Messages

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January 23, 2015 Council Meeting @ FIT / Re: Campus Updates from SUNY Poly

« on: January 22, 2015, 01:32:42 PM »

Cayan Library has a new director, Shannon Pritting!!  Shannon started in Utica in mid-January and we are thrilled to have him join us.  He was previously at Syracuse University.  Many of you may remember him from his days at SUNY Oswego and his presentation(s) at SUNYLA conferences as well as his involvement with the IDS Project.

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September 26, 2014 Council Meeting @SUNY IT / Re: Campus Updates SUNY Polytechnic Institute

« on: September 24, 2014, 02:51:04 PM »

SUNYIT and CNSE are now officially the SUNY Polytechnic Institute.  We are learning our way through the maze of how things are done at the Albany campus of SUNY Poly.  Cayan Library in Utica is the library for both campuses.  UAlbany is gradually easing the professors and staff over to us.  UAlbany's Mary Casserle has been so helpful during the transition.  The faculty became part of SUNY Poly in August.  The students will move to SUNY Poly some time in 2015.  We are working closely with key faculty and staff members on our Albany campus to purchase databases and journals that are needed as a result of the merger. 

We are also conducting a library director search.  We have extended the search and are in the process of bringing more candidates to both campuses.  We are hopeful that we will find just the right person to steer us through the changes ahead.

Chris Kobos, our longtime evening reference librarian, retired in August. We will miss her as will the students.  We have hired Allison Fiegl as a temporary replacement to cover our evening hours. 

We are happy to host the September meeting of SUNYLA in Utica.

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June 11, 2014 Council Meeting @SUNY Albany / SUNYIT

« on: June 03, 2014, 02:48:54 PM »

There are many changes coming to SUNYIT.  One of the most interesting is that we are in the process of hiring a new library director.  We are still collecting applications.  If you know of someone who might be interested in applying, please encourage them to do so.  As you may already know, we are merging with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, CNSE.  Some of our offices have already merged:  IT and HR.  We have heard that Cayan Library will become the library for both campuses on January 1.  We have a lot of work ahead of us to be ready.  We have also heard that there will be announcements coming soon about our administration, our new name, and our new schools.   Stay tuned!

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June 12, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY Buffalo State / SUNYIT - Campus Updates

« on: June 11, 2013, 02:51:41 PM »

We learned today that SUNYIT has a new acting President, Dr. Robert E. Geer, effective August 1, 2013.  He comes to SUNYIT from the UAlbany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.  Our President, Wolf Yeigh, has accepted a position as Chancellor at the University of Washington, Bothell campus.  We are anticipating the start of construction on our new nanoscience building in late June.

Barbara Grimes will begin phased retirement in mid-June.  In August, she will return to work three days per week to resume her current duties. 

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March 22, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY Buffalo State / Re: Campus Updates - SUNYIT

« on: March 20, 2013, 04:36:46 PM »

Just when we thought our staff could not get any thinner, we were informed that our shared services endeavor was over in January.  We owe Chris Rudecoff, Director of Morrisville State Libraries, a huge thank you for trying to figure out our budget and being our voice with SUNYIT administration.   Chris helped us transition from EBSCO to Wolper for our print serials and it was great to share concerns or ideas with her.  Her efforts are much appreciated.  Once again we are without a director.  Our evening paraprofessional is out for the rest of the semester due to surgery.  We now have one day librarian and one evening librarian and two part-timers who cover weekends.  If you do not see me at meetings, it is because I am the only one here at the time.  I will try to attend virtually.

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Sept 21m 2012 @SUNY Empire, Saratoga Springs / SUNYIT Update

« on: September 18, 2012, 07:08:18 PM »

SUNYIT's Cayan Library is now sharing Morrisville State College's Library Director, Christine Rudecoff.  Both campuses were involved in shared services talks throughout the Spring semester.  As a a result of these talks and the interest of SUNY's Central Administration, a new SUNYIT/MSC organizational chart of the campuses was announced in mid-July.  Chris has been busy meeting the staff and learning how things have been done at SUNYIT.  We are happy to have Chris on staff and look forward to working with her to help our campus community be better served.

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June 6, 2012 @FIT, New York City / Re: Campus updates SUNYIT

« on: June 04, 2012, 10:20:03 AM »

This past semester, Shared Services has been a focus on our campus and at Morrisville State College.  The Library was one of several initiatives studied for shared services.  Barb Grimes served on the SUNYIT Shared Services Committee and was heavily involved with the library initiative.  Librarians at SUNYIT and Morrisville identified three short-term areas where the two campuses could share library services and developed ways of making this happen.  These ares were: shared virtual reference service on Saturdays, a shared library tutorial created by librarians at both colleges and the SUNYIT instructional technologist, and a shared library director.  Morrisville State College librarians had decided to eliminate reference services on Saturdays due to low usage about two years ago.  SUNYIT has reference service coverage on Saturdays. The shared virtual reference service was initiated in April and uses freely available chat software (Meebo) and Google Docs to facilitate information sharing and documentation of usage data.   We will continue this through next year to see how valuable and how well used it is.  The tutorial collaboration began in early May and uses Google Docs and Skype to help us create the Captivate product.  This project should be completed this week.  Hopefully, this will be the start of more joint collaborations.  When our shared services committees looked at sharing a library director, it was decided that it was not a priority at this time.  However, SUNY Provost Lavallee revealed a realigned administrative structure that both campuses learned about on May 23.  According to a new SUNYIT/MSC organizational chart, Morrisville State College's library director, Chris Rudecoff, will also be SUNYIT's library director.  To say this was a surprise to the librarians on both campuses, would be an understatement.  We have received no details or timeline.  This was only one of several organizational changes at SUNYIT and MSC that will be necessary to shift resources from administrative to instructional support on our campuses.  The final report is due to the Chancellor on July 15.

