Remembering Madalyn Paganetti

Today I heard about the passing of Madalyn Paganetti who was a cataloger at the NJIT Library until her retirement in 2003.  Her obituary in the Star-Ledger  stated she was 88 years old.

In all the years that I have worked at the NJIT Library, Madalyn had to be the friendliest worker.  She never had a bad word to say about anyone.  I remember she organized a lottery pool for the library employees.  We never won anything, but this helped to unify the staff.  She enjoyed her job as she worked until she was about 78 years old.  I remember her retirement luncheon at the Manor in West Orange.  She kept in touch with us for several years after her retirement.  It is a shame that the newer people in the library never had the pleasure of working with her.

My condolences to her family.

Happy Retirement to Carol Venanzi of the NJIT Chemistry Department

 There was a retirement party today for Carol Venanzi seen above with yours truly.  She was a dedicated researcher and teacher in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science for over 30 years.  She was one of the first people I met when I came to NJIT in 1992.  It was my pleasure to provide library services to her for all those years.  Below is a partial list of her publications:

Pandit, D., Fiorentino, A., Bindra, S., Venanzi, C.A.

Singular value decomposition analysis of the torsional angles of dopamine reuptake inhibitor GBR 12909 analogs: Effect of force field and charges

(2011) Journal of Molecular Modeling, 17 (6), pp. 1343-1351.

Pandit, D., Roosma, W., Misra, M., Gilbert, K.M., Skawinski, W.J., Venanzi, C.A.

Conformational analysis of piperazine and piperidine analogs of GBR 12909: Stochastic approach to evaluating the effects of force fields and solvent

(2011) Journal of Molecular Modeling, 17 (1), pp. 181-200. Cited 1 time.

Misra, M., Shi, Q., Ye, X., Gruszecka-Kowalik, E., Bu, W., Liu, Z., Schweri, M.M., Deutsch, H.M., Venanzi, C.A.

Quantitative structure-activity relationship studies of threo-methylphenidate analogs

(2010) Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, 18 (20), pp. 7221-7238. Cited 4 times.

Banerjee, A., Misra, M., Pai, D., Shih, L.-Y., Woodley, R., Lu, X.-J., Srinivasan, A.R., Olson, W.K., Davé, R.N., Venanzi, C.A.

Feature extraction using molecular planes for fuzzy relational clustering of a flexible dopamine reuptake inhibitor

(2007) Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 47 (6), pp. 2216-2227. Cited 4 times.

Gilbert, K.M., Boos, T.L., Dersch, C.M., Greiner, E., Jacobson, A.E., Lewis, D., Matecka, D., Prisinzano, T.E., Zhang, Y., Rothman, R.B., Rice, K.C., Venanzi, C.A.

DAT/SERT selectivity of flexible GBR 12909 analogs modeled using 3D-QSAR methods

(2007) Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, 15 (2), pp. 1146-1159. Cited 8 times.

Fiorentino, A., Pandit, D., Gilbert, K.M., Misra, M., Dios, R., Venanzi, C.A.

Singular value decomposition of torsional angles of analogs of the dopamine reuptake inhibitor GBR 12909

(2006) Journal of Computational Chemistry, 27 (5), pp. 609-620. Cited 6 times.

Gilbert, K.M., Venanzi, C.A.

Hierarchical clustering analysis of flexible GBR 12909 dialkyl piperazine and piperidine analogs

(2006) Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design, 20 (4), pp. 209-225. Cited 7 times.

Misra, M., Banerjee, A., Davé, R.N., Venanzi, C.A.

Novel feature extraction technique for fuzzy relational clustering of a flexible dopamine reuptake inhibitor

(2005) Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 45 (3), pp. 610-623. Cited 8 times.

Gilbert, K.M., Skawinski, W.J., Misra, M., Paris, K.A., Naik, N.H., Buono, R.A., Deutsch, H.M., Venanzi, C.A.

Conformational analysis of methylphenidate: Comparison of molecular orbital and molecular mechanics methods

(2004) Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design, 18 (11), pp. 719-738. Cited 12 times.

Banerjee, A., Venanzi, C.A., Misra, M., Davé, R.N.

