Knowledge to the Max
Max R. Traurig Library Newsletter | February 2016
Library Technology Forecast
Alison Wang
“Libraries are changing,—building creative spaces with a focus on learning and creating; engaging audiences in different ways with community and digital managers; partnering with different community organizations in new and exciting ways.”
2016 is a very exciting year to Naugatuck Valley Community College (NVCC) library. The NVCC library will work together with other Connecticut community colleges, Connecticut State Universities, and Connecticut State library to adopt the latest library technology: Library Integrated System: Alma and the Discovery Layer Primo.
Alma supports all library functions. It connects the entire suite of library operations, such as library materials selection, printed materials, digital asset, metadata, and electronic materials management, link resolution and discovery layers. Alma is capable of providing user-friendly interactions through providing highlighted available resources and tracking quality of service to patrons. Alma is a cloud-based software-as-a-Services and a platform for developing new library services.
Primo is a discovery layer that is used for Discovery and Delivery. It is a one-stop system that helps expose patrons to the richness of the NVCC library collection. Primo engages students and faculty with an up-to-date library experience and assist them to reach all the NVCC library and other CONNSCU libraries’ resources.
Now CONNSCU librarians formed an implementation functional committee that includes Library System, Technology, and Usability Committees for the new library system implementation. This is the first time that all seventeen higher education institutions in Connecticut work as a unit.
The library system implementation kick off date is on March 22, 2016. The new system will go-live on January 2017.
The NVCC library plans to feature truly cutting-edge research, services, and practices along with the strategies and technologies to support them.
New Scanner Makes Life Easier
Library patrons can now scan items with greater ease, thanks to the new ScannX Book ScanCenter! The ScannX allows for easy scanning, allowing users to choose Word, PDF, and image files in both black & white and color. Files can be sent to email, Google Docs, Dropbox, and USBs easily. Stop by the 5th floor of the Library to try it out!
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Spring Semester Spotlight Series
Jenna Barry
The Library is excited to continue the “Library Spotlight Series” this semester. Each month, librarians will be in the 5th floor walkway outside the Library’s entrance from 10:30-1:00, showcasing a different resource. We hope to capture students as they pass between classes and other campus activities, engaging them for a few brief minutes with an interactive trial and sometimes a giveaway. We have been using one of the Mondopads to not only grab people’s attention but to give them a hands-on experience with many of our resources.
January’s event was “Research within Reach: Reference Services for the Busy Student.” Students were able to use the Mondopad to try out some of our reference support services, including live chatting with a librarian, texting a librarian, scheduling a one-on-one research appointment, or following our Facebook and Twitter accounts to stay updated on Library news and events. There was a raffle prize for students who stopped by our table and tried out 3 of the 4 activities. Overall, we were able to speak with more than 60 students during this event to spread the word about the availability of research help at NVCC.
February’s Spotlight will be “Access Anywhere: An Introduction to Google Drive” on Tuesday, 2/23. We will show students how to take advantage of free cloud storage through Google to safely store their work, collaborate with others on group projects, and have access to important projects from anywhere with an internet connection. We hope to see many students stop by our station and get set up with a free account or learn some tips and tricks to make individual and group projects a breeze!
In addition to February’s event, we have two more scheduled for the remainder of the semester, as well as our 3rd “Exciting Snacks” on April 26th. Keep track of our events by checking the Library’s calendar. Registration is not required for these events, simply stop by and visit us anytime between 10:30 and 1:00 on Spotlight Days-------------------------------------------------
Library Collection Nightlight: the Lightning Bug
June Artman
The Lightning Bug http://nvcc.libguides.com/LightningBug/spring2016 is an online library item display on the library’s web site. This resource is a great way for faculty and students to discover new materials that are available in the library. We invite faculty to work in conjunction with librarians to build up the library collection in your particular subject areas. We have started to add new library materials to the Allied Health, Arts and Humanities, Digital Arts, Computer Science and Dance subject area tabs featured on the display. Please contact a librarian at http://nvcc.libanswers.com/index.php if you would like to build a specific subject area display.
