This post was co-authored by City Tech Students and Library College Assistants Maria Barales and Ivette Perez.

We are glad to announce that we have new Bilingual Tutorials available to support students doing research!! We have translated and captioned several YouTube tutorials from English to Spanish to provide students another language option they may feel more comfortable with and to accommodate our large Hispanic/Latinx population here at City Tech. 

Our team at the library are currently creating more bilingual tutorials and resources to assist students!

One of the tutorials animated and translated by our library college assistant, Maria Barales, was the “Annotated Bibliography” tutorial.

Check out the “Annotated Bibliography” tutorial here:

Maria was not only able to translate the tutorial, but as a Communication Design major, she was also able to add animation! Maria followed a script in english and translated it into Spanish and created graphics from scratch using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Then she imported all graphics into Adobe After Effects to animate it which was challenging. Maria used recorded audio of her sister narrating the tutorial in Spanish and had to make sure the pacing of the animation and what she was saying was synched with the animated video. For the last step, Maria transferred the animated tutorial into Premiere and exported it as an mp4 and uploaded it to the City Tech Library YouTube channel.

Another tutorial we translated was our “Citation Vacation” webcomic which details the importance of citing your sources and shows how students can navigate the citation process. Our library college assistant, Ivette Perez, translated the entire webcomic into Spanish.

Check out the “Citation Vacation” tutorial here:

Both Maria and Ivette have also worked to add Spanish captioning to several other video tutorials and have created Spanish transcripts for the City Tech Stories podcast.

When approaching translating, it can be very difficult as Spanish consists of many different dialects and many English words do not translate well into Spanish. It’s important to also take into consideration that common English words are also not as common in the Spanish language and to try to find work-arounds for the language barrier. 
Check out our YouTube channel for more tutorials!

We’re offering a number of new workshops this semester so save these dates. All workshops will be conducted via zoom and registration information will be up on the library website soon!

Access Library Resources from Home 

This past summer, CUNY Libraries migrated to a new, modern library systems platform that changed how we access library resources from off campus.

As a reminder, all faculty and students should use CUNY login credentials to login to library databases from off campus and to the My Library Account link on the library website.

There is no longer a need for students and faculty to activate their ID before logging into library databases from off campus. All registered students and faculty with active CUNY login credentials can use library resources.

We also wanted to highlight the preferred name option! Update your CUNYfirst account to ensure that your preferred name is associated with your library account.

Ask a Librarian 24X7 Chat Reference Service

Need help? Just Ask us! 

We miss seeing you at the Ask a Librarian desk but the City Tech Library is here to help you with your research.

Connect with City Tech librarians online:

Monday – Thursday 10:00am-7:00pm & Friday 10:00am-5:00pm

If you miss us during these hours, you can connect to other librarians 24/7. We can help your research strategy, finding sources for a project, and evaluating information, citations, and more! See you in cyberspace! 

Prefer to get in touch via email? Write to us: asknycctref@cuny.libanswers.com 

Circulation FAQs 

Have questions related to library materials? Check out our Circulation FAQs or contact the Circulation Department: NYCCTCirculation@CityTech.cuny.edu

Want to return the mountain of library books you borrowed last year? The Library book Drop has been moved downstairs to just inside the 60 Tillary Street entrance of NYCCT.  Any CUNY Library book, and CD, DVD, or VHS that is in a case, may be placed in the Book Drop. 

Library Workshops

This semester we’re offering some exciting new virtual workshops for students, faculty, and staff! Whether you need help with citations, an upcoming job search, or just want to learn something new (like what algorithmic autofictions are about), we’ve got something for you. Registration information will be on the library website soon!

Library Subject Specialists

Are you assigning papers or projects that require library research? Contact your library subject specialist to find out more and schedule a library instruction session for your students.

Teaching asynchronously? Share the library’s tutorials and research guides with your students. For general questions about library instruction, contact Anne Leonard, library instruction coordinator.

Beyond the Main Search Box

While the library’s main search box is usually the typical starting point, our research guides are a great tool to find discipline specific databases, ebook recommendations, and search tips. Find them on our website or embedded in your Blackboard courses.

