NMSU Library Announces Open Access Week Activities
The NMSU Library is sponsoring four programs from October 22 t
o 25 to mark Open Access Week (October 22-28.) This celebration of new models of scholarly communication and faculty publication offers an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn more about what Open Access (OA) means and its potential benefits.
All presentations are free, and open to the public. All events will be held in the Library Conference Room, Zuhl Library Room 225. Light refreshments will be served.
Last year’s Open Access Week featured events in more than 130 countries. This is the first time the NMSU Library is celebrating this informative week. View a video by Engineering and Mathematics Librarian Paula Johnson at http://www.youtube.com/embed/SeMDOSx7J9k?autoplay=1. Open Access Week is a time to share experiences with colleagues and to encourage wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarly communication. This year’s theme, “Set the Default to Open Access,” aspires to advance the global conversation and showcase a variety of OA initiatives.
- Monday, October 22, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Open Access Week 2012 Kickoff Webcast – “Perspectives on Open Access: Practice, Progress and Pitfalls.” Co-sponsored by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition and the World Bank.
The 90-minute panel will be moderated by Heather Joseph, Executive Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and speakers include: Michael Carroll, Professor of Law, American University and founding Board Member, Creative Commons; Matt Cooper, President, The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students; Maricel Kann, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland and member, PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, National Institutes of Health (NIH); Carlos Rossel, Publisher, the World Bank; and Neil Thakur, Special Assistant to the Deputy Director, Extramural Research, NIH. Questions may be submitted by the viewing audience.
- Tuesday, October 23, 10:30 a.m. – Noon. “NMSU Library U Presents Scholarly Communications 101.”
Paula Johnson, Engineering and Mathematics Librarian, will provide a brief history of scholarly communications and then trace the rise of the Open Access movement. Peter Suber, one of OA’s founders, stated that “The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers.” These “better ways” will be explored.
- Wednesday, October 24, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. “Introduction to University Scholarly Communication Programs.”
Ingrid Schneider, Metadata & Authority Control Librarian, will examine some scholarly communications programs, and discuss the place of institutional digital repositories as part of these programs. Science Librarian Nirmala Gunapala will discuss eScience, or what some call “distributed collaboration. “ Hear about some of the exciting opportunities and the challenges with data curation and sharing. Libraries have often led the way in establishing University Scholarly Communication Programs, which are intended to facilitate the increase in accessibility, usability and impact of faculty research.
- Thursday, October 25, 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. “Faculty Forum on Editing and/or Publishing – Open Access and Otherwise”
In the academic world, one hears “publish or perish.” Sharing one’s research and expanding the body of knowledge are the ultimate goals. Some faculty members publish and/or edit in traditional toll access model journals, and some do this in Open Access publications. There will be a brief presentation on citation and journal impact factors as well as authors’ rights for OA and traditional journals. This will be followed by an open discussion led by a panel of NMSU faculty members who will talk about publishing in and editing scholarly journals. Come to hear Jennifer Curtiss, Immo Hansen, Bruce Olberding, Barry Thatcher and Stefan Zollner share their perspectives and experiences, and join in the discussion.
Event organizer Paula Johnson said that faculty, students and the community at large who want to learn what Open Access is should try to attend at least one of the first three events. People for whom Open Access is a force of good, a problematic movement or a mixed bag (and those who, for now, have no opinion) should plan to come to the final event of Open Access Week.
For more information, contact Johnson at (575) 646-7251 or paulacj@lib.nmsu.edu.
NMSU Library and NMSU Teaching Academy Announce Self-Publishing Workshop
Date: September 25, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kristina Martinez, NMSU Library, (575) 646-3642, krismart@lib.nmsu.edu
NMSU Library and NMSU Teaching Academy are co-sponsoring a free self-publishing workshop to be held, October 25th 9:00am – 4:30pm. This one-day class will demonstrate how to prepare your book for publication using Microsoft Publisher® and Adobe Photoshop Elements®. Once you have it prepared, you can upload it to CreateSpace.com and get it published without spending a dime.
