For Spring 2021, we’re introducing new, shorter workshops introducing attendees to useful tools that help us document the impact of our research, boost our presence, or help manage our writing process. Our first express workshop was on the ORCID author identifier on March 11 and the workshop slides are available online.
Google Scholar Profile (Express Workshop) April 6, 3-3:30 PM Google Scholar Profiles provide an easy way for you to showcase your individual scholarship and, more importantly, easily examine who is citing your work and find citation counts. Registration Freely Available Scholarly Metrics (Express Workshop) April 7, 4-4:30 PM Covers Google Scholar Profile for citations and Google Scholar for journal rankings, Scimago for journal rankings, Altmetric Attention Scores for social media, and download reports from Academic Works (and other repositories). We’ll also touch on finding individual journal acceptance rates as well as Journal Impact Factors. Registration
Zotero Basics April 26, 2-3 PM Attendees will learn the capabilities of this powerful, free open-source reference management software program. The session covers the functionalities of the Zotero client, adding the Zotero plugin to your browser, and importing citations to generate a bibliography. To maximize our workshop time, please download Zotero from https://www.zotero.org and create your username and password in the Zotero client software by going to EDIT > PREFERENCES > >SYNC Registration
Demystifying Academic Works (Express Workshop) May 4, 3-3:30 PM What is Academic Works and how does it benefit you as a scholar? You will learn more about how and why publishers allow you to contribute to Academic Works and the many benefits to sharing your scholarship openly to you, your students, and the public. Registration
Zotero Basics May 11, 3-4 PM Attendees will learn the capabilities of this powerful, free open-source reference management software program. The session covers the functionalities of the Zotero client, adding the Zotero plugin to your browser, and importing citations to generate a bibliography. To maximize our workshop time, please download Zotero from https://www.zotero.org and create your username and password in the Zotero client software by going to EDIT > PREFERENCES > >SYNC Registration
Avoiding Predatory Journals and Conferences (Faculty Commons, Faculty Fridays) May 14 12-1 PM Predatory journals and conferences are a hot topic but frequently misunderstood. We’ll debunk some myths and learn more about predatory journal and conference characteristics as well as how to thoughtfully evaluate a journal or conference before submitting. This workshop will include hands-on activities. Registration
Our Scholarly Publishing Clinic is available on-demand and during our office hour at 12 PM every last Thursday of the month. We provide one-on-one consultations as well as workshops that fit your schedule.
Loaning materials to patrons is a fundamental role of any library. The current COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent need for libraries to find new ways of providing access to their collections. With many libraries now closed, patron demand for digital materials is higher than ever. As a result, many libraries have turned to Controlled Digital Lending in order to provide materials that their communities cannot access in any other way.
City Tech Library is one of 18 CUNY libraries partnering with the Open Library, a project of the Internet Archive, to provide Controlled Digital Lending access to our collections. Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) is the digital equivalent of traditional library lending. Under CDL, libraries own physical materials but make them available as digital copies. Libraries can digitize their books and lend out digital versions in place of print items. CDL has three core principles:
A library must own a legal copy of the physical book.
The library must maintain an “owned to loaned” ratio, lending no more copies than it legally owns.
The library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed.
The “fair use” section of copyright law allows libraries to responsibly lend materials through CDL. As long as the terms of loans are limited, and digitized books are locked so borrowers can’t download or otherwise copy them, libraries using CDL are within the boundaries of the law.
Michelle Wu, an attorney and law librarian, developed the concept of CDL. Her model of CDL had several goals, including:
Making print materials easier to discover;
Providing more efficient delivery of library resources;
Creating digital formats that are more accessible to those with disabilities; and/or
Preserving and protecting library collections, providing access to materials during natural disasters, severe weather, and health emergencies.
This short video is a fantastic explanation of CDL.
Open Library
Eighteen CUNY libraries, including City Tech, have partnered with the Open Library, a book digitization project of the Internet Archive that provides access to millions of books. Over 770,000 print books in CUNY collections across are now linked in OneSearch to electronic versions freely available in the Open Library.
Once you create a free account, you may borrow up to ten books at a time for browsing (1 hour) or borrowing (14 days). To borrow materials, please register for an account at: http://openlibrary.org/account/create and then go directly to the Borrowing landing page at http://openlibrary.org/borrow.
Titles that are available will have the “Read in Browser” link, where users can borrow, download, and read in a variety of formats such as BookReader, Adobe Digital Editions, PDF, text, ePub, and Kindle editions. Most ebook reading platforms are available online for free download. Books with a lock icon are available to persons who are blind or with vision loss.
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 21st 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 8th 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 19th 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 20th 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 21st 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 3rd at noon and Thursday, May 6th 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 2nd from 10:00 to 11:30 AM. Peer Review and the OER Landscape workshop will be offered on Tuesday, March 23rd at 10 AM and Wednesday, March 24th 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 20th from 10 AM to 11:30 AM and Wednesday April 21st 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.
As a bookend to the library’s post on our Black foodways book collection, and this February’s African American Studies Department event on food justice with Tanya Denise Fields, we would like to highlight our books with a culinary focus. These books celebrate Black cuisines and chefs, explore the history and sociology of traditional dishes, and provide contemporary interpretations of classic recipes. Some of these books were purchased to support Emilie Boone’s interdisciplinary course, The Visual Culture & Art of African Diaspora Foodways.
As subject liaison for Hospitality Management, I keep an eye out for new books about and by Black chefs or related to Black food studies. Here’s a selection of some of our books in our collection (these are hard copy books, not ebooks). We look forward to preparing a future book display on this theme.
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!
Power Searching: what you need to know
Are you spending hours at your computer trying to find sources? Join us to maximize your searches! This workshop will provide tips to do advance searching and do it efficiently. We will also cover how to organize your results.
When: Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Audience: Students, Faculty, and Staff
Conducted by: Prof. Nandi Prince
APA Citation Workshop
This workshop teaches the importance of documenting sources when incorporating other’s research into your own. Learn the fundamentals of using the APA style.
When: Thursday, April 8, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Audience: students
Conducted by Prof. Nandi Prince
Use ZoteroBib to Create Your Reference List Quickly
Need a refresher on how to create a bibliography when you write? We can help. Learn how to export your completed bibliography to your paper. ZoteroBib generates citations and build a bibliography list in any of the popular styles, including APA and MLA instantly.
When: Monday, April 19, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Audience: Students
Conducted by: Prof. Nandi Prince
Poster Design
Are you planning to do a poster presentation? Join us for this workshop to learn how to design an impactful poster! In this one-hour interactive workshop, learn how to layout your content, make your quantitative data pop, and review the best practices for a stunning poster design by judging existing posters. Finally, have an opportunity to work on your poster and get feedback.
When: April 20, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Audience: Students
Conducted by: Prof. Nandi Prince
Algorithmic Autobiographies and Fictions Library Workshop
Ever wonder what Google thinks of what kind of person you are based on the ads you see? Does Facebook accurately reflects your true self? This library workshop explores how social media platforms and search engines create identities of our digital selves. Participants will learn about search engine and social media algorithms, how to access their ad preferences for Google, Facebook, and Instagram, and will 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 is not necessary, but it is highly encouraged that workshop attendees have a Google, Facebook, or Instagram account.
*This workshop has been adapted from the work of Dr. Sophie Bishop (King’s College, London) and Dr. Tanya Kant (University of Sussex).
When: Wednesday, April 21, 2021, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Audience: Students, Faculty, & Staff
Conducted by: Prof. Junior Tidal
LinkedIn and Resume Writing Workshop
Make a lasting impression with a potential employer. Your resume and social media presence are the place to begin. Join us to see how you can get the most from the work experience you already have and convey it. Highlight your talents and what you have accomplished already to create a strong resume. Build the beginnings of a professional portfolio with LinkedIn.
When: Date TBD
Audience: Students
Conducted by Profs: Keith Muchowski and Nandi Prince
Research Help for your Paper: Drop-in sessions
Are you looking for research help with that final paper or assignment of the semester? If so, join us on these dates for our special drop-in sessions.
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.
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!
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 TechStories 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!
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?
The African American Studies (AFR) Department at CityTech presents a virtual exhibit to celebrate Black History Month, entitled Black Lives Lead: We, Too, Sing America! See the exhibit below. (Transcript forthcoming).
Dr. Yelena Bailey, AFR Adjunct, is the author of the newly published How the Streets Were Made (UNC Press). Join Dr. Bailey as she uses historical and contemporary photographs to examine the creation of “the streets” not just as a physical, racialized space produced by segregationist policies, but also as a sociocultural entity that continues to shape our understanding of Blackness in America.
Transcript
2021 Black History Month Virtual Exhibit, Black Lives Lead: We, Too, Sing America! Transcribed by College Assistant Yu Lau
My name is Dr. Yelena Bailey and I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share a little bit with you about my book project How the Streets Were Made: Housing Segregation and Black Life in America. I want to thank the Department of African American Studies for making this possible and extending the invitation. I also want to thank the City Tech library for cosponsoring this event. You’re going to hear me, um, do a voice over and show you some images of kind of Black urban space in my hometown of Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.
Many of you will be familiar, um, with the Twin Cities that were in the news this past year with the murder of George Floyd and I think that, um, those events are closely tied to my book and the main ideas there. So I am going to walk through some of that and then I am also going to share with you the ways in which one of the authors I talk about in the book, Ann Petry, shows us that these places can also be spaces of liberation and empowerment.
Soon after musician Nipsey Hussle was murdered on March 31, 2019, social media was flooded with the reactions of Black artists, authors, and activists mourning his death. In the wake of this loss, writer and creative strategist Duanecia Evans tweeted, “The hood is a construct. The deepest underbelly of survival and poverty. The science project of classism and elitism. If you get out you have survivors’ guilt forever, if you stay in… man. Ain’t no middle.” This description of the hood or the streets is something more than physical geography is the heart of this book.
How the Streets Were Made examines the streets as a sociocultural construct that stems from the U.S. geographic segregation and continues to define the contours of Blackness and belonging in the U.S. today. This notion of the streets resonates with me on a personal level. Although I did not grow up in the streets, I was raised by a mother whose parenting was in no small way shaped by her determination to keep me from them.
My mother spent most of her childhood in the projects of North Minneapolis. She is intimately familiar with the streets and the threats they pose to Black life. She’s equally familiar with the way such spaces foster community and belonging. Although my mother made it out of the hood, throughout my childhood she was painfully aware of just how little separated us from that life. This awareness created a ferocious determination in her.
Although we did not have much money, she was resolved to keep me from the fate of other poor Black folks. This often meant moving us from place to place, actively fighting against the social, economic, and cultural forces that attempted to corral us back into poor urban neighborhoods. Even we lived in the projects, my mother moved us across town just so we could get into one of the few available suburban public housing projects. We may have been poor; she would be damned if I didn’t get a middle-class education. When those housing and school opportunity ran out, my mother was willing to relocate to another suburb or another area of the city. I say this not to exalt her as an example of exceptional perseverance but rather to highlight the way the streets, even in their strict absence, radically shaped my childhood.
My mother accepted a life of transience just so her daughter could have a shot at a decent education and a childhood free from the violence of the streets. Reflecting on my own experience has helped me to recognize the streets as much more than a physical space.
How the Streets Were Made explains why racialized spaces like the streets exist and why it is that urban and ghetto most often signify Black. The streets have shaped perceptions of Black identity, community, violence, spending habits, and belonging. They produce myths about urban Black pathology, financial irresponsibility, and inherent violence. These myths have fielded the economic and social divestment of Black communities as well as a boarder divestment from Blackness as a part of U.S. identity. How the Streets Were Made explores these topics as well as how we might approach the topic of redress in a practical and robust way.
While How the Streets Were Made explores the history of geographic segregation and how that lead to narratives that negatively impact Black life, often reinforcing economic disparities, it is also a book about how Black people have fought against these forces and how racism takes place. George Lipsitz argues that people who do not control physical places often construct discursive space as sites of agency, affiliation, and imagination. In the case of Black urban inhabitance, literature became one of the primary means through which Black intellectuals constructed these discursive spaces. While government policies, economic rationales, and marketing campaign worked to create a derogatory narrative around urban Blackness, Black authors were simultaneously wrestling with the cultural and ideological impact of living in racialized urban spaces.
In chapter two of my book, I analyze Ann Petry’s The Street, a novel that exemplifies the way the streets have been depicted and theorized in African American literature. Ann Petry published The Street in 1946, just twelve years after the National Housing Act was established. Set in 1944 Harlem, the novel follows the journey of the protagonist, Lutie Johnson, as she attempts to build a life for herself and her son Bub. Lutie migrated to Harlem after her marriage fell apart.
Determined to work her way up the social ladder, Lutie pursues a number of careers all while her son Bub finds himself alone on the streets. The novel is a tragedy that highlights the specific impact the streets have on Black familial relationships and the pursuit of the American dream. More relevant, however, is the way Petry works to narrate the transformation of A street, 116th in Harlem, from the figurative representation of everyday life in Black spaces in a menacing sociocultural entity, The street. Despite the harsh realities of the streets, depicted in the novel, they are also depicted as a safe space where Black people build community and live free from the constricting gaze of White supremacy. There is a moment in the novel when the protagonist, Lutie, is returning to Harlem after working in another part of the city and she expresses the sentiment in a clear nuanced way.
