If you have a photo that might complement one of the lectures that don’t currently have a photo, please send it along to kuehl@rci.rutgers.edu.
Category: Rutgers University–New Brunswick
Faculty and staff news from the libraries at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
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Quick takes on events & news
National Library Week
April 10 – 16, 2016 
The theme of this year’s National Library Week is “Libraries Transform.” You can read up on National Library Week here: http://www.ala.org/news/mediapresscenter/factsheets/nationallibraryweek.Student Employment Week
April 10 – 16, 2016 
The Student Coordinator Group is putting the finishing touches on their plans to celebrate and thank our student workers. Each unit will have different activities throughout the week and we will host a spotlight series showcasing a different student worker across the system each day as a news story. Look for more information on this soon.“The Elusiveness of Progress: Voting Rights in America” exhibit at Kilmer Library
Ends August 31, 2016 
The Elusiveness of Progress: Voting Rights in America is on display at Kilmer Library, Rutgers University–New Brunswick, now through the end of August. The exhibit is free and open to the public.Like Jazz Women’s History Month Film Festival in Newark
March 29 – April 7, 2016 
Dana Library and the Institute of Jazz Studies are partnering with Women In Media – Newark n their 2016 Women’s History Month Film Festival.
April 5 at 5 p.m.: Dana Library will host the screenings of Airgirl and The Unforgettable Hampton Family (with Dawn Hampton making a special appearance at the screening).
April 6 at 5 p.m.: Dana Library will show An Educated Woman and Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band.
For a complete schedule of films please visit their website: http://wim-n.com/film-festival-2016/
TFAP@TEN exhibit at Douglass Library
Ends April 8, 2016 
Detail from Apiphobia (2011) by Anonda Bell. Mixed media installation. Dimensions variable. TFAP@TEN, a group exhibition honoring the 10th anniversary of The Feminist Art Project (TFAP), is on display through April 8 in the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries at Douglass Library.
Women and Creativity House Student Exhibitions
April 20 – May 2, 2016 
Sarah Ferreira, After Jill Magid, Muse Portrait, 2014, digital photograph, 14 x 11″.
From 2014-15 WCH Exhibition.Women and Creativity House Student Exhibitions will feature the work of Sarah Ferreira, CWAH intern and Stacy Scibelli, learning community coordinator.
The annual Women and Creativity House Student Exhibition is sponsored by Douglass Residential College and the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities, a unit of the Office of the Senior VP for Academic Affairs. The exhibition is part of the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, a program of the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities in partnership with Rutgers University Libraries, and is the oldest continuous running exhibition space in the United States dedicated to making visible the work of emerging and established contemporary women artists.
Twenty years later, Jim Niessen will revisit Historians and the Internet
Twenty years ago, near the beginning of his career as a librarian, world history librarian Jim Niessen was invited to contribute to a discussion about the Internet on the pages of the Debrecen journal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and his essay on “Historians and the Internet” appeared here (in Hungarian): http://w3.atomki.hu/debrecen/debszem/96_2/niessen.html . The contributors will now be providing updates to their remarks, and Jim has promised us a recap of his new essay for our next issue. Preservation Week
April 24 – April 30, 2016 
Rutgers University librarians are participating in events to celebrate Preservation Week, which is an initiative of ALA ALCTS-PARS:
“From Cassette to Cloud: Reformatting Audiotapes,” by Krista White on April 26 from 2 – 3 p.m.
Learn how to evaluate audio formats and the technical details of digitizing them in this one hour webinar.
“Preserving Your Digital Life,” by Krista White and Isaiah Beard on April 28 from 2 – 3 p.m.
Learn how to develop and implement a plan for preserving your digital life so that friends and family can enjoy your memories far into the future.
