California Academic and Research Libraries
California Academic and Research Libraries
Table of Contents .
 
June 2011 Newsletter (Volume 34, Issue 2) rss

President's Musings

"My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid."
Joan Bauer, Rules of the Road

Librarian Fame

NedFielden
Ned Fielden

How many famous librarians can you name? Except perhaps for Melvil Dewey, how many of those names stand any chance of being recognized outside of the field of librarianship? If you asked your neighbor, or the guy at the busstop, to name a heavyweight librarian, past or present, would they be stumped? Many of those famous names that had the role of “librarian” attached to them at one stage or another of their careers achieved their fame not for their library work. Often they took the position for patronage purposes (Leibniz, for the Duke of Brunswick), or even the reverse, if they needed an archive to do their own research and didn’t want to utilize the normal patronage relationship necessary for intellectual work before the 19th century (Hume.) They may have needed extra funds since their standard university teaching salaries were so paltry (Kant), and only occasionally because their interests coincided strongly with the trajectories of librarian values (Goethe.) Or they were renowned for their fiction (Borges)or other literary work (Archibald MacLeish.) Classicists would recognize the name of Callimachus, not so much for his presiding over the Alexandrian library, but for his poetry. Rarely have non-librarians heard of Gesner or Heyne at Göttingen. Theoreticians and practitioners in our field, from Ranganathan to Gorman just plain are not well known outside hard-core librarian circles. And we haven’t even gotten to Famous Female Librarians, an even rarer avis. Marcia Bates, Karen Drabenstott, Diane Kovacs, Karen Coyle or Joan Lippincott won’t be household names many places. More of the world, if posed the question of “name a famous female librarian” might come up with Parker Posey from her role in Party Girl perhaps, or Marian the Librarian from The Music Man. This is where we are folks. It is a mark of progress at least that the directors of both the Cambridge and Oxford university libraries, for the first time in each case, are female.

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

We have a profession with a low profile, something which most of us, most of the time, prefer. We often like working behind the scenes, not calling attention to ourselves, and the enduring values of the profession include service, privacy, and confidentiality, so perhaps it is no surprise that we prefer lurking in the hedges to foraging at the pesticidal plowed edges of the agricultural fields. Pride also is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and its face of arrogance on a university campus is an all too common sighting, unpleasant to experience, and a feature most librarians are loathe to assume.

So, do we need famous librarians, after all? There are more who think so than you might imagine. At the recent ACRL in Philadelphia, non-librarian keynote speaker Jaron Lanier thought that one of the great dangers of the Google book project is connected to the "de-romanticising" of authorship. For many centuries beyond the arrival of Gutenberg's printing press, writing a book was a major deal, an act of continued, focused work and intellectual labor that found fruit with a solid testament to one's reflections and effort. In his view the Google “universal book” goes a huge way towards amputating authors from their publications. A massive, highly searchable corpus of literature is created, but missing context, and an individual work its connection with the creator.

What other mediums of communication do we use now? Blogs (which often read like online vanity presses) and venues with increasingly short output limitations (Facebook says keep it to what, a thousand characters? Twitter says 140 characters? If we get any shorter we will be reduced to grunts.) Of course, I am making light of early 21st century communications, and at every stage of human development, we have always used as many means to communicate as possible, so the current over-extension of communication avenues does not depart from past practice. The first journals (amongst which was the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665) offered a tremendous avenue for intellects to connect transnationally. But the printing press, and the books and journals and pamphlets and broadsheets that followed, did not stop the flurry of letter-writing that took place between intellectuals around the world, in a manner often described at the "college of letters" and in fact the letter-writing volume increased because there was just more public thinking going on. Ideas flew from great mind to great mind, across bodies of water, political and linguistic boundaries. And the current communication avenues similarly accommodate contemporary urges to express. But writers of books have a long history, and Gutenberg's press allowed, after a couple centuries, a chance for intellectuals to earn a living without resorting to patronage, from either the ranks of the nobility or other well-heeled benefactors. Authorship preserved intellectual independence and provided a less “strings attached” livelihood to intellectuals. One could live by one's words, without needing to have been born to wealth. Authors with wide readerships continue to be celebrities. To this day in most history departments around the country, you are not a true "historian" until you have a book out. Seems to me famous librarians, perhaps ones who write a lot and share their thoughts, are not a bad idea.