Fuzzy clustering in drug design: Application to cocaine abuse

(2004) Annual Conference of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society - NAFIPS, 1, pp. 308-313. Cited 2 time

Remembering Marino Xanthos

Yesterday there was a tribute at NJIT for Dr. Marino Xanthos who passed away in June of this year.  He was a renowned leader in polymer engineering and science research and was recognized with a number of NJIT and national awards.  There were several introductory remarks made by the President, Provost, administrators and faculty.  They spoke of his accomplishments as a researcher, teacher and Associate Provost of Graduate Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology and at NJIT.  Dr. Costas Gogos, a friend and colleague of Marino for many years gave a detailed account of his professional and family life.

As liaison to the Department of Chemical Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering I was his librarian.  It was always my pleasure to serve him and greet him when I saw him on campus.  I should conclude by listing just a few of his publications.

Xanthos, M. (2005). Functional fillers for plastics. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH.

 Properties of aspirin modified enteric polymer prepared by hot-melt mixing
 By Chomcharn, Nonjaros; Xanthos, Marino
From International Journal of Pharmaceutics (Amsterdam, Netherlands) (2013), 450(1-2), 259-267. Language: English, Database: CAPLUS, DOI:10.1016/j.ijpharm.2013.04.036
 

 Recycling of the #5 Polymer
By Xanthos, Marino
From Science (Washington, DC, United States) (2012), 337(6095), 700-702. Language: English, Database: CAPLUS, DOI:10.1126/science.1221806
 
 Drug release characteristics from nanoclay hybrids and their dispersions in organic polymers
By Ha, Jin Uk; Xanthos, Marino
From International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2011), 414(1-2), 321-331. Language: English, Database: CAPLUS, DOI:10.1016/j.ijpharm.2011.05.028  


 Sequential modification of cationic and anionic nanoclays with ionic liquids
By Ha, Jin Uk; Xanthos, Marino
From Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews (2011), 4(2), 103-107. Language: English, Database: CAPLUS, DOI:10.1080/17518253.2010.509111

Information Literacy on the Fly in 20 Minutes Twice

I always like it when a professor contacts me in advance and arranges for a class on a specific topic.  I have a standard plan that I use for all of my classes, but then at the end I cover the specific assignment.  Yesterday I received a frantic e-mail from a professor teaching two sections of a biophysics course.  He assigned students to find a paper discussing mutations, cancer or evolution that showed graphs and tables.  He reported that students were having problems finding this.  He asked me to visit these classes on very short notice.

It was the Ebsco Discover Service to the rescue.  I showed them how to do the search (mutations) and (statistical study).  I showed them how to limit to full text articles that are available in our library.  At that point they had to look at the articles in PDF to find if the article had what they needed.  I did this in 20 minutes.  The professor seemed to be satisfied.  As usually I advised the students to come to the reference desk if they need further assistance.

Google Wins Again in a Science/Engineering Library

It is somewhat exasperating when you give a lecture to science/engineering students about the use of the primary journal literature and how to search bibliographic databases to find papers on a topic and then find out that they just report web sites.  They seem to love searching Google and just don't want to apply their information seeking skills to searching library databases.  For many years I have taught to a sophomore level class in environmental engineering who are assigned a descriptive paper. Below are the topics that were assigned this semester.  I do feel that most of them were too broad and that in the future a more specific topic be given which would compel students to find journal articles.

Group #          Topic for Paper

1                      Hydroelectric Energy - what the technology is, how it is used, the costs, the problems/benefits with the technology and present a real-world case study.

2                      Electromagnetic Radiation from Mobile Phones - source, nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation.

3                      Highway Traffic Noise Barriers - what they are, how they are constructed, costs, and the environmental benefit.

4                      Collapse of the World Trade Center Buildings - nature of the environmental problem, health implications and ways that the Government is addressing the problem.

5                      Greenhouse Gas Emissions - source, nature of the problem, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation.

6                      Bioremediation – what the technology is, how it is used, the costs, the problems/benefits with the technology and present a real-world case study.

7                      Wind Energy - what the technology is, how it is used, the costs, the problems/benefits with the technology and present a real-world case study.

8                      Solar Energy - what the technology is, how it is used, the costs, the problems/benefits with the technology and present a real-world case study.

9                      Geothermal Energy - what the technology is, how it is used, the costs, the problems/benefits with the technology and present a real-world case study.

10                    Illegal Selling/Use of Pesticides - nature of the problem, explanation of pesticides and pesticide  regulations, environmental/health implications and ways to address the situation.

