The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Units

  • Introducing Browzine

    Rutgers University Libraries are pleased to introduce BrowZine, a current awareness tool that allows users to find, read, and monitor the top scholarly journals in their field from almost any device.

    BrowZine improves discovery of current issues of academic journals and provides streamlined access to full-text via PC, tablet, or smartphone. It also offers useful personalization features so users can keep current with their favorite publications.

    BrowZine users can:

    • Browse thousands of top academic journals by subject, title or ISSN; review current tables of contents, and download full-text articles published since 2005
    • Follow and receive new article notifications for their favorite journals by creating a personal bookshelf
    • Save and export articles to services such as DropBox, Mendeley, RefWorks, EndNote, and Zotero

    Although it provides access to thousands of titles from major academic publishers, BrowZine does not include every journal available at Rutgers or cover issues published before 2005. It also does not include non-scholarly periodicals such as newspapers, magazines, and trade publications. Access to the Libraries’ complete periodical holdings is available via QuickSearch.

    For more information, see What is BrowZine?

  • Quick Takes on Events and News – November 2018

    Award-Winning Oral Historian to Speak at Clement’s Place

    Patricia Willard, recipient of the 2018 Jazz Journalists Association Lifetime Achievement Award, will talk about her experiences working on the Institute of Jazz Studies Jazz Oral History Project collection and other jazz oral histories on Monday, November 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Clement’s Place. One of the most prolific oral historians on the Jazz Oral History Project, Willard recorded 16 interviews with luminaries such as Juan Tizol, John Simmons, and Teddy Edwards.

    Patricia Willard is an oral historian specializing in jazz, a photojournalist, lecturer, editor, archivist, broadcaster, concert producer, and research consultant, who is currently completing a historiography of Duke Ellington, 1949-74, two additional books, and a play. In June 2018, she received the Jazz Journalists Association Lifetime Achievement Award. She has conducted 38 individual oral histories and one 2005 videotaped group oral history of 19 survivors of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

    DSMP programming is supported by a Rutgers–Newark Chancellor’s seed grant.

    OAT Program Supports Award-Winning Course

    Rutgers–Camden chancellor Phoebe Haddon recently announced that the Rutgers-Camden Nursing School received a 2018 American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Innovations in Professional Nursing Education Award for their Spanish for the Health Professions Certificate Program, offered in conjunction with the World Languages Department. The certificate is designed to develop the Spanish skills of nursing students, increasing their capacity to provide medical care to Spanish-speaking communities in Camden and across the world.

    Dana Pilla, who was a 2017-2018 OAT recipient and who is serving on our review panel this year, is co-director of the certificate program. Her OAT course, Spanish for the Health Professions II, is a required component of the certificate. Her goal was to redesign the course to avoid costly access codes in order to better meet the demand for increased enrollment, assigning an e-book provided through the Libraries, other library resources, and free materials such as YouTube videos from the CDC and other professional health organizations.

    Congratulations to the OAT team for the role they played in supporting this innovative and award-winning program!

    NBMSA Recognized as Innovative Archives

    The New Brunswick Music Scene Archive was presented with the Innovative Archives Award on Monmouth County Archives and History Day on October 13. Jeff Moy, archivist at Morristown & Morris Township Library, pictured left, presented the award on behalf of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference New Jersey Caucus to Christie Lutz, pictured right.

    SOAR Gets a Shout-Out 

    We’ve just received word that David Axelrod, professor in the Department of Genetics, will be thanking SOAR for its archiving services in his next publication. Congratulations!

    War Services Bureau Digital Collection Goes Live 

    The records of the Rutgers College War Service Bureau can now be accessed via their digital collection portal. This collection features letters from Rutgers students and alumni who served in the First World War, describing their experiences serving in the United States and overseas.

    Rutgers–Camden Embraces The Big Read

    Paul Robeson Library, in conjunction with the Rutgers–Camden Center for the Arts, is hosting The Big Read/In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez now through January 3, 2019.