Some, if not most, of our relative invisibility is self-inflicted. As a profession we don't tend to put ourselves in the front lines of scholarship or education, often for good reasons. An exception may be made in the war over censorship and the various means that governments and agencies internationally employ to curtail the natural flow of knowledge, in which case we have real heroes from the librarian ranks. But the heavyweights on campus are rarely librarians, and the applied nature of our discipline doesn't put us on the same footing given to most other academics. Yet I think there is rich ground for increased faculty/librarian collaborations, and that would be one way to both heighten and broaden our profile.

Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library, Oxford University

Another mechanism might be to find ways to put our education and training to good use in venues outside our own libraries and institutions. One of the keynote speakers at LOEX in 2010, Hermina Anghelescu, a Romanian by birth, spoke about the thrill she gets when using American libraries, places that are free and welcoming to all, with easy universal access to information sources with few restrictions outside of the natural ones designed to preserve materials and order. American library practices, both in public and academic arenas, are an extraordinary cultural achievement, and like our university system, a model for much of the rest of the world. We have a lot to offer our communities, and it is often good to get oneself outside one's normal comfort zone, and do some service in less familiar settings.

Most librarians I know are also keen to visit other libraries, on their travels or anytime their professional or extra-curricular duties take them someplace new. Beyond just casual visits, it is often instructive to experience a new library from the point of view of a user (and I have never been satisfied with this term, or any of the others like it) and see how this newly discovered library has addressed issues of navigation, organisation, and adapted itself to the wants of those who need it. I never can visit a library without noticing some novel solution to a common problem. Ah, that’s how they have handled lines at the circ desk! The lighting is perfect for reading in that corner. The paths through the building make sense. Or conversely, a library will exhibit a dismal or confusing approach to using its collections and services, which I file away as something never to suggest at mine. Despite our common mission, matching interested people with well organised information sources, libraries vary enormously, especially in the different domains in which we reside. Many times in chatting with other librarians at conferences I am impressed with the range of interests we have, the breadth of our vision, the energy shown to various topics. And yet I am not always sure that that person's director knows much of this, or the rest of their campus. So go out and make a name for yourself. Talk up your values; they will resonate, I wager, with just about everyone. At my university one of my favorite things to do is to get another (non-library) faculty member talking about their research. The eyes light up, the sentences get animated, and you get a good story about The Problem and possible solutions they are pursuing. The account is sometimes elliptical, not always even coherent, but it is inevitably delivered with enthusiasm. Reverse the trend, when appropriate and in a way that keeps you from excessive pride, and take another step for our profession’s image. You never know. Fame starts small.

Ned Fielden
CARL President, San Francisco State University

CARL Business

Important CARL Membership Notice

CARL will be going back to an annual renewal, with a membership period from September to August. All CARL members will receive a renewal notice in August. The second notice will be November 1, and by December 1 nonactive CARL members will be removed from the CARLALL listserv and other notification systems. Membership for 2011 stands at 404.

Submitted by Kelly Janousek, Membership Director, CSU Long Beach


Treasurer's Report

CARL Income & Expenses, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007

2010, Conference year

2009

2008, Conference year

2007

Income

$64,845.91

 Income

$22,310.99

Income

$80,683.73

 Income

$21,027.43

Expense

$60,045.84

Expense

$23,709.99

Expense

$84,179.98

Expense

$24,796.06

Net Income

$4,800.07

Net Income

$(1,399.00)

Net Income

$(3,496.25)

Net Income

$(3,768.63)

Proposed 2011 CARL budget

Expenses

 

 

Fixed costs

CPA

 $1,700.00

INSURANCE

 $1,760.00

Banking ($10*12)

 $120.00

QuickBooks ($30*12)

 $360.00

government registration

 $50.00

 TOTAL

 $3,990.00

 

 

Mandated Costs

SurveyMonkey (elections)

 $300.00

Dream Host (server)

 $220.00

 

Stipends ($300*4, bylaws)

 $1,200.00

Scholarship Award ($1000/yr)

