Publication List of Bruce Slutsky

Osorio, N. L., Slutsky, Bruce. (2012). A Tribute and BioBibliometric Study of Ellis Mount, the First Editor-in-Chief of Science & Technology Libraries. Science and Technology Libraries, 31(4), 394-411. doi: 10.1080/0194262x.2012.730385

Slutsky, B. (1993). Communicating Science to the Public: An Address to Non-Science Librarians. The Reference Librarian(No. 40), 73-87

Slutsky, B. (1991). The American Chemical Society Career Consultants Program. The Indicator, 72(8), 24

.

Slutsky, B. (1991). A Careers in Chemical Information Workshop. Journal of Chemical Education, 68(1), 43-45.

Slutsky, B. (1991). How to Avoid Science Anxiety Among Sience Librarians. Science and Technology Libraries, 12(1), 11-19.

Slutsky, B. (1990). Asksam in the New York Public Libary. In M. Fox (Ed.), Exploring Asksam (pp. 43-58). New York: Future Communications Systems.

Slutsky, B. (1990). Informed Career Choices. Chemical and Engineering News, 68(2), 3.

Slutsky, B. (1990). Other Chemical Information Careers. Chapter One, 4(3), 32.

Slutsky, B. (1989). A Chemical Abstracts Training Seminar for Science Librarians. Science and Technology Libraries, 10(1), 55-76.

Lamb, F. A., Cote, Philip N., Slutsky, Bruce, Vitimberga, Bruno M. (1974). Reduction of 9 - (p-methoxyphenyl)-9-fluorenylacetaldhyde on activated alumina. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 39(18). doi: 10.1021/jo00932a026

Starting to Plan the 2013 New Jersey Chemistry Olympics

It seems like yesterday when NJIT hosted the last chemistry olympics, but it is already time to start planning the next one.  There was a meeting last night with Natalie Macke and others to discuss the competitions for the May 16. 2013 event.

I will be running the information search as I have done for many years.  The students will bring in a molecular model which will be judged for accuracy.  The second part of the competation will be the information search where the students will use the internet to answer questions.

The theme for 2013 will be drug substances from Hoffmann-LaRoche who are now closing their facility in Nutley.  Students can pick one of these four molecules:

• Tretinoin
• Ticlid
• Cellcept (Mycopenolate Mofetil)
• Diazepam (Valium)

Next METRO Science Librarians SIG Meeting Will be Thursday January 10 1:30 PM

The METRO Science Librarians SIG is alive and well.  Since there was a large meeting of science librarians at Brooklyn College on November 9 and 10, I decided not to have a meeting during the Fall semester.  The SIG will reconvene on Thursday January 10, 2013 at 1:30 PM at METRO Headquarters:

57 East 11^th Street – 4^th Floor

New York, NY

We will have a roundtable discussion with the theme: Journal Pricing – Can we devise a pricing model that is fair to both the publisher and the customer?

Please see the following article from the Chemical and Engineering News:

http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i46/Easy-Answer-Library-Budgets.html

You may register for the meeting at  http://metro.org/events/284/

Please see the SIG’s Libguide at http://libguides.metro.org/Science_Librarians

You may contact me if there are any questions

Bruce Slutsky

New Jersey Institute of Technology

Robert Van Houten Library

323 Martin Luther King Blvd

Newark, NJ 07102

slutsky@njit.edu

(voice) 973-642-4950 (fax) 973-642-7862

Twitter NJITREF

ACS on Campus Event at NJIT on December 5

An event is planned for several months and in the blink of an eye, it is over.  For several months I worked on this event with Jennifer Taylor Howell of the American Chemical Society to plan the ACS on Campus event that was held on Wednesday December 5.  From 10 AM until 12 noon we worked on preparing the room the meeting.

Reg Tomkins of the NJIT chemical engineering department spoke about the benefits of being a member of the Society.  He has been active in the ACS for many years and is certainly the most qualified to talk on this effort.  Reg described the mission, values and strategic goals of ACS.  The brief talk concluded with a statement of the goals and objectives of the ACS on Campus event.

Donald Sebastian, the Senior Vice President for Research and Development welcomed everyone on behalf of NJIT.  He spoke on how important chemistry and chemical engineering is in solving global problems.

The first module of the day considered scientific publishing.  Jaan Pesti, the editor of Organic Process Research and Development (OPRD), discussed how to get started in publishing.  Scientists conduct experiments, maintain laboratory notebooks, and then want to publish to making their findings accessible to all.  Some of the points he made were:

• Scientific publications must create new knowledge
• There are several steps involved in writing a manuscript
• A cover letter should be sent when submitting a manuscript
• The Peer review process
• Common mistakes that authors make when responding to editors

The next talk on publishing ethics was given by Jitesh Soares who is the Managing Editor of ACS Chemical Biology and  ACS Chemical Neuroscience.  Some of the areas of discussion were:

• Most copyright violations are unintentional.
• Plagiarizing
• Self-plagiarizing
• Re-publishing an article
• Cutting and pasting from one document to another
• Hedging – submitting a manuscript to multiple journals simultaneously
• Ghost authorship – including as an author an individual who did not contribute to the research.
• The retraction rate of articles in ACS journals is less than 0.05%

There are two web sites of interest:

1. Ethics http://pubs.acs.org/ethics
2. Resource Center for authors http://pubs.acs.org/4authors

The second module in the program was given by Daniel Reasoner who talked about 45 minutes on the basics of searching Scifinder Scholar.  In such a short time frame it was impossible to describe the many facets of the database in any detail.  He described the many commands and capabilities of this very powerful tool in finding chemical information.  He offered to return to NJIT to give more in depth training.

