Category: General News

 

The City Tech Library organized a faculty tour of the PVH Heritage Brands archives, home to the design history of premier fashion labels Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. The PVH Archives provides an example of collections that are deeply engaged with their user community, who are primarily the designers who rely on this material for research and creative inspiration. Everything about how the archive is set up and how collections are arranged and stored is geared towards the type of access their users need: for product development research and more.

The Business and Technology of Fashion program at City Tech does not, strictly speaking, teach fashion design. However, it is the goal of the program to prepare students for careers in fashion and to that end, every effort is made to provide them with a well-rounded baseline which includes knowledge of art history, design & textiles taken alongside courses in Fashion Forecasting, Social Media & International Retailing.

To support these goals, the BOF program recently opened a Textile Lab which provides an opportunity to incorporate hand skill learning in a classroom setting. The library supports teaching and learning goals through acquisition of print materials and databases like Fashion & Race, and now through connecting faculty with fashion institutions like PVH. Listening to the Tommy Hilfiger archivist explain how specific materials are arranged in order to support research and help current designers understand the history of the company illustrated how much can be learned by interacting directly with archival collections.

The archivists and historians there were so encouraging and welcoming as they shared information not only about the archive and holdings, but also about their career paths and work with fashion history.

We ended our time there with offers to arrange class visits to the archives for our students as well as for the archivists to visit us on campus to impart their knowledge on how one might land one of these coveted career opportunities. These connections will be invaluable as we shepherd our students through the transition from student life to work life.

This coming Sunday, December 17, is the final day to see “Americans and the Holocaust,” the 1100-square-foot exhibit that has been on view in New York City College of Technology’s Academic Building this semester. The exhibit is free and open to the public from 10:00-2:00 on the 17th. For more information, click here.

 

Please join us tomorrow for the final public event for the “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibit. Annie Rothstein Segan, director of the Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project, will be showing and discussing images taken by renowned photographer Arthur Rothstein in China in 1946 for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRAA). The event runs from 2:30-4:00 and is free. After the presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to see the exhibit itself. For more information, including how to register, please click here.

(image by Arthur Rothstein taken in China in 1946 and courtesy of the Library of Congress)

 

This week the Ursula C. Schwerin Library continues hosting and co-hosting a number of events related to the “Americans and the Holocaust” traveling exhibition. These include a virtual event via Zoom at 6:00 pm on Monday, December 4 about the 1938 Evian Conference; a virtual Zoom conversation with a scholar of immigration and his students at 10:00 am on Tuesday, December 5; and an in-person event on Thursday, December 7 at 11:30 on the Nazis and Ku Klux Klan in New York City and State. To register, please click here.

Material Connexion is a database that the City Tech Library provides access to. You can get started at cityte.ch/mcx or by searching for it on the A-Z Database list.

By searching Material Connexion, you can learn about the properties of various types of materials and search for physical materials using filters like their sustainability, impact resistance, availability, and processing. They’ve just redesigned their database interface, so it’s worth checking out!

After searching and filtering from the main page of the database, selecting a result will open a pop up where you can click to “learn more”:

When you open the full result for a type of material, you can explore more details about its properties, processing, and sustainability. You can also check out more images of the material. Information provided for these search results comes straight from the manufacturer or supplier.

Questions? Feel free to ask a librarian!

Image: National Public Radio logo, ™/®National Public Radio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Did you know that, in addition to thousands of full-text literary sources and associated reference material, Gale Literature Resource Center provides access to an audio archive from NPR. Head over to http://cityte.ch/gls to begin exploring; if you’re off campus, you’ll be asked to first use your CUNY login before accessing the database.

Search the main search box for “national public radio” to start browsing:

Or, head to the advanced search page and search “national public radio” in the Publisher field:

Your results can be filtered by topic, or you’ll have an opportunity to search within these results:

Or, use the following links to arrive straight at the recording archive of a few notable NPR shows; these links will also require that you sign in with your CUNY login if you’re off campus:

All Things Considered, 1999 to the present 

Talk of the Nation, 1996 – 2013 

Fresh Air, 2009 to the present 

Weekend Edition on Saturday and Sunday (2000 to the present) 

Happy listening!

Did you know that City Tech library subscribes to current magazines? These are available for use during library open hours; read more on the library website about how to access these at our Periodicals Desk.

What’s available for you to read? 

Anyone with a City Tech ID can access these magazines, but they’ll be most relevant to students in law & paralegal studies, dental hygiene & restorative dentistry, and vision care technology. We currently subscribe to:

• Journal of Dental Technology
• Journal of Periodontology
• Clinical Advances in Periodontics
• 20/20
• Eyecare Business
• Facts & Findings: the official publication of the National Association of Legal Assistants
• National Paralegal Reporter

Do you have questions about finding current magazines to read? Ask a librarian!

Every year, the American Libraries Association celebrates Banned Books Week to promote reading and intellectual freedom. This year’s theme is “Let Freedom Read.”

Banned Books Week brings together librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types in shared support of the freedom to publish, read, and express ideas, even those some consider taboo.

By focusing on efforts across the country to restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted for removal in libraries and schools.

In our current climate of political polarization, librarians are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago.  Of the record 2,571 unique titles targeted for censorship, most were by or about LGBTQ+ persons and Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Celebrate Banned Books Week with the City Tech Library. Exercise your reading rights and check out a banned book! We have many “banned books” in our collection, and a librarian can help you find one.

I’m happy to announce that after a year-plus of research, discussion, interviewing, surveying, data analysis, writing, and editing, the City Tech Library has produced its 2023-2026 Strategic Plan. The plan helps us make decisions, set priorities, and ensure that the library is growing in alignment with the College’s own Strategic Plan and the CUNY Strategic Roadmap.

Many thanks to the Strategic Plan Working Group: Prof. Nanette Johnson, Prof. Kel Karpinski, Prof. Junior Tidal, Library Admin Specialist Suraya Choudhury. Special thanks to data analyst Andrea Espinoza Melillo!

Feedback or suggestions? Please comment below, or email us with a comment.

Anne Leonard, Interim Chief Librarian & Library Department Chair