 $1,000.00

Research Award (up to $1,500)

 $1,500.00

ACRL attendance ($500 estimate)

 $500.00

Regional meetings (North & South - $250 each)

 $500.00

 TOTAL

 $4,720.00

 

 

Executive board

travel (2*$1500/meeting)

 $3,000.00

refreshments ($200*2 meetings)

 $400.00

TOTAL

$3,400.00

 2011 total

 $ 12,120.00

 

Income

Membership ($40*200)

$8000

Programs ($1000)

$1000

Estimated 2011 total

$9000

 

As CARL Treasurer, I am familiar with the benefits and costs of delivering professional development activities to academic librarians across California. The benefits of CARL are many – personal connections and additions to our professional knowledge are just two of the benefits evident to CARL members. Other costs are not quite as transparent to CARL members. Conference years usually generate income for CARL as can be seen in 2010. But the years without a conference usually do not generate enough income to cover the normal operating expenses of CARL (2009 and 2007). The current year, 2011, is not a conference year.

In the proposed 2011 budget for CARL, I have chosen to present the expenses and income in a different format than that in the table that lists the historical financial picture. As in the current California budget negotiations it is always useful to understand what costs are voluntary and what costs are mandated. As a 501c, a nonprofit organization, we have costs that are imposed by governmental regulation, such as the use of a CPA and insurance. These types of regulatory, mandated costs are fixed – we must incur them. Our bylaws also mandate costs like SurveyMonkey and our webhosting company, Dream Host. Additionally, members and the board deem it appropriate and necessary to further professional development with an       ACRL scholarship and a research award. These types of expenses are an appropriate and necessary use of our funds so that we can carry out our mission of academic librarians’ professional development.

Our income in non-conference years, as in 2011, is limited to programs and membership dues. We have had an exciting evolution in programming where some of our special interest groups wish to use their registration fees to offer scholarships. This is a worthy aspiration. As Treasurer, I need to remind CARL special interest groups that one of the benefits that they receive from CARL is that CARL carries costs associated with the viability of the entire organization. Hence, it is important to contribute to CARL by making sure that programing costs are fully covered and that overhead is considered. The increase in membership revenues was not fully realized in 2010. I am hopeful that the increase in membership dues will make a difference for 2011 in our operating income.

Submitted by Pam Howard, CARL Treasurer,  San Francisco State University
April 19, 2011

Special Announcements

SAVE THE DATE: CARL Conference 2012!

Mark your calendars! The 2012 CARL Conference will be held April 5-7, 2012 at the Marriot Mission Valley in San Diego, CA. The tentative conference theme is Creativity and Sustainability: Fostering Innovation in Difficult Times.


Germany in California: Call for Collections germany

Beginning in Spring 2012, Lindsey Hansen of California State University Northridge will be working on a project called “Germany in California,” which is modeled after LA as Subject (www.laassubject.org). She is trying to identify libraries, museums, historical societies, and other collections that have materials related to Germany and are not already digitized or available in some sort of online finding aid. The materials can be any format. If your institution has unprocessed German materials or items that are only discoverable using a paper finding aid, please contact Lindsay Hansen at lindsay.hansen@csun.edu. She is creating a repository that complements the Online Archive of California, so is not interested in materials that are already linked in some way.

Lindsay Hansen, CSU Northridge, llindsay.hansen@csun.edu


A Call for CALM-, Revive the California Academic Librarians in Management (CALM) Interest Group

I would like to hear from any librarians who would be interested in reviving the California Academic Librarians in Management (CALM) interest group. As an associate library dean, I am eager to develop a regional network of colleagues who are dealing with similar issues and would like a forum in which to share challenges and best practices.

I envision a group with membership from all levels of management – from team leaders to directors – and discussing a variety of topics, including but not limited to:

  • Staff and professional development
  • Succession planning
  • Organizational development
  • Assessment
  • Strategic planning
  • Budgeting

If there is sufficient interest, I will take responsibility for scheduling and hosting a planning meeting. Your comments will be appreciated.

