The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Units

  • New Brunswick Libraries Pilot Overnight Hours

    knight-owlsOvernight library hours are among the most frequently requested service enhancements students would like to see in the New Brunswick Libraries. Popular during finals, students would like the option to work 24/7 during other parts of the academic year too. Twenty-four hour spaces are also standard in most of our peer libraries—in fact, only two of our Big Ten partner institutions do not provide this service.

    In response to user request and with one-year pilot funding from the New Brunswick Chancellor, the New Brunswick Libraries are launching 24/5 hours in two locations starting on October 10. Kilmer Library and parts of the first floor and basement level in Alex will be open overnight Sunday – Thursday. That means those libraries will open for their regular Sunday operations and remain open through regular closing time on Friday nights. 24/5 hours will operate during the fall and spring semesters including reading days and finals, excluding university holidays and intersession periods.

    Overnight operations will support student study in quiet, collaborative, and group environments. OIT and Libraries computers will also be available. Library student workers will be onsite until 2 a.m., providing some circulation services, but from 2 a.m.–8 a.m., the spaces will be monitored by Rutgers University Police Department security staff and no library services will be available. Rutgers students and affiliates will have to show a Rutgers ID in order to gain entry to the building from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

    Throughout the year we will take hourly headcounts to measure usage and identify patterns. We will also set assessment benchmarks to determine whether the pilot was successful and whether the 24/5 hours should be continued.

    I’m excited to bring this pilot to the students in New Brunswick this fall and look forward to seeing how the spaces are used overnight to support student work, learning, and success!

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  • Clement’s Place: A New and Intimate Home for Jazz at Rutgers–Newark

    • Newark favorite Carrie Jackson, NC 350 performance, 9/9/16, credit Ed Berger.

    The Institute of Jazz Studies is partnering with NJPAC and the Newark 350 Celebration Committee to bring two series of jazz performances to Clement’s Place, a new venue located in the iconic 15 Washington Street building, located next to the Newark Museum. Clement’s Place, which looks like a classic jazz club, honors the memory of the late Dr. Clement Price, a beloved professor of history at Rutgers–Newark and official historian of the city of Newark.

    The NC350 Series

    The NC350 series, which is free and open to the public, takes place the second Friday of each month. To date, performers have included groups led by Newark legends saxophonist Leo Johnson and vocalist Carrie Jackson.

    The NJPAC “Jazz Jam” Series

    The NJPAC “Jazz Jam” series, coordinated by pianist James Austin, Jr., features a mix of younger and more seasoned performers in the time-honored, informal jam session tradition.

    Among his wide-ranging interests, Dr. Price was a serious student of jazz and a longtime supporter of the Institute of Jazz Studies. Jazz-related art and artifacts from Dr. Price’s personal collection adorn the walls of Clement’s Place.

    IJS excutive director Wayne Winborne, oversees the programming and management of the space, which mixes top jazz musicians from the Newark area with world renowned artists. Spoken, salsa, classical, and other related musical performances will be presented in the space, as well as a series of curated listening sessions, hosted by IJS staff members.

    Upcoming Events

    10/7, 5:30-7 p.m. IJS Curated Listening Session: Early Louis Armstrong
    10/8, 4-6 p.m. IJS Occasional Film Series: Stepping Up: Stories of Jazz & Caregiving (screening at the Newark Museum)
    10/14, 6-8 p.m. NC350 Series: Bobby Sanabria Quartet
    10/15, (time TBD) Joe Louis: Am Opera by Count Basie (in the Great Hall, 15 Washington Street)
    10/20, 7-9:30 p.m. NJPAC Jazz Jam with James Austin
    10/21, 7-9 p.m. IJS Concert Series: Randy Sandke Quartet
    10/27, 5:30-8 p.m. Salsa Night (free lessons begin at 5:30; music at 6:30)
    11/1, 7-9:30 p.m. NJPAC Jazz Jam with James Austin
    11/4, 5:30-7:30 p.m. IJS Curated Listening Session: After Bitches Brew: the 1970s
    11/11, 6-8 p.m. NC350 Series: Return to the Source Reunion
    11/17, 7-9:30 p.m. NJPAC Jazz Jam with James Austin
    12/1, 5:30-8 p.m. Salsa Night (free lessons begin at 5:30; music at 6:30)
    12/9, 6-8 p.m. NC350 Series: Houston Person
    12/15, 7-9:30 p.m. NJPAC Jazz Jam with James Austin