Podcasts!

City Tech faculty librarians have been producing new episodes of the City Tech Stories podcast during the pandemic. City Tech Stories highlights news and happenings around campus. Over the 2020 fall semester, we talked about library services during the COVID-19 emergency, interviewed historian and educator Maya Marie about her work with the Kingsborough Community College Urban Farm, and discussed our favorite books, films, and music. The episodes can be heard through the City Tech Library blog, SoundCloud, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

OER workshops / Updates 

O.E.R. workshops will be conducted remotely over Zoom. Part-time faculty who participate will be compensated at their hourly non-teaching adjunct rate for their time.

• Introduction to O.E.R. & the Open Textbook Library
  Offered two dates:
  Wednesday, Feb. 24, from 2 – 3:30 PM
  Tuesday, March 2, from 10 – 11:30 AM
  RSVP via this form.
  
  Learn about open educational resources (O.E.R.) and how to get started locating open learning materials in your discipline, including the Open Textbook Library, “a catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks” developed at the University of Minnesota. Participants are encouraged to bring questions, and no level of familiarity with O.E.R. is required.
  
  Faculty will also have the option to review a textbook related to their discipline for a $250 stipend.

• Peer Review & the O.E.R. Landscape
  Offered two dates:
  Tuesday, March 23, from 10 – 11:30 AM
  Wednesday, March 24, from 2 – 3:30 PM
  RSVP via this form.
  
  Examine existing and possible approaches to peer review, evaluating open educational materials, and scholarly engagement around O.E.R. creation. Participants will explore some current models from the Open Textbook Library, MERLOT, and Rebus Community. Participants are encouraged to bring questions, and no level of familiarity with O.E.R. is required.
  
• Creating & Customizing O.E.R.
  Offered two dates:
  Tuesday, April 20, from 10 – 11:30 AM
  Wednesday, April 21, from 2 – 3:30 PM
  RSVP via this form.
  
  Learn how to get started with customizing and creating O.E.R. Participants will learn tips and best practices, platform publishing venues, and ways to showcase work. Participants are encouraged to bring questions, and no level of familiarity with O.E.R. is required. 

Need Something We Don’t Have?

Interlibrary Loan is continuing to fill article and individual book chapter requests and deliver them electronically. Ill is great for scholarly research and course assignments.

Please note: Because many other libraries are closed across the country, we may not be able to fill all requests, but we will try our best!

Questions? Email us: interlibraryloan@citytech.cuny.edu 

Support for Scholarly Publishing 

Do you need help with any aspect of scholarly publishing? Our Scholarly Publishing Clinic is available for virtual consultations. Learn how to pick the best journal or publisher for your article or book, retain rights as an author, create a Google Scholar profile or search alert, use Academic Works and citation managers, and more. 

Office hours are by appointment every last Thursday of each month this semester at 12 PM via Zoom or phone.

Email Prof. Monica Berger to schedule your consultation and discuss your preferences for shared communication. Use this form to give us advance notice of your question. Don’t forget that you can also reach out to your subject liaison in the library. We’ll be announcing this semester’s workshops soon so stay tuned!

Connect with Us

Have questions about library resources and services but not sure how to reach us? Want to make sure you get the latest updates about changing policies, upcoming library workshops, new resources, and digital tools available through the library? 

Subscribe to the Library Buzz blog to get the latest in your inbox or follow us on Twitter and Instagram @citytechlibrary.

Plagiarism can be less obvious than you think, especially in an online environment. This workshop will give you practical information and strategies to ensure your writing assignments are plagiarism-free.   

• When: Thurs, Feb 18th from 1-2 pm 
• Where: Zoom 
• RSVP: Register in advance for this workshop:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlcuisqDwiGdCAM6NjOX1bx7qOGExOV-wa After registering, a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting will be sent.   

The WAC program is happy to provide attendance lists for faculty who incentivize students for attending the workshop and require proof of attendance (when students register, they are asked to input class and professor names.) 

Faculty may request attendance lists by emailing wac@citytech.cuny.edu

Through June 30, 2021, CUNY will have access to 4 primary source JSTOR collections.

