Online Newsletter of Roxbury Community College Library

May 2004

If it’s May, it must be final exam time.

Candid library shots of students getting ready.

WHAT DO LIBRARY USERS THINK?

During March, 105 RCC students and faculty took the time to fill out a four-page User Satisfaction Questionnaire. The point of the exercise, for library staff, is to listen to library users and try to improve the library based on that listening. The following selected comments reveal what people feel about the library and sometimes, between the lines, what they feel about more personal issues.

WHAT ARE THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THE LIBRARY? ACCORDING TO STUDENTS.

• “The helpfulness of the staff.”
• “The quiet atmosphere and access to the computers.”
• “How everything is easily accessible.”
• “That it’s in the school. You don’t have to go to other library branches.”
• “Quietness. Computers. Study time.”
• “A student can really sit there and read or do their homework. The online catalog is also A+.”
• “The staff and physical layout are very excellent. Keep up the good job staff.”
• “Room to study, quiet and helpful.”
• “Provides somewhat of a quiet place to study on campus. A variety of things can be accomplished by studying in the Library.”
• “Services are quick and thorough.”
• “A quiet place to get some reading done.”
• “Clean, quiet, peaceful.”
• “I am able to go between classes and get work done and check my E-mail. I can research and find out important information for other classes.”
• “The staff is extremely helpful.”
• “The friendly atmosphere and helpful staff.”
• “There are computers that you can use freely.”
• “It is a good atmosphere for studying.”
• “Meticulous, helpful staff. Very quiet and clean.”
• “The Quiet. Space; Lighting.”
• “There’s a lot of space. Valuable for those who want to study or concentrate on their reading.”
• “The library has a lot of space and is a quiet place where students can study. It is also an environment that is non-threatening and somewhere students and staff respect one another.”
• “The girl librarians.”

HOW SHOULD THE LIBRARY BE IMPROVED? ACCORDING TO STUDENTS.

• “More books & more girl librarians.”

· “It is a little better than what it once was but it needs a 100% turn around to become an efficient and effective library.”

• “Probably in helping the students to keep quiet and shut their cell phones off when they enter the library.”
• “The library staff needs to change their attitude. They do not make any attempt to be helpful or approachable. This is the loudest library I have ever been in. You need a larger selection of reference and books.”
• “I have observed some staff members behaving unprofessionally and rude towards students. There are other situations that arise when students are not as understanding courteous to the staff. Both of these concerns need to be addressed accordingly.”
• “Staff there should have a welcoming, smiling face to the students. Pls try to have 2 copies for the main textbooks for each class. Could the hours be increased to 10pm or 11pm so that the evening students can have some time to use it since most of them work in the day.”
• “To get more computers, repair old ones and increase the speed of the computers. More texts for students and control more quietness in the library.”
• “Stop students hugging and kissing in the library. It’s distracting. Make more private reading spaces.”
• “You should not be charging for printing from the computer because no other college library does that.”
• “We are all adults. The library should be a quiet place.”
• “It could be larger.”
• “Make sure people don’t make noises.”
• “It costs too much to print. We should only be charged for print jobs over 5 pages.”
• “Maybe more computers because there are only 13 and a lot of the students sometimes have to use them but there are none & have to wait.”
• “It should be open at least M-F 8:00 AM-10:00 PM. Saturday at least 8:00 AM to 7pm.”
• “Make it easy to get a library card.”
• “More books (Text books and work books). Free writing materials. More text and work books.”
• “New Books. New Computers. More Reference text books.”
• “More books for ESL classes, more help and more information on how we can look for different kinds of information in books.”
• “More funding to make state of the art!”

BEST THINGS ABOUT THE LIBRARY? ACCORDING TO FACULTY

• “The helpfulness of the library staff.”
• “It’s improving a lot! The newsletter is great.”
• “Ambiance.”
• “Helpfulness of staff.”
• “Helpful attitudes of staff. Physical space. Website.”
• “Helpful staff. Reserve desk very useful.”
• “The staff.”
• “The people and their willingness to help.”
• “The staff are among the most professional and responsive people on campus.”
• “The staff is very helpful and professional which benefits the faculty as well as the students.”
• “Friendly staff.”

HOW SHOULD THE LIBRARY BE IMPROVED? ACCORDING TO FACULTY.

