Library News Blog


Photo of a typewriter

In the dystopian world of 1984, Winston Smith toils in the Ministry of Truth, rewriting the past so it conformed always to the mandates of the present. In other words, his job was to craft lies. His work troubled him, even as he diligently performed his tasks. “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened,” he mused, “that, surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death?” How despairing to understand that if all records told the same tale, and if everyone else accepted that story without question, “then the lie passed into history and became truth.” That, he recognized, was the real horror.

Winston, I just have to ask: what difference does it make? Why should it matter whether the stories we accept about the past are true or not? It is, after all, a matter of perspective and interpretation, and who are we to judge one interpretation to have greater truth than another. For many of our students, interpretation is no different than opinion, and somewhere along the line they have come to understand that opinion is bias and bias is bad.

Of course, we know that it matters a great deal whether our knowledge of the past – or present – is based on verifiable facts and that the conclusions drawn from those facts have logical integrity. We know that scholarship is more than a matter of perspective or interpretation, opinion and bias. As university faculty our mission is to transmit truth and to teach our students to seek the truth. We reach our answers by evaluating the evidence and the sources. But what if the resulting truth is uncomfortable, or contradicts our certainties? Do we teach those uncomfortable, disquieting truths, or do we slide over them and stick to narratives affirming our world view?

Every day students approach librarians at the reference desk seeking help with their research assignments. More often than not, the student is not seeking information to understand their topic, but only sources that will confirm a conclusion already formed. They are seeking to prove their thesis. Stated another way, they have the answer before they begin the quest. This is not the same as formulating a hypothesis. A hypothesis is meant to be tested, not taken as a certainty. Many students begin with a certainty, and by beginning with an answer rather than a question they will be ill-equipped to evaluate the evidence.  

The shelves of the Lloyd Sealy Library are lined with volumes offering a full range of perspectives. Our databases reach back to the earliest volumes of academic journals. Many of the authors in past decades drew conclusions quite contrary to the perspectives of the present. These books remain on the shelves to affirm that scholars and pundits have held different opinions in the past, and it behooves us to understand why. Our students deserve to be challenged by information and views at odds with their own. As physicist Richard Feynman put it, “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”

Jeffrey Kroessler, Interim Chief Librarian

Reference desk

Fall 2022 Library Services


The Lloyd Sealy Library’s physical space is open to current John Jay and CUNY students, faculty, and staff who comply with CUNY's COVID-19 guidelines

Access to the physical library:

CUNY students, faculty, and staff who are in compliance with CUNY’sCOVID-19 mitigation protocol are able to visit the Library in line with campus access plan.

Visitors (including outside researchers and John Jay College alumni) must follow the campus access protocol. Researchers must inquire about a consultation with the special collections librarian by contacting libspcoll@jjay.cuny.edu.

Masks

John Jay College encourages the use of high-quality masks, like N95 or KN-95 masks. 

Library hours:

Please refer to the Library's calendar for details.

Available services for students:

  • Circulating books and reserves. 
  • Computer workstations (library computers are not equipped with headphones or microphones).
  • Silent study areas.
  • Study spaces for students with their own devices. 
  • Printing and scanning.
  • Study rooms for individual or small group use.
  • In-person research assistance on the upper level of the library.
  • Remote research help through chat, email, and phone.
  • In-person or remote advanced research consultations.
  • Interlibrary loan (ILL), please refer to our ILL policy

Available services for faculty:


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Checklist with red ink

How to (Re-)Connect Students with the Library in 10 Minutes or Less


During COVID-19 the John Jay College library pivoted quickly by amending lending policies, adding electronic content— particularly to provide electronic access to print-only collections, and by shifting to 100% delivery of instruction and reference services. Not surprisingly, this resulted in an increase in the online use of collections and services. However, when looking closer at the downloads of the full text of materials, the library’s tool for measuring user engagement, there was a dramatic decrease.

We learned that during the pandemic many students struggled, often feeling unsupported and unable to navigate simple research queries. While mirroring decreases in academic engagement experienced across higher education during the pandemic, it also confirmed what we already knew, namely the importance of the physical library to the success of our students.

A panel of librarians, teaching faculty, and students gathered virtually on Faculty Development Day in January to discuss ways to re-engage, or engage some students for the first time, with library resources. Suggestions varied by discipline, level of research, and target audience. However, it was clear that just getting started was essential. The easiest way to do this was to make users, both faculty and students, aware of the many resources that already exist beyond the search box.