    Alvarez’s 1994 novel is a work of historical fiction based on the lives of the four Mirabal sisters, who participated in underground efforts to topple dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s three-decade-long regime in the Dominican Republic. Three of the sisters—Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa—were executed on Trujillo’s orders on November 25, 1960. Their story haunted Alvarez, whose own family had fled the Dominican Republic just three months earlier in fear that her father’s participation in the resistance would make him a target of Trujillo.

    Complimentary copies of Alvarez’s novel are available on a first-come, first-served basis and viewers will have the opportunity to contribute to the Butterflies in Memoriam installation piece by creating their own butterfly in remembrance or honor of someone close to them.

    Exploring New Jersey’s Diverse Foodways

    Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries’ new exhibition From Cooking Pot to Melting Pot: New Jersey’s Diverse Foodways will open November 12, 2018 at Alexander Library. The opening will feature a presentation by Carla Cevasco of the Rutgers Department of American Studies, historian of food in colonial America and author of the forthcoming Violent Appetites: Hunger, Natives and Settlers in the Northern Borderlands. From Cooking Pot to Melting Pot is one of the first events in Transcultural NJ Revisited 2018-2020, a two-year, statewide celebration of local and global cultures in the Garden State under the auspices of Rutgers’ Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. Register to attend.

  • What’s Happening around Rutgers? November 2018

    A "VOTE" pin or button on a flag of the United StatesThe Morning After

    Wednesday, November 7 | 9:30 a.m.
    Live-streaming on Facebook

    Hosted by the Eagleton Institute of Politics, The Morning After panel discussion will feature analysis of the results and implications of the 2018 elections.

    Panelists include:

    • Mike DuHaime, Partner, Mercury Public Affairs; Republican Strategist
    • Michael Hill, Correspondent, NJTV
    • Herb Jackson, The Record/USA Today Network New Jersey
    • Julie Roginsky, President, Optimus Communications; Democratic Strategist
    • Debbie Walsh, Director, Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics

    Moderator: John Weingart, Associate Director, Eagleton Institute of Politics

    mineralMineral Late Night

    Wednesday, November 7 | 4 to 8 p.m.
    Rutgers Geology Museum | Rutgers–New Brunswick

    Visit the Rutgers Geology Museum for their Mineral Late Night on November 7. Re-use your Halloween costume and come dressed as your favorite super hero while learning about some powerful minerals!

    Demonstrations, arts and crafts, and educational activities will be set up around the museum and people are welcome to come and go as they please. The event is free and open to visitors of all ages. Visit the museum website for more information.

    A Conversation with Gov. James Florio

    Thursday, November 8 | 6 to 8 p.m.
    Campus Center | Rutgers–Camden

    James J. Florio, a former New Jersey governor and an alumnus of the Camden location of Rutgers Law School, will discuss topics from his new book, Standing on Principle: Lessons Learned in Public Life. This free event will feature a conversation between Governor Florio and retired Philadelphia Inquirer reporter George Anastasia. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. Register to attend.

    Behind the Magic of Disney: Is It Really Happily Ever After?

    Wednesday, November 28 | 2:30 to 3:50 p.m.
    Paul Robeson Campus Center | Rutgers–Newark

    This event is an open discussion on how gender roles, violence, and oppression have been masked in magic. Join the Rutgers Office for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance to explore the hidden messages in classic Disney films. Visit the Rutgers–Newark website for more information.

  • This Month in the Agenda – November 1998

    Agenda november 1998It may be hard to believe, but November 1998 was two whole decades ago! What was happening around the Libraries?

    Dana Puts High Schoolers Online

    16 Newark Central High School students… participated in an innovative computer-usage-training program conducted last year by Dana Library and Rutgers-Newark’s Institute for Outreach and Research in Urban Education. This program was conceived by Dana Library Director Lynn S. Mullins and Professor Jean Anyon of the Institute.

    [T]hey learned about navigating the internet, searching government and university websites, finding websites on research topics, and using the networked indexes available at the Rutgers University Libraries…

    After the semester long course was completed, the Rutgers-Newark Teaching Excellence Center was asked to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The center’s director, Ken Kressel conducted focus group sessions with the 16 students and four Central H.S. faculty members and reported afterwards that “This program received the most collective and heartfelt endorsements of any instructional activity I have studied in nearly four years of doing focus groups at Rutgers.”