Tobeylynn Birch, Loyola Marymount University, Tobeylynn.Birch@lmu.edu

Interest Group News

SEAL-S Dive @ the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

SEAL-South Adventure
Cabrillo Aquarium Tidepool

San Pedro
April 30, 2011

The SEAL-S Spring Adventure Program attracted 29 participants, including mostly librarians in Southern California, but also a few out-of-towners from as far as Michigan.

Director Mike Schaadt greeted us at the door and contextualized the history of the aquarium. Adjacent to the Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park, this historic Frank Gehry-designed aquarium displays the largest collection of Southern California marine life in the world. (Note that the emphasis here is Southern California's marine ecosystem). They host active educational programs, with many high school and undergraduate students being involved with research projects as well as the upkeep of the aquarium. One of their popular after-hour events, the “grunion run,” highlights the reproductive cycle of this silvery fish. During the nightly event, participants look for the grunions spawning on the beach and learn about their interesting mating rituals and growth. Their educational programs encourage students to learn by doing. Mike was energetic and enthusiastic enough to encourage all librarians to reenact the grunion dance—a good laugh for everyone.

The group subsequently met Cecily Thomas, the aquarium librarian. Though compact, the library is surrounded by glass doors/windows that accentuate the ocean scenery. It’s interesting to note that Cecily is a Los Angeles Public Library employee; the rest of the funding of the library comes from the aquarium foundation.

After lunch, we walked the tide pool and the salt marsh. Everyone seemed to enjoy a good outing with some walking and fresh air.

Submitted by Khue Duong, CSU Long Beach


CARL-DIG South Adventure

CARLDIG-South Auto Adventure

CARLDIG-S "Road Trip" to the Automobile Club of Southern California Archives
(Los Angeles, CA) March 18, 2011.

L-R: Elisa Acosta (Loyola Marymount University), Sheryl Stahl (Hebrew Union College), Caroline Bordinaro (CSU Dominguez Hills), Adele Enright (Rio Hondo College), and Michael Yonezawa (UC Riverside)

On March 18, 2011 a handful of CARLDIG-S members went on a “Road Trip” and visited the Automobile Club of Southern California Archives located in Downtown Los Angeles at their historic South Figueroa Street office.

The Road Trippers enjoyed a detailed description of the mission and purpose of the ACSC Archives with Matthew W. Roth, ACSC Historian and Morgan P. Yates, ACSC Archivist.
Although the ACSC Archives' primary mission is to preserve and protect the history of the Auto Club for the past, present and future, these two gentlemen are clearly dedicated to their work and see the value and importance of opening the Archives to many educational and community projects.

Langer's Deli
Langer's famous Pastrami sandwich

The morning visit ended with a behind the scenes walking tour of the Archives itself to see first hand some of the more interesting, valuable and esoteric pieces of the collection.  Ms. Caroline Bordinaro shared with the group a wonderful personal story of how her father met her mother while she was working at the Auto Club's South Figueroa Street office.

After the visit to the Auto Club, the members took lunch at a local landmark itself, Langer's Delicatessen-Restaurant, Home of the World's Best Pastrami.

Submitted by Michael Yonezawa on behalf of the CARLDIG-S Steering Committee

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1659621853764&set=o.72736670892&type=1
http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2008/04/28/news/news05.txt
http://www.langersdeli.com/

ACRL Conference News

Conference Report: ACRL in Philadelphia

ACRL drew some three thousand academic librarians from around the country to a cold and drizzly Philadelphia from 30 March through the 2nd of April 2011. On a logarithmic scale this places ACRL midway between the small and cozy CARL conferences (200-300 attendees) and the frantic, teeming city feel of ALA national conferences (30,000+ attendees). California librarians were everywhere: giving papers, attending sessions, checking with colleagues from other states.  San Jose State’s LIS program had a high profile, with a full page spread in the conference program announcing their social hour at the Pyramid club at the top floor of one of the city’s taller buildings. The Phillies’ home opener was Friday of the conference, to a wet and cold set of die-hard baseball fans who saw the home lads squeak out a win over Houston.

Philadelphia City Hall (Ned Fielden)

PHiladelphia city hall

Two keynote speakers especially were dazzling and provocative. Californian filmmaker Tiffany Shlain spoke on the themes of her latest work “Connected” about the nature of current digital communication interrelationships. She viewed librarians as central players in the swirling world of digital communication, although she also cautioned for moderation in the use of online technology. At her own home, a “digital shabbat” is observed once a week, where no electronic devices are utilised, and family members all concentrate on other venues for their education and entertainment.

