The final numbers from Rutgers Giving Day are in and we are pleased to report that the Libraries raised over $12,000 from more than 60 donors. As usual, many of these gifts came from our own faculty and staff—so thank you all for your continued support!
We were also excited to learn that we received extra funds from challenges on social media.
Areas
Challenge(s) Won:
Award Total Amount:
Libraries– Camden
Lucky 21
$200
Libraries– University Wide
Scarlet Pride– social
$500
Libraries– Newark
Lucky 21
$100
As a tie-in to this year’s “Think Bigger” campaign, donors will be receiving a special acknowledgement letter and a light-up magnifier imprinted with the Rutgers University Libraries logotype.
Rutgers Giving Day donors will receive special acknowledgment letters for their gift from a library director.
They will also receive a light-up magnifier with the Libraries logo.
Thank you to all who made Rutgers Giving Day another success!
Glenn with ILL staffers Mary Belasco (l.) and Lilly Miller (r.) in 2005.
Glenn Sandberg will retire on August 1, 2018, after 30 years of service to the university. His last day in the office is June 1.
Glenn’s career at the Libraries began in 1988, when he was hired as the supervisor of the Media Department within the Laurie Music Library (now part of the Douglass Library) in New Brunswick. He became the supervisor of Access Services at the Library of Science and Medicine in Piscataway in 1999. Among his many contributions to the Libraries, Glenn has the distinction of having created “The place to go, when you need to know!”—a slogan for the Libraries he developed as a member of the Marketing/PR Team.
Glenn poses for a promotional photo in 2007.
Since 2004, Glenn has been the supervisor of Interlibrary Loan Services. Beginning his tenure in ILL at about the same time as the start of the E-ZBorrow service, Glenn is proud of the role he has played in bolstering Rutgers’ standing within the E-ZBorrow community. After Rutgers joined the CIC (now BTAA) in 2013, Glenn contributed to the adoption of the UBorrow service. In the last three years, Glenn has helped ensure the successful implementation of several major improvements to ILL services, including removal of copyright fees charged to ILL users, adoption of ReprintsDesk as an alternative article delivery service, and further integration into the Get it @ R service. Glenn also contributed his knowledge of ILL services to the ongoing implementation of Alma and Primo.
Glenn shows off the Libraries slogan he coined in 2008.
Glenn has deep ties with the university. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in German and music and received his doctoral degree in German from Rutgers University in 1995. He taught in the German Department as an adjunct faculty in New Brunswick from 1994 to 1997 and worked as a manager at the Rutgers University Foundation from 2001 to 2004.
Glenn served in the U.S. Army from 1984 to 1988 and received a certificate in Czech from the Defense Language Institute in 1985. Last, but not least, Glenn is a talented musician—he received a master’s degree in trumpet from the Julliard School in 1983.
Please join us in thanking Glenn for his decades-long service to the Libraries and wishing him all the best in his new adventure!
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!
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)
Teodoro Oblad (Smith Library)
Suzanne Posluszny (Technical and Automated Services)
Help us select the new QuickSearch logo! Click the image to take the survey.
Hello all –
I know I said we’d return to Frameworks this month, but events of the day (or month) have once again intervened. As we’ve seen from recent communications from the ExLibris Implementation Team, we are moving ahead full steam toward the June 1 go live date. I know many of you are preparing for the technical freeze and helping to communicate these changes to our users, but I write today with a different purpose.
We recently announced that the name of our search interface will be QuickSearch, and I am writing today to invite you to help us with the selection of a graphic to build recognition and visibility for our new service.
We want your input. You know your users and the Rutgers community – what they
like and dislike and what works for them.
We want to use this visual on our website and in marketing materials, so it has to be eye-catching and work in multiple formats. It will be used alongside messaging that emphasizes that QuickSearch allows users to search across our collections with greater efficiency, accuracy, and relevancy. With the help of the ExLibris Implementation Team, we have managed to whittle the options down to a top 7. We need your help to get this down to the final graphic.
So, with that in mind, please let us know:
What would be most appealing to Rutgers faculty and students?
What communicates the excitement of QuickSearch most clearly to you?
Which graphic most clearly matches your vision of what QuickSearch does?
Conversely, let us know:
What visuals simply don’t work in your opinion?
Which ones aren’t clear or don’t match the function of QuickSearch?
Is there anything confusing about the graphics? Would you mix and match any elements of the graphics to create a new graphic?
Or do you have a completely new concept you would like to share?
Opening Day at the Rutgers Gardens Farm Market is May 4.
Rutgers Gardens Farm Market
Friday, May 4, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Rutgers–New Brunswick
Opening day of the farmers market. Stop by for the fun including the Lettuce Festival and cooking demonstration. See which of your favorite vendors are back and who is new. Click here for more information.
