CAMPUS UPDATES

[posulliv]

The College at Brockport welcomed a new libarian, Ken Wierzbowski.

We've been preparing for the one-day conference, "Giving and getting access to scholarly and instructional materials in conjunction with Oneonta:
http://www.cvent.com/events/giving-and-getting-access-to-scholarly-and-instructional-materials/event-summary-7e16f4843b6d4e058c3ec1f02abb4d6f.aspx

[Susanna]

Tompkins Cortland Community College (Susanna Van Sant, delegate)

We've had another highly successful season of our Quest - an active learning, team-based, warmly competitive orientation to all sorts of library and student support services available in our Baker Center for Learning (of which the Library is a part).  We're exhausted, but it's well worth it.  We'll be investigating offering the Quest during New Student Orientation to broaden our reach and to host the sessions prior to the start of classes each semester.

Eric Jenes has joined our staff as an adjunct librarian and writing tutor.  We continue to explore ways to integrate research/reference services and writing support.

We've increased our "purchase-on-demand" activity to build our print collection of both scholarly and leisure reading materials.  We also fulfill patrons' (primarily leisure reading) requests through immediate download to the Nooks that we circulate.  We're also exploring adjustments to our ILLiad routing rules to expand our POD acquisitions further.

[kathrynmasten]

We are pleased to announce that Barbara Shaffer is our new Library Director. After a year as Interim Director, in May she assumed her new position as Library Director at Penfield Library. Barbara holds a Master’s of Library Science from Syracuse University and Master of Science (Education/Music) from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In her new role, she plans to work closely with faculty to promote student learning and to ensure that when students leave Oswego, they take with them strong skills in information seeking and evaluation for lifelong learning.

Chris Hebblethwaite is now the Coordinator of Reference.

Tina Chan has been named the 2012 Emerging Leader sponsored by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association.

[lcharbonneau]

It’s been a productive summer at MVCC Libraries:
- We began the process of joining the IDS Project.
- We redesigned our library web site.
- We added a lot of titles to our ebook collections.
- And of course, there was weeding...

[hebertm3308]

New Hires: Abby Smith has joined the College Libraries as our new Metadata Librarian.   Abby comes to us from the University of Michigan and holds an MS in Information Science. While in Ann Arbor, Abby worked on digitization projects in support of the University’s Google and Hathi Trust initiatives.  The College Libraries has also hired a new Acquisitions Clerk, Shelly Smiddy. The Search for the shared services (Canton/Potsdam) ILL Specialist position continues.  Interviews with candidates are being held.

IL Tutorials: Over the summer, Instruction Librarians were very busy revising the SUNY Potsdam self paced Information Literacy Tutorials: http://potsdam.libguides.com/tutorialsportal.  The new tutorials "Research in Databases" and "Free Web" are designed to help students learn basic research skills.  Overall, they are more interactive and engaging, maybe even fun!

American Chemical Society journal subscriptions: Potsdam canceled their subscription to ACS journals, and opted to subscribe to the journals of the Royal Society of Chemistry instead.  The ACS journal costs were simply unsustainable, and would have consumed more than 10% of our entire acquisitions budget.  We have agreed to retain the ACS Legacy Archives and the Journal of Chemical Education, per request from the faculty.  If you haven't seen Jenica Roger's Attempting Elegance blog post, check it out.  It has made quite a few ripples: http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=1765

Construction update:  Library faculty offices are being reconfigured and remodeled, and new furniture is being ordered.  We all hope to be back in our offices by the end of the semester.

Shared services.  SUNY Potsdam continues to have discussions with SUNY Canton on shared services.  Conversations are beginning regarding academic collaborations (e.g. shared courses/curriculum).

Potsdam is participating in the EBL WNYLRC consortial ebook pilot (now live).  Thanks to Maggie Horn at OLIS for loading our records into ALEPH.

SUNY Potsdam received a glowing Middle States Accreditation Review report.  26 commendations!  Only 4 recommendations for improvement, all dealing with institutional assessment.