The Lightning Bug online display includes new spring books that were added to the library collection. The library has added new Dance DVD’s to our collection. Faculty and students are welcome to visit our Lightning Bug online display, http://nvcc.libguides.com/LightningBug/dance to see some of the newest dance DVD’s we’ve added to our collection as well as the newest dance books we have. We have added a Shakespeare subject area tab to our online display which features new and existing books and DVD’s from our collection. In addition to this, the guide also includes Shakespeare Films on Demand. The films feature Shakespeare’s biography as well as adaptive performances of his plays. We also added a new poetry subject area tab which features the poems of Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera as well as other new poetry items in our collection.
Lastly, we are pleased to announce we now lend acoustic guitars. These are available for NVCC students to check out for one week and can be renewed for only one more week. If students are interested in borrowing one they can visit http://nvcc.libguides.com/guitars or ask the circulation staff for further information.
June Artman, E.A. | Technical Services | Room S400 | 203-596-2125 |jartman@nv.edu
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New Names, New Links, New Logo - Same Great Services
Liz Frechette
The Connecticut State Library agency that provides support to all kinds of libraries throughout the state has rebranded several services. The provider of our college research databases, formerly known as iConn is now ResearchIT CT and the link is now http://www.researchitct.org.
And now (drumroll please), the new Connecticut State Library logo:
Other rebranded services:
findIT CT (statewide library catalog)
requestIT CT (Inter-Library Loan service)
deliverIT CT (delivery of ILL items)
borrowIT CT (state-wide usage of your hometown library card)
Learn more at http://libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/
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Collaboration with Waterbury Public High Schools
John Leonetti
During the Fall 2015 semester, the librarians, in conjunction with Gear Up, partnered with 3 local high-schools to promote information literacy via interactive sessions with the students. Select students from Wilby, Kennedy, and Crosby visited the NVCC Library along with their instructors and Library Media Specialists. Students participated in interactive lessons such as "Fantasy Library" (a play on fantasy football) where points were awarded to teams based on the quality of their chosen resources. Another activity had students divide into 22 pairs. Each pair received a piece of mock research and was tasked with either summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting directly. Students then needed to add proper in-text citation form and present their work to the class.
Librarian Jenna Barry has been working with a 10th grade honors social studies class. Last fall, the class visited NVCC for a research session which involved activities to help with identifying primary sources and selecting and evaluating sources to support a claim in an argumentative essay. In January, Jenna visited Crosby High School to meet with the same class and do a lesson about the research process involving a road map called “Research Road.” The class will be making two more visits to NVCC to carry out research in our library for their spring research paper. A 9th grade teacher at Crosby has also expressed interest in collaborating with NVCC, and a series of visits for four Freshmen classes are in the planning stages.
John Leonetti went to Wilby to meet the media specialist and plan a research session during the upcoming NVCC Spring Break Week. It will involve a PowerPoint presentation on the research process and some additional help with a project on the U.S. Civil War. John suggested a collaboration on a Camtasia tutorial that can be uploaded to Youtube.
Our partnership also included the NVCC librarians going to the high school to teach another session on information literacy. Liz Frechette is acting as the liaison for Kennedy High, Jenna Barry for Crosby and John Leonetti for Wilby. We have successfully collaborated with the media-specialists at the various high schools and the most important thing is the students learned and were introduced to the services of their friendly, local community college.
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Book Reviews
Reviewed By Jaime Hammond
You may have seen the previews of the new movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, when is the last time you picked up one of Jane Austen’s novels? The Library just added a brand new, gorgeous set of reprints by Vintage Classics that you should definitely check out! (Because we know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest, we all do it…)
This winter break, I read Persuasion, one of the two Austen novels published after her death in 1817. Persuasion’s main character, Anne Elliot, is a fascinating protagonist- smart and true to herself, but with a positive energy that makes her a magnet to those around her. The story builds with suspense, but remains exciting and funny along the way.