• “More AV. Laptops with LCD projectors. With delivery service.”
• “DVD players for staff classroom use; expand book collection. LCD projector hooked up to laptop; classroom ‘delivery.’”
• “More books!”
• “Collection is too small. I usually just order at local BPL-faster, easier.”
• “AV equipment desperately needs to be upgraded. Library should have better hours for students.”
• “Improvement of the copy machines.”
• “More books. More hours. More staff. More space for quiet study.”
• “More books. More $ to buy textbooks. More staff.”
• “More books! More online resources! More librarians!”
• “Better AV equipment (and more). We need more books, more databases. We need better computers and faster. The RCC website is often non-functional for it’s electronic resources.”
• “More updated materials in most areas- more staff in order to have more eve. And weekend hours.”
• “It needs to buy books to keep collection current. Needs to restore many periodicals and remove the tabloid mentality such as Ebony, Cosmopolitan, Vanidades, etc.”
• “I would like to see a system established where functioning audiovisual equipment is made more readily available and delivered to the classroom. The equipment, very often, is faulty and it’s time consuming to manage the elevators timely delivery to the classroom. Many times, after transporting the equipment to the classroom, a non-working bulb is discovered.”
• “More Power Point material. Delivery of equipment.”
• “Places for group study. Buy more books. More general periodicals for relaxed browsing. (Good for ESL students.)”
• “More carts, OHPs (newer ones, cassette/CD player. LCD projector-with delivery set-up service.”
• “More librarians are needed! More books! More AV material and equipment.”

THE LIBRARY’S RESPONSE

• Thanks to everyone who shared their ideas by filling out the Questionnaire. Thanks also to students, faculty and staff members, and administrators who are helping to improve the library for the benefit of our students.
• The library’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2005 includes requests for:
• More professional staff, to approach the American Library Association (ALA) recommended level.
• The first dedicated budget for books and AV materials in several years.
• An upgrading of AV equipment.
• Refurbishing of the old bookstore for library group study space and a small AV viewing area. This would help bring the library seating capacity up to the ALA minimum in anticipation of reaccreditation.
• A coordinated, college-wide, multi-year effort, built into the Strategic Plan, to increase the library collections to 40,000 items, the minimum ALA guideline for community college libraries.

In the meantime, the following is being done:

• Neela Dandecar of the library staff just ordered $13,000 worth of books and AV materials. They are in 3 categories:
• Requests from faculty for course related material,
• Items that match student research topics over the last 2 years.
• Upgrading of the out-of-date career collection.
• The library’s first 2 DVD players were bought April 16 and have already been loaned out several times.
• Walter Geer has ordered special carts for LCD projectors. The carts will have LCDs and attached computers and hopefully will be ready for classroom loan by the fall.
• Library staff has had 2 customer service training sessions in January and March. More are planned.

If you missed all of the times that RCC has been mentioned in the local daily press, here are links to articles from the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald over the past 3 months. There are 2 kinds of articles: those about the college and those in which people connected to the college are mentioned. They are from the library’s database, NewsBank.

THIS IS THE WORLD THAT JACK'S BUILT, AND IT'S MOVING CROSSTOWN, Boston Globe, May 2, 2004. (Venue moved from RCC.)

Op-Ed AS YOU WERE SAYING . . . A Boston legend is honored for bringing people together, Boston Herald, April 24, 2004. (Former RCC acting president, Hubie Jones.)

DIRECTOR MCCAULEY SELECTS A DIVERSE CAST OF `JURORS', Boston Globe, April 23, 2004. (RCC stage production.)

WAR ON TERROR Battleground victim's cousin: Bring 'em home, Boston Herald, April 17, 2004. (Former RCC student, Iraq victim.)

ANXIETY RISES AT T STATIONS Boston Globe, April 12, 2004. (Comments by Prof. Ken Tangvik.)

BLACK LEADERSHIP REASSESSES AGENDA FORUM FOCUSES ON POLITICS, SOCIETY, Boston Globe, March 22, 2004. (National Black Agenda Convention.)

National black group tackles housing, jobs, Boston Herald, March 21, 2004. (National Black Agenda Convention.)

Natick peace march honors U.S. war dead, Boston Herald March 21, 2004. (Protesters leave from RCC.)

OP-ED Substance is missing from Black Agenda, Boston Herald March 21, 2004. (National Black Agenda Convention.)

A PHOTO SHOW TRACKS BOSTON'S PUERTO RICANS OVER 29 YEARS Boston Globe, March 14, 2004. (Prof. Angel Amy Moreno’s exhibit at Umass/Boston.)

AROUND TOWN Boston Globe, March 7, 2004. (Jobs Corp open house.)

`THE LITTLE SWEEP' OFFERS BIG HOPES FOR UNITY, Boston Globe, February 28, 2004. (Cantata Singers at RCC.)

TO SOME CONSTITUENTS, KERRY STILL A PUZZLE Boston Globe, February 28, 2004. (RCC Nigerian students like Kerry.)

MUSIC Kings of the world, Diverse backgrounds fuel these III rappers, Boston Herald, February 27, 2004. (Rappers met at RCC.)

