Tag: Newsletter: Fall 2014

By Cailean Cooney
 
OneSearch is a powerful new discovery application that searches across most of the Library’s resources (including the CUNY Catalog and library databases) through a single portal. CUNY Central’s Office of Library Services made the initial beta version available in September, and we incorporated OneSearch on to our Library’s website this October.

OneSearch is a great resource with which to begin research because it searches many parts of the library collection simultaneously (we still recommend going directly to library databases for subject specific research). Since OneSearch results can be overwhelming, we’ve added a menu with the option to narrow a search exclusively by articles, print books, e-books, or media:

When viewing search results, the column on the left side of the page offers additional “facets” to narrow results by date, topic, and more:

OneSearch has many expanded features beyond the CUNY Catalog and displays if a book is available in the library very clearly. There is also a “Browse Shelf” option for perusing the stacks online:

Customizations and improvements will continue as beta development moves forward. If you encounter a bug please send feedback to the Office of Library Services by clicking the button on the bottom right corner of the OneSearch screen.
Stay tuned: at the start of the spring term, OneSearch will become a prominent fixture on the Library’s new website.
Please feel free to contact Cailean Cooney if you have any questions about OneSearch!

Interviewed by Prof. Ian Beilin

Paul Salisbury is Visiting Associate Professor in Marketing and Business Management. He is a strong advocate for library instruction as an essential part of the curriculum for all levels of study in his field. He makes sure to bring all of his classes to the Library for instruction every semester. I asked him some questions about why he believe library instruction is so important for his students.
 
IB: Please tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been teaching at City Tech? Can you tell us a little about what did you do before coming here?
 
PS: Thank you. I have been teaching at City Tech for approximately five years. Teaching is “Life 2.0” for me. I am a retired direct marketing/advertising director and data scientist. Most of my career was spent at leading direct advertising agencies or landmark New York organizations: J. Walter Thompson/Direct, Draft/FCB, Digitas, OgilvyOne, Citigroup, Conde Nast, and TIAA/CREF.
IB: Why is the library important to your teaching? What does the library offer to you and to your students?
PS: The City Tech Library is an essential resource for students and faculty. The City Tech Library business databases are a sine qua non element for the research assignments in my elective courses. The students are tasked with finding the target segments (most profitable customer groups) for selected products or services. This is a fundamental, and often challenging, project – especially when students have preconceived notions about the best customers for a particular product or service.  The clash between perceptions and reality is part of the educational experience.
Thank you for the business databases.  My students learn how to search online both efficiently and effectively.  They are overwhelmed by their search efforts using Google.
IB: What abilities do your students come away with from their library instruction sessions?
PS: By the end of the library instruction session, many of the students are beginning a productive search. You are there to help them too.  My students value your instruction.  I only hear compliments about you, and the reference librarians. You and the reference librarians are available to follow-up as well. This helps the students learn that the library is a resource, and not a task.
IB: Can you describe the value that these abilities have for your students beyond the classroom, and beyond their course of study at City Tech?
PS: The students are used to hearing me talk about the core four infrastructure of skills they need, in addition to specific career skills, for their management careers:

• Reading
• Writing
• Math
• Online Search

Each semester we arrange to have a senior industry executive visit a class. S/he will usually talk about a specific marketing project, (e.g. developing a licensing agreement between Cosmopolitan magazine and a sportswear manufacturer), and general career development issues. One regular topic is about beginning the day checking messages, then doing a search. The search is often for a project, or to maintain our expertise on a particular subject. If we develop a reputation as an expert on a subject, then we are expected to be current on the subject – both special interest material and general interest publications (e.g. The Economist, Fortune, Businessweek, and The New York Times).
IB: Is there anything you’d like to see more in City Tech Library?
PS: I would love to see access to more specialized material (e.g. in data sciences and fashion).
IB: What would you tell a colleague from another department to encourage them to bring their class to the library for an instruction session?
PS: The ability to search online, efficiently and effectively, is a career skill that we all need. The City Tech Library is a marvelous resource for this aspect of our education. The Library faculty and reference librarians are a superb combination of smart and nice – just what our students need. My students and I are here every semester. We do not earn customer loyalty points (lol), but the students always gain so much.

By Prof. Monica Berger
This is a shortened and updated version of a blog post that originally ran in the JustPublics@365, an initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Predatory publishers have always existed in various guises. Most academics are familiar with the vanity-press style monograph publishers that exist to help authors get their work into print. Even in commercial journal publishing unethical practices are not atypical (try googling “fake Elsevier journals“).  Junket-y conferences are another face of predatory publishing.
Nefarious publishers have always existed but the new twist comes with technology. Anyone can install a free publishing platform and call themselves a journal publisher. This is great but also problematic. New “gold” open access journals can be launched easily. Some open access journals charge authors article processing charges to help cover costs. This is most common in the STEM fields where authors build these fees into their grants and/or can get funding from their universities.
As in the past, there is good money to be made on the backs of desperate and/or naïve scholars rushing towards tenure and promotion. Now the process is as simple as submitting a paper online. The requirement for article processing charges may come up front, or to a scholar’s chagrin, later in the process.