Rather than summarize it, I’ll read a short excerpt because Petry’s skill as an author is highlighted here and is a primary example of what I mean when I say that Black authors were using their writing to claim space. The book narrates that Lutie got off the train, thinking that she never really felt human until she reached Harlem and thus, got away from the hostility in the eyes of the White women who stared at her on the downtown streets and in the subway, escaped from the openly appraising looks of the White men whose eyes seem to go through her clothing to her long brown legs. These other folks felt the same way, she thought, that once they are freed from the contempt in the eyes of the downtown world, they instantly become individuals. Up here, they are no longer creatures labeled simply colored and therefore, alike. She noticed that once the crowd walked the length of the platform and started up the stairs towards the street, it expanded in size. The same people who had made themselves small on the train, even on the platform, suddenly grew so large, they could hardly get up the stairs to the street together. She reached the street at the very end of the crowd and stood watching them as they scattered in all directions, laughing and talking to each other. This is a powerful moment, both within the text and outside of it. In the novel, this realization stands in stark contrast to Lutie’s fears for her son, the dark dank apartment she lives in, and the harassment she receives on a daily basis as a Black woman. Harlem becomes a safe space where she is free to be herself and to feel fully human.
Outside of the novel, Petry uses Lutie’s realization to reclaim Black space, even space that was initially created through anti-Black policies. She writes these spaces as fostering community and freedom. This passage in Petry’s novel reminds me of the chant “Whose street, Our street.’’ When Black protesters make this statement, it’s a bold reclaiming of power over the space we live in.
In her book Demonic Grounds, Catherine McKittrick says that Black matters are spatial matters in that we produce space, reproduce its meanings, and we work very hard to make geography what it is. When we look at Black organizers today and the protests that take place in the streets, this is a prime example of giving space meaning, of turning the streets into a space of liberation.
Did you know that there’s a preprint repository just for engineering? IEEE has launched TechRxiv, a preprint service for engineering. Authors in many disciplines uses preprint repositories to share early, pre-submission versions of their articles in order to 1) get feedback from other researchers in the same area and/or 2) stake their claim on their research publicly.
Physicists routinely put their work in their preprint repository, arXiv. They also avidly follow new content in arXiv in their specialities as well. arXiv includes computer science, electrical engineering, and other engineering areas. engrXiv is another major preprint service for engineering. Accordingly, you might find these sites current awareness since they allow browsing by engineering speciality.
The Professional Development Center (PDC) helps City Tech students and alumni cultivate essential skills for achieving their personal and professional objectives. During Spring 2021, PDC is offering Front Desk Appointments, Virtual Drop-in Hours, and many other services including the Four Year Road Map.
During Front Desk Appointments, Ms. Contreras can help students and alumni with questions relating to professional development. City Tech students and alumni can:
Ask general questions relating to professional development and career services
Receive assistance with CityTechConnect – Symplicity or resetting your password
Access drop-in hours for with a Program Coordinator
Receive information about upcoming virtual events and workshops.
PDC’s Virtual Drop-in Hours are conducted via Zoom, on a first-come, first served basis. Sessions are 15 minutes in length. Counselors are available to talk about:
One-on-One Career Coaching
Resume and Cover Letter Critiques
Interview Preparation and Mock Interviews
Professional Development Workshops
Networking Events
Internship Opportunities
Employer Information Sessions
Graduate School Exploration.
Finally, PDC’s Four-Year Road Map offers recommendations for you to begin learning and exploring your interest and building a path to career achievement. Counselors can work with students as early as their freshman year.
If you are interested in any of the above services, please contact the Professional Development Center at 718-260-5050 or via email at pdc@citytech.cuny.edu.
The themes of food justice and activism have been in the forefront of public consciousness as we live through a pandemic. Our recent virtual exhibit, Sustainability & Self Determined Food Systems, examined the intersection of food justice and Black Power, and featured people rebuilding relationships to the land and reimagining food systems.
This Black History Month, our African American Studies department hosted a virtual event with similar themes. Environmental and food justice activist, Tanya Denise Fields’ conversation with City Tech’s Dr. Emilie Boone called to mind the library’s collection of texts related to Black foodways. We have been steady in our intention to acquire newly published works by Black authors as well as those about to Black culture. We are also fortunate to have many important out-of-print or difficult to find texts in our collection.
Though we are currently away from campus, please enjoy this selection of titles.