Peppered throughout the library website are countless numbers of resources if you know where to find them.  They include video tutorials on how to use the library, research guides and lists of databases organized by subject, tools supporting research such as citation style guides, and curated collections of featured resources.  Many links to these resources are featured on the library’s homepage but to find many more, you need to persist.

We created this shortlist of things you can do in ten minutes or less to help students reconnect with the library.  We hope you find this list useful. If you are looking for more, please ask a librarian!

  1. Encourage students to watch one or more of these videos:
  2. Encourage students to use reference materials as pathways to scholarly journals.
  3. Include library assignments in your syllabus (click here for ideas).
  4. Use and encourage students to use the Library Module in Blackboard.
  5. Visit, chat/ZOOM, or schedule a class, with a librarian.

Maureen Richards


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 CUNY Academic Works Logo

A Friendly Reminder: Upload your Publications to CUNY Academic Works


It’s been seven years since our open access institutional repository known as CUNY Academic Works (CAW) was launched by the CUNY Office of Library Services (OLS). John Jay faculty members can upload their research publications such as journal articles and book chapters to CUNY Academic Works (academicworks.cuny.edu). By uploading your publications to CAW, you make them available for researchers around the world to find and read for free. The following map illustrates the number of readers of John Jay research publications since CAW was launched in March 2015. As you can see from the map, publications by John Jay faculty are being read across the world. We would like to thank Professor Ellen Sexton who has served as the John Jay campus administrator for CAW since its inception. She has helped develop CAW into what it is today.

For questions about CAW please email me, the new campus administrator, at kokamoto[at]jjay.cuny.edu or OLS’s Scholarly Communications Librarian, Meg Wacha (megan.wacha[at]cuny.edu).

For more information about CAW please see:

CUNY Academic Works LibGuide by Ellen Sexton

CUNY Academic Works: Open access and the new institutional repository by Ellen Sexton, Spring 2015

Open access and CUNY Academic Works by Ellen Sexton, Fall 2015

CUNY Academic Works: Get your work out there! by Jeffrey Kroessler, Fall 2015

Karen Okamoto

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter

 


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Delete Key

At the end of this July, a record of your completed or cancelled interlibrary loan (ILL) request history dating from June 2021 and earlier will be deleted. We are following the Graduate Center Library’s lead in deleting patron records to preserve your privacy. The Guardian (January 13, 2016, “You are not what you read”) covered the Graduate Center’s work and the work of libraries in general in maintaining patron privacy. 

Unlike our book circulation system which interfaces with “OneSearch”, our ILL system maintains patron records indefinitely without our intervention. Starting this year, we will be deleting past ILL request histories and maintain the most recent year’s requests. If you would like to save your request history before we delete it, please log into your ILL account using your John Jay email login credentials. Click on the request history tab, select all text, then copy and paste your history into an application of your choice. You can also email libill@jjay.cuny.edu before July 21, 2022 for a spreadsheet of your requests.

 

Karen Okamoto

Delete key image from Wikimedia Commons

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter

 

 

 


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The Disuniting of America by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (W.W. Norton, 1992).
Historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote this short book at the dawn of the culture wars, and he would undoubtedly be alarmed at how the fault lines he identified then have only deepened. He stresses that it is the idea of America, and the ideals embodied therein, that hold the nation together, as opposed to any specific racial, ethnic, or religious identity. He does not dismiss diversity, however. All who have come to this country have contributed to the national story, he insists, as proclaimed in the motto E Pluribus Unum. “In a world savagely rent by ethnic and racial antagonisms,” wrote Schlesinger, “it is all the more essential that the United States continue as an example of how a highly differentiated society holds itself together.” - Jeffrey Kroessler

Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan (W.W. Norton, 2021). The author packs an 800-year history into an entertaining, often surprising narrative including the once novel concept of alphabetical order; heresies, rivalries and controversies, sometimes brutal and career-ending; the indexing of fiction and fictional indexes; and the accusation that indexes make readers lazy and stupid. Appropriately, the index to Index, A History of the is 31 pages long (relatively long in proportion to the book’s page count) and is given a preamble and a named human (not machine) creator. – Kathleen Collins

