Theme 5: Library Services

Information Services has become almost wholly dependent on Internet access: when the net is down, so are the Library catalog and our thousands of dollars worth of full-text electronic resources. The move of ITS into the Library building has done much to improve the speed and reliability of Internet access; however, outages persist, creating particular problems on weekends when Information Technology Services may not be staffed to solve our problems.

"ITS has given us a contact phone and the name of a person who provides weekend support on ITS side. While I've found Randy Bowen reliable and responsible, able to solve minor problems, the major ones have to be reported to David Best. If David is not on campus at the time of event, the problem will be fixed on Monday, leaving the Library cut off from the network and the Internet for a day or two. As a solution, we thought to use a dial-up service even though this was not ideal. We are presently working to identify a reliable ISP (Internet Service Provider) which will be used to provide back-up dial-up service for the Reference and Circulation desks." Alex Rudshteyn, Associate Director for Library Systems

Still better than dial-up access (implemented in the spring 2004), soon we will have Cablevision service, reliable and rapid Internet access when either the College network is down or CUNY is experiencing problems. Appropriate wiring is being done in every network closet in the Library, allowing computers on the Reference and Circulation desks to provide access to the net independent of the College's network. This will be a bargain at about $40/month.

A beautiful new facility brings both great joy and new responsibilities. In 2002-2003, our first year in the new building, it was clear that the Library was too large and complex to be left in the hands of part-time professional staff on the weekends: we moved to a pattern in which one member of the full-time professional staff was scheduled to cover weekend hours, working alongside an adjunct. In the fall of 2003, a variety of factors caused us to look once again at weekend staffing.

With the Library's budget down $167,000 for the second year running, it was critical that we find ways to redirect existing funds to other more critical needs.

At the same time, the Library's management team became interested in further strengthening weekend services. Adding full-time professional librarians to the weekend staffing mix had been a great service boon, and we began to consider how much more solid and effective weekend service could be were there a single person responsible for the needs of the Saturday and Sunday clientele–someone who felt real ownership of the weekend services and activities.

Thus we decided to use one of the two faculty lines available for fall 2004 to recruit a weekend supervisor, someone who would work a Wednesday-Sunday schedule, not only planning and overseeing weekend services but also preparing the Library for each weekend's activities. Another member of the full-time Library faculty will work with the weekend supervisor on Saturday and Sunday, enabling us to eliminate the use of Reference adjuncts. In this way we can achieve our twin goals of redirecting staffing dollars to other purposes and strengthening weekend service.

The E-Reference Task force continued its work throughout 2003-2004; members included Beth Evans, Anthony Cucchiara, Jocelyn Berger-Barrera, James Castiglione, Emma Lee Yu, and Alex Rudshteyn. In the spring 2002 Student Technology Fee funds had been used to purchase PHP-Live software; during the 2002-03 academic year reference librarians experimented with the new software and in the fall 2003 we began to deliver service a few hours each day.

Early in the project, Beth Evans and Jocelyn Berger-Barrera wrote a training manual "BC Live! Virtual Reference Service at the Brooklyn College Library" and established a staffing schedule for the fall with select member of the ERTF covering the new service. Questions about how to establish proxy accounts were popular, with the balance of enquiries dealing subject related requests.

When Beth Evans began her part-time leave in the spring semester, James Castiglione became chair of the task force. The group was charged with identifying viable chat reference software that could replace PHP-Live, whose slowness and lack of dependability had become problematic. The service was increased from four to eight hours a day. Early in the spring semester, OCLC's Question Point (designed for library use) was identified as a promising package. Presently the Library is working with QP on a trial basis; it is anticipated that we will subscribe to this software effective fall 2004 and a promotional chat reference campaign is in preparation.

"The Library offers a variety of resources and research tools to Brooklyn College students. The Library's Web site describes the application of many of these resources and where students can go for further assistance from the Library's staff. Instructional sessions for students and coordination with the faculty on how to incorporate these resources into their courses are additional means employed by the Library to ensure students are able to utilize these valuable resources. ... Another important factor is making sure that transfer students receive the same introduction to the Library that incoming first-year students receive. This committee strongly encourages faculty to invite their department's Library research specialist into class for a demonstration and explanation of how the Library's resources may be applied in their field. The importance of information literacy cannot be understated, and it is important that the curriculum reflect this by emphasizing its inclusion across the academic disciplines." Faculty Council's Committee on the Library, Annual Report 2003-2004

"While all Library faculty participated in the instructional effort, Martha Corpus continues to make an extraordinary effort to meet the instructional needs of the students and faculty within her disciplines. Since July she has prepared and presented 166 classes to students in Education, Psychology, and Physical Education and has aggressively instructed and worked with faculty in her departments in understanding new resources and integrating Library instruction with the classroom experience." Anthony Cucchiara, Associate Librarian for Information Services & Distinctive Collections

Building on the success of last year's English I workshops, Mariana Regalado redesigned the series for the fall 2003 semester, giving classroom instructors the option to bring their classes to the Library for an hour of instruction, or to have their students participate individually in one of our many English I workshops, for which they receive certificates of attendance. Dubbed Roadmap to Research, the new series covers the rudiments of research and database searching. Each student receives a handsome booklet covering the material presented in the workshop in greater detail; these workshops are often filled to capacity.

Beyond the English I workshops, during the later pater of the fall semester and throughout intersession, Professor Regalado held several planning meetings for the spring instruction program. The spring semester started with a two-week series on searching the new CUNY+ catalog, Aleph 500. The slate of workshops included:

Start Your Research Here: Academic Search Premier Join the Quest for Scientific Answers: Science Resources at the Library All News, All the Time: Lexis-Nexis News Database The Cyber Job Seeker's Guide to Corporate Employment on the Web Desperate for Demographics: Finding Statistics

To the delight of the Reference librarians, Academic IT staff configured and installed a Smart Board for one of the Library's classrooms. The Smart Board in the multipurpose room is heavily used for presentations.

On June 8, 2004 professors Aaron Tenenbaum, Pat O'Connor, Mariana Regalado, and Barbra Higginbotham met for the first time to begin planning for course-integrated information literacy/critical thinking. Since then, Professor Regalado has called several more meetings of this small planning group.

This project is a product of the May 4 meeting of the Outcomes Assessment Steering Committee of which Professors Tenenbaum, O'Connor, and Higginbotham are members. At this meeting, the provost expressed an interest in developing a plan for integrating with the curriculum what librarians term information literacy and classroom faculty often call critical thinking. For the present, the planning group has decided to set aside modalities, instead concentrating on content. As a member of the College committee working on the revision of the Core curriculum, Professor Tenenbaum is well-positioned to bring the group's thinking to this group.

The new Library continues to generate a demand for tours. The fall season began August 27th when tours were offered for new faculty members; the following day, we conducted tours for incoming Brooklyn College freshmen and forty students from Bushwick High School's New Vision program. Beyond special tours of this sort, Jocelyn Berger-Barrera established a regular schedule (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:00 PM) which ran between September 9 and October 30. Ms. Berger-Barrera has put together a self-guided tour for which a handout is available at the Circulation and Information Services desks. She herself gave many tours, as did reference librarian Emma Lee Yu and many other Library faculty and staff.