     

     

  • 200 Coins Added to the Roman Coins Project over the Summer

    The Roman Coins project is a collaborative effort to bring the Rutgers’ Ernst Badian Collection of Roman Republican Coins fully into the digital realm and to contextualize its 1200+ items in such a way that students, researchers, and a broad section of the public can readily understand the general patterns of development in Roman money during its first 250 years.

    coin
    Aureus – Sydenham 1153 – Crawford 491/1a. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T31N82ZC

    The collection holds many coins that hold particular historic, economic, or artistic interest and is one of the largest of its type in North America. However, for a variety of reasons, the coins are not readily consulted in person. In order to make them broadly accessible for study and teaching, the Classics Department and Rutgers University Libraries are working together to create a web-based public portal and archive.

    This summer with additional funding from the Classics Department and the dedicated efforts of three summer part-time employees, we were able to add another 200 coins to the portal, bringing the total to some 700 coins.

    The portal features multi-faceted display of high-resolution images of individual coins and metadata specifically designed to render ancient numismatics comprehensible to non-specialists, while offering experts much in the way of original and unpublished research.

    High-resolution digital imaging available in the Digital Curation Research Center was used to capture archival and presentation images for each coin in a format called Pyramid Tiff (or ptiff) that allows us to represent the same image at different spatial resolutions. This feature was developed for RUcore and is useful for viewing other formats such as maps.

    To see ptiff in action, click on “view slideshow” below the coin image at https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/47436/. Use the buttons to pan, zoom, and rotate the image. These are truly beautiful artifacts and the ptiff technology allows users to explore them like never before.

    The user experience is further enhanced by specialized metadata detailing the legends and images found on the coins and newly implemented faceted browsing. Faceted browsing is available at the Coins portal where users can narrow searches by denomination, material, time period, moneyer, subject, and method.

    To complete the digitization of the Badian collection, professor Corey Brennan (Classics Department) will apply for another grant from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation. These additional funds will enable us to image and ingest the remaining 500 coins into the RUcore portal. Professor Brennan will also use the Coins portal in a graduate seminar this Fall.

     

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  • Don’t Miss Your Open Enrollment Benefits Fairs

    As recently announced, University Human Resources (UHR) will host a series of Open Enrollment Benefits Fairs throughout the month of October to educate employees about their SHBP benefits options, as well as other benefits and services that are available and may be of interest.

    Save the date and plan to attend the Open Enrollment Benefit Fair that is most convenient for you:

    Rutgers University/ Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) New Brunswick
    Oct. 10, 2016, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Medical Education Building, 1 Robert Wood Johnson Pl.
    Rutgers University – New Brunswick/Piscataway
    Oct. 11, 2016, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Rutgers Student Center, College Avenue Campus
    Oct. 20, 2016, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Busch Student Center, Busch Campus
    Rutgers University – Camden
    Oct. 13, 2016, 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Athletic and Fitness Center, 301 Linden St.
    Rutgers University – Newark
    Oct. 19, 2016, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
    Rutgers University – Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) Newark
    Oct. 25, 2016, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Medical Science Building, 185 South Orange Ave.

    Contact the Benefits Administration staff with questions regarding benefits at (848) 932-3990 or via email at benefits@hr.rutgers.edu.

