Lots of new marketing materials available on the communications department website this month. Let us know if you have any other ideas for things that would be useful:
These flyer templates are available to local units to help promote their upcoming events and exhibits. The templates are available in Word and Powerpoint, so they require no special software. We’ve tried to provide enough options and variations to allow some personalization and tailoring for specific locations and events. If you would like me to conduct any training on how to use these materials, please let us know. We also welcome any feedback and/or requests for variants of these templates.
With the recent changes in how group study rooms are reserved, we have updated the signage templates with new QR codes. These are now available for libraries that are using the libcal service. If you have group study rooms that don’t use the libcal reservation system or other types of spaces that need signage, let us know. Scroll down on the Signage Templates page to find the new group study room signs.
Materials for Library Liaisons
There is a new section on the communications page for Project Outreach Materials. RASE-WG has provided materials for library liaisons who are doing outreach for the following projects. You can download presentations, flyers, and information sheets:
“Wouldn’t it be great if there was a space where people from the Libraries could post notices for one another if they have an item for sale or are selling Girl Scout Cookies or are playing a local gig with their band?” Yes– this would be great. Introducing the Rutgers University Libraries Bulletin Board. This is an open space where you can post any type of notice you would like to share with your colleagues. Thanks for the suggestion, Dee Magnoni!
This bulletin board is powered by Padlet. If you want to create a post, click on the + sign in the lower right of the bulletin board. You can create a Padlet account for free OR you can post anonymously (in which case, I’d recommend including your name at the bottom of the post so people know who the post is from).
You can access this bulletin board directly at https://padlet.com/rulibraries/bulletin (bookmark it!) or via the sidebar menu on The Agenda.
An architect’s rendering of what the new space in LSM.
New Brunswick (NB) and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) are collaborating to upgrade spaces and publicize library services to our users, in particular those from RBHS schools (Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS), School of Public Health, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Physician Assistants program in the School of Health Professions), in Piscataway. One of the goals in recent draftsof the Libraries master plan for the Library of Science and Medicine (LSM) is to “create a science-focused atmosphere and establish a connection with RBHS.” In addition, the plan includes creating both “dedicated graduate study space,” and “dedicated RBHS study space” within the library.
A plan is in place to encourage RBHS students to identify and use LSM and its resources. Survey data from RWJMS reveals that medical students do not currently identify with the library. The upcoming accreditation at RWJMS (March 5-7, 2018), spurred a feasibility study to upgrade study space and librarian support space at LSM to better serve the needs of graduate students in the health and life sciences on the Piscataway campus. Students from Pharmacy and Public Health are also in close proximity to LSM. Even though Pharmacy has recently opened their beautifully renovated building, LSM is still a very popular destination for Pharmacy students seeking serious study space.
An open house for RWJMS students was held at LSM on Tuesday, February 13, to re-introduce students to LSM, view potential floor plans, the phased design for renovating space on the third floor, and view the location of the recently relocated MED-TEXT collection, approximately 1000 books recently relocated from the medical school to LSM. Approximately 100 medical students attended the event, which was positively received. Victoria Wagner and the librarians from Robert Wood Johnson Library of the Health Sciences (RWJ), along with faculty and staff from LSM, interacted with RWJMS students and faculty in attendance.
The completed feasibility study, along with proposed floor plans, renderings, phasing plan and cost are nearing completion. Presenting and socializing the plan to stakeholders (RBHS schools and NB life sciences schools) and funders is a critical next step toward potential implementation. Mei Ling Lo has taken the lead on planning for the weeding of the bound journal collections on the north side of the LSM third floor. Journals are labeled for relocation to the Annex or discard, and a company will start moving items on April 2nd.
An office, previously occupied by DTS on the LSM third floor, will provide the space for the RWJ librarians, who will begin providing services to students from that location in early March.
A full meeting LSM and RWJ libraries took place on Friday, February 23rd at LSM. Plans were on display, updates were provided by Dee Magnoni and Judy Cohn, and then the 20 plus attendees broke into groups focused on space, access services, and deepening collaboration. One listserv for all LSM and RWJ librarians and staff was proposed to enhance communication. Other recorded recommendations are being transcribed to share back with the full group, which agreed to meet again in 2 months.
These are exciting plans! We look forward to gaining momentum to fund this project.
Last November, the Libraries participated in Giving Tuesday at Rutgers University. This is an annual event that follows the consumer traditions of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, to encourage individuals to support their favorite non-profits and charities.
This year, Rutgers University received $174,483.19 in Giving Tuesday donations and we are happy to announce that the Libraries received over $6,500 in donations from 18 donors. This is excellent and actually places us 8th at the university overall in terms of total dollars raised. This outcome shows we are are supported and valued by our users and colleagues. These funds will help us do a lot of good at the Libraries.