Both of these webinars are designed by ALCTS to be suitable for a lay audience. The official description of the webinars and more information is at the ALA/ ALCTS-PARS Preservation Week site here: http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/preswk/alctsevents
“Cherry Blossoms in Spring” exhibit at Dana Library
April 14 – June 30, 2016 
Dana Library is hosting “Cherry Blossoms in Spring,” an installation by artist Karen Guancione, in the Gallery from April 14 through June 30. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, April 14, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Library’s Dana Room and an accompanying program on the history of cherry trees in the Garden State featuring horticulturist Anthony S. Aiello will take place on Thursday, April 21, at 3 p.m. in the Dana Room. Read up on these events here.New digital exhibition: “Invisible Restraints: Life and Labor at Seabrook Farms”
April 20, 2016 
The online exhibition, “Invisible Restraints: Life and Labor at Seabrook Farms,” which will be hosted by the New Jersey Digital Highway, will officially launch this month. The opening event will be held Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 4 p.m. in the Teleconference Lecture Hall at Alexander Library. For more on this unique collaboration, read our news story.Digital Humanities Initiative workshop
April 6, 2016 
Engraving from “The laws of art and nature…” (1683) by Lazarus Ercker. Image credit: Wellcome Library, London. Rutgers’ Digital Humanities Initiative and the Libraries will host a Digital Lab Series of five workshops throughout the spring semester at the Alexander Library, Rutgers University–New Brunswick. This lab will introduce the basic building blocks of the web: HTML and CSS.
Introduction to Web Development with HTML and CSS
with Francesca Giannetti
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.SAPAC brown bag presentation, “A Citation Analysis of English Dissertations at Rutgers University”
April 6, 2016 
The Scholarly and Professional Activities Committee invites you to a brown bag presentation on Wednesday, April 6, at noon, in the Pane Room, Alexander Library, with video-conferencing to the Dana (Dana Administrative Conference Room) and Robeson (290).
A Citation Analysis of English Dissertations at Rutgers University
Kevin Mulcahy
Abstract:
Academic libraries, especially at state funded institutions, face converging pressures—budgets that are often flat or declining; increased requests for a wide variety of resources (journals, print and e-books, full-text databases, data sets, films and other media), and demands for assessment and accountability from university administrations and state legislatures. Literature librarians confront, directly, or at least implicitly, the additional challenge: is spending institutional funds on books worthwhile. While there is perhaps a tendency for literature specialists to throw up their hands in dismay or to regard the questioners as philistines who simply do not understand the nature of literary research, a more sound strategy is to assess the actual use of their collections. What evidence proves that books are still an integral part of the resources used by literature scholars? To help answer this question, I examined the bibliographies of 30 recent (2008-2014) dissertations from the English Department at Rutgers University, and coded 5870 citations by format and date. Books account for 67.7% of all citations, journal articles for 16.8%, and literary works (novels, drama, poetry, etc.) for 9.7%.TeachMeet, “See One, Do One, Teach One”
April 6, 2016 The Instructional Community of Practice (ICOP) and the Instruction and Information Literacy Team (NB) invite you to a TeachMeet being presented by our RBHS colleagues, Roberta FitzPatrick and Peggy Dreker. See One, Do One, Teach One
Date: Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Location: Pane room, Alexander Library (Dana, Robeson, Smith teleconference)
Time: 2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.Students at the New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) and the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine (RSDM) attend an instructional session which covers some basic searching and evidence-based medicine/dentistry concepts, as well as information about writing a CAT (Critically Appraised Topic). They learn how to write a searchable question and how to break that question into concepts, called the PICO format, which helps them to generate search terminology. Students use the information taught in the session to write their own CAT, then teach from that CAT in their subsequent small group sessions. The scholarship and research skills demonstrated by their finished CAT are graded by the preceptor. Hear how this approach to assessment can be adopted in your own discipline/instruction sessions.
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A Celebration of Books reception is scheduled for April 12
Micah Kleit, incoming director, Rutgers University Press We are holding the reception for A Celebration of Books (previously called the Faculty Author Celebration) on April 12 at 5 p.m. in Alexander Library. In addition to a display of books and poster giveaways, we are delighted to announce that our featured speaker for the evening will be Micah Kleit, the incoming director at Rutgers University Press.
He will address the convergence of publishing, libraries, and universities and what it is that causes us to want to produce—and reproduce—knowledge. Exploring the landscape of publishing (generally) and university press publishing (more specifically), he will discuss how libraries, scholars, and universities with and without presses need each other now more than ever. The talk will take into account questions of risk, especially as the landscape of scholarly publishing and depositories is changing, and how the risks embedded in contemporary publishing offer new opportunities for scholars, students, and the general public.
Micah Kleit is the incoming director of Rutgers University Press. He has been at Temple University Press for the last seventeen years, first as executive editor, then as interim editorial director, and most recently as editor-in-chief. Before Temple, he was an editor at Beacon Press and the University of Minnesota Press.
Please RSVP using this form: http://go.rutgers.edu/14dnx3nb or email events@rulmail.rutgers.edu.
