The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Department

  • Digital Publishing in WordPress and Omeka

    The Libraries’ Digital Humanities Working Group, with the support of Integrated Information Systems, just launched an informal digital publishing service offering two popular open source platforms: WordPress and Omeka. Both are relatively easy to learn, and allow users to develop digital publishing skills, such as the integration of texts, images, and multimedia, digital citation practices, and digital collaboration on course projects and informal research in an online environment.

    WordPress and Omeka are both used for digital publishing, although they have different strengths. WordPress is widely known as a blogging platform. As the name implies, it is a text-centric application, even if themes and plugins greatly extend its appearance and functionality. Omeka excels at the presentation of small to medium-sized digital collections, which can then be curated to create digital exhibits integrating text and media. Dublin Core metadata connect items to their presentation in collections and exhibits, ensuring that context and provenance are not lost. Omeka was created by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

    Libraries faculty and staff and Rutgers graduate students and faculty in humanities and adjacent fields (meaning interdisciplinary research with a humanist twist) may request a site in WordPress, Omeka, or both. Potential users should contact their Digital Humanities library liaison to request a site. The liaison for Camden is Zara Wilkinson; for New Brunswick, Francesca Giannetti; and for Newark, Krista White (for Rutgers-Newark) and Bob Vietrogoski (for RBHS). In the first phase of this service, priority will be given to users whose projects integrate Libraries resources.

    Many Rutgers librarians already use one or both of these applications. Laura Palumbo shares news on important resources in scientific disciplines at ChemInformer. Ryan Womack posts regular reflections on the data librarianship profession at RyanData. Kayo Denda created the blog of the Margery Somers Foster Center to provide an informal publication venue for student interns. Christie Lutz and other Special Collections colleagues write about rare and unique New Jerseyana at What Exit? And The Agenda newsletter itself is published in WordPress! The following three case studies demonstrate how these platforms can be used in support of library and scholarly work.

    Pedagogy and Professionalization

    A section of the exhibit on Gennett Records on the IJS Archives Fellowship site.

    The Institute of Jazz Studies Archival Fellowship Program, instituted in 2010, supports the professional development of early career archivists and is dedicated to promoting diversity in the field of archives. The Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) has its home in the John Cotton Dana Library at Rutgers–Newark. Krista White, the digital humanities librarian at the Dana Library, works beside IJS archivists Elizabeth Surles, Angela Lawrence, and Tad Hershorn; IJS Fellowship Program coordinator Ed Berger; and current associate director Adriana Cuervo in mentoring the IJS Archives Fellows through the process of archiving a single, small collection each year.

    Krista White spearheads a digital project for the fellows each year and has used Omeka for the last two years. White chose Omeka because it is free and open source. Many archives and cultural institutions need to establish an online presence, but may not have the resources to produce expensive digital exhibits. By using Omeka as a learning tool, the fellows gained hands-on experience designing digital exhibits, evaluating copyright and intellectual property issues, and administrating metadata for public display in an online environment. Furthermore, exposure to open source tools provides a way for IJS Archives Fellows to build value-added expertise in creative digital solutions.

    Project Outreach and Communication

    A project update on the New Jersey Digital Newspaper Project blog.

    In late July, Rutgers University Libraries learned that they, the New Jersey State Library, and the New Jersey State Archives had been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to digitize New Jersey newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program. The project team wanted to quickly establish a presence for the project and did so by starting the “New Jersey Digital Newspaper Project” blog using WordPress. The blog is administered by Isaiah Beard, John Brennan, and Caryn Radick and includes content provided by project team members.

    The blog format lets the project team provide different types of information in one place including status updates, information about the partners, project staff, and advisory board, and provides a contact form for readers. Using a WordPress blog also allowed the project team to share password protected information with the Newspaper Project Advisory Board, who have helped guide the selection process.

    First and foremost, the blog serves as a way to share news of the project. Currently, the partners are working to identify newspapers and learning the processes and procedures of the work involved in digitizing these newspapers for the Library of Congress Chronicling America Project. The blog has detailed various trips and meetings for getting these underway. As the newspapers are digitized, the blog will also let the project team share stories of interest from New Jersey history and provide further updates about progress.

    Digital Editing and Reconstruction

    Digital annotations to William Still’s letter, dated August 7, 1850.

