Revised Publications List of Bruce Slutsky

Slutsky, B., & Aytac, S. (2014). Publication Patterns of Science, Technology, and Medical Librarians: Review of the 2008–2012 Published Research. Science and Technology Libraries, 33(4), 369-382. doi:10.1080/0194262X.2014.952486

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

Environmental Engineering Students Use Mostly Web Sites in Their Bibliographies

For many years I have taught library skills to a class of Environmental Engineering students.  This course is required of all civil engineering majors.  I give my standard lecture on the organization of the scientific and technical literature and then discuss in detail the technical databases such as Scopus that would provide articles that they could use for their papers.  Here are the topics for this semester:

1. Nuclear Power Plants:

• What are the different types of nuclear power plants?

• What are the health/environmental concerns?

• What are the ways to address the health/environmental concerns? 

2. Tetrachloroethylene in Groundwater: 

• What is Tetrachloroethylene and how does it get into the groundwater?

• Why is it an environmental and health concern?

• What are the ways to address the situation? 

3. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) 

• What are PAHs?

• What are the human health/environmental concerns?

• What are the ways to address the concerns?

4. Formaldehyde in Building Materials:

• What is Formaldehyde?

• Why is it an environmental and health concern in building materials?

• What are the ways to address the situation? 

5. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System: 

• What is it/what does it do?

• What are the potential environmental concerns associated with the pipeline? 

• What are the ways to address the environmental/health concerns? 

6. Light Pollution:

• What is light pollution and what causes it?

• What are the environmental/health concerns?

• What are the ways to address the situation? 

7. Mercury in Fish:  

• What is the source of Mercury?

• What are the environmental/health concerns?

• What are the ways to address the situation? 

8.  The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill:

• What was it?

• What were the environmental/health concerns?

• How was the situation addressed?

9. The Bhopal, India Disaster:

• What was it?

• What were the environmental and health concerns?

• What laws, regulations, or safety practices were developed after the disaster?

10. The Hurricane Katrina Disaster:

• When/where did the hurricane strike?

• What environmental/health concerns resulted from the hurricane?

• What are the ways to prevent similar environmental/health concerns in the future?

11. Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE) in Consumer Products:

• What is the source of PBDE?

• What are the environmental/health concerns?

• What are the ways to address the situation?

Anyway, the lecture was given in the third week of the semester, yet students always wait until the last minute to do the assignment. But is disappointing to see that two thirds of the references cited are from web sites. They just love to Google away to find information. At least the web sites were from reputable sources. But I feel badly when so much time and effort is devoted to teaching how to search the databases and students don't seem to pay attention.

Met NJIT's New Dean of CSLA Today

There was a reception today for faculty and staff to meet Kevin Belfield who joined NJIT as Dean of the College of Sciences and Liberal Arts.  I was pleased to find out that Dr. Belfield  is a chemist who has done extensive research in photon absorption and fluorescence among other areas.  He has 363 publication in Scifinder with over 4000 cited references reported in Scopus.  His h index is 31.

I certainly welcome him to NJIT and look forward to working with him in the future.

Next METRO Science Librarian SIG Meeting on Special Projects for Data Librarians Thursday December 11 1:30 PM

The Next Meeting will be:

Thursday December 11, 1:30 PM at METRO Headquarters:

57  East 11th Street - 4th Floor
New York, NY

There will be two presentations focused on special projects for data librarians in academia:

1.  New York University librarians Samantha Guss, Him Mistry, and Andrew Battista will discuss Spatial Data Repository at NYU. They'll focus on the genesis of this project, as well as the infrastructure, considerations, and future plans for their repository

2. Minglu Wang and Bonnie Fong from Rutgers University will discuss their initiative to provide mandatory data management training for graduate students of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department.

To register http://metro.org/events/register/571/pre/

For further information, please contact Bruce Slutsky

More Frustrations With Information Literacy

Many times the professor does not come to the information literacy training session.  Sometimes an excuse is given, but often the professor doesn't come in and doesn't give a reason.  How can we expect the students to be interested, when their professor is not.