[Kristy Lee]

New Dean of Sojourner Truth Library
The Sojourner Truth Library welcomes W. Mark Colvson as the new Dean of the Library. Mark comes to the State University at New Paltz from Marist College where he served as Associate Director of the Cannavino Library.
Satellite Reference Service
Sojourner Truth Library (STL) now provides reference assistance to the campus at an additional location outside of the library reference desk. This satellite service, branded as Library Help @ the Career Resources Center, is staffed two hours, three days a week.
LibAnswers
STL officially launched LibAnswers, our new virtual reference tool. Patrons can text us their questions, and we have the ability with LibAnswers to send the answer directly and instantaneously to their cell phones.
iPads Lending
STL now has iPads available for checkout with a valid NP ID at the Checkout Desk. The loan period is 3 hours.  Each iPad comes with the native iOS apps and word processing apps such as Apple Pages, but users can add their own as well. All personal data will be completely erased from every iPad once returned.

[CindyFrancis]

The Alfred C. O'Connell Library and Genesee Community College are pleased to welcome the Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time, a Man for All Times exhibit.
The exhibit was created by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and funded by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and will be on display in the library October 1-28, 2012.

The exhibit is part of an on-going series of lectures and events sponsored by GCC to explore the Civil War and its enduring ramifications 150 years after the battles officially ended. The National Lincoln Exhibit has been traveling to select libraries and educational sites across the United States since 2009, and this will be the first showing at a community college in New York State.

Library and MarCom staff working with history faculty have planned many events for October to coincide with the exhibit including a visit/lecture from Columbia University history professor and author Dr. Eric Foner. A leading contemporary historian of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, Dr. Foner will share insights from his award-winning book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at a free lecture at GCC. Other events include a Lincoln Discovery Contest open to the community and a talk entitled “Why Lincoln” by Historian Derek Maxfield.

In personnel news: Angela Davis joins the GCC library staff as a part-time Reference Librarian. Angela is a 2012 University of Buffalo MLS graduate. She has worked at the Lake Shore branch of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Libraries system, and did her reference practicum as a Graduate Student Reference Assistant at the UB Health Science Library in 2011-12. 

[Angela Weiler]

Pauline Shostack has assumed the position of Chair at Coulter Library, and former Chair Jeff Harr has taken on Acquisitions in addition to Technical Services.

Frank Doble, Instruction and Reference Librarian, retired in June after 40 years at Coulter Library, so we are now down to four full-time librarians, as the library did not receive approval to refill his position this year. For these reasons, there has been some restructuring of librarian duties at Coulter: In addition to Pauline and Jeff’s new duties, Rob O’Boyle is now handling Circulation, Periodicals, and Archives, and Angela Weiler is covering Reference and Instruction. Coulter has also hired a new adjunct librarian, Penelope Klein, to help cover evenings.

Rob O’Boyle is serving this year as President of the Onondaga Community College Federation of Teachers and Administrators.

This summer Nadia Tressler developed Coulter Library’s Summer Photo Challenge Contest. Whether campus community members were taking summer classes, traveling the world, and/or working, we encouraged them to share a picture with us that depicted their summer adventures. We picked a winning staff and student photo at the beginning of the fall semester. The winning photos were then featured on our library website. You can see the winning photos on our library blog page and all photo submissions on our Flickr page.

Lisa Murphy of the Media Department suggested and organized a shifting of Coulter Library’s CD collection over the summer from shelving by number to shelving by genre. It was quite an extensive project, but now Coulter’s collection is much more enjoyable to browse.

Angela Weiler has organized a voter registration drive at Coulter Library. Registration forms are available on the first floor of the library, along with a drop box. The library then mails the registration forms for the students.

Dennis Thoryk has created online booking for Coulter Library’s group study rooms, enabling students to reserve rooms without actually coming into the library.

Pauline Shostack is again organizing the annual library orientation event for the campus community, which takes place on Sunday, September 30 from 6:30 – 8:30pm. This year there is an international theme, including games, crafts, food, and more.