Topics will include:
- How to organize your book (title page, table of contents, etc.)
- How to design a page. (Look closely at several books and notice that pages are carefully designed.)
- How to use fonts and dingbats effectively. (Don’t know what a “dingbat” is? Come to the seminar and find out.)
- What decisions you have to make. (What size font? What size margins? Etc.)
- How to use Microsoft Publisher®.
- How to prepare photographs for your book using Adobe Photoshop Elements®.
- How to design an effective cover.
- How to prepare your cover using Adobe Photoshop Elements®.
- How to submit your book to CreateSpace.com.*The workshop will not cover: e-book publishing (Kindle, Nook, etc.)
The workshop will be taught by Dr. Richard Davies, NMSU alumni and author of four self-published books. Dr. Davies teaches self-publishing skills in the Continuing Education Division of Clayton State University, Morrow, Georgia.
To register, please visit http://teaching.nmsu.edu/ or call 575-646-2204.
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NMSU Library Celebrates 30th Anniversary of Freedom to Read
Date: September 28, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Norice Lee, NMSU Library, (575) 646-1508, nlee@lib.nmsu.edu
The NMSU Library joins libraries nationwide in a celebration of the 30th annual Banned Books Week, September 30th through October 6th. Since 1982, Banned Books Week has been both a celebration of intellectual freedom and a campaign to raise awareness about continuing attempts at censorship. It is an annual national event sponsored by the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, celebrating the freedom to read, the importance of the First Amendment, and highlighting the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to censorship. Banned Books Week stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.
For information on banned books and censorship, access the Library’s guide at http://nmsu.libguides.com/censorship. It lists books that have been censored, notes books that have been banned locally, and provides links to more information about censorship and intellectual freedom. For more information contact Susan Beck, Collection Development Coordinator at 646-6171 or susabeck@nmsu.edu.
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NMSU Library Promotes Collections Through Publications
Date: September 28, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kristina Martinez, NMSU Library, (575) 646-3642, krismart@lib.nmsu.edu
NMSU Library announces the publication of two new books, The Casads: A Pioneer Family of the Mesilla Valley by Rick Hendricks and Out of the Shadows: The Women of Southern New Mexico edited by Martha Shipman Andrews. Both publications feature collections held within the NMSU Library Archives and Special Collections Department.
The Casads: A Pioneer Family of the Mesilla Valley is a history of the Casad family that traces its movement from Ohio to New Mexico by way of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and California. The principal family members are Thomas Casad and his second wife, Sarah Van Winkle Casad, along with their numerous children. The book relates one family’s experience with agriculture, coal mining, and milling on the Illinois prairie, where Thomas founded the town of Summerfield in St. Clair County, and its migration west as far as Kansas. Thomas Casad was recognized as one of the leading agriculturalists in southern New Mexico. Casad is credited with the introduction of large-scale production of alfalfa in the region and improving local livestock. He was a newspaper editor and columnist specializing in spreading innovative agricultural techniques. He also was a noted miller in Doña Ana and Chamberino. His purchase of almost 10,000 acres of the Brazito made him one of the largest landowners in the Mesilla Valley. The Casads: A Pioneer Family of the Mesilla Valley was written by State Historian and former NMSU Library Archives and Special Collections Department employee, Dr. Rick Hendricks. The NMSU Library holds three branches of the Casad family papers and many of the photographs used in the book came from these three collections. Barnes & Noble at NMSU is hosting Dr. Hendricks for a reading and book signing on October 6, 2012 at 2 p.m.
