Messages

16

March 22, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY Buffalo State / LACUNY report

« on: March 22, 2013, 12:49:03 PM »

From: Kimmy Szeto, Liaison to LACUNY
To: SUNYLA Council
Date: March 22, 2013

LACUNY is doing a lot of good work on its governance. There has been a marked increase in membership in the past year. Expect to see more news and activities in the near future.

The announcements below are for two of LACUNY's annual events:

(1) LACUNY Institute. This year's conference focuses on the library's role in community outreach and grassroots involvement.

(2) LACUNY Dialogues. This year's open discussion forum will center on the topic of faculty status for academic librarians.

As always, LACUNY welcomes SUNY colleagues' participation. If you are interested in attending, presenting, or making an announcement at any LACUNY group or list, free feel to let me know, or contact the person in charge directly.

More information about LACUNY can be found at www.lacuny.org.

==============================
LACUNY Institute
April 5, 2013 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice

LACUNY's annual conference, LACUNY Institute, "Libraries, Information, and the Right to the City," will take place on April 5, 2013 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The goal of the 2013 institute is to create a dialogue about how library and information professionals can (or should) move beyond being guarantors of access and become engaged in communities’ production of knowledge. The keynote speakers are Christine Pawley, former director of the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin – Madison and historian of print culture in America, and Jessa Lingel, doctoral student at Rutgers and author of “Occupy Wall Street and the myth of the technological death of the library.”

Registration information will be forthcoming. Check back to http://2013lacunyinst.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

==============================
LACUNY Dialogues
May 10, 2013 at the Graduate Center, Segal Theatre

The 2013 LACUNY Dialogues will be on "The History and Future of Library Faculty Status." Robert Farrell (Lehman College) and John Drobnicki (York College) will be giving two brief presentations and Danielle Becker will be moderating the discussion.

Overview of Discussion: Although faculty status for CUNY librarians was gained in the 1960s, the history surrounding that achievement and its subsequent implications remain obscure to many both within and outside the libraries. The 2013 LACUNY Dialogues will consider the past and future of library faculty status, the challenge of maintaining faculty status and its correlate benefits, and the possibility and potential consequences of achieving full parity with faculty in other academic departments. Topics for discussion will include:

 * What can we learn from our history?
 * The nature of faculty work in libraries
 * Writing with one hand tied behind your back scholarship on 4 to 6 weeks of leave a year.
 * Faculty counselors: a cautionary tale?
 * Library faculty status at other institutions.
 * Junior faculty reassigned time for research, do people get it?

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Jan. 17, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY New Paltz / Re: Campus Updates

« on: January 16, 2013, 10:34:57 AM »

Maritime College
Campus Update by Elizabeth Berilla

The librarians of the Stephen B. Luce Library did well representing Maritime College in print and presentations throughout the fall semester.  Constantia Constantinou (Library Director and Department Chair) joined colleagues from Columbia University, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the American Museum of Natural History, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the New York Botanical Gardens, and St. John’s University in a December 2012 roundtable discussion on “Mapping the Future of the Academic Library.”  As part of a larger body of research by the Gensler Firm, this discussion developed feedback on the future of academic libraries, roles of librarians, and the library as a physical and virtual space.

Kimmy Szeto (Cataloging and Metadata Librarian) was published in the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship in late 2012 as well.  His review can be found through the following citation: “Musicking Online: Organizing Reference Sources in the Digital Age,” Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 24:3, 2012.  Amongst other institutions, Kimmy’s review joins those from Brigham Young University, Harvard, and Rutgers.

Elizabeth Berilla (Reference, Instruction, and Outreach Librarian), Kimmy Szeto, and Joseph Williams (Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian) represented Maritime College at the rescheduled 2012 METRO Annual Conference on January 15.  Their briefing, “Three Books to the Wind: Reflections of Three Ship Librarians Aboard the EMPIRE STATE VI,” reviewed their unique experiences and challenges while serving as the ship’s librarian during the Summer Sea Term cruises of 2010 and 2012. 

