This Month in the Agenda – January 2000

IRIS Offline

Welcome to the new millennium! I hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the holiday and celebrate in style. The holiday break really flew by, and now we’re at the beginning of the new semester. As you all well know, this wasn’t a time for rest. Our systems staff were totally immersed in providing a critical upgrade of SIRSI software and loading our authority records. This was a massive undertaking that required a tremendous amount of work on the part of many in TAS. Because access to IRIS functions are an integral part of all our work, even those of you not directly involved with the upgrade and systems work were directly impacted by this project. The unavailability of IRIS meant a lot of work-arounds and the delay of many important front-line support activities. Our users, too, felt the absence of IRIS and the impact that had on their research and instructional plans.

The Agenda 22, no. 2 (January 23, 2000)

Talking Internet Ethics

An article co-authored by Robeson Library’s Julie Still and Vib Kassabian, “The Mole’s Dilemma: Ethical Aspects of Public Internet Access in Academic Libraries,” has been published in v.4 #3 of Internet Reference Services Quarterly (pp. 7-22). The article discusses some of the ethical and legal aspects of allowing the general public free and unlimited Internet access. The authors note that denying the public access can be equally problematic, especially at publicly funded institutions.

The Agenda 22, no. 2 (January 23, 2000)

Happy Birthday NJEDL

There’s a wealth of information “out there” on the environment in New Jersey, produced by a variety of agencies, organizations, scientists, and public individuals throughout the state. The challenge is finding, and bringing together, all the relevant sources when a comprehensive answer to a specific question is needed.

A new project, led by two Rutgers librarians, will address that perplexing dilemma. The two librarians, Linda Langschied and Ronald Jantz of the New Brunswick Libraries of Rutgers University, will employ their professional expertise and the considerable computer resources of the Scholarly Communication Center in Alexander Library to build the New Jersey Environmental Digital Library. This project was recently endorsed by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s Geographic Information System (GIS) division which made a grant in support of the project – for a total of $92, 543.

The Agenda 22, no. 2 (January 23, 2000)

Welcome – and Congrats!

Arrivals

  • Zohreh Bonianian, Library Assistant II, ALEX
  • Jessica Cintron, Library Assistant III, ROBESON

Promotions

  • Anne Butman, Systems Programmer IV, TAS
  • Clark Sho Nakagama, Microcomputer Analyst, TAS
  • Jeffrey Teichmann, Library Supervisor II, LSM
  • Robert Terrio, Library Associate II, TAS

The Agenda 22, no. 2 (January 23, 2000)

Matt Badessa