When I give a class to students of freshman English, I generally lecture for 40 minutes or so and then give the students time to work on their projects.  If the professor is not there, the students leave.  When the regular teacher stays, the students either do work for other classes or surf the web for fun.

A few months ago I gave a class for physics graduate student with the professor who coordinates the seminars in the room.  This individual constantly sends me e-mail asking if the library has specific items.  Certainly a faculty member should know the basics of locating materials in the library.  Even after this training this person still e-mails me with basic questions.  I guess he just doesn't want to be bothered.

Random Comments About Information Literacy in the Fall 2014 Semester

I haven’t written much for this blog so here goes with some random comments about teaching information literacy.

I still feel the “substitute teacher mentality” with students and information literacy.  Back in our elementary school days it was party time when a substitute teacher came in.  I think many students see a librarian coming to their class as an outsider and don’t take the lecture seriously.

Today I taught my class in how to find physical and thermodynamic properties of chemical substances.  A student sitting right in front of me was actually sleeping during the lecture.  I could understand if he was in the back, but isn’t it insulting when he dozed off right in front of the teacher.

A few weeks ago I taught a class to some graduate students in physics.  The professor had coffee and cake for the students.  During the talk nobody asked questions, but several students approached me after the talk while eating.  I guess they prefer to ask their questions privately.

It is Still Frustrating When Students Don't Ask Questions During A Lecture on Chemistry Databases

Today I gave a seminar to graduate students of chemistry.  I always try to vary each presentation I give by emphaszing different resources.  There is so much to cover in a short period of time, thus the lecture must be cursory.  I spend a little extra time on Knovel since this is a new resource in the NJIT library.  I shouwed how it can be used to easily find physical property data of chemical substances.  The profesor who coordinates the seminars ask me to discuss predatory journals.  He gives an assignment where students must analyze an article from a chemistry journal.  He felt that many student chose articles from poor quality journals.

Throughout the lecture, I felt that I was talking to myself as the students did not ask any questions.  Is it because:

• They were totally disinterested
• They already knew how to search the chemical literature
• The lecture was cursory as I had to cover so much material, but none in depth

At the very end a student asked if there was a limitation on the number of Scifnder users at a time.  I answered that this was no longer true.

I encouraged the students to take some time to access and practice using many of the resources tht I discussed in the lecture.  I will never know if they followed up.

Thomas Galante is Getting a Free Vacation

I write entries in this blog to comment on library issues.  It seems that the problems with the Queens Library have been my number one topic recently.  Several news sources including the New York Daily News report that Thomas Galante is being put on paid leave pending the results of city and state investigations.  It is obvious that he is getting a free vacation at a salary of $392,000 a year.  Government investigations are always slow so this creep can get his salary and more money from the Elmont, Long Island school district.  He has obviously robbed tax payers and library users of big bucks.  The long term problem will be that individuals and corporations will be reluctant to donate to the Queens Library as they will never know how their money is being spent.

Random Comments at the Beginnning of the Semester

The students are not getting younger, I am getting older.  This is the biggest freshman class at NJIT and I wish all of them the best,

I have already arranged 3 graduate level seminars and am trying for a fourth.  I feel that learning how to use technical databases is much more important at the graduate level since those advanced students must pick a topic for their dissertation research and know that they are not repeating the work of others.  Graduate students must also know to do current awareness research in their areas of interest.  Science and engineering students at the undergraduate level use their textbooks and laboratory manuals and are not that reliant on peer reviewed journals.

This semester I will particpate at the freshman level introducing students to the databases that NJIT provides.  I hope they can be aware of the differences in searching databases as opposed to searching Google.  Since the reference transactions are still declining we most focus our efforts on instruction.

Next METRO Science Librarians SIG Meeting set for October 6

The METRO Science Librarians SIG meeting set for the afternoon of Monday October 6 is titled:

Retraction Watch at Four -- What Retractions Tell Us About the Failures (and Successes) of Scholarly Publishing

The speaker is Adam Marcus the managing editor of Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News and Anesthesiology News. His freelance articles have appeared in Science, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, The Scientist, Birder’s World, Sciam.com, and many other publications and web sites.