Pratt Institute Revisited 2013

From 1979-1982 I worked as a library information scientist at Schering Corporation in Bloomfield, NJ while I pursued a masters degree in library and information science at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.  Today I visited Pratt as I needed to consult with Selenay Aytac, my collaborator on a research project.  She is a librarian at LIU Post, but also teaches as an adjunct at Pratt.

Certainly so much has changed in 31 years.  Schering Corporation no longer exists as it was taken over by Merck a few years ago.  The Brooklyn campus still exists, but the library school moved to a building on 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues.  Certainly the profession has changed so much in that time frame.  Back in 1982 nobody even percieved of the internet.  I think almost everything that I learned back then is now obsolete.  All of the faculty who was there at that time have retired.  We searched Dialog using 300 baud modems.  It was nice to see their facility today.

The Federal Government Shutdown and Library Services

Tomorrow I will be teaching a class on how to find physical and thermodynamic properties of chemical substances.  One of the resources that I demonstrate is the NIST Webbook.  To my dismay I found out that this site is not working due to the federal government shutdown.  Today a student approached me with an environmental question.  To my surprise the EPA's main website was functioning.

Go figure.

The Next METRO Science Librarians SIG meeting will be Monday November 4

The next meeting of the METRO Science Librarians SIG will take place on Monday November 4 at 1:30 PM at METRO Headquarters at 57 East 11^th Street – 4^th floor in Manhattan.  The Program will be:

How to Find Chemical Information from Scifinder and other Sources.  The speaker will be Daniel Reasoner from Chemical Abstracts Service.  This session is suited for science and medical librarians without an educational background in chemistry.

Visit http://metro.org/events/426/ for more information and registration.

For this meeting there will be a nominal $5.00 registration fee that may be paid in advance or at the door.

For further information please contact:

Bruce Slutsky

Bruce.Slutsky@njit.edu

Teaching Students of Organic Chemistry How to Find Information on Chemical Substances

For the first time in all my years at NJIT I taught students of organic chemistry how to use information resources.  I am really going boing to my roots in getting into the profession of science librarianship.  When I worked as a laboratory chemist I used the printed Chemical Abstracts to look up preparations of target molecules.  I didn’t use online databases until I worked as an information scientist in the pharmaceutical industry in 1979.  Obviously, information technology has changed quite a bit since then.

The professor only allowed me 40 minutes to do my lecture.  The students were instructed to look at my Libguide in chemistry and chemical engineering (http://researchguides.njit.edu/chemistry) before the class.  I did not use my standard powerpoint, but suggested that the students view it after my lecture.  I started out by covering the nature of a scientific journal and the peer review process.  The students will be assigned a molecule and be required to find an article on either preparation or isolation from a natural source.  They must also find an article on general properties and one on biological properties.

With that thought in mind, I brought the Merck Index and had students pick out two substances at random that I would use for demonstration purposes.  I demonstrated:

• Scifinder
• Scopus
• Pubchem
• Chemspider
• Wikipedia

I showed them how to find information on those substances from those 5 sources.  At the end of the lecture there were no questions.  I hope I succeeded.

Some Thoughts Before the New Academic Year Starts

August is almost over as we are thinking about the beginning of the Fall 2013 semester at NJIT.  There is a Greek Village and a new Honors College Dormitory opening the semester.  Students started to move in yesterday.   The Central King Building is in the process of being renovated.  The student body is growing with new programs throughout the various colleges within NJIT.

There were some changes in the library this summer as we completed the inventory project.  Many outdated and damaged books were removed from the collection.  We also moved the reference collection from to the second floor where current periodicals were once housed.  There are now so few periodicals received in paper.

The new students seem to be getting younger, but they are the same age.  I am getting older.  We’ll get the same old directional questions, but there was a time (21 years ago already) when I was new to NJIT and did not know my way around.  I do sense that the number of reference questions will continue to decline.  In my opinion the reference desk should be closed as a public service point with the circulation staff directing appropriate questions to the librarians in their offices.

Time moves forward as nothing stays the same

The New York City Department of Education Does Not Value Librarians

I am commenting on this article that appeared in the WallStreet Journal  that was also reported last night on New York 1 News.  It is quite sad that the New York City Department of Education does not value librarians.  The article reports that there are only 333 certified librarians in city schools down from 399 only four years ago and not all of them are working as librarians. 17 librarians are employed as substitute teachers instead of being laid off.  Schools with 700 or more students must have a full-time librarian, while middle or high schools with 100 – 300 students are required to have a part-time librarian.  However, the Department of Education is asking the state to waive those requirements stating advances in technology are making it harder to retain librarians.