Giving Tuesday is far from a solo or even a departmental effort. We owe many thank yous — thank yous to colleagues who made donations in support of the Libraries and thank yous to faculty and staff who shared our Giving Day initiative and promoted it via your communications channels. This type of success is a group effort, and it is not possible without your help!
The Communications Department shared our new website at the State of the Libraries poster session. We have been actively updating the site with more resources and materials that may be of use to you. Our most recent additions are:
Sample of the brochures available via the Communications Department.
Here you can find resources and tips and tricks for using social media at the Libraries. The social media guidelines, process for requesting a new social media account, and the social media manual are stored here. But you can also find information about joining the Libraries’ social media list serv (useful if you are managing any library social media account) and our social media directory. Eventually, I hope to move the social media directory to a more visible, public site as part of a refresh of the news and communications sites on the Libraries’ website. In the meantime, if you have a social media account that is not listed here, please let us know.
This retractable banner is available for your events.
New Retractable Banner
We placed an order for a new retractable banner and this is available for loan if you need it. For more information on this and to see other items we have available for event support, please visit Loanable Equipment A/V and Events.
Project Outreach Materials
You can find project outreach materials for both ORCID and Open and Affordable Textbooks Program. Here you will find PDF copies of promotional brochures, powerpoint presentations for faculty outreach, and more. If you have other projects for which this type of resource center would be useful, let us know.
The Douglass Century will be published by Rutgers University Press next month. Check out the March Agenda for your chance to win a free copy!
Celebrating the Douglass Century
Congratulations are in order for our colleagues Kayo Denda and Fernanda Perrone, who, along with Mary Hawkesworth of the departments of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies, have penned a history of Douglass Residential College entitled The Douglass Century: Transformation of the Women’s College at Rutgers University. The book will be published by Rutgers University Press next month. From the press:
“The Douglass Century celebrates the college’s longevity and diversity as distinctive accomplishments, and analyzes the contributions of Douglass administrators, alumnae, and students to its survival, while also investigating multiple challenges that threatened its existence. This book demonstrates how changing historical circumstances altered the possibilities for women and the content of higher education, comparing the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the post-war Civil Rights era, and the resurgence of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. Concluding in the present day, the authors highlight the college’s ongoing commitment to Mabel Smith Douglass’ founding vision, “to bring about an intellectual quickening, a cultural broadening in connection with specific training so that women may go out into the world fitted…for leadership…in the economic, political, and intellectual life of this nation.” In addition to providing a comprehensive history of the college, the book brings its subjects to life with eighty full-color images from the Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.”
But wait—there’s more! March’s issue of the Agenda will include a contest for a free copy of The Douglass Century, so tune in next month for your chance to win.
There will be ample opportunity to meet health sciences librarians and learn about the resources, tools, study spaces, and collections that are available on Busch campus.
Refreshments will be served and complimentary retractable ID card holders will be available while supplies last.
Watch: State of the Libraries
A video of Krisellen Maloney’s State of the Libraries presentation is now available on our YouTube channel.
Krisellen’s presentation from State of the Libraries is now available on our YouTube channel. It includes an introduction of new employees, an overview of the Ex Libris implementation, and a discussion of the budget. Kudos to Rich Sandler for his work on the video. And in case you missed it, a video playlist of the poster sessions from State of the Libraries was posted in last month’s issue of the Agenda.
The New Jersey Digital Newspaper Project Goes Live
The New Jersey Digital Newspaper project celebrated a major milestone last month when the first batch of pages from the Perth Amboy Evening News became available to the public via the Library of Congress website Chronicling America. Colleagues from the Libraries, the New Jersey State Library, New Jersey State Archives, and the New Jersey research community gathered at Alexander Library to commemorate the occasion with presentations, tours of the project facilities, and of course—cupcakes!
Dee Magnoni, Maxine Lurie, Caryn Radick, Mary Chute, and Grace Agnew at the NJDNP launch celebration.
A nice crowd was on hand to learn about the project’s public launch.
Giovanna Ligato-Pugliese and Jacob Paul were happy to give attendees tours of the project office and demonstrations of equipment.
A case display illustrated the source material for the digital versions of the newspapers now available online.
The cupcakes were “black, white, and read all over!”
During the proceedings, state librarian Mary Chute read a letter on behalf of Congressman Frank Pallone, which said in part: “I would like to commend the New Jersey State Library, Rutgers University Libraries and the New Jersey State Archives for undertaking this important project. Here in New Jersey we have a rich history and innumerable contributions in science, innovation, politics and the humanities. The digitization of these newspapers will provide user friendly access of these historical records to all individuals across the globe. I am proud that The Perth Amboy Evening News is the first New Jersey newspaper available through this invaluable project.”