The final module was given by Joe Martino who is a career consultant to the American Chemical Society.  In my opinion this was the most important part of the program since most of the participants were graduate students who will soon seek their first professional position.  There are 5 areas where a new graduate can seek employment:

1. Research and Development
2. Product Development
3. Manufacturing and Supply Chain
4. Quality Control and Regulatory
5. Sales and Marketing
6. Of course different jobs within these areas have different specifications.

Most of his talk was devoted to resume writing.  He discussed the difference between a resume and curriculum vitae.  He strongly emphasized that every resume be written with great care since even a very small error can result in a candidate being eliminated.  A hiring manager will often decide within 30 seconds to accept or reject an application for further consideration.  He presentation was very interactive as he succeeding in creating a dialog with the students.

There were 63 attendees that included students, library staff and faculty.  It certainly was a very successful event.

My New Publication in Science & Technology Libraries

Osorio, N. L., & Slutsky, B. (2012). A Tribute and BioBibliometric Study of Ellis Mount, the First Editor-in-Chief of Science & Technology Libraries. Science & Technology Libraries, 31(4), 394-411. doi:10.1080/0194262X.2012.730385

This is the first time I have published in an academic journal in all too many years.  I thank my collaborator Nestor Osorio who researched the bibliometric information about Ellis Mount.  I also thank Tony Stankus, the editor of the journal, who connected me to Nestor since we both indicated to him an interest in writing an article about the late Professor Mount.  I am grateful to the referees who accepted the manuscript for publication.

Ellis was the editor of Science & Technology Libraries who accepted my first paper as a librarian for publication:

Slutsky, B. (1989). A Chemical Abstracts Training Seminar for Science Librarians. Science & Technology Libraries, 10(1), 55-76. 

Random Thoughts of the Day

I must admit that this blog has not been very active lately.  I just haven’t had any innovative librarian thoughts recently.  I have been busy planning the ACS on Campus event which will happen next Wednesday December 5.  I am hoping for a good turnout with no technical glitches.

I started to think about the next meeting of the METROScience Librarians SIG.  I will have a roundtable discussion on how to devise a pricing model that is fair to publishers and their customers.  I am mulling over whether I should invite a publisher to hear the suggestions of librarians.  There is an excellent article in the November 12 issue of the Chemical and Engineering News. 

Joe Mercuri joined the reference staff at the NJIT Library this week.  Joe and I have two things in common.

• We both worked at Schering-Plough, but not at the same time
• We are both big fans of the New York Mets.

It is always an adjustment when starting a new job.  All of the reference librarians are helping Joe make that transition.

There are just a few more weeks left in the semester.  It is a shame that a week of classes were lost due to Hurricane Sandy.

Summary of the STELLA Unconference held at Brooklyn College

Last Friday I attended the STELLA (Science Technology Engineering Leaders in Action) Unconference at Brooklyn College.  The participants came for all over the country.  In a traditional conference the program is arranged in advance and is very much structured.  The program for an unconference  is arranged the morning of the gathering.

Amy Buckland, the eScholarship, ePublishing & Digitization Coordinator at McGill University Library, was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, but had to cancel since her flight to NYC was cancelled.  Instead the organizers should videos of 3 talks from Ted Conferences.

The problem with any conference is that one can be only at one place at a time.   There were two sessions on Friday and two on Saturday:

• Active learning ideas
• e-Books & Patron
• Future of Sci/Tech Libraries
• Technology Talk
• Conducting, interpreting and acting on user surveys
• Usage statistics, lies and damned lies
• Data Curation: What is a science librarian’s role and how do we guide our institutions to a sensible plan
• Marketing and outreach ideas
• Refworks, Mendeley and Zotero
• Open Access and Scholarly Communication
• Bibliometrics, Altmetrics, what measures do you want? Merged with Author Disambiguation, ORCID, Authorea
• Wikipedia, education, & libraries
• Collecting, Using & Teaching Standards

 The meeting notes may be found at http://stellagroup.wordpress.com/meeting-notes/

I thank the organizers:

Jill Cirasella

Meg Smith

Jeffra Diane Bussman

Neil Dazet

Joe Kraus

Please Register for the ACS on Campus Event on Wednesday December 5 at NJIT

Dedicated to helping students, post-docs, and faculty advance their careers, ACS on Campus brings leaders in the fields of chemistry, science communication, publishing, research, and career planning to university campuses.  The New Jersey Institute of Technology will host ACS on Campus on Wednesday, December 5 from 12:00 pm – 5:30 pm at the Guttenberg Information Technology Center (GITC), Room 3710.  Graduate students, post-docs, undergraduates and faculty are invited to learn about topics such as the basics and ethics of scholarly publishing, SciFinder® and preparing an effective resume.  Free lunch will also be provided for all registered attendees.  Register now for the event on the ACS on Campus website.

Please visit the website for location and speaker information as well as additional details.  The event is free, but registration is required in order to attend.  Questions can be sent to acsoncampus@acs.org. 

We look forward to seeing you on campus!

Links

Event page: http://acsoncampus.acs.org/events/newark-nj/

Registration: http://acsoncampus.acs.org/event/?ee=32

Lunch and registration will be from 12:00 - 12:30

Welcome and opening remarks from 12:30 - 1:00

Please keep in mind there will be 3 Modules

1:00 - 2:30 - Basics in Scholarly Publishing: From the Editors Themselves and Ethics in Scholarly Communication: What You Need to Know

2:30 – 3:15 pm The SciFinder® Advantage for Your Career

3:30 – 5:30 pm Working in Industry: Preparing a Resume

You may attend any or all of the three modules.