I guess that even early on students use Google and Wikipedia and are not aware of more sophisticated research and fact finding techniques.  I also surmise that print and electronic resources are inadequate in high schools as they often are in universities.

I recall in the early 1960s at JHS 190 Queens we had one period a week when we visited the school library.  The librarian taught us to use the card catalog and the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature.  Back in elementary school, we would occasionally walk over to the local branch of the Queensborough Public Library (QBL).  I never used the Forest Hills High School library as I would take the subway to the main branch of QBL in Jamaica to do my assignments.

In the future, will university administrators take the same attitude as the NYC Department of Education toward librarians?  I certainly hope not.

My Favorite NJIT Student is Moving On

After 6 years as a doctoral student my favorite student is finally moving on from NJIT.  Since I would rather not reveal his name on a public web site I will refer to him as Mr. Patel.  He was a student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering although his research was in the physics of quantum/nano-scale phenomena.  Throughout his time at NJIT he actively sought me out for advice on how to use information resources to support his research.  Although Mr. Patel never attended an information literacy lecture, he is the most information competent individual I have encountered in all my years as a librarian.  He knew to use the databases and not to “Google” to find information.

After his doctoral thesis defense, he approached for advice on how to look for a professional position.  I wish he had started looking earlier, but in the long run things worked out for him.  When a brief search for an industrial position failed, I suggested he pursue a post-doctoral fellowship.  With great pleasure, I wrote letters of recommendation for him.  I am pleased to say that he accepted a post doc at the College of Nanoscience and Engineering at SUNY Albany.  I obviously wish him well as he assumes this position and certainly hope he does not fall into the “post doc” trap and just moves from one temporary position to another.

In my 21 years at NJIT I have seen thousands of students come and go.  Most of them never needed the services of a reference librarian.  I will sorely miss Mr. Patel as he moves forward in life.

The New York Public Library is Being Sued to Stop Renovations

An organization called Advocates for Justice is suing the New York Public Library to stop renovations at the famous building at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street.   This organization accuses the library of violating its charter and the state’s Constitution by dismantling seven floors of stacks and removing books from the site.

In my opinion NYPL is doing the right thing by moving into the future and not staying in the past.  Libraries are no longer a depository for printed resources.  When I worked at the Science and Technology Division from 1983-1990 I observed layers of dust on miles and miles of stacks implying that much material had not been used in decades.

NYPL is certainly not discarding any volumes as they will be moved to a remote storage facility and may be accessed by interested researchers.  This renovation plan will be a benefit for all library users and in the long run will also help NYPL save money.

Making the Transition from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail

About three years ago I wrote an entry in this journal about coping with e-mail overload  It is hard to believe that e-mail has been around academic circles for about 20 years.  We have used it so long that we can't perceive how we ever did without it.  Is it a blessing or a curse?  Some people use e-mail to avoid a face to face confrontation.  on the other hand it is so much easier to communicate with more people than snail mail

When I first started at NJIT I used a Vax based system called Tesla named after the famous physicist.  Some years later we moved to Microsoft Outlook.  In early 2013 the university decided to standardize all e-mail accounts and move everyone to a Gmail system which students have used since 2008.  Yesterday, was the day of transition for me.

Like everything else, there will be a learning curve.  I guess we all must cope with technological change.

The NJIT Library will be Open on Fridays Throughout the Summer in 2013

In previous years all of NJIT was closed on Fridays including the library during June, July, and most of August.  This year the library will be open from 8:30 AM - 4:45 PM on Fridays.  There will be one reference librarian and two circulation clerks on duty all day to assist students, faculty, and staff.

Time for a Staycation

Everyone including me needs time away from their job.  I have 20 vacation and 3 personal days that I must take each year, so I usually take most of them during the summer when library business is slow.  I usually take time off in late May after the Chemistry Olympics, but this year we were told we had to work on the inventory project.  So I will be taking off the first week in June this year just to stay at home and home and take it easy.  I guess we can call this “staycation”.

I will not look at my work e-mail during this time.  Actually my e-mail account will be transitioned from Outlook to Webmail by Google when I am out.  NJIT is doing this to standardized all e-mail accounts of students, faculty and staff.  Webmail by Google has a capacity of 25 GB while the Outlook system can only handle 1 GB per account.  There will obviously be a learning curve while transitioning to the new system.