Jaron Lanier, a late addition to the program, is a musician and active player in the Silicon Valley scene.  His latest book You are not a Gadget is a provocative look at digital technology and the people who use it. He began his presentation by challenging the audience to visualise a police or totalitarian state, one that controlled information and performed surveillance on its citizens.  Most people, he mused, would picture a Stalinist or Stasi-like state, but he turned the image on its head. Wouldn't a world of apparent freedom and anonymity be the best way to lower people’s inhibitions and natural caution, getting them to reveal more about themselves than normal? To him that sounded like the current online world, with people's data, browsing patters, and digital neighborhoods all harvested and studied by large companies with powerful commercial interests.

Lanier suggested that society needs books and authors, that one of the traditional aspects of librarianship has been a special reverence for the book, and that libraries have historically cultivated an aura of ritualized respect for the codex. The central idea of Google books is to turn their harvesting bin into one giant book, ultimately deromanticising both the book as an item and the author as a creator. Lanier urged librarians to think very hard about their role in reversing this movement, to promote their work aggressively, and actively side with the creators of works – authors, composers, artists.  He envisioned future libraries as places where dynamic, exciting work would happen. He described librarians as “folk artists of human learning" noting librarians' abilities to add context and find the extra-special. Internet search has become a “follow the crowd” endeavor, when what is really necessary is more heterogeneous distributions of knowledge, something to which librarians can directly contribute.

The conference papers, posters, exhibits and workshops were typical in their wide variance in relevance and quality, but one in particular deserves notice. The recent ACRL "Value of Academic Libraries" study recently conducted was summarized by its author, Megan Oakleaf from Syracuse.  The main thesis of this important report is that numbers and usage stats are no longer enough for academic libraries, but rather the library’s impact on student outcomes and benefits needs to be researched and documented.

In all, the conference lived up to its somewhat contrived and site-specific theme, “A Declaration of Interdependence,” and provided a suitable forum for academic librarians from around the country. More photos from the conference are posted at CARL’s Flickr account and Conference Proceedings are also available.

Submitted by Ned Fielden, SF State University, CARL President


Rockman Award Winner Reports on her experiences!

Thanks to the generosity of the Irene F. Rockman scholarship, I was fortunate enough to attend the ACRL conference in Philadelphia.  What an experience!  I sampled a bit of everything, attending workshops, panel discussions, poster sessions, Cyber Zed Sheds and paper presentations.  There were so many interesting presentations that it was hard to decide which to attend.  I went to one that I think will be especially useful, entitled Every Voice Makes a Difference: Frontline Advocacy for Academic Libraries. While library administration and support groups are the ones usually responsible for advocacy efforts, it is often the front-line staff who have the most interaction with library users.   The presenters outlined how to include staff in reaching out to patrons for issues important to libraries and showed us the advocacy toolkit available from the ALA website.  I also attended a workshop called How to “Choose Privacy” in Your Library and on Your Campus. One presenter, Barbara Jones, was an author that I had cited in a school paper, which was a nice surprise.

I also attended the panel session "Ethnography and the Hispanic Student: Using Real Data to Connect with Students." Illinois librarians Dave Green and Mary Thill applied anthropological, ethnographic techniques to study the local student populations in order to improve services to them.  It resulted in their opening a new branch that would better serve their students, many of whom were commuters and distance education students who really needed closer access to the college library’s services.

One of my favorite panel sessions was about student-curated art exhibits in libraries. One presenter described how the exhibits generated interest as students came in to view their friends’ work.  He shared a funny story about how students created a reading fort constructed out of empty paper towel rolls and book jackets built around a chair.  The reading fort was fairly popular with students, who would sit in the chair and read. The fort collapsed one day, but staff enjoyed hearing patrons’ subsequent comments about how the fallen fort probably symbolized the fall of literature.

