The Role of the Library in the International Students Orientation

International students are often dazed and confused when they come to an American campus for the first time.  Most are likely in the United States for the first time and are facing culture shock.  The Office of International Students at NJIT does a fantastic job of orientating students to their new academic environment.  The students hear many speakers about residence life, health services, campus security, banking, and living in Newark.  Yesterday, I represented the library at the orientation.  I was intentionally very brief in my remarks.  I said that it takes time to become proficient in using the multitude of  information resources that they will use in their academic work.  I briefly demonstrated the library home page and its links to the databases and the research guides that the reference staff published.  I certainly hope that the new students benefited by my short lecture.  In the future the students will receive more in depth training.

Opening for a Science/Engineering Librarian at NJIT

Position Announcement: Technical Reference Librarian

The Robert W. Van Houten Library at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) seeks a Technical Reference and Liaison Librarian.  Engineering or other significant STEM expertise is required.  Work includes collaboration, reference, information literacy, instruction and assessment, collection development and user satisfaction for several academic departments. This librarian also performs literature searching and citation analyses, creates course guides and tutorials, etc.   The position reports to the Director of Reference.

To apply for the position please refer to the complete job description including preferred qualifications and essential characteristics. Apply online through the NJIT employment system.

Apply Online Now!

The Dog Days of August are Here

The dog days of August are the slowest in academic libraries.  Summer session is over while the pre-college programs are ending today.  I am still working on weeding the collection.  It was so sad to see so many old books in astronomy, physics, and chemistry.   In recent years there was so little money to purchase new books. Today I started looking at the medical related books in the “R” section of the stacks.  I was glad to see that the majority of the books were newer and still relevant since the NJIT programs in the life sciences are relatively new.

I spent some time this summer tweaking some of my Powerpoints for my information literacy classes in the future.  I have a chemical engineering class scheduled on the first day of classes.

Time passes very quickly.  Before you know it all the students will return and we will be busier in the library.

Passing of 4 NJIT Professors

Recently, I heard of the passing of 4 NJIT Professors.  I knew each of them casually, but their losses affects the entire community.

Ernest Geskin was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

• Obituary

Joseph Kitutcza was a  special lecturer in the Chemical Engineering Department

• Obituary

Leon Buteau  who retired some years back was Professor of Physics.  I believe he was Acting Dean of the College of Science and Liberal Arts.

• Obituary

 Manish Bhattacharjee was Professor of Mathematics

• Obituary
• His research interests

My condolences to their families.

Random Thoughts of the Day

It is July 31 already which means that the semester will begin in about a month.  Time really flies. I was able to spend sometime this summer catching up with projects.  I was able to weed older materials from the astronomy, physics and chemistry sections of the stacks.  It was so depressing to see so many old and outdated books. 

This summer we received several large donations.  As I have said before in this blog the people who donate books have the best intentions.  They don't want their materials to be placed in the trash.  Most of the materials from donations are given away to students.

Here at NJIT as in most academic libraries, we are getting more electronic books.  I had an experience with a professor who was quite frustrated since he could print out only a small number of pages from an electronic book.

That's it for now.

Returning from Vacation

This blog has not been very active lately.  I haven't had anything new to write about since library usage over the summer is very slow.  I promised myself that I would not look at my work e-mail while on vacation.  When I returned there were 233 new e-mails.  There was nothing earth shattering to report.  I deleted 160 out of the 233 without looking at them.

I did receive a request for a cited reference search.  We get these all the time, but it is unusual to do one over the summer.  The candidate had a very common name, so I had to do each paper in both Scopus and Web of Science.  Cited reference searches are pretty much routine, but very tedious and time consuming.

Today I am attending a mini-course in project management at METRO.

Remembering Joan Dunlop of the New York Public Library

Yesterday I was browsing through the obituary page of the New York Times and noted an article about Joan Dunlop , an advocate for women's health rights.  The name sounded familiar, but at first I just couldn't place her.  The article stated she was an assistant to Vartan Gregorian of the New York Public Library.

I then remembered serving on a committee with her about the external noise from street musicians on 42nd Street near 5th Avenue.  That location was in "the middle of everywhere" so the street musicians who were trying to make a living couldn't care less about the readers in the library.  In an academic library the noise is from the loud conversations of students.  Most researchers at NYPL came by themselves and didn't generate much noise.  I remember the committee made a trip to the Midtown South precinct of the NYPD to complain about the noise.  The police had much more serious concerns.

I last saw Ms. Dunlop at a farewell party for her.  Her short tenure at NYPL was not her claim to fame. In any event I send my condolences to her family.