UTRGV University Library Newsletter Summer - Fall 2018

SUMMER - FALL 2018 NEWSLETTER ISSUE 1 VOL. 1

INSIDE THIS ISSUE 2

Dean's Corner

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Our New Strategic Plan At-A-Glance

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UTRGV Library Now Using Exlibris' Alma and Primo

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Special Collections & University Archives

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Scholarly Communications

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Department Spotlight

10 The Research & Instruction Librarians 11 Library Staff 12 UX Student Workers 13 News and Noteworthy

Project Manager Millie Resendez

Designer

William Flores

Contributing writers and editors Paul Sharpe, Peter Cortez, Sean Visintainer, Justin White, Joel Chirinos

Photographers

Silverio Salas, David Pike, William Flores

Library Outreach Committee Millie Resendez, Alisha Puente, William Flores, Andrew Portner, Tara Tamez, Raquel Estrada, Joel Chirinos, Manny Rodriguez, Daniel Mejia

Want To Submit A Story? Contact the Library Outreach Committee chair at milagro.resendez@utrgv.edu.

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DEAN'S CORNER

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Paul Sharpe, Dean of Libraries As I’ve just recently passed my third anniversary with UTRGV, it’s the perfect time to reflect on what the University Library has accomplished in that time, as well as preview what’s on the horizon. We have come a long way in three short years.

Starting in late 2015, two libraries began to merge into one cohesive unit, guided by the basic principle of serving the needs of our students, faculty, and staff.

While attempts were made to avoid acrimony and strife, it was honesty and a commitment to excellent service that allowed us to move forward. Even now, as we weather a hiring freeze that slows our overall progress, we are able to work together across all campus locations to serve the mission of UTRGV. In the past several months, a number of developments have changed the landscape for us. The University Library now resides under the Division of Research, a unique reporting structure in higher education. We were able to add two additional librarians to our staff just ahead of the hiring freeze, providing us with additional help in Research & Instruction, and in Scholarly Communications. We migrated to a new integrated library system (Alma) that will allow us greater efficiency in generating reports and data necessary for accreditation and budget development.

Each of these events help set the stage for bigger and better things to come.

The footprint of UTRGV grows day by day.

Simultaneously, the University Library is making plans to meet the challenges presented by record enrollment, new program creation, and the rapidly expanding research enterprise. We welcome and encourage an open dialogue with everyone we serve throughout the Rio Grande Valley. Tell us what we can do to make your library better, more efficient, and prepared for what’s around the corner. The only way we can truly represent and address your needs is by hearing from you.

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OUR NEW STRATEGIC PLAN AT-A-GLANCE MISSION The University Library's mission is to support and strengthen teaching, learning, and emerging research as the heart of UTRGV. We strive to provide an excellent user experience by focusing on staff, technology, access, research, information literacy, and strategic partnerships.

STRATEGIC GOALS PEOPLE

TECHNOLOGY

ACCESS

Provide an excellent user experience for all patrons regardless of where they are.

Provide the technological tools, spaces, and presence necessary to ensure success for the communities we serve.

Provide innovative access tools and resources to empower students, faculty, staff and members of the community.

INFORMATION LITERACY

RESEARCH

PARTNERSHIPS

Be an active partner in the development of infrastructure that supports high-impact research and publishing.

Develop and build strategic collaborations that positively impact the library, the university, and the research community.

Provide teaching and instruction support enriching information literacy and enhancing curriculum 3

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UTRGV LIBRARY NOW USING EXLIBRIS' ALMA & PRIMO Peter Cortez, Associate University Librarian for Resource Management The Library is excited about its new integrated library system that went live last July.

Over the course of six months starting in early 2018, several UTRGV librarians worked with a team at ExLibris, Inc., a major developer of library systems and software.

Together they reviewed several hundred thousand electronic library material records in preparation for their migration to Alma, a unified services platform offered by ExLIbris. This new system helps the Library more effectively and efficiently manage its diverse collections of print and electronic resources. Along with the migration to Alma, the Library also unveiled another ExLIbris product – Primo. This gives users a new single search interface, allows the Library to maximize the value of its resources and increase exposure to content in a wide variety of formats. Together this new suite of services provides the foundation for a more robust end-to-end library management experience. Alma & Primo provide more dynamic user services, simplify and integrate workflows, and employ sophisticated joint analytics and reporting techniques. These new systems will be vital to ongoing assessments of resources that allow the Library to continue supporting the mission of UTRGV.

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SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES This past summer the University Library was visited by two traveling exhibitions, both of which highlighted local history and its place within a larger historical narrative.

Sean Visintainer, Head of Special Collections & University Archives

Discovering Fort Brown Discovering Fort Brown, an exhibition created by the CHAPS program (the Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools), was on display at the Brownsville campus Library’s second floor. The exhibition focused on the history of the first military border fort in Texas and its relationship with its southern neighbor. An opening exhibition was held at Brownsville Library’s Special Collections and was attended by over 50 guests, with remarks by representatives of CHAPS, Special Collections & University Archives, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Walter Diaz, the National Park Service, and UTRGV’s ROTC Program.

