Staff News
We reach out to share the news that Michael Diggs is retiring from BLAIS on January 5th, 2021. We hope you will join us in celebrating his new beginning and his years of work with Barnard students, faculty, and colleagues. You may know some about his long service with the Barnard and Columbia communities. Michael has worked at Barnard since 2012, first as an Access Coordinator with Barnard Public Safety and, since 2013, as the Library Specialist for Course Reserves. Before coming to Barnard, he worked at Columbia University from 1987 through 2011, where he was Chief Administrator for the Center for Stem Cell Research, Department Administrator for Community Impact, Business Manager for the School of Law, and Executive Assistant for Government Relations and Community Affairs. He has had career paths in professional dance, the seminary, finance, and library work. In this time when many of us are working remotely, we wanted to share this news in advance so that you have the chance to speak with Michael over the next few months. Congratulations, Michael!
Events
I Made You a Zine: Zine Making Workshop for Staff | December 8th, 6-7:30pm ET
The Barnard Zine Library and Design Center invite Barnard staff to join a zine-making workshop where participants can make zines for loved ones as gifts, hang out and craft in community, or empower themselves through the magic of DIY (do it yourself).
We intend to create a warm and inclusive environment and will accommodate disability needs as best we can.
A version for students was held on December 3rd.
Feminist Film Series x Athena Film Festival: RAFIKI | December 11th, 12pm ET
Feminist Film Series x Athena Film Festival presents RAFIKI featuring a Q&A with Director Wanuri Kahiu! RAFIKI is the story of romance that grows between two young women, Kena and Ziki, amidst family and political pressures around LGBT rights in Kenya. Prior to the conversation with Wanuri, we invite you to watch the film for free on Clio beforehand.
Review of the Month
The Media Center sponsored LaJuné's Introduction to 3D Modeling in Maya workshop which took place on November 4th. LaJuné is a New Media Artist, Maker, and Creative Technologist in New York. They are dedicated to making art abstracted from personal experiences and have created pieces that integrate performance, virtual reality, and physical computing to question the current use of technology and forms of communication. LaJuné's art is part of their "research centered around creating Technology and Mediums that are inherently intersectional allowing communities that have ignored to have a space to be recognized, loved, accepted and heard." Stream the workshop.
Movement Lab
The Movement Lab's Gabri Christa spoke at “Dance Like Your Life Depends on It: A World AIDS Day Conversation“ as part of a panel of dance artists who reflected on memory, mortality, urgency, and intimacy in the time of pandemic. The panel aims to explore the dancing body and radical survival.
World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the HIV/AIDS crisis and mourning those who've been lost.
Zines
Barnard Zine Library staff have launched a zine-style monthly newsletter on Flipsnack. You can follow us on the app or sign up for our low-traffic announcements list.
The zine is compiled and designed by Rita Nguyen BC '23, with art created by Diane Zhou and Suze Myers BC '16. Read the first issue, November 2020!
Circulating Collections
Barnard Library's Access Services team will soon be using our new electronic inventory tool. Quincy Williams, Student Engagement and Access Services Librarian, has been trying to find a way to use new technology to make our inventory process more efficient and supplement the master paper inventory lists we've been using historically (it's 2020, it's about time).
Using mobile Windows 10 tablets and Bluetooth scanners, Google Sheets and a little Python, this inventory tool has the ability to retrieve the title, call number and status of most items on the shelves by simply scanning the barcodes into a spreadsheet. This will help our stacks accurately match what our users see on CLIO (great help for paging and scanning requests), and will become a regular process towards the hygiene of our inventory. Not to mention the technology helps us with customer experience in various other ways, like giving Voyager legs!
CSC
On December 4th, the CSC held a workshop: Introduction to Python Data Visualization Using Altair and COVID-19 Data. This workshop taught students how to create complex and beautiful data visualizations with the Altair library. It covered Python basics before diving into DataFrames, HTTP requests, JSON, and data visualizations. It utilized data from NYC Open data, along with COVID data from an external API. The CSC holds workshops for beginner to intermediate coders throughout the semester.
FLI Partnership Library
Christina Juste BC’22, BLAIS Student Staff Associate for the Barnard FLI Partnership Library, and Kristen Hogan, Interim Co-Dean and Director of Collections Strategy and Library Operations, presented at the first virtual meeting of Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, a new division of the American Library Association. Their presentation was titled “Student Organizer & Library Partnerships for Textbook Access: First-Generation and Low-Income Textbook Library at Barnard College.”
Personal Librarians
The Personal Librarians and the Archives have teamed up with the CEP and the Writing & Speaking Programs to provide support for thesis/capstone writers during digital co-working hours in December. Workshops are weekly on Tuesdays (5pm - 7pm) and Fridays (11am - 1pm). Drop-ins are open to Barnard students in any major, during all stages of the thesis-writing process.
Tuesday, Dec 1 - Jenna Freedman Friday, Dec 2 - Meredith Wisner
Tuesday, Dec 8 - Martha Tenney Friday, Dec 11 - Vani Natarajan
IMATS
IMATS supported Professor Abosede George's course "AFRS 2004: Introduction to African Studies: Past, Present and Future," through the videography of graduate assistant, Deja Cobb.
Deja filmed a walkthrough of the MET Museum's Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas wing led, by curator Alisa LaGamma in conversation with Prof. George, in order to provide students an aspect of this experience remotely; this is also significant as some of these exhibits are coming down from permanent exhibition.
DHC
On December 4th, the Digital Humanities Center held their annual Caribbean Digital event, and showcased three asynchronous digital projects our community has generated over the last several months: Keyword Collection for Caribbean Studies; Our Collective Notebook; and A Directory of Caribbean Digital Scholarship.
We congratulate Kaiama L. Glover, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of French & Africana Studies and Faculty Director of the Digital Humanities Center, on her forthcoming book!
A Regarded Self reads novels by Marie Chauvet, Maryse Condé, René Depestre, Marlon James, and Jamaica Kincaid, to champion unruly female protagonists who adamantly refuse the constraints of coercive communities. Glover asks readers and critics of postcolonial literature to question their own gendered expectations and to embrace less constrictive modes of theorization. Learn more.
Milstein Pro-Tip
You can use our digital collections to search digitized archival materials; peruse guides to our collections called finding aids and request items; and reach out to archives@barnard.edu about teaching with archives, large-scale research projects, or questions about the digital collections.
A Regarded Self reads novels by Marie Chauvet, Maryse Condé, René Depestre, Marlon James, and Jamaica Kincaid, to champion unruly female protagonists who adamantly refuse the constraints of coercive communities. Glover asks readers and critics of postcolonial literature to question their own gendered expectations and to embrace less constrictive modes of theorization. Learn more.