Changes have been swiftly afoot at the Stephen B. Luce Library since the close of 2012.  Updates to the Library’s physical facilities include the addition of a digital processing room, complete with a Bookeye 4 scanner.  The librarians are still becoming acquainted with all of its features, which can be applied for Interlibrary Loan services, archival processing, researchers, and exhibits.  In the digital world, the Stephen B. Luce Library has adopted LibGuides for subject- and project-specific resources for students, staff, faculty, and researchers.  Our guides can now be found at http://sunymaritime.libguides.com/home.

The librarians of the Stephen B. Luce Library wish fair winds and following seas to Jennifer O’Keefe (Coordinator of Circulation and User Services), who departed Maritime for England in December 2012.  Coming on full time as her replacement is Gregory Murphy, who has filled the post of Part-Time Reference Librarian during the evenings and weekends since 2008.  Greg has additionally served as the project archivist on the Sailors’ Snug Harbor collection.  Welcome aboard, Greg!

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Jan. 17, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY New Paltz / LACUNY update

« on: January 14, 2013, 11:02:47 AM »

From: Kimmy Szeto, Liaison to LACUNY
To: SUNYLA Council
Date: January 14, 2013

LACUNY's annual conference, LACUNY Institute, "Libraries, Information, and the Right to the City," will take place on April 5, 2013 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The goal of the 2013 institute is to create a dialogue about how library and information professionals can (or should) move beyond being guarantors of access and become engaged in communities’ production of knowledge. The keynote speakers are Christine Pawley, former director of the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin – Madison and historian of print culture in America, and Jessa Lingel, doctoral student at Rutgers and author of “Occupy Wall Street and the myth of the technological death of the library.” Registration information will be forthcoming.

As always, LACUNY welcomes SUNY colleagues' participation. If you are interested in attending, presenting, or making an announcement at any LACUNY group or list, free feel to let me know, or contact the person in charge directly.

More information about LACUNY can be found at www.lacuny.org.

19

Nov. 16, 2012 Council Meeting @SUNY IT, Utica / Re: Campus Updates

« on: November 14, 2012, 09:50:08 AM »

Maritime -
Kimmy Szeto, delegate

<<Off the record>>
All classes and events on the Maritime campus were cancelled for the week of Oct 29 to Nov 4 due to the hurricane. The campus, normally a peninsula connected by a man-made causeway, temporarily reverted back to being an island; power was shut down in advance of the storm to mitigate damage. I went in Monday (Oct 29) morning to secure all windows, unplug all electronics, and cover as many book trucks as I could in technical services, which is prone to water leaks. By the time I left the campus in the afternoon, I was walking through thigh-high seawater over the causeway, and elderly residents nearby were being evacuated by boat. For a couple weeks, the campus served as a staging area for FEMA relief and recovering efforts; our training ship became home to about 500 personnel.

We returned the following week and saw no damage in the library, and there was no leaks after all. The fort held up quite well this time. Among the library faculty and staff, 5 experienced power outages, 2 live in a mandatory evacuation zone, 2 had flooded homes, and 1 lost a car. We have all since been able to return home.

All the students are back; library operations are back to normal.

In other news:

<<Back on the record>>
IT added a network printer in the library and promised to supply paper and toners. My guess is that it is an experiment to see what will happen if students are free to print with no limits or restrictions. (Previously we allowed unlimited printing, but students have to pick up their print-outs from the circulation desk, i.e. we can see what they are printing.)

An article written by Acquisitions Library Joseph Williams appeared in the latest issue of the journal Serials Librarian.

The library hosted Italian artist Vittoria Chierici in "Sailing away to paint the sea," a lecture and exhibition of her paintings inspired by her recent journey across the Atlantic onboard a freighter.


