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The New Information Poor: How Limited Access to Digital Scholarly Resources Impacts Higher EducationThe “new” information poor are the individuals and communities who have computer and Internet connectivity, but cannot access scholarly information due to prohibitive costs. Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) represents such a community and is the subject of this case study. Three measures were analyzed: SILS’ four “core” classes were surveyed to determine how many required readings were available via the library; a survey was sent to 31 SILS instructors; and we conducted in-depth interviews with two SILS instructors. While “information poor,” the data suggest our respondents are resourceful in finding ways to cope with their disadvantage.
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Maritime Heritage: Using Alma & Analytics to Support Special CollectionsThe Stephen B. Luce Library at SUNY Maritime College houses and maintains the Maritime Heritage special collection. This presentation will discuss several ways in which Alma and Analytics are currently being used to facilitate special collections projects and fill in gaps where historical data about the collection have been lost. Examples include developing a collection development policy and beginning a long-term weeding project.
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So You've Inherited a Grant... Now What?Inheriting a predecessor’s project can be intimidating, especially when there’s a time limit. Taliesin will talk about their experience taking over an existing grant as an archivist both new to their position and as a new graduate. Join them as they discuss the planning, execution, and documentation of the rehousing of over 200 oversized documents through a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant.
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Do You Support Us? A Non-Profit's Experience In Designing a Candidate QuestionnaireDuring the 2021 municipal election cycle, organizers at Urban Librarians Unite published the responses of over 100 political candidates running for office in New York City. The twelve question survey focused on public and school libraries in New York City, and shed light on candidates’ attitudes towards public funds, infrastructure, and the role of city government in public services.The questionnaire was sent out to 319 candidates running for City Council and 84 candidates running for Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, and Borough President, using data from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism’s City Election Initiative, as well as additional data collected by the organization about candidates running for city-wide office in 2021. In this presentation, participants will learn about the process the organizers used to plan and execute the political questionnaire. This will cover the policy research behind the questionnaire, the application of the open data, and the results of the project. After attending this session, participants should be able to evaluate if a similar project is appropriate for their organization and be able to set-up a similar project. As the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism does not appear to be continuing to update their City Elections Initiative, the organizers are also look for community feedback for similar data available for future elections.
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Epic Heroism in A Tale of Two CitiesThis essay posits that Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities serves as a modern epic, highlighting enduring themes of heroism, sacrifice, and redemption. Using Louise Cowan’s expanded definition of the epic, the analysis frames Sydney Carton’s journey as that of an archetypal hero whose transformation reflects a profound mythic resonance. Beyond a historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities offers an epic quest narrative, where Carton’s evolving compassion and self-sacrifice suggest a path toward spiritual renewal. The essay examines how allegorical figures such as Lucie and the nameless seamstress amplify Carton’s final act of selflessness, demonstrating the redemptive power of empathy. Set against the turmoil of the French Revolution, Dickens’ work calls readers to recognize resilience through kindness and to engage with the heroic potential of ordinary individuals.
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Anchors Away, Alma: Using Alma to Run a Ship’s LibrarySUNY Maritime is preparing the next generation of American professional mariners. The Stephen B. Luce Library manages both the on-campus library and the Ship’s Library on the college’s training ship. The old ship’s lack of technological infrastructure required the library to run a redundant, secondary open-source ILS. The delivery of the new TS Empire State 7 in September 2023 allowed for the expansion of Alma as the Ship’s Library’s primary ILS. This was a year-long project requiring new library configurations, migration of old bibliographic records to new workflows for the Ship’s Librarian, and on-the-fly troubleshooting after cybersecurity complications with the U.S. Federal Government. This presentation will focus on the implementation of Alma as the Ship’s Library ILS, an assessment of the production environment after a full Summer Sea Term, and planned revisions. Participants supporting Alma in traditional and non-traditional library settings are highly encouraged to attend.
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Ahoy, Matey! A Ship's Library As Experiential Learning SupportSUNY Maritime College is a 150-year-old institution, dedicated to preparing students entering STEM fields including marine transportation, engineering, and marine environmental science. Sixty percent of these students are also earning their Merchant Marine Credential, requiring them to spend three summer semesters on board the college’s training ship. The training ship is a floating school which includes housing, classrooms, a gym, a cafeteria, and yes, even a library, staffed by a librarian. TSES VII is the college’s first new training ship in thirty years, and is the country’s first ever purpose-built training ship, the first of five being built for the five state-run maritime academies. Sailing under a maiden voyage in January 2024, this new facility has afforded librarians from the Stephen B. Luce Library the opportunity to redefine how the library fits into this ultimate experiential learning environment. In this presentation, the Discovery and Electronic Resources Librarian and the User Services and Student Engagement Librarian will discuss how they prepped a brand new library space and program, and discuss lessons learned sailing on board with students during the January 2024 Winter Sea Term.
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Refreshing The Library Scavenger Hunt With Free Tech ToolsStudent feedback demonstrated to Maritime College library faculty that familiarity and comfort with the library’s space and services severely deteriorated during the pandemic. Students lacked familiarity with group and individual study spaces in the library, types of materials available, and library support services. Library anxiety and antiquated stereotypes of what a library is proved to be barriers to students from fully taking advantage of what the library offers. For the current academic year, the librarians reinvented the pre-pandemic library scavenger hunt in the library orientation session attended by all LEAD 101 courses, a required freshman seminar class for first semester students. This image-based scavenger hunt utilized free tools from Padlet and Canva to make the scavenger hunt a fun group-based activity. It also simplified the workflow and labor on the librarians, which was critical in an understaffed environment. In this session, participants will see the components of the scavenger hunt as well as hear about challenges and successes.
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Digital Repositories at Smaller SUNY's: Juggling Outreach and Other ResponsibilitiesWhen librarians discuss scholarly communications, the focus is often on supporting faculty at research-driven universities. But what does scholarly communication look like at smaller colleges? In this session, the three presenters, representing SUNY Cortland, Alfred University and SUNY Maritime, will share challenges and insights from working with institutional repositories, when it’s not the main focus of their jobs. Topics will include balancing workloads, functioning within unique institutional circumstances, outreach to faculty, managing expectations and collaboration with colleagues.
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Offshore Wind Development Research: Extended Report and AppendicesOffshore wind (OSW) development is a new undertaking in the US. This project is a response to New Jersey’s 2011 Energy Master Plan that envisions procuring 22.5% of the state’s power originating from renewable sources by 2021. The Offshore Wind Economic Development Act called for at least 1,100 MW of Offshore Wind generations to be subsidized by an Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Certificate program. The overreaching goal of this research is to provide information and recommendations for the maritime aspects, both vessel and port interface’. The study, using the European experience, identifies vessel types, vessel installation methods, needs and operating characteristics through all phases of OSW development. It also identifies regulatory or legislative requirements and/or other road blocks to the use of particular vessels. The study seeks competitive advantages and disadvantages of vessel acquisition, lease, construction or other alternatives. The study proposes solutions and recommendations that best position the State of New Jersey to be the national leader in OSW development, including potential interstate or cooperative endeavors. Financial aspects and considerations of vessel acquisition are presented. The research also proposes a port/OSW industry interface strategy for short-, mid-, and long-term industry development. In general, the study identifies the maritime port life-cycle requirements for installation, construction, operation and maintenance based on geographic factors, and the potential for multi-use development at New Jersey’s East Coast ports. Finally, the study highlights the economic impact of OSW development on the state population and the energy-generating industry. The study recommends the development of a clear OSW policy with a commitment of budgets and in partnerships with industry and other stakeholders.
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Ships as Sites of Memory: Collecting Maritime HistoryA poster presentation from Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) October 7, 2021.
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Teaching with Primary Sources: Reports from the Front LinesAs the pedagogical benefits of working with primary sources have become more well-known, archivists are increasingly serving as educators and interpreters of their collections. However, archivists often have little experience as educators, and must learn new skills to provide effective instruction. This presentation provides a mix of both theoretical discussion and practical lessons based on the author's experience at SUNY Maritime College.
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More Matter for a May Morning: Evil May Day, 1517My seminar paper surveys accounts of Evil May Day from 1517 to The Play of Sir Thomas More (1603-04). It begins by analyzing contemporary accounts and chronicle histories. It then moves on to consider the ways in which the event has been understood by biographers as a seminal moment in the life of Thomas More. Shifting from the historical to the literary, it gestures towards the ways in which Utopia anticipates and attempts to make impossible events like Evil May Day, in large part because of Utopia's radical reimagining of the early modern calendar.. My general position is that time-reckoning is contested throughout the early modern period, and that it is both more malleable than traditionalists would allow, and more sticky than reformers would prefer. Evil May Day is an unusually potent symbol for social conflict and social cohesion, and an anniversary which lingered in early modern imaginations.
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Water-Quality Assessment of Two Slow-Moving Sandy-Bottom Sites on the Saw Mill River, New YorkWe selected 2 sites on the Saw Mill River and conducted biological assessments of water quality using macroinvertebrate composition. Assessment metrics used were: Shannon-Weiner diversity, evenness, species richness, Hilsenhoff biotic index (HBI), Ephemeroptera—Plecoptera—Trichoptera richness (EPT), and non-Chironomidae and Oligochaete (NCO) richness. Water temperature, pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen, and water flow and velocity were not significantly different across sites. Shannon-Weiner diversity values were 2.32 (evenness = 0.20) for Chappaqua and 2.68 (evenness = 0.31) for Hawthorne. Species and NCO richness for Chappaqua were 49 and 22, respectively, and for Hawthorne were 44 and 23, respectively. HBI was 7.99 for Chappaqua and 7.69 for Hawthorne. Both sites had equal EPT values of 5. Based on macroinvertebrate assessment indices, we classified water quality at these sites as non-impacted.
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Risk Sensitive Optimal Synchronization of Coupled Stochastic Neural Networks with Chaotic PhenomenaThis paper presents a new theoretical design of how an optimal synchronization is achieved for stochastic coupled neural networks with respect to a risk sensitive optimality criterion. The approach is rigorously developed by using the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation, Lyapunov technique, and inverse optimality, to obtain a risk sensitive state feedback controller, which guarantees that the chaotic drive network synchronizes with the chaotic response network influenced by uncertain noise signals, with an eye on a given risk sensitivity parameter. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
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Integrating Alternative Algorithms: Possibilities and PracticesThis article discusses reasons for learning alternative algorithms and the benefits of exposing preservice teachers to alternative algorithms. It presents two alternative multi-digit subtraction algorithm examples, includes perspectives from preservice teachers, and provides strategies for teachers and teacher educators to integrate alternative algorithms in classrooms.