It was a pleasure running into old colleagues I hadn’t seen in a long time as well as meeting new ones.  It was especially nice meeting the members of CARL and the Irene F. Scholarship Committee at a dinner in my honor at a Malaysian restaurant in the nearby Chinatown section of central Philadelphia. The ACRL conference was great because of its size.  It was not overwhelmingly big and all presentations were geared toward academic college libraries.  I returned to work feeling enthusiastic, invigorated and ready to implement some of the new lessons I learned – and eagerly anticipating the 2013 conference! I am so grateful to CARL for having had this opportunity.

Submitted by Susan Trujillo, Rockman Scholarship Recipient, 2011


CARL Awards

CARL Research Award

The CARL Research Award Committee is inviting applications for the 2012 CARL Research Award. Individual applicants may apply for awards in the range of $250 to $1,500. Groups of two or more recipients may apply for awards in the range of $250 to $2,000.
Deadline:  September 30, 2011.
Award Details and Application Form: 
http://www.carl-acrl.org/awards/research/research-application.html
Need ideasCheck out these resources to get your research juices flowing

Submitted by Alex Chappell, Claremont Colleges Library, on behalf of the CARL Research Award Committee


People News

Publications and Presentations


At the Monterey Bay Area Cooperative Library System (MOBAC) Hand’s-On workshop on Screen Capture in March, Andrea Davis (Naval Postgraduate School) and Jeff McCall presented a half-day interactive workshop on the tips and tricks to using screen capture software Jing and Camtasia Relay.

Christina Mayberry, Science & Engineering Librarian, and Marcia Henry, Health Sciences Librarian, at Cal State University Northridge, presented a poster at the NCNMLG/MLGSCA Joint Meeting in San Francisco, CA, in February entitled, "Keeping up with technology: using agile project management for mobile library services."

Librarian Henri Mondschein and campus colleagues from California Lutheran University and University of the Pacific gave a presentation entitled, “Student Success in the Information Age: Collaborative Approaches to Information Literacy”at Higher Education's Third Horizon: Western Association of Schools & Colleges (WASC) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Friday, April 8, 2011.

Laura Moody (San Francisco State University) writes a column called "Off the Beaten Path" for Music Reference Services Quarterly (MRSQ). The next issue will feature a column on SF State's Frank V. deBellis Collection and an interview with University Archivist Meredith Eliasson.

Awards, Activities and Retirements

Nicole Allensworth and Mira Foster of San Francisco State University started a small community library in Kenyasi, Ghana this spring by coordinating a book drive through the African Library Project, a small nonprofit that starts and improves small libraries in sub-Saharan Africa to promote literacy and education.

sxsw

SWSW Interactive 2011's librarian meetup

This year The Atlantic blogger, Phoebe Connelly, hailed SXSW Interactive 2011 as the “Year of the Librarian,” which was certainly experienced by the attendees of the Librarian Meetups arranged by Andrea Davis (Naval Postgraduate School), in efforts to expand library advocacy to the interdisciplinary technology festival. For the past couple years, Andrea has worked closely with panelist speakers and SXSW organizers, as a volunteer Interactive Panel Liaison to ensure the event program was organized and well-prepared.

Jim Dwyer will be retiring from the position of Bibliographic Services Librarian at Chico State on June 30 after 25 years of service. His recent book, Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction published by University of Nevada Press, was named one of Choice's 100 Best Books for Undergraduates and is a candidate for the Green Book award.

Luiz Mendes, Electronic Resources Librarian from Cal State University Northridge, has been elected Vice-President/President Elect of SCTPG (Southern California Technical Processing Group) to begin office on July 15, 2011.

On Saturday, May 7, 2011, Michael Perkins was inducted into the San Diego State University chapter (Nu, CA) of Phi Beta Kappa, and he will retire on July 5th after 25 years at SDSU.  Mike started his librarian career at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia and then moved west to the University of the Pacific.  From UoP, he headed down to SDSU, where he has served as a business reference librarian as well as Head of Collection Development (2001-8). Mike has been active in CCLI-South, ABLE, and the Business and Finance Division of SLA.

Deborah L. Schaeffer of John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, CSU Los Angeles, is the recipient of the CSULA 2011 Distinguished Women's Award. She was also appointed to the editorial board of the journal Behavioral and Social Sciences Librarian, and the 2012 nominating committee for the ACRL Educational and Behavioral Sciences Section (EBSS).