    Francesca Giannetti is creating a digital edition of the Peter Still Papers, a small manuscript collection held in Special Collections and University Archives. These manuscript letters have already been published in RUcore; a primary goal of the digital edition is to provide digital full text transcriptions. Giannetti is working with Aresty research assistants to transcribe and encode the letters using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) framework of XML. The TEI allows keyword searchability across the letters, and also provides structured data that will allow future researchers to query the letters for names, places, and dates. This Omeka site will include lightly edited HTML transcriptions of the letters, while a link included in the relation field takes the reader to a more diplomatic style transcription with original spellings and line breaks preserved, and presented alongside expandable thumbnails of the page images. The Omeka site also features a hypothes.is annotation layer (right sidebar), which could serve as the basis of group digital annotation exercises in a digital or public history course. A next step for this project will involve finding faculty collaborators in history and American studies to bring these primary documents into the classroom for study and further research.

    If you have questions about how to get started using WordPress or Omeka in your work, or have comments on any of the projects mentioned in these case studies, please write to the Digital Humanities Working Group.

    -Francesca Giannetti, Caryn Radick, Krista White, Bob Vietrogoski, Zara Wilkinson, Ron Jantz, Fengzhi Fan, and Tibor Purger

  • Thank You for a Terrific #RutgersGivingDay

    Thanks to all of your efforts and support, the Libraries greatly exceeded our goals for Giving Day this year. Last year, we had 22 donors and our goal this year was to slightly more than double this with 50 donors. We blew our goal out of the water with 134 donors and the Libraries are on the Top Ten leaderboards for both Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-New Brunswick. We raised a total of $13,375.00. Here are the specifics for each location:

    #11 – RBHS Libraries, 6 donations, $300.00

    #12 – Camden Libraries, 10 donations, $170.00

    #7 – Newark Libraries, 18 donations, $1433.00

    #9 – New Brunswick Libraries, 100 donations, $11,472.00

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    This banner ran on Instagram on Giving Day.

    The figures above may shift slightly as the Foundation does their final accounting, but clearly, we did a great job!

    Thank you to everyone who took time to set up donation computer stations or to sit at tables and solicit support sheets and donations in their libraries. I hope you all had a chance to see the fantastic social media campaign we ran on Twitter, using many photos of our real students and colleagues sounding off on matters most to them. Matt Badessa also created our first Instagram banner/photo grid.

    If you have photos of Giving Day at your location, send them to jessica.pellien@rutgers.edu and I’ll add them to the slideshow!

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  • Interview with Grace Agnew about NSF Grant-Supported Virtual Data Collaboratory

    Grace Agnew, associate university librarian for digital library systems , photo credit: Isaiah Beard.
    Grace Agnew, associate university librarian for digital library systems , photo credit: Isaiah Beard.

    Rutgers University Libraries is a key part of a team that won a $4 million grant to establish a regional data-sharing network called the Virtual Data Collaboratory. This is a huge grant that involves other departments at Rutgers University, as well as several regional university partners. We shared a press release about this initiative on our website in October, but I recently sat down with Grace Agnew who is coordinating the Libraries’ participation, to get a better sense of what it means for the Libraries and for Rutgers.

     

    Jessica Pellien: You are part of a team that has won a multimillion dollar grant from the National Science Foundation. What is the grant for?

    Grace Agnew: The grant will build an infrastructure where research data created at Rutgers and other collaborating universities can be stored, discovered, and reused. Rutgers is among the nation’s top 20 public universities in terms of obtaining research grants and number 7 among Big Ten universities, yet the university lacks a cohesive strategy for efficiently managing research data. Research data often ends up silo-ed in individual departments where it is not easily discovered and reused. Also, because we do not have a shared infrastructure that can be easily repurposed, financial and personnel resources that could be dedicated to the research itself are instead expended on duplicating infrastructure that exists in silos around Rutgers. A large scale research data infrastructure is critical for Rutgers to continue to advance as a research institution, which is part of the university’s three-fold mission.

     

    JP: This grant involves many units at Rutgers and other regional universities. What role will Rutgers University Libraries play?