<Please ask me for another version of this post if it is going into the print edition of the newsletter. Thanks!>

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Nov. 16, 2012 Council Meeting @SUNY IT, Utica / LACUNY update

« on: November 06, 2012, 09:05:40 AM »

From Kimmy Szeto, liaison to LACUNY

I attended the LACUNY executive council meeting on Sep 28. I will describe the October meeting below. The next meeting will be on Nov 16, which I will miss because I will be calling in at the SUNYLA meeting.

LACUNY is ramping up its efforts to recruit new members and more participation. The organization held its "Fall Program" on Oct 19. It was a confluence of the LACUNY executive council meeting, the Grace-Ellen McCrann Memorial Lecture (an annual lecture on librarianship by CUNY librarians), and a membership drive / open house. This combination worked out extremely well--potential members were drawn to the lecture, leaders of the organization were all present for the meeting, and the two groups got to talk to each other about membership.

The next event, LACUNY Dialogues, will take place in January.

Other news:

Polly Thistlethwaite and Vee Herrington were appointed Chief Librarians at the Graduate Center and New Community College, respectively.

This might be of interest to SUNYLA since we have plans to join the Academic Commons, and we are also starting up a repository...

CUNY is in the process of setting up an open access institutional repository with the support of the university's faculty senate. The consensus is that the institutional repository will be created in a way that is integrated with the Academic Commons, where faculty and staff will be able to self-archive their contents. These contents will be combined with other functions such as notifications, metrics, and discussions. They are seeking commitment from the administration to issue directives to faculty and staff, especially staff, to use this institutional repository and to use it properly.


On the more technical side:
- CUNY is migrating from Aleph version 18 to version 20, and is working on getting Primo running.

- CUNY discovered that some new ID cards have bar codes shorter than 14 digits...the lesson learned is that library systems (Aleph, EZproxy, etc.) need to be configured to accept bar codes like that.

- Electronic subscriptions: CUNY's strategy seems to be "one vendor at a time." Campuses come to consensus and consolidating their subscriptions, incrementally, one vendor at a time. They just struck a deal with Palgrave, and are now negotiating with other eBook publishers, including textbooks.

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Sept 21m 2012 @SUNY Empire, Saratoga Springs / LACUNY Liaison Report

« on: September 18, 2012, 01:22:36 PM »

The 2012 LACUNY Institute "Library Technology and the Future of Libraries" took place on June 1. Slides and handouts from Jessamyn West's presentation are now available on the blog:

http://lacunyinstitute.wordpress.com/

LACUNY has been on summer break. The first LACUNY Executive Council meeting will take place on Friday, September 28, at 2:15pm in the Graduate Center. As always, LACUNY can be found on the web at:

http://www.lacuny.org
http://lacuny.wordpress.com/

-
Kimmy Szeto
Maritime College
SUNYLA Liaison to LACUNY

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Sept 21m 2012 @SUNY Empire, Saratoga Springs / CAMPUS UPDATES - Maritime College -

« on: September 18, 2012, 01:14:03 PM »

Here is the campus update submitted earlier by our librarian Elizabeth Berilla to the SUNYLA Newsletter:

====================================================
Campus Update
September 2012

With hardly a moment to spare over the summer months, the librarians of the Stephen B. Luce Library have taken to the road, sea, and skies since May.  Library Director Constantia Constantinou was selected to have her paper, “Towards Peace:  One Library at a Time, One Nation at a Time,” presented at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in Lappeenranta, Finland in August.  Her work highlighted her time spent as a Fulbright Scholar in Cyprus, where she introduced new library collaborations between Turkish and Greek Cypriot library communities.   Constantia’s paper was delivered by two Fulbright recipients, Professor Miller (CUNY, Queens College) and Professor Schlesinger (CUNY, Lehman College).  Additionally, her paper “Enhancing the Maritime Curriculum with Online Education and Scholarly Resources” was published in the 5th International Congress on Maritime Transport, Technological Innovations, and Research 2012 in Barcelona, Spain, June 2012, and Constantia’s paper “Knowledge for the Ages: Preserving Rare Collections through Digitization and Content-Based Access, was presented at the International Conference in Qualitative Quantitative Measures in Libraries (QQML) in Limerick, Ireland, May 2012.  Constantia’s distinction as a Distinguished Librarian led to her selection as a member of the SUNY Distinguished Academy Executive Committee.