Places News

Appointments

Patricia Kreitz
Patricia Kreitz

With the retirement of Dean Tom Carter in January, 2011, the Saint Mary's College Library is proud to announce the hire of its new director and Dean of Academic Resources, Pat Kreitz, who will begin her work on July 1, 2011. Pat is currently the Director of Technical Information Services and Outreach Manager for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and previously worked in library and information sciences at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

Yoko Kudo is the new Metadata and Media Cataloger at the UC Riverside Libraries, and comes to the university from Texas A&M. With her Japanese language expertise, she will be responsible, among other things, for cataloging the extensive anime and manga collections in the renowned Eaton Science Fiction & Fantasy Collection at UCR.

Librarian Laura Moody of San Francisco State University will soon be the Public Services Librarian at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives! She begins her new position in Cleveland, Ohio in late June 2011.

Felicia Palsson joined Sonoma State University Library in April as its new Instruction Coordinator. Felicia earned her MLIS from San Jose State University, and her BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley. She previously held the position of Distance Learning and Outreach Librarian at USC. In addition to teaching, her professional interests include jurisprudence and copyright law, open access, web usability and user-centered design.

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)' Dudley Knox Library welcomes two new Reference and Instruction Librarians:

Andrea Davis, a recent graduate of the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, will focus on digital reference initiatives, and previously worked at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Wheelock College Library, Boston MA.

Kathy Norton, began working at Dudley Knox Library as an intern while earning her MLIS at San Jose State University, and joins the public services team full time.

Gale Etschmaier has been hired by San Diego State University (SDSU) as the new dean of Library & Information Access and will begin June 30, 2011. Etschmaier has served as the associate university librarian for public service at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., since 2001. In addition, in mid-January, Anne Turhollow was appointed interim associate dean at SDSU.  Anne had been serving as Head of Reference Services.


Events and Exhibits

mandala

For four days during the week of April 11, 2011, a soothing, rhythmic sound came pouring from the Sonoma State University Library's Art Gallery. It came from the 12 Tibetan Lamas of Drepung Loseling Monastery as they constructed an elaborate and beautiful mandala sand painting in the Gallery. The soft vibration, caused by the monks running a small metal rod against the copper funnels called chak-pur allowed millions of grains of colored sand to flow like liquid, forming an incredibly beautiful mandala. Ceremonies with chanting were held at the beginning and end of the process, and then mandala was destroyed, signifying the impermanence of life. This event was co-sponsored with the Associated Students. A time-lapse video of the construction of the mandala, along with photographs of the process are available at the library's website at http://library.sonoma.edu/about/mandala.php

Sonoma State University's Crossing the Invisible Line

Sonoma State University's Crossing the Invisible Line

Immigration: Humanity on the Move
The University Library at Sonoma State University just completed its spring lecture series called immigration: humanity on the move. Invited speakers provided overviews of the many issues, including global impacts, economic implications, the nuances of immigration law, human trafficking and local organizing efforts and support organizations. The series also included two art exhibits, Miracles on the Border: Folk Paintings of Mexican Migrants to the U.S, and Crossing the Invisible Line: The Art of Immigration. More information about all the offerings is available on the library's website at http://library.sonoma.edu/about/lectures.php


SF State University's Labor Archives & Research Center celebrates 25 years

San Francisco State University's Labor Archives and Research Center celebrated it's 25th Anniversary on May 1st with a history fair and program that included performances and representation from ILWU, the California Labor Federation, the California Historical Society, and SF City College.

About the CARL Newsletter

The CARL Newsletter (ISSN: 1090-9982) is the official publication of the California Academic & Research Libraries organization and is published online quarterly. The RSS feed rss for this newsletter is available at http://www.carl-acrl.org/newsletter/feed.xml.

Deadlines for submissions: February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15.

Newsletter submissions, including creative contributions, CARL program reports, People News and Places News should be sent to carlnewsletter@gmail.com. For corrections, questions and comments contact the editor, Mira Foster (mira@sfsu.edu), J. Paul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University, 1630 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132.

 
 
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