Had lunch with Boss Today

No, I didn't meet up with Bruce Springsteen. He is from New Jersey, but I doubt if he ever visited NJIT. I was in the pizzeria in the campus center and the University Librarian, Richard Sweeney, came in a few minutes after I did. He sat down with me as we discussed college basketball especially the Big East Conference. It's nice to have lunch with colleagues and bosses as long as they don't talk shop. There is one person I know (no names will be mentioned) who thrives on talking about work related issues at lunch.

Narrating my General Chemistry Powerpoint

Last summer I worked with the people in Instructional Technology and Media Services (ITMS)to narrate my Powerpoint presentation showing students how to find physical property data. Since the university librarian greatly approed of this I decided to narrate my general lecture on how to find information in chemistry and chemical engineering. I don't know how many people actually viewed my narration since the web site does not have a counter.

I taught Bill Skawinski how to search the web version of Scifinder Scholar

In October I wrote an entry about blind chemistry professor Bill Skawinski. Like any good faculty member Bill regularly uses the journals and databases offered by the NJIT Library. I came over to his lab today to help him get adjsted to the web version of Scifinder Scholar since he has used the client version for years. He uses a screen reading program called Jaws which creates audio from the text on a computer screen. He thought that the program was having difficulties reading from the graphical interface of Scifinder. I offered him my help in the future.

Knowing when information literacy has succeeded

Students in an advanced undergraduate chemical engineering class received an assignment to write a laboratory manual on how to manufacture a product using fermentation. When two students from the same class approach me about the same topic, I do feel that a class may be necessary. This is the response that I received from the professor:


The students in my ChE 476 class said that they have heard your lecture before. Some of them said that they heard it several times before, so that it would be superfluous to repeat it again to this class. I will keep it in mind, however, for my future classes.

Thank you for your willingness to help; I greatly appreciate it

This means that the training that the students received in an earlier class was transferred to another course later in the curriculum. This is anecdotal evidence that information literacy has succeeded. By being superfluous, I would be doing more harm than good by boring students and possibly creating some dislike toward me and the library. That would certainly be counterproductive.

I told the professor that any student in that class could see me privately if he she needed more assistance in doing the search or locating the documents.

Taught ENE 361 - Solid and Hazardous Waste Engineering

Here is the course description:

Exposure to the area of air pollution control, solid waste disposal, and radioactive waste disposal. Topics include the chemistry of contaminated atmospheres; the influence on meteorological conditions of dispersion of pollutants; abatement processes used in the control of emissions; classification and nature of solid waste, and solid waste disposal techniques; sources and methods for the disposal of radioactive contaminants; and related health effects

In the past I have given a general lecture to civil and environmental engineering students. In the lecture for this class I gave references to the EPA and the Code of Federal Regulations so that the students can find regulatory information. Here are topics of their papers:

1) Lifecycle assessment of soft drink aluminum cans – statistics, production, energy balance, environmental impacts, recommendations.

2) Lifecycle assessment of newspapers – statistics, production, energy balance, environmental impacts, recommendations.

3) Lifecycle assessment of plastics – statistics, production, energy balance, environmental impacts, recommendations.

4) Lifecycle assessment of personal computers – statistics, production, energy balance, environmental impacts, recommendations.

5) PCBs in caulk - nature of the problem, regulations, research and health effects

6) Phytoremediation of heavy metals contamination at hazardous waste sites

7) Dioxins - regulations, source, treatment and health effects

8) Asbestos in vermiculite - nature of the problem, regulations, sources, health effects

9) Phthalates in plastics - nature of the problem, regulations, sources, health effects

Giving out Parking tickets in Newark

I would think that any sane police department would use horses only in crowd control. For the umpteenth time today I observed a Newark police officer on a horse giving tickets for parking overtime at a meter. Why? First of all I think a civilian (meter maid) can give out parking tickets. I think the police in Newark should look for real crime.

A professor needed four papers quickly

I was at the reference desk from 3 - 4 PM today when a professor of Biomedical Engineering came by and said she quickly needed four papers from an ophthalmology journal for a grant proposal. She located the papers in Science Direct, but we did not have access to the full-text. I searched Worldcat and found out that the Brooklyn College library has that journal. I contacted Jill who I know through the METRO Science Librarians SIG of the Brooklyn library faculty. She sent us the documents within minutes. It is always helpful to know colleagues at other universities.

Information Literacy for FED 101

Today I taught a class to civil engineering students enrolled in FED 101, Fundamentals of Engineering Design. Here is the course description:

Teams of students work on open-ended engineering projects. Sections are offered to represent an introduction to real-world engineering design problems in a specific engineering discipline. Topics covered include introduction to basic engineering design elements, processes, measurements, product and project design and development, with hands-on experiments in a specific major area.

