New Brunswick Chancellor Edwards gifted each faculty and staff member of the Libraries with a small commemorative bell and provided us with funds toward an event to recognize the efforts of our colleagues throughout the anniversary year. So, we planned a picnic!
Thanks to his generosity and additional funds from the central administration of the Libraries, we were able to rent the log cabin and picnic area of Rutgers Gardens for the afternoon. Our colleagues donated their time for set up and break down of the event; supplied lawn games for us to enjoy; and led short nature walks through the gardens. And of course, the ice breaker BINGO gave us all opportunities to meet our colleagues and a chance to win a wonderful prize package of Libraries’ swag. It was truly a group effort and we owe a big thank you to everyone who helped to plan and make this day incredibly special. We had well over 150 of our colleagues in attendance and every unit was well-represented. Thank you especially to our colleagues in Camden and Newark for making the trip.
We were also honored to have Chancellor Edwards in attendance and to give a few words of thanks to the Libraries. He is a big fan of what we do and that was evident in his short remarks.
I hope you enjoy this slideshow of photos from the picnic.
Save the date for Open Textbook Network Workshop – November 18, 2016
Rutgers University Libraries are excited to host a two-hour workshop for faculty which will be led by the Open Textbook Network, which is a national alliance of higher education institutions committed to improving access, affordability, and academic success through the use of open textbooks. The workshop will take place in New Brunswick, but teleconferencing will be available to other locations. Faculty who attend this workshop will learn more about the pedagogical benefits of open textbooks, as well as discover open textbooks in their field. They will also have the opportunity to review an existing open textbook and receive a stipend ($200).
Counterfeit Caesars at the Zimmerli
Tim Corliss teamed up with classics professor Corey Brennan on a new display of counterfeit coins from the Ernst Badian Collection of Roman Republican Coins. Counterfeit Caesars: The Criminal Genius of Coin Forger Carl Wilhelm Becker (1772–1830) is on display at the Zimmerli Art Museum through February 6, 2017.
Buttonmaking event at Alexander Library
On Thursday, November 10th, Alexander Library will host a buttonmaking event for students and the Rutgers community from 3 to 4 p.m. Using our new buttonmakers, they can create a button and take it home. Students can bring an image or color one on-site. Paper & coloring utensils will be available to create customized designs at the event. Pre-made buttons will also be available for taking home. This event is co-sponsored by the Learning & Engagement Team, the Art Library, and Special Collections and University Archives.
Cambridge Structural Database and RUL Data Management Services
Co-sponsored by the CCDC and Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, this workshop will present information about the Cambridge Structural Database, as well as data management best practices and data management services available through the Libraries. The second half of the presentation will be a hands-on demonstration of the uses of the CSD. Please register for one or both parts of the workshop.
The Legacy of Robert Moevs concert
Jonathan Sauceda has teamed up with the Mason Gross School of the Arts to plan a celebratory concert of the modernist composer who taught at Rutgers University from 1964 to 1991. The Legacy of Robert Moevs is a free event taking place Sunday, November 13, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. at Richard H. Shindell Choral Hall, inside Mortensen Hall on the Douglass Campus. It will feature the music of Moevs, as well as composer and sound artist Judith Shatin and Steven Kemper.
Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries Welcomes “Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations beyond Borders”
This fall, the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries in the Mabel Smith Douglass Library will welcome the 2016-17 Estelle Lebowitz Endowed Visiting Artist Exhibition, Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations Beyond Borders. The exhibit contains selected highlights of textile, sculptural, 2-dimensional, and video works from the traveling exhibition Transcommunality.
In this column last month, I talked about changes in the organization that were designed to separate central and local responsibilities and to improve our information control functions, particularly in relation to the website, discovery infrastructure, and collections. Shifting the coordinating functions for shared users services from RIS to the newly formed Shared User Services department has created an independent central unit that will work equally with all of the Directors to establish priorities for the website, discovery, shared reference services, and digital projects across the University.
This month, I want to follow up on a second round of organizational changes designed to similarly clarify central/local responsibilities and this time to also focus on the coordination of information related to collections. Previously, the AUL for Collection Development and Management (CDRM) did not have a direct reporting relationship with the units that acquired and managed collections. This reduced opportunities for coordination and accountability.
The changes announced in October will significantly improve the transparency of our practices and decisions by creating teams that are focused on different aspects of collections—acquisitions, holdings management, interlibrary loan, and collections processing.
So, what happened and who is affected?
DTS has been redefined as Collection Services and Resource Sharing (CSRS). This new unit, reporting to the AUL/CDRM, will include ILL and provide an integrated view of acquisitions where ILL is considered a strategy for providing access to content. Shifting the ILL unit from RIS to CDRM has the added benefit of further clarifying central and local decision-making.
To keep the efforts of the newly defined CSRS focused on the complexities of acquisitions, the Holdings Management Unit (HMU) will move from the department to report directly to the AUL/CDRM. In the future, we will look for ways to use the mountains of valuable information that is captured in CSRS to formalize an assessment function. When it is established, this function will work closely with the HMU which relies heavily on information about collection use for its operations.
Not all of the DTS employees moved to CSRS. Some employees became a part of CTS, thus consolidating most of the physical resource workflow processing in that department.
With these changes, we have created an organization that aligns much better with the University’s structure and with our RCM budget requirements. We have created a single unit that is completely focused on managing the central components of collections from acquisitions to holdings management. And, while there are still some details related to access services and some committees that need to be addressed, the major universitywide functions of RIS have officially shifted to central units. Although RIS did an excellent job coordinating shared services, there was always ambiguity regarding decision-making within the unit. Hopefully, these changes will provide more clarity and allow New Brunswick Libraries, together with Special Collection and University Archives, to establish their unique identity.
The Mathematical Sciences and Physics Library included separate prizes for their student workers and library users.
This Halloween season the Mathematical Sciences and Physics Library asked and answered an important question: how many mathematics, engineering, or pharmacy students does it take to figure out how many peanut and peanut butter M&M’s are in a jar?
From October 17 to October 31 the library held a candy guessing contest for both their student employees and library users–6 lucky winners in total were declared on November 1.
According to L. Melanie Miller, the students have used many different methods and tools to put forward their best guess.
“What is most fascinating, is watching how a number of students have used ruler’s, calculators and several different calculations to figure out how many pieces of candy there are in the jars,” said Miller.
She also notes that a number of the student workers collaborated to help each other figure it out. Miller describes the scene, saying, “they measured the width, length and circumference of the Jars and even went so far as to include the size and shape of the candy into their calculation.”
An example of one student’s candy counting equation taking into account the diameter and height of the jar measured in candy.
Needless to say, this has been a fun activity for both users and staff. From funny discussions about the choice of candy — what was it about peanut M&Ms? Why not choose plain ones? To last ditch efforts to coerce or persuade the librarians to reveal the correct number of M&M’s, the users and students workers who participated made this a great program.
Interaction of Color on display at Rutgers Art Library. Photo credit: Megan Lotts.
Rutgers Art Library recently unearthed a 1963 copy of a book by Josef Albers, Interaction of Color. The 1963 copy is special, in part, because of its size and format. It was, according to Yale University Press, originally published “as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates.” There were only 2000 original copies made and they sold out quickly. Some copies of this valuable book have made it to auction in recent years.
Following this limited run, Interaction of Color was released in smaller format books (shown in the photo above is art librarian Megan Lotts’ version from the 1990s) and eventually an app from Yale University Press.
The book was on display at the Art Library as part of the launch for the coloring book and will be put to good use in several courses in the spring, according to Lotts.
“I personally feel that this is a spectacular example of the evolution of a book, and will definitely be showing this off to my Byrne seminar in the spring, as well as the Color classes out of Mason Gross Visual Arts. I’ve been fortunate to show this book off to many people from the Zimmerli, MGVA, and arts enthusiasts since we have found it. This book really leaves a lot of mouths dropping.”
Back in August, Instagram announced a new feature called Stories. Similar to their counterparts on Snapchat, Instagram stories allow users to create a “slideshow” of images and/or videos that is viewable for 24 hours before disappearing.
As is suggested by their name, stories allow you to shape a narrative around your subject in a way that a single image or video may not.
Much like Snapchat stories, Instagram stories are well-suited to capturing action as it is happening. This allows you to leverage the “fear of missing out” to generate excitement around your programming.
When you post or update a story, your account appears in a list that runs across top of others’ Instagram feeds. This extra visibility is a welcome boon given recent changes to the platform’s timeline algorithm.
You can experiment with the story-based approach to social media without having to build a new audience from scratch on a different platform.
Cons
While you can download your story content to your camera roll as it is published, the preferred portrait orientation makes it difficult to repurpose your content elsewhere. Shooting in landscape orientation requires your viewers to either turn their heads awkwardly or rotate their phones, an inconvenience that puts your content at risk of being skipped over.
The 10 second limit on video clips presents some challenges. For example, a speaker’s comments can easily run over and get cut off, necessitating additional takes.
Viewing statistics disappear along with the image or video they are attached to, complicating assessment.
Instagram’s story editing tools (basic text and drawing) are limited compared to Snapchat’s, especially its robust filter system.
Next Steps
Identifying more story opportunities to allow for additional testing. (If you have any ideas, please get in touch!)
Incorporating stories into the Instagram content schedule.
Formalizing the procedure for recording and reporting story viewing statistics.
Ben Knysak, left, of RIPM and assistant Gabriel Caballero scanning 1930s issues of Down Beat in October. The effort at IJS is part of an international project to digitize music publications going back to the eighteenth century. Photograph by Mark Papianni.
For two weeks in October, the Baltimore-based research center RIPM set up a scanner in the reading room of the Institute of Jazz Studies. The main objective was scanning the first few years of the venerated magazine Down Beat and a few others of the hundreds of jazz, pop and related periodicals and journals collected by IJS since its founding in 1952.
RIPM (Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals) was founded in 1980 by H. Robert Cohen at the behest of the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML) and the International Musicological Society (IMS). The goal was access to some 5,000 international music journals and publications published from 1760 through the 1960s.
“The goal was to create access to journals both for historians and lovers of music,” said Benjamin Knysak, managing associate director of RIPM. “Through these publications, people can put themselves in places where music history happened.”
Knysak said digitizing jazz periodicals face some of the same issues as other periodicals. Some issues are more unique to jazz, such as relative scarcity.
“Many jazz journals are very rare sources of documentation,” he said. “They may have been printed in the limited numbers and had limited distribution because they were not published by large corporations. Many were published by individuals: musicians, aficionados, critics and collectors.”
In many cases, RIPM has tracked down those solo publishers or their heirs who he said have been uniformly thrilled to have their labors of love preserved for posterity.
The Jazz Database will be online in 2017. It will provide fully searchable text and photos based on technology developed by RIPM.
Knysak hopes the relationship between RIPM and the Institute will continue for many years.
“IJS is amazing, simply amazing,” Knysak said. “The breadth and depth of publications held there is unique. We are honored to work with the collection and wonderful colleagues.”
“For many years jazz researchers have been dreaming of having the kind of access to the jazz periodical literature that RIPM will be providing,” said IJS director of operations Vincent Pelote. “I am both proud and happy to have had a part in making that happen.”
In addition to Pelote, associate director Adriana Cuervo and collections manager Elsa Alves are coordinating the project on behalf of the Institute.
On October 9, Capetown Mayor Patricia de Lille was feted during a reception at Clement’s Place, a new jazz venue operated by the Institute of Jazz Studies and the Office of the Chancellor of Rutgers University-Newark. From are Newark Mayor Raz Baraka, de Lille, City Council President Mildred Crump, Linda Juma, and IJS Executive Director Wayne Winborne. Photograph by Bronwyn Douman.
The recent visit of Cape Town, South Africa Mayor Patricia de Lille furthers a relationship to the Institute of Jazz Studies that began in June when IJS Executive Director Wayne Winborne paid a two-week visit to the city.
De Lille arrived in Newark on October 9 and went immediately to a dinner reception held at Clement’s Place. There she was greeted by city officials–led by Mayor Raz Baraka and City Council President Mildred Crump–and Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor. Music was provided by a sextet led by drummer T.S. Monk, son of the legendary pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. The following morning de Lille attended a breakfast in the Special Collections Room at the Dana Library.
Winborne said de Lille’s visit to Newark was one stop in a tour that also included New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Among the topics of discussion were democratic institutions, civil society, and jazz.
On his trip to Cape Town, Winborne was dazzled by the diverse music scene he encountered. He visited such local clubs as The Crypt, The Drawing Room, and Straight No Chaser, and met with musicians, students and educators at the University of Cape Town and the University of Western Cape Town.
“I heard everything from straight ahead jazz to South African to pop-oriented fusion,” said Winborne. He also pointed to the success of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival which has brought in such mainstays on the American jazz scene as pianists Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Gary Bartz as well as well-known local and regional musicians.
