Third Hand Held Librarians Conference July 28-29

I attended the Third Handheld Librarians Conference which was held online. Such a conference saves money since there are no travel expenses incurred. I took a lot of notes and will have to spend time reviewing them. The presentations were archived, so I can view them again and also view some of the talks that I missed. I will have to write a more detailed entry on this later in the week.

Best of Luck to Flora Grabowska

I received an e-mail yesterday from Flora Grabowska saying that she is leaving her position as Science Librarian with Vassar College to relocate to Fairbanks, Alaska to become librarian at the Keith B. Mather Library at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska. I become acquainted with Flora through the METRO Science Librarians SIG. She was certainly an asset to this group.

I certainly wish Flora well in her new position. It is certainly been a hot summer in the northeast, but Flora will not have to worry about that in her new location. :)

Passing of a Former Colleague - Reynaldo G Alejandro

I very often wonder what happened to former friends and colleagues years after we have gone our separate ways. It has become easier to do this in recent years using search engines and social networking tools. I very often think back to my days at the Science and Technology Division of the New York Public Library where I worked from 1983-1990. It is hard to believe that it has been 20 years since I have left that fine institution which is one of the world's largest research libraries. Within the past few weeks I encountered former NYPL colleague Susan Gormley at a METRO meeting and Jackie LaValle at a concert at Flushing Town Hall.

Just a few minutes ago I Googled Reynaldo G. Alejandro and sadly discovered that he passed away last year. (http://filipinolibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/08/alejandro-reynaldo-g-1941-2009.html) If I remember correctly Reynaldo worked at the Science and Technology Division with me from 1986-89. He was a very talented individual. He wrote several Phillippine cookbooks. He actively promoted the menu and cookery collections at NYPL. He also worked at the Dance collection and at the Donnell Library of NYPL. I hadn't been in touch with him since I left NYPL in 1990. I remember he phoned me back then to congratulate me as a was appointed Science Librarian at St. Johns University.

My belated condolences to his family.

Administrative Glut

Although I am on staycation for one more day, I am writing an entry for my professional blog. I was sitting on a park bench this afternoon as I read the Education Life section of the Sunday New York Times. An article titled Administrative Glut by Andrew Hacker and Gloria Dreifus piqued my interest. Let me quote the second paragraph of this article:

Williams’s (College in Massachusetts) annual report to the Department of Education reveals that of 1,017 total employees, 720, or over 70 percent, are doing something other than teaching. Among them are 84 coaches, 73 fund-raisers, a 42-member information-technology crew and a staff of 29 at its art museum. The college also has a “spouse/partner employment counselor” and a “queer life coordinator.”

Are all these positions necessary?

Question - are librarians considered administrators? We are directly involved in the educational process. Are library staffs being cut unnecessarily?

In any organization, a certain amount of administration is necessary. I have heard that at NJIT and other colleges adjunct professors who obviously teach are not being retained increasing the load for regular faculty. No organization enjoys letting people go, but I hope that colleges and universities are evaluating non-essential administrators when making cuts.

This essay is adapted from the following book to be published in August 2010:

Dreifus, Claudia, and Andrew Hacker. Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids, and What We Can Do About It. New York: Times Books, 2010.

I think I should read this book when it becomes available. I think that all colleges must spend money responsibly especially in this era of tight budgets.

A difficult reference question

I need to find some materials for my research, but I can't. Could you please give me some help? The materials I need is the production volume of pharmaceuticals (Rx and OTC) by classes, steroids, pesticides, plastics and Personal Care Product (Sunblocks, soaps...) in the U.S. Thank you very much.

I did check Business Source Premier, Lexis-Nexis, and the Frost and Sullivan Reports without success. I suspected that this information may be held in a private report such as IBISWorld.

I sent a message to the Chemical Information listserv to see if any colleagues had any ideas. A science librarian from Case Western Reserve confirmed that IBISWorld which is very expensive has this information.

If anyone reading this blog has any suggestions, please contact me at slutsky@adm.njit.edu

Thanks for any assistance.

A somewhat disappointing experience

We spend much time at NJIT teaching students how to search the technical databases to support their research. Publishers construct databases so that they are easy for nonspecialists to search. If a student can search these databases, we can expect the faculty to use them as well.

A chemistry professor requested that I do a search in Scifinder Scholar for her. It did not require a complicated search strategy. I did it and passed along the search results. It was disappointing to me that the professor could not take the time to learn the basics of searching Scifinder Scholar.

The type of question that I like is when a person tells me that they have searched the database and could not find the information they need. They are checking with me to see if they missed something or just did not use the optimal search strategy.

I guess I am just venting on a Tuesday afternoon.

Online Social Networking Sites for Scholars

Today I found out about a few social networking sites for academics. I set up accounts with the following services:

Academia.edu
ResearchGate.net

I am in the process of adding data to my profiles. It will take time to develop proficiency in using these sites. I didn't become a Facebook expert overnight :)

Trying to convince my colleagues to adopt Libguides

I sent a long memo to my colleagues describing my training at METRO last week. I gave everyone my username and password for the trail and hope they will see the advantages of Libguides and adopt them for the NJIT Library. The cost is not prohbitive, but in this era of tight budgets, we have to be careful about spending money on services that are not essential.

Class on Libguides at METRO

METRO holds classes regularly covering different aspects of librarianship. Today's class titled 'Using LibGuides To Deliver Dynamic Library Content Online' was given by Mazen Khoury of Springshare. I attended this meeting since I have heard so much anecdtally about Libguides and seriously want to use them in the NJIT Library.

Most of the participants were librarians at institutions that already have implemented Libguides. There always is a learning curve when a new product is used. Mazen set everyone up with an account on http://demo.libguides.com and showed how a libguide can be constructed. There is a web site http://community.libguides.com where people can see what libraries have done with their libguides.

I found the session quite useful. I hope that in this period of constrained budgets we can afford to purchase this system.

What is the future of academic libraries?

My boss brought the following article to my attention:

"2010 top ten trends in academic libraries: A review of the current literature." College & Research Libraries News 71.6 (2010): 286-92. OmniFile Full Text Mega. Web. 6 July 2010.

One of the points made in the article which I will quote:
"The definition of the library will change as physical space is repurposed and virtual space expands."

Much of the second and third floors of the NJIT Library is occupied by bound volumes of journals. The use of these materials is diminishing each year. Students made requests for group study rooms during the exam periods. Very often they must be turned away. I suggest that much of the bound periodicals be place in storage to create space for more group study rooms.

A much higher percentage of our resources are now available online, so there is less need to store physical resources. Faculty do encourage students to work together as teams, so I think we should allocate more space for group study. To quote the article again:

"The concept of Library as Place is still important to students, researchers, and faculty members. Some libraries have added writing, tutoring, and media centers to provide multiple academic support service in one convenient location.'