Inventory Project at the NJIT Library

For the first time in 11 years the NJIT Library inventoried the circulating and reference collections.  We are doing this in preparation for the move to a statewide catalog of the holdings of VALE libraries.  The task of shelf-reading and manually determining the missing books fell to an outside organization.  The  library staff changed the holdings records for the books that were determined to be missing.  If they are still missing months from now, the cataloging and OCLC records will be purged.  It is inevitable in any library that books will be stolen or lost.  I observed that the "inventory shrinkage" was minimal.

Libraries are moving away from their role of being a depository for printed resources.  Thus, this will likely be the last inventory done by the NJIT Library.

Another Semester Comes to an End

Another semester is coming to a close as I approach 21 years at NJIT.  Thus I am completing my 42 semester as I see retirement coming around the bend.  It may be 4 years away as there are certain benefits available when someone completes 25 years as a New Jersey state employee. 

As I have reported several times in this journal the number of reference transactions continue to decline.  For must hours either the circulation staff or a patron will ring a doorbell and the librarian on duty will immediately come out to provide assistance.  I am hoping that in the near future we can make the circulation desk the single service point in the library which has been done in many places.

We will have a new librarian joining the reference staff next week.  He seems very energetic and eager to learn, but any new job is an adjustment for the new hire.

Regular readers of this blog (if there are any left J) must note that my output here has declined tremendously.  I guess I am just running out of ideas.  Google Analytics indicates that I get about one hit a day on the average.  My personal journal has all of the fun stuff.

Until next time.

Learning about InChi - the worldwide chemical structure identifier standard

Years ago when I worked in a pharmaceutical company as an information scientist I had to keep abreast of developments in chemical searching since the major part of my job was to search the chemical literature for documentation of new substances.  In my role as Technical Reference Librarian at NJIT I am much more of a generalist since I teach students how to find information in a wide variety of disciplines.  Very often I hear of a tool or service, but I am only familiar with it in a very cursory way.  I heard of InChI, but I didn’t know any of the details of it.  Yesterday there was an e-mail on the CHMINF-L listserv by David Evans of Reed Elsevier demonstrating videos released by the InChI Trust.  I looked at the videos which were useful but cursory and somehow was motivated to research this topic further.

I did the obvious and did a Google search on InChi and found several useful sites describing the worldwide chemical structure identifier standard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Chemical_Identifier - this Wikipedia entry is reliable

http://www.inchi-trust.org/ - InChI Trust Web Site

http://www.inchi-trust.org/fileadmin/user_upload/html/inchifaq/inchi-faq.html - The InChI FAQ

These web sites gave me enough information on this topic, but I felt I had to read a few peer reviewed papers:

InChI - the worldwide chemical structure identifier standard

By Heller, Stephen; McNaught, Alan; Stein, Stephen; Tchekhovskoi, Dmitrii; Pletnev, Igor

From Journal of Cheminformatics (2013), 5, 7. Language: English, Database: CAPLUS, DOI:10.1186/1758-2946-5-7

InChI in the wild: an assessment of InChIKey searching in Google

By Southan, Christopher

From Journal of Cheminformatics (2013), 5, 10. Language: English, Database: CAPLUS, DOI:10.1186/1758-2946-5-10

At this point I was ready to apply what I learned.  I was able to use Pub Med and ChemSpider to find out the InChI and InChIKey for several molecules.  I found out how to use InChI  and InChIKey to search for  molecules in Scifinder.  There are ways to translate a structure into InChI and the other way around.

I really want to hone my skills in searching for structures.  I also downloaded structure drawing programs from ACD Labs and Accelyrs.

April 14-20 is National Library Week

 Caroline Kennedy is seen above promoting National Library Week.  It seems that few academic libraries are involved in this endeavor.  We should use it to promote reference services to our students.

My Opinion on Faculty Rank for Librarians

Certainly much has been written in the library literature over the years on the issue of faculty rank and status for librarians.  A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled As Their Roles Change, Some Librarians Lose Faculty Status, by Sydni Dunn prompts me to make comments on this issue.  The article states that at the University of Virginia future librarians will be classified as university staff while current employees will retain faculty status.

