The Library Department’s 2019 yearbook photo, featuring some of our faculty and staff. Photo by Caroline Kim, Committee on Commencement Activities.
Faculty notes
Larry Sullivan was elected to the Caxton Club, a Chicago bibliophilic society founded in 1895.
Ellen Belcher presented the paper “Peopling Pots and Potting People: Anthropomorphic Ceramics in the Halaf and Neolithic Anatolia” at the Third International Workshop on Ceramics from the Late Neolithic Near East, in Antalya, Turkey on March 8, 2019.
Robin Davis presented “The Final Death(s) of Digital Scholarship: An Ongoing Case Study of DH2005 Projects” at the Digital Afterlives Symposium at Bard Graduate Center, March 1, 2019. She also presented “Bot Literacy: Teaching Librarians to Make Twitter Bots” with Mark Eaton at Computers in Libraries in Arlington, VA on March 27, 2019. As of June 13, 2019, she will be leaving John Jay to join NC State University Libraries as the User Experience Librarian. She is grateful to have spent seven wonderful years at Lloyd Sealy Library and will miss John Jay and her colleagues very much.
Library news in brief
Digital theses update
Ninety-nine theses have been submitted electronically since the process was established in late Fall 2016. Almost half of those (47) were submitted by students in Forensic Psychology, followed by Forensic Science (27), then Criminal Justice (11), Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity (6), Forensic Mental health Counseling (6), and International Criminal Justice (2).
John Jay theses are published and accessible in two places: The ProQuest Dissertation and Theses database and CUNY Academic Works. Via CUNY Academic Works, theses have been downloaded in 126 countries. The top of the list for some time has been “Tattoos and Criminal Behavior: An examination of the relationship between body art and crime” followed by “Risk and Prevalence of Personality Disorders in Sexual Offenders.” To see what all the fuss is about (854 and 506 downloads respectively) see for yourself by following those links to read them in CUNY Academic Works. Theses largely come from the fields of psychology, forensic science and criminal justice. These data are a strong bit of evidence illustrating the impact and reach of the institutional repository. Theses published to these platforms in the last two years are no doubt getting significantly more traction than theses that would otherwise be discoverable only through library catalogs. If you are a student or faculty member publishing work that you hope to be read and cited, please consider submitting to Academic Works. Kathleen Collins
24-hour Library Lab
The Library Reserve Lab, including the new extended study area, will be open continuously from 8:30am on May 13 until 9:45pm on May 22, 2019. That’s 220+ hours straight of open study space! With support from Student Council, as well as the Library and Public Safety, we are happy to provide a safe place for John Jay students to prepare for their final exams and projects. The Reserve Lab’s extended study area seats 24 users at computer workstations and provides many outlets for students to bring their own devices. The Library has sponsored the 24-hour Library Lab every semester since Spring 2014, and it is one of the most popular services we offer. Robin Davis
JJAY Students app
Since the new John Jay app for students debuted last summer on iOS and Android, over 5,000 students and faculty have downloaded it. The app serves as a directory of student services and clubs, a notification hub for important reminders such as Commencement deadlines, and a unified campus events listing. The Library piloted listing weekly workshops on the app’s calendar this semester. Students can now discover these workshops, add them to their schedules, and check in, all through the app. Student feedback so far has been positive. For those who don’t have the app, workshops are always listed on the library website, the main College calendar, and on flyers throughout campus. Robin Davis