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told them they could use Lexis-Nexis to start on the assignment even though it included newspaper articles that were not peer reviewed.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".
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
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
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
Monday, March 19, 2012
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
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
Friday, March 9, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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.
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.
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