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City College Library of The City University of New York
no.78 (n.s.) Spring 2009
Focus on Two CCNY Libraries
Established in 1994, the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Library is the first and only university-based
research library in the United States dedicated to Dominicans that is open
to the general public, not just to academics. According to recent U.S. census estimates, the Dominican popula-tion in the United States is already over 1.3 mil-lion and will continue to grow in coming years. As the only collection of its kind, the CUNY DSI Library is filling a signifi-cant gap in information services to Dominicans and others studying the Dominican experience.
range from doctoral students across the United States, Europe and Latin America investigating the Washington Heights Dominican community to Dominican students from the metropolitan area searching for their ethnic/racial roots.
Since its inception, the CUNY DSI Library has successfully sponsored a variety of programs to address the needs of its diverse population. The many exhibits that the library organizes (some in collaboration with the City College Libraries) bring in people of all backgrounds for guided tours and workshops. The events are well attended by enthusiastic audiences made up of students, faculty, and community residents, bringing scholars at different stages of their careers (junior and senior) to exchange knowledge and ideas on different aspects of the Dominican
CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Library
DSI Library visit by children in PS 28 in January 2009.
The diversity of its resources enables the CUNY DSI Library to serve academics, educators, students, journalists, artists, and other community members interested in the Dominican culture. Researchers
Center for Worker Education (CWE) Library
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“I’m going to change the world if you invest in me... that is what CWE does.” Dr. Carlyle Van Thompson, a former chair of the English Department, Medgar Evers College, (CWE alum, CCNY Valedictorian, 1990).
The Center for Worker Education (CWE) is City College’s downtown campus at 25 Broadway, occupying the seventh floor of the 1921 Cunard Line Building. CWE students pass through the elegant ves-tibule of the Renaissance-style building where tickets were sold for sea passages in the pre and post WW II era.
CWE has been a full division of City College since 2006 and is an integral part
of the college’s educational philosophy, which embraces access and excellence and a commitment to serving popula-tions traditionally under represented in higher education.
CWE began over 25 years ago to pro-vide working adults the means to acquire a college education by offering evening and weekend classes. Formally estab-lished in 1981 in a pragmatic alliance among the Teamsters Local 237, City College, and the US Office of Personnel Management, CWE was absorbed into City College in 1984.
Six-hundred and fifty students are cur-rently enrolled at CWE pursuing the BA
in Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts and Sciences and the BS in Early Childhood Education. The inno-vative Autobiography and Life Experience program is offered at CWE allowing stu-dents up to 28 credits towards their BA.
Daytime slots have been added as demand grows. There is also a trend in the enrollment of both full-time and younger students. (Minimum age is still 25)
A masters program in the Study of the
Seamus O’Scanlain, CWE Librarian
2 Spring 2009
From The Desk Of The Chief Librarian
At a conference I attended recently I heard that libraries trying to “enable more Web 2.0 options” on
their web sites MUST create a customized LibX toolbar. So I made a note to inves-tigate it further, without a clue what the person was actu-ally talking about, other than being familiar with the concept of ‘tool-bar’ in relation to bookmarks and delicious. Later I went to the LibX web site, checked it out, and saw how convenient it could be for our users.
The LibX CCNY Library Toolbar is now available for download for both Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers as a truly viable alternative to the Google or Yahoo toolbar. It is a free modification for your browser that allows you to use all of the library’s resources from anywhere on the Web. Once installed, Libx CCNY stays with you wherever you go on the web and provides direct access to the library’s resources.
What can you do with LibX?• Get where you’re going faster in
your research. The LibX CCNY drop-down menu on the left gets you to Reserves, Databases A-Z, Ask A Librarian, E-Journals and more with-out having to load the library web page. Plus, in times such as we have had recently where the college web site goes down taking the library web site with it, that drop-down will still allow you to get to Reserves, Databases A-Z, Research by Subject and E-Journals because they are on a different server.
• Search CUNY+ from whatever docu-ment or site you are currently using. Just type into the search box or drag highlighted text into it and choose
a search option (author, title, etc. – keyword is the default). The search will be done in the City College cata-log, but you can change that inside CUNY+ at any time.
• Easily search Google Scholar using
the “magic button.” Just highlight text and drag it onto the button and it will search that text. Then LibX will read the results for you, determine whether the paper was found and if so, ask the OpenURL resolver for a paid-for copy, should you not have access to the copy to which Scholar links. You can use this feature even from inside a PDF, which makes retrieving papers referenced in a PDF file a snap.
• Looking into buying a book? Why not check to see if you can borrow it from the library first? Whenever you see the CCNY icon at an online bookseller like Amazon or in the Google Books project, you can click
to see our library catalog record for that item.
• Reading a good book review and want to know if we have the book? The CCNY icon will appear on many popular web pages such as The New
York Times. Just click it to see if you can check it out from the library.