Paul Robeson Library’s John Maxymuk has authored over a dozen books about the history of the NFL in addition to an entry on professional football in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia? In advance of Super Bowl LII this weekend, we caught up with John to discuss his love of football and penchant for research—and, of course, whether the Eagles stand a chance against Tom Brady and the Patriots.
A New Look for the IJS
The new IJS logo.
The Institute of Jazz Studies recently unveiled a new logotype, which you can view on our visual identity resources website. Congrats to our colleagues at the IJS for adopting this fresh new look!
What’s Happening is the Libraries’ monthly events enewsletter.
Do You Know What’s Happening?
Did you know we publish a monthly enewsletter of events happening around the Libraries? If not, check out this month’s edition to see what you’ve been missing and feel free to subscribe!
Do you have an upcoming exhibit, workshop, or other event that you’d like the world to know about? Submit it at https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/events and we’ll include it in forthcoming issues of the newsletter.
The Jersey Collective exhibit at Robeson Library. Credit: John Powell.
Closing Soon: Catch These Displays while You Still Can!
Robert Kirkbride accepts the NJSAA Author Award for “Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.” Credit: Casey Ambrosio / The Daily Targum.
NJ Academics Unite!
The New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance held their annual Author Award Winners Panel at Alexander Library in December. These awards recognize works that reflect a new understanding of New Jersey’s history and culture, demonstrate evidence of original research in the application of New Jersey resources, or reveal new insights into a given topic.
This year’s winners? Garry Wheeler Stone for Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle in the nonfiction scholarly category; Rusty Tagliareni and Robert Kirkbride for Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in the nonfiction popular category; and Maxine Lurie and Richard Veit for Envisioning New Jersey: An Illustrated History of the Garden State in the reference category. Read more in the Daily Targum’s recap of theawards.
The Creative Life of Douglass opens at Douglass Library on January 16.
Celebrating a Century of Creativity
The Creative Life of Douglass—an exhibition of materials from the University Archives chronicling ten decades of dance, theater, music, visual arts, and literature produced by the women of Douglass Residential College–opens at Douglass Library on January 16. The display, part of the #Douglass100 centennial celebration and held in partnership with the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities, was curated by the Libraries’ Kayo Denda, Erika Gorder, and Fernanda Perrone.
kite+key now offers payroll deduction for full time employees.
A New Way to Get Your Tech On
kite+key, the Rutgers tech store, is now offering payroll deduction as a payment option for all full-time Rutgers faculty and staff. Employees can spread $250–$3,000 over one year, or 26 paychecks (10-month faculty payment schedule varies) with no interest! Payments as low as $9.62 per check for a $250 purchase to $115.38 per check for a $3,000 purchase. For more information and to view the Terms and Agreement, visit kiteandkey.rutgers.edu/payroll-deduction.
Lookin’ Fresh
The Libraries’ website refresh launched just before the holiday break and it looks fantastic. Kudos to the Web Improvement Team for their hard work in pulling all the changes off in time for the spring semester. Interested in learning more about the refresh and the research that informed the changes? Amy Kimura’s post from last month’s Agenda is definitely worth revisiting. And if you have any comments or suggestions for the team, head on over to their feedback submission form.
Regina Koury begins as director of Paul Robeson Library on January 16.
A New Year, A New Vision
This month we will welcome Regina Koury as the new director of Paul Robeson Library at Rutgers–Camden. Regina comes to us from Idaho State University, where she served as assistant university librarian for discovery and resource services.
“It is a particular honor to have been selected as director of Paul Robeson Library,” she said when her appointment was announced. “I look forward to working with excellent library staff, students, and faculty; to continue expanding outstanding library services, collections, and spaces; and to collaborating on existing and new initiatives in support of the Rutgers–Camden community.”
And we look forward to helping her achieve her vision! Read our press release to learn more about Regina.
Marty Kesselman Will Give the 5th SAPAC Talk of the Year on January 16, 2018, 12 p.m.
Marty Kesselman will present “Report of the Consumer Electronics Show,” on Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 12pm-1pm, in the Pane Room of Alexander Library (remote to Dana Library Special Collections Room, Robeson Library Conference Room, and Smith Library Conference Room). Topics to be covered include:
New technologies of potential use in libraries and how and why librarians can attend.
Report from the one day session, Transforming EDU that focuses on how technology is changing the face of teaching in various ways, e.g. credential vs. degrees, non traditional students, use of new technologies (e.g. virtual reality) in the classroom (and libraries), makerspaces, etc.
University innovation programs that encourage young science entrepreneurs and a potential new role for libraries.
How quickly this area is moving and how does one keep up.
Feedback and discussion with those that attend.