For further information please contact  Bruce Slutsky at slutsky@njit.edu or 973-642-4950

Morning of October 30 - No Power at NJIT

When I turned on the TV this morning Governor Christie said that 95% of Newark had no power.  As of now NJIT is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday.  I was able to access the University Home Page but the library home page was down at 8:15 AM.  I could also not access the NJIT e-mail.

I am sure that the NJIT Department of Public Safety will make an announcement about the status of NJIT on Wednesday.

This is my personal blog and I am not making an official announcement of the university.

Information Literacy - Just 15 minutes of Fame

Tomorrow for the first time I will be teaching to a class in the Information Systems Department.  The specific course is IS350 – Computers, Society and Ethics.  The students have to choose one of 6 topics to debate:

1    1.      That the Total Information Awareness program be authorized and funded by Congress
2.       Should the United States implement a Smart National ID Card?
3.       Should Congress authorize states to allow voting in elections via the Internet
4.       Should systems such as APACHE (Acute Physiology Age and Chronic Health Evaluation) be installed in all large hospitals in the U.S.
5.       Should consumers be explicitly informed of the existence of a “black box” in a newly purchased car and be given the option of having it removed or disabled prior to purchase or any time thereafter.
6.       Should companies be forced to implement green techniques by means of regulatory procedures.

Here is the problem.  I am only given 15 minutes to address the class on how to find information to answer these questions.  I’ll have to do my best and invite the students to speak to me or other librarians if they have questions.

What to Worry About When Planning a Professional Meeting

I just received some posters from the American Chemical Society to begin to promote the ACS on Campus event forDecember 5.  At this point it is just a preliminary announcement to keep the date open.  There are always worries when planning a professional meeting:

·         The biggest one is how many people will come.  This of course is very difficult to predict.  When I plan events for the METRO Science Librarians SIG the attendance ranged from 6 to 30.  There is always an excuse for people not coming.

·         The second worry is the weather.  December 5 is likely too early for a major snowstorm.  In any event, I expect most of the attendees will be from NJIT or Rutgers-Newark

·         One of the speakers can’t make it at the last minute.

My late Dad always told me to take things one day at a time.  I also read that in the Dale Carnegie book.  Don’t Worry Be Happy!

Some Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning

I did not mind working yesterday which was Columbus Day.  I can't complain since we get Fridays off during the summer and the week off between Christmas and New Years.  The public transportation in New York and New Jersey was on a regular weekday schedule.

Students in Chemical Engineering 396 completed their assignment to use technical databases to find relevant articles.  I had time to grade only 2 papers, but I perused through the others and noted that although students were given the choice to use either Scopus or Scifinder Scholar, only 1 out of 20 used Scifinder.  During the lecture I discussed both equally and considered the advantages and disadvantages of both.  I really think that students did not want to set up an account for Scifinder and remember another username and password.  They preferred to follow the path of least resistance and searched Scopus.  Chemical Abstracts Service is very protective of their database, and just do not want anyone to walk up to a public computer in an academic library to search Scifinder.

I am home this morning since I am working on the late shift.  The number of substantial reference transactions at the desk continues to decline.  Last Tuesday nobody approached the reference desk between 5 PM and 7 PM.  Oh well.

STELLA Unconference is Coming to Brooklyn College Nov 9-10

STELLA is an acronym for Science Technology and Engineering Library Leaders in Action.  There was an unconference in Denver in 2010, but one is coming to Brooklyn College on November 9th and 10th.  As of today 75 people have signed up.  The organizers state that registration will be capped at 80.

Registration

Ideas for Sessions

I would like to thank the organizers in advance for all the work they have done so far:

Jeffra Diane Bussmann (California State University, East Bay)
Jill Cirasella (Brooklyn College)
Neil Dazet (Brooklyn College)
Joseph Kraus (University of Denver)
Margaret Smith (NYU)

ACS on Campus is Coming to NJIT on December 5

I am in the early stages of organizing an ACS on Campus event at NJIT for Wednesday December 5.  The preliminary program is:

12:00 – 12:30 pm – Registration and lunch (will have boxed lunches available)

12:30 – 1:00 pm – Welcome and Opening Remarks

1:00 – 2:30 pm – Basics and Ethics of Scholarly Publishing

2:30 – 3:15 pm – SciFinder

3:15 – 3:30 pm – Break

3:30 – 5:30 pm – ACS Career Pathways: Finding Your Path in Industry or Higher Education

Closing Remarks

More details will be forthcoming.  Hopefully a formal announcement with the names of the speakers will be made within a few weeks.  This event will be open to faculty and students throughout New Jersey.

For further information you may e-mail Bruce.Slutsky@njit.edu  

Today is my 20th Anniversary at NJIT

In is hard to believe that I have worked at the NJIT Library for 20 years.  Where did all this time go?  Things certainly change over time.  When I came the internet was in its infancy as all we had was text based e-mail while there was no world wide web.  We only had two CD-ROM based databases:  Applied Science and Technology Index and the Proquest Business Database.  All the journals were in print.  Back then most of the first floor was devoted to reference books while today it is an information commons with over 100 computers for the students.