Out of the Shadows: The Women of Southern New Mexico is a compilation of photographs and essays examining the roles of women in 
Southern New Mexico between 1880-1920. Visual images provide a particularly evocative means of examining the dark spaces behind the overshadowing Western myths so dominated by the concerns and exploits of men. The extensive photograph collections of the Rio Grande Historical Collections and the Hobson-Huntsinger University Archives of the New Mexico State University Library’s Archives and Special Collections Department give witness to the experiences of women as they helped to settle the mountains and deserts of New Mexico between 1880 and 1920. The accompanying essays by noted scholars and archivists have found the lives of women in southern New Mexico not full of endless toil and deprivation but rather, in the words of young Mildred Barnes from the mining community of Lake Valley, “delightful, exciting, and filled with a sense of abundance.” NMSU University Archivist and Associate Professor Martha Shipman Andrews will be promoting Out of the Shadows: The Women of Southern New Mexico at COAS Bookstore at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29th and at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20th at Barnes and Noble NMSU. Andrews has won two 2009 NM Books Awards and the Centennial Award for one of the “100 Best Books of NM.”
In collaboration with LPD Press/Rio Grande Books, NMSU Library has published these two titles as well as the award winning, The Whole Damned World: New Mexico Aggies at War: 1941-1945 edited by Martha Shipman Andrews.
For more information on these publications, please contact Kristina Martinez, 575-646-3642 or krismart@nmsu.edu. To order a copy of any of the NMSU Library/ LPD Press Publications, please visit http://nmsantos.com/Mercado/Current-Books/Current-Books.html.
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NMSU Library 2013 Calendar Now Available
Date: September 28, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kristina Martinez, NMSU Library, (575) 646-3642, krismart@lib.nmsu.edu
NMSU Library announces the release of its 2013 calendar, Life in New Mexico Through the Eyes of the Cooperative Extension Service 1900’s – 1970’s:
Cooking, Gardening, Home Living, Sewing, Youth. Each month features a Cooperative Extension Service Circular along with a photograph from NMSU Library’s Archives and Special Collections Department that matches the subject area of the featured circular. The focus of the calendar is on how the Cooperative Extension Service enhanced the lives of New Mexicans in the areas of Cooking, Gardening, Home Living, Sewing and Youth, through its publications.
Calendars can be purchased for only $8 each and the proceeds support the NMSU Library. Supplies are limited. The calendars are available at the Library’s Administration Office, Room 224, Zuhl Library and at the Library’s Archives and Special Collections Department, Branson Library, 4th floor.
For more information or to place an order, call the Library Administration Office at (575) 646-1508.
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NMSU Library announces expanded access to SciFinder database
Date: September 24, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Samuel Horstman, (575) 646-7565, shorstma@nmsu.edu
The New Mexico State University Library has announced that access to SciFinder, a database produced by the Chemical Abstracts Services, will no longer be limited to two concurrent seats. With unlimited access, SciFinder will be available to researchers in chemistry as well as those in other science departments throughout the university.
“These improvements are wonderful and will be extremely helpful for our research and teaching,” said Regents Professor Jeff Arterburn, in the Department Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The SciFinder database will now include the Substructure Module. The SciFinder Substructure Module was an optional feature that was only available as a separate subscription to the original SciFinder database product. SSM users will have the ability to search a chemical structure as well as a substructure of a more complex structure, which is an essential function in current chemistry research. The module also includes drawing tools that are specifically used for drawing substructure queries, along with many other features that support research.
SciFinder access will continue to be subject to the terms and conditions of the SciFinder license.
The NMSU Library will offer information and training materials for the use of the SciFinder database and the Substructure Module. For any questions or assistance with this database contact Nirmala Gunapala at 575-646-5551 or nirmalag@nmsu.edu.
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NMSU Library Announces FY13 Materials Budget Reductions
Date: September 4, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Norice Lee, NMSU Library, (575) 646-1508, nlee@lib.nmsu.edu
NMSU Library is pleased to announce that it has received assistance in the form of one time funds from the University Administration to provide much-needed relief to the Library’s diminishing materials budget. Specifically, contributions of $150,000 from the President’s Office and $50,000 from the Provost’s Office will reduce the number of serial titles slated for cancellation this December and will also allow the Library to continue purchasing requested books throughout the coming year.
