Category Archives: Collections

Museum of American Finance Features a Special Collection in the Newman Library

by adowning

Blumenthal headshotOn the 90th anniversary of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 former New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal, a Distinguished Lecturer in the Newman Library, will deliver a talk at the Museum of American Finance about how cash-starved municipalities issued their own bills and coins using examples from the Baruch Archives.  His presentation, “Crash! The Stock Market Collapse of 1929 and the Rise of Fake Money (Scrip)” will be followed by a Q&A session.

Admission is $5, but students and members of the Museum of American Finance may attend at no cost.  This event will be held on Tuesday, October 29, 2019 (12:30 PM to 1:30 PM) at 48 Wall Street, 5th Floor.

Register on the Museum’s web site.

 

FDR Presidential Library and Newman Library Co-Sponsor a Symposium

by adowning

Gulick's Organization Chart of Federal AgenciesOn Sunday, April 28, 2019, the Roosevelt Library and the Baruch College Newman Library of the City University of New York will commemorate the 80th anniversary of FDR’s 1939 reorganization of the executive branch. The symposium, “Making Democracy Work: FDR’s Bitter Struggle to Modernize the Presidency” — at 2:00 p.m. in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home — is based on Baruch’s historic collection of the papers of one of FDR’s administrative geniuses, Luther Halsey Gulick III. Panelists will include Susan Dunn, Massachusetts Professor of Humanities at Williams College, David B. Woolner, Senior Fellow and Resident Historian of the Roosevelt Institute, and Kenneth Meier, Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University. The discussion will be moderated by Ralph Blumenthal, Distinguished Lecturer at Baruch College’s Newman Library.

Free public event but space is limited. Registration required.

The event will be live streamed.

Baruch Student Theses Are Read Worldwide via the Library’s Academic Works Repository

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World map showing locations of thesis downloads

Map of Downloads of Baruch Student Theses

Academic Works is the CUNY Libraries’ open repository for providing access to the research, scholarship and creative works of faculty, students and staff.  Undergraduate Student Theses constitute one category of documents in Academic Works.  There were 85 Baruch undergraduate student theses in Academic Works in Calendar Year 2018, including 10 additions during that period.  The total number of downloads of the theses in 2018 was 8,343.  The top 5 theses in terms of number downloads are listed in the table below.

  1. Sherese Francis, “African vibrations : the percussive approach in hip-hop music” (Music & Journalism) – 1,107 downloads
  2. Kyle Beard, “English/Indian relations in colonial New England, 1617-1676” (History) – 897 downloads
  3. Rachel Viliusis, “The Emergence of Psychology and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: An Examination of Innovation and Narration” (English) – 500 downloads
  4. Patrycja J. Koszykowska, “The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Poland: Comparative Analysis of Social Structure and Party Strategy” (History) – 472 downloads
  5. Martin Stankiewicz, “The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 : why did it fail?” (History) – 461 downloads

One of the benefits of depositing items in Academic Works is the ability to allow users across the globe to discover them through a web search.  In 2018 Baruch Undergraduate Student Theses were downloaded from Academic Works by users in 130 countries (See the world map above for the distribution.)  The 20 countries outside the United States where the most downloads occurred are:

  1. United Kingdom (1,234)
  2. Canada (252)
  3. India (239)
  4. France (212)
  5. Germany (173)
  6. Poland (111)
  7. Australia (100)
  8. Brazil (93)
  9. Russian Federation (90)
  10. China (88)
  11. Italy (88)
  12. Argentina (87)
  13. Spain (83)
  14. Netherlands (72)
  15. Japan (64)
  16. Nigeria (64)
  17. Chile (52)
  18. Indonesia (51)
  19. Iran (48)
  20. Singapore (48)

Beyond CUNY the following educational institutions recorded the largest number of downloads in 2018:

  1. Cornell University (15)
  2. North Carolina Research and Education Network (15)
  3. New York University (12)
  4. U.S. Department of Education (12)
  5. Georgia Department of Education (11)
  6. Harvard University (10)
  7. London Grid for Learning Trust (10)
  8. University of Bath (10)
  9. University of Cambridge (10)
  10. Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (9)

In addition to educational institutions, student theses were downloaded in organizations from other sectors.  Examples are :

  • Commercial:  General Motors, Korbank, SA, AVAST Software, TDI Power.
  • Non-Profit:  Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (France), Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium (OH), RAND Corporation, Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC).
  • Government:  Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency, National Government of Kenya, Department of Homeland Security.
  • Military:  U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, DoD Network Information Center, Navy Network Information Center.

 

Academic Works Launched at Baruch

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The William and Anita Newman Library is pleased to announce the official Baruch launch of CUNY Academic Works, a service that expands the reach of the scholarly and creative output of our faculty and students. This service provides members of the Baruch community with an online platform where they can make their works of scholarship freely available online for the world to view and download. Not only is each work given a stable, permanent location on the web, it is also indexed automatically by Google Scholar and CUNY’s OneSearch system, thereby increasing the likelihood of the work being discovered easily by searchers around the world. In our soft launch phase at Baruch this spring, we already uploaded over 200 items (articles, book chapters, honors theses, etc.), including more than 60 publications by Dean Aldemaro Romero Jr., and have seen those items downloaded seven thousand times by users from more than one hundred countries.

Since the launch of Academic Works at several CUNY campuses in 2015 hundreds of faculty and doctoral students from across the university have uploaded more than 14,000 items into their local campus collections. Interest from scholars and students globally has been amazing: there have already been almost 600,000 downloads of items from the CUNY collections.

In the fall, the library will offer a workshop for faculty about how they can use CUNY Academic Works to boost their scholarly profile and reach a wider audience. Details for this event will be announced in August. For more information about CUNY Academic Works, including instructions on how to upload items to the Baruch collections, please see the library’s guide to the service.

Academic Works Launched at Baruch

by adowning

The William and Anita Newman Library is pleased to announce the Baruch launch of CUNY Academic Works, a service that will greatly expand the reach of the scholarly and creative output of our faculty and students. This new service provides members of the Baruch community with an online platform where they can make their works of scholarship freely available online for the world to view and download. Not only will each work be given a stable, permanent location on the web, each work will also be indexed automatically by Google Scholar and by CUNY’s OneSearch system, thereby multiplying the likelihood of those works being readily discovered by searchers around the world.

To learn how to contribute, see the CUNY Academic Works guide.

Construction on Library’s 3rd Floor Related to Possible New Shelving

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Library 3rd Floor Construction

 

Library users will notice that several areas of the book stacks on the third floor have been temporarily closed for construction.  During September a work crew will be drilling in the ceiling above these areas to analyze the load strength of the floor above.  We would like to install high density shelving on the fourth floor to allow us to increase space for student seating.  The plastic enclosures around the drilling locations will prevent plaster and dust from spreading across the library. The actual drilling is scheduled for late in the evening to minimize disruption to our users.

Library users who need any books or bound periodicals from an area that is closed should inquire at the circulation desk on the second floor.  Please do not enter aisles that are roped off with caution tape.

The idea to install high-density shelving emerged from planning discussions with students and faculty.  During that process it was very clear that increasing the seating capacity of the library is a high priority.

We regret the inconvenience that this work may cause during this month, but we expect that library users will appreciate the benefits that result.

 

Introducing Textbook Express!

by adowning

In a hurry to study for final exams? Reserve your textbook on your way to The Newman Library and it will be ready for you to pick up from the Express/Quick Return Window when you arrive!!

Beginning Monday, May 4 and extending through Thursday, May 21, you can simply text “Baruch” to 66746 and then send the textbook/course information for the book you need. If the book is available, you will receive a confirmation that it will be held for 20 minutes.

Textbook Express is a pilot service during final exams, available when the Circulation Desk is open. Only reserve textbooks can be requested via Textbook Express.

OneSearch, a New Tool for Finding Books, Articles, DVDs, CDs, in One Place

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onesearch

This week the library is launching a new search tool called OneSearch. With OneSearch, you can go to the yellow search bar on the library website and search for books, articles, DVDs, CDs, and reports all in one place. In the past, you’d have to run separate searches to do that, but now you can use one tool to find a wide variety of sources.

OneSearch brings together:

  • listings from the library catalog for all the:
    • books, DVDs, and CDs we own,
    • journals, magazines, and newspapers we have in print or microfilm,
    • journals, magazines, and newspapers we have in e-formats;
  • a huge article database that represents the majority of all the articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers that we have in full-text online.

This new search service also represents a major upgrade over our previous  “Articles” search on the old search bar. You can still run articles-only searches from the search bar by using the “Articles” tab, but results now will be served up by our improved OneSearch engine.

As you search, it’s recommended that you sign in using your library ID number (found on the lower right side of your Baruch ID card) so that you can:

  • see all the possible search results,
  • request copies of books held at other CUNY libraries,
  • renew the loan period for any books you’ve checked out.

We think you’re going to find OneSearch an efficient way to search across a wide range of sources, especially when you’re not sure where to begin your search. As you use the service, we’d love to hear to what you think of it. Please share your experiences with it by using the green “feedback” button found on every page in OneSearch.

Argentina’s Minister of Defense Gives Newman Library Documents about the Former Dictatorship

by adowning

Newman Library has received a special set of documents that provide insight into the military junta that once governed Argentina.  Agustín Rossi, Argentina’s current Minister of Defense, presented the documents to David Birdsell, Dean of the School of Public Affairs, as a gift to the Newman Library.  The gift includes the six-volume set, Actas de la Dictadura, which records the meetings of the junta leadership (1976–1983).  In addition, there is a pamphlet, Lista Negras, that reproduces the lists of artists, musicians, journalists, writers, academics, and other intellectuals who were persecuted by the government for their supposed Marxist views.   The books will be display in the Library’s Engelman Reading Room through October 31.  After the exhibition, the documents will be available for use in the Archives and Special Collections Division.

The significance of the documents and the importance of their being available through the Newman Library are discussed  in the press release from the Ministry of Defense.

Agustín_Rossi_junto_a_David_Birdsell-1

Agustín Oscar Rossi (left) and David Birdsell

New Collection of Books on Turkish History and Culture

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The Newman Library has acquired a new collection of books on Turkish history and culture through a grant from the Institute of Turkish Studies.  The titles were selected by students in the Baruch College Turkish Student Association.  The books are available for loan and are currently on display in the Engelman Reading Room on the second floor of the Library.

Turkish History Exhibit 7