Library News: Nov '24

Courses on Artificial Intelligence

As part of the library's support for artificial intelligence awareness at SUNY Empire, we have been piloting faculty and staff access to Coursera courses related to artificial intelligence. The pilot will be ending this month and we will have more licenses available soon. If you're interested, please reach out to us at librarian@sunyempire.edu. We will also be sending information out about the program shortly.

 

 

New ILL System and Services

Earlier this month, the library went live with a new interlibrary loan (ILL) system. This system will provide our students and libraries much faster services and will reduce the number of times you need to log in to request articles. The new system is integrated into OneSearch. You will see options to "Get It" (as seen on image below), which includes book chapters and journals. Additionally, there are extended search features in this system that will make finding what you need to request easier.

 

 

A reminder that we are also piloting print ILL services through the University at Albany. Faculty will need to pick up materials at one of the U Albany libraries, but can request print ILL materials for research or teaching. Please contact us if you would like help requesting items via U Albany libraries.

 

 

New Resources for Statistics and Literature Analytics

 

If you have a course or assignment that requires students to find statistics, data, or data visualizations, please take a look at Statista. Statista has information about industries, markets, consumer trends, and other data sources.  Anyone affiliated with Empire can data sets, reports, or charts as images or PowerPoint slides. If you have any questions on how to integrate this into your course, please let us know.

 

If you're looking for research from reputable publications or want to analyze the literature on a topic, please check out our new library subscription, Scopus. Scopus has journal rankings and other information about publications and can help you find other people interested in topics you're researching.

 

Scholarly Communications Series Continues

As we move past the midpoint of the semester exciting things are happening in scholarly communications at the Empire State University Library. The scholarly communications series from the library in partnership with CTL continues with sessions coming up on November 18^th --Citation Managers--and November 25^th--Creating an Online Research Program through ORCID. We hope to see you there, and 'thank you' to everyone who has attended a session this semester.

 

Joyce McKnight Fellowship Funding 

The library is thrilled to announce the launch of the Joyce McKnight Fellowship, created in memory of Dr. Joyce McKnight, a passionate advocate for Open Educational Resources (OER) and a longtime member of our community. This fellowship offers awards between $2,000 and $5,000 to faculty at Empire State University interested in remixing, updating, or adopting existing OER materials to improve affordability and accessibility for students.

 

Who Can Apply:

• Empire State University faculty with plans to remix, revise, or adopt OER for specific courses or programs.
• Projects should align with program goals to broaden OER adoption and enhance student access to high-quality, affordable resources.
• Fellowship recipients must work with the campus OER librarian to share updated materials in our digital repository.

 

Fellowship Benefits:

• Support from $2000 to $5,000 per project, based on complexity and scope.
• A 6-12 month project timeline, allowing for impactful and sustainable contributions to SUNY Empire's learning resources.

 

Applications are open through January 17th and will be reviewed in the order received. Don't miss this chance to honor Dr. McKnight’s legacy and advance OER at SUNY Empire!

 

Full details and application.

 

Academic Processing Fees Funding

We are excited to announce the launch of the Pilot Program to Support Fees Associated with Open Access Publishing, designed to help faculty and professional staff offset the costs of publishing in Open Access journals.

 

Program Highlights:

• Total Funding Available: $13,000
• Award Tiers:
  • 6 awards of $500 for applicants who have previously received UUP IDA funding that didn’t fully cover Open Access costs.
  • 3-5 awards of $2,000–$3,000 based on the number and quality of applicants.

Faculty and staff are encouraged to apply if they meet the following criteria:

• Employment as a full- or part-time faculty or staff member at Empire State University.
• Publishing in reputable, peer-reviewed Open Access journals.
• Priority given to junior faculty and those with demonstrated financial need.

 

Application Details: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with priority given to proposals that align with the institution's goals of inclusivity, student success, and academic impact. Approved funds will be awarded as reimbursement or direct payment for qualifying expenses.

 

More information and application. 

 

We appreciate your help in sharing this opportunity with your faculty to support their research and elevate Empire State University’s academic presence.

New Documentaries and Films Service Available

The Library can now license (most) documentaries and other films for use in your courses. We are able to cover the cost of one average-priced film per course (no matter how many sections). If the course developer determines that more than one film is needed, we can arrange cost-sharing. This service is allowing our students to benefit from pedagogically-relevant films that are not available through our subscriptions.
 

The Library finds the copyright owner, negotiates a license, and keeps track of when that license needs to be renewed. If the film doesn't come on a streaming platform, we also take care of loading it onto LearnScape (with closed captions) in such a way that it is only visible to people with the link.
 

If you're copyright savvy, you may be wondering where the TEACH Act comes into this. The TEACH Act is a part of U.S. copyright law that permits, under certain conditions, the use of multimedia in online courses. There are two main restrictions that come into play here:

 

1. Only non-fictional, non-dramatic works may be included in their entirety. For fictional/dramatic films, only clips are allowed. 
2. There are restrictions in how a digital copy of the film may be obtained and stored that preclude the use of a lot of desirable media.
    

If you have a film that you want to use in a course, or if you have been using a film that has disappeared and need help getting access to it again, please contact librarian@sunyempire.edu. If you're working on a course revision through Empire Online, and you have a librarian involved in the revision, you can just ask that librarian, if that's more convenient. 

Library Workshops are Evolving

Due to declining attendance at live workshops, we are shifting our focus to asynchronous learning opportunities combined with increased availability of individualized consultations for students in need of more in-depth assistance. If you require students to attend library workshops, please note that beginning Spring 2025, general live workshop offerings will be discontinued. In their place will be the following services:
 

• The existing Library Workshops site will contain equivalent self-paced video and text content as well as practice exercises that students can work through on their own time (example). In addition, quizzes will be changed to primarily multiple-choice and will include a Certificate of Completion that students can print out or take a picture of to send to faculty for confirmation, if desired. Anyone wanting to embed an associated quiz into a Brightspace course should email librarian@sunyempire.edu with details. The library is happy to work with faculty to accomplish this.
   
• Library Consultations: students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to sign up for one-on-one 30 minute Teams meetings with a librarian for any complex questions or assistance required.
   
• 24/7 Ask-a-Librarian chat service (right side of library home page) and the librarian@sunyempire.edu email continues to be available for any and all point-of-need library-related questions.

New Library Advisory Board Established

The library has established a library advisory board to improve resources and services for the university community. In our kick-off meeting, we began discussing possible areas for improvement in the library. The board's charter, membership, meeting notes and other activities can be found at our newly launched Library Advisory Board (LAB) guide, located at the All Library Guides link on the library home page (from there click All Library Guides A-Z).

 

Help Us Help You

Would you like to receive the most up-to-date information available about new library services and resources? Help us get that information to you by letting us know which communication channels are the best way to reach you. Respond via our 2-question Preferred Library Communication Channels Survey.

New ILL Service Implemented and Library Website Cleanup Underway

Web Services, User Experience, and Systems has been busy. We have been working on: 

• supporting the setup, testing and implementation of the new interlibrary loan system that you now see in OneSearch,
• better organizing our library subject guides and the process of how we maintain and update them, 
• broken link cleanup in the library guides, and
• troubleshooting access and technical issues with databases and resources.

 

All of this work improves the usability of our Online Library and the services therein.