Category: Units
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Reservations Accepted for One Button Studio
The One Button Studio at Alexander Library. Students, faculty, and staff now can reserve the One Button Studio in Alexander Library to create high-quality digital video recordings in a studio setting. The studio does not require users to have prior video production knowledge. Lighting, audio, and video configurations have been pre-set for ease of use. With support and funding from Ben Sifuentes-Jáuregui, vice chancellor for Undergraduate Academic Affairs at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, this space will enable students to present their research as a high-quality video, an alternative to the more static conventions of the poster or long-form essay. The room is set up for one to three people to create a video with only a FAT formatted flash drive. It really is as simple as 1-2-3-4: insert your USB drive into the dock, press the large silver button to begin recording, press the button to stop recording, and remove your USB drive to deactivate the studio camera and lights. Shared User Services provided support to list the One Button Studio on the Group Study Rooms web page and link to a user guide/reservation page. Reserve the room online and visit the Circulation Desk in Alexander Library to check out the key with your Rutgers ID card.
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Ex Libris Implementation Project Update – September 2019
As we embark on a new academic year, we thought it would be a good time to let you know about some improvements coming to QuickSearch. Below is a summary of some of the major enhancements that Ex Libris plans to introduce in 2019-2020.Central index
In Q1 2020, Ex Libris plans to release a new and improved central index. Leveraging the combined assets of its Primo and Summon indexes, Ex Libris’s new, unified Central Discovery Index (CDI) promises expanded content coverage, faster updates, improved deduplication, and better result filtering. In addition to providing an improved search experience for users, the new central index also offers better integration with Alma, making it easier to administer and maintain.
Related items
As part of its effort to build a bigger and better central index, Ex Libris is also developing a graph database that will allow users to explore connections between related items. For example, a record for a book will soon have links to reviews of that book and the individual chapters contained within, creating additional opportunities for exploration and serendipitous discovery.
Browse journals by subject
The Journal Search page will be enhanced to allow users the option to browse journals by subject. Subject categories will be based on Library of Congress Classification and offer researchers an easier way to identify and locate journals in their area of study.
Enhanced personalization
Users will be given more control over their search experience with customizable preferences, including the ability to configure their preferred library, sort order, and number of results per page.
Bulk actions
Currently, actions such as save, email, and export can only be applied to records individually. However, users will soon have the ability to perform these actions in bulk on a set of records. They will also have the option to export search results to Excel or CSV.
Be on the lookout for more information about these enhancements as they are released. As always, if you have any questions or would like to report an issue with QuickSearch, please email the Ex Libris Implementation Team at exlibris@rutgers.libanswers.com. You can also use the “Report a problem” link in QuickSearch. For more information on how to use QuickSearch, visit QuickSearch Help or check out our QuickSearch tutorial videos.
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Google Books, HathiTrust, and Our Contribution to the Collective Collection
The record for a HathiTrust text displayed in QuickSearch. As you may have read in the Cabinet minutes, the Libraries recently formalized our commitment to participate in the Google Books Library Project. With the goal “to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages,” this partnership between Google and dozens of libraries worldwide—including those of the BTAA, which signed an agreement to participate in 2007—has digitized millions of books and made them searchable through the Google Books platform.
In addition to improving Google’s search, the books scanned through the Google Books Library Project are deposited into the HathiTrust Digital Library. The BTAA and University of California system were instrumental in setting up HathiTrust, a community-owned partnership developed to “be a vital catalyst for emerging forms of research, teaching, and learning that engage the scholarly and cultural record.” We already benefit greatly from the services of HathiTrust, which include preservation of the scanned versions of the content, access to research tools such as textual analysis, and books for people with print disabilities. Moreover, full-text content from HathiTrust is discoverable in QuickSearch, adding to the amount of resources our users have access to at the click of a button.
Though our work on this project is really just beginning, it has already been months in the making. Last spring, we worked with Google to go through a test run of their digitization process, from the identification of books in our collection to the review of the final, scanned versions. Now that we’re moving forward, a Librarieswide team has been formed to carry out the project with Joann Parrone acting as the central coordinator. This group had its kick-off meeting last month and is already working to comb through the candidate list provided by Google, which amounts to nearly 170,000 unique items. Each needs to be reviewed for eligibility, taking into consideration size, condition, and a variety of other factors.
And this is all just the tip of the iceberg. This project will call upon many of us throughout its lifecycle, from the selection of materials, to packing and staging, to coordinating checkout policies while the books are away being scanned. But this this is an important undertaking and a great opportunity for us to further our contribution to the collective collection, advancing the elements of our mission to accelerate discovery, illuminate understanding, and contribute to the public good.
In their new report on operationalizing the BTAA collective collection, Lorcan Dempsey and his colleagues write that “effective collaboration, the provision of shared infrastructure, and operational sustainability are all now central issues for libraries and the institutions of which they are a part.” Contributing to initiatives like the Google Books Library Project and the HathiTrust Digital Library is one of the many ways we can embrace this spirit of collaboration and ensure that we maximize the impact of our collections—not just in the here and now, but around the world, and for generations to come.