The Discovering Fort Brown exhibition consists of twenty bilingual panels, developed and designed by UTRGV students, and is currently traveling around the region.

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DISCOVERING

FORT BROWN THE FIRST MILITARY BORDER POST IN TEXAS

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Hometown Teams The Smithsonian exhibition Hometown Teams traveled to Edinburg’s Library this past summer for five weeks. The exhibition examines the many roles that sports play in our society from different perspectives, including those of the athlete, referee, and fan. The traveling exhibition was accompanied by a local exhibition about high school football, a pop-up exhibition about baseball in the Rio Grande Valley, and a digital exhibition, Hometown Teams of the Rio Grande Valley. The exhibition was opened with an event including remarks by the Dean of Libraries Paul Sharpe, and former Head of Special Collections & University Archives Sean Visintainer, Texas State Historical Association CEO Frank de la Teja, and two lectures: sports journalist Dr. Gregory Selber covered the evocative legacy of football in the Rio Grande Valley, and local historian Rene Torres presented on the long and storied history of baseball in the region.

Hometown Teams drew a crowd of about 100 people to the opening ceremony, and over 1000 for the duration of its run, as well as 400 visitors to its online exhibition located here.

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SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS This column is a review of the recent news in scholarly communications (often abbreviated to scholcomm) with limited commentary.

Justin White, Scholarly Communications Librarian

Moving On Up (P&T)

The ScholCommLab, based out of Vancouver and Ottawa, Canada, released the results from their textual analysis of Review, Promotion, and Tenure study. Key takeaways include the fact that 3/4th of all research intensive institutions mention citation metrics (which are dubious proxies for quality), and 90-95% of all institutions mention traditional research outputs.

Institutions are working to make progress on adopting the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Organizations funded by the Wellcome Trust must commit to DORA as part of Plan S adoption. More on Plan S below.

The Business of Scholarly Publishing Researchers in Europe have asked the EU to investigate the mega-publisher Elsevier for anti-competitive practices. One of the researchers also created a report on Elsevier as a foundation of critical investigation into one of the publishing industry’s leading player’s business practices.

More German institutions have joined in a plan not to review their Elsevier contract.

Also, a librarian’s perspective on prestige and piracy in scholarly publishing.

It’s Gonna be the Future Soon Researchers.One: A new model for gatekeeper-free Open Access publishing. This is a possible future publishing might take.

AI peer review: What could go wrong?

Opening the Textbooks Congress renewed the $5 million federal Open Educational Resources grant for its second year, to be distributed in 20 projects. Last year’s award went entirely to LibreTexts Plan(S) for Research Funding Plan S is an initiative by several European research foundation to promote Open Access publishing by requiring all recipients of their grants to publish in eligible journals. Several prominent founders in the United States have also signaled their support, including the Gates Foundation. Information on implementation and the types of journals that count has been released and is open for comment. Concerns about academic freedom as it is understood in several European countries such as Germany and Switzerland, who have specific rules concerning academic freedom. The favoring of Gold OA journals may also change the market concentration.

Meanwhile, back at the Herd, the University Library has been added to the Web preservation service Perma.cc as a registrar. This means the Library can mint accounts with unlimited links for faculty and staff to preserve Web pages and prevent link rot, similar to the Internet Archive (Archive.org). Currently, personal accounts are limited to ten links per month. An organizational account will remove this limit. The Library has also been creating faculty-focused scholarly communications guides.

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MAR - APR 2019 DEPARTMENT SPOTLIGHT: RESEARCH & INSTRUCTION

The Reference and Instructional Services Department offers an extensive range of services and resources to support an outstanding education at UTRGV. We provide access to unique collections and deliver individual research assistance designed to give UTRGV students a foundation for intellectual inquiry, ethical scholarship and lifelong learning. The department has a highly trained research staff ready to answer a wide range of questions using a variety of print and electronic resources.

The staff is available to assist you in person, over the telephone, chat or email. The department offers patrons expert research and reference assistance across a broad range of subjects, on a one-to-one basis or in a classroom setting.

From Left to Right: Carl Nelson, Joel Chirinos, Esteban Gonzalez, John Ferris, Charles Roush, Jesus Resendez, Andrew Portner.

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MAR - APR 2019

Joel Chirinos

Joel received his MLIS in 2006, and became a Reference and Instruction Librarian at UTB in 2007. He is currently the Head of Research & Instruction Services for the UTRGV Library. He enjoys working closely with researchers to find information and he also enjoys bibliographic instruction and teaching students how to use the library to correctly find resources and materials for their research. He enjoys playing and collecting board games. He currently has over 350 board games in his collection.

Charles Roush

Charles received his MLS in 2016 from Indiana University, with a specialization in Music Librarianship and Rare Books/Manuscripts. Before UTRGV, he worked full-time in Circulation at Indiana University’s William and Gayle Cook Music Library. He has been a Research and Instruction Librarian at UTRGV since July, 2018.

A fun fact about him: he doesn’t like carrots very much, but carrot cake is ok!