    GA: The Libraries are uniquely positioned because we engage with and support Rutgers users across the spectrum, from incoming first year students to faculty members engaged in groundbreaking research. What we bring to the table is understanding and representing user needs. We are tasked with designing the data services layer which is the user-facing part of the project. Our design encompasses adding, discovering, and reusing data. We took a unique approach to ensuring the discoverability and reuse of data by designing an interface that links data with the person who created it, the tools used to analyze it, and the intermediate research products–analyses, reports, etc.–that are created around the data before the peer-reviewed publications begin. In other words, we designed a strategy that not only supports the workflow of the researcher but helps other researchers, perhaps in other disciplines, understand the context of the data and how it is used, as part of the discovery process. We will work with the lead department, Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute (RDI2) to implement the data services layer according to our design.  In addition to myself, Ron Jantz is helping to design the architecture for the data services layer and Ryan Womack will be working closely with the two use cases, the Protein Data Bank with Helen Berman, Center for Integrative Proteomics Research at Rutgers and Vasant Honavar of Penn State and with Jie Gong. Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rutgers, to ensure that the design of the data services layer meets their research and workflow needs.  Other librarians involved in the data services design are Karen Estlund at Penn State and Joe Lucia at Temple University.

     

    JP: So, what is the Virtual Data Collaboratory?

    GA: The Virtual Data Collaboratory is intended, ultimately, as a “one stop shop” for the storage, discovery and reuse of data. It is immediately collaborative because we are building parallel facilities at Rutgers and Penn State. Other participating universities in Pennsylvania, include Drexel and Temple. The VDC will ultimately be available to other universities in both states through the Internet2 high speed networking facilities, KINBER in Pennsylvania and NJEdge in New Jersey. The term collaboratory references both the universities involved in the design, as well as the opportunities for collaboration that the data services layer will promote. The VDC is also designed to bridge to existing collaboratories, such as the Protein Data Bank, so much of the data in the VDC will be “virtual” because they exist in other collaboratories but are accessible via the VDC.

     

    JP: There are existing places to store data. What will distinguish our effort from others?

    GA: Other universities have collaboratories. We believe the VDC has a unique focus on both robust storage and preservation of data and a user focus on multidisciplinary discovery and reuse of data. Also, the existing places are largely single university initiatives or single discipline initiatives. They are very well designed and very supportive of their users, particularly those with a disciplinary focus. The VDC will work with existing facilities and will bring new users and increased impact from other disciplines through bridges to those facilities.

     

    JP: You note that the VDC will integrate with other regional and national efforts. Can you paint a picture of what this actually means for your average researcher? If I am a scientist doing research on X, how would VDC help me?

    GA: VDC is leveraging the technologies already funded in the NSF DIBBS initiative, so the design is inherently collaborative with other large scale data facilities. What the VDC will provide is an infrastructure that the researcher can use to ensure her data is preserved, is accessible, and can be analyzed and reused by the researcher and by others. Currently, researchers at Rutgers have to build an infrastructure according to granting agency requirements to ensure that data is preserved and made openly available to others or they can deposit in disciplinary repositories. Once deposited in a disciplinary repository, the researcher generally cannot continue to work with the data, unless the data is downloaded for use. VDC is envisioned as a workflow-oriented repository with a suite of tools for reusing data and the ability to store and link data products, such as analyses, which otherwise reside on the researcher’s local server or desktop. So the VDC is somewhat unique in designing full integration in merging storage and working space for the active scientist.

     

    JP: Will faculty and researchers at non-participating universities have access to the VDC?

    GA: It is open to everyone for discovery of data. I don’t think policies for membership in the collaboratory have been developed yet. Membership enables you to upload your data, use tools, etc. The Advisory Board will assist with the development of policies for membership.

     

    JP: When will the VDC be available?

    GA: This is a four year grant that began in September 2016.  The goal is to use agile methodologies to build a prototype and layer on functionality, so hopefully there will be something real to show early in 2018.

     

    So there you have it, the team behind the VDC is already hard at work. Currently, their focus is on designing a collaboratory for sciences, though Grace was quick to point out that social sciences and humanities wouldn’t be turned away if they were interested.

    When it is completed, the VDC will meet or exceed requirements for open access data management by granting agencies and will be a tremendous accomplishment for Rutgers.

     

     

     

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  • Dr. Barchi Tours the Tallcase Clocks in Special Collections and University Archives

    Dr. Barchi Tours the Tallcase Clocks in Special Collections and University Archives

    barchi-clock
    President Robert Barchi adjusts a tallcase clock in the Rutgers University Libraries Special Collections and University Archives.

    A couple of weeks ago, Special Collections and University Archives hosted a special visitor — President Robert Barchi.

    A big fan of tallcase clocks (AKA grandfather clocks), President Barchi saw all of four of the clocks in SCUA’s collection and even took a moment to perform an on-the-spot repair to an early nineteenth-century clock that was donated by the family of Wallace Todd Eakins (1889-1968), RC’11. After a quick adjustment, the clock was once again happily tick-tocking away.