The advantage of faculty status is that after a librarian has attained tenure he/she has job security.  Those librarians feel “more professional” than their colleagues who are staff.  On the other hand going through the tenure process creates anxiety.  The tenure requirements vary at different universities.  At some colleges publications demonstrating empirical research are required for tenure. While at other universities publications are helpful but job performance and professional activities are used in the evaluation for tenure.

Since I have been exposed to both situations, I am commenting based on my experiences.  Here at NJIT we have professional status.  Our raises are determined though job performance.  Activity in professional organizations and publishing are encouraged, but are not absolute requirements for the job.  After six years we are granted “Contractual Expectation” which I define as “quasi tenure.”  We can only be terminated for documented misconduct or poor performance.

I prefer the “professional staff” status since I feel that the tenure process creates so much tension.  I have observed many tenure track librarians spending much time going to professional meetings.  This takes time away from helping library patrons.  Tenure track librarians are often allowed release time to do their research.  Thus less time is spent helping their students.  In my opinion much of the library literature is very self-serving.  I read many papers and feel that they just don’t prove anything.

The article in the Chronicle states that a survey done by Lisa Hinchliffe at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign states that nearly two-thirds of the 1600 institutions that responded have faculty status.  36% have tenure or on the tenure track while 28% have faculty status but are off the tenure track.  The remaining third don’t have faculty rank or status.

I guess this issue can be debated indefinitely.

Remembering My Mentor Vitaut Kipel

I had a crazy dream last night about Dr. Vitaut Kipel who was my first supervisor at the New York Public Library Science and Technology Division when I was hired in February 1983.  He really mentored me as he always gave me challenging assignments.  I enjoyed writing annotations for New Technical Books, a publication of the division. It was so frustrating giving reference service in a closed stack library with the collection in several places. Dr. Kipel retired as Assistant Chief of the Division in early 1985.  The last time I saw him was in Spring 1988 shortly after my son Lee was born.

Often I am curious about what happened to people who have influenced me many years after our paths diverged.  Kipel was scholar of Belarusan culture and wrote the following book:

Kipelʹ, Vitaŭt. Belarusans in the United States. Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1999. Print.

His personal papers about Belarusan immigration are housed at the University of Minnesota.  This site http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/research/vitrage/all/ka/ihrc1210.html is a finding aid for his papers and offers a detailed biography.

Dr. Kipel is now 85 years old and as far as I know he is still living in East Rutherford, NJ.  I am aware that his wife Zora (seen in the photo above) who also worked for NYPL passed away in 2003.  I still have the fondest memories of Vitaut Kipel.

The Next METRO Science Librarians SIG Meeting is Friday April 19

The next METRO Science Librarians SIG meeting will be:

Friday April 19 – 1:30 – 4:30 PM

METRO Headquarters

57 East 11^th Street - 4th Floor

New York, NY

This meeting will be a research forum featuring the following speakers and topics

Implementing Kindle and iPad borrowing services in the Health Sciences Library and creating e-books collection - Irina Meyman - Lutheran Medical Center

Studying International Scientific Collaboration through the Web of Science - Selenay Aytac – LIU Post

Outreach and information literacy for engineering students – Jay Bhatt – Drexel

Assessing Use and Usage of Butler Library – Nisa Bakkalbasi, Barbara Rockenbach and Francie Mrkich  - Columbia University

Measuring the Disparities between Biology Undergraduates' Perceptions and Their Actual Knowledge of Scientific Literature with Clickers – Aditi Bandyopadhyay – Adelphi University

Please register at http://metro.org/events/312/

The Number of Reference Transactions Continues to Decline

The number of reference transactions continues to decline.  Yesterday I had two:

1. A student wanted to know how to cite a poem using the MLA Style Guide.

2 .A faculty member found an article in a bibliography and wanted to know if the library had the journal.  I found out that the NJIT Library did not have the journal and filled out an electronic interlibrary loan form for him.  It is especially disappointing when a professor does not know the basics of how to use a library.

The most frustrating thing to me is that chemistry/chemical engineering students don’t ask for me as often as they used to. At least once a semester I introduce myself at graduate seminars and offer my services.  I remember before we had Scifinder Scholar students had to come to me with their search questions that I had to execute using STN International after 5 PM.  What are the reasons?

• The “Google Phenomenon” – Students search Google to find everything they need.
• Librarians' training is effective
• Databases such as Scopus and Scifinder Scholar are designed so that student and faculty can learn to use them with intervention from librarians.

