Messages

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January 29, 2016 Council Meeting @ FIT / Niagara County Community College Campus Updates

« on: January 27, 2016, 02:04:55 PM »

We welcomed a new part-time reference librarian for our spring semester, Bridget Baker, a graduate of SUNY-Geneseo. She will help out at the reference desk and also do some library instruction.

Nancy Kennedy, Library Director, and Jeanne Tuohey, Reference Librarian, presented a workshop called “Creating Effective Library Assignments That Enhance Creative Thinking and Information Literacy Skills” for our Professional Development Days in January. This workshop is a move toward more collaboration between the librarians and the faculty to achieve course goals and objectives.

All of our library staff is very busy preparing for our move out of our  4-story library building later this semester as the library is renovated and transformed into a Learning Commons.  All of the materials and the people have to leave the building for the next 18-24 months during the construction and move 2 buildings away into a now closed 2nd floor cafeteria.  Our mantra for the near future will need to be “There’s no gain without pain.” Wish us all luck!

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Nov. 13, 2015 Council Meeting @ Cobleskill / Niagara C.C.C.

« on: November 13, 2015, 08:20:39 AM »

Plans for the new Learning Commons are moving along. Nancy Kennedy, Library Director, will be the project manager for all of the library areas. Madison Ackerman will manage the project for the other areas including all of the tutoring, the Writing Center, and the Academic Achievement Center. Plans are for the entire library to vacate the building by the end of spring semester and move to the Student Center Building. As you can imagine, there is a lot of thinking and planning about how this will all happen as we look ahead.

The Middle States team chairman was on campus for several days in November to check in with our campus committee about the Periodic Review Report which was submitted this fall.  Mary Beth Morse, Circulation Librarian, is serving on the campus Middle States Steering Committee and has been very busy with all things related to the Middle States accreditation.

Jennifer Santomauro, Part-time Reference Librarian, has taken a full-time job at Mt. St. Mary's Academy in Buffalo. We wish her well.

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Sept. 25, 2015 Council Meeting @ Monroe Community College / Re: Niagara County Community College Updates

« on: September 25, 2015, 08:46:42 AM »

Mary Beth Morse, Circulation Librarian, was granted tenure and was also promoted to Assistant Professor. She also attended the ACRL Conference in Portland, Oregon.
Jeanne Tuohey, Reference Librarian, is collaborating with area high school librarians in an outreach effort to help ease the transition for students from high school to college. She is also serving on the Faculty Association Board of Directors for our faculty union.
Karen Ferington, Catalog/Media Librarian, served on the World War II 70th Anniversary Commemoration Committee, helped with library resources for the Film Festival, and volunteered for many events held during the semester-long celebration in Spring 2015.
Lillian Passanese, Librarian and Coordinator of the Faculty Resource Center, retired in April 2015.
We are pleased to welcome two new part-time reference librarians, Jennifer Santomauro and Rose Ann Heilemann, to NCCC this fall.
The Buffalo-based architectural firm of Foit-Albert Associates has been selected to design, plan and engineer the college's new Learning Commons. Work should begin in Spring 2016 so it will be a very exciting year.

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January 23, 2015 Council Meeting @ FIT / Re: Campus Updates - Niagara County Community College

« on: January 22, 2015, 09:23:58 AM »

Niagara County Community College has just launched a semester-long commemoration to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.  The kick-off was held in the art gallery on January 21st to mark the opening of the Wall of Honor, a collection of war-time photographs of relatives of NCCC employees.  Throughout the semester a series of activities dedicated to remembering, commemorating, and reflecting on the experiences of the men and women who served in the armed forces and worked in the factories during the Second World War will be held. 
Besides offering credit-bearing History, Honors, Music and Theater courses on the war, the College will host a faculty-led conference, a weekly film series, a musical stage production of “Cabaret”, fund raising and a V-E Day celebration. All donations and funds raised will be given to two causes for veterans. One is Buffalo Honor Flight which flies America’s veterans at no charge to Washington, D.C. to visit those memorials dedicated to honor their sacrifices. The other is the Wounded Warrior Project which works to raise awareness and enlist the public’s help for the needs of injured service members.
The library has purchased many new resources to support all areas of study relating to World War II and we are very excited about the new energy this celebration has brought to our campus.

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November 14, 2014 Council Meeting @SUNY Albany / Niagara County Community College

« on: November 10, 2014, 01:42:50 PM »

The library went live with EDS (Ebsco Discovery Service) in later summer 2014 and we are now teaching our students and faculty about the resources that result from searching with EDS and how to limit the results.