• Global Plants: high-resolution type specimens and related materials in this growing database showcases hand-selected materials and reference works from contributors around the world.
  
• Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa: Chronicles the liberation of Southern Africa and the dismantling of the Apartheid regime.
  
• World Heritage Sites: Africa: Vsual, contextual, and spatial objects in 30 sub-collections, providing documentation of African heritage sites.
  
• 19th Century British Pamphlets: nearly 26,000 pamphlets covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of the 19th century.

If you have any questions about these or other resources please contact Kimberly Abrams at kabrams@citytech.cuny.edu.

This week, I gave a guest lecture on digital privacy for about 40 students enrolled in 2 sections of an interdisciplinary Sociology course called Society, Technology, and Self. I’ve done guest lectures for this course in the past, both in person and online, and I typically assign a couple of articles for students to read in advance and start with discussion about a specific surveillance context before I dive into a workshop on the larger surveillance landscape and concrete ways we can protect our privacy online.

This semester, I decided to focus on surveillance and online education. We read and discussed a letter from the ACLU to a small-town school superintendent about surveillance and loaned devices but the conversation quickly got very personal and very meta. “I’m using a loaned device from CUNY right now. LOL,” one student posted in the chat and another responded ominously in all caps, “THEY ARE WATCHING.” Another student talked about her son’s experience in the NYC elementary schools and said that while she appreciated getting access to a loaned tablet, the school system’s use of 3rd party apps, which requires students to login and supply a lot of personal information to create accounts made her uncomfortable. 

We spent a lot of time discussing what I started calling “the 3rd party problem” and trying to unpack the layers of corporate surveillance that have seeped into public education spaces. Only one student, who had transferred to City Tech from another school, had been required to use an online proctoring platform for a test but many students cited commercial devices they had experience with like Google Nest and Alexa as similarly invasive. The difference is whether or not you have a choice, one student observed. And whether that choice is actually a choice. 

As we moved into a more general discussion about corporate surveillance in online environments and the way that our data–everything from geolocation tags and IP addresses to our faces–can be used without our consent, one student wrote in the chat: “this is terrifying.” I took that comment as a cue to move on to tools we can use–alternative browsers and plugins that disable ad-trackers and encrypted messaging apps like Signal– to protect our privacy. We also talked about the importance of advocacy and education as tools to not only protect ourselves, but to protect others as more of us work and live and learn online. I ended the session by discussing recent consumer privacy legislation in the European Union and in California that has started to, at the very least, expose some of the routine surveillance we’re subject to every time we visit a website. 

While ubiquitous digital surveillance online and the increasing use of commercial 3rd party applications in online education spaces is terrifying, I have been encouraged that more students and teachers and parents and administrators seem to be thinking and talking about privacy. During a time when many families are dealing with trauma and financial instability, more educators seem to be considering whether inflexible and expensive 3rd party technologies that are potentially causing harm and increasing anxiety, are worth the cost. As we work to create spaces for learning online that center values like care and mutual respect, a critical consideration of student privacy needs might be increasingly part of the equation.  

Digital Privacy at the City Tech Library

The City Tech Library has been conducting a privacy audit on what information about patrons are collected and how we can minimize that data to be leaked. This includes examining who has access to identifiable information. Since the library is physically inaccessible, this has given library IT staff the time to review what data is collected from our users. The library is creating policies to determine how long we keep user data and why we are keeping it in the first place. For example, library web forms give users the option to submit their names or contact information. This helps protect the users and also it prevents that information to be accessible by others. 

The library has also suspended the use of Google Analytics to track users visiting the library website and utilizes Matomo. Matomo is an open-source web analytics tool that gathers user web data. This data is used to improve the library website through user statistics. What makes Matomo a more privacy aligned tool is that the data collected is solely on the library’s web server. Google Analytics, on the other hand, collects this data to create customized advertising. 