    The Agenda 20, no. 22 (November 1, 1998)

    Let’s See Some ID

    The RUconnection Card Office is ready to start issuing the new photo ID card for regular library faculty and library graduate assistants on the New Brunswick campuses starting November 23 through December 11. If you have any questions, please contact Sandy Troy.

    The Agenda 20, no. 23 (November 15, 1998)

    Live to Serve… and to Instruct

    Learning and instruction take a myriad of forms in the Rutgers University Libraries of the 1990’s, from traditional to technological, from distance learning to digital.

    The Instructional Services Committee (ISC), composed of instruction coordinators and/or librarians skilled in instruction or instructional technology, was formed last month to keep track of the range of instructional offerings at RUL, and help develop new opportunities.

    Members of the committee are: Jeris Cassel, Helen Hoffman, Kevin Mulcahy, Ann Scholz-Crane, Julie Still, Thelma Tate, Bobbi [sic] Tipton, and Irwin Weintraub.

    The Agenda 20, no. 24 (November 29, 1998)

  • Ninja Warrior Report

    Participants in this program, from the School of Arts and Sciences’ Students in Transition Seminar, were walked through a series of library related activities including five minutes of copyright, playing a memory game to learn about Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA), making a button to learn more about copyright and SCUA, playing a game to learn about what is available for check out at the circulation desk, how to find an article and a PDF, and more. Over 160 transfer students participated in this project and 105 assessment surveys were collected.

    From a quick analysis of the assessment spreadsheet, each activity was mentioned more than once as a positive experience. Many students enjoyed button making, copyright, finding a PDF, and the unique items found in SCUA. Many students liked the overall feel of this interactive experience.  Also, it was noted multiple times that many students’ favorite aspect of the library was the people who work there. Last but not least, many students—including the passport stamper from the STS program—expressed during the event that the library event was the best so far and many participants thanked us for the opportunity to learn while having fun.

    Should you have further questions about this event, please contact Mei-Ling Lo mlo@rutgers.edu or Megan Lotts megan.lotts@rutgers.edu.

  • Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections

    Digital storage meeting at the Library of CongressStoring and preserving digital content continues to be a significant expectation of libraries and cultural centers around the country. To better understand these needs, as well to see what digital archivists around the country are doing to meet this challenge, the Library of Congress holds an annual meeting called “Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections.” The DSA meeting brings together technical and industry experts, IT and subject matter experts, government specialists with an interest in preservation, decision-makers from a wide range of organizations with digital preservation requirements, and recognized authorities and practitioners of digital preservation. The meeting is by invitation only, and for the past two years Rutgers has been invited to take part in the conversation. The most recent meeting was held on September 17 and 18.

    The first thing glaringly clear from our discussions was the increasing need for digital storage across all of our peers. From the few terabytes of data that Rutgers Libraries store in our repository, to the dozen or so petabytes stored by the Library of Congress, our digital collections continue to grow, and the demands for storage increase. This is driven by an increasing appetite for digital data from our patrons, but is also the effect of researchers and artists having greater access to digital authoring tools. We are now in the age where smartphones and tablets already in the hands of our user base can capture images, documents, and video in stunning quality—but with a cost in terms of larger file sizes.

    To meet this challenge, storage makers continue in the short term to refine the technologies we are already familiar with. Reasonably-priced tablets and laptops are now shipping with solid state drives reaching a terabyte in capacity. Fourteen-TB traditional hard drives are now hitting the market. And for long-term backups, tape continues to rule, with 30TB tape cartridges costing about $200 each. At the institutional level, libraries are beginning to cooperate and pool resources to distribute their storage needs across multiple datacenters, for redundancy and additional capacity.

    The not-too-distant future holds some different approaches, as well. In particular, research is ongoing to move beyond hard drives and tapes, and to begin storing data at the molecular level, using polymer chains. Even DNA sequencing is showing significant promise as a long-term method for archiving and preserving data.

  • Service and Emotional Support Animals in the Library

    Service dogAt Robeson Library, we recently had an experience that called attention to the guidelines for having service animals on campus, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to remind everyone at the Libraries about the relevant university policies and procedures.

    The Office of Disability Services website does a great job of describing the different types of animals you may see on campus, where they are allowed to accompany students, and what questions faculty and staff are permitted by law to ask about these companions:

    What’s the difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal?

    Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. A service animal is considered a working animal, rather than a pet.

    An emotional support animal (ESA) is different from a service animal. An ESA provides support and comfort to individuals with a documented disability that would require such support. ESAs are not required to go through training and are not limited to dogs.

    Where are service animals and emotional support animals permitted on campus?

    Service animals can accompany their handlers in any area where the public is normally allowed to go. This includes residence halls, classrooms, student centers, libraries, dining halls, etc.

    Emotional support animals are permitted only in the student’s assigned living space. Emotional support animals are not permitted in public spaces such as classrooms, student centers, dining halls, or libraries.

    Animals affiliated with the Companion Animal Club and the Seeing-Eye Puppy Club are permitted in most public spaces as well, but students must ask for their professor’s permission before bringing the animal to class.

    How can I identify whether an animal is a service animal or an emotional support animal?

    Service animals and ESAs are not required to wear a special harness or garment that identifies them as a service or support animal.

    When in doubt, faculty and staff members may ask a student only two questions about the animal:

    • Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?
    • What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

    Faculty and staff cannot inquire about the person’s disability, request medical documentation or training documentation, or request to see the dog demonstrate its ability to perform a specific task.

    For more information, visit the Office of Disability Services’s column about on-campus animals or view their extended FAQ, which cover topics including allergies, disruptive behavior, and fear of animals.

  • Rutgers Environmental Health and Safety Accident Database

    safety firstAll accidents or injuries to staff, faculty, or library student employees during working hours must be reported through the Rutgers Environmental Health and Safety (REHS) Accident Database immediately or by the end of the work shift at the latest. Each unit has personnel who have been designated to create accident reports in the online system. The university also works with specific health care facilities to assist any injured Rutgers employee. All reports will be reviewed by the appropriate unit director, senior HR manager Barbara Weldon, and additional authorized university personnel for processing and required reporting purposes.

    The following personnel have been assigned to assist employees in accident reporting. If they are not available, please contact the creator at the closest location or Libraries HR to enter the report.

    Alexander Library:  Rose Barbalace, Zohreh Bonianian, John Brennan, David Kuzma, Erica Parin, Michele Petosa, William Puglisi, Elena Schneider, Lorraine Slavik, Brian Stubbs, Jeffrey Teichmann, John Brennan, Sonia Yaco

    Annex:  Dean Meister

    Art Library: Roselyn Riley, Jacquelyn Tasker

    Carr Library:  Joseph Asaro, Barry Lipinski, Jill Morrow, Paul Young

    Chang LIbrary:  Nita Mukherjee

    Dana Library:  Timothy Domick, Ayesha Salim, La-Tira Shaw

    Douglass Library:  Andres Martinez, Ramon Negron, Kelly Worth

    LSM:  Laura Friday, Holly Muller, Anthony Timek, Michele Tokar, Edward Suarez

    Math Library:  L. Melanie Miller

    Robeson Library:  Regina Koury, John Powell

    RWJ Library:  Victoria Wagner, Philip Wilson

    Smith Library:  Corisa Mobley

    TAS:  Kalaivani Ananthan, Joan Hendershot

  • Ex Libris Implementation Project Update – November 2018

    quicksearch logoAs we reach the midpoint of the semester, the focus of the Ex Libris project has begun to shift from planning and implementation to maintenance and support. Since its formation, the team has received close to 700 questions, comments, and suggestions on issues ranging from access and authentication to resource management and user interface design. Approximately 75% of tickets were answered in under 12 hours (40% were answered in under 10 minutes!). Thanks to feedback from library users and staff, the team has continued to make improvements to QuickSearch. Some highlights since the last update include:

    Improved journal searching
    Relevance ranking of one-word journal titles (Nature, Science, Cell, etc.) has been improved, making these publications easier to locate using the Journal Search option

    Browse options restored
    The ability to browse library materials by title, author, and subject has been restored. (These options were disabled at the start of the semester due to a software bug.)