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Robert Moevs Audio Archive
Robert Moevs (1920–2007) served on the faculty of Rutgers University from 1964 to 1991, and as chair of the Music Department from 1974 to 1981. The Robert Moevs Audio Archive now features publicly available streaming clips of all of its 193 pieces and is one of the libraries’ featured Digital Collections. The audio was digitized from reel-to-reel and cassette tapes to preserve the material while making it more easily accessible. The metadata is visible to anyone, and the complete audio can be accessed from computers in Douglass Library.
An accomplished composer and beloved teacher, Robert Moevs (1920–2007) served on the faculty of Rutgers University from 1964 to 1991, and as chair of the Music Department from 1974 to 1981. Accolades include fellowships, residencies, and awards from the American Academy in Rome, Guggenheim, the National Institute of Arts and Sciences, ASCAP, and the Stockhausen International Prize in Composition. The creator of a rich body of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and instrumental music, Moevs’s work received major performances by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony, and Leonard Bernstein and Symphony of the Air. He was also a revered professor whose students include Richard Wilson at Vassar College and Judith Shatin at the University of Virginia.
The Robert Moevs Audio Archive ensures the preservation of the composer’s music and the style he represents for generations to come. Modernist composers sought to challenge and expand the horizons of the listener; as teachers, they significantly impacted the scholarly study of music. Digitization and metadata creation was possible thanks to the Moevs endowment, which generously supports conferences and concerts on 20th-century modernist music.
I’d like to thank everyone who worked on this project, especially Kalaivani Ananthan, Marty Barnett, Isaiah Beard, Thomas Izbicki, Lila Kwederis, Rachael Lansang, Rhonda Marker, Sam McDonald, Janice Pilch, Geoffrey Wood, and Esther Zenzele.
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On the Impact of a Casual Conversation
Noah Mac and I during New Student Orientation at Carr Library. One never thinks that a casual conversation with a librarian at Rutgers Day might impact a student’s decision to come to Rutgers University, but this is one such example.
Noah Mac, RU ’21 and I met for the first time during the cool morning of 2017 Rutgers Day. Noah and his father were among the many visitors to the Rutgers University Libraries table in front of the Art Library. I engaged in a conversation with them and learned that they were visiting from Michigan. The visit was important for Noah, a high school senior, as he was in the process of selecting the college where he was to spend the next four years. After a friendly conversation that included information on the 250-year history of Rutgers and library services available for undergraduate students, I often wondered which college Noah ended up attending, especially because Michigan has so many options of state universities with great academic standings.
It was a great pleasure for me to meet Noah for the second time in August 2018, when he was attending the New Student Orientation at Carr Library. He mentioned that the Rutgers Day conversation in 2017 had made a very positive impact on his decision in coming to Rutgers. Unexpectedly, Noah and I met for the third time during the 2019 New Student Orientation at Carr Library. This time, Noah was an orientation leader with the New Student Orientation and Family Programs guiding the incoming student groups from one event to another. After talking about his successful first year at Rutgers, Noah mentioned to me that the story he tells his group of incoming students, My Rutgers Story, includes “a librarian whom he met on Rutgers Day” who made him feel “not just another number,” impacting his decision!
Noah will be majoring in microbiology and in addition to his academic endeavors has other talents, including that of being a trumpet performer in the Rutgers Marching Band. He is certainly very talented, as he was one of the five trumpet performers (among 35 or so) to be selected to travel with the band to a football game in Ann Arbor, MI against University of Michigan in fall 2019. He is delighted to go back to his home state as a member of Rutgers Marching Band representing the university.
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Library Tutorials Made Available in Multiple LMSs
The NimblyWise courses on Communication, Critical Thinking, and Information Literacy are now available for use in Blackboard, Canvas, and Sakai. A new Credo Reference course – Health Science – is in the process of being set up and soon will be available in Canvas. As an easy way to reference these courses while conveying the wide range of library instruction topics, we refer to them as Library Tutorials.The Library Tutorials are for use by Rutgers University instructors on all campuses. Librarians will be interested to know that the lessons are mapped to instructional standards including the AAC&U (American Association of Colleges and Universities) VALUE Rubrics (Information Literacy and others), the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, and the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards.
Here are some of the ways that instructors may use these lessons:
- In a first-year or transition class, to help students appreciate the overall importance of information literacy, strong research and evaluation, and communication skills.
- As a flipped classroom, assigning students to view a video or work through a lesson before they attend a specialized library instruction class.
- At various points during a scaffolded assignment, courses are broken down into individual lessons so that they may be deployed to students at various points in their process.
- At the beginning of a class project, the multimedia lessons cover topics essential to success in research, from choosing a topic to evaluating sources.