For further information and instructions on how to register, please go to http://metro.org/events/538/

You can contact me at bruce.slutsky@njit.edu for more information as well.

Reference Librarians Must Face Ingratitude

Reference librarians often must face ingratitude by patrons.   I have worked with patrons that are most appreciative of the services I provide to them in my 35 years in this profession.  Academic librarians are responsible to serve the students, faculty, and staff of their respective institutions.  I have received few requests from businesses in the local community in recent years.

Last week one of my colleagues left me a message that F.S. asked for assistance from the chemistry librarian.  I was away from the office for a few days, so I phoned him back yesterday and asked what he wanted.  He had a relatively complicated question about sugar cane bagasse.

I spent about an hour on his query and sent my results to him via e-mail with suggestions on how he could pursue his research further.  He never responded to me.  Don’t I deserve a “thank you” for doing work “beyond the call of duty”?  He is not part of my university’s community and I was certainly not under any obligation to him.  He would have to pay an information consultant big bucks for this service.

All in a days work.

Accepted for Publication!

I got some good news. I collaborated on the following paper with Selenay Aytac: Publication Patterns of Science, Technology, and Medical Librarians: Review of the 2008-2012 Published Research. It was just accepted for publications in Science and Technology Libraries. It is much different than my thousands of blog entries, tweets, and Facebook posts.  Thank you Selena for working on this project with me for over a year.  Sometimes perserverance pays off.

Thank You Mayor DiBlasio and Borough President Katz

I am glad we have two elected officials who did the right thing by firing 8 members of the Board of Trustees of Queens Library.  This entire episode with Thomas Galante was a digrace to taxpayers who have supported the Queens Library for years.  Funds should be used to purchase resources and equpment to support the mission of the library.  Their librarians and support staff should be paid at the same level as other similar employees in NYC.

Article in Queeens Courier

Reconnecting with a Former Colleague Through a Listserv Posting

In recent years I have reconnected with old friends and colleagues, but today for the first time I reconnected with a colleague through a listserv posting.  I recently joined the College Librarians listserv and found a posting by Patricia.  As I have mentioned in this blog before, I worked at the Science and Technology Division of NYPL from 1983-1990.  Near the end of my tenure there Patricia worked in the division as an intern.

She had posted about using the Wikipedia as a teaching tool.  I referred her to one of my colleagues who teaches a class at NJIT where students expand on a stub in the Wikipedia.

Patricia worked in medical libraries for some time and now works in a New York City high school library.  She was glad that I remembered her and the nickname she used back then.

Another Disgrace from the Queens Public Library

I guess I am using this blog as a way to criticize other libraries.  A report in the Daily News states that the Board of Trustees will fire Director Thomas Galante and give him a consulting job that pays $800,000.  Thae article states the Public Advocate Letitia James is trying to get New York State Attorney Gerneral Eric Schneiderman to join her in getting a court injunction to block this.

It is a shame that public libraries cry that they don't have money for resources and to keep the libraries open, but they have big bucks to give to a crook like Galante.  The Queens Library also has a reputation for paying low salaries.  Why should people donate when their money is being wasted?

Our Paper Was Rejected for Publication

For over a year I have been working with a collaborator at Long Island University in writing a paper.  I have really spent a lot of work over that time in analyzing the library science literature.  We have spoken over the phone several times and have met a few times to discuss the paper.

About two months ago we submitted the paper to the Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST).  Yesterday I received an e-mail from the editors stating that the paper was rejected for publication.  They said that only 37% of the submitted papers are accepted.  We also received detail criticism of the paper.

Yesterday I started to revise the paper based on the suggestions made by the reviewers.  Since my collaborator is on vacation, I will have to wait to discuss our strategy for resubmitting it.  We have put too much work into it and will revise and submit to another journal.

If I had to apply for tenure, I would have been much more upset over this rejection.  I will just move forward by revising the paper and resubmitting it.  We all learn from our mistakes.

Teaching Database Skills to Students of the McNair Program at NJIT

Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement program, awards grants to institutions of higher education for projects designed to provide underrepresented students with effective preparation for doctoral study.  The program at NJIT is described at http://mcnair.njit.edu .  Many students of this program have moved on to professional positions with prestigious organizations.