By minimizing the collection of user data, the library is attempting to avoid surveilling users. The data collected from surveilling users can lead to inaccurate assumptions. Technology can provide insight into how people behave, yet it can be used for voluntary and involuntary nefarious purposes. This is evident in numerous news articles regarding bias in policing due to facial recognition or the use of search engine algorithms that enforce existing structures of white supremacy.  Libraries take privacy seriously, with librarians making great efforts in protecting users’ freedom of inquiry and academic curiosity. 

Learn More about Digital Privacy in Libraries and Education Environments

City Tech Library’s Privacy Guide

CUNY Libraries Privacy Statement

American Library Association: Choose Privacy Everyday

Kelley, J. (Sept. 2020). Students are pushing back against proctoring surveillance apps. Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Warner, J. (Nov. 2020). A teach-in against surveillance. Inside Higher Ed.

Watter, A. (Nov. 2020). What happens when ed tech forgets? Hack Education.

Stommel, J. (June 2020). Designing for care. jessiestommel.com.

Davidson, C. (May 2020). The single most essential requirement in designing fall online courses. hastac.org.

Now that you’ve made it through midterms, you might want to get started on that next research project, begin thinking about the semester ahead, or join us for an upcoming workshop. Here’s what’s new in the library and a few evergreen reminders.

Connecting from Off-Campus 

A reminder….

Since the library migrated to a new Library Services Platform this past summer, all faculty and students should use CUNY login credentials to login to library databases from off campus. All registered students and faculty with currently active CUNY login credentials should be able to login to use library resources. Learn more about this change and other eresource updates on the Library Buzz Blog.

Streaming Media for Classroom Use

The library has limited access to streaming films on Kanopy. Learn more about what we have available, how to request films you want to use in your courses, and what other platforms you might check out for streaming media content.

Speaking of Course materials…

Now is a great time to start planning your curriculum for the Spring 2021 semester. Since the COVID pandemic has made it harder than ever for students to access expensive textbooks, it’s a great time to consider adopting Open Educational Resources (OER) in your courses. Check out our recent blog post about OER, textbooks, and libraries for more about this topic.

Find out more about OER at City Tech and reach out to the library subject specialist for your discipline, who can help you find open and library licensed materials to use in your Spring 2021 courses. 

Upcoming Workshops 

Introduction to Zotero workshop for Faculty 

When: Dec 10th from 3-4pm

In this hands-on workshop, attendees will learn the capabilities of this powerful, free open-source reference management software program. The session covers creating an account, adding Zotero to your browser, and importing citations to generate a bibliography.

RSVP to Prof. Monica Berger 

Linkedin and Resume Writing Workshop for Students

When: Dec 2nd from 4-5pm

Make a lasting impression with a potential employer! Your resume and social media presence are the place to begin. Join us and learn how to highlight your talents and create a strong resume. Attendees will start building a professional portfolio with LinkedIn.

RSVP to Prof. Nandi Prince

Did you miss our recent workshop on Misinformation? Check out our interactive video tutorial on Evaluating Sources! 

Need Something We Don’t Have?

Interlibrary Loan is continuing to fill article and individual book chapter requests and deliver them electronically. ILL is great for scholarly research and course assignments.

Questions? Email us: interlibraryloan@citytech.cuny.edu 

Need help? Just Ask us! 

We miss seeing you at the Ask a Librarian desk but the City Tech Library still provides one-on-one research assistance for students.

Connect with City Tech librarians online:

If you miss us during these hours, you can connect to other librarians 24/7.

We can help with: research strategy, finding sources for a project, evaluating information, citations, and more! Librarians are able to screenshare during these chat session for a more interactive experience. See you in cyberspace! 

Prefer to get in touch via email? Write to us: asknycctref@cuny.libanswers.com 

Featured Eresource 

Digital Theatre+ is a new resource for the City Tech community.  It is an online platform of recorded dramatic productions. It also contains commentary to further explain the meaning behind the works. In addition, it also has detailed bibliographic entries of well-known practitioners in the field of theatre. 

Connect with Us

Have questions about library resources and services but not sure how to reach us? Want to make sure you get the latest updates about changing policies, new resources, and digital tools available through the library? Subscribe to the Library Buzz blog to get the latest in your inbox or follow us on Twitter and Instagram @citytechlibrary.