- At point of need, the lessons and videos provide just-in-time learning resources that are available to students throughout the semester.
Instructors who have questions about the Library Tutorials content, or who want to supplement the online instruction with in-person or other modes of library instruction, are being directed to contact their library liaison. Library liaisons can also help instructors select the most relevant lessons for their course.
Librarian liaisons who need information about the tutorials may contact Maria Breger at maria.breger@rutgers.edu.
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Making Room for (Space) Improvement
Last month the Central unit completed a series of relocation projects within Alexander Library and the Libraries Technical Services Building in order to maximize the efficient use of space and prepare for future improvement projects.
We were pleased to welcome Communications, Shared User Services and Digital Projects to the administrative offices on the third floor at Alexander: Matt Badessa, Rhonda Marker, Marty Barnett, and Isaiah Beard are now located at 169 College Avenue, and may be reached at their same telephone lines. Business Operations, including Abigail DiPaolo, Amanda Presler and Jodi Costeira, have relocated within the administrative suite, so their address and telephone lines will not change.
We are also excited to welcome Gracemary Smulewitz to the SCC space on the fourth floor of Alexander. Web services librarian Amy Kimura and discovery services librarian Joseph Deodato have now relocated to TSB, near to their frequent collaborators in IIS and TAS, and can be reached at their same telephone lines at 47 Davidson Road.
These new arrangements are partly the result of achieving certain goals and priorities for FY2019, namely, the addition of Jeffrey Carroll, our new AVP of scholarly communications and collections, who joins Rutgers on July 15. In the coming year, both Alexander Library and TSB will undergo limited renovation projects to include more collaborative space for staff and students, and to co-locate School of Communication and Information faculty in Alexander Library.
The Libraries are accustomed to the strengths and challenges of working together across 16 buildings and three campuses, and effective workspace is always in demand. More news about ongoing space improvements will follow as we work on the functionality and use of the Technical Services Building. We look forward to the next phase of enhancements!
Want more exciting news about spaces and places at RUL? Read about the Dana Library Transformation Project and track its progress on its dedicated blog.
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What’s Happening around Rutgers – July 2019
Bach 2 Rock: The Science of SoundThursday, July 11 | 10 a.m.
Walter K. Gordon TheaterThis multimedia presentation by Caryn Lin transforms sound with a five-string electric violin and a myriad of modern technology. Students journey from the classical days of Bach to today’s techno-wonders. Part of the Summer Arts at RCCA program. Performances are open to everyone, but are especially recommended for Camden City youth ages 4-18. Group size is generally limited to approximately 125 per performance. A supervisor is required for every ten students.
Newark Gay Pride Festival and Flag RaisingSunday, July 14 | Line up at 11 a.m. | March begins at noon
Lincoln Park at the intersection of Broad St. and Clinton Ave.
March with RUN faculty, staff, students and alumni to show your pride and support for the LGBTQ community! Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, light clothing, and a hat or sunglasses (and Rutgers gear if you have it). RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/RUNNWKPrideMarch.
Summer FestSaturday, July 27 | 3 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Rutgers Gardens
Our annual Summer Fest, run by our Summer Interns, showcases all the Gardens has to offer! The festival celebrates Rutgers agricultural research and development. Join us for tours, tastings, games, and more! Find more information at https://rutgersgardens.rutgers.edu/event/summer-fest/. -
This Month in the Agenda – July 1980
Movers and shakers around the Libraries, July 1980. Play ball!
RULSA is sponsoring a baseball trip on Sunday, July 20 for the Yankees vs. Kansas City game. The cost of the trip ($13.00 for RULSA members and their families, $13.50 for non-members and their families) will include the bus trip and box seats. The bus will leave the Alexander Library at 11:45 a.m. You may purchase your tickets form Eileen Barron, Douglass Library, extension 9411. The deadline for full payment is Thursday, July 10.
The Agenda 2, no. 27 (July 7, 1980)
Database Searching… Online!
Upon the request of the University Librarian Hendrik Edelman, Pat Piermatti convened a meeting of the Ad Hoc Group for Online Database Searching to discuss the issues involved in providing system-wide online database searching, heretofore offered by LSM and the Camden Law
Library alone….Evelyn Greenberg presented Alexander Library’s proposal for the provision of online services beginning September 2, 1980. Initially Lockheed Information Systems DIALOG will be accessed for its social sciences and humanities databases. The fee structure and publicity materials must still be decided upon. Debbie Ludwig reviewed the Dana Library Task Force Preliminary Report for the Provision of Online Searching. Dana anticipates the commencement of their online service sometime after January 1, 1981. Debbie will have responsibility for the science databases, while Christine Demidowich will be responsible for the social sciences and humanities databases. The Bibliographic Retrieval Service and DIALOG will be the first two systems accessed.
The Agenda 2, no. 29 (July 21, 1980)