This past Monday I gave a session to this year's class on how to use the library's databases to support their research.  Their topics included:

• Tungsten Based Alloys
• Project Class
• Computer Networking
• Solar water splitting to produce hydrogen
• Dissolution of Nanocomposite Microparticles

The students picked up on their training and were able to find douments to support their projects.  It was a pleasure to work with them.

Why is the Board of Trustees of Queens Library Refusing to Cooperate with the NYC Comptroller?

Any library be it academic or public much use their funds responsibly to provide resources and services to its community.  Much has been written about the misuse of funds by Director Thomas Galante.  What is realy bothering me more is the refusal of the Board of Trustees to provide financial information to NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer as reported in the Queens Chronicle.

It is obvious that they are trying to hide something.  My experiences with using the Queens Library have been positive over the years.  The staff at the local Mitchell Linden branch is very friendly and I've enjoyed the concerts I have seen at the down town Flushing location.

The article states that the Comptroller is going to State Supreme Court to force the library to turn over the financial documents to him.  I wish there was an easy way to get rid of the library trustees.  This is a very sad situation especially since resources at the local branches are not adequate.

NYPL Changes its Renovation Plans - Opinions from a Former Employee

The opinions expressed here are my own.  I discussed NYPL in this blog before and stated that I worked at the Research Library in the Science and Technology Division from 1983-90.  Today, I have read two articles about the change in renovation plans of the Central Research Building also known as the Schwartman Building on 5^th Avenue and 42^nd Street.

• The Nation 
• New York Times  

The original plan was to move most of the books from the central building and move them to a storage facility in New Jersey.  This would create room for Mid-Manhattan and SIBL to move to move there to consolidate the operation.  There would be a large information commons there.

Many traditionalists vehemently opposed this including the Committee to Save the NYPL, Citizens Defending Libraries, and the Library Lovers League. Many major cultural figures who campaigned against the plan were Mario Vargas Llosa, Salman Rushdie and Francine Prose In my opinion the big mistake that NYPL made was not to consult with their users when this plan was first articulated.  This would have saved so much money as the library already paid the British architect Norman Foster $9 million in private funds for his firm’s work on the plan for the landmark building.  This money certainly could have gone to much better use.  $9 million has just gone down the drain.

It is an understatement to say that libraries have changed in this internet era.  Many major research libraries have moved less used materials to remote storage facilities. In my previous comments on this issue I do believe that NYPL should do the same.  I do understand the landmark status and historical significance of the central building.  On the other hand the central building should not be limited to the scholarly elite.

The current plan seems to be a compromise:

The Mid-Manhattan Library will be renovated in stages so that so it can remain open.

There will be 50 percent more public space in the building, including new spaces for children and teenagers and more work areas for researchers and writers.  This is a step in right direction. SIBL will be closed, but neither article stated where the collection will go.  I was quite dismayed to hear that the research level collection in the physical sciences was dramatically cut.  If the usage of the science collection was so low, then NYPL is justified in not paying for expensive resources that are rarely used.  I believe that independent researchers can be referred from NYPL to Columbia or NYU if they need technical journals and databases.

I do commend NYPL for coming to a compromise, but I wish they would have consulted with their users before any plan was implemented.  I hope they are pleasing most of the people most of the time.

Thanks to the ACS Division of Chemical Information for Uploading Power Points from the Recent National Meeting

Over the years I have attended several national meetings of the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information (CINF).  There are many costs involved with traveling to a professional meeting in another city:

• Registration
• Plane Fare
• Hotel
• Meals
• Incidental expenses

In some years my employer was able to provide at least some funds for me to attend the meetings as it is very for me to keep up with new developments in my field.  Recently, I’ve had to pay much of the cost for meetings out of pocket.

So new technologies have come to the rescue as the division has uploaded PowerPoint presentations to the web site (http://www.acscinf.org).  Over the past few days I have reviewed many of the talks at the recent Dallas meeting that were of interest.  I spent time reading the Power Points and then finding articles that discussed the topic of the speakers.  I was especially interested in the talks about depositing chemistry research data into public databases and digital repositories.

