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New power outlets in Bird
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New power outlets in Bird
Over semester break, 80 new power outlets were added to carrels and tables throughout the Learning Commons on the first floor of Bird Library, addressing a need that has grown more urgent with the pervasive use of electronic devices in students' lives.
The project is the culmination of a partnership between Syracuse University Libraries and the Student Philanthropy Council, which joined forces last spring during Philanthropy Week 2015 to create the "Bird Library Plug-In" CuseFunder project.
"Students spend an incredible amount of time in Bird Library, and while the University has been hard at work making updates to the basement and first floor, students wanted to be part of the solution now and into the future," said Ivan Robles '15, who was the 2015 chairperson of the Student Philanthropy Council.
The primary focus of the CuseFunder initiative was to engage new student contributors. It attracted gifts from 39 individual donors and raised over $3,000.
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Personnel news
Lisa Brigandi has joined the Libraries as our new evening/weekend Supervisor in Access & Resource Sharing. Lisa comes to us with excellent experience working at Harnett County Public Library in North Carolina and Le Moyne College Library.
Erin Kovalsky has joined the Libraries as a Library Technician in Access & Resource Sharing, working Sunday through Thursdays, primarily at the Circulation Desk. You may already recognize Erin though, as she has been working as a Graduate Student with us this past year. In addition to her experience as a graduate student in A&RS, Erin also brings experience having worked at a local public library and, prior to SUL, she worked for many years at Barnes and Noble.
Michael Kuss has joined the Libraries as a Library Technician in Access & Resource Sharing, working the weekend/evening shift.
Carol Mehl has joined the Libraries as a Library Technician in Access & Resource Sharing. Carol comes to us from Mohawk Valley Community College where she worked as a library assistant. Please welcome Lisa, Erin, Michael, and Carol to the Libraries!
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Accessibility training and consulting now available
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Accessibility training and consulting now available!
 Information Technology Services (ITS) has announced its new Walk-in IT Accessibility Help Desk hours. New this semester, the IT Accessibility Help Desk provides consultation on related topics, including video captioning, remediation of your PDF, PowerPoint or Word documents to ensure accessibility, and identifying and fixing accessibility issues on your website.
This new service is available Mondays and Thursdays, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the ITS Service Center, 1-227 Center for Science and Technology.
ITS is also accepting registrations for three training workshops that will build faculty and staff awareness of, sensitivity to and proficiency in ensuring the accessibility of information communications and technologies. "Creating Accessible Documents" focuses on course materials and documents; "Evaluating Your Website for Accessibility" focuses on websites and online resources; and a new workshop called "Video Captioning" covers the basics of adding captions to video content.
For more information about these workshops, or to register, visit:
http://news.syr.edu/accessibility-training-classes-spring-2016/.
If you have any questions about these offerings, or other accessibility and technology issues, please send them in an email to accessibleIT@syr.edu.
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New Facilities Tracking System (FIT) form
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New Facilities Tracking System (FIT) form
The FIT system is getting an upgrade. Instead of writing an email to the Program Management Center, you'll now submit your Facilities request through SharePoint.
Click the link, fill out the form, and then hit the "Save" icon in the upper left-hand corner of your screen. Your issue will be assigned an ID number. You can return to the Open Issues screen at any time to check on the status of your issue. If you need to talk with someone about this request, please reference the issue ID number so that we can look it up quickly.
FIT should only be used to tell us about maintenance or custodial issues. The Complaint and Incidents system is still up and running. Please use this system to tell us about problem issues you have heard from patrons or concerns you have witnessed involving patrons.
Furniture moves, new phone lines, or other new changes to current library function should not be submitted using the FIT form--only facility issues.
Julie Belle will be handling all FIT requests. Please give her as much information as possible when filling out the request form.
If you have any questions or comments about the new FIT system or form, please contact Andrew Pease at aspease@syr.edu or at 443-0458.
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Let's get social!
The Libraries' social media team was created to help spread the word about the Libraries' events, activities, resources, etc., and to give students an outlet for communicating with us (see the "From the Interwebs" column below.) The Libraries have an active social media presence on a number of platforms including: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr. Team members are Tarida Anantachai (Learning Commons), Nicole Dittrich (Special Collections Research Center), Sarah Kim (Access & Resource Sharing), Pamela McLaughlin (Communications and External Relations), Stephanie McReynolds (Research and Scholarship), Annie Rauh (Research and Scholarship), and Julie Sharkey (Communications and External Relations). The team is always looking for ideas about things to promote, so feel free to send suggestions to any team member or libcom@syr.edu.