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Rutgers Day 2016 planning and call for volunteers
Rutgers Day 2015 had a Legos theme
Looks like fun, doesn’t it?
Rutgers Day 2016 will take place on April 30, 2016 and will include–for the first time–festivities in Newark and Camden, in addition to tables on Voorhees Mall in New Brunswick. The themes of our Rutgers Day booths will merge the heritage of Rutgers University with the excitement of pop culture icons like Star Wars and superheroes. Intrigued? Want to help out? Read on…
New Brunswick and Newark will draw on Rutgers heritage, library technology, and the always-popular Star Wars films to explore the theme of “Libraries into the Future.” The Robeson Library staff is partnering with the Nilsa Cruz-Perez Downtown branch of the Camden County Library for a joint library tent with a superhero theme in honor of Camden Comic Con.
The Rutgers Day Committee has been busily planning for the event and request assistance or volunteers for the following activities:
Newark events – coming soon!
New Brunswick events
- Children’s story time — we need readers for our story time area and donations of children’s books. We are hoping to have a Rutgers VIP read at the top of each hour, but we need volunteers to read between these scheduled events. Please consider volunteering to read a story or two! And if you know any Rutgers VIPs or have suggestions of people to reach out to, let us know.
- The Libraries’ Wheel of Fortune table — ask trivia questions and hand out prizes.
- Our Rutgers R statue — the committee is looking for some artistic and crafty help in putting together our R. The R will be on display at Rutgers Day and in past years the competition has been stiff to be the best looking R out there!
- Live demos of our 3D printers as they print souvenirs for our guests.
- Donate new or gently used children’s books, particularly those related to the future, galaxy, robots, Star Wars, etc. The age range varies from 3 years to 10 years old. After Rutgers Day, each book will be donated to the RUL collection. Please take a moment during your Spring cleaning and find us a book!
Camden events
- Children’s book corner with superhero-themed books so families with kids can sit and take a reading break.
- Coloring and a crafty “make your own superhero” station (not just for the kids!).
- A selfie station with superhero props.
- A public library card sign-up drive.
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Win a copy of Tom Glynn’s award-winning book, Reading Publics
As you may have noticed in the Staff News, Tom Glynn’s new book, Reading Publics: New York City’s Public Libraries, 1754-1911, has won three major awards:
- The Hornblower Award for a First Book from the 2015-2016 New York Society Library’s New York City Book Awards.
- The 2016 Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York history from the New York Academy of History
- Outstanding Academic Title by Choice (In their earlier review, they summed up the book as “Essential. All academic audiences; general readers.”)
His publisher, Fordham University Press, was kind enough to give us a review copy of his book for a giveaway. This giveaway is only for faculty, staff, student workers, interns, and other employees of Rutgers University Libraries. See below for details on how to enter. You can receive up to 3 entries if you complete all three actions:
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RUcore hosts “Signs@40: Feminist Scholarship through Four Decades”
The interactive topic model for the fortieth anniversary edition of Signs, Signs@40: Feminist Scholarship through Four Decades, is now publicly available in RUcore (http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T35D8TVZ). Users may download the entire project (topic model data and browser software) or selectively download either the data or the software.This collaborative project uses digital techniques to explore the Signs archive, the changes in the journal’s content over time, and its role in shaping the fields of Women’s, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. Visitors will discover a visual exploration of the journal’s archive and a snapshot of how topics change over time. While there, they can also view a cocitation network graph that maps the citation patterns in Signs, read commentaries from feminist scholars reflecting on the editorial content and evolution of the journal since its launch, ooh and ahh over forty years’ worth of cover art, and more.
Thanks to journal editor Mary Hawkesworth and the project creators, Andrew Goldstone, Susana Galán, C. Laura Lovin, Andrew Mazzaschi, and Lindsey Whitmore, as well as Ron Jantz and Kayo Denda of the Rutgers University Libraries, this project is now archived for posterity and downloadable by anyone interested in exploring, reusing, or adapting this rich artifact of feminist scholarship.
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Changes to the Events and News sections of the website
Rutgers University Libraries website will be getting a slight facelift in order to feature more of our news stories and to accommodate our new events calendar. News and Events will now appear in separate sections and will contain more visual content.
The News Section
The News section will now feature a rotating gallery that displays four thumbnail images, each with a headline. Users can scroll to read additional stories or click on the thumbnails/headlines to read more. There will also be a jump button to the archives for news stories.
