Thank You to Our Sponsors

2023 New Jersey Academic Libraries Conference:
Supporting the Academic Community and Beyond:
The Power of Community, Collaboration, and Connection

Virtual Program Guide
Friday, January 6, 2023 | 9:00am – 4:00pm

Welcome to our virtual conference! This document will serve as your one-stop-shop for all links and materials you will need to attend the conference.

9:15am-10am Poster Sessions

10am-11am Welcome and Keynote Speaker

11:10am-12pm Breakout Sessions I

12pm-12:50pm Lunch Break – Organizational Updates

1pm-1:50pm Breakout Session II

2pm-2:50pm Breakout Sessions III

3pm-3:50pm Breakout Sessions IV

This conference will take place entirely via Zoom. Click here for attendee Zoom instructions.

For technical support at any point during the conference, please email joe.toth@njedge.net or alyssa.valenti@raritanval.edu

Social Media – To post about the conference on social media, use the hashtag #NJALC2023

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POSTER SESSIONS
Poster Sessions – 9:15am – 10:00am

P1. Outreach as Community in the Academic Music Library
Sarah Mason, Rider University

Outreach in academic libraries, especially specialized academic libraries, presents different challenges and needs than most public libraries, and one often must think outside the box when doing so. At Talbott Music Library, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, creative efforts have been made in outreach in order to cast a wider net to the community in Lawrenceville and Princeton areas: through social media, events, and collaborations with others within the university. This poster will present the successes and challenges that have been encountered in recent semesters, such as a library music recital, a diversity book club, and more.

P2. Working Together Toward a More Open Future: Princeton and Rutgers Libraries’ Collaboration on Open Access Publishing
Yuan Li, Princeton University
Mei Ling Lo, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Joe Marciniak, Princeton University
Laura Bowering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

To celebrate International Open Access Week and explore ways to work together toward a more open future, Princeton and Rutgers Library systems have collaborated to host an annual event related to open since 2021. As R1 research institutions in NJ, both institutions enthusiastically support openness to research with the goal to create pathways to more equitable knowledge sharing throughout the world. While both institutions grapple with the evolution of subscription and open access models, OA policies and funder mandates, working together on an annual program for International OA Week has allowed librarians from two institutions to share their expertise, workflows and ideas as we all move toward a more Open Access future.

P3. Call For Nominations: 2023 NJLA College & University Section Technology Innovation Award
Janelle Bitter, Raritan Valley Community College

The NJLA-CUS Technology Innovation Award honors a librarian or group of librarians for innovative use and application of technology in a New Jersey academic library, including creative use of existing technologies. The award may be given either in recognition of a specific project, or for ongoing delivery of innovative technology applications. Particular consideration will be given to those that have had a transformative impact on their institution and can be used by other academic institutions. Details on changes made to the award this year as well as past award winners will be included on the poster.

P4. “Get Ready to Vote!”: Educating and Registering Students to Vote
David Biehl, Fairleigh Dickinson University

The “Get Ready to Vote!” poster will share conceptions, plans, and reflections on a multi-faceted initiative to educate FDU students about the 2022 Midterm elections and to register them to vote. It will illustrate the work to create an expansive online LibGuide on voting and upcoming elections and how it connected FDU students and staff with important related resources. The poster will also share the work to engage more directly with the community on these issues, including collaborating with the League of Women Voters to hold voter registration tables and planning a panel discussion event to raise awareness on the importance of voting

P5. Accolades for Academics
Adriana Mamay, Middlesex College

Recognize your peers and honor them with the awards they deserve! This poster highlights four New Jersey Library Association awards that academic librarians are exclusively eligible for and describes how college and university librarians can nominate themselves and their colleagues. The winners of the Distinguished Service Award, Research Award, Technical Services Award, and Technology Innovation Award will be honored at the NJLA Conference in Atlantic City, which attracts 700 librarians annually. New Jersey’s academic librarians are extremely accomplished. Let’s ensure that our accolades are recognized and appreciated by the wider NJ library community.