Many of us first learned about predatory publishers from a New York Times piece about Jeffrey Beall, an academic librarian, and his crusade to save us from the predators by listing them on his blog. Beall’s “list” was the A to Z of what we knew about predatory publishing. And then in the fall of 2013, John Bohannon, a journalist for Science magazine caused a ruckus. He sent a deeply flawed scholarly article about a wonder drug to as many open access journals as he could identify. Many accepted the article.
Bohannon’s sting caused a firestorm, but his method was flawed. Why not also probe how many toll-access publishers would accept the article? Bohannon’s conclusions were dubious–the majority of journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals actually rejected the article and a majority on Beall’s list accepted the article. Yet in the aftermath, there has been considerable hand-wringing. The question was now:

Who is policing open access? Those creepy predatory journals are giving open access a bad name!  

In response, I recommend that everyone read “On the mark? Responses to a sting” as well as librarian Barbara Fister’s thoughtful comments on the issue.  There are also helpful organizations including OASPA, COPE, and SPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals in addition to the broader SPARC organization. DOAJ tightened inclusion standards after the sting and now offers a seal of approval. DOAJ removed at least 114 journals were removed from DOAJ after the Bohannon scandal.
How we can “police” predatory publishing? Our best efforts are based in green-lighting legitimate publishers–giving legitimate open access publishers a Good Open Access Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Beall’s “list” may be well-known but the public shaming does little to stop the mushrooming of predatory publishers and their ability to easily spin off so many new journals. There is no easy solution to ridding the scholarly ecosystem of predatory parasites.
It’s still too early to tell if DOAJ’s efforts will make a difference. We need much more public education about gold open access and how it differs entirely from predatory publishing.  Are predatory publishers just an expression of a transitional period and will they wither away as open access grows to the stage where it is widely understood and embraced?

Compiled by Prof. Monica Berger
Here are some of our recent publications and presentations:

IAN BEILIN
Presentations
“Integrating Critical Information Literacy Approaches into Library Instruction.” Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY.  25 April 2014.
“Beyond the Threshold: Conformity, Resistance and the ACLR Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education.” Barnard College, New York, NY. 31 October, 2014.
MONICA BERGER
Berger, Monica. “Tech Services on the Web: Remember the Milk; http://www. rememberthemilk com.” Technical Services Quarterly, 31:4, 414-416, (2014), DOI:10.1080/07317131.2014.943042.
Berger, Monica. “Tarnished Gold: The Tale of Bohannon, DOAJ, and the Predators.” JustPublics@365. 2014. <http://csosnowy.pressbooks.com/chapter/tarnished-gold-the-tale-of-bohannon-doaj-and-the-predators/>.
Presentations
“To Catch a Predator: How to Recognize Predatory Journals and Conferences.” CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY. 15 November 2013.
“Get Rich Fast! Understanding Predatory Journals.” Hostos Community College, Bronx, NY. 21 March 2014. Keynote address at 1^st Annual Research Day.
ANNE LEONARD
Susan E. Thomas Anne E. Leonard , (2014),”Interdisciplinary librarians: self-reported non-LIS scholarship and creative work”, Library Management, Vol. 35 Iss 8/9 pp. 547 – 557. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/LM-02-2014-0030
MAURA SMALE
Smale, M. A., and M. Regalado. (2014). Commuter students using technology. EDUCAUSE Review Online. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/commuter-students-using-technology
Edwards, C., Rosen, J., Smale, M. A., and Spevack, J. (2014). Building a place for community: City Tech’s OpenLab. Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 5. Retrieved from http://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/building-a-place-for-community/
Cohen, M., Smale, M. A., Cirasella, J., Tobar, C., and Daniels, J. (2013). Speaking As One: Supporting Open Access with Departmental Resolutions. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 2(1), eP1099. Retrieved from http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss1/3/
Presentations
Smale, M. A., and Regalado, M. (2014, June). “I like being under those rules here:” Students using the college library. Paper presented at Reinventing Libraries, Reinventing Assessment, Baruch College, New York, NY.
Smale, M. A., and Regalado, M. (2014, May). How CUNY students create and negotiate learning spaces. Paper presented at the CUNY CUE Conference, LaGuardia Community College, Queens, NY. Slides | Notes
Smale, M. A., Bisz, J., Edwards, C., and Rosen, J. (2014, January). Modding an interdisciplinary brainstorming card game: The evolution of What’s Your Game Plan? Paper presented at the CUNY Games Festival, CUNY Graduate Center, NY.
Lanclos, D., Asher, A., Gourlay, L., Jahnke, L., Regalado, M., and Smale, M. A. (2013, November). Embedded and Engaged in Higher Education: Researching Student Entanglements with Technology. Roundtable presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago. (Slides)
JUNIOR TIDAL
Tidal, J. (2014, forthcoming). Usability and the Mobile Web: A LITA Guide. Chicago: American Libraries Association, TechSource.
Tidal, J. (2014, forthcoming). Mobile Usability in Libraries. Presented at the Library Information Technology Association Forum, 2014, Albuquerque, NM.
Tidal, J. (2014). How to Be a Good Backup. Presented at the 2014 code4lib preconference session “Technology, Librarianship, and Gender: Moving the conversation forward,” Raleigh, NC.

