Migrating to a New Integrated Library System (ILS): Update #1

Image credit: http://infomotions.com/musings/web-scale/ngc.gif

The Armacost Library faculty and staff are deep in preparations for migrating to a new integrated library system (ILS), a complex system that facilitates many library functions from acquiring materials (ordering, receiving) to making them discoverable (cataloging, indexing) to tracking use of resources (borrowing). Preparations began in January and will continue through July, when we go "live" on the new system.

This is the first in a series of updates intended to inform students, faculty, staff and administrators on our process, progress, and about changes that will affect our community members.

Image credit: Sanjeet Mann

Library faculty and staff are meeting weekly as members of multiple implementation teams: Fulfillment & User Services (FUSE), Acquisitions & Resource Management (ARM), and Primo (the public-facing discovery layer). Additionally, a core team meets weekly via conference call with the ILS vendor's project management team. Sanjeet Mann, our project manager for the migration, and Emily Croft are at the center of all of this work, mapping our current system functions and data to the new ILS.

Image credit: Emily Croft

All of this planning and preparation includes:

• Technical: translating, mapping, and managing system functions and data 
• Conceptual: translating and understanding system functions and work processes
• Philosophical: reconsidering policies, descriptions of data, and the way we interact with the systems as researchers and library users
• Training: translating and learning a new language for our daily work

Snapshot of FUSE implementation team homework. Credit: Paige Mann

Needless to say, we are feeling a bit stretched thin and even fatigued with multiple weekly meetings and accompanying study, homework, and decision-making. Not unlike our students. It feels like midterms every week. 

Public Broadcasting and the 2018 Budget

Public broadcasting is back in the national spotlight now that the New York Times and Congressional news outlet The Hill have published reports stating the Trump administration's upcoming budget proposal may include the elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the nonprofit corporation entrusted with distributing federal funding to nearly 1,500 publicly owned television and radio stations.

Critics of the current funding model point out that public broadcasters already receive most funding from private donations. When the Heritage Foundation included privatization of the Corporation in a list of 116 recommended reductions to federal discretionary spending, authors noted that National Public Radio (NPR) only receives 5% of its funding from government at any level. They stated that public broadcasters could easily make up lost federal revenue through increased donations from corporations, foundations and citizens. "Many nonprofits manage to stay in business without receiving federal funding by being creative and responding to market fluctuations," remarked the authors. "Public broadcasters should be no exception." (Heritage Foundation 2017, 86)

Supporters of the current funding system counter that while public TV and radio stations may receive a small percentage of their funding from the federal government, the amount is large enough to make a difference, particularly for stations in rural areas. The combination of private donations and public funding allows CPB to partner with local stations to efficiently create content that would not otherwise be produced. At the current federal spending level of $445 million per year, public broadcasting costs American taxpayers the equivalent of $1.35 per person per year. (Corporation for Public Broadcasting 2014) Supporters also maintain that CPB's contribution to the public broadcasting system goes beyond economic efficiency.  A recent editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch emphasized that the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) "provides thoughtful and enriched programming for free to poor and isolated people, and children in particular," and argued that defunding the Corporation "would be a symbolic and mean-spirited mistake." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2017)


A recent phone survey commissioned by PBS and carried out by Republican and Democratic research firms found that 73% of respondents opposed eliminating federal funding for public television. Among respondents who voted for Donald Trump, 70% opposed eliminating public television and 60% had a positive impression of the media institution, a greater number than trusted cable TV networks or newspapers. (Bentley and Byrne 2017) This finding is consistent with prior polling on the importance of public broadcasting. (Bettelheim 1999)

How did we get this system of public broadcasting? And does a proposal to cut federal funding in next year's budget mean that CPB is doomed? I'll explore those questions in the next parts of this blog post.

Sanjeet Mann
Arts & Systems Librarian, Armacost Library

Sources

Bentley, Anne, and Jennifer Byrne. 2017. “New National Survey Shows 73% of Voters – Including Most Republicans – Oppose Eliminating Federal Funding for Public Television.” Pbs.org. February 16. http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/survey-shows-voters-oppose-eliminating-federal-funding/

Bettelheim, Adriel. 1999. “Public Broadcasting: Should the Subsidies Continue?” CQ Researcher 9 (41): 931–50. http://0-library.cqpress.com.books.redlands.edu/cqresearcher/cqresrre1999102900

Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 2014. “About CPB.” September 22. http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb

Hoser Dude. 2016. "Cookie!" Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/fl8us/166967692 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 2017. “Don’t Cut Funding for Arts and Public Broadcasting,” January 30. Page A11. http://0-www.lexisnexis.com.books.redlands.edu/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?lni=5MS1-PDW1-JBM5-C22F&csi=270944,270077,11059,8411&hl=t&hv=t&hnsd=f&hns=t&hgn=t&oc=00240&perma=true

Heritage Foundation. 2017. “A Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017.” Accessed March 1. http://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/blueprint-balance-federal-budget-2017

Elevator access between the 2nd – 4th floors is unavailable through 2/24 until mid-March

The elevator providing access between the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors of Armacost Library will be unavailable through February 24, 2017 until mid-March while it undergoes repairs. This elevator is located on the north side of the building and does not affect the south elevator, near the Hunsaker University Center, which provides access between the 1st and 2nd floors. If you have appointments and/or meetings scheduled on the 3rd floor, please plan to reschedule those to an accessible location. For alternative access to our physical collections located on the 3rd and 4th floors, please contact Bill Kennedy at (909) 748-8087 or email William[underscore]Kennedy[at]Redlands[dot]edu to request assistance.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

All My Sons

 Image credit: Paul Sihvonen-Binder

This month the University of Redlands Theatre department performs Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at Glenn Wallichs Theatre on November 11-13 and 18-20.

All My Sons is Miller’s first play to receive widespread critical acclaim. It is the story of the Keller family: Joe Keller, a successful factory owner who has built his business on selling defective parts to the military during World War II, his older son Larry, a pilot missing in action, and his younger son Chris, who joined the family business despite suspicions about his father’s unethical actions.

Miller frequently drew from real-life experiences and people for his plays. He was the younger of two brothers, and his father ran the family business, a coat and suit factory, in a well-to-do part of Manhattan. When Miller was a teenager, the business failed, and his father moved the family into smaller quarters in Brooklyn, just as the Great Depression began. Miller lacked the money to go to college and worked odd jobs for years to save for his education, building experiences (such as encounters with anti-Semitism while working an auto parts warehouse) that would recur throughout his later plays.

An English major at University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Miller studied expressionist playwrights like Henrik Ibsen and social protest plays by Clifford Odets. He received university awards for his earliest plays and further honed his craft after graduation by producing half hour works broadcast over the radio. However, his first play produced on Broadway was a critical failure. The story of a garage mechanic who cannot understand why he is successful while his brother is not, The Man Who Had All the Luck closed after just four performances. Discouraged, Miller decided to try writing one more play before giving up on playwriting for good. That play would become All My Sons.

After the play premiered at the Coronet Theatre in January 1947, William Hawkins wrote, “All My Sons is a play of high voltage, charged with things to say. No civilian, past or present, will find himself immune from its comment.”

Buy tickets to attend a University of Redlands performance of All My Sons here.

Further Reading

Hawkins, William. “‘All My Sons’ a Tense Drama.” New York World-Telegram, January 30, 1947. Reprinted in New York Theatre Critics Reviews, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 475.

Marino, Stephen. “Arthur Miller.” Twentieth-Century American Dramatists: Fourth Series. Ed. Christopher J. Wheatley. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 266. Detroit: Gale, 2003. From Literature Resource Center.

Faith, Sexuality, & Gender Identity

On November 8, 2016, America's attention will be on the election. A few days later, this stressful and unpredictable election will be followed by a move from a "historic campus ministry that has accomplished an incalculable amount of good in its many years of operation" to become more homogeneous by pushing out voices of its more progressive employees. Whether we're talking politics or doctrine, whether we understand or agree with one another, we must take and create opportunities to come together to listen, learn from, and engage with each other. Doing so asks that we brave uncomfortable, controversial, and threatening ideas. Doing so asks that we question the foundations of our beliefs. Doing so challenges the idea that perhaps defining what and who are 'right' and 'wrong' may be less important than coming together to find common ground.

Below are some of the wonderful resources Armacost Library has to stimulate conversations on faith, sexuality, and gender identity. We can use these to outline or strengthen our stances, but we can also use these to redefine the ways we understand and experience difference, ignorance, appreciation, justice, dogmas, respect, and dignity.

Paige Mann
Physical Sciences Librarian, Web Experiences Librarian, and Alumni of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Redlands

      

Women's Health: More Than Breast Cancer

October is breast cancer awareness month in the United States. While it is estimated that 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime, breast cancer isn't the extent of women-specific health issues. As we think about women's health this month, it seems like a good time to think more broadly about women's health and women's rights in relation to their health and well-being.

This week the University of Redlands hosted a screening of No Más Bebés and discussion with the filmmaker, Renee Tajima-Peña. Women's health includes reproductive justice.

Tajima-Peña's film resurfaces a forgotten and not well know story of a small group of Latinas who sued county doctors, the state of California, and the federal government over coerced sterilization at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in the 1960 and 1970s.

Perhaps you'd like to explore the Armacost Library's collections for more information on women's health and reproductive health issues.


Breast Cancer

         

Women's Health, General

       

Reproductive Justice

         

Dr. Joyce Banda and Armacost Library books

Dr. Joyce Banda, "a champion for the rights of women, children, the disabled, and other marginalized groups," and former president of Malawi, is speaking at the University of Redlands on Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 3:30pm in the Memorial Chapel.

A few Armacost Library books on Africa, global health, and social change:

Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua 

Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa: Development without Democracy

Global Health, Human Rights, and the Challenge of Neoliberal Policies

Muslim Societies in Africa: A Historical Anthropology

For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities

Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving toward Africa

Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change

Removing the Barriers to Global Health Equity

Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development in Africa: Concepts, Role-Players, Policy and Practice

The Library Whiteboard

So far this year, the questions have been light-hearted. 

• Where did you come from?
• Draw a self-portrait.
• What organizations might you join?
• Right now, what are you feeling?

But they won't always be. The prompts are meant to provide you a space to be silly, but also to stimulate discussion.

In the past, prompts have included:

• Draw a picture of your pet(s)
• Is feminism relevant today? Why/why not?
• What inspires you?
• Power is...
• How have you changed since high school?
• Syrian refugees:  What should we do?
• What meal from home do you miss most?
• Why are fewer Americans believing God, praying daily, and attending religious services?

Responses have been thoughtful, offended, offending, encouraging, insensitive, creative, and humorous. Forums like this, where you can respond with casualness and some guarantee of anonymity can be freeing and I hope you'll respond with candor, grace, and a willingness to learn from the experiences of others on campus.

If you've ever entered the 2nd floor entrance to the library, you've seen this board in front of the east stairway. If you've ever wanted to post a question--or if your student organization has ever wanted to post a prompt--please know that we in the library encourage you to send your ideas to Paige [underscore] Mann [at] redlands [dot] edu or add them to the board when asked. I'll soon use the board to ask for suggestions.

Paige Mann
Physical Sciences Librarian

Banned Books Week

September 25 - October 1 is Banned Books Week, a time in which we can celebrate our freedom to read! This year Banned Books Week focuses on diversity, and thus challenged literature focusing on "diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities" (WNDB, 2016). Events planned over the next several days include a a lunch time Read-Out, a screening of a banned Star Trek episode, and a discussion on Sherman Alexie's work led by the Anti-Racist Book Club.

Banned Books Week events are sponsored by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, and Armacost Library.

Banned Books Read Out
When: Monday, September 26, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: Outside the Irvine Commons
Brave members of the community will read from their favorite banned or challenged book. Stop and listen for a spell, or join in the freedom to read. Banned and challenged books will be available for perusal.

Star Trek Screening
When: Tuesday, September 27, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Where: Library computer lab, #104
Why was "Plato's Stepchildren" banned? Food will be provided during the screening. After, discuss anything Star Trek with expert Iyan Sandri.

Anti-Racist Book Club
When: Wednesday, September 28, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Where: Holt Lobby
Join the Anti-Racist Book Club for a discussion on works by Sherman Alexie!

Banned Books Display
When: All week
Where: Library entrance, 2nd floor
The Armacost Library will highlight banned and challenged literature.


References
We Need Diverse Books [WNDB]. (2016). The we need diverse books YA short story contest. Retrieved from http://weneeddiversebooks.org/the-we-need-diverse-books-ya-short-story-contest/
 

Welcome (back)! The Armacost Library is here to support you.

Borrow
Of course you expect to be able to borrow books from the library, both e-books and in print. But we also have many DVDs--feature films, television shows, and excellent documentary films. More interested in music? We have music available on CDs, streaming, and on vinyl.

Searching for articles (scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers)? The library purchases access to 123 multi-disciplinary and subject-specific databases. Your librarians have created guides to the core databases in each of the major/minor disciplinary programs available at University of Redlands.

Business research guide: http://library.redlands.edu/business

If you can't find what you need at Armacost Library, we can get it for you from another library easily (usually)! We can get most books through our Link+ service, and it takes only a day or two for books to arrive. Look for the Link+ button in the library catalog. Articles can be requested through Interlibrary Loan: When you see the Find Full Text button next to an article in one of our databases, click through to Interlibrary Loan if we don't have the article. Most articles will arrive within days; we'll email to let you know it's available online. We can get almost anything in the world for you; all you have to do is ask.

Study
The Armacost Library offers a variety of study spaces: individual study carrels, large group study tables, soft comfortable seating, and two group study rooms.

Computers and printers are available both in the Library and in the Fletcher Jones Computing Center (computer lab and several smaller collaborative learning spaces) on the first floor of the building.

Research
Your librarians are here to help you with research projects and other assignments. Research assistance is available M-Th 9am-9pm, F 9am-5pm, Sat. 10am-5pm, and Sun. 1-9pm. Ask at the main desk for the librarian on-call. You can also call, chat, email, and make an appointment with your subject librarians. After hours, these subject research guides my help you out.

If you're having trouble finding your way, these floor maps of Armacost Library may help.

Please don't hesitate to contact us, let us know what you need. We're only a few steps, a phone call, a chat window, and an email away.

Good luck with the first week of classes!