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Best of the Beach: Herminio Espinoza

Herminio Espinoza

Our own Herminio Espinoza, who works in Shelving, won Best of the Beach this past November! He was nominated for exemplifying “superior professionalism and exceptional service,” taking “great joy in working with his fellow staff members and student assistants,” and being a “total team player.”

Please join me in congratulating Herminio for his well-deserved award!

The Book Tree

Fabiola Arizaga and Heather Steele Gajewski

The beloved book tree that stood majestically in our library lobby during the winter holidays did not, contrary to popular belief, appear by magic! Heather Steele Gajewski and her student assistant, Fabiola Arizaga, worked over several days to build the beautiful tree using old ������ yearbooks (of which we have many other copies, of course).

Our gratitude goes out to Heather and Fabiola for their hard work adding some holiday cheer to our library space!

Monthly All-Hands Meetings

Our monthly All-Hands meetings have been well-attended! These meetings bring all library employees together for a presentation by one of your library colleagues, followed by a brief guided discussion. Helen Cameron presented at the first All-Hands meeting in November, sharing a day in the life of an ILL team member and providing interesting insight into the important work of ILL. The second meeting, which was held in January, was a chance to revisit the Library Strategic Plan that was created in 2023 and engage as a group in some discussion about library priorities and goals.

If you have not attended, you are welcome and encouraged to come! This is a chance to learn from your colleagues, and to have your voice heard, too. The meetings usually take place on the second Thursday of every month at 2 PM in room 305. They are less than an hour long, and coffee and treats are provided.

This semester, the Interlibrary Services (ILS) team focused on streamlining workflows and improving efficiency through a strategic roadmap. Additionally, Jocelyn Acevedo has joined the team and is being trained to help manage the ever-growing ILS workload, and learning new skills. 

We welcomed Mike Moore from Building Operations, who has been assisting at Circulation during the hiring freeze, and we’re proud to report that our 18 student assistants provided excellent customer service at our two service points. 

Access Services also hosted finals programming to support hundreds of students with stress-busting activities.  
 

   Finals Event Table

Selected vinyl records from our remote access storage facility, ORCA (Online Remote Collections Access)

Lastly, we made progress on procuring items for the library’s upcoming pop-up makerspace, now officially named WaveMaker, which is set to deploy in 2025. 

The Technical Services and Systems team has been hard at work on several impactful projects this semester, from streamlining resource management to advancing authentication systems. Below are some key highlights from their accomplishments: 

• Resource Recommender Updates 
  Dokyoung and Austin have cleaned up the entries for databases in the Primo VE Resource Recommender to accurately match the names and URLs of the Springshare A-Z Databases list. The ‘person’ entities in the Resource Recommender have been updated to reflect changes in librarian assignments for AY2024-25. 
   
• Maps 
  Before his retirement, Greg Armento laid the groundwork for a significant and much-needed weeding of our print map collection which includes government documents as well as commercially produced maps. Laura has been hard at work ensuring that all the GovDocs maps he deselected were offered on the appropriate exchange to other libraries participating in the FDLP. After many months, we have secured good homes for many of these and properly disposed of the remainder. Our much more modest, current, and relevant map collection is located in the 4th floor tower. 
   
• Single Sign On Authentication 
  Our project to modernize authentication into subscription resources proceeds apace. Dokyoung and Austin have reviewed 106 platforms/databases to determine the feasibility of direct authentication without EZproxy as an intermediary layer. We have already activated SSO access to Sage, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis with assistance from ITS. More platforms will be reviewed and activated during the spring. 
   
• CDMC Support / COUNTER Data Gathering 
  Irene, Austin, and Dokyoung compiled a massive and informative spreadsheet of usage data from vendors regarding the library’s subscriptions. This was a significant undertaking, but one that was well worth the effort as CDMC has used this data during this fiscal year to inform renewal/cancellation decisions. 
   
• Print Serials Holdings Cleanup 
  Irene corrected over 4000 holdings entries for print journals in Alma using a highly automated workflow involving OpenRefine and MarcEdit. These corrections will improve the user experience of requesting print journals from ORCA and more importantly will help ILS determine what we have available to lend. The workflow she used was a serious gain in efficiency that she learned about by attending eCAUG, Irene estimated the updates would have taken her an entire year without using OpenRefine. This project shows the value and return on investment from staff professional development. It is unlikely that the project would have happened had Irene (along with all the other department staff) not attended eCAUG held in Long Beach in October 2024. Amber is leading a project to reconcile the corrections made in Alma with OCLC’s WorldCat to further aid ILS. 