Over 20 years there have been many staff changes which is expected.  There are two librarians and five clerks who were hired before me who are still in the library.  There was a strange situation as 4 reference librarians and two directors were hired during the summer of 1992.  The two directors left within a short time, but the four reference librarians stayed.  One of my reference colleagues became the Database and Serials Librarian at NJIT about a year ago.  Another relocated to California after 5 years with NJIT.  A third became Director of Web Services at NJIT and subsequently left for a similar position at NYU.  I have survived 20 years in reference.

Some things just never change.  We have always been confronted with a poor materials budget which has not grown with NJIT.  There are many more research interests and the library is challenged in trying to meet the information needs of an expanding community.  I have been frustrated by the dramatic decline in reference transactions.  Perhaps the database publishers have designed their electronic products so that end users need minimal instruction on how to use them.

I guess I still have a few more years to go before I can retire.  I look forward to the time when New Jersey Transit will lose its “most reliable customer.”

Remembering September 11th at NJIT

Tuesday September 11, 2001 started out normally as an early semester day.  The temperature was seasonable as there were no clouds in the sky.  After I completed a freshman seminar tour that morning, a colleague told me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  At that point everyone thought it was just a terrible accident.  As time passed I heard about the second plane hitting the WTC and the third at the Pentagon and the fourth crashing in Western Pennsylvania.  Everyone knew that this was a terrorist attack.  NJIT stayed open until 12 noon.  Since public transportation had stopped, I had no way of getting home.  My boss, Rich Sweeney, invited me to stay at his home that night.  His son Tommy worked nearby at the World Financial Center, so Rich did not know his status.  Tommy came home about 4 PM.  Classes resumed the next day as we found out that the wife of the new Dean of Students perished in the South Tower.

All of our lives have changed since that dreadful day.  There is a memorial on campus (see above) to remember several alumni and a former trustee who were lost.

The First Day of Classes at the NJIT Library

It is the first day of classes at NJIT; the more things change the more they stay the same.  President Joel Bloom continued a tradition started by his predecessor and offered students a pancake breakfast.  This is certainly a nice gesture of the university administration.  Let’s move into the library.  It certainly seems strange to see it so crowded when it has been so empty since May 15.  Of course, the information commons is the most popular area.  It is impossible to be a student without a computer.  It was busier years ago when fewer students had laptops.

We get the same categories of questions:

·         Directional – we must understand that new students don’t yet know their way around

·         Computer Accounts – these questions are referred to the lab assistants

·         Textbook – the students get their syllabus and check the bookstore where the prices of the books scare them.  They try to save money by getting it in the library.  It is our policy not to carry them. My standard comment is “Your professor feels that it is in your best interest to own the book.”  University bookstores now rent textbooks.  Back when I was a student, I would keep a textbook if it was in chemistry.   I would sell back other books.

And so it goes.

Passing of Professor Bruno Vittimberga of the University of Rhode Island

I just found out that Bruno Vittimberga who was my research adviser at the University of Rhode Island (URI) passed away on July 24 at age 82.  As an undergraduate chemistry student at CCNY I did a research project in organic photochemistry.  When I read a brochure from the URI Chemistry Department I noted that Dr. Vittimberga also did research in that area and I would like to study under him.  I remember in December 1971 he phoned my home to tell me I was accepted to the masters program.

During Christmas week I took the bus up to URI to meet with him to discuss his research.  To make a long story short, I picked a project not related to photochemistry.  My masters thesis was titled "The Reaction of Aldehydes on Activated Alumina."  I also remember the other people in his research group:

• Dave Welch
• Richard Goerner
• Phil Cote
• Fred Lamb

My condolences to his family

Obituary

Some Thoughts about Google Scholar

I was reading through the current issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship and found this excellent article about Google Scholar

Gray, J. E., Hamilton, M. C., Hauser, A., Janz, M. M., Peters, J. P., & Taggart, F. (Summer 2012). Scholarish: Google Scholar and its Value to the Sciences. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship. doi:10.5062/F4MK69T9

Firstly, I should note that all of the authors are graduate students at the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University.  I must commend them and Brian Winterman who helped them through the research process.  I was very impressed by the thoroughness of this research on a very timely topic.  I would like to make comments about some of the remarks in this paper and then make some of my own. 

·         The authors stated they tried unsuccessfully to obtain information from Google on inclusion guidelines and methods and approaches of the company.  No information was provided on what sources are crawled for indexing, how citation information is gathered, or what if any business partnerships exist between Google and publishers.  Certainly publishers such as Elsevier, Chemical Abstracts Service, Thomson-Reuters and many others are responsive to librarians who are their customers.  Just what is Google’s motivation for producing Scholar?

·         When I do cited reference searches for faculty, I only use Web of Science, Scopus, and Scifinder Scholar.  Faculty often report that the numbers in Google Scholar are higher.  When they are up for promotion or tenure they “fight” for every cited reference.  We tell them that Google Scholar often includes non peer-reviewed sources which inflate their total.

·         I never mention Google Scholar when teaching classes.  I feel that I must teach students to search the databases that are paid for by NJIT.  I wonder if any libraries cut databases and told their patrons to search Google Scholar.

·         The authors state that Google Scholar uniquely retrieved items served to fill research gaps and demonstrated its value to find information on obscure topics.

·         On the negative side Google Scholar ranks its results using the complex algorithms of a search engine and does not provide a thesaurus or a way to sort the results.

·         The authors provide  a lengthy bibliography or articles that compare Google Scholar to bibliographic databases by commercial publishers.

I highly suggest reading this article especially since it is open access.

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.