What is the future of reference librarianship?

Cute Remark by a Student

There hasn't been too much new in the library. Sadly the number of reference transactions is still declining.  I guess all students know how to "Google Away."  Anyway speaking of Google - A student approached me at the reference desk asking how to find legal cases relating to wrongful terminations.  I showed him how to access and then search Lexis Nexis for this information.  As the reference transaction was ending he said "This is sure a lot better than searching Google."

Librarians Should be Free to Criticize Publishers Without Fear of Lawsuits

I read this article I found on a post on a librarian’s listserv.  A librarian now at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada is being sued by a private publisher since he criticized that publisher in a blog post a few years ago when he was employed by Kansas State University.  That blog post was subsequently deleted.

I have learned to be carefully when posting on this and on my other blogs(Bruce's Journal and NYNJcommuting) since anyone can read comments on the internet.  Certainly publishers should be criticized if their works are substandard.  If they disagree with the criticism, they certainly have a right to refute the claims.  Filing a law suit only creates more hostility while only the lawyers gain by it.  I hope that this legal nonsense stops since McMaster University is being sued for $3.5 Million while the librarian is being sued for $1 million.  Hopefully a judge will throw it out of court since academic freedom is being attacked.  In my opinion the law suit is creating more animosity against this publisher.

My questions are:

• How many people saw the blog post before it was taken down?
• Did this publisher lose any money as a result of the blog post?

John Borchardt - Career Consultant to the Very End

I admire people who are devoted to helping others.  It is always difficult to for any professional to find a position in their respective profession and develop throughout his career.  The American Chemical Society has a career consultants program to assist chemists at all stages of their careers.  I have been such a consultant for a long time, but must admit that in recent years I have not been active in the program.  My specialty is to advise laboratory chemists of the career option of chemical information specialist or science librarian.

John Borchardt was proactive in the program and wrote number articles on job hunting and other career issues.  He wrote the following book:

Borchardt, J. K. (2000). Career management for scientists and engineers. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society.

Today I found out about his untimely passing in January.  He was at a Career Consultants meeting in Dallas and sadly passed away in his hotel room.  He was devoted to helping fellow professionals with career issues until the very end.  I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times at ACS national meetings.  His thoughts will survive in his writings.  He will be sorely missed by his colleagues.  My condolences to his family

Helping Students Develop Alternative Searching Strategies Using Google and Wikipedia at NJIT

Last night I taught information seeking skills to students of ENE 360 (Fundamentals of Water and Wastewater Treatment).  Since these students had seen me lecture in a previous course, I decided to spend more time with helping them to develop search strategies.  I wanted to show how searching Google and the Wikipedia could help them develop search strategies.  Students are tempted to use the literal terminology of the topic of their paper.  Let me give two examples.

1.Find papers discussing water sustainability focusing on emerging contaminants (those not regulated)

The obvious search strategy is water sustainability AND emerging contaminants.

A search is Scopus yielded several good articles on this topic.  When I searched for the phrase “emerging contaminants” in Google I found this very useful web site:

http://www.creec.net/whatareec.htm  - Site of the Consortium for Research and Education of Emerging Contaminants.  It gave detergents, fragrances, prescription and nonprescription drugs, disinfectants, and pesticides as examples of emerging contaminants.  Thus an alternative search strategy would be:

Water sustainability AND pesticides

2. Find papers discussing water sustainability focusing on Advanced Oxidation.

Again the obvious search strategy is Water sustainability AND Advanced Oxidation, but what is meant by advanced oxidation.  I found this entry in the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_oxidation_process

This article stated:

Advanced Oxidation Process refers to a set of chemical treatment procedures designed to remove organic (and sometimes inorganic) materials in water and waste water by oxidation through reactions with hydroxyl radicals (·OH). In real-world applications of wastewater treatment, however, this term usually refers more specifically to a subset of such chemical processes that employ ozone (O₃), hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and/or UV light. One such type of process is called in situ chemical oxidation

.

Thus an alternative search strategy would be:

Water sustainabilty AND oxidation AND peroxide

.

Hopefully, the students learned from this as my lecture was likely their third exposure to information literacy as students at NJIT.

Opening for a Science/Engineering Librarian at NJIT

Be part of a Technical Reference Librarian academic team at New Jersey Institute of Technology, a public science and technology research university.  This non-tenured position is responsible for performing professional reference librarian duties such as virtual reference assistance, information literacy instruction and assessment, collection development, developing information literacy learning modules, preparing and presenting library orientations, conducting promotion and tenure searches, etc.