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers (Custom House, 2021) and Zorrie by Laird Hunt (Blomsbury, 2021). Although they portray two very different worlds now long gone—1950s’ London suburbs and rural Indiana across several decades of the 20th century, respectively—these novels beautifully and poignantly capture the dignity of an ordinary life. While Small Pleasures is a page-turner, Zorrie charms with its unhurried pace. As the two remarkable protagonists struggle to build lives that they can fully inhabit, they content with hardship, self-denial, loneliness and heartache. The fleeting “small pleasures” Jean and Zorrie encounter offer temporary respite, as does the occasional kindness they allow themselves to receive, softening the hardness of the everyday. - Marta Bladek

My Friends by Emmanuel Bove; translated by Janet Louth (NYRB Classics; Reprint edition May 7, 2019)
If it were not for the Beyond the Bookends 2022 12 books in 12 months reading challenge, I may not have come across this book. For the month of March, the challenge suggested a historical fiction book. I found My Friends on the historical fiction table at the Strand bookstore. Bove writes short, well-crafted intentional lines. It is a story about a wounded World War I veteran trying to live in a prewar lifestyle in the streets of Paris. This story vacillates from sad, bleak moments of a lonely man’s mundane existence to the beautiful and hysterical within a short line. It’s a quick read and hits hard. - Patrick J Raftery Jr.

Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody Series.
In the weeks and months after March 2020, we were all at home looking for ways to reduce stress and stay entertained. I decided to reread all of a series of 19 mystery novels written by Elizabeth Peters, which is the pen name of mystery writer Dr. Barbara Mertz, who received her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago.
The Amelia Peabody Mystery Series follows the archaeological and criminological adventures of the fictional Amelia, her husband, Radcliff and two children in Egypt, Palestine, Sudan and the UK from 1884 to 1923. Both modern and ancient history is the context for each of the stories. Each book features difficult and amazing archaeological discoveries intertwined with solving crimes, and sometimes political intrigue. In addition to a diversity of reoccurring fictional characters, several real historical Egyptologists, politicians and cultural icons make appearances, such as Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun or “King Tut” and a succession of British and Cairo Museum curators.
Like many others in 2020, I switched my reading to digital versions of books. I read all 19 of the Amelia Peabody series by borrowing e-books with my free account on the Open Library. I read them in order by following the chronological list available on Wikipedia. Transporting oneself to Egyptological excavations more than a century ago is recommended by me as a perfect escape and de-stressor. - Ellen Belcher

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter


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Library faculty favorites: Recommended reading, Spring 2022


The Disuniting of America by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (W.W. Norton, 1992).
Historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote this short book at the dawn of the culture wars, and he would undoubtedly be alarmed at how the fault lines he identified then have only deepened. He stresses that it is the idea of America, and the ideals embodied therein, that hold the nation together, as opposed to any specific racial, ethnic, or religious identity. He does not dismiss diversity, however. All who have come to this country have contributed to the national story, he insists, as proclaimed in the motto E Pluribus Unum. “In a world savagely rent by ethnic and racial antagonisms,” wrote Schlesinger, “it is all the more essential that the United States continue as an example of how a highly differentiated society holds itself together.” - Jeffrey Kroessler

Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan (W.W. Norton, 2021). The author packs an 800-year history into an entertaining, often surprising narrative including the once novel concept of alphabetical order; heresies, rivalries and controversies, sometimes brutal and career-ending; the indexing of fiction and fictional indexes; and the accusation that indexes make readers lazy and stupid. Appropriately, the index to Index, A History of the is 31 pages long (relatively long in proportion to the book’s page count) and is given a preamble and a named human (not machine) creator. – Kathleen Collins

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers (Custom House, 2021) and Zorrie by Laird Hunt (Blomsbury, 2021). Although they portray two very different worlds now long gone—1950s’ London suburbs and rural Indiana across several decades of the 20th century, respectively—these novels beautifully and poignantly capture the dignity of an ordinary life. While Small Pleasures is a page-turner, Zorrie charms with its unhurried pace. As the two remarkable protagonists struggle to build lives that they can fully inhabit, they content with hardship, self-denial, loneliness and heartache. The fleeting “small pleasures” Jean and Zorrie encounter offer temporary respite, as does the occasional kindness they allow themselves to receive, softening the hardness of the everyday. - Marta Bladek

My Friends by Emmanuel Bove; translated by Janet Louth (NYRB Classics; Reprint edition May 7, 2019)
If it were not for the Beyond the Bookends 2022 12 books in 12 months reading challenge, I may not have come across this book. For the month of March, the challenge suggested a historical fiction book. I found My Friends on the historical fiction table at the Strand bookstore. Bove writes short, well-crafted intentional lines. It is a story about a wounded World War I veteran trying to live in a prewar lifestyle in the streets of Paris. This story vacillates from sad, bleak moments of a lonely man’s mundane existence to the beautiful and hysterical within a short line. It’s a quick read and hits hard. - Patrick J Raftery Jr.

Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody Series.
In the weeks and months after March 2020, we were all at home looking for ways to reduce stress and stay entertained. I decided to reread all of a series of 19 mystery novels written by Elizabeth Peters, which is the pen name of mystery writer Dr. Barbara Mertz, who received her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago.
The Amelia Peabody Mystery Series follows the archaeological and criminological adventures of the fictional Amelia, her husband, Radcliff and two children in Egypt, Palestine, Sudan and the UK from 1884 to 1923. Both modern and ancient history is the context for each of the stories. Each book features difficult and amazing archaeological discoveries intertwined with solving crimes, and sometimes political intrigue. In addition to a diversity of reoccurring fictional characters, several real historical Egyptologists, politicians and cultural icons make appearances, such as Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun or “King Tut” and a succession of British and Cairo Museum curators.
Like many others in 2020, I switched my reading to digital versions of books. I read all 19 of the Amelia Peabody series by borrowing e-books with my free account on the Open Library. I read them in order by following the chronological list available on Wikipedia. Transporting oneself to Egyptological excavations more than a century ago is recommended by me as a perfect escape and de-stressor. - Ellen Belcher

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter


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image of wooden fence with Ukrainian flag colorsSince February 24, 2022, Ukraine, a country in the middle of Europe, suddenly became a major focus of the news all over the world. Although Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union it became a sovereign and independent country in August of 1991. It was unexpectedly attacked by its neighbor, Russia, and so started the biggest war of the 21st century. One of the main reasons Russia instigated the conflict was the worry that Ukraine might join NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

To educate yourself about the conflict and to read reliable news and interpretation please consult the following sites:

Here is a very good article on reading suggestions for understanding the soul of Ukraine.

The New York Public Library compiled a list of books available in their collections in print and electronic format on Ukrainian history. If you do not already have a NYPL membership card there is a way to obtain one online. The NYPL made a list of suggestion for organizations through which one can help Ukraine and its citizens in these hard times.

Our library has many materials on Ukraine as well. Explore the search results found in OneSearch by typing UKRAINE and then using filters to get to materials by specific format (Articles or Media, for example) or subject.

There is a neighborhood in East Village that is known as Little Ukraine where you can taste Ukrainian food, visit a museum and a couple of churches.

Maria Kiriakova

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter

Best wishes for the future, Guillermo
Since 2008, Guillermo Meneses has been an indispensable colleague in the library. He has helped to maintain and troubleshoot issues with all the computers, printers, scanners, networks and other hardware and software in the library. He was reliable and reliably funny, humoring us with anecdotes and witty comments while fixing every technical issue imaginable. He was not only a great colleague to work with, but also a great friend to be around. Guillermo is leaving us this semester to pursue another career opportunity. As much as we will miss him, we wish him all the best in his new position and thank him for everything that he has done for the library.

We’re going to miss Guillermo tremendously around these parts. Besides the fact that he was extremely dependable and competent at his job, he was a complete joy as a colleague. Guillermo never failed to put me in a good mood. He has a wonderful sense of humor, but he’s also a philosopher. We’ve had lots of interesting and enlightening conversations over the years, and he always helped me to look at the bright side of things. He also made it clear to me early on that he would be willing to try any of my home baking. I’ll think of Guillermo every time I make cookies and will make a few extra in his honor. Thank you for everything, Guillermo! Your new colleagues are very fortunate. – Kathleen Collins

Guillermo has a rare ability to face a problem and then solve it without expressing any complaints. I will miss his friendly greetings and healthy smoothie drinks, chats about human nature and Mexican cuisine. His new colleagues will definitely appreciate his sense of humor and dependability. – Maria Kiriakova

Hands down Guillermo is the friendliest member of the library. First to smile, first to inquire about how you are doing and first to lend a helping hand. Even with things you should know how to fix on your own by now, he cheerfully steps in and finds and resolves the problem. Things will not be the same without him but we wish him continued success in his new position. - Maureen Richards

Saying goodbye to Guillermo is bittersweet: I’m sorry he won’t be my coworker anymore, but I’m pleased his professional expertise was recognized and awarded with a new career opportunity. While Guillermo’s tech gifts can’t be praised enough, his patience, good humor and open heart deserve to be mentioned as well. And, it is not just the library faculty and staff who will miss Guillermo: he has always been a student-centered professional who has worked with countless JJAY students as they navigated tech difficulties in the course of their academic endeavors. - Marta Bladek