Persuasion, along with Austen’s other books and films inspired by her work, are on display on the 5th floor of the Library. Stop by and pick one up today!
Being Mortal: medicine and what matters in the end by Atul Gawande
Reviewed By Elaine Milnor
At a recent luncheon celebrating my healthy father-in-law’s 92 birthday, he asked for our undivided attention as he ceremoniously opened a small paper bag. All ten of us watched with curiosity as Jay held up a book and said “I implore you all to read this book. It tells the story of what my life is right now, in my 90’s. If you want to know what it’s like to experience old age, like me, read this book”.
I read the book. I was blown away. Through extensive research, gripping interviews, professional experience as a physician, and personal experience with elderly relatives, Gawande – a practicing surgeon and best-selling author – has painted a fascinating, highly readable, but troubling picture of the disconnect between our medical system and the patients it serves.
The late Oliver Sacks, also a physician and best-selling author, praises the book: “We have come to medicalize aging, frailty, and death, treating them as if they were just one more clinical problem to overcome. However it is not only medicine that is needed in one’s declining years but life – a life with meaning, a life that is rich and full as possible under the circumstances. Being Mortal is not only wise and deeply moving, it is an essential and insightful book for our times.”
If you anticipate growing older, read this book. You can pick it up right here in our library!
Beautiful Wall: Poems by Ray Gonzalez
PS 3557 .O476 A6 2015
Reviewed by Jenna Barry
The magnetism of the desert landscape drew me to this collection of poems. This desert itself is featured as a main character in the poems, and its mountains, rivers, vegetation, and architecture become powerful symbols for historical events. Part 1 of the collection is focused on history and how it evidences itself in the present day desert landscape, with titles such as “Give history a chance” which speaks of killers, conquerors, and soldiers and the desert landmarks that evoke them. In “Axis,” Gonzalez writes “When a poet said the past never happens because / it is always present, the other one proclaimed the past / is in the future.” This theme is woven throughout the collection - what is the poet’s role in history? To preserve it, to rewrite it, to honor it? Parts 2 & 3 in this collection take us away from the deserts of the Southwest to various other events and locations of the American memory – a military funeral, an antique shop in Minnesota, a missile silo in North Dakota, the Newport Folk Festival – sometimes traveling alongside such legendary figures as Jack Kerouac, Pablo Neruda, or Bob Dylan. The imagery is beautiful but not without overarching themes of pain, suffering, and struggling with one’s identity.
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What is new in the library:
Jenna Barry
- World Dance DVD's Guitars
The Library staff is happy to announce the library has added new Dance DVD’s to our collection. Faculty and staff are welcome to visit our Lightning Bug online display, http://nvcc.libguides.com/LightningBug/dance to see some of the newest dance DVD’s we’ve added to our collection as well as the newest dance books we have.
Guitars
In addition, the Library is pleased to announce we now lend acoustic guitars. These are available for NVCC students to check out for one week and can be renewed for only one more week. If you are interested in borrowing one and want further information, please visit http://nvcc.libguides.com/guitars , or visit the circulation desk.
New Printers
We have new printers in the 4th and 5th floor computer labs. These printers serve as scanners and copiers as well, and pages will come out of the semester allotment. A convenient feature of these new printers is the ability to send print jobs to be held in a queue, and then released all at once on any of the system printers on campus. You can release your print jobs by typing your NetID into the screen on the front of the printer.
Quiet Study Space
There is a new quiet study space featuring carrels in the 4th floor stacks. These study carrels are located where the VHS collection was previously housed. VHS tapes have been moved across the aisle. The study carrels will be reserveble using the Library’s online room booking service that is currently used for the group study areas.
Contact Us
Email: library@nv.edu
Website: http://www.nv.edu/Academics/Library
Phone: (203) 575-8024
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nvcclibrary/
Twitter: @nvcclibrary