     

  • Quick Takes on Events & News – October 2016

    Save the date for State of the Libraries – December 7, 2016

    Many more details will follow, but please save the date of December 7 for the 2016 State of the Libraries. The program will begin with poster presentations at 10:30 a.m., lunch will be served around noon, and presentations by Krisellen Maloney and others at 1 p.m. The event will take place at the Busch Campus Center, so hopefully this schedule will allow many of our colleagues from Camden and Newark to avoid the brunt of rush hour traffic.

    judy

     

    Judy Cohn to be a mentor in the 2016-2017 NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program

    Congratulations to Judy Cohn who has been selected as a mentor in the 2016-2017 NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries. The Program prepares emerging leaders for director positions in academic health sciences libraries through a year-long mentoring relationship with a director of another library and a curriculum focused on developing leadership knowledge critical to enhancing the value of libraries in their institutions.

    In this highly competitive program, Judy will be one of ten fellows and mentors from academic health sciences libraries across the U.S. who will begin their work together in November. Since the program began in 2002, 42% of all fellow graduates have assumed director positions.

    President Barchi mentions Libraries’ capital construction projects in Report to the University Senate

    Excerpt: “University Libraries: The University has also launched an in-depth master plan for the university libraries. Libraries have changed their mission; we are looking to align them with what students want and need today, including better computing resources, collaborative areas, and other amenities. Individual projects have been identified and designs are under way for a new OIT computer center at Alexander Library in New Brunswick and a Professional Development and Scholarship Center in Dana Library in Newark.”

    Read the complete report here.

    “The centipede party,” 40 inches by 42 inches, oil painting by BFA student Audrey Meehan. This will be on view at the Mason Gross Galleries.
    “The centipede party,” 40 inches by 42 inches, oil painting by BFA student Audrey Meehan. This will be on view at the Mason Gross Galleries.

    Art Library participating in The Co-Cureate Show

    Undergraduate and graduate visual arts students are teaming up to conceptualize and install a collection of eight student exhibits at three locations across the New Brunswick campus: the Mason Gross Galleries, Rutgers Art Library, and Douglass Student Center. The co-cureate shows (the title is a mash-up of what the initiative has prompted teams to engage in: conceive, curate and create exhibits) are set to run from Thursday, September 29 through Monday, October 17, 2016. The shows will feature student performances, paintings, photographs, sculptures, media, and prints. Admission is free.

    The Art Library will host In Search of Punchline is curated by Johanna Boyce, Audrey Meehan, and Ed Weisgerber and features the work of Johanna Boyce, Erin Keane, Audrey Meehan, Carlyn Perlow, Delfina Picchio, and Ed Weisgerber.

     

    New Brunswick Music Scene ArchiveNew Brunswick Music Scene Symposium Planned for October 27, 2016

    Save the date. Special Collections and University Archives will hold the next New Brunswick Music Scene Archive symposium on October 27, 6 p.m. in the Teleconference Lecture Hall at Alexander Library. Stay tuned for more information, including the participants. In the meantime, here’s a look back at the 2015 symposium, featuring a who’s who of New Jersey music (http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/news/symposium-local-notables-inaugurate-new-brunswick-music-scene-archive).

     

    Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries at Douglass Library is hosting Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations Beyond Borders through December 16. Credit: Laura Anderson Barbata.
    Credit: Laura Anderson Barbata.

    Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries Welcomes “Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations beyond Borders”

    This fall, the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries in the Mabel Smith Douglass Library will welcome the 2016-17 Estelle Lebowitz Endowed Visiting Artist Exhibition, Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations Beyond Borders. The exhibit contains selected highlights of textile, sculptural, 2-dimensional, and video works from the traveling exhibition Transcommunality.

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  • New Brunswick Welcome Days

    The New Brunswick Libraries hosted several events to welcome students to the new semester, as part of the campus-wide Welcome Days activities, which are organized by New Student Orientation and Family Programs (a division of Student Affairs).

    This year, staff and librarians at the Mathematical Sciences and Physics Library in Hill Center challenged students with a giant tumbling tower, while the Library of Science and Medicine offered free snacks and science puzzles. At the Alexander Library, students enjoyed cookies and the chance to spin a wheel for prizes after successfully answering library trivia. Kilmer Library offered carts of granola bars and other treats popcorn was handed out at the steps of the Art Library on College Avenue, and the Douglass Library offered students a much-appreciated coffee/cookie break.

