Stony Brook University Libraries’ second annual Open Access Symposium was held on Tuesday, 25 October 2016. The event featured keynote speakers Justin Peters, Slate correspondent and author of Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture and Jennie Rose Halperin, Communications Manager at Creative Commons. The day-long symposium included panels such as “At the Intersection of Open Education and EdTech” and “Open Sciences and Data Visualization” and a digital humanities panel.
Stony Brook University Libraries honored Native American Heritage Month with a series of events highlighting Native American history and culture. The program included a musical performance, dance, lecture symposium and a dream catcher social event.
A Digital Humanities Open Mic Event was held on October 31st. Faculty and students came together to discuss the digital humanities and to explore new possibilities for research. Emphasizing practices and tools, scholars presented projects which used technology to reveal new insights within the traditional humanistic media of texts, images, and maps.
In its final presentation of the fall 2016 semester, University Libraries Presents: Writers Series hosted author Carl Safina to present on his book, “Beyond Words: How Elephants, Wolves, and Killer Whales Think and Feel.” He shared how he spent time working with researchers who have dedicated decades to studying particular families of wild elephants, wolves, and killer whales. He told the amazing strategies and judgment calls wild creatures have made to ensure their families’ survival in times of crisis.
The University Libraries partnered with Counseling and Psychological Services to host another pet therapy event on November 9. The PALS (Pet Away Life Stress) program offers an opportunity for stress reduction for our student community, an opportunity to take a moment out of their hectic schedules to pet a dog and get some unconditional love. The were two tables set up with staff from the counseling center and librarians who were on hand to let the students know we are here to make your college experience less stressful and more enjoyable. We will be hosting our final PALS event of the semester on Wednesday, December 7th at 1:00PM.
Jay Datema joined the Stony Brook University Libraries as the Head of the Health Sciences Library. He comes to the University Libraries with extensive experience. At Cambridge University Press, Jay served as a member of the senior management team for the New York Office. He collaborated with Editorial, Platform Technology, Marketing and Digital Operations teams to drive innovative new projects. In addition, he directed an iPad pilot project to push content to student, teacher and third screens. Past professional experience includes: Director of Library Services at the Metropolitan College of New York where he managed a $1.5 million collection and staff library budget; Associate Director at the Bern Dibner Library at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, where he managed public and access services, an information literacy program; Medical Librarian in the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York where he served on the committee for Innovative library catalog upgrade for Four Corners Consortium, including Weill Cornell Medical School, Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Libraries. He recommended document delivery and collection development solutions to the library committee and prototyped library intranet with database driven journals page and current awareness RSS feeds; Application Developer for the New York Public Library; Technology Editor for the Library Journal; and Systems Librarian and Digital Project Developer for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The Stony Brook University Libraries welcomed Chris Kretz as the Head of the Southampton Library. For the past fourteen years, Chris has been a member of the library faculty at Dowling College, most recently as Digital Resources/Reference Librarian. He has served as Dowling College Library’s Department Chair, and has held a leadership role in strategic planning at the Library. Chris has implemented effective and creative programming at Dowling College, including an academic library podcast and a coffee house series designed to position the library as a cultural and social space. Additionally, he is very active in local history. He has created a podcast for the Long Island History Project, participated in oral history projects and created social media content for the Oakdale Historical Society.
