Quick Takes on Events & News – July 2016

Critical Thinking & Creative Decision Making

July 15. 2016
9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
This course is ideal for staff, managers, supervisors, and administrators who recognize the need to improve their ability to generate ideas, see old ideas in new light, and make decisions that are innovative yet founded on strong grounds.

Location:  Pane Room, 1st floor, Alexander Library with teleconference to Smith Library, Dana Library and Robeson Library

RSVP: Erica Parin on behalf of the Professional Development Committee

Leading Staff through Change & Transition

July 21. 2016
9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
This course is ideal for managers, supervisors, and administrators who are experiencing departmental change and would like insight, guidance, models, and tools to assist them in moving their departments forward.

Location:  Pane Room, 1st floor, Alexander Library

RSVP: Erica Parin on behalf of the Professional Development Committee

Digital Humanities Summer Institute

Bart Everts attended the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC June 12-16th and participated in a week-long workshop titled Critical Pedagogy and Digital Praxis in the Humanities. The workshop “built an open course as a playground, letting participants experiment with critical digital pedagogy in a class-created online course that [they] co-designed, built, deployed, promoted, and assessed.” Learn more at the website they designed: http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/dhsi2016/.

Dana Library Media Services Department Restructure

The Dana Media Services department is transitioning from its location on the fourth to better concentrate on how today’s students access physical and online media. Photograph by Ed Berger.

Photograph by Ed Berger.

The fourth floor Dana Library Media Services Department is being restructured in recognition of how the library’s patrons access sound and video for education and entertainment. The transition will be completed by August 1 well in advance of the fall semester.

Patrons will find a selection of some 1,700 DVDs, VHS tapes, and audio CDs currently available from Media Services publicly accessible on the lower level of the library, where the journals and bound periodicals are housed. Faculty requests to purchase new titles to support their teaching will continue to come through Dana’s department liaison librarians.

Congratulations to Our Colleagues Who Worked on an Award-Winning Book!

Rutgers: A 250th Anniversary Portrait received the Gold Award in the Circle of Excellence Awards given by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).Many of our Libraries’ colleagues contributed to the success of this book: University archivist Tom Frusciano served as one of the primary authors, co-authoring the opening chapter on “History and Politics,” with GSE professor Benjamin Justice, constructing the extensive historical “Timeline” that appears in the back of the book, and writing—in partnership with archival associate Erika Gorder—many, many photo captions. This was a true group effort with dozens of contributors, including Gorder on musical concerts at Rutgers, archivist Fernanda Perrone on the activities of visiting Japanese students at Rutgers in the 1870s, David Fowler, an independent researcher with close ties to Special Collections and University Archives, on the life and impact of Henry Rutgers, and former university librarian Marianne Gaunt on, of course, the libraries themselves! Lastly, former associate director of the Institute of Jazz Studies Ed Berger contributed many photographs.

Custom Buttons Now Available from the Communications Department

Sample buttons v2

Custom buttons are now available from the Communications Department.

The Communications Department recently purchased a custom button maker and we are happy to now make buttons available to all of our colleagues for events or outreach activities. These 1.5 inch buttons feature a glossy, professional-quality finish and the designs can be customized to suit your needs. We are currently piloting a small “See You @ the Library” campaign for New Student Orientations in New Brunswick and welcome ideas for other ways to take advantage of this new equipment. Please contact us with project ideas or to request a sample.

Jessica Pellien