Winborne might return to Cape Town as early as January to meet with the mayor, as well as the regional minister of culture to set up some exchange programs between IJS and the city. He predicts IJS will host performances of South African musicians.
Cape Town jazz enthusiasts have already spoken to him about their interest in establishing an archives there to preserve the history of the music. This may result in workshops given by IJS staff members to help get the project off the ground.
“I think this idea has huge potential,” Winborne concluded.
Where do you find population figures from a century ago? Health statistics over time in Newark, New Jersey or the U.S. as a whole? Business and economic or other information for those studying small business development or wanting to go into business for themselves?
Valuable information such as this can be summed up in two words: government publications.
In December, Dana Library celebrates 50 years since it obtained its status as a Federal Depository Library for the 10th Congressional District of the State of New Jersey. It has been a boon to faculty, students, the general public and the business community. It promises to continue to be a major resource at Dana even as most of the government publications are now available online. Dana also serves as a depository for many, but not all, publications of the State of New Jersey.
One enhancement that accompanies their presence at the libraries are classes in which library faculty reaches out to faculty and students to educate them on the use of publications distributed by the Government Publishing Office (GPO) and online resources issued by the Federal Government.
“The subjects covered by government publications go from the general to the specific, essential for researchers as well as the general public. Most importantly, government publications are available to all users regardless of affiliation or age,” said Wen-Hua Ren, the documents librarian who supervises government publication collections at Dana.
New Jersey is home to as many as 25 federal depositories. Each of Rutgers University campuses, including New Brunswick and Camden, has a designated federal depository library. RU-Newark has two, the other being the Law Library which receives depository materials that support legal research and study.
Programs in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary will be held in December and possibly also in January 2017. In addition to a display, there will community instruction programs offered to educate the public on the usefulness of the collections and service.
Dana Library was the centerpiece for modernist buildings erected on the Rutgers University-Newark which are highlighted in an exhibit opening and tours at the library on October 15. Dana Library Archive.
In 1959 Rutgers president Dr. Mason Gross fired a blunt shot across the bow in the pages of the New York Times in his quest to pass a $75 million bond issue. His plea was as much about expansion of the facilities as adding depth to the university’s core mission of education, culture, and social mobility for the burgeoning Baby Boom generation.
Gross referred to New Jersey as educationally “impoverished” and culturally “almost bankrupt” in advocating Rutgers’ power to make a difference. The funding package passed and its impact on the Newark campus with construction of seven new buildings over the course of the 1960s was profound.
Part of that legacy—the Newark campus’s inventory of significant modernist architecture and spatial concept—is the subject of an exhibit opening October 15 at the John Cotton Dana Library, Making a Place: Rutgers University-Newark as a Microcosm of 1960s America. Programming will also feature hour-long campus tours led by Newark-based architects, preservationists, and historians; in addition to tours of the world-renowned Institute of Jazz Studies, located on the fourth floor of the library. For additional details, see: http://docomomo-us.org/architecture_urbanism_rutgers_university_newark
Cultural historian Dr. Eva Giloi, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark who is organizing the festivities, said Newark figured prominently in Gross’s plans.
“Buildings here were designed and situated on the campus as part of a coherent vision of modernist mid-century architecture, with Dana Library the center of student life and community involvement,” said Giloi. “It was a humanistic concept in the way it used open space.”
October 15, 2016 has been designated a DOCOMOMO US Tour Day. Dana Library Archive.
The project’s supporters go way beyond the Rutgers community. The campus will enter the registry of DOCOMOMO, the world’s leading modernist preservation organization located in Barcelona, Spain.
Giloi describes the exhibit as a “multisensory exhibit about the campus history and architecture in Dana Library,” using original architectural blueprints, photographs, yearbooks, and other artifacts bearing on the campus and student life during socially tumultuous times.
Dr. Askew, director of Dana Library, said of Giloi’s research, “The campus plan from 50 years ago all started with a library building. Therefore, it is befitting that Dana Library, in addition to being a stop along the tour, also has a central role in this event.”
The exhibit and programs are sponsored by the Dana Library, the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University-Newark Department of History, The Clement A. Price Institute, and DOCOMOMO, which has designated the events as an official U.S. Tour Day.
Activities this month will be amplified when the fiftieth anniversary of Dana Library gets underway next year.