OP-ED Building reform can save big bucks, Boston Herald, February 17, 2004. (Reggie Lewis example of fiscal success.)

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE BATTLE, Legislators rejoice or seethe, Marriage supporters sing praise, Boston Herald, February 13, 2004. (RCC student at rally.)

To do your own search:

· Go to the library website www.rcc.mass.edu/lib

· Select Databases then Alphabetical List

· At Newsbank, select either On Campus or Off Campus. (If accessing from off campus, key in your library bar code number. You can get one by registering to be a library user at the circulation desk.)

· Select Massachusetts Newspapers

· Type “roxbury community college” (put quotes around any phrase you want) and press Search

· The newest articles come up first.

For instructions on how to search newspapers from around the country or around the world, see the February 2003 issue of Welcome to the Library. Look at the Featured Database article. To find this, go to www.rcc.mass.edu/lib and choose .

DONORS GIVE FINE GIFTS

The library has received several interesting gifts recently. Here are some of them.

The Black Women Oral History Project, 10 vols., ed. by Ruth Edmonds Hill. Gift of the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe.  Sylvia McDowell of the RCC Foundation was instrumental in the library acquiring this gift.

The set includes the transcripts of oral history interviews with 72 black women active in the twentieth century.  The transcripts could be the basis of very interesting and profitable student projects. Students could pick one of the women, read the transcript of her oral history interview and then write interpretive essays. David Updike of the English Department has already engaged his students in just such a project. Here is a short biographical sketch of one of the women in this set.

Dorothy West (1906-1998). Dorothy West was the oldest living member of the Harlem Renaissance writing movement. She founded the literary magazine Challenge, later New Challenge, which focused on the writings of her colleagues including Langston Hughes. Born in Boston, her first short story was published in the Boston Post at age ten. In addition to being a writer and magazine editor, Ms. West was also an actress (with a role in a theater production of Porgie and Bess) and a social work investigator in New York. The latter job inspired her story “Mammy.” She was one of twenty writers, again including Langston Hughes, to go to the Soviet Union in 1932 to participate in a film on black life in America entitled Black and White. She continued to live there for a several years with Hughes. Upon “retirement” on Martha’s Vineyard, Ms. West worked as a cashier at a local restaurant and wrote a weekly newspaper column for the Vineyard Gazette.

Stolen Childhoods. Gift of Gloria Gallego of the New Beginnings Program. “Stolen Childhoods is a feature length documentary on global child labor. The story is told in the words of laboring children, their parents, and the people working daily to help them. Children share their experiences of exploitation and their hopes for a better life and future. Their stories are at once particular and universal.” An excellent addition for classroom use.

Other interesting gifts:

· 2 books by Edward R. Tufte: Visual Explanations:  Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative and Envisioning Information. Gift of David Becker of the Nursing Department.

· 300 books on various subjects of interest to college students. Donated by Jean Claude Saint Louis, recently retired from the Division of Liberal Arts.

· Videos on investment. Gift of Hugh Stringer, Division of Business and Technology.

· 280 new textbooks. Gift of Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.

· 25 nursing books. Gift of Pascal Nouna, Cambridge, MA.

· 121 books by African Studies authors. Gift of Frank Wharton, Quincy, MA.

· Video of the musical “Annie.” Gift of Christopher Dea.

EASY READER BOOKS

The library has a small collection of Easy Reader books, purchased originally for ESL students and those whose reading skills need improvement. They have not been used much recently, however. Over the past 2 months, the following has been done to promote them:

• Special Easy Reader labels attached to each book to identify them.
• A new, more attractive and inviting display with appropriate signage.
• Alerting ESL faculty of these changes and also showing them how to search Easy Reader books as a group in the library catalog.

As a result, circulation has jumped dramatically. Now all we have to do is buy more of them!

To browse the Easy Reader collection online:

· Go to library web page www.rcc.mass.edu/lib,

· Select iLink,

· Select Switch to Power Search

· Under Location, choose Easy Reading Collection and

· Hit Search

All 171 of them are spit out.

THE LEARNING RESOURCES COMMITTEE

The Learning Resources Committee monitors library operations under the governance structure of the college. Attending the last Learning Resources meeting of the school year were (L to R) Abeba Attles, Student Government Association president, and professors Nancy Teel, David Updike and Veronica McCormack.

To build a better college library and provide superior customer service, we need your comments. Send both praises and gripes to mlawrence@rcc.mass.edu.

If you missed earlier issues of Welcome to the Library, click on “Read the Library’s newsletter” on the library website http://www.rcc.mass.edu/lib.

Welcome to the Library, published by Roxbury Community College Library, Roxbury Crossing, MA

Mark Lawrence, Acting Library Director