Freecycling - Reference Question of the Day

In a technical writing class (ENG 352) at NJIT students are required to revise an article in the Wikipedia that is poorly written or cursory in nature.  Yesterday a student approached me about finding such an article.  I showed him how to search for articles designated as stubs in the Wikipedia.  He later indicated that he would like to update the article about Freecycling.

Freecycling is when a person passes on, for free, an unwanted item to another person who needs that item.  Certainly this decreases the amount of waste that would go into the waste stream.  There is an old saying that "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

Today is My 33rd Anniversary as an information professional

On June 25, 1979 which was also a Monday I started as a library information scientist with Schering Corporation in Bloomfield, NJ.  My job was to search for chemical structures using the printed Chemical Abstracts.  We did online searching using Medline and Dialog as well.  When I look back, I realize how the technology back then was so primitive.  Today chemists can use a structure drawing program to search Scifinder to determine the novelty of a structure.  Back then we used slow modems which allowed only for retrieval of textual information.  There were no PCs, tablets, or laptops back then. While I was employed at Schering Corporation I obtained an MLS at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.


Schering Corporation was acquired by Merck a few years ago.  After leaving Schering I worked for the New York Public Library, St. John's University, and NJIT.  The years have really flown by.

Summer Projects at the NJIT Library

Summers are always slow for public service academic librarians since only a small number of students take classes.  Very few people approach the reference desk with questions.  This leaves us time to work on some projects in preparation for the new academic year in September.  Below are two major projects.

1. Weeding - there are thousands of books that have not circulated in years.  Sci-tech books often become dated within a few years.  Since NJIT is not a library of record, we are justified in de-accessioning older and little used materials.  I am going into the stacks in my areas of responsibility and weeding books that are duplicates or are in poor physical condition.  A colleague found notes from the Milwaukee School of Engineering stating that all items selected for withdrawal should be placed in a storage area for one year before discarding.  This may be difficult since we have little room that can be used for storage.

2. Revising the profile for patron driven acquisitions of electronic book.  For one year we had a pilot project where we placed about 28,000 e-books in our catalog that users could borrow.  After a book was borrowed  6 times the library would purchase the book.  This was a successful venture for both the patrons and the library.  We would have to pay much more money to purchase all the book borrowed by our patrons.  The only downside was that we spent more money than we originally anticipated.  Over the summer we have spent time revising the subject profile that we used during the first year.  We are also dropping publishers of books not appropriate for our collection.

Best Wishes to Dana Roth

I read on the Chemical Information Listserv that Caltech has an opening for a chemistry librarian.  There was an explanation stating that Dana Roth will be staying on part time after the position is filled.  Dana has to be the best academic chemistry librarian in the business.  Very often people posted difficult reference questions on the listserv.  Within minutes, Dana would post the answer.

Dana is well respected by his colleagues.  There is an award given by the Chemistry Division of SLA known as the Wiggins-Roth Award. I guess I should write a blog entry about Gary Wiggins. Dana also was the recipient of Caltech’s Thomas W. Schmitt Annual Staff Prize in 2008.  There is a nice article about Dana on a Caltech website.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dana twice.  The late Anne Buck who hired me at NJIT moved on to Caltech and became Dana’s boss.   Sometime in the late 1990s he was in the east coast and came to visit me in the NJIT library.  We only had nice things to say about Ann.  I found out from Dana of Anne’s untimely passing in April 2003.

On June 10, 2003 when SLA met in New York City, I organized a gathering of baseball enthusiasts including Dana  at Yankee Stadium.  The Yankees beat the HoustonAstros 5-3 .  The next day 6 Houston pitchers combined to pitch a no hitter against the Yankees.

I certainly wish Dana all the best as he moves into a part time position at Caltech. He still will be an asset to the chemical information community.  The new hire will have a great mentor.

McNair Summer Research Institute at NJIT

Today for the first time I participated in the McNair Summer Research Institute at NJIT .  Over the years I have taught numerous classes to students to teach them how to use the electronic resources of the library to find information needed in their classes.  It is very frustrating to see their being inattentive and appearing to be disinterested.

I spoke to the group for about one hour this morning using my standard lecture on how to develop thought process to develop a search strategy in the various databases and to take the time to evaluate the reference and then locate the document.  I was pleasantly surprised to observe how attentive and interested the students were.  After I completed my lecture the students had time to search the databases to find information on their topics which included:

• Hydrogen production from solar energy
• Sodium Cellulose Sulfate
• Participatory learning

I was very pleased with the questions that the students asked as their searched the literature.  

Ring the Bell for a Reference Librarian

It is very frustrating to be a reference librarian and just sit at a public service desk and wait for questions.  Summers are especially slow since there are much fewer students taking classes.    For the summer only we are closing the reference desk and placing a door bell for patrons to use if they need assistance.  So far it has worked well.  We can be more productive by staying in our offices.

The 2012 New Jersey Chemistry Olympics was a Great Success

Yesterday 17 high schools participated in the New Jersey Chemistry Olympics which has been held at NJIT since 1985.  Several schools were represented by two teams.  There were 10 competitions that are described at the event's web page.  This year the Co-Directors were Somenath Mitra of NJIT and Natalie Macke of Pascack Hills High School.  All of the students, coaches, judges and volunteers should be congratulated for a job well done.  There are certainly no losers as all students gain by their experience.

As usual I organized the Information Search which had two components:

1. Students were judged on the accuracy of a molecular model of a chemical dye which they constructed before the event.
2. Students used databases on the Internet to answer questions about chemical dyes.