RESEARCH & INSTRUCTION LIBRARIANS

Carl Nelson

Jesus Resendez

Carlton has worked for 11 years here at the library. First as a reference night clerk and then as a full librarian. He received his MLS from Texas Woman’s University in 2008 and gained a second masters in Global Security Studies in 2015 from UTPA. Carl is currently a research and instruction librarian.

He enjoys roller derby and roleplaying games.

Jesus received his MLS in 2013 from the University of North Texas. He joined UTRGV in August of 2015 as a Librarian. His official role now is as a Research and Instruction Librarian. His hobbies include eating, playing golf, and reading books about successful entrepreneurs.

John Ferris

Andrew Portner

John has served the UTRGV Brownsville Library for the past 5 years. He was awarded an MLS from Texas Woman's University in 2010. He currently serves as a Research & Instruction Librarian.

He performs instructional presentations for students in retrieving online journal articles from the library's vast number of online journal database resources.

He has also assisted the Access Services, Collection Development, and Systems departments in numerous specialized projects and assignments. Some personal hobbies he enjoys are popular musicology and antiques.

Andrew received his MS in Information Studies in 2008 from Florida State University. He joined UTPA as a reference librarian in 2010, and is now a research and instruction librarian at UTRGV, Edinburg campus. In his spare time, he is working on an MBA, enjoys Chinese tea, and likes to cook with many advanced gadgets.

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LIBRARY STAFF

Brownsville

From Left to Right: Millie Resendez, Raquel Estrada, Jesus Resendez, Abraham Mata, Martin Sanchez, John Ferris, Joel Chirinos, Liliana Sanchez, Daniel Mejia, William Flores. Not Pictured: Beatriz Morales, Yazmin Ruiz, Ezequiel Melgoza, Carmelita Pecina.

Edinburg

From Left to Right: Rebecca Rodriguez, Joel Chirinos, Tara Tamez, Juliessa Garza, Linda Hernandez, Paul Sharpe, Dina Asbell, John Asbell, Fred Ramos, Edna Luna, David Luna, Abigail Rodriguez, Frances Caballero, Norma Romero, Sally Vela, Justin White, Kristen Weischedel, Belinda PeĂąa, Charles Roush, Diana Tijerina, Andrew Portner, Raquel Estrada, Dolores Villarreal.

Edinburg

From Left to Right: Carl Nelson, Jaime Hernandez, Peter Cortez, William Flores, Paul Sharpe, Lupita Quintero, Rodolfo Huerta, Manuel Rodriguez, Lisa Huerta, Deandra Portner. Not pictured: Adela Cadena, Alisha Puentes, Daniel Cruz, Daniel McGinniss, Gloria Quintanilla, Joe Reyna, Juan NiĂąo, Monica Granado, Roy Monreal, Sean Visintainer, Shannon Pensa, Susan Bushnell, Shantal Brissette.

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UX STUDENT WORKERS

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NEWS AND NOTEWORTHY 2

Sports historian Torres to speak about baseball at UTRGV Brownsville Herald Roy Hess - July 21, 2018

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS - There’s a colorful history behind the legacy of sports in South Texas, particularly that of baseball.

A story that hits home; Natalia Sylvester showcases her newest novel The Rider Maleny Ortega - October 16, 2018

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS - Natalia Sylvester, author of “Everyone Knows You Go Home,” read excerpts of her book, answered questions and donated to the archives last Friday in the Brownsville University Library.

Resilience en el Valle: Remembering Bazan y Longoria and Reckoning Rio Grande Guardian Special to the Rio Grande Guardian - October 26, 2018

SAN MANUEL, TEXAS – The Refusing to Forget Project, along with UTRGV Mexican American Studies Program, is hosting a series of events to commemorate the unveiling of a historical maker that recognizes the violence done to Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Rio Grande Valley from 19101920.

Los vivos celebrando a los muertos; Biblioteca celebrará el Día de Muertos The Rider Eric Montoya - October 29, 2018

BROWNSVILLE & EDINBURG, TEXAS – Los asistentes podrán disfrutar de pan de muerto, chocolate caliente y otras actividades durante el evento Día de los Muertos, el cual tomará lugar de mediodía a 1 p.m. el jueves en el UTRGV Library en los campus de Brownsville y Edinburg.

Hard work pays off; UTRGV custodian shares inspiring journey The Rider Ana Trujillo - November 5, 2018

EDINBURG, TEXAS – Maricela Quiroga, a building attendant for the University Library in Edinburg, began her journey with legacy institution University of Texas-Pan American 22 years ago and continues to work for UTRGV.

Yturria’s use of land created historic and ecological assets The Monitor The Monitor Editorial Board - November 28, 2018

MCALLEN, TEXAS - Much of the land that is now called the Rio Grande Valley once carried the Yturria name. Much of the land between Starr County and Kingsville still does. The Yturria Ranch remains one of the state’s, and country’s, largest ranches, stretching from Starr, Hidalgo and Cameron counties in the south to Kenedy County more than 100 miles to the north.

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