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KEYNOTE Speaker – Xan Goodman
Keynote Session – 10:00am – 11:00am

*** CANCELED DUE TO SPEAKER UNAVAILABILITY ***

Xan Goodman is Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she supports four schools in the Division of Health Sciences, the School of Dental Medicine, School of Integrated Health Sciences, School of Public Health, and School of Nursing. Xan is a maker and likes tinkering with and making all sorts of things, including tea brews, body butters, and jewelry. For the past few years Xan has been thinking deeply about cultural humility, and presenting workshops on the topic. Xan is the author of a three pillar framework for cultural humility in libraries, and is a co-author of two forthcoming book chapters on the topic. Today she is excited to share what she’s been thinking and learning about connecting to communities within libraries among staff and with community members around the theme of cultural humility.

Keynote Address Abstract: Goodman’s work examines cultural humility as a lens for viewing library experiences. Goodman will challenge audiences to engage in a critique of libraries and urge them to think more carefully about how cultural humility may offer a hopeful approach to the pressing challenges facing libraries.

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BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Breakout Sessions I – 11:10am – 12:00pm

B01. Teamwork – 1R and 3Cs
Presenter:
Jane Jiang, Union College

When working on collaborative projects with coworkers, it may appear that participants are not all on the same page, and moving forward can be at a standstill! Teamwork builds rapport, produces accomplishment, and cultivates collegial interactions.

Keeping 1R and 3Cs in mind accelerates work efficiencies and helps to foster healthy mindsets.

1R: Respect

3Cs: Communication, Cooperation and Collaboration.

B02. Your Story Is Your Study: Autoethnography and Reflective Practice in Librarianship
Presenter:
Rebeca Jefferson, The College of New Jersey

In this session, I will introduce autoethnography: A qualitative research method in which the researcher’s own experiences become the site of inquiry. Disrupting traditional notions of academic objectivity, this method encourages critical self-examination. Although it focuses on the self, collaboration and community are vital in autoethnography. My talk will discuss the book The Self As Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity , Culture, and Academic Librarianship, and professional identity construction. I will discuss the importance of collaboration in this unique research method, and the power of librarians working in community to produce innovative research, and to encourage each other in reflective practice.

B03. Workplace Bullying in Academic Libraries
Presenters:
Justin Savage, Montclair State University
Catherine Baird, Montclair State University
Andrea Hebert, Louisiana State University

Workplace bullying is a problem in many work environments and can take different forms, including spreading gossip, criticism of work, unreasonable workloads, and being excluded. This study explores workplace bullying among Louisiana academic library workers using the Negative Acts Questionnaire–Revised (NAQ-R) instrument. This research has become increasingly relevant due in no small part to the impact of the pandemic on the academic library workplace and community. These troublesome environments do not germinate healthy community relationships. This presentation will highlight the study’s goals, methodology, and results as well as discuss future goals in this area of research.

B04. Lightning Talks A, B & C

I had the rewarding opportunity to provide library services in this fast paced and every changing hospital environment for the past 5 years. Connecting with the necessary stakeholders can sometimes be a challenge. Once a relationship is established, however, the library becomes a part of the team providing the evidenced based knowledge that supports clinical care and quality improvement processes. I will share my experience with marketing library services that have help me connect and support this unique group of library patrons. Answering the questions of how to connect with your hospital audience, getting to know their needs and a few tips of what I learned helped to make the process easier.

As universities transition back to in-person operations, neurodivergent students face a number of specific challenges adjusting to the “old normal.” Academic libraries are well-suited to supporting this underserved and often invisible segment of the community, but a lack of neurodiversity awareness can undermine critical opportunities to create neuroinclusive spaces on campus. Librarians and administrators should thus consider developing a neuroinclusive framework for staff training, patron services, and facility usage. This presentation will summarize the current state of knowledge regarding neurodiversity and academic libraries to raise awareness of the needs of neurodivergent learners and how academic libraries can better support them.

This brief session will cover the basics of submitting a grant proposal. It will provide attendees with a few websites to look for grants, the basic framework for writing a grant, and the importance of collaborating with other academic librarians or faculty members when working on a grant application to meet a submission deadline. A few small grant proposals will be presented as examples as well as the presenter’s experiences of how collaboration was key throughout the revision process before the final submission of finished grant proposals.