A glimpse at the Milton to Milton exhibit on display at Alexander Library through February 28.
Closing Soon: Catch These Displays while You Still Can!
The Web Improvement Team (WIT) is excited to announce some changes coming soon to the Rutgers University Libraries website. Since September, we’ve been speaking with our users (students, faculty, and staff) and analyzing survey and usage data to determine how we can begin to improve our website user experience. We’ve been exploring best practices for user-centered design, content strategy, responsive design, and accessibility. Through one-on-one conversations, focus groups, and data analysis, we have learned more about our users’ essential tasks and resources, pain points in the current design, and user preferences.
Here are some of the takeaways from our first round of user research:
Users are very task-oriented, and generally come to the site knowing what they want; the scope of their use is quite narrow
The current homepage was thought to be too busy and complex
Pages are hard to read, with small text and too much content
Users spend very little time on most pages, and rarely scroll below “the fold”
A relatively small number of resources are especially heavily used (hours, room booking, A-Z database list, ILL, library account)
We based our first round of changes on these findings. Our goals became to:
Surface and prioritize the most frequently used resources and services
Freshen up the look and feel: reduce visual clutter on the homepage, enlarge fonts for sitewide readability
Refine the presentation and content for a few key pages
Minimize initial disruption to lower-level pages
Our overall approach is one of incremental change over radical redesign. Making incremental modifications based on user data ensures that those modifications are genuine improvements (as opposed to change for the sake of change, or change based on guesses or assumptions). If we’re proven wrong, smaller changes are easily reversed or refined. Although change can be uncomfortable at times, a continuous cycle of improvement and evaluation builds a sustainable, usable website that delivers a positive user experience.
You’ll also notice that a lot of things haven’t changed: the red navigation bar, most of the underlying content, the mobile presence. These, too, will change in time, but require considerable user research, usability testing, and content control. There will be opportunities for students, staff, and faculty to get involved in future research.
The new website is expected to be in place by late December, in time to greet students in the new semester.
Stop by our poster at the State of the Libraries if you want to learn more!
A new year is approaching! If you are thinking about retirement and what is involved in the process you should check out the important on-line links below that offer key information to help you prepare.
Additionally, UHR offers seminars to both ABP and PERS members contemplating retirement. If you are interested in attending a seminar, please check the Learning and Development Course Registration System under Employee Benefit and Work-Life Programs managed by University Human Resources.
Please note: Employees will need to submit an intent to retire letter to their supervisors to advise of the effective date of retirement once they have fully committed to retire.
Tom Frusciano accepts the 2017 Roger McDonough Librarianship Award from Bob Vietrogoski.
On October 24, at a meeting of the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance, the 2017 Roger McDonough Librarianship Award was presented to Thomas J. Frusciano, the university archivist of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. This award is named for Roger H. McDonough, New Jersey state librarian from 1947 to 1975. Beginning in 2002, the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance, together with the New Jersey Historical Commission, Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference-New Jersey Caucus, and the New Jersey Library Association History & Preservation Section, has given this award annually to a librarian, archivist, or manuscript curator for excellence in service to the New Jersey history research community and/or the general public.
A New Jersey native, Tom Frusciano is a tenured member of the library staff at Rutgers University Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives. He began his professional career as an archivist at Educational Testing Services in Princeton. He then became the first professionally trained university archivist at New York University, and later coauthored New York University and the City: An Illustrated History. At Rutgers since 1989, Frusciano has written or edited histories of the presidents of Rutgers, Douglass College, and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team, among many other subjects. In recent years, he played an integral role in the 2016 Rutgers 250th celebration, library exhibit, and commemorative historical volume entitled Rutgers: A 250th Anniversary Portrait. Starting in 2015, he also served on the Rutgers Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Populations, which produced the report Scarlet and Black. This committee’s important work has led to the new naming of James Dickson Carr Library (formerly Kilmer Library), now named in honor of Rutgers’ first African American graduate.
Beyond Rutgers, Frusciano has long been professionally active, particularly in the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC). He was elected to the SAA Council from 2009 to 2012, coedited the SAA manual Archival Arrangement and Description (2013), and was named an SAA Fellow in 2002. He has taught archival courses at both New York University’s Archival Management and Public History program, and the Rutgers School of Communication and Information. Some of his former students are now archivists and librarians at archives, libraries, and historical societies throughout New Jersey and elsewhere. He has also served on several editorial boards and coedited the Journal of Archival Organization.
Tom is the fourth recipient of the McDonough Award from Rutgers University Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives, following Bonita Craft Grant (2011), Janet Riemer (2014), and Ron Becker (2015).
A new year is approaching! If you are thinking about retirement and what is involved in the process you should check out the important on-line links below that offer key information to help you prepare.