In May 2012 the Library announced that it would be cancelling 276 journal titles to meet its target amount of $200,000. University faculty contested the cancellation of 14 of the 276 titles, noting the high research value of each. Due to the generosity of the University Administration, the Library has reduced its cancellation list to 261 titles for a total cancellation amount of $167,935. These 261 journal titles show low use (10 or fewer uses), or no use, or cost $100 or more per use. In these times of budgetary austerity the Library must make difficult choices and must limit its subscriptions to publications of high use and/or low cost. A complete list of all titles slated for cancellation can be found at http://nmsu.libguides.com/BudgetCuts.
Other library materials budgets were negatively impacted this year, including the book budget that experienced a 64% reduction. Given current funding realities, the NMSU Library will continue to face reductions every year, as its budget remains static, its external revenue streams decline and serials subscription prices continue to increase annually by 4% or more.
This fall New Mexico voters will have the opportunity to support libraries through the successful passage of GO Bond B. This bond initiative will provide $9 million ($3 million each to public, academic and school libraries statewide) for the acquisition of library materials, and $700,000 to tribal libraries for the purchase of library materials and construction. NMSU Library is projected to receive approximately $386,090 from GO Bond B which will help support library collections.
The Library wants to thank the NMSU community for its participation in this year’s materials budget reduction process. We value the time and energy this community contributed to the project. The Library strives to fulfill its mission of supporting and enhancing the teaching, research and outreach missions of the University. For more information contact Susan Beck, Collection Development Coordinator, at (575) 646-6171 or email susabeck@nmsu.edu.
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NMSU Library: Capturing the First 100 Years of the State of New Mexico
Date: May 2, 2012 and 8/10/2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
In honor of the New Mexico Centennial, the New Mexico State University Library is conducting many special projects that honor our state’s rich and diverse history from 1912 to 2012.
Las Cruces: A Photographic Journey
Established in 1890, the Library owns a wealth of historical images that appear in many Centennial projects on campus and in the community. The Library’s 2012 calendar features vintage photographs of New Mexico’s history.
The Library collaborated with the Las Cruces Bulletin on the book Las Cruces: A Photographic Journey. Of the nearly 1,200 historical photos in the book, nearly 500 are from the Library’s archival photo collection. The book recently won the Heritage Preservation Award from the Cultural Properties Review Committee and the Historic Preservation Division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.
The Library partnered with the University of New Mexico on the “Celebrating New Mexico Statehood” website, contributing 580 photos to this shared statewide resource (https://nmstatehood.unm.edu/image/tid/66). The Library has printed hundreds of Centennial-themed note cards as gifts for Library donors, featuring historical photos customized to each donor’s interests.
As a land grant university, New Mexico State University has a special mission to serve the people of New Mexico as an agricultural, military and engineering college. Thousands of historical agricultural documents are being digitized, providing a lasting record of extension service in New Mexico. Examples of these publications are currently on display in the lobby of Branson Library.
A previous exhibit on the 150th Anniversary of the Morrill Act, which established the land grant colleges, featured sixteen photos of “The Mechanic Arts,” an archaic term for engineering. The photos highlighted the beauty of mechanical forms frozen in time.
The New Mexico Book Co-op’s list of the 100 Best New Mexico Books, celebrating New Mexico authors, publishers and subjects, was announced just in time for the Centennial. University Archivist Martha Andrews was honored with a place on the list for her book The Whole Damned World: New Mexico Aggies at War 1941-1945.
Centennial bookmarks are available at the Library. A video at http://lib.nmsu.edu/media/centennial/index.html features many of the Library’s Centennial activities.
The NMSU Library’s documents and photographs play an important role in celebrating the people who built our state and informing those who envision New Mexico’s future. For more information, contact Kristina Martinez at (575) 646-3642. Visit the Library’s home page at http://lib.nmsu.edu.
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NMSU Retablos Displayed at Library
Date: May 4, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
The New Mexico State University Library is displaying several retablos from the University’s Permanent Collection on loan to the Library from the University Art Gallery. The artworks are on display in the Library Dean’s Office.