    In honor of this visit, we’re proud to highlight this collection of tallcase clocks. Read below for photos of the beautiful clock faces and information about their provenance and donation.

    Movement: 8-day clock; square clock face not signed Case: intended for a (later) clock movement with an arched clock face; attributed to Nicholas Williamson Parsell (1797-1877) by the donor and is likely the same clock cited by Margaret E. White in Early Furniture Made in New Jersey, 1690-1870 ([Newark, N.J.]: The Newark Museum Association, c1958): “A tall clock with case attributed to Nicholas Parsell is owned by Catharine Schneeweiss.” Location: Special Collections and University Archives reading room (behind sign-in desk), Alexander Library Donor: Ralph Heyboer (1918-2011) of Linden, New Jersey Provenance: movement created in 18th century; case created in 19th century; evidently owned at one time by Catharine Hardenbergh Schneeweiss (1893-1977), the daughter of Henry P. Schneeweiss; per donor: “from estate of Henry P. Schneewiess family” Note: per Somerset County Historical Quarterly (vol. 8): Nicholas W. Parsell had a daughter Mary who married F.M. Schneeweiss, the father of a Henry Schneeweiss. Per Rutgers University Biographical Files: Alumni (Class of 1877): Henry P[arsell] Schneeweiss (1856-1930), who served as the treasurer of Rutgers from 1915 to 1928, was the son of Franz Maxmillion Schneeweiss and Mary (Parsell) Schneeweiss. He married Mary Cornelia Hardenbergh, a descendant of the first president of Queens College [now Rutgers University], and resided at 56 College Avenue at the time of his death. Received: 1992; acquired, from the same donor, with other items (e.g., monogrammed china, said to be from the Parsell family, and a mahogany secretary bookcase) identified as having the same provenance Movement: 8-day clock; square clock face not signed

    Case: intended for a (later) clock movement with an arched clock face; attributed to Nicholas Williamson Parsell (1797-1877) by the donor and is likely the same clock cited by Margaret E. White in Early Furniture Made in New Jersey, 1690-1870 ([Newark, N.J.]: The Newark Museum Association, c1958): “A tall clock with case attributed to Nicholas Parsell is owned by Catharine Schneeweiss.”

    Location: Special Collections and University Archives reading room (behind sign-in desk), Alexander Library

    Donor: Ralph Heyboer (1918-2011) of Linden, New Jersey

    Provenance: movement created in 18th century; case created in 19th century; evidently owned at one time by Catharine Hardenbergh Schneeweiss (1893-1977), the daughter of Henry P. Schneeweiss; per donor: “from estate of Henry P. Schneewiess family”

    Note: per Somerset County Historical Quarterly (vol. 8): Nicholas W. Parsell had a daughter Mary who married F.M. Schneeweiss, the father of a Henry Schneeweiss. Per Rutgers University Biographical Files: Alumni (Class of 1877): Henry P[arsell] Schneeweiss (1856-1930), who served as the treasurer of Rutgers from 1915 to 1928, was the son of Franz Maxmillion Schneeweiss and Mary (Parsell) Schneeweiss. He married Mary Cornelia Hardenbergh, a descendant of the first president of Queens College [now Rutgers University], and resided at 56 College Avenue at the time of his death.

    Received: 1992; acquired, from the same donor, with other items (e.g., monogrammed china, said to be from the Parsell family, and a mahogany secretary bookcase) identified as having the same provenance
    clock-quick Movement: 8-day musical clock; arched clock face not signed, but movement perhaps by Leslie & Williams, per similar musical clock at Monmouth County Historical Association [see: William E. Drost, Clocks and Watches of New Jersey (c1966)]

    Case: Federal era; includes linear inlay; attributed to Matthew Egerton, Jr., New Brunswick, N.J., per similar clock cases with cabinetmaker’s labels [in addition to Drost, see, for example: “Silver Jubilee Exhibitors,” Antiques, LX (October 1951)]

    Location: Special Collections and University Archives office area, Alexander Library

    Donor: G. Willard Quick (1892-1970) [bequest]

    Provenance: per donor: belonged to Tunis Quick (1762-1836), Readington Township, Hunterdon County; per donor’s widow: “moved from the Quick home in Hunterdon County, New Jersey to Loudon County, Virginia, in 1871”

    Note: Also per donor’s widow: “Restored to its present condition and put in running order, early in 1940.” Weights augmented at this time?

