, Marty Barnett.

  • Website Redesign Project Update – September 2020

    The website redesign project team is close to completing baseline usability testing, examining how student and faculty users complete common tasks on our site. Through this study, we’re gaining a better understanding of where usability problems lie and how we should prioritize and present various pieces of content on the site. Listening to users speak their thought process aloud is very enlightening, allowing us to learn a lot about their site usage and perceptions even beyond the steps they take to complete the assigned tasks. We’ve even learned a bit about what we’re doing right!

    As with the brand and messaging survey, we were happy to see a huge amount of interest in usability testing across units and user communities, and we’ve gathered a lot of valuable data that is steering how we move forward with the design of each site. We’ve also gathered a pool of people who were unable to participate in this study but are interested in being involved in future studies, which will make our next outreach efforts more streamlined.

    Local Library Owner groups are currently meeting with NewCity to workshop some prototype ideas, informed by analyses of all the discovery and audience research data gathered to date: stakeholder interviews, analytics, brand and messaging workshops and surveys, and usability/perception testing. These prototypes are just pen-and-paper outlines so far; NewCity will take a lot of inspiration and ideas from them, then will develop some more detailed and concrete options for us to explore. Over the course of the fall semester, we’ll get a real sense of how the sites are going to look and function, and content development will begin.

    We’ll be presenting at a central forum sometime early in the fall semester, so look out for an announcement about a date and time for that presentation.

    As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.

  • Ex Libris Implementation Team Update – September 2020

    The HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) provides digital access to a significant portion of our titles held in print during temporary and involuntary disruptions to normal library collections services. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how patrons access and use library collections; to align with state recommendations and promote public safety in our library spaces, users are currently unable to freely browse and borrow from our physical collections. These restrictions allow us to offer a digital replacement for our print copies from the HathiTrust repository. Access to these titles is based on our print holdings and because the digital access offered by HathiTrust is provided in lieu of our print items, we cannot circulate both “copies” simultaneously to comply with copyright. For this reason, personal delivery and click and collect request options are not available for items with full text electronic access.

    Compliance with copyright also informs some of the features of the HathiTrust ETAS reading experience. Users must “check out” the digital copy for a short period of time to access. This provides a controlled experience that restricts the number of simultaneous users. When users are done browsing the item, they have the option to return the item right away to free it up for other users or to retain the checkout for a period of time. The material will automatically renew during active use and expire after 12 hours of inactivity. After an hour of inactivity, the title becomes eligible for new checkouts but will continue to default to the initial user if there are no checkout requests from other users. Users cannot print or download from materials held in the HathiTrust ETAS, but these items are eligible for chapter scanning and interlibrary loan.

    HathiTrust ETAS provides safe and immediate access to many of our print titles during our temporary service disruptions. Rutgers is periodically reevaluated for access to the HathiTrust ETAS and we will no longer be eligible for this service once users are able to freely access services and collections.

    HathiTrust provides detailed information about the ETAS on their website (https://www.hathitrust.org/ETAS-Description) including an information page that is specifically aimed at user questions (https://www.hathitrust.org/ETAS-User-Information#FAQ).