Bergenfield Team B coached by Ara Kahyaoglu won the Information Search.

The big winners of the Chemistry Olympics was River Dell High School coached by Carrie Jacobus seen in the photo below.

 

I am sure that within a few days all of the results will be announced on the event's web page.

More photos from the NJCO sent to me by Grace Woleslagle  may be found at http://bit.ly/PSXSI2 

Stuart Kaback passes away at age 77

Today I also found out that Stuart Kaback, a distinguished patent information specialist, died at his home in Cranford, NJ.  There are obituaries in the

Chemical and Engineering News

Patent information user Group (PIUG) website written by Sandra Unger

I had the pleasure of knowing Stu through the AmericanChemical Society Division of Chemical Information.  He distinguished himself by winning the prestigious Herman Skolnik Award in 1999.  I first met Stu when he gave a talk at the Careers in Chemical Information Workshop at the City University of new York Graduate Center in November 1989. DOI: 10.1021/ed068p43.  In the Spring of 1991 Stu spoke at a similar workshop that I organized at the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM) at the University of Delaware.

A few years ago I encountered Stu on a New Jersey Transit train as he was on his way to an opera in Manhattan.

He will be sorely missed by his family, friends, and colleagues.  My belated condolences to his family.

Remembering Ellis Mount (1921-2012)

I just found out that Ellis Mount, Professor of Library Science at Columbia University, passed away in Hawaii in January.  Ellis literally “wrote the book on science librarianship.

Mount, Ellis. University Science and Engineering Libraries. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1985. Print

I met Ellis in 1989 when I was a librarian at the New York Public Library Science and Technology Division.  He was editor of Science and Technology Libraries when I submitted a paper about a Chemical Abstracts training session that I gave to NYPL librarians.  In 2000 I became the convener of the METRO Science Librarians SIG  Ellis came to the first several meetings and made a presentation about science libraries and how they have evolved.

SLA is honoring Ellis by offering a scholarship to SLA NY chapter members who are enrolled in one of the New York area schools of library and information science.  More information may be found at http://newyork.sla.org/the-ellis-mount-scholarship-award/

 Short obituary

Tribute by Nancy Panella - Librarian at St. Lukes and Roosevelt Hospital

Selected Bibliography of Books by Ellis Mount

Mount, Ellis, and Beatrice Kovacs. Using Science and Technology Information Sources. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1991. Print.

Mount, Ellis. University Science and Engineering Libraries, Their Operation, Collections, and Facilities. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1975. Print.

Mount, Ellis. University Science and Engineering Libraries. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1985. Print

Mount, Ellis. Opening New Doors: Alternative Careers for Librarians. Washington, D.C: Special Libraries Association, 1993. Print.

Mount, Ellis, and Barbara A. List. Milestones in Science and Technology: The Ready Reference Guide to Discoveries, Inventions, and Facts. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1987. Print.

Mount, Ellis. Special Libraries and Information Centers: An Introductory Text. New York, N.Y: Special Libraries Association, 1983. Print.

Mount, Ellis. Planning the Special Library: A Project of the New York Chapter, Sla. New York: Special Libraries Association, 1972. Print.

Mount, Ellis. Guide to Basic Information Sources in Engineering. New York: Wiley, 1976. Print.

Mount, Ellis. Creative Planning of Special Library Facilities. New York: Haworth Press, 1988. Print

Mount, Ellis. Scientific and Technical Libraries in the Seventies: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Co, 1981. Print.

Reading Day at NJIT

Yesterday was the last day of classes at NJIT. Thus, today is the "reading day" meaning that there are no classes or exams scheduled.  There appears to be fewer students on campus.  I assume that many commuting students stay at home to study.  The busiest area of the library is the group study rooms.  At least two students must apply for a room at the circulation desk.  They may have to room for only 3 hours.

I wish we could move all of the bound periodicals on the third floor to a storage facility allowing that space to be used for collaborative study.

Comments on Two Articles About the New York Public Library

There were two recent articles about the New York Public Library. The first one in the Sunday Review of the New York Times is by Edmund Morris, the author of biography of Beethoven, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. I think he is a little too harsh as he describes the “sacking of a palace of culture“. He objects to President Anthony W. Marx’s plan to spend $300 Million to transform the main building to a “palace of presentism.” I do feel that NYPL must move into the future and provide research level journals electronically instead of in print. However, it should preserve its unique collections. The special collections  must never be compromised and not moved from the Schwartman Building. I question if there is enough room in that building for Mid Manhattan and SIBL as stated in the plan.

I don’t know if this analogy is valid, but Yankee Stadium was reconstructed with many of the features of the original ball park. Features like the frieze and Monument Park appear in the new stadium along with amenities such as luxury boxes and restaurants.

This brings me to the second article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on off site storage for researchers. In a small academic library like NJIT, users can just walk up to shelve and pick off the book or periodical they need. NYPL is closed stack necessitating patrons to fill out a call slip and wait for item. I remember my days at NYPL when patrons were so impatient. Some would have an anxiety attack when they would have to wait 20 minutes for their book and direct their anger toward the reference librarian when the item was late. There was always the “fast food” way of thinking by patrons. Right now NYPL has a facility in New Jersey called Recap where less popular materials are housed. Patrons likely have to wait a day for their request. The renovations of the Schwartzman Building would require more materials to be moved there. There is a plan to build more storage capacity there.