• Right-click in Context: No need to cut-and-paste. On any webpage, you can highlight text and then right click it to search that text in the library catalog, E-Journals Finder, Google Scholar, and Worldcat.
Try it! Let us know how you like it.
Comments, suggestions and feedback regarding the library’s services are always welcome and should be addressed to me by calling x7271, sending email to [email protected], or by drop-ping by NAC 5/333 (Cohen Library).
Spring 2009 3
The Library SceneLibrarians in the Latin America North East Libraries Consortium (LANE) gathered for a November meeting held in the City College Library. LANE members and CCNY librarians Daisy Dominguez (2nd row, 3rd from right) and Sarah Aponte (near right) hosted.
Chief Librarian Pamela Gillespie, co-curators Professors William Gibbons and Sydney Van Nort, and Professor Emeritus Larry Nyman visit the Cohen Library Atrium exhibit, Toward Humanity and Racial Justice: The Legacy of Dr. Kenneth B. Clark. The exhibit is on view until mid-May, 2009.
CCNY Archivist Professor Sydney Van Nort and husband Professor Richard Van Nort at the opening of the Harlem 350 exhibit.
Poster for the recent Monsoon exhibit in the Archives.
(l. to r.) Monsoon exhibit co-curator Natasza Fontaine, CCNY student and Campus writer Tiffany Roma, and co-curator and CCNY alumnus Gilbert King Elisa.
4 Spring 2009
Heather Ware, CCNY art education student, is face-to-face with her 1998 Profile of an Artist, one of four works she has in the show.
The Library Scene (Continued!)
Professor Sylvia Netzer, next to her Stem Cell, 2007, curated the CCNY Women Make Art exhibit.
Elizabeth Schneiderman, CCNY staff, beside her neon installation, On Air, 2004-2008.
Staff member Barbara Johnson displays her Canvas Design in a Frame, 2008.
Poster by STIXXX, CCNY art student
Spring 2009 5
experience. These diverse groups visit the facilities throughout the year to learn more about its resources. Orientations for college classes, school children, young adults, and community members are a regular part of our work. The library has successfully kept an active presence in activities on campus and in the community, while expanding its direct contacts with the New York City
public school system through organizing professional development workshops and visiting schools to speak directly to children about the importance of books, Dominican culture, and the Dominican Library. The library contains an expandng bilingual collection on matters relating to the Dominican community. It currently holds the complete collection of all existing PhD dissertations in the U.S. dealing with Dominican matters — a unique one-site scholarly
collection not only within the United States but world wide.
As a result of the increase in the size of its collections and in its rapidly increas-ing number of users, the CUNY DSI Library gathered growing support from public institutions such as the New York City Council, whose recent $1.5 million capital
Dominican Institute Library ...continued from page 1
allocation has allowed for the archives and library’s collections to be relocated to a larger, prime space in NAC featuring a multi-use research and reference area equipped with cutting edge technol-ogy. This brand new space is now in the process of being installed for patrons’ use and enjoyment. It was architecturally designed as a combination of library and archives with a multi-functional design of its main public-use room (suitable for reg-ular researchers’ work, and also for paint-ing/image exhibiting, tele-conferencing, video-viewing and lectures). It also offers a shelving/stacks area uniquely equipped with a permanent, year-long, and self-contained temperature and humidity control system to better preserve the long-term life of bibliographical resources.
If you need any information on Dominican Studies, please contact us at 212-650-7170 or e-mail [email protected]
Sarah Aponte, Head LibrarianCUNY Dominican Studies Institute Library
Dr. Betty Anthony, at left, and her CCNY Leadership Class for teachers studying to be school administrators visit the DSI Library in January. Librarian Sarah Aponte kneels in front.
h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h
CWE Library ...continued from page 1
(Continued!)
Americas is planned. The latest pro-gram at CWE is Quest (the CCNY-CWE Community for Lifelong Learning, Inc.) for retirees and near-retirees.
The ambience at CWE provides stu-dents with cultural experiences, for example, through regular art and poster exhibitions and celebrations of student achievements, Black History Month activi-ties, and more. Students are exposed to learning outside the classroom. The highly successful Distinguished Lecture series ran during the Fall 2008 semester. Book Talk, featuring Pulitzer Prize winning authors, will run in the Fall 2009.
Dean Juan Carlos Mercado and Department Chair Harriet Alonso have developed a first-class academic and learning environment. Both full-time and adjunct faculty are committed and experienced. Individual attention is a guiding tenet at CWE. Small classes are the norm. Additional language and math instruction is offered. There is a counseling service, a writing center, and a computer lab as well as the library and a full-time librarian (appointed September 2008) to provide students with all the research resources they need.
