Because of the expected weather emergency, the College will be closed tomorrow, March 14 and no classes will be held. Only designated emergency staff need should report. Please continue to watch the College website for updates, and please stay safe.
#BeBoldForChange on International Women’s Day
City Tech Library is celebrating International Women’s Day all month with a book display featuring books by and/or about women. This year’s IWD theme is Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030 with the hashtag #BeBoldForChange. The theme encourages everyone to take groundbreaking action that will drive change for true equality. Please feel free to join the conversation and hashtag what you have done or plan to do to promote equality.
Also, please check out our Kanopy videos on International Women’s Day and women’s rights in general:
Half the Road – The Passion, Pitfalls and Power of Women’s Professional Cycling
To Educate a Girl – Empowering Women and Girls in the Developing World
Quilts in Women’s Lives
Do academic social networks share academics’ interests?
Social networking services for academics are great for networking and getting feedback but at what cost to your privacy? How are these services monetizing you and your work? “Do academic social networks share academics’ interests?” in the Times Higher Education is truly eyeopening! And don’t forget that Academia.edu is not an .edu and should be a .com.
There are many other ways to share your scholarship including depositing your work in Academic Works and subject pre-print repositories.
New in the Library
As the new semester gets underway, we’d like to highlight some new resources, workshops, and programs being offered by the City Tech Library.
Resources and Support for your Students
We have lots of digital resources for use in and outside of the classroom; students and faculty might be particularly interested in signing up for a free digital subscription to the New York Times.
We are continually developing new virtual tools to support student research. We have an expanded collection of Library Research Guides that includes this Chemistry Guide developed by Prof. Cailean Cooney and the new Immigration Guide students that Prof. Junior Tidal adapted from the Bronx Community College Library.
We’ve also just launched a new 24/7 Chat Reference Service so students can get research help around the clock.
Want a course specific subject guide or library instruction for your courses? Reach out to the subject specialist for your department!
Workshops
This semester we’re offering several workshops for City Tech students and faculty. Join us!
Instagram and Twitter in the Classroom and Beyond
March 21st 3-4pm
Library classroom A441
When the Textbook Falls Short: Exploring Alternative Course Materials
Tuesday, April 25th, 2-3 PM
Library Projection Room A432
Digital Privacy Workshop
May 2nd 2-4pm
Library classroom A441
Additional Opportunities for Faculty
Academic Works Deposit parties
March 29th 3-4 pm
April 20th 2-3 pm
Library eclassroom A540
Author Rights workshop
April 26 4-5:30
Library Projection Room A432
Stay in Touch!
Keep up with new initiatives in the library by subscribing to our Library Buzz Blog and reading the Library Liaison Newsletter.
Research guides down for maintenance
The City Tech research guides are currently down for maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Librarian Profile: Tess Tobin
After 17 years at the City Tech Library, Tess Tobin is retiring. We sat down with Tess to talk about fake news, her work as an advocate for Latino populations in professional library organizations, and how the library has changed during the course of her tenure at City Tech. We’ll miss you, Tess!
What made you first become interested in being a librarian?
As a child I spent a lot of time in my local library. It was a beautiful Carnegie built library and seemed palatial at the time, but the reading rooms were full of activity and it was a place to get lost among the stacks. There was never a library school or librarian at any of my high school career fairs, and for some reason, I never thought of librarianship as a viable profession.
Continue reading “Librarian Profile: Tess Tobin”
As a child I spent a lot of time in my local library. It was a beautiful Carnegie built library and seemed palatial at the time, but the reading rooms were full of activity and it was a place to get lost among the stacks. There was never a library school or librarian at any of my high school career fairs, and for some reason, I never thought of librarianship as a viable profession.
Continue reading “Librarian Profile: Tess Tobin”
Airing dirty laundry for Open Access Week
I sat down in front of my work PC to post something about Open Access Week, and now all I can think about is the vulgar state of my desktop.
Exhibit A
I’m a librarian so…what do I have to say for myself? In my defense, it’s been a really busy semester! I got a little carried away and started cutting corners. Screen-casting images to the desktop here. Downloading files, and saving to the desktop there. At least 30 percent of these files are duplicate saves, and many are destined for the recycle bin, but I can’t be exactly sure. What I am certain of is this is no way to store and organize digital things! (FYI, my personal desktop is in less of a state.)
Continue reading “Airing dirty laundry for Open Access Week”
What’s new with open educational resources?
This spring marks the third year of the Open Educational Resources (OER) faculty fellowship program with 21 faculty from 16 departments represented – check out your colleagues’ work here!
This year in the Library we’re working on pairing up faculty in the OER fellowship with their library subject liaisons to consult on locating free/open and library subscribed course materials. We’re bringing back a tabling session during Open Education Week to talk to students about OERs and textbook affordability. We’re also looking forward to spotlighting the ongoing and excellent work of faculty throughout the college to teach with cost-free/affordable course materials that facilitate active and high impact learning – please consider sharing your work with us (email: ccooney@citytech.cuny.edu).
To learn more about OERs visit the OER Resource guide and the OER Fellowship OpenLab site.
And consider joining our upcoming faculty workshop:
When the Textbook Falls Short: Exploring Alternative Course Materials
Tuesday, April 25th, 2-3 PM, Rm A432 in the Library
Commemorating the 1965 Voting Rights Act
The City Tech Library is commemorating the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark piece of legislation that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. The act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965. The primary purpose was to eliminate state and local laws that prevented large numbers of African Americans from exercising their constitutional right to vote.
The impact of the act was immediate and sharply increased the number of registered African American voters. The political impact was so far reaching that even the Democratic and Republican parties became realigned. After the act was signed racial minorities tended to vote for liberal democratic candidates and many southern white conservatives changed their party affiliation to Republican. The parties began to polarize with the Democratic party becoming more liberal and the Republican party becoming more conservative.
It is important recognize this act in our contemporary society, as the Supreme Court rescinded a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 in a contentious 5-4 decision. The court struck down a requirement that if any of 9 southern states were to change their election laws, that they would first need federal approval. The court determined that there were no longer adequate barriers to African Americans voting in those states to justify the law. Shortly after this provision regulating local election laws was deemed unconstitutional a flurry of new laws were created and district maps redrawn.
The importance of the 1965 Voting Rights Act can not be understated. It enfranchised millions of people and these voices changed the political landscape. Even if key provisions have been struck down, it has forever influenced our society.
Professor Rosemarie Reed, Filmmaker
Did you know that Prof. Rosemarie Reed (English) is a filmmaker? Her films are part of the library’s online film collection, Kanopy. We asked Prof. Reed to tell us more about her career as a filmmaker:
I have made six films for the Public Broadcasting System, better known as PBS. Two of my films focus on women scientists. One was the discoverer of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner. Her discovery in 1938, in Nazi Germany, with Otto Hahn, made it possible for the first atomic bomb to be built. Because she was a Jew and in exile, she was not given the credit she deserved, costing Meitner the Nobel Prize. The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn
Continue reading “Professor Rosemarie Reed, Filmmaker”