I have no conclusions to make. You just can’t please all the people all of the time. A small library can’t provide all the resources its patrons need. When I worked at NYPL people were asking for materials it didn’t own. When you have a large collection, there is only so much space and of course space costs money. Thanks for reading this :)

Unethical Behavior of Journal Editors

I thought that readers of this blog should read this article http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i14/Editors-Coercing-Citations.html that appeared in the April 2, 2012 issue of the Chemical and Engineering News.  An editor does have the right to check the references in a paper.  There may be times when more documentation is needed and a paper must be revised to include more citations.  A journal editor has no right to "pump up" data that will eventually appear in Journal Citation Reports.  I wonder if the publishers are aware if this practice.  The authors of this article are asking scientists to complete a survey to determine how widespread this practice is.  I am interested in seeing the results.  This could be a "scandal" in STEM publishing.

Reference Question of the Day

Today, a student needed information about the corporate culture of Yahoo.  When I searched Business Source Premier using Yahoo as a company I got about 5500 hits.  It was very difficult to pick a second term to combine with the company to find the desired information.  Corporate culture must be experienced from within and thus it would likely be difficult to find publications about it.  Some of the terms I suggested were:

• Corporate Culture (a few hits were retrieved)
• Employees
• Employment
• Management

I did find some relevant articles for the student, but he may have to evaluate a large answer set and pick the ones he feels are relevant.

The Job Outlook for Chemists is Bleak

For this blog entry I am looking back at my former profession as a chemist. An article in a recent issue of the Chemical and Engineering News  states the unemployment rate of American Chemical Society members is 4.6% which is the highest on record. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the unemployment rate for chemists and materials scientists was 6.1% in 2011. These statistics can be misleading since they don’t count underemployment chemists or those so discouraged that they stopped looking.


I feel badly for the NJIT students who work very hard and then must face a very tough job market after graduation. I  recall that after I received my masters degree in chemistry in January 1974, I was unemployed for 4 months. During that period I worked as a clerk in a bank for a temporary employment agency.

Murphy's Law and Information Literacy

I like to assist my colleagues who teach basic information literacy skills to freshmen in humanities classes.  I generally do it a few times a semester.  The students are given an assignment where we suggest they use Academic Search Premier.  Some of the topics in the class I gave yesterday were:

1) Violence in Media: Cause of Violence in Today’s Youth vs. A Non-Factor in Today’s Youth


2) Government Control of Healthcare: For vs. Against

3) Government Bailout Programs: Necessary Evil vs. Unnecessary Waste of Taxpayers’ Money

4) Laws Preventing Parental Corporal Punishment (Public discipline): Protecting Innocent Children vs. Government Overstepping their Boundaries

It was very unlucky that I could not access Academic Search Premier or any other of the Ebscohost family of databases.  I received a frantic text message from the Information Literacy Librarian stating that their system was down.  Fortunately I had a powerpoint available where I could show students how to access the database.  I then told them they could use Lexis-Nexis to start on the assignment even though it included newspaper articles that were not peer reviewed.
 
I started the class at 1 PM.  A colleague informed me that as late as 10:30 PM Ebscohost was still down.  I can not remember a database being offline for such a long period of time.  At 7 AM today the system was up.
 
Remember Murphy's Law.  "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

Next METRO Science Librarians SIG Meeting Monday April 23

The Next METRO Science Librarians meeting will be:
Monday April 23 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
METRO Headquarters 57 East 11th Street - 4th Floor
New York, NY

LIS Students' Perceptions of the Libraries Web Based Catalogs: Can a Better Library OPAC Make a Difference?

Please register at http://metro.org/events/184/

Professor Selenay Aytac will bring her students from Pratt Institute, St. John's University and the Palmer School to make brief presentations to the science librarians. The scheduled talks are:
Pratt Institute SILS Students:

Authority Control: The Challenge of Diversity and Time for University Libraries - Gretchen Nadasky

Assessing Special Collections: Library OPACs - Alison Rhonemus Two Web Based Catalogs: The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Austin Texas and the New York Public Library - Boni Joi Koelliker

St. John's University

Googling OPAC - A Comparison of Two Medium-Sized Academic Libraries on Long Island - Molly Mann

Old-Timey Audio and Online Catalogs - Leslie Chen

Long Island University Palmer School of Library and Information Science

Keys to a Secret Society: The OPACs of Masonic Libraries - Scott Bisogni


Designing OPACS for the Google "Scholar": Marist College and Fairfield University

Summary of the 2012 Columbia University Libraries Symposium

It was the last day of spring break as I went to the 9th Columbia University Libraries symposium whose theme was “New Models of Academic Collaboration.” This blog entry is not meant to be an exhaustive review of the meeting. Jim Neal, Vice President for Information Services & University Librarian gave the opening remarks. I heard Jim speak a year ago at the 2011 VALE Annual Meeting. He is certainly an excellent speaker, but he covers a lot of subjects in a short period of time causing his comments to be cursory. He repeated his remark “Information literacy- stop the madness.” This time he followed it up by saying that librarians should have a more robust role in the classroom.


I certainly don’t interpret his remarks as being against information literacy. I feel that his opinion is that some librarians exaggerate its importance in the academic world. If you see the disclaimer at the header of this blog, I say that these opinions are my own which I don’t necessarily share with anyone else at NJIT.

He gave the following chronology:

1950-1970 – Period of Popularization

1970-1990 – Period of discord in higher education and libraries. There were much higher prices of serials and tension in libraries.

1990 – 2010 – Period of decadence and self-indulgence. I must disagree with this statement. I would describe this as a period of great technological change caused by the explosion of the internet. During this period there was an explosion in content, mass digitization, mobile technologies, and open access. During this time frame there was more information transmitted to more people in more ways.