Interviewed by Prof. Ian Beilin

IB: Before becoming Department Chair and Library Chief this semester, your title was Information Literacy (IL) and Instruction Librarian. What are some of the things you learned from your experiences in that position that you will apply to your new role?
MS: That’s a great question! The first thing that comes to my mind is flexibility. After spending a number of years out of the classroom before coming to City Tech, my position as IL and Instruction Librarian involved lots of teaching in a variety of contexts: single-session research instruction for English Composition I, advanced workshops for Honors and Emerging Scholars, the library’s three-credit course Research & Documentation for the Information Age, and faculty workshops on scholarly communications and more. My preparation for teaching has definitely improved over the years, and I’ve also learned to be more accommodating of the wide range of unplanned situations that can happen in the classroom, from technology failures to students who haven’t done the reading to questions that fall outside my personal knowledge. Increasing my flexibility has been great preparation for my new role as Chief Librarian, in which I often switch between many different kinds of tasks throughout the day or week.
I’ve also been fortunate to meet many faculty across the college in my role as IL and Instruction Librarian as I coordinated the library’s research and information literacy instruction program. I’m looking forward to ongoing collaborations with City Tech faculty in all disciplines as my library colleagues and I continue to work to support our students’ academic success.
 
IB: Can you give us a brief sketch of what your ideal City Tech Library might look like?
MS: Much of my scholarly research has involved learning more about how students do their academic work and I enjoyed bringing that experience to the library’s strategic planning committee last Spring as we developed a five-year plan for the library. It’s no secret that the library is bursting at the seams – during many weekdays every seat is filled with studying students, and we even see them sitting on the floors between the book stacks. Of course space is at a premium at City Tech, but we would value any opportunity to expand the library’s physical space for student study and research. An expansion could also allow us to offer dedicated research space for faculty.
In addition to a larger library overall, my ideal City Tech Library would include more space for students to work with technology in ways that support their research and coursework. This could take several different forms: presentation practice rooms with large screens that students could plug their laptops or devices into, laptop or other device loans for students, study areas with modular furniture that could be reconfigured for individual or group work. Plenty of electrical outlets are also a feature of my ideal library – our wired study carrels are the first to fill up with students each day.
 
IB: What do you foresee as the most immediate changes that the City Tech community can expect to see at the library over the next year?
MS: Some of the biggest changes in the library this year are in personnel. Over the summer we had several library faculty retire: in addition to Prof. Darrow Wood, our previous Chief Librarian, Information Technology Librarian Prof. Songqian Lu also retired. This Fall semester the Library’s Appointments Committee has been very focused on recruiting and hiring new faculty, which will continue into next semester when Coordinator of Reference Prof. Joan Grassano retires. We’re also hiring several new technical and support staff in the library this year.
As part of our efforts to ensure that the library meets students’ needs for academic work, this year we’re also making some small changes to the physical facility. We’ve completed a signage audit and will soon be redesigning all of the library’s signs, and are considering ways to better accommodate individual and group work, and preferences for quiet and silence.
This year Prof. Junior Tidal, our Web Services Librarian, also plans to unveil our redesigned library website. We’re all looking forward to the more user-friendly and mobile device-responsive design of the new site. We’ll also be featuring CUNY’s new discovery service – CUNY OneSearch – more prominently on the site, which makes it easier to search for books and articles in the library’s collections across multiple databases.
 
IB: What kinds of partnerships and collaborations with faculty and staff outside of the library are you interested in creating and/or nurturing?
MS: There are lots of possibilities for partnerships between library faculty and faculty and staff outside of the library. In our roles as subject specialists library faculty collaborate with faculty in other departments to strengthen collections and research instruction for students in their degree programs, and there are many opportunities to increase those collaborations. Library faculty have expertise in the evolving scholarly communications system, and we are interested in collaborating around issues of open access, publication quality, and open educational resources. As CUNY’s Office of Library Services rolls out the university-wide institutional repository next semester, City Tech library faculty look forward to working with faculty across the college to take advantage of this terrific new resource.
I’m looking forward to continuing to work with my colleagues inside and outside the library in the coming years. Thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed!