Search

For the past year, the Discovery Committee has been working on creating a new search interface for the libraries using NCSU Libraries' QuickSearch, an open-source application. This poster will provide an update on the progress the group has made and will include a live demo and usability testing of the in-development application.

We hope to show cost effective color scanning of images, and encourage other PTRCs (Patent and Trademark Resource Centers) to join NYPL and UMD in making all 25,000+ plant patents easily available. USPTO still requires paper color prints for legal proceedings, so our PDFs are for easy preliminary searching and browsing. We will discuss the process, workflow, and scope for digitizing the color plates in collaboration with DCMR (Digital Conversion and Media Reformatting), SSDR (Software Systems Development and Research), Metadata and EPSL (Engineering and Physical Sciences Library).

In light of the increased cost of purchasing library materials in academic institutions in the United States, many institutions are canceling subscriptions to journals and databases from commercial and society's publishers. This paper will discuss the collection management policies at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), give examples of how the recent cancellation is affecting the teaching and research at the University, and the innovative ways librarians are trying to circumvent this difficult period, by discovering and advertising free resources, using pay-per-view models, etc. Special emphasis will be given to resources in engineering and physical sciences. For example, at UMCP, a University with a well-known physics program (ranked #13 among graduate programs in physics by US News and World Report, 2009), since July 1, 2008, faculty and students no longer have access to current INSPEC, the premier physics database (UMCP purchased the INSPEC Archive and access to it will remain intact). This was a very hard decision and the effect will not be known immediately. Will the free Scitopia, Google Scholar, and the like be a good substitute? Participants will be invited to discuss their own experiences.

The librarians at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Library (EPSL) have enhanced many engineering-oriented programs at the University of Maryland in College Park over the years. But it is most rewarding when a new program comes along. It takes tact and a different strategy to ferret out the best way(s) to be of assistance. A good example is EPSL librarians’ efforts to get in on the “ground floor” of a new set of introductory core classes for non-technical/non-science majors, Marquee Courses in Science and Technology, which began in the fall of 2007. The Gemstone Program, a unique multidisciplinary four-year research team-based Honors Program in the A. James Clark School of Engineering, has significantly involved UM librarians since its inception in 1996. Dr. William Destler derived this now very successful and nationally noted program from the “old” Capstone concept, under which senior UM engineering students are still being instructed on patent and other advanced searching by EPSL librarians. In fall 2006 at the A. James Clark School of Engineering, the UM Keystone Program was created to encourage the best faculty to teach the most fundamental engineering courses. The Engineering departments discontinued the librarians’ instruction part of ENES 100 “Introduction to Engineering Design”. We had given these ENES 100 sessions, involving hands-on experience, to nearly every section of new freshmen engineering students for about fifteen years. But the EPSL librarians persevered; and created a strong web presence for the UM Libraries via our Blackboard(TM) system ELMS (Enterprise Learning Management System.) In summer 2006, when we heard about the new Marquee Courses program, EPSL librarians wasted no time in an aggressive marketing campaign to the professors of these classes, to demonstrate UM Library resources to their students. This presentation will cover our efforts and strategy, such as communicating with the Marquee Courses professors to successfully secure tim

In the last five years the Engineering & Physical Sciences Library underwent a major staff shortage that resulted in the slowing-down of some services and the abandonment of other vital activities like regular weeding of the reference collection. Many print indexes and abstracts (e.g., Science Citation Index and Chemical Abstracts) were canceled in favor of electronic access but the old print volumes remained in reference. The reference collection occupies a prime location in the library. This space could be repurposed. The challenge we face is where to house this large volume count. This paper will provide information on best practices in weeding print reference collections. The tips were gathered from a review of literature on collection management at other academic, public and special libraries.

In spring 2011 Public Services Division Mangers charged the Information and Research Services Team (IRST) to analyze and make recommendations for service improvement for all areas of Information and Research Services. IRST conducted surveys, interviews, literature review and an environmental scan of University of Maryland Libraries and other institutions in order to assess and evaluate the current information services situation and collect information for the following recommendation. In the ‘Considerations’ and ‘Recommendations’ sections, IRST identified the following areas that need to be modified: staffing, technology and physical spaces. The appendices section of this report contains the charge and a summary of findings.

This poster focuses on University of Maryland librarians’ participation in an innovative, collaborative program where instruction extends beyond a typical library session, providing students with a quality learning experience over the course of four years. The program, called Gemstone, is an interdisciplinary honors research program and involves collaboration between librarians, faculty, program staff, and undergraduate students. During the first year of the program, the students attend classes that help them prepare for their research. After forming research teams, they spend the next three years designing and conducting a research project that focuses on the intersection of science and technology with society. This experience facilitates the development of research, teamwork, communication, and leadership skills, and culminates in the students’ defense of their thesis, orally and in writing, to a panel of experts. Librarians are involved in the first year of the program through a class called GEMS 100. The librarians teach a session of the class where they introduce research tools and lead the students in critical thinking exercises to turn their potential topic ideas into research questions. During the remainder of the program, the librarians partner with a particular team. That partnership includes helping the students with research strategies on an informal basis, reviewing and critiquing proposals and presentations, and attending the Junior Colloquia and final Team Thesis Conference. The librarians and faculty mentors assigned to each group also meet several times a year to compare notes about improving the quality of assistance for the students' research efforts. By having librarians work closely with them throughout the research process, students further benefit from the advice, feedback, and expertise in research skills that the librarians provide. Thus, the librarians have the opportunity to provide quality, hands-on service over an extended period of time

In 2000 a faculty member of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department (ENCH) at the University of Maryland (UM), made an unusual request to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Library (EPSL) librarians. She requested a bibliographic instruction session for her students in ENCH 609, the department’s introductory graduate seminar. As surprised as we were, figuring erroneously that graduate students already knew our UM Library resources quite well, the truth has become clear that they obviously do not. Over the past eight years, we have made an assertive, at times even aggressive effort, to introduce the need for vital bibliographic instruction sessions to the fourteen departments EPSL serves, most often at orientations held at the beginning of fall semester. What is covered during these sessions varies, of course, by department, subject area, enrollment, time allotted, and location, among other things. The general breakdown of a typical session caters to the needs of engineering and the physical sciences, with special considerations given to mathematics and computer science. The unique part of this paper traces not only the progress of obtaining the success rate of 13 of 14 departments during the past two years, but also several of the marketing strategies utilized. For most librarians for whom marketing is a distasteful endeavor (we refer to it as the “M” word), we offer as a bonus, a “Top Ten” list to help to alleviate some of the associated stress that can be involved in selling the library. The list ranges from major points like dealing with rejection to minor ones, like having a little fun using a professor’s name for Web of Science’s Cited Reference Search. There is no doubt that for information services we are in an era dominated by Web 2.0 and its enhancements. Still, we have found that both our subject faculty and our graduate students the preferred method of instruction is the in-person interaction, be it in a group or one-on-one. Finally, what