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SU Press titles awarded Choice's Outstanding Academic Title for 2015
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SU Press titles awarded Choice's Outstanding Academic Title for 2015
 Four SU Press titles have been awarded Outstanding Academic Title for 2015 by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. This prestigious list, announced every year in Choice's January issue, consists of only about ten percent of the 7,000 works reviewed by Choice during the previous calendar year. It is a reflection of the best scholarly titles reviewed by Choice, chosen based upon the following criteria: - overall excellence in presentation and scholarship
- importance relative to other literature in the field
- distinction as a first treatment of a given subject in book or electronic form
- originality or uniqueness of treatment
- value to undergraduate students
- importance in building undergraduate library collections
View the full list »
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Orange SUccess
 Syracuse University recently launched Orange SUccess (aka Starfish Retention Solutions), a new advising tool (web-based program) intended to improve the way we work across all schools and colleges. This system will allow us to help many more students be successful at Syracuse University. It provides an efficient way to quickly offer coordinated support to all students ensuring they receive the right type of assistance/intervention to keep them on track.
- Student success is a significant lift for all of us that are supporting and teaching our students. Orange SUccess simply helps us understand who is at risk early and gives us the automation/tool to intervene and build cross campus communication and consistency.
- Orange SUccess will be an information hub that will allow us to collect as much information in one place and let both people and systems trigger flags (alerts) and kudos (compliments).
- Success is a moving target and students need different kinds of encouragement at different times. Kudos are sent by Faculty to acknowledge students for their efforts.
- It will help keep everyone on the same page but let groups use information differently.
- It will also help engage our students in their own progress by not only keeping them informed but also prompting action in a timely fashion even before they know they are overwhelmed.
This initiative is in alignment with Syracuse University's 2015 Academic Strategic Plan and was conceptualized as part of the conversations during the University-wide Fast Forward Syracuse initiative.
The pilot phase of Orange SUccess is a campus-wide collaboration and kicked off at a series of public events in mid-January. For more information, visit http://orangesuccess.syr.edu/.
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Syracuse University Libraries' Unconference
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Peter Verheyen (Program Management Center)
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John Olson (Research and Scholarship)
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Syracuse University Libraries' Unconference
The Syracuse University Libraries held an " unconference"--a highly informal and collaborative conference--entitled Identifying Our Role, Impacts, and Opportunities on Campus on December 18.
The meeting began with a round of library resources/trivia-themed Wits and Wagers led by Abby Kasowitz-Scheer, and was followed by brief talks by Peter Verheyen (Teaching the book arts: presentations, one-on-one, exhibits); John Olson (GIS and its impact on the SU campus); Anita Kuiken, Cortland State (Boosting Health Literacy: A Student Professional Development Venture); Paul Bern (Research Data services at SU and Beyond); and Pamela McLaughlin (Collaboration for Social Media Impact).
Discussion topics included the role of the libraries on campus, assessing the Libraries' impact on teaching and learning, emphasizing value to stakeholders and administrators, engaging the broader community, including diverse perspectives, and communicating with campus. These topics blended together in different ways, and lively discussions were had by all. Organizers were especially pleased to see participation from colleagues from Buffalo to Binghamton and points in between.
Thanks to all who participated. The unconference was organized by SULA's Professional Concerns and Development Committee, with support from the Librarians Affinity Group, which provided refreshments.
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New library baby!
Brett Barrie (Acquisitions and Cataloging) and his wife Kim welcomed a daughter, Ellie Brooke Barrie on October 24. Ellie arrived 10 weeks early and weighed 3 pounds, 5 ounces at birth. She's been at home since December 14 and has almost doubled her birth weight. Dad says she's growing like bamboo!
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Comments from the Interwebs
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Comments from the Interwebs
SU students continue to comment about the Libraries using social media outlets, such as Twitter and Facebook. Many of their musings receive a reply from the Library's official Twitter handle, @SyracuseULib. Here are some of the things that have been on their minds:- Yes Bird Library, crank up the heat on a 63 degree day so everyone is sweating trying to study.
- @SyracuseU Bird Library could use more outlets just saying. #pls
- I can't decide if I should jump off the top of Bird Library or study for my chem final because both of them are equally painful.
- That moment you go around Club Bird and you realize everyone's given up. #ClubBird
- Put on the "All out 60's" Spotify playlist. You could say Club Bird just got a little more lit.
- Causing a raucous at Club Bird per usual.
- David Seaman of @SyracuseULib up next: stresses long history of #DH, collaborative nature of scholarship. #alamw16
- And so begins spending my afternoons in Bird Library again.
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Staff news
Got news? Please feel free to send us any news items that you would like to share with colleagues -- graduations, weddings, new babies, travels, and such. As always, we welcome your feedback, comments, questions, or story ideas. Send your contributions to libcom@syr.edu.
Many thanks for your interest!
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The Syracuse University Libraries Staff Newsletter
Pamela Whiteley McLaughlin, Julie Sharkey
Contributors: Tarida Anantachai, Brett Barrie, Lisa Brigandi, TC Carrier,
Melinda Dermody, Erin Kovalsky, Lisa Kuerbis, Michael Kuss,
Carol Mehl, Peter Verheyen, Lynn Wilcox
Click here to view past issues of the Staff Newsletter
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