B05. Round Table Discussions A&B

Healthy communication is an essential element of strong teams. Library staff need to know when Ebsco databases are down, computers are unavailable due to roof leaks, the building needs to be evacuated due to an emergency, and more. Effective communication within libraries is crucial to providing the level of service that we all strive for. Challenging circumstances including multiple departments, a mix of full-time and part-time employees whose schedules don’t always overlap, staff working from home, and a busy workplace make it difficult to keep everyone informed.

  • B05.B. What’s New in Library Systems?
    Presenters:
    Janelle Bitter, Raritan Valley Community College
    Maria Deptula, Berkeley College
    Amanda Cowell, The College of New Jersey
    Linda Salvesen, William Paterson University
    Jing Yang, Hudson County Community College
    Matt Brown, NJIT

Over the past few years, library systems and other library technology platforms have responded to changing consumer needs by becoming more inclusive and user-friendly. These updates include allowances for remote work and education, better integration of proprietary and open electronic resources with physical materials in discovery systems, and collaborative efforts to update potentially harmful library catalog language. This round table will allow library workers to discuss the benefits and challenges of enhancements to their library platforms; how they have changed their practices, what they are working to bring up to date, and how they have continued to meet patron needs.

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Lunch Break / Organizational Updates – 12:00pm – 12:30pm

Organizational Updates

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Breakout Sessions II – 1:00pm – 1:50pm

B06. Common Reading Collab: Connecting with the First-Year Community
Presenter:
Joyce DeStasio, Stockton University

At Stockton University, all first-year students must take a First-year Seminar (FYS). The FYS faculty incorporate an annual Common Reader book into their courses. Connecting the subject matter and visuals to the 2022 Common Reader, I created a virtual information literacy scavenger hunt for the FYS students, using LibWizard, Canva Pro, Google Slides, and free stock photography. Collaborating with the other librarians and FYS faculty, we taught information literacy classes and assigned students the activity. This breakout session will cover the process of creating the activity, including a demonstration of the activity and its inner workings. The presentation will also discuss goals, usage statistics, feedback from faculty and students, and overall takeaways from this experience.

B07. K-12 Information Literacy: Experiences and Challenges
Presenters:
Gary Marks, William Paterson University
Ewa Dziedzic, The College of New Jersey

K-12 School Media Specialists/Librarians & NJASL members will serve on this panel discussion to inform academic librarians of their experiences, challenges, and best practices for teaching information literacy. Panelists will also discuss why collaboration with academic librarians can provide new outreach opportunities and advance the aspiration of a continuum of Information Literacy skill development.

B08. One-Shot Instruction: Does it Work?
Presenters:
Kaitlyn Clohosey, Felician University
Christine Jansen, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Justin Savage, Montclair State University
Madel Tisi, Ramapo College
Joe Louderback, DeVry University
Catherine Baird, Montclair State University

The Reference & User Education Committee met to discuss the latest September College & Research Libraries News special issue that focused on one-shot instruction, an issue that is frequently brought up in our meetings. After going through the articles, our group pondered if one-shot instruction is a thing of the past or is it something that can be redeemed. This panel will discuss the ramifications of continuing a one-shot instruction model as is, and if there are ways where instruction librarians can improve faculty relationships to better improve long-lasting information literacy skills.

B09. Lightning Talks D, E & F

  • B09.D. Red Hawks Soar!: Showcasing our Unique Collections to Engage the University Community and Beyond
    Presenters:
    Darren Sweeper, Montclair State University
    Karen Ramsden, Montclair State University

The purpose of our presentation is to share our experiences in building relationships in order to create several unique and socially relevant collections in the Montclair State University Digital Commons. We will discuss issues related to community engagement, outreach and librarian liaison work undertaken to form new partnerships. During this process we learned how to adapt to change and how to find new ways to innovate, connect and collaborate in order to demonstrate the value of the library, while supporting and promoting faculty research and the scholarly activities of our students, in support of the Strategic Plan of the University.

