Library News: Sep '24

Print ILL Pilot with University at Albany

In partnership with the University at Albany Libraries, SUNY Empire recently began a pilot program for print Interlibrary Loan services to SUNY Empire faculty and staff through the University at Albany Libraries. This service will provide access to collections of roughly 8 million different print titles. Faculty and staff will need to travel to the University at Albany to pick up materials. 

 

If this service is of interest to you, please email us at librarian@sunyempire.edu. We’re happy to work with you to provide guidance on how to request books and will go over any questions you have. 

 

This service is in addition to the SUNY and CUNY Open Access arrangement, in which Empire faculty, staff, and students can use the collections of any of these and the NYS community college libraries to borrow print materials.   

 

SUNY Empire’s library is working to expand its digital collections and faculty and staff can request ebooks or other titles to be added. Digital interlibrary loan services will continue through SUNY Empire Library, with articles, book chapters, and other content delivered to your email, typically within a day or less. 

 

New ILL System

In the next 1-2 months, the library will be implementing a new Interlibrary Loan or Resource Sharing System.  The library has seen a doubling of ILL requests each year for the past 3 years, and needs to expand the number of libraries that we can borrow from.  We also want to improve the user experience, requiring fewer logins and having all user requests exist in the same interface. 

 

We expect service to be significantly faster as we move to a new system, Rapido and RapidILL, with thousands of research libraries. Our previous system and groups only allowed us to request articles from around 110 libraries. We also expect additional features to come in the next year, such as having the ability to borrow entire ebooks from research libraries and AI enabled discovery of content. 

 

This new ILL platform will also improve access to the citations/records of articles, books, and chapters, removing the need to look up citations in other tools such as Google Scholar or WorldCat and then copy and paste into a form. The exact dates for the switch to the new system will be available soon, but we expect it to happen in October.

 

Library and SUNY Empire Archivist Win Grant

The library and University Archivist, Dr. Anastasia Pratt, received a grant to digitize documents related to the founding of SUNY Empire State University. This project was also featured in SUNY Empire News.  The project focuses on digitizing the papers of Arthur Chickering, Ernest Boyer, and others instrumental in the founding of the innovative college that has become SUNY Empire State University.  These collections will be deposited into the collaborative, NY Heritage. 

 

The project will also digitize The Promise Continues: Empire State University, The First Twenty-Five Years by Richard Bonnabeau. Part of this grant funded a Public History graduate student intern, Bradley Towle, who digitized and cataloged important collections within the archive.

 

Library Secures First "Transformative Agreement"

We hear from many faculty members that they would like more support for publishing, which often includes support for article processing charges (APCs). Many libraries are establishing "transformative agreements," which include APCs into the library's subscription. We're pleased to announce that SUNY Empire has its first agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Any faculty from Empire who publish in ACM publications will not pay APCs.

 

The SUNY Empire library is reviewing other ways to support faculty in their research and publishing activities.

Textbook Affordability Initiative

The library is working to make textbooks and classroom materials more affordable for all students through our textbook affordability program. For summer 2024 51% of courses had no or low-cost textbooks. If you want to add OER or wish to explore options for low or no-cost textbooks, please contact Jennifer Collins at jennifer.collins@sunyempire.edu.

 

Scholarly Communications Workshops

The library will also be offering a variety of scholarly communications workshops this fall through the Center for Mentoring, Learning, and Academic Innovation – please look out for the upcoming schedule and session descriptions. I hope to see you there! ~Jennifer Collins

Course Development and Revisions

The Library continues to partner with faculty developers and Empire Online to support course development and revision. We are available to:

• support textbook affordability through Open Educational Resources, purchasing textbooks and adding them to our online Course Reserves, or collaborating with faculty to curate selected online readings,
• license videos for use in courses,
• answer any copyright or OER questions that might come up,
• update library readings and videos,
• integrate tutorials and custom instructions at the point of need, so that students can focus on completing their assignments, learning the content, and thinking critically, rather than trying to figure out how to effectively use search tools, and
• look for opportunities to align relevant information literacy topics with the topics covered in the course.

 

Anyone who has questions related to the library or library resources as they pertain to course development/revision, teaching and learning, should email Sarah Morehouse or book an appointment via Teams.  

Student Learning Opportunities

The Fall Library Workshops schedule is published and available for student registrations. These online, hands-on workshops on topic formation, search strategies, APA citing, and finding and using e-textbooks in the library, can all be found on the Library Workshops site.

 

There are a variety of tutorials covering all aspects of doing quality research and using the library available through the Library Self-Help Tutorials site. Placing these strategically within course research assignments can have a beneficial impact on the quality of student work. Please email librarian@sunyempire.edu if you'd like to discuss locating and embedding any tutorials within your courses.

Library Users Surveyed

This Spring and Summer, we surveyed library users about both their level of confidence using the library and their experience interacting with our Ask a Librarian services (live chat, email, chatbot). Those who used library reference services gave us overwhelmingly positive feedback as well as ideas for how we might offer even better service. This led to--among other changes--improvements to our library chatbot, Howie, who is more streamlined and can now connect you immediately with a librarian, if desired.

 

User confidence was relatively low, so we are developing some approaches to help everyone feel more comfortable using our online library. Stay tuned to our library social media for details!

 

Orientations and Consultations

The librarians have participated in a number of Fall orientation activities for students and new mentors, and we are available for 30-minute consultations with anyone who feels they might benefit from either a library overview or in-depth research help. Do not hesitate to schedule with us yourself or to refer your students to us.

 

New Library Advisory Board

We are also assembling a library advisory board and a number of volunteers have answered the call. This team will serve as a conduit between the library and its stakeholders to develop and refine library services, increase outreach and engagement, and foster a more responsive, inclusive, and student-centered library. Details to come later this Fall.

Library User Experience Studies Results

The library conducted user experience (UX) studies this summer and got feedback from students across the university to help us improve our website. You will notice many changes to the organization of our website content, which should make it easier to find all the guides and other resources that the library has to offer.

 

Please bear with us as we work to update specific areas of the library (tutorials, FAQ, etc) to align with these changes. If you are having difficulty locating anything in the new site or notice a needed update, please do not hesitate to Ask a Librarian!