To submit news, please contact Jessica Pellien.
The Events Section
A rotating carousel of featured events will run in the Events section with a link to enter the calendar page. The content for this section will be selected from the events submitted by event organizers. There will also be a link to the complete events calendar which can be sorted or filtered by location, date, type of event, etc. For more information on how the Calendar will work, please scroll down.
The Featured Collection Section
The appearance of this section will essentially remain the same. Please continue sending submissions for this to Mary Ann Koruth.
Events Calendar:
The newly developed Libraries events calendar will include events hosted and sponsored by the Libraries, as well as events sponsored by other organizations that are using our facilities and may be of interest to our users. You can preview the calendar here (please note that not all the features may be functional yet and that this link can only be viewed from within the Libraries).
Event organizers can submit their events via a simple web form that includes a short description, an image for the event, location, date, time, and contact. The events will not be “live” on our public events calendar until they have been moderated by the Communications Department. It is recommended that you upload your event as soon as you have the information for the listing—event title, description, date, time, location, image. The Communications Department can make changes to the events posting after it is published on the Libraries website. Additional documentation on adding an event will be available at the event submission website.
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New Brunswick Libraries Reorganization
After more than a year of collaborative planning, visioning and modeling, the New Brunswick Libraries have launched our new organizational structure. Three departments—Experience, Learning & Engagement, and Research & Content—were created to focus our efforts, amplify our voices, and align our work more closely with organizational priorities.Within the departments, ten teams (listed below) have been tasked with identifying opportunities for shared work and setting goals. All teams include faculty and staff in an effort to create a sense of shared purpose and to improve communication. The teams will focus on local needs but will also coordinate work with other Libraries units, committees and groups to ensure we are working effectively within and across the system.
Departments and Teams
Experience Department (Melissa Just, department head)
- Service Points Team
Learning & Engagement Department (Melissa Gasparotto, department head)
- Instruction & Information Literacy Team
- Undergraduate Experience Team
- Global Experience Team
Research & Content Department (Ryan Womack, department head)
- Content Team
- Graduate and Faculty Services Team
- Research Collaborations Team
- Research Data Outreach Team
- Scholarly Communication & Open Access Team
- Research Spaces Team
The New Brunswick Libraries Steering Team sets the overall priorities for the unit and facilitates communication across departments and teams. Membership includes the NBL director, the department heads, the chair of the NBL faculty (Karen Hartman) and a staff representative (Meghan Lord). Two immediate projects of the steering team include setting up NBL ALL meetings to launch the work of the teams, and identifying a mechanism for sharing documents, progress reports and other information.
Stay tuned for future Agenda articles from NBL departments and teams as our work gets underway!
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University Librarian Report: Update on Master Space Plan
Krisellen Maloney, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian Hello all –
I hope everyone who was able to attend the presentation by CannonDesign on March 4, 2016 enjoyed their early analysis of our library spaces. This is an exciting process and the architects are going to great effort to understand what is unique about Rutgers University Libraries and how we fit into the overall strategic plan of the University.
Hover over the image at the top of this post and use the arrows to review CannonDesign’s presentation.
As many of you know, the architects spent time in nearly all of the libraries—counting seats, bookshelves, meeting rooms, faculty and staff space, etc—during the months of January and February. They are now transitioning to meeting with focus groups and conducting interviews with students and faculty about the libraries. We are also sharing the results from the LibQUAL+ survey with CannonDesign. The next phase will be to come up with some initial recommendations, followed by the creation of a “roadmap,” or the list of priorities and a plan for how best to make these improvements.
Currently, there is no funding attached to any of the projects that will be proposed in the master space plan, so there is no firm timeline of when these improvements may be made. However, the plan and priorities that are developed will inform our decisions and planning. For example, requests for modifications in buildings or collections might be weighed against the overall plan created by CannonDesign to make sure we aren’t making a short-sighted decision that impacts our long-term plan.
CannonDesign will return to make a second presentation of their research and findings at the Town Hall meeting on May 24. In the meantime, thank you to the faculty and staff who have made time to meet with and tour CannonDesign around the buildings. I am also grateful for the thoughtful questions and comments people made at the initial presentation.
We want this process to be as transparent and inclusive as possible. If you have concerns, questions, or suggestions, please speak with your supervisor or Director.
Thank you,
Kris