NJIT, close to Manhattan, seeks an experienced reference librarian with an MLS, subject expertise in chemistry, mathematics, physics, biology, management, computer science or engineering and other requirements.  For the complete job description and application procedure view:  http://njit.jobs/applicants/Central?quickFind=51921   for Technical Reference Librarian.

Salary commensurate with credentials and experience.   Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. 

I Admire My Young Enthusiastic Colleagues

Whenever I go to professional meetings I admire the enthusiasm of my younger colleagues who are new to the profession.  Most presenters are “newbies” who greatly embrace emerging technologies.  I observed that at both the recent VALE conference at Rutgers and the METRO Annual Meeting at Baruch College.  Younger librarians are “born with a chip” and did not struggle with having to use print resources to research topics.  Older professionals like me experienced many transitions from print to online resources.  It is often difficult to adjust to the newer way of researching.  Google did not exist when I was a student.  Yes, the profession has undergone change in the past and there will be more changes in the future.

Scientific Publishers Should Maintain a Dialog With Customers

There should never be an adversarial relationship between publishers and their customers.  Librarians must understand that there are costs involved in producing a scholarly journal whether it is in print or electronic format.  Publishers must also realize that library budgets are strained and difficult decisions must be made when subscribing or cancelling titles.  There are certain issues that face both parties.  The literature is growing since there is still pressure on new faculty to attain tenure.  There are new sub-disciplines especially in the scientific disciplines and publishers are creating more specialized journals.  Is this necessary or should articles in new “micro-disciplines” be absorbed into established serials?  Is open access a panacea?  In this case the burden of payment is placed on the researchers not the librarians.

Pricing was much easier years ago when there were only print journals.  A large organization would often need multiple copies of popular titles that would be circulated.  It would pay a fixed amount for each extra copy needed.  Publishers are now determining pricing on the history of usage of a journal by the institution.  Bundling journals is another controversial issue in pricing.  A library may complain that it is forced to buy access to journals that are rarely if ever used.  Is paying per download a viable option?

In an open letter to the Library community Brandon Nordin of ACS publication admits “No pricing model is ever perfect.” 

It is very important that publishers maintain a dialog with their customers and evaluate their suggestions for pricing.  This can be done on a one to one basis or at national, regional, or local meetings of processional societies.

Notes from the 2013 VALE Users'' Conference

On Friday January 4^th I attended the 14^th annual VALE User’s Conference.  Where have all these years gone?  I remember attending a meeting all those years ago when the concept of a consortium of academic libraries was first discussed.  In 2013 were almost 300 librarians attending with a multitude of poster and breakout sessions.  As usual it was nice to encounter colleagues from other New Jersey colleges.  I will only comment on sessions that I attended.

Session B01 – VALID Project Update: Project Planning and Implementation Milestones

I have been following this project for several years and am disappointed that it has not yet come to fruition.  Marianne Gaunt, the University Librarian at Rutgers, stated that project will hopefully be done in two years.  It is my opinion that the project has moved slowly since the members of the implementation task force are from different institutions and can only devote so much time to this project.  VuFind has been selected as the discovery tool while the entire system will be on the Amazon Web Services Cloud Server.  This server will be located on multiple servers and not hosted by one institution.  Thus all member institutions will have access.

Session B09 VALID: Reference and Resource Sharing Update

Joseph Deodato of Rutgers spoke about the features that were recommended by the Reference Committee for the discovery layer.  I actually chaired this subcommittee that made these suggestions.  Judy Matthew of William Paterson University described how there would be a VALID circulation policy that will create a seamless experience for users.  Problems may be encountered when the circulation policy of a college differs from that of the consortium as a whole.

Featured Speaker – Dr. Ellie A. Fogarty, Vice President of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education

She spoke on the role of librarians in the assessment process.  When a university is evaluated by Middle States, the library should not stand alone.  There must be accountability and transparency  in this process.  Education should be competency based. 

Session B20: Determining the most appropriate type(s) of a assessment in library instruction – Bonnie Fong of Rutgers University

The assessment process considers who, what when, where and how.  These principles also apply in journalism.  We must determine what we are trying to assess including the learning objectives and exactly what is being taught.  We must assess both pre- and post-session.