Holy Family Retablo
A unique artistic tradition of nineteenth century Mexico, retablos are popular expressions of faith painted on small sheets of tin-coated iron. Retablos were not originally created as art objects, but were functional everyday items used for home worship.
Pilgrims who traveled roadways such as El Camino Real between Mexico City and Santa Fe stopped at shrines along the way, leaving their devotional images behind. This caused the art to move northward into New Mexico.
The display in the Library is but a sampling of the University’s collection. New Mexico State University holds the largest public collection of retablos in the United States. From 1963 to 1973, more than 1,700 retablos were donated to the University.
Dr. Preston Thayer, the director of the NMSU Art Gallery, said, “The University’s retablos are a major strength of the Permanent Collection, and we are pleased to be able to display some of them at the Library.”
For more information on NMSU’s retablos, visit http://artdepartment.nmsu.edu/faculty/zarursite/retablo/. Contact the Gallery at (575) 646-2545 or the Library Dean’s Office at (575) 646-1508.
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Library Serials Cancellation Update
Date: May 25, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Susan Beck, NMSU Library, (575) 646-6171, susabeck@lib.nmsu.edu or John Sandstrom, NMSU Library, (575)646-8093, jsand713@lib.nmsu.edu
This spring the Library undertook a serials cancellation project to cover a projected shortfall in the library materials budget due to a flat budget and rising serials subscription costs. Our preliminary cancellation list of 339 titles was based on high cost per use (over $100 per use) and 10 or fewer uses during our data collection period. A complete description of our criteria for cancellation and our final cancellation list is at http://nmsu.libguides.com/budgetcuts. We sent this list to the campus community for comment and received requests to retain nearly 70 titles on the preliminary cancellation list. These titles totaled around $50,000, which put our cancellation list well below our target amount of $200,000. In an effort to meet our target amount, and limit the number of titles we had to cancel, we have decided to cancel only the five most expensive titles on the “request to retain” list, which—when combined with the 271 uncontested titles—will get us to approximately $200,000.
These five most expensive titles are:
- Brain, behavior and evolution $3,321.08 ($640.30 cost-per-use) This title is available fulltext from the ProQuest Environmental Science Journals database with a 1 year embargo
- Journal of Modern Optics $8,002.26 ($1,068.71 cost-per-use) This title is available fulltext from the Academic Search Premier database with a 1 year embargo
- Journal of Monetary Economics $2,376.66 ($623.66 cost-per-use)
- Journal of Zoology $2,671.09 ($226.90 cost-per-use) This title is available fulltext from the Environment Complete database with a 1 year embargo
- Pure and Applied Geophysics $3,693.58 ($390.78 cost-per-use) This title is available fulltext from several databases with a 1 year embargo
Please note that four of the above-listed titles are available fulltext via one or more of our library database aggregators. A complete list of titles to be cancelled is available at http://nmsu.libguides.com/budgetcuts.
The Library has researched document delivery costs for these five titles and they range from $31.50 to $43.00 per article once fair use has been exhausted. Researchers may request articles from these five journals (as well as any journal title to which the library does not subscribe) using our online Request It! Service at http://illiad.nmsu.edu and we will deliver .pdf copies to your desktop.
The NMSU Library appreciates the time and energy the University community has spent on this difficult project. Although the Library wasn’t able to retain every title requested by campus constituents, we were able to retain over 90% (62 out of 67) of the contested titles. We take our community’s feedback seriously and we strive to provide everyone on campus with access to needed information.
Unfortunately, we will continue to face serials cancellations, perhaps annually, as long as our materials budget remains static and the unsustainable scholarly communication business model persists. We have been working closely with the Provost’s office to increase our funding levels and will continue to advocate for a more robust materials budget in the months ahead. We will keep the campus posted and will provide updates if our budget situation changes.
For more information, please contact the Library’s Collection Development Coordinator, Professor Susan Beck at susabeck@nmsu.edu or Acquisitions Librarian, John Sandstrom at jsand713@lib.nmsu.edu.
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