The Black Organization of Students Celebrates their 50th anniversary on May 5.
Kick Off Celebration: Reflections on the Founding of BOS
Saturday, May 5, 5 – 9 p.m.
Paul Robeson Campus Center – Essex Room
Rutgers–Newark
The Black Organization of Students Alumni Association (BOSAA) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Organization of Students (BOS) with a dinner and awards ceremony. Alumni, students, and friends are invited to join in an evening of acknowledging the sisterly and brotherly love, respect, and struggles that the pioneers of diversity demonstrated during the late 1967-1968 historic event. Click here for more information.
Learn about battlefield preservation with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities on May 5.
History Preservation Workshop: Battlefield Preservation
Saturday, May 5, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Historical Society of Princeton and Princeton Battlefield State Park
“Landscapes of Conflict: Battlefield Preservation” will examine national, state, county, and municipal efforts at recognizing and preserving America’s fields of conflict. The day will include a morning of presentations from historians, archaeologists, and county planners and an afternoon battlefield tour. Part of the Continuing Education Program of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers University–Camden.
Practice mindfulness meditation at free noontime workshops across Rutgers–New Brunswick
Mindfulness Meditation
Tuesday, May 8, noon – 1 p.m. Busch Student Center
Wednesday, May 9, noon – 1 p.m. Student Activities Center
Thursday, May 10, noon – 1 p.m. Douglass Student Center
Rutgers–New Brunswick
Mindfulness is the art of being a compassionate observer of your own experience. Meditation practice helps us to achieve mindfulness and reduce stress. All are welcome – faculty, staff, and students. No previous experience required. Click here for more information.
The Shadows of Houses is on display at the Paul Robeson Galleries through May 26.
The Shadows of Houses
Through Saturday, May 26 Paul Robeson Galleries Rutgers–Newark
The Shadows of Houses is a three-person show featuring black and white photographs from Terry Boddie, Shakia Lewis, and Cesar Melgar. The title of exhibition is taken from Newark native Amiri Baraka’s poem “Legacy,” a mediation on history and home. Melgar’s street photography cast a sharp eye on the inhabitants and city of Newark. Click here for more information.
Dougls Lowy, MD, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute.
2018 Annual Retreat on Cancer Research in New Jersey
Thursday, May 24, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. College Ave Student Center Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research host a forum for clinicians, researchers, faculty and students to learn about the latest in cancer research and treatment. Click here for more information.
The implementation project continued to move forward as scheduled in April. We submitted the final migration form and link resolver form to Ex Libris. To address issues encountered during the Alma/Primo testing, we have been having weekly functional calls with Ex Libris and communicating with them constantly via the project’s Basecamp site. The Data Migration and System Integration Working Group has also been working hard on the third-party integration issues. The extract of Sirsi data for the final data load to Alma will start on May 5.
QuickSearchAnnouncements and News Page
Primo will be known as QuickSearch to the Rutgers community after we go live on June 1. In her recent messages to the university and RUL communities, Krisellen announced the release date of QuickSearch (June 1) and its impact on students and faculty. The Libraries also created a QuickSearch news page for the public. Please use the news page as a resource to answer user inquiries. Students and faculty can also submit questions or comments about QuickSearch directly to reference@rutgers.libanswers.com.
Upcoming Service Changes
In her message to RUL everyone, Krisellen also highlighted the following service changes that are coming up:
Acquisitions: There will be a freeze of acquisitions and cataloging activities (except reserve purchases) between May 5 and June 1. Normal acquisitions functions will resume after June 1, but we will prioritize the purchase of course reserves and faculty requests. The process of allocating funds for selector-initiated acquisitions will resume in the fall, which is in line with previous years.
Reserves: Starting May 5, we will have a special process in place to accept and place reserve orders, but we anticipate the turnaround time will be longer than usual. Reserves that are placed after May 5 will not transfer automatically to Alma and will be manually transferred after June 1. Additional summer programs like EOF may be similarly affected.
Circulation and ILL: From May 29 to May 31, we will transition to an Alma offline client for circulation. This step is necessary to populate Alma with existing circulation data prior to launch. Users will not experience down time, but during this three-day period, Access Services staff will stop using Sirsi and instead work with the Alma client. On June 1, the data from the offline client will be merged back into Alma, so there will be no data loss and everything will be synced. This will also impact Interlibrary Loan, as there will be potential delays and interruptions in processing loans and borrows of physical items. More information on these workflows and training opportunities will be available soon.
These temporary or short-term service changes are necessary for the successful implementation of Alma and Primo. We thank all the library faculty and staff for the help to minimize disruption.
Primo Training Schedule
Discovery Services Librarian Joseph Deodato recently announced a Primo/QuickSearch training schedule (see following) for public services librarians and staff. Many library faculty and staff have registered to attend the training sessions. Even though the registration is now closed, Joseph welcomes colleagues who did not register to attend any of the sessions. Please contact Joseph if you have any questions.