    Received: December 1987 [from Florida, evidently following the death of the donor’s surviving spouse]
    clock-eakins Movement: 8-day clock; presumably by “J. Martin & Son, New York” as stated on the arched clock face

    Case: Mahogany?; maker unknown

    Location: Clifford P. Case Room, Special Collections and University Archives, Alexander Library

    Donor: Wallace Todd Eakins (1889-1968), a member of the Rutgers College Class of 1911 [bequest]

    Provenance: created about 1825; “the Eakins family grandfather clock” per donor

    Received: destined for or received in Special Collections by March 1970
    clock-1903 Movement: 8-day clock; arched clock face signed by retailer (Tiffany & Co.), but movement itself (likely to name a maker such as Korfhage) not examined

    Case: likely German

    Location: Special Collections and University Archives reading room (between windows), Alexander Library

    Donor: per small metal plaque: “Presented by the Class of 1903”

    Provenance: created about 1900; per Hand-Book of the Grounds and Buildings . . . of Rutgers College ([New Brunswick, N.J.]: The College, 1904): “presented to the College on Class Day, June 16th, 1903, on behalf of the Class of 1903. The clock is a large ‘grandfather’s’ clock, in an oak case, and is the work of Messrs. Tiffany & Company. It is placed in the reading room of the Ralph Voorhees Library” [a building dedicated in 1903]; presumably transferred to new library building [now Alexander Library] about 1956; in Libraries’ central administrative offices immediately prior to 2016 transfer to Special Collections and University Archives

    Received: 2016

     

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  • Button Making Events: A Magnet for Engagement

    Button Making Events: A Magnet for Engagement

    buttonsOn Thursday, November 10th, 2016, Tara Maharjan, Processing Archivist, Janki Patel, Undergraduate, Art History & Art Library reference assistant, and Megan Lotts, Art Librarian, hosted a pop-up button making space in the lobby of Alexander Library.  At this event patrons had the opportunity to create and make their own button, take a pre-made button of an image from Rutgers University Libraries Special Collections and University Archives, and view a vintage button collection, discovered in a basement, in Edison, NJ.

    The inspiration for purchasing a button maker came from the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) annual conference in 2013, when Char Booth, current Associate Dean, Library at California State University San Marcos, spoke about libraries building good will within their communities and noted that the button maker they purchased was worth its weight in gold.

    button-flyerButton making can be a low-cost pop up making space that addresses the idea of object, from concept to consumption. In the case of a button, a wearable item is the outcome.  Creating a button can strengthen ones’ creative thinking and problem solving skills. Furthermore, it also addresses finding and using images and understanding copyright laws.

    Throughout the event many positive comments were made by Rutgers students, faculty, staff, alum, and non-affiliate patrons. Multiple reference questions were asked, and a few patrons inquired about other making opportunities available at the Rutgers University Libraries.  Also during the event, the hosts connected with a new student, who was uncertain about navigating the Rutgers systems, and we could share with her information about the libraries, the campuses in general, and what to do in the local area. Lastly, following the event a student reached out from a Rutgers Learning Living Communities (LLC), to ask for 23 Paul Robeson buttons.  The LLC is currently researching Robeson, and they all wanted this image from the RUL collections to wear proudly.

     

     

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  • Halloween fun at the Mathematical Sciences and Physics Library

    The Mathematical Sciences and Physics Library included separate prizes for their student workers and library users.
    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.
    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.

    So, what were the prizes that were on the line?

    Student Staff Prizes

    1st Prize – $15.00 Amazon Gift Card

    2nd Prize – the Jar of Candy

    3rd Prize – $5.00 Cash

     

    User Prizes

    1st Prize – the Jar of Candy

    2nd Prize – Library Gift Bag

    3rd Prize – Library Gift Bag

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  • A rare find in the Rutgers Art Library

    albers
    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.”

    For a complete history of Interaction of Color, see this interesting article from The Amherst College Press.

     

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  • Piloting Stories on the Libraries’ Instagram Account: A Case Study

    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.

    Last week, we (@rutgerslibraries on Instagram) published our first story to help promote the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive anniversary panel and exhibit. Following are some reflections after our first foray into using this new feature.

    Pros

    • 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.

  • Digitization Project at IJS Part of International Effort to Preserve Music Journals

    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.
    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.

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  • Visit of Cape Town Mayor presents international opportunities for Institute of Jazz Studies

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    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.

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