    All of these activities were made possible through the annual Senior Class gift, which is offered in appreciation to the library for hosting the wildly popular ClubAlex dance. The Undergraduate Experience Team sends a HUGE thank you to all of the staff and librarians who made these events possible and helped to create a warm welcoming atmosphere at the libraries.

  • Transforming the Way We Work at Rutgers

    cornertstoneThe new administrative information systems under Cornerstone are scheduled to go live over the next week. Cornerstone is the University’s strategic approach to unify, upgrade, and streamline its administrative information systems for Finance, Human Resources and Payroll, Procurement, etc. Upgrading and improving these systems will significantly improve how we work and collaborate across the university. These projects are also particularly exciting to the library because they will enable all of our units to finally utilize the same systems for administrative functions.

    Be on the look-out for future announcements about process updates and training opportunities related to this implementation. If you have any questions about how the new systems may or may not impact you, please see your local business staff.

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  • Predatory Publishing: Rutgers Alcohol Library in Conversation with Jeffrey Beall

    crocFaculty are inundated with email invitations to publish in scholarly journals or to serve on their editorial boards. Many of these solicitations are completely valid, but an increasing number of these journals are engaging in predatory publishing practices.

    Predatory publishing, a term coined by Jeffrey Beall, a librarian and associate professor at the University of Colorado, Denver, is an unwanted and undesirable side effect of the open access movement and Beall has become widely known as the “go-to guy” when it comes to checking the validity, authenticity, or value of these invitations.

    Beall maintains several resources that are great tools for promotion boards, hiring committees, and, as it turns out, librarians. The renowned Beall’s List of predatory publishers lists “potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly Open-access publishers,” on his Scholarly Open access blog. Additionally, Beall maintains a list of standalone journals and a list of criteria—covering everything from editors, staff, and business management to transparency, integrity, journal standards, and publishing practices—for identifying predatory Open-access publishers.

    The Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS) has been a frequent users of Beall’s list, since nationally and internationally recognized researchers at the Center are primary targets of invitations to participate in scholarly communication in various ways. Addiction science has been experiencing an influx of new journals and conferences, akin to health sciences.

    Judit Ward and William Bejarano have been monitoring this trend in the field at CAS and had the opportunity to interview Beall at the annual conference of the Substance Abuse Librarians & Information Specialists and the Association of Mental Health Librarians in May 2016 in Denver.

    In the July issue of The Agenda, we invited you to read part one of this interview in the Center of Alcohol Studies Information Services Newsletter, in which Beall explains how he became involved in the growing area of predatory publishing, discusses the most vulnerable groups in academia, and gives an update of the current situation. Part two, focusing on topics of greater interest for librarians, is now available in SALIS News. Beall advocates for educating users about not only predatory publishing, but also the various forms of open access and publishing standards, so that they can avoid the traps of predatory publishers.

    – RU Alcohol Library

     

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  • Michael Joseph’s Beautiful Books

    • Failing to Act Photo credit Nell Ytsma.

    In the July staff news, you may have noticed this announcement: “A poem of Michael Joseph‘s will be part of the Vispo Art Exhibition of poetry and art sponsored by the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia (NRW). The exhibition, scheduled for Spring 2017, will conclude in Burgau…” His brilliantly and beautifully conceived books are now a reality.

    Shown above in the slideshow are SPICA, a poem by Michael Joseph, Failing to Act, a collaborative artists’ book, and Dream Dirt, a book unlike any other. All three books were conceived and fabricated by Sarah Stengle.