Librarian and Institutional Archivist Elizabeth Berilla (Reference, Instruction and Outreach Librarian) joined Constantia in presenting at SUNYLA in June.  Constantia’s presentation on “Transcending Boundaries to Increase Cultural Understanding between Countries” reflected her experiences in Cyprus, while Elizabeth’s presentation “Anchors en Vogue: The Institutional Archives and Identity of Maritime College” focused on archives, preservation, and access efforts.  Kimmy Szeto (Cataloging and Metadata Librarian) presented as well at ALA’s Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA in June on “RDA to RDF: Transitioning to the FRBR Catalog and the Semantic Web.”  Jennifer O’Keefe (Coordinator of Circulation and User Services) and Elizabeth Berilla co-authored “Repository Reviews: Stephen B. Luce Library, Archives, and Special Collections,” which was published in the Summer 2012 edition of the Metropolitan Archivist.

Kimmy Szeto and Elizabeth Berilla have successfully returned from spending a collective 90 days at sea aboard the EMPIRE STATE VI, the training ship of Maritime College, as the ship’s librarians.  Kimmy represented the library during the first half of cruise, which departed campus on May 7 and traveled to the Azores and Reykjavík, Iceland, before returning to the U.S. in Norfolk, VA.  Elizabeth joined the ship during the switch out in Norfolk and was aboard through Gibraltar and Liverpool, England, before the final return to the Bronx on August 6.  Kimmy and Elizabeth are happy to share they have regained their “land-legs”!

Kudos to Shafeek Fazal (Assistant Director, Head of Reference and Access Services), Joe Williams (Head of Acquisitions and Technical Services), and all library faculty and staff for the recent award of a New York State Education Department Conservation Preservation Discretionary Grant.  The award will be used for a comprehensive assessment and preservation survey of the repository area including long range planning for the Institutional Archives and Special Collections of the Stephen B. Luce Library and Maritime College.  Under the review of a representative from the Northeast Document Conservation Center, the Archives will undergo a thorough review with attention paid to the conservation needs of some of the most rare and unique of our collections.  Congratulations, all!

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March 15, 2012 @Empire, Saratoga Springs / Re: WGIL update

« on: March 15, 2012, 11:16:21 AM »

I wrote a short report on WGIL's pre-conference workshop last year. Here is the citation (please add appropriate italicization...)

Szeto, K. (2011). Digital Spoken Words Demystified: The Nuts and Bolts of Do-It-Yourself Podcasting. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 23(4), 417-419.

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March 15, 2012 @Empire, Saratoga Springs / Re: Campus Updates - Maritime College

« on: March 08, 2012, 03:39:50 PM »

Maritime College
Campus update 3/15/2012 – Kimmy Szeto

Constantia Constantinou (Library Director and Department Chair) was appointed to the distinction of Distinguished Librarian, a post which is both the highest faculty librarian rank in the SUNY system and only the fourth such appointment in SUNY history.  In January, Constantia coordinated an informational tour and presentation of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor Archives held at Maritime College to the current leadership of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. Greg Murphy, the archivist for the Sailors’ Snug Harbor collection and part-time reference librarian for the Stephen B. Luce Library, was present and has completed an updated version of the finding aid for the Sailors’ Snug Harbor Archives. This is the first full update to the finding aid in over 35 years and incorporates significant additions to the collection, including manuscripts, artifacts, and photographs.  

With the assistance of Constantia Constantinou and Shafeek Fazal (Assistant Director and Head of Reference and Access Services), Kimmy Szeto (Cataloging and Metadata Librarian and FDLP Coordinator) successfully completed the Government Printing Office Public Access Assessment in February.

The Stephen B. Luce Library, Archives, and Special Collections have become a focal point of processing with leadership by Elizabeth Berilla (Reference, Instruction, and Outreach Librarian), Jennifer O’Keefe (Circulation and Collections Coordinator), and Joseph Williams (Acquisitions Librarian). Not only are we waiting to receive feedback on a NYSED grant for the completion of a preservation survey, but we have also submitted an application for a DHP Collection Assessment grant that will specifically target our photographic collection.   Three graduate interns pursuing their MLS degrees at local institutions have been greatly helpful in the processing of special collections and alumni papers, as well as making updates to the institutional finding aid.

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March 15, 2012 @Empire, Saratoga Springs / LACUNY Liaison Update

« on: March 08, 2012, 02:26:42 PM »

LACUNY held their first executive council meeting of the year on February 10. Some highlights:

-   A proposal is on the table for a round table for adjuncts. I don’t think there is a similar body in SUNYLA that is dedicated to adjunct affairs.

-   The LACUNY Institute, LACUNY’s annual symposium, will take place on Friday, June 1, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm at CUNY Graduate Center. Keynote speakers include Jeffrey Hoover, architect, and Jessamyn West, library technology writer. Registration is open: http://lacuny.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/2012-lacuny-institute/

-   LACUNY is holding a contest for a new logo. The competition is modeled after a similar contest held by ACRL/NY last year. I worked with another CUNY librarian on writing the specs and competition guidelines, so now I am happy to answer any question about logo design and about holding online design competitions. The contest closes next week, and I will tell you all about the judging process in the next update. You can see the contest here: http://www.logosauce.com/competitions/1330

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Nov. 16, 2011 @ FIT / LACUNY Liaison Report

« on: November 10, 2011, 12:15:15 PM »

From: Kimmy Szeto
To: SUNYLA Executive Board/Council
Date: November 11, 2011
Re: LACUNY Liaison Report

Highlights from the LACUNY Executive Council Meeting on October 21, 2010:

-   CUNY has been invited to join the Manhattan Research Library Initiative (MaRLI), which allows NYU, Columbia, and now CUNY doctoral students, full-time faculty and librarians, as well as certain New York Public Library cardholders to access and borrow materials from NYU, Columbia, and the NYPL. [Is this something we should look into for SUNY campuses and learning centers in New York City?]

-   Council voted to provide monetary support to the 2012 Information Ethics Roundtable at Hunter College.
-   Council voted to provide monetary support to libraries affected by Hurrican Irene.

-   The 2012 LACUNY Dialogues is set to take place on Monday, January 23. This year's focus will be on "past, present, and future of library activism." [A CFP deadline is Nov 30. I am in the process of finding out if SUNY librarians can attend and/or participate.]

-   LACUNY is in the process of overhauling their travel grants program.

-   LACUNY is in the process of creating an internship for students interested in web services to work on the association's web site.

-   LACUNY is interested in attending our council meeting. Is there a protocol for visitors at our meetings?

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Sept. 23, 2011 @ Cortland / LACUNY liaison report

« on: September 22, 2011, 01:42:42 PM »

LACUNY held their first executive council meeting on September 16. I was working at the Faculty Senate in Albany on that day, but I will most likely attend their subsequent meetings. Now the news:

LACUNY is holding their winter membership meeting some time in December (no date or location yet).

The LACUNY International Relations Roundtable will meet on October 14 at 3pm (no location yet) with reports from Shanghai and from Costa Rica. Let me know if you want to see more information.

This is not exactly from CUNY...at the Faculty Senate fall planning meeting, the Operations Committee made it a priority this year to assess the effects of budget cuts on libraries now and into the future. We are at a preliminary stage at this point, but we anticipate this project to involve surveying library staff, librarians and directors in some way. In a separate project, the committee is also interested in exploring Open Educational Resources and what roles libraries might play in introducting free textbooks to faculty and offering them to students. More updates to come as details emerge.