Chantel Harris (l.) at the ceremony honoring her great-great grandmother, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, who founded the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Chantel Harris, library associate and student coordinator at the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers–Camden, was a special guest at the ceremonial dedication and unveiling of a school bench at Charles Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri, in honor of her great-great-grandmother, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle. Lyle was the originator and founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated (AKA). Chantel received a proclamation from the mayor of St. Louis, as well as a resolution from the Board of Aldermen naming April 5, 2018 “Ethel Hedgeman Lyle Day.”
Lyle graduated from Sumner High School in 1904 and founded AKA in 1908 at Howard University. Chantel is pictured with the sorority’s international president, Dr. Dorothy Buckhanan Wilson, central regional director Kathy Walker-Steele, and members of the Board of Directors.
The USPS is considering an Ethel Hedgeman Lyle 2019-2020 USPS Forever Postage Stamp.
IJS founder Marshall Stearns and Quincy Jones at the Acropolis.
A new PBS documentary featuring archival material from the Institute of Jazz Studies is slated to premiere at 10 p.m. on Friday, May 4. Here’s a quick synopsis from PBS.org:
“The Cold War and civil rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their racially diverse band members faced a painful dilemma: How could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?”
Congratulations to Tad Hershorn, Adriana Cuervo, and all of our IJS colleagues who contributed to this project. We can’t wait to see the premiere!
Special Collections News Roundup
Helene van Rossum’s new children’s book is titled “The Best Mom in the Universe.”
Lots of great news coming out of Special Collections and University Archives lately:
The finding aid for the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive is now live. The collection continues to grow, and the finding aid will be updated periodically.
Speaking of which, the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive has a brand new Facebook page! Be sure to head over and give them a like.
A new finding aid is also available for the New Brunswick Vertical File in the Sinclair New Jersey collection. This collection of primarily printed material documents a vast array of aspects of New Brunswick history, mostly between 1935 and 1960 and arranged by subject. Special thanks go to School of Communication & Information graduate student Louise Lobello for her work on the finding aid.
The latest children’s picture book by public services and outreach archivist Helene van Rossum has just been published. Written in Dutch, it’s titled The Best Mom in the Universe. Check it out (along with her other children’s books) over on Helene’s blog.
Busting Students’ Stress
New Stressbusters flyer templates are available from the Communications Department.
It’s finals week, which of course means that #STRESSBUSTERS are back at libraries across Rutgers–New Brunswick. But Rutgers–Camden is joining in the fun this semester, too, with the first-ever pet therapy session at Paul Robeson Library slated for Friday, May 4. Good luck to our colleagues at Robeson! Hopefully this is the beginning of a long and successful tradition.
Are you planning your own stress-relieving finals activities? The Communications Department has created new flyer templates to help promote your events. Check them out here: T:\CENTRAL\Templates\Signage Templates\stressbusters\word templates
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.
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.
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 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.
The theme of the RBHS booth this year was “Fishing for Quality Health Information.” Credit: Yingting Zhang.
Yingting Zhang marshals the prize wheel. Credit: Yingting Zhang.
Bob Vietrogoski oversees the young anglers. Credit: Judy Cohn.
Building healthy plates! Credit: Yini Zhu.
A group of information fishermen hard at work. Credit: Mary Ann Koruth
The wacky waving arm inflatable guy was an attraction at the Dana Library tent. Credit: Mark Papianni.
Elsa Alves assists a young visitor. Credit: Mark Papianni.
Ayesha Salim and Fatima Cunha pose with the new IJS banner. Credit: Mark Papianni.
Buttons, candy, prizes, and information–Steph Mikitish and Tad Hershorn had it all under control. Credit: Mark Papianni.
Quite the crowd at the Dana tent! Credit: Elsa Alves.
The Wheel of Knowledge was a primary attraction at the Voorhees Mall location in New Brunswick. Credit: Jim Niessen.
Button making was also a hit in New Brunswick. Credit: Janet Croft.
The Lautenberg exhibit was open for visitors! Credit: Tara Maharjan.
At Rutgers–Camden, the theme was a celebration of Paul Robeson’s 120th birthday. Credit: Regina Koury.
Jessica Pellien spotted doing tai chi in front of Robeson Library. Credit: Regina Koury.
The Scarlet Raptor takes advantage of the Paul Robeson selfie station. Credit: Regina Koury.
Button making was a crowd-pleaser in Camden. Credit: Regina Koury.
Julie Tozer represents the Camden County library. Credit: Regina Koury.
Paul Robeson’s birthday card received signatures in several different languages. Credit: Regina Koury.
Rutgers Giving Day donors will receive special acknowledgment letters for their gift from a library director.