2011 – period of polygamy. Librarians must mature in collaborative relations to increase productivity in a deep service capacity. There should be a national program of book digitization while libraries should no longer be book warehouses. Academic spaces should be redeployed for collaboration. We need to move to parabiosis, an age of radical collaboration with centers of excellence around the world.



The first talk described an archival collaboration between NYU and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The speakers described how NYU doctoral students in African American studies worked with archivists and curators at NYPL’s Schomburg Center.

The second talk described a small part of the 2CUL, a new cooperative model between Cornell and Columbia. Robert H. Davis described collaborative collection development initiatives for South Asian, Southeast Asian, Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies. The most important goal is to broaden the range of materials available to both universities by avoiding duplication. This is only a small part of the 2CUL initiative. Much more information can be found at http://2cul.org/ .

The next talk was titled Smithsonian Institution Libraries: Facilitating Knowledge Sharing & Collaboration. The library asked two graduate student interns to conduct a survey of the Libraries and the Smithsonian at large to ascertain what initiatives in the field of Knowledge Management could best benefit them. They discovered that traditional models such as document management were poor matches for such a large organization. Expertise location was identified as a likely catalyst for cross institutional collaboration. For more information you can access http://research.si.edu/  .

The next talk was given by Eric Wakin of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia. He described the Community Service Society Photographs Digitization project which attempts to make available to the public over 1400 photographs which offer representations of pressing social issues in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is a collaborative endeavor of 4 department in the Columbia University Libraries.

Since I am liaison to environmental science at NJIT, I was especially interested in The Art and Environment of Embedded Librarianship. Ryan Taylor, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Purchase College – SUNY described collaboration with Art Librarian Heather Saunders. They co-taught a course titled Art and the Environment. More information can be found at http://openscholar.purchase.edu/ryan_taylor/classes/env-2260-art-and-environment  .

There were breakout sessions at the end of the day. I attended one titled Collaborating for Health Information Literacy in the Community: Three Case Studies.

I also was given a tour of the Digital Science Center by Chemistry Librarian Song Yu. This was created by a consolidation of several small science/engineering libraries a few years ago. It is a beautiful facility with no print books or journals. Everything is online as the printed resources were sent to a storage facility.

It was certainly a worthwhile meeting to learn about collaborative efforts in academic libraries.

This report is certainly not exhaustive. Comments by attendees may be found on Twitter using the hashtag #culsymp

Videos of the symposium may be found at:
http://www.infodocket.com/2012/04/06/now-available-video-of-9th-columbia-university-libraries-symposium/

http://youtu.be/8FvyaUTGQDE

Are Faculty Overemphasizing the Use of Peer Reviewed Sources?

I am beginning to wonder if faculty are overemphasizing “peer reviewed journals” when giving assignments to students. I taught an environmental science class where the students were asked to find information about the Keystone Pipeline which is a system to transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada to multiple destinations in the United States. This is a topic in the news which has not been discussed yet in academic journals. I advised students to search Lexis-Nexis to find articles in reputable magazines on this topic.

Likewise today a student approached me asking for peer reviewed information about the New Jersey Energy Master Plan which was released by Governor Christie in late 2011. Similarly, this is not a topic in journal articles. I found some good newspaper articles from Lexis-Nexis. A Google search yielded a good analysis written at Rutgers University. Sometimes a Google search will yield appropriate documents. We shouldn’t “demonize” Google searching all of the time.

Chemical Information Literacy on the Fly in 30 Minutes Without Powerpoint

It is always difficult to teach resources in chemical information in a very short period of time. It would take at least a one credit course to cover the major resources that students need to know. I usually meet with new graduate students in chemistry and chemical engineering during their orientation. At that point in time learning to use information resources is not the most important thing to them. I question the effectiveness of my lecture for that reason.

Today, I was invited to lecture to graduate students in an advanced physical chemistry course. The problem was that I had only 30 minutes. I decided not to use any of my standard Powerpoints following the advice of John Fostek, the Editor-In-Chief of the NJIT student newspaper called The Vector. He feels that the use of Powerpoint is so widespread that it makes the speaker’s job irrelevant. Speakers often fall back on the slides when their speaking is weak.

I received the following description of the class from the professor:
The class is assigned literature analysis-
Each has a target molecule -- different molecule and the corresponding radicals that result from loss of hydrogen atoms and from central bond cleavages

They are asked to find thermochemical / thermodynamic paramters like enthalpy of formation , entropy and enthalpy and heat capacitiy data as fcn of temperature dipole moments, polarizability .... lennard jones parameters - cross section ( sigma - small letter) well depth (often written as e/k) k is the boltzman constant an e is an energy

Another assignment is for the class to search for nicotinic agonists they would like to model.

I started by giving each student my business card with an invitation to contact me if they had any questions on how to find information to support their research or coursework. I do find that students are often too shy to approach a reference librarian. I show them the library home page and links to two of my Libguides:

How to find Physical and Thermodynamic Properties of Chemical Sources
Resources in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

I suggested that they take the time to examine the resources on those pages.

I picked a few resources to demonstrate:

Index to Physical, Chemical, and Other Property Data – compiled by Arizona State University
NIST Webbook
Chemspider
Scifinder Scholar (a few students said that they used it before)

I can’t measure the effectiveness of this lecture. Only time will tell if the students will come to see me with specific questions on how to find information to answer their questions.