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

« on: September 20, 2011, 02:34:04 PM »

Maritime College (Kimmy Szeto - delegate)
Campus update 9/23/2011

Personnel
========
Michael Russell, USCG (Ret.), and our own Part-time Reference Librarian Brendan Curley served on board TS Empire State VI as our Ship’s Librarians for our two Summer Sea Terms. Mr. Russell has since returned to private life, and Brendan is now at Pace University. Part-time Reference Librarian Kate Adler moved on to begin master’s studies at CUNY Graduate Center. Our circulation clerk Johanna Devlin retired after over 10 years at the library and over 30 years of service at SUNY.

This fall, we welcome three new staff members: Beth Silberstein and Julia Furay, part-time reference librarians, and Jennifer O’Keefe, Coordinator of Circulation Services.

Kimmy Szeto, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian and SUNYLA delegate, was appointed to the SUNY Faculty Senate Operations Committee.

Collections
========
The reference and bound periodicals collections were weeded this summer. And then we wonder why the shelves are still completely full. The government documents collection shifted its focus to more electronic resources until additional space becomes available.

Scholarship
========
Joseph Williams, Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian, co-authored with David E. Woolwine from Hofstra University the article “Interlibrary Loan in the United States: An Analysis of Academic Libraries in a Digital Age,” which appeared in Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve. This study examines the rates and practices of interlibrary loan in the United States and its impact upon American academic libraries within the last decade.  In addition, Joseph has published the article, “Seeking a Safe Harbor: The Acquisition and Reconstruction of Fort Schuyler by the New York State Merchant Marine Academy” in the Bronx County Historical Society Journal.

Following her Fulbright sabbatical term in the spring, our director Constantia Constantinou presented her research in collaborative librarianship at the Qualitative and Quantitative Measures in Libraries International Conference in Athens, Greece.  She also secured funding for one Greek Cypriot and one Turkish Cypriot to visit the United States for a first-hand experience of the collaborative process for inspiration in the development of their own National Library Consortium in Cyprus.

Exhibitions
========
On September 7, 2011, we welcomed Captain Robert H. Pouch for his presentation “September 11, 2001: Response and Rescue on New York Harbor.”  Captain Pouch was a first responder and directed marine evacuations and logistics in the New York harbor for first three days of the tragedy on board Pilot Boat New York. Photographs from his private collection are on display in the library lobby alongside additional resources on security and the maritime community.

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June 15, 2011 @ Plattsburgh / Campus Update - Maritime College

« on: July 20, 2011, 02:41:26 PM »

Campus Update
Maritime College

Our Library Director Constantia Constantinou was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct research and lectures at the University of Cyprus in the areas of library technology, digitization, and information literacy. She is also active in promoting trust and collaboration between libraries in this region of conflict.

Our graduate internship program for library students saw a jump in applications this semester. Outnumbering the librarians, the four interns received a broad range of training in areas of reference, cataloging, archival processing and description, digitization and metadata creation, as well as records and documents management.

We have completed several housekeeping milestones this spring—all periodicals that are not in high demand have been stored in archival boxes and moved to closed stacks; all historical microfiche and vertical files have been inventoried; all active nautical charts have been moved out of crammed filing cabinets into proper map cabinets.

The Ship’s Library aboard our training ship Empire State VI received a much-needed infusion of reference materials and paperback fiction that replaced about half of the collection that dates back to the Kennedy administration. However, our 9-year-old library server that hosted the ILS finally turned in, and its back up of the same age also failed. With two weeks to go before the training ship set sail for the summer sea term, we processed and cataloged over 3,000 items, set up a freeware ILS on a new server, and configured it to work with the ship’s local area network, with only a few hours to spare.

Finally, our Maritime History Archives received a gift of the original 1790 Marine Society of New York member certificate for Captain John Paul Jones, founder of the United States Navy.