We are also working on several cleanup projects related to the SUNY OneBib Project and this work will continue into second semester.

A student focus group will be formed soon to review the library's webpage.  We'll ask these students to provide us with feedback as we plan for changes needed to make it easier for students and faculty to find the information that they are seeking.
 
We are part of a pilot project made up of mostly Western New York libraries that purchased the rights to over 4,000 e-books for a year.  Students from the participating colleges can download the books up to 7 times for free. When that book is accessed for the 7th time, the group purchases the title and it becomes part of the shared collection. The group decided at the onset that the pilot approach would be an emphasis on access instead of on ownership. So far this pilot has been very successful.

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November 20, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY FIT / Re: Campus Updates - Niagara C.C.C.

« on: November 13, 2013, 03:19:26 PM »

News from the NCCC Archives is that archived student newspapers are now available online.  The student newspaper has been around for 50 years and it has had 3 unique titles?  The newspaper was called Entricy Herald (1964-1968); Old Weird Herald (1969-1971); and The Spirit (1972 – present). If you are wondering about that first title, “Entricy” is short for “N Triple C”.

Newspapers held in the NCCC Archives from 1964-1992 have been digitized and loaded on the New York Heritage Digital Collections website.  Taking a look back, you’ll find articles on campus life, sports, college curricula, social events, and local news as well as national events during those years.  You’ll also find names of faculty, students, administrators, and alumni, in addition to national celebrities who have spoken on campus. Karen Ferington is spear-heading this project in her role as Catalog/Archives Librarian. 

Phase 1 of the digitization project (1964-1992) is completed and phase 2 (1993–2013) is projected to be done in 2014.

To explore the NCCC Student Newspapers Collection online:
     Go to:   
              http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/YKU001

Renovations continue on the library’s main floor as we move closer to a Learning Commons with new carpeting, new furniture, and new spaces for a number of student services.  Mary Beth Morse, Circulation Librarian, is busy purchasing materials to be put on Course Reserves for students in the Learning Commons to use.  A Perkins Grant will make materials in these subject areas available:  medical assisting, phlebotomy, science, hospitality and tourism. 

We also have a new charging station in our Reference area to make it convenient for students to re-charge their phones and other electronic devices while in the library. 

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September 20, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY Onondaga / Niagara County Community College

« on: September 18, 2013, 03:51:15 PM »

We had a busy summer preparing for several student-related services to move to the library and be located on our 2nd (Main) floor. About 2/3 of the former library space on the Main floor will be occupied by tutoring labs and other student services as of Spring 2014.  We were busily weeding our collections to make space for this transition as we re-located the Periodicals, Media, Children's Literature, and several offices to the 3rd and 4th floors.  We now have many workers in the library every day as the former library space is being renovated for the new occupants. There is still a lot of work for the library staff to do as follow-up to the summer weeding project, but we are tackling it one day at a time. A large computer lab (60 work stations) is no longer in the library causing concerns for our students and the library staff. We are currently helping our patrons find the materials and services that had to be re-located over the summer.

On the positive side, we welcomed two new part-time reference librarians this fall: Diane Balcom and James Trinder.

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June 12, 2013 Council Meeting @SUNY Buffalo State / Re: Campus Updates - Niagara C.C.C.

« on: June 10, 2013, 09:54:25 AM »

Summer 2013 will be busy for us here at NCCC. We are preparing for several student-related services to move to the library and be located on our 2nd (Main) floor as of September 1st. The public part of the library currently occupies the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors.  Collections on the 2nd (Main) floor to be relocated to the 3rd and 4th floors include Reference books, Periodicals, Media, Children's Literature, ILL, and Reserves in addition to offices and media viewing stations. As you can imagine, we are busily weeding all collections to make space for the transition over the summer. It is a huge project that we are tackling one day at a time.

Our Evening Circulation Clerk, Michelle Owens, recenly left us to pursue an M.L.S. degree at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  We wish Micha the best in all of her future endeavors!

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Sept 21m 2012 @SUNY Empire, Saratoga Springs / Niagara County Community College Update - Karen Ferington, Delegate

« on: September 17, 2012, 02:45:19 PM »

NCCC has a new branch campus, the Culinary Institute in downtown Niagara Falls, NY.  It was created by renovating a large portion of the former Rainbow Center Mall.  There is a small library there (including books, DVDs, and periodicals) and it has a beautiful view of Niagara Falls.