The library at CWE has access to all the digital resources uptown (for example,
49,000 online journals offering full-text articles across 240 databases.) Because the CWE Library occupies a small space, we have to rely on CLICS, a service that enables CWE students to request books from any CUNY library. Books recently requested for pickup at CWE include Eating the Black Body (from Medgar Evers), Black Marxism (from La Guardia Community College), Making a Living in Rural Sudan (Brooklyn College), Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (Kingsborough Community College). Students know where to go now for inter-esting classes!
The library has nine new PCs and a printer and scanner. Twenty-seven PCs and a printer are available in the com-puter lab where we run library workshops on our library resources. We work closely with Robert Hernandez, the IT manager at CWE, to streamline access to the library’s digital resources.
The librarian provides students with the student-centric attention that is the guid-ing principle at CWE. Overcoming the technology barrier for some adult learners returning to college after decades away from a formal educational setting, often requires more intense support. Once they see how the library resources can
be accessed and navigated, they then become confident and self-sufficient. One of our fastest adopters of new tech-nology, however, was our oldest student who, at 85, sailed through everything we covered.
Having worked in large university librar-ies in Ireland, the UK, and CCNY’s Cohen Library, I find it satisfying to offer individu-alized support to both faculty and stu-dents on a wide variety of subjects. You can build rapport in a way that is often not feasible in larger libraries. You can watch your students flourish.
Seamus O’Scanlain, CWE Librarian [email protected]
6 Spring 2009
Are YOU Aware of These Two Exciting Online Databases??
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Enhancing research with primary resources can be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. In the First Person is a database that can help researchers sort through diaries, letters, memoirs and oral histories quickly and efficiently. Span-ning 400 years, information can be searched by date, by subject, historical event, or location. This database is useful for historians, sociologists, psy-chologists, anthropologists, or anyone interested in primary sources.
Compiling census data and using it to create a slideshow presentation is easy with Social Explorer. In this database, researchers can quickly sort through over 200 years of data, create a map, or report, and export the information into PowerPoint or a paper. Information can also be downloaded into an Excel file. The “Help” section of the database has step-by-step instructions with clear graphics on how to create, print/save, and export the information, making it easy for students to find the data they need and create sophisticated charts and maps.
Access these and more from the “Databases A - Z” link on the library’s home page: www1.ccny.cuny.edu/library/index.cfm
Shea A. Taylor, Chief of Reference
Library Receives $10,000 Grant to Digitize Free Academy Documents
The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) has awarded The City College Library a $10,000 grant to digitize historical material. The grant comes from METRO’s Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Loan Resources Sharing Program.
Professor Sydney Van Nort, CCNY’s archivist, will direct this project, “The Free Academy in New York.” Its aim is to make available online approximately 1160 pages of material gen-erated during the first two decades of City College’s exis-tence (1847-1866) when the college was known as the Free Academy. These materials, found in seven volumes of reports from the faculty to the Board of Education and other bodies, are being digitized because they document the curriculum and educational aims of the educational experiment known as the Free Academy. The Free Academy was the first entirely taxpayer-supported institution of higher learning in New York State and the nation. The grant, with a contribution from Provost Zeev Dagan’s office, enabled the library to purchase two sophisticated scanners for this project, the Zeutschel 1200C (at right) and the Bookeye 3. This project will enable greater access to primary source documents for teaching and research purposes.
Spring 2009 7
CCNY Artistic Properties Collection
Have you ever wondered about some of the works of art in the col-lege, those lovely paintings, photo-
graphs, and sculptures that you may have passed quickly by while heading to class on campus, to quiet study in the library, or just to the cafeteria? These works constitute the col-lege’s Artistic Properties Collection and their digital images are now available online with detailed information as to artist, medium, date of creation, and more.
You can examine this collection 24/7 through the digital library ARTstor, accessible via the City College Library’s home page in the “Databases A-Z” link. In addition to the college’s collection,
Between Earth and Death. Susan Morgan. Oil on wood, 1989.
the numerous other collections in ARTstor, comprising nearly a million images to date, include high quality resolutions of
works of art and architecture from museums world wide, educational institutions, and private collections. The City College art col-lection itself encompasses contemporary works acquired through the Percent for Art program, historic portraits and commissioned works, ancient artifacts and early casts, and the gifts of generous alumni,
Tulip. John Baril. Silver gelatin print, 1995.
faculty and friends of the college. It is a rich and varied collection, as the accom-panying images indicate, and now for the first time, you can enjoy seeing it at your leisure—in 1,300+ ARTstor images. Viewing is easy. On ARTstor’s opening screen, click on “go” where you have the option to register free if you wish to save images online. On the next screen you will see a list of various institutional collections including the CCNY Artistic Properties Collection. Click and take the time to explore and enjoy!
Lozenge Nude. Harold Ambellan. Brass, n.d.
Support the CCNY Libraries every time you shop atAmazon.com!
