Category: City Tech Stories Podcast

We have released a new episode of City Tech Stories that highlights new happenings and workshops for the spring 2021 semester. Listen below!

City Tech Stories – Podcast episode 8 – What’s New Spring 2021

Transcribed by College Assistant Yu Lau

Junior: Welcome to City Tech Stories, a podcast highlighting the experiences and voices of the City Tech community. Each episode will center around a theme and include perspectives across the college. My name is Junior Tidal and I’m the web services and multimedia librarian for City Tech. This episode is about what’s new in the library in the Spring 2021 semester. First up is our new modern library system which has changed how we access library resources off campus. Faculty and students need to use our CUNY login credentials to access library databases off campus. You can use the MyLibrary account link on the library website. Students and faculty no longer need to activate their ID before logging into databases off campus either. Did you know you can change your preferred name on your CUNYFirst account? This will associate your preferred name with your library account. You can do this by logging into CUNYFirst and updating your account information. If you have other questions about checking out materials from the library while campus is closed, you can check out our frequently asked questions page on the library website.

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 St entrance of the college. Any CUNY library books, CD, DVD, or VHS that is in a case may be placed inside the book drop. If you have any other questions about returning materials at City Tech, you can email us at NYCCTcirculation, that’s all one word, @citytech.cuny.edu.

Did you know the library hosts workshops? We have a wide variety of workshops that you can attend via Zoom. The first workshop, Power Searching What You Need To Know, will be hosted on Tuesday, March 21^st at 3 pm. This workshop conducted by Professor Nandi Prince will provide tips on advance searching and how to it efficiently. We will also cover how to organize your results. Our other workshop is an APA citation workshop. This workshop will teach the importance of documenting sources when incorporating other’s research into your own. Learn the fundamentals of using the APA style, this workshop will be held on Thursday, April 8^th at 3 pm.

Do you know about ZoteroBib? ZoteroBib is a software program what will help you create a bibliography when you write. The program allows you to generate citations in popular styles when you write including APA and MLA instantly. This workshop will show our participates how to export your completed bibliography to your paper. It’ll be held on Monday, April 19^th at 4:00 PM.

Planning on doing a poster presentation? Our poster presentation will show you how to layout content and make quantitative data pop and review the best practices for ascending poster design. The poster design workshop will be held on April 20^th at 3:00 PMB.

Ever wonder what Google thinks of what kind of person you are based on the ads you see? Does Facebook accurately reflect your true self? Our library workshop called Algorithmic Autobiographies and Fictions will explore how social media platforms and search engines create identities of our digital selves. Participates will learn about search engines and social media algorithms, how to access their ad preferences for Google, Facebook, and Instagram, and then create a short story, poem, drawing or other creative product about their algorithmic self. The workshop will conclude on ways to keep your ad preferences private. It’s not necessary but highly recommended that workshop attendees have a Google, Facebook, or Instagram account. This workshop has been adapted from the work of Dr. Sophie Bishop and Dr. Tanya Camp. It will be held on Wednesday, April 21^st at 2:00 PM.

At the end of the semester, we will also have drop-in research sessions. These will be held on Monday, May 3^rd at noon and Thursday, May 6^th at 3:00 pm. We will also have an upcoming Linkedin and resume writing workshop which will be announced shortly. If you need help with your research or writing a resume, these workshops are for you.

Besides library workshops, the library also hosts open education resource workshops. These will be conducted remotely over Zoom. Part time faculty who participate will be compensated at their hourly, non-teaching adjunct rate for their time. The first workshop, Introduction to OER and the open textbook library, will be held on March 2^nd from 10:00 to 11:30 AM. Peer Review and the OER Landscape workshop will be offered on Tuesday, March 23^rd at 10 AM and Wednesday, March 24^th at 2:00 PM. This workshop will examine existing and possible approaches to peer review evaluating open educational materials and scholarly engagement around OER creation. Participates will explore some current models from the open textbook library, Merlot, and Rebus community. Participates are encouraged to bring questions and no level of familiarity with OER is required. Our creating and customizing OER workshops will be offered on two dates that include Tuesday, April 20^th from 10 AM to 11:30 AM and Wednesday April 21^st from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM. If you want to learn how to get started with customizing and creating OERs, this is the workshop for you. Participates will learn tips and best practices, platform publishing venues and ways to showcase work.

Besides workshops, the library can also support you in finding things that we may not have. You can use interlibrary loan to continue to fill article and individual book chapter requests and deliver them electronically. ILL is great for scholarly research and course assignments. Because many other libraries are closed across the country, we might not be able to fill all your requests, but we’ll try our best. If you have questions, you can email us at interlibaryloan@citytech.cuny.edu.

Besides ILL, we can also support you for your scholarly publishing. Do you need help with any aspect of scholarly publishing? Our scholarly publishing clinic is available for virtual consolations. 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, or use Academic works and citations managers and more. Office hours are by appointment, every last Thursday of each month this semester at noon via Zoom or over the phone. If you would like some consolation regarding scholarly publishing, contact Professor Monica Berger or you can email Professor Berger through the library website.

If you need further help, including research needs or any other library services, you can access the library’s 24/7 chat reference service. Go onto the library website, https://library.citytech.cuny.edu, our chat reference is available Monday through Thursday, 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and Fridays, 10:00 AM through 5:00 PM. Outside of those hours, you can connect to other librarians. We can help your research strategy, finding pop sources for your project and evaluating information, citations and more. If you’d like to get in touch via email, you can also email asknycctref@cuny.libanswers.com, that’s asknycctref@cuny.libanswers.com.

Thanks for listening to City Tech Stories. You can continue to listen to us anywhere you get your podcasts and be sure to hit the subscribe button. Thanks.