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.