I would like to thank CINF for sharing the information presented in Dallas so that those who could not attend can be aware of new developments.

This is Not Me

I'd like to thank Gary Brefini for posting this photo on my Facebook wall.  THIS IS NOT ME!!!!

I don't shush people in the library.

Service Award Ceremony at NJIT Today

Today at the service awards ceremony at NJIT I was recognized for 20 years of service.  I actually started on September 14, 1992, so I am really closer to 22 years of service.  Chemical engineering professor Deran Hanesian and physics professor Lou Russo were honored for 50 years.  I actually feel I should also receive an award from New Jersey Transit for being a loyal customer for 20+ years.

4 of my colleagues were also recognized for long service.  From left to right Haymwantee Singh (20 years), yours truly, Doreen Mettle (25 years) and Matt Brown (10 years)

Do Students Frown on Information Literacy?

I'd like to follow up on my last entry.  After 4+ weeks students finally submitted their assignments in the class on how to find physical and thermodynamic properties of substances.  What is their reaction to an outsider coming into their class to give a lecture?  Would their attitude be different if their professor gave the information literacy lecture.  I find that students do well on the assignment even after procrastinating.  Perhaps I have made the assignment too easy.  I do think that students should gain experience in using free and subscription databases to find information.  However, it is inevitable that they will just Google to find the information they need.  Are they interested in learning new skills or just to get their grade and finish it?

Why Do Students Fail to Submit Assignments?

Again any opinions expressed here are my own and are not meant to criticize any specific institutions or individuals.

For many years I have taught a class on how to find physical and thermodynamic properties of chemical substances.  I give an assignment that should take no more than 2 hours to complete and give a deadline of 2 weeks to complete it.  This semester only 3 of 25 students completed this assignment in 2 weeks?  Why is the rate of completion so low this semester compared to others?  A few weeks ago, we could blame the snow days that disrupted the flow of the semester.  This is a class given to chemistry and chemical engineering majors.  Why is there so much apathy and disinterest?

Likewise, I have taught a few sections of the Research Road Maps which are information literacy sessions given to freshmen students taking humanites courses.  Likewise the submission rate is low, bt more than 12% in the chemistry class that I gave.

I guess I am using this blog to vent.

This is a Disgrace to the Profession of Librarianship

The opinions that I express here are that of my own and have nothing to do with my employer.  I am a resident of Queens County and a taxpayer of New York City and State and am outraged about the situation with Thomas Galante, the CEO of the Queens Library.

Mr. Galante has a perk filled salary of $392,000 which is more than the Governor or the Mayor.  The New York Daily News  reports that library's board of trustees paid a consulting firm $28,000 to review Galante's contract and come back with a recommendation for revising his contract.  I wish they would use that $28,000 for books for the small branch libraries.  The Daily News article also revealed that until recently Galante had a $2 Million "Golden Parachute" that was removed by the trustees.

$140,000 was also spent to renovate Galante's office including a private smoking deck courtesy of the taxpayers.

This is outrageous to me as I have observed that the book collection at my local branch is so small.  Anecdotally, the salaries at Queens Library are low in comparison to other public libraries.

A library director should fight for better resources for his organization and for competitive salaries for the librarians and clerks who directly work with the public.

Still Quiet at the Reference Desk

A Reference  Desk with No Patrons or Librarian

The Spring Semester has just begun and the downward trend in reference transactions continues.  At the beginning of semesters I generally get bombarded by textbook questions as students try to avoid purchasing the book by obtaining it from the library.  I have not received such a question.  Is the internet and Google killing reference librarianship?  I fondly remember the days when I worked at the Sci-Tech division of NYPL when there was a line of people waiting for reference services.  I certainly would not recommend a young person to pursue a career in reference librarianship.  The students seem tech savvy enough to learn to find information by themselves with minimal assistance

The output of this blog has diminished greatly as I now have only one or two entries a month.  I used to comment on interesting questions that I received.  I guess I need to vent on a cold Friday afternoon.