SCUA hosted 13 class tours and sessions this semester. With the addition of around 30 new (old!) volumes from the Beth Lau endowment and new connections on and off campus, we were able to reach more students and patrons than ever before! 

In August, SCUA was invited by ������ Emeritus Kaye Briegel to meet Robin Herrera, Collections Manager, and Lauren Herrera, Archivist, from The Rancho Los Alamitos. SCUA maintains the Joan Hotchkiss Collection of Bixby Family Papers, a collection of great value to the Rancho, the City of Long Beach and LA County, and all of us who cherish the legacy that came before the ������ campus existed. This meeting has opened a new opportunity for SCUA to be included in research referrals and possible future collaborations. Robin, Lauren, and curator Pam Lee, from the Rancho Los Alamitos will be visiting SCUA in January 2025.  

In October, SCUA and Sarah Corona held the Outober Zine Workshop and Lecture for around 25 attendees! Dr. Stacy Macias from the Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies department gave a short lecture about her time working in the Queer Women of Color collective, Tongues. She shared images and stories about the zines that they created, which reflect the work of the collective she co-founded. Tongues included numerous queer feminist activist members, some of whom are now ������ faculty. SCUA received a generous donation of magazines and newspapers from the LGBTQ Center Long Beach to add to our resources for the workshop. The zinesters were all very engaged in the process and expressed appreciation for the lecture and supplies that were provided. We highlighted the Schwab Collection and Special Collections and Archives material that the zinesters could use as inspiration while they worked. 

Dr. Stacy Macias with zinesters.

Heather Steele Gajewski, Dr. Stacy Macias, and Sarah Corona

SCUA provided a large amount of research assistance and materials to the 2024 Academic Senate Retreat in October 31. The retreat theme was “Shared Governance over the last 75 years: A decade-by-decade look.” SCUA was happy to provide boxes of original documents from the University Archives dating from 1949 to current day. Attendees expressed how much they enjoyed handling documents from those who shaped our university from the beginning.  

Also in October, SCUA provided a tour for Jeff Whalen, the Special Collections Librarian at the Long Beach Public Library.  Jeff was excited to discuss all things library, share stories about his Long Beach history Podcast, , and commiserate about the challenges and joys about working in special collections and archives. We are planning a visit to Jeff at the Long Beach Public Library Special Collections in the New Year!  

In early December, SCUA teamed up with the Office of Belonging and Inclusion (OBI) to host an inspiring event for student organization members! During the visit, students explored the department through an engaging tour and dove into a lecture about archiving their club records. The OBI students brought their curiosity, asking thought-provoking questions. We’re excited to support them in preserving the story of their student experiences for years to come! 

Heather Steele Gajewski gives lecture to OBI students.

OBI students were able to flip through University Archives records like these Fraternity and Sorority scrapbooks from the 60’s and 70’s.

In SCUA collection management news, Briana just completed identifying all the Fine Art Photography prints that we have in the department. This process has multiple steps and requires the coordination of many moving parts. Each photo has been barcoded, measured, and logged for department records. We are hoping to be able to add this data to publicly available digital records in the near future, so patrons have a more convenient way to browse through our offerings. Briana is now working on the same project for the rest of our Fine Art!

Updates from the Reference, Instruction, and Curriculum Committee (RICC):  
 

• Assessment Plan Progress 
  The Assessment Plan Working Group is making good progress with the Assessment Plan. Once RICC looks over the final draft, we will share it with the Faculty for review and discussion. A HUGE thank you to the Working Group for all their hard work! 
   
• Canvas Course Chatbot Pilot 
  The Check Out the Library Canvas Course has a pilot running for a dedicated Copilot chat. RICC will be running our first sets of tests of this chatbot through January, but all are welcome to try it out. Please send RICC your feedback.  
   
  The Copilot chatbot for our Course will answer queries about information from within the Course. Our IT personnel for this project, Scot Woodyard, will collect queries and scripts we provide for the Bot to add to its knowledge - as some of our instruction for the Course is in video form. We hope the Bot will be refined and of substantial use by Fall 2025, as we continue to test and add information through Spring 2025. (This is a different project from the FAQ chatbot idea, which is still in Faculty discussion.) 
   

Updates from the Collection Development & Management Committee (CDMC):  
 

The committee has collaborated with the Library Faculty, Technical Services, and Library Administration to reduce spending on Library materials, including books and databases, by approximately $200,000.  
 

General Faculty News:  

The search for a Digital Archivist continues, and discussions on revising the Retention, Tenure, and Promotion (RTP) Policy are underway. 

The Library Administration has announced a rebranding initiative and will soon be known as the Office of the Dean.