Congratulations, Guillermo! You have been nothing but a pleasure to work with. I was always able to sleep at night knowing that you are there to make sure things were working. You are a great colleague and a great friend. And now that you are leaving, I’ll be sleep deprived. With all that said, I can’t express how much I’ve appreciated your help during my time at the Library. I don’t know if I will ever find someone as loyal and reliable as you have been for the last 10 years. Nonetheless, you deserve this new opportunity and I know you’ll do great at your new job. You will have always have a spot in my heart. Please take care. - Geng Lin

I am happy that Guillermo found another opportunity that advances his skills and expertise, but I am simultaneously sad to lose a great colleague. Guillermo would reliably, quickly and calmly fix all sorts of technical issues in the Library while making us laugh with an amusing insight or story. Thank you for sharing your good sense of humor with us, Guillermo, and for solving our many technical glitches. We are going to miss you! - Karen Okamoto

First, I want to congratulate Guillermo on this new opportunity. I have no doubt you will excel and be a vibrant part of the CUNY School of Labor Studies. However, I will greatly miss your humor, conversations about life and the state of the world today, and all of the technical help you have provided. I wish you all the best and am sad to see you go. - Patrick J Raftery Jr

Guillermo is a hard worker who enjoys working in the library and understands the vital use of computers for library work, patron usage, and librarian vitality. He appreciates working with the library staff and patrons. Guillermo will be missed! - Marvie Brooks

It's been really great working with Guillermo all these years. I’m sorry to see him go but I wish him luck and all the best in his new position. -Mark Zubarev

Guillermo was always helpful to me when technical problems presented themselves in the library. He did it with a smile and a willing spirit. I greatly appreciated his assistance. Apart from that, Guillermo was fun to talk with. We talked about all sort of things, everything from the complicated relationship between Latin America and the U.S. to ways to promote personal good health and fitness. He will be missed at John Jay College Library. - Tania Colmant-Donabedian

Dear Guillermo, We've worked together many years. It's always been a pleasure. Thank you for your warmth, your smile, your willingness to help everyone. Speaking as a reference librarian, I am grateful for the many ways you kept our library computer systems running so smoothly. Even though I'll miss you and am sorry to see you go, I know you will do well in your new position, accepting the challenges and making the most of the opportunities. Congratulations and good luck in your new position! Warm regards - Lory Gallo

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter


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A startling bit of news came out of Bard College recently. The library newsletter announced, proudly, one assumes: “In keeping with campus-wide initiatives to ensure that Bard is a place of inclusion, equity, and diversity, the Stevenson Library is conducting a diversity audit of the entire print collection in an effort to begin the process of decanonizing the stacks. Three students, who are funded through the Office of Inclusive Excellence, have begun the process which we expect will take at least a year to complete. The students will be evaluating each book for representations of race/ethnicity, gender, religion, and ability.”

Bard quickly stepped back in the face of sharp public criticism. The chief librarian assured all that no books would actually be removed. But, she explained, the exercise “will help us understand and answer questions about representation in our collections and build a more inclusive collection going forward.” How odd, that a librarian would consider her collection as less than inclusive. Had she been intentionally building a collection based on exclusion? She is certainly suggesting that in the future Bard will not be putting on the shelves books whose ideas or authors they find objectionable.

We should ponder what Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in Whitney v. California (1927): “If there be time to expose the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” Removing books from the stacks or not buying books expressing difficult ideas is “enforced silence.”

The Lloyd Sealy Library will not be “decanonizing” our collection. Indeed, that concept is antithetical to our core mission. It also violates the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, a document adopted in 1939 as the rise of totalitarianism threatened liberal society. The first two articles are germane here.

Article I: Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

Article II: Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

Those principles guide our collection development policies and practices. Yes, we are constantly weeding our collection to make way for new volumes, but we do not remove any books because we find the ideas or the author objectionable. Really, it is my hope that everyone finds something in our collection they find objectionable. At the same time, we do our best to respond to requests that we acquire a particular volume, for that, too, is part of our core mission – supporting the educational and research needs of faculty and students.

Delivering a commencement address at Dartmouth College in June 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower implored his audience, “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.”

Amen to that.

Jeffrey Kroessler, Interim Chief Librarian

Read more from the Spring 2022 issue of Classified Information, the Library's newsletter


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