  • B09.E. LibraryLinkNJ: Supporting Academic Libraries Across the Garden State Presenter:
    Darby Malvey, LibraryLinkNJ LibraryLinkNJ is here to support academic library staff with resources, programs, and opportunities for connection all year long! Find out more about what we can offer, how you can participate for no cost, and where your state library cooperative is headed next!

Information literacy teaches students to identify “experts.” For example, IL instructors may feel that the only way to help students understand climate change is by teaching them to find journal articles and books. This, however, sends a message that library workers are not “experts” when it comes to climate. In fact, we librarians are experts in many critical areas related to sustainability and disaster planning. This lightning talk will help individual librarians feel confident in their own expertise and give them ideas on how to share that knowledge with students in an information literacy context. This talk takes the position that to best serve our institutional communities, we first need to support (and recognize) the expertise of our own professional community.

B10. Round Table Discussions C & D

  • B10.C. Where Do We Go Next with OER?
    Presenter:
    Megan Dempsey, Raritan Valley Community College


During this roundtable, participants will share the status of their OER initiatives, brainstorm strategies for overcoming hurdles that still exist, and discuss what the future of their open education efforts entails.

This session will draw on our varied experiences with both conducting research on and publishing in this burgeoning area of academic librarianship. This is important because it will showcase the variety of approaches that we and other academic librarians are using to support the mental wellness of students, faculty and library workers post-COVID. The Round Table session will provide us with a platform to lead this discussion and engage our colleagues around the state so that everyone can leave this session better informed on what their libraries can do to support the mental health and well-being of their academic communities.

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Breakout Sessions III – 2pm – 2:50pm

B11. Universal Design for User Engagement in Video Tutorials
Presenter:
AR Renales, Raritan Valley Community College

This breakout session will address how universal design should be used as the guiding principle for library video tutorials. Specific applications can include, but are not limited to intentional decisions regarding visuals, implications word choice, and a minimalist production style which engages but does not distract from the content being presented. This can range from deciding to explicitly include individuals in wheelchairs as main characters, to making a hearing aid for a repeating character to wear, intentional design is one of the many decisions that we can make to not only be inclusive, but engage with our diverse patrons and thus our viewership. This session will discuss how I created these videos, explanations about my decisions, such as why I chose to make them in black and white and include consistent graphics to convey information such as internal thoughts vs. spoken dialogue, and even why I included “easter eggs” from video to video. The session will also invite discussion with participants about actionable steps related to applying these principles and ideas for their own library populations.

B12. Retrospective Cataloging Project for Respectful and Inclusive Metadata: Revising LC Call Numbers for Black People
Presenters:
Yuji Tosaka, The College of New Jersey

Fostering an inclusive and equitable community is an essential imperative for academic institutions in a multicultural, increasingly diverse world. As such, initiating reparative projects in cataloging and metadata is critically important today, particularly in light of the large volume of legacy library records that had reflected implicit, institutionalized hierarchies and biases in place at the time. This breakout session will discuss the ongoing retrospective cataloging project at TCNJ for bulk processing and updating of old LC call numbers in Alma that were based on the word “Negroes,” the classification practice that had remained mostly valid as late as 2021.

B13. Connecting with Our Communities through Marketing and Outreach
Presenters:
Joan Dalrymple, Bergen Community College
Catherine Baird, Montclair State University
Lisa Bogart, Hudson County Community College
Nicole Potdevin, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Gary Marks, William Paterson University

Academic libraries serve diverse communities with a variety of information needs. This panel of librarians from different types of institutions will share how they have connected with their communities through marketing and outreach initiatives. Panelists will discuss these initiatives from inception to implementation and how they were assessed. Attendees will be invited to share their own marketing and outreach strategies for connecting with their communities.

B14. Collaborating to Educate and Empower: Starting an Antiracism Book Club
Presenters:
Romel Espinel, Stevens Institute of Technology
Liliana Delman, Stevens Institute of Technology

In the midst of the pandemic in 2020, the horrific murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests, people were seeking to find out more about how systemic racism permeates all of our institutions. As a way to address this need, the Samuel C. Williams Library collaborated with the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Stevens Institute of Technology to lead a book club that began by reading bell hooks and then others. Now an annual event for the past 3 years, this partnership has helped lead discussions about race and racism with staff, students, and faculty.

B15. Round Table Discussions E&F

Discovery service configuration is a complex, involved process, and the choices made by administrators are crucial to the ultimate effectiveness of these front-line research tools. In 2019, five New Jersey institutions (together, the New Jersey Academic Library Network or NJALN) collectively migrated to a shared ILS and discovery service. At Stockton University’s Richard E. Bjork Library, we configured our discovery service to enable equal findability of print materials from all NJALN institutions, and subsequently experienced an increase in requests for materials owned by network partners. Attendees will discuss various possibilities for leveraging discovery configuration for greater collaborative potential between institutions.

  • B15.F. NJLA Strategic Planning Community Conversation
    Presenters:
    Jessica Trujillo, NJLA
    Alyssa Valenti, Raritan Valley Community College

NJLA is in the process of its Strategic Planning process. Help us reframe and imagine a new vision for the future of NJLA by participating in this conversation group. Q1: Imagine & share your perfect vision of what being a librarian/library worker would be. Q2: Imagine & share the perfect vision of your library. Q3: How can NJLA help to achieve your visions?

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Breakout Sessions IV – 3:00pm – 3:50pm

B16. Creating DEI Statements: The Library as an Active Tool for Social Justice?
Presenters:
Laura Giacobbe, Monmouth University
Chrisler Pitts, Kean University

This presentation will show you how to get started crafting a DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) statement for your library website. While many academic institutions have a DEI statement posted on their home pages, many libraries have not followed this practice. Creating a separate statement, with the support of your institution’s DEI office, can show the library’s commitment to upholding DEI and the value they bring to the institution. The library can identify weaknesses, strengths, and community service gaps by piecing together a cohesive statement. The process is much more about just creating a public declaration. Developing methodologies on statement creation, conducting self-audits, and applying other DEI tools in the process, invites conversation about DEI in your library. This can lead to a new commitment or reaffirmation of the pledge to being a truly inclusive place for all.

B17. Faculty Collaboration and the Honors College: Undergraduate Student Research Experiences Using the Themes of Justice and Equity
Presenters:
Neil Grimes, William Paterson University
Darlene Russell, William Paterson University

This session will focus on the collaboration between a faculty member in the College of Education and an academic librarian in teaching an honors research seminar course during the fall semester. An academic librarian’s experiences will include framing the syllabus around a question of equity, suggested equity research topics, what it was like to co-teach, honors students’ experiences, and final student project examples (posters/papers) will be highlighted and shared.

B18. A Survey of Library Services for Autistic College Students
Presenters:
Gerry Shea, Seton Hall University
Sebastian Derry, University of Delaware

Services at academic libraries and institutions of higher education do not adequately address the support needed to help autistic students succeed in college. We surveyed academic librarians about library services for autistic students to understand the relevant library services provided for this population. A greater understanding of these services will help us develop better library services and supports for autistic students. In this presentation, we plan to report our findings and the implications.

B19. Collaboration Beyond Campus: Connecting High School Students with Archival Research
Presenters:
Christina Connor, Ramapo College
Daniel Willever, Ramsey High School

Current debates around teaching history demand that teachers get creative in how to teach historical truths. This session will discuss a collaboration between Ramapo College Librarian, Christina Connor, and Social Studies teacher, Daniel Willever, and brought local history students to Ramapo College to engage with the library’s special collection of history textbooks (known as the American History Textbook Project). The presenters will provide an introduction to the collection, discuss the lesson the presenters developed to teach high school students about critical analysis of texts and archival research, as well as discuss possible future community connections and collaborations.

B20. Round Table Discussion G

  • B17.G. One-shots and Beyond
    Presenters:
    Christine Jansen, Fairleigh Dickinson University
    Justin Savage, Montclair State University
    Catherine Baird, Montclair State University

Opportunity to share successes with One-Shot and Information Literacy Instruction and as a community of instruction librarians, discuss what we want the future of information literacy instruction to look like and how to get there.

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