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.