I gave my general talk to students of civl and environmental engineering. It is always difficult to get feedback from the students during and after the lecture. There was a problem with the internet connectivity. I could not directly access the electronic journals or Scopus. When one student asked a question about how to design and construct a parking deck I was able to access TRIS, a transportation database pulished by the federal government.

7 out of the 16 students took the Research Roadmaps (Hello Davida) that were given in the Fall semester. This would be their second exposure to information literacy classes.

NJIT is open on Presidents Day, but I am off

Since I joined NJIT in 1992 it has always been open on President's Day. The long term employees told me that NJIT used to give it off, but when Martin Luther King Day became a legal holiday, they gave that as a day off, but took away President's Day. Today the public transportation runs on a weekend schedule. Since I have to take 4 trains and a bus to get to work, it would take over 2 hours each way to travel. Thus for every year I use a vacation or personal day. I will be back tomorow.

My Low Key Approach to Reference Librarianship

I recall an incident early in 1978 when I was still a chemist and lived in New London, Ct. I was taking a business course at Mitchell College when one evening I arrived a little early for class. I went to the library, browsed the shelves, and picked out a book that I just want to look at for a few minutes. The librarian called me over, and insisted that I check out the book. I could see an ear to ear smile in her face as she stamped the due date card in the book. Wasn’t that coming on a little too strong? I didn’t need her assistance to simply pick up a book and take it to a table.

30 years later when as I, now an experienced librarian, have observed some librarians coming on a little too strong in their transactions with patrons. I believe that if a patron does not need help, just let them be. If someone goes to the electronic catalog, does a search, retrieves the book, and checks it out, we have succeeded in training this person.

Thus, I like to take a “low key” approach to reference librarianship. I like to make students and faculty aware that if they need me, I am more than happy to help them. I just don’t want to be in people’s faces with the library. If a student gives me a friendly hello, I will reciprocate, but I will not give a long talk on how to use the databases. I feel that coming on too strong just does more harm than good as did that incident back in 1978 at Mitchell College.

Taught an Environmental Engineering Class Last Night

For many years I have taught a class on how to find information to ENE 262 which is usually taught by Taha Marhaba. This semester the course is being taught by an adjunct professor. Below is a list of topics for the students to research:

1. "Green" Buildings - what they are, how they are constructed and the environmental benefit

2. Lead in Consumer Products - source, nature pf the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

3. Hybrid Vehicles - what they are, how they are constructed and the environmental benefit

4. Waste Consumer Electronics - nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

5. Perchlorate in Groundwater - source, nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

6. Drilling for Oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address rthe situation

7. Bisphenol A in Consumer Products - source, nature of the problem environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

8. Nuclear Waste Repositories - history, nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

9. Ringwood Mines Superfund Site - history, nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

10. Mold in Homes - source, nature of the problem environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation

Orientation for International Graduate Students

Today I spoke about the library to an orientation for international graduate students. I mentioned that as they advance in their academic careers they will not to develop more sophisticates skills in finding information from the peer reviewed literature. I only had 10 minutes, so I briefly showed them how to find the most popular databases. I also talked about the library liaison program.

I remember back in January 1972 I was a new student at the University of Rhode Island. Back then there was not any orientation for students who started in the Spring semester.

Students wait until the last minute to do their assignment

Last Friday I gave my lecture on finding physical properties of chemical substances. They were given an assignment which is due today at 11:30 AM. When I was at the reference desk from 10:00 until 11:00 AM, two students approached me with questions about that assignment. One was almost finsihed since she just needed to find an answer from a print source as stated in the assignment. The other said she had missed the class and had problems find the information by using Google. I showed her my page with links to resources to find physical properties (http://library.njit.edu/researchhelpdesk/subjectguides/phys-prop.php). This page also has links to narrated and non-narrated versions of my Powerpoint presentation.

Faculty Library Committee Meeting Today

3 times a semester we have a meeting of the Faculty Library Committee consisting of representatives from every academic department. In this way the library management communicates with the faculty. The committee members should avise their colleagues of what went on at the meeting. Today the committee voted on a fnew formula to subdivide the journal budget. We try to be fair in properly allocating money to each department, but in any event the library funding is low especially in today's economic climate.

Proposed New Program in Biochemistry at NJIT

Yesterday I spoke to a professor in the chemistry department about a proposed program in biochemistry. Whenever there is a new program, we must determine what library resources would be needed to support it. I gave him a list of journals that were ranked high by Journal Citation Reports in that area. I also report a list of Library of Congress subject headings in biochemistry which I could use to purchase books that would supplement courses in biochemistry. Of course, the big problem in budgetary constraints.

Alumni Can not Access Databases Remotely

Over the past few days I have received phone calls from alumni who could not access the NJIT library databases or electronic journals. Once they have graduated, alumni lose their UCID and the ability to access NJIT resources. Agreements with publishers state the the resources may only be used by current students, faculty and staff. Alumni certainly may come to our library, get a visitor pass and use the resources. However, remote access is not allowed.