     

    Details:

    SPICA
    Poem by Michael Joseph 2016
    Art by Sarah Stengle 2016
    Silkscreen on etched and drilled found glass autoclave windows with steel brass and neoprene rubber fittings.
    Edition of 2
    14 x 12 x 26 centimeters (height x depth x width)

    Failing to Act
    Collaborative artists’ book
    Four Poems: Michael Joseph 2016
    Book Art: Sarah Stengle 2016
    Twelve pages as follows: six turkish map-folded spreads, each containing text on one side.
    This book was typeset in Aldus and Aldus SC by Hermann Zapf, and printed on Crane Crest Natural White Cotton Wove. The endpapers are Rives Smoke Cover with Western Blot antibody test result films mounted with 3M 568 adhesive. The text appears inside mid-nineteenth century pale blue ledger-paper folded with a Turkish map-fold. The outer covers are sewn wool with printed pale celadon colored silk title labels applied. The covers are attached with waxed blue linen thread and vintage Erector Set hardware from the 1950’s.
    Edition of 8.

    Dream Dirt
    Text by Michael Joseph 2016
    Art by Sarah Stengle 2016
    A wooden train carrying two vials of dirt, 30 vials containing paper scrolls (28 short stories, 2 signatures).
    The text is available in a trade edition, titled Juvenile Fantasies and Innocent Dreams. The vials contain short stories about childhood and dirt, each one sentence in length, as well as an equivalent number of single-sentences critiques and responses to the stories. Two of the vials contain sterilized dirt from the past of the author and artist.

  • Quick Takes on Events & News – September 2016

    Making Rowan University and Camden County College Students Feel Welcome

    Through a partnership agreement, Paul Robeson Library is now the campus library for Rowan University and Camden County College students. Bart Everts is the library liaison for these students and has started a new Facebook page to share information about their library privileges and resources. The agreement allows students to access the library, use library databases, and check out books using their student ID cards. Robeson also has computers reserved for their use.

     

    Morroe Berger 200Morroe Berger–Benny Carter Jazz Research Fund

    Each year the Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) awards up to ten grants of $1,000 each to assist jazz researchers. Half of the awards are designated for students in the Rutgers University-Newark Master’s Program in Jazz History and Research and half are awarded to scholars from other institutions or unaffiliated researchers to enable them to visit IJS in conjunction with their projects. To date, we have given more than 70 awards to scholars and students worldwide working in a variety of disciplines, including jazz history, musicology, bibliography, and discography.

    Applications for the 2017 grants are due October 21, 2016. Awards will be announced by November 14.

     

    “Homecoming! Some Highlights from the Library of J. Milton French” at Alexander Library

    Homecoming! Some Highlights from the Library of J. Milton French is on display now in the Scholarly Communication Center at Alexander Library. This case exhibit features a selection of volumes recently donated to Rutgers by the family of J. Milton French (1895–1962), a Milton scholar and professor of English at the university from 1940 to 1960.

    The books on display include rare first and early editions of works by John Harington, Richard Barckley, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, John Suckling, George Wither, William Wollaston, and John Milton.

     

    New Brunswick Music Scene ArchiveNew Brunswick Music Scene Symposium Planned for October 27, 2016

    Save the date. Special Collections and University Archives will hold the next New Brunswick Music Scene Archive symposium on October 27, 6 p.m. in the Teleconference Lecture Hall at Alexander Library. Stay tuned for more information, including the participants. In the meantime, here’s a look back at the 2015 symposium, featuring a who’s who of New Jersey music (http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/news/symposium-local-notables-inaugurate-new-brunswick-music-scene-archive).

     

    Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries at Douglass Library is hosting Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations Beyond Borders through December 16. Credit: Laura Anderson Barbata.
    Credit: Laura Anderson Barbata.

    Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries Welcomes “Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations beyond Borders”

    This fall, the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries in the Mabel Smith Douglass Library will welcome the 2016-17 Estelle Lebowitz Endowed Visiting Artist Exhibition, Laura Anderson Barbata: Collaborations Beyond Borders. The exhibit contains selected highlights of textile, sculptural, 2-dimensional, and video works from the traveling exhibition Transcommunality.

     

    Peep Show large image“Peep Show: Books from the Art Library X Room” Exhibit at Rutgers Art Library

    Megan Lotts has raided the X Room to put on a case display of beautiful, surprising, amusing, and impressive books.

    Stop by to get a taste of the treasures that reside in the Rutgers Art Library’s archives.

    Location: Rutgers Art Library

     

     

     

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