First Ever Library Student Worker Recognition Event

Library student workers have always been part of library’s backbone! In recognition of their excellent library services, SAAC initiated a library student worker recognition event.

This past Monday, April 25, SAAC held the first-ever Library Student Worker Recognition event in the staff lounge. About 45 people including student workers, student supervisors and SAAC members attended. 20160425_121839

Melinda Flannery, Assistant University Librarian for Technical Services, gave the opening remarks. Student supervisors including Jean Aroom, Nadalia Liu, Debra Kolah, Andy Damico, Norma Perez, and Veronica Huitrado recognized graduating students in their departments respectively. Their remarks to the graduating students are very sincere and touching!
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In the event, all graduating library students were recognized and gifts were presented to them by their supervisors. The gift criteria is as follows:

  • Level I: any graduating students, a water bottle
  • Level II:  any graduating students who have worked ≥4 semesters, a water bottle and a USB flash drive

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This year, we have 14 graduating students and 8 of them have worked four or more than four semesters at library. The imprint on the gift says “In Recognition of Your Excellent Library Services at Rice.”

All staff and students in attendance were excited about the event! Students’ faces were smiling and beaming! Staff are looking forward to next year’s student recognition event!

A special thank you to:

  • Melinda Flannery – passing down the idea of honoring student workers from University of Delaware student recognition program.
  • Debra Kolah and Norie Guthrie – bringing up the idea of student recognition lunch.
  • Norie Guthrie – ordering the student gifts for SAAC.
  • Jeff Koffler – helping to design the imprint on the student gifts.

 

Rice Master Theses – Retrospective Digitization Project

In a back corner of the library basement, is a long stack of empty shelves. You may wonder why this is, where did the books go? Not to worry, these materials are now online in the RDSA!

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Currently the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive (RDSA) makes available approximately 10,000 theses and dissertations written by Rice graduate students from 1918 to the present. Through this collection, a partnership with Rice’s Office of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies, RDSA documents the rich intellectual output of the university and enables people around the world to access Rice research. While Fondren was able to procure a number of older theses and dissertations from ProQuest, not everything was included, particularly when it came to master level theses. Through her work on withdrawing duplicate copies of theses and dissertations, Kerry Keck, Assistant University Librarian for Research Services & Access Services, identified approximately 1400 works that are not in the RDSA. The absence of these works meant that there were significant holes in our digital collection.

Over the past year, the library has worked to pull these duplicate copies, have them digitized and placed online. Scanning was outsourced to a vendor and many library staff were involved in preparing these materials and processing the digital files. A special thank you to:

  • Amber Seely – batch catalog updates,
  • Andrew Damico and student workers – physical review & packaging,
  • James Springer and LSC staff – withdrawing and transporting volumes,
  • Scott Carlson – name authority work, extracting abstracts and PDF quality review.
  • Sid Bryd – DSpace system batch uploading

To view these newly added materials, visit the Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations collection (https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/13110) and then browse under the section “Recent Submissions”.

Please see attached Rice-Master-Thesis-graphs (PDF) for summary by Rice department and graduate year.

Executive Committee Summaries, February 25-March 31, 2016

February 25, 2016

The Executive Committee participated in a meeting with Human Resources regarding the Careers@Rice program.

March 3, 2016

No meeting.

March 10, 2016

No meeting.

March 17, 2016

No meeting.

March 24, 2016

1)     The Executive Committee reviewed and approved the charge for the information literacy committee and identified members. This committee aims to improve the coherence of instructional offerings across library departments and to find and address unmet instructional needs.

2)     The Executive Committee reviewed a quarterly report from the linked data working group. The working group has begun identifying local collections and data to use for pilot projects exploring linked data.

3)     An acquisitions data working group was approved to study how important acquisitions data from our current SirsiDynix Symphony system could be accommodated if we were to migrate to a new library system.

4)    Concerns about the cost of building a new LSC module (with the existing module nearing capacity) lead the Executive Committee to discuss possible management solutions both for off-site and on-site collections. Research on the feasibility of proposed options will be needed.

5)     The Executive Committee discussed several proposed changes from Access Services, including moving staff fines and billing to the Cashier’s office after 28 days and changing the process/policies for study carrels. Instead of requiring a key deposit for study carrels, Access Services will charge a fine for lost keys. The reservation period for study carrels will be changed from one year to one semester.

March 31, 2016

1)    The Executive Committee discussed a draft charge for the web team. Exec will collaboratively revise this charge.

2)    Lisa Spiro discussed preliminary plans for a digital curation retreat. A description and list of potential participants will be provided soon.

3)    The group discussed writing the library’s budget narrative for the May Board of Trustees meetings.