    Can’t find what you’re looking for?
    Suggestions have been added to the bottom of the search results page to help users improve or expand their search. Suggestions vary depending on the type of search performed and include links to external borrowing services such as E-ZBorrow and Interlibrary Loan.

    System alerts
    System alerts have been added to allow for improved communication of service disruptions and outages.

    Improved facet and summary holdings display
    The formatting of long facets and summary holdings statements has been improved by allowing them to wrap to the next line instead of truncating them.

    Next/previous record
    When viewing a record, users can navigate to the next or previous record without having to return to the search results page.

    Translation of foreign language serial titles
    English translations of foreign language serial titles now appear in the main title entry of the brief and full record display.

    Firefox bug fix
    There was a bug in Firefox that produced different results depending on whether a search was executed by clicking the search button or pressing enter. This has been fixed.

    Since going live in June, QuickSearch has clocked over 470,000 sessions and handled roughly 850,000 queries. Though transaction logs are useful for measuring usage, they don’t tell us how well a product meets the needs of its users. That’s why, in November, we’ll be conducting a universitywide usability study to learn more about how library patrons use QuickSearch. Students and faculty from all four campuses have been invited to participate and share their thoughts on the new interface. Findings from the study will be used to guide further enhancements to QuickSearch and improve the overall user experience.

  • Libraries and Open Science

    Open science by designAs you probably know, last week was International Open Access Week, a time when trends and issues related to open access are on the minds of many in the academic community. I was no exception, and found myself thinking back to Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research, a report published over the summer by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

    According to the report, real progress has been made toward open science in the last number of years, and we are beginning to see the benefits of researchers having free access to the latest publications, data, and other research products in their fields. Open science encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration, accelerates the dissemination of knowledge, achieves efficiencies in the use of resources, and much more.

    That said, the research community still faces a number of challenges, both economic and cultural. Many of the most prestigious venues adhere to traditional, closed publishing models, and it is difficult for academic institutions to adequately incentivize and reward open science practices. Moreover, significant cost and infrastructure barriers remain.

    In response to this ecosystem, the authors of the report propose a framework for open science by design. They lay out a series of practices and principles aimed at helping researchers share and collaborate more effectively, contributing to and benefitting from open science at each stage of the research process.

    But what does this mean for us here at the Libraries?

    As the report notes, libraries are a key stakeholder in the scholarly communication process. We have a responsibility to facilitate open science, from training researchers in best practices such as compliance with FAIR data principles to ensuring the long-term preservation and stewardship of research products.

    At Rutgers, we have established a reputation on campus as being at the forefront of open access, playing leadership roles in establishing the university’s Open Access Policy, publishing and providing a platform for gold open access journals, spearheading the university’s ORCID initiative, and managing SOAR, the university’s green open access repository.

    Of particular interest to us, however, is the report’s discussion of the high cost related to green open access repositories. While they are a useful first step in the move toward a fully open system, green repositories are costly to build and maintain, present ongoing challenges in terms of content storage, and are impacted by continuing discussions about bibliographic metrics. Moreover, “compliance involving deposits in a repository requires time, which necessitates education, assistance, and incentives,” the authors write. And so it is unsurprising to see that comparatively little of the scholarly literature is available through these avenues.While we are well-positioned at Rutgers to effect change in this area, clearly we can’t do it alone. In order for us to be successful, we need to canvass key partners on campus for their support and promote a unified approach to open access. We have to scale up and develop new methods to acquire content. And we must use the findings of reports like Open Science by Design as guidance to ensure we are facilitating open scholarship in an effective and sustainable way that realizes the vision articulated by the National Academies.