This year we are commemorating the 50th anniversary of NCCC. There was a large display mounted in the art gallery called “50 Years of NCCC” by Karen Ferington, Archives Librarian, assisted by several library clerks.  The display included photos organized by decades, posters, T-shirts, memorabilia, yearbooks, and student newspapers. Visitors to the exhibit appreciated all of the work that went into this display. More special anniversary events will be held throughout the year.

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

« on: May 30, 2012, 09:16:29 AM »

Niagara C.C.C.

We are busy this summer preparing to send part of our collection of books and media to the new Hospitality and Tourism Center being built in Niagara Falls, NY.  The former Rainbow Mall is being renovated to accomodate our Culinary Arts, Hospitality, and Tourism programs slated to begin operations there in September 2012. 
Also our Vice-President of Student Affairs, Bassam Deeb, has accepted a position as President of Trocaire College in Buffalo beginning this fall.

Karen Ferington, Delegate 

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March 15, 2012 @Empire, Saratoga Springs / Re: Campus Updates - Niagara County Comm. College

« on: March 07, 2012, 04:02:32 PM »

To celebrate National Library Week this year the librarians have invited all full and part-time faculty to attend a National Library Week Breakfast Reception on April 10th.  We are encouraging faculty to stop in for a bite to eat and a few moments to relax either before or after their morning classes. We plan to showcase our newest library resources and services at this event.  This reception is being held to celebrate the collaboration between teaching faculty and the library.

For our students we plan to offer various National Library Week "freebies" for them to take with them.  Several items from our college's Barnes & Noble Bookstore and Student Activities area are also being collected to be given away in a drawing.     

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Nov. 16, 2011 @ FIT / Campus Updates- Niagara Co. Comm. College

« on: November 14, 2011, 08:40:02 AM »

All of the librarians are presenting a workshop for faculty called "Talking Turkey in the Library: What the Librarians Can Do For You and Your Students" this week just prior to Thanksgiving. Topics to be discussed include: LibGuides; Films on Demand; embedding links in Angel; tips on preparing library assignments; new IPads, Kindles, MacBooks, and laptops; online library tutorials; and our text messaging service for reference questions.

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

« on: September 15, 2011, 09:59:08 AM »

   The H.G. Lewis Library welcomes Nancy Kennedy as our new Library Division Chair.  Nancy has served as Technical Services Librarian for many years.  She will continue with her work in cataloging while serving as chair.  The acquisitions work will now be done by Jeanne Tuohey, Reference Librarian.  We are having our part-time librarians fill in at reference to accommodate this transition.
   New technology is appearing almost every week as we reap the benefits of a large technology grant.  We recently received:  9 iPad 2s; a 16-iPad charging cart/syncing unit for storage; 15 new laptops; 6 MacBooks; and 5 Kindles.  We are in the process of working out procedures for purchase and downloading titles for the Kindles.
   In Spring/Summer 2001 we got several new media stations for viewing/listening, as well as digital cameras, camcorders, and audio recorders.  Some of this equipment is primarily used by our Digital Media students, but all of it does circulate. We also have new computers and work stations in our Reference area. So there are lots of exciting new toys around and patrons are using them.
   We now have a subscription to the entire Master Academic Collection of streaming videos from Films on Demand starting in September 2011. Last semester we only had the Humanities/Social Sciences Collection.  Because of the high amount of usage and requests from faculty and students, we decided to expand the amount of titles available on streaming video. New this year is the fact that the videos have been re-encoded to allow playback on our library iPads, as well as on the iPad Touch or iPhones used by many of our patrons.
   
Karen Ferington, Delegate

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November 19, 2010 @ Onondaga / Re: Campus Updates - Niagara C.C.C.

« on: November 15, 2010, 01:23:27 PM »

The most recent news at Niagara C.C.C. is that we have received several iPads from funds in a technology grant.  The librarians are using the iPads right now and exploring ways to use the new technology in our reference work with patrons.
We are also searching for an Emerging Technology Librarian. Applications have closed and the review of applications will begin soon.   

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September 10, 2010 @ Onondaga / Re: Campus Updates- Niagara Co. Comm. College

« on: September 02, 2010, 09:02:01 AM »

The Lewis Library at Niagara County Community College has had a few personnel changes for the beginning of the new academic year.  Andrew Aquino, Temporary Circulation Librarian, has completed his one year appointment, but he will continue with us as a part-time Reference Librarian.  We are excited to welcome Mary Beth Morse as our new Circulation Librarian. She comes to us from the library at Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora. NY. We plan to re-open the search for an Emerging Technology Librarian very soon.