Whenever you have the urge for some e-commerce, click on the Amazon.com button located in the lower corner of the libraries’ Web site:
www1.ccny.cuny.edu/library/
8 Spring 2009
Students in Professor Adrienne Petty’s “Rebels and Reactionaries” course recently visited the Cohen Library
Archives. Their assignment: write a paper that examines a primary source docu-ment. Primary sources are used to study particular historical periods and can be objects and/or documents produced during the period under study that help historians interpret the past. Primary sources include such things as artifacts, writings, photographs, and postcards. The Cohen Library has these in abun-dance for the history of City College. The Archives collection contains primary source material going back to the 19th century.
During an earlier visit to the Cohen Library Archives in the fall of 2008, history professor Petty learned of the planned Cohen Library exhibit, Five Demands: The Student Protest and Takeover of 1969, and the Archives’ wealth of documen-tation on this topic. Forty years ago this spring, City College students staged sit-ins and presented the administration with five demands. Among these
was the demand that “the racial com-position of all entering classes reflect the Black and Puerto Rican population of the
New York City high schools.” Although the whereabouts of the original poster listing the five demands is not known, the Archives maintains a photograph of the original document.
Having decided this to be a fitting topic to explore for the “Rebels and Reactionaries” course, Professor Petty coordi-nated her class’s March 18 visit with archivists and librarians Professors William Gibbons and Sydney Van Nort. They chose 40 representative documents and photographs for students to peruse. Students selected a document that piqued their interest and would examine and expound upon its biases, ambiguities, and omissions in a short paper.
Both Professors Gibbons and Van Nort were particularly apt lecturers on this topic since they (along with Professor Philip Barnett, reference librarian at the Science/Engineering Library and Professor Judy Connorton, Chief of the Architecture Library) are co-curating the coming Five Demands Protest exhibit. (Adolfo Cuevas, City College student in the Black Male Initiative, is also a contrib-uting writer.) Samuel Sanchez, Archives Office Assistant, and Joel Rudnick, Archival Research Assistant, who helped sift through four boxes of documents pertaining to the Five Demands protest in preparation for the exhibit, were also on hand. During their visit, students asked ques-tions and engaged one another and the faculty as they reviewed their poten-tial selections. It was a pleasure to see students and faculty making use of the Archives’ rich collection. We hope many more come to visit the Archives and the upcoming exhibit, on display in the Cohen Library Atrium May 4 – July 26, 2009.
Daisy Domínguez [email protected]
Rebels and Reactionaries in the Cohen Library Archives
Professor Sydney Van Nort presenting photographs and other archival material in the Cohen Library Archives reading room.
Photograph of the “Five Demands” poster.
Professor Petty (History Department); Professor Gibbons, (Cohen Library) and Professor Van Nort (Cohen Library Archives).
Individualized Library Service: now available to all faculty….
The City College Library faculty will help you with your information needs. To contact the librarian with expertise in your subject area, please select from this list and contact that subject librarian by phone or email.
Library Exhibits/Events 2009
is published by The City College Library, The City College of New York/CUNY138th Street and Convent Avenue NY, NY 10031Editor: Professor Judy Connorton [email protected] Committee: Professors Ching-Jung Chen, Claudia Lascar, & William GibbonsProduction: Nilda Sanchez & Rodolfo LeytonISSN 0069-4215
Library Contact Information650-7271650-7609650-7155650-7611-12650-8768650-8754650-7175925-6625 x228650-7174650-8246
Chief Librarian Archives CirculationReference Architecture Architecture Visual Resources Art Visual ResourcesCenter for Worker EducationMusic Science/Engineering
Toward Humanity and Racial Justice: The Legacy of Dr. Kenneth B. ClarkJanuary 5 - April 30, 2009
Cohen Library Atrium
Harlem 350A City College Library Exhibit
Now at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Library
125th StreetThrough March 2009
CCNY Women Make ArtMarch 16, 2009 - April 3, 2009
Cohen Library Archives
In Translation–The Words of Langston Hughes
One Performance Only!Edgar Nkosi WhiteMonday, April 27, 2009
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.Cohen Library Archives
Five Demands: The Student Pro-test and Takeover of 1969
May 4 - July 24, 2009Cohen Library Atrium
July 27 - October 28, 2009
Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic
SurgeonsAn NLM/Reginald F. Lewis
Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture
ExhibitionAugust 1 - October 28, 2009
Cohen Library Atrium
Library Book Sale
Thursday, April 23
10-4
NAC Rotunda
Has it been a long day and you’d rather have an article read TO you than read it yourself ?? Then… Listen to your Research!
Listen on your computer or download to an MP3 player full-text articles found in journals in these Wilson databases:
Art Full Text, General Science, Humanities, Library, Readers Guide, and Social Sciences. Once you have your search results (limit your search to full-text only), click on the full-text HTML icon below the article’s title.
Enjoy!
Then... click