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March 15, 2012 @Empire, Saratoga Springs / SUNYIT

« on: March 14, 2012, 01:09:43 PM »

This semester we welcomed the Learning Center to the Cayan Library.  Director Doug Eich and the professional and student tutors have settled in and students are taking advantage of the new surroundings.  The writing and statistics tutors have established schedules in the building.  The math tutors still have some hours outside of the library but have evening and weekend hours in the library.

SUNYIT and Morrisville State College are involved in shared services talks.  The library has been identified as one of the initiative areas and faculty and staff from both campuses have begun to talk about possible areas where services could be shared.  Barb Grimes was elected by the Faculty Assembly to serve as a faculty representative on the SUNYIT Shared Services Committee.  She also is involved in the dialogue between the library staffs.

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Sept. 23, 2011 @ Cortland / Re: Campus Updates - SUNYIT

« on: September 16, 2011, 03:05:02 PM »

The library is still going through some physical changes.  The furniture for the new first floor computer area could not be delivered until the first week of classes.  This delayed the electrical and cable work and we are almost ready to install the computers.  The Learning Center tutors have not yet set up shop in the Learning Center area of the building.  We hope they will begin soon.  We have been hosting the First Year Seminar classes and have seen more of the freshmen than usual this year as a result. 

We, too, are sharing our president with another campus, Morrisville State College.  Unlike Cobleskill, we have been asked not to be proactive in seeking out the librarians and others at Morrisville.  We have been asked to wait until we are contacted by them as we want to be sensitive to their feelings.  We remain optimistic that this can be a great relationship.

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March 11, 2011 @ Dutchess / Re: Campus Updates - SUNYIT

« on: March 09, 2011, 10:34:39 AM »

Personnel changes continue at the Cayan Library.  Our Circulation clerk will be leaving the library on Friday to take a position in another office on campus.  We have been cleared to hire one clerk to work as the sole clerk in Circulation, Interlibrary Loan and Serials.  We will have three librarians and a temporary part-time clerk as of this Friday.

We have begun the planning process for the Learning Commons to be located in Cayan Library.  A committee has been formed and has begun to meet and the consultant has visited twice to help us with our focus and possible physical layout.  We are shifting the circulating collection on the second floor to make room for the print journal collection which is currently on the first floor.  By the end of the semester, we will have removed all but a small Reference collection of books from the first floor to make it ready for the implementation of the Learning Commons.

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November 19, 2010 @ Onondaga / Re: 2nd VP Report

« on: November 18, 2010, 03:49:20 PM »

The theme is great and timely!  It really resonates with us at SUNYIT and our new partnerships in the library.

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November 19, 2010 @ Onondaga / Re: Campus Updates - SUNYIT

« on: November 15, 2010, 04:58:39 PM »

Personnel change seems to be a continuing theme at SUNYIT.  Crystal Pogorzelski, our library systems manager, has accepted a new position at a non-profit agency in Buffalo and will leave at the end of this week.  We will truly miss her and her knowledge of all things Aleph and Illiad.  Our secretary, Rose Stevens, left a week ago to work for Empire State College in Utica.  We will try to limp along without both of them. 

Pam Flinton, paid a visit and has been mentoring us on the lending side of Illiad since our ILL lending clerk retired.  Pam and Andy Perry have helped with recommendations on how to do more with less.  We owe a huge thank you to Pam for her input and willingness to help us.

We will be searching for a new Provost in the near future.  Our current Provost decided to take advantage of the early retirement offer.

The planning for the Learning Commons to be located in the library will ramp up in December.  The library staff has been making room for the addition of more partners in the building, mainly on the first floor.  We have been shifting the collection upstairs to make room for the print journal collection, currently on the first floor.  It is hoped that all planning can take place in the Spring and then be implemented in the Summer.

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September 10, 2010 @ Onondaga / Re: Campus Updates

« on: September 05, 2010, 03:57:22 PM »

Cayan Library has seen many changes this summer.  The reference collection was weeded and is now about fifteen percent of what it was before in size.  The IT Help Desk moved into the library in mid-August after space was created for that department.  The new IT Help Desk was built from the end panels and countertops of some of the reference shelving units.  The staffs have worked well so far in helping each other through the transition.  The next partner to move to the library will be the Learning Center.  We do not yet have a date for that move but it will be before next summer.  No formal planning has taken place yet for the Learning Commons.  We will continue weeding, will move our periodicals, and shift our circulation collection in order to accommodate other departments moving into the library.   Lillian Soja, our longtime lending ILL assistant, will retire in September.  We will receive one half of a clerk to replace her.  That will bring our staff to three librarians and 1.5 clerks.

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June 16, 2010 @ Brockport / Re: Campus Updates

« on: June 15, 2010, 09:40:39 AM »

SUNYIT now has a new Associate Provost of Information and Learning Resources, Kyle Johnson.  Kyle's background is in ITS.  He will oversee the library as well as ITS, Learning Center, Online Learning, CETL, Online Instructional Design and Voice Communication.  Our Interlibrary Loan clerk, Lillian Soja, will retire after 20+ years at SUNYIT. 

We will house the ITS Help Desk and the Reference Desk in the same physical space beginning this summer.  Offices as being shifted but our phone numbers will remain the same.  By next summer, it is hoped that we will be a Learning Commons.