2006 Library Faculty Recipients of PSC-CUNY 37 Awards
Ellen Belcher, Assistant Professor, John Jay College
Panel: Art History; Renewal
A Comparative Study of Late Neolithic Figurines from Central Anatolia
Focusing upon the figurine production at the archaeological site of Domuztepe in southeastern Turkey, this comparative study seeks to identify artistic and iconographic connections between fifth millennium B.C.E. settlements in central and southeastern Anatolia (Turkey). During the summer of 2006, I continued my travels to regional museums and archaeological sites in central Anatolia to study available examples of human figurines of this period. The resulting journal article will present a model of local, regional and inter-regional artistic exchange in prehistoric Anatolia together with a catalog of selected figurines from the region.
Marvie Brooks, Associate Professor, John Jay College
Panel: Interdisciplinary Studies
African-American Women in Law Enforcement Careers
Ching-Jung Chen, Assistant Professor, City College
Panel: Art History
The Wentworths: A Story of Two Conversation Pieces
This project will explore the socio-economical implications of the conversation piece through a case study of two pictures, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and His Family by Gawen Hamilton (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) and The Finch Family by Charles Philips (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). These two paintings were commissioned respectively by Thomas Wentworth (1672-1739) and Thomas Watson Wentworth (1693-1750), rival descendants of the great Thomas Wentworth (1593-1641), Earl of Strafford. At the time they were engaged in a race to build the most magnificent country house in south Yorkshire and claim the honor of the preeminent Wentworth. The meaning and purpose of these two pictures will be investigated by reconstructing the history of their commissions within the context of the rivalry between the two families. This research will be the first to study these two important examples of English conversation pieces in their political and social context. It will present a vivid picture of the intrigue and maneuver in the English countryside as well as provide insight into the patronage and significance of the conversation piece, a subject that has remained largely unexplored.
James Kaser, Associate Professor, College of Staten Island
Panel: Library; Renewal
Chicago in Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography
This project will identify works of fiction set in Chicago, Illinois. Scholars often use fictional works as source material. Social historians interested in cultural attitudes toward Chicago’s food processing industry, identity as an urban center in a Midwest that was primarily rural, or reputation for architectural innovation, would find such works particularly useful. Literary scholars may wish to explore specific genres, women writers, or the Chicago popular literary tradition. During this project, bibliographic citations will be entered into a database and annotations written in preparation for a complete annotated bibliography. Fictional works will be annotated in preparation for an article discussing how the books reflect shifting cultural attitudes prevalent during specific historical periods. Cover designs and illustrations are crucial to understanding the books as cultural artifacts, so relevant material will be photographed. so I will be photographing relevant material. Research for this project will be undertaken in three special collections, those at the Chicago Historical Society, The Newberry Library, and the Chicago Public Library’s Special Collections.
Jeffrey Kroessler, Assistant Professor, John Jay College
Panel: Library
This project will cover the great variety of sports, games, and recreation in New York and its environs from the colonial era to the present. Topics include not only specific games and milestones (Lou Gehrig's farewell speech, the opening of Madison Square Garden, the first America's Cup), but also social and economic issues (racial and ethnic rivalries, public funding for professional arenas).The grant will fund the acquisition of illustrations and publication rights for the volume. In all there will be about 150 prints and photographs acquired from historical societies, libraries, and the Parks Department.
LaRoi Lawton, Assistant Professor, Bronx Community College
Panel: Library
The Library Association of The City University of New York: Its Past, Present and Future Impact on CUNY Libraries
This project will result in a historical publication of LACUNY. While many CUNY librarians know of LACUNY, there is no current historical information available on the LACUNY web page that indicates what LACUNY is, how it was formed, who formed it; its past and present impact on CUNY Libraries. How has LACUNY fared over the years since its beginnings in 1955? This project will consist of a collective gesture of library faculty and staff members via one-on-one interviews of individual and shared experiences in transition from library school to work in CUNY libraries. This project is designed to share personal and professional experiences within LACUNY with the masses. Exactly how has LACUNY as a professional association impacted on the lives and professional development of CUNY librarians, and staff, past and present? How will it survive? CUNY resources to be consulted include LACUNY archival records, personal interviews, and the personal and professional experiences of the author. This project will present a unique history of the many professional contributions made by LACUNY to the City University’s academic libraries through its membership.
Catherine Perkins, Assistant Professor, College of Staten Island
Panel: Library; Renewal
Why College Students Are Using Public Libraries for Their Research
This research project focuses on understanding how college students (particularly undergraduates) use their libraries, both public and academic. The study will be comprised of surveys taken by college students who approach the reference desk for assistance in the College of Staten Island Library, as well as four of the busiest branches of the New York Public Library in Staten Island. Reference librarians at all five libraries will also be interviewed before and after the survey periods to find their perceptions of college student use of their libraries, and to monitor changes in such perceptions. The goal of this study is to determine what student perceptions are of academic and public libraries, how they use them towards their course studies and to develop a better way to help students understand the fundamental differences in collection size and scope between these types of libraries. It is hoped that through this study, academic libraries can find a way to better understand the needs of their students, and perhaps allow both types of libraries involved to help educate their patrons about how their libraries can or cannot serve certain educational needs.
Linda Roccos, Associate Professor, College of Staten Island
Panel: Library
Bibliography for the Archaeology Study Collection at the College of Staten Island
During the 1870s, an American collector of antiquities, Francis MacDonald of Staten Island, New York, traveled frequently to Italy as representative of the Anchor Line (now Cunard). During these trips Francis purchased artifacts for his personal collection, chiefly Greek, Roman, and Egyptian antiquities. He died suddenly in 1878, and his collection remained at home on Staten Island until his wife Eliza's death in 1911, when their son Wallace donated the collection to the just formed Staten Island Museum. These nearly 2000 donated artifacts formed the core of the present archaeology study collection, which is now on long term loan to the College of Staten Island and on display in the College Library. The present research project will begin to publish this collection, and the funds will enable me to complete the bibliography for the proposed catalog.
Román A. Santillán, Assistant Professor, College of Staten Island
Panel: Spanish; Renewal
This project will lead to a facsimile and critical edition with concordances of the “Arco Triumphal, discern politico consecrator en poems, y delineado en symbolos a la feliz entrada del Exc.mo Señor D. Joseph Sarmiento de Valladares… / Triumphal Arch, Political design consecrated with poems and described with symbols for the blissful entry of Joseph Sarmiento de Valladares…” in Puebla, Mexico by Juan de Bonilla Godínez, 1697. It will be published by the Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies and the Hispanic Society of America, located in New York City. Research will be conducted in the archives in the city of Puebla, at the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, and at the Condumex library in Mexico City. To thoroughly research the visual aspects of the text and the arch it describes, and to locate sources among engravings, woodcuts, etchings and the illustrations for pertinent emblems and books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, I will visit El Museo Municipal de la Estampa in Madrid, Spain.
Katherine Shelfer, Associate Professor, Baruch College
Panel: Library
Open Web or Library Databases: What do Students really Prefer?
Today, the number of library reference questions appears to be globally declining and conventional wisdom suggests that today’s college students prefer to use the open web instead of discovering and using library databases. Are academic libraries perceived as an anachronism (a strategic marketing problem)? Are librarians failing to provide useful information (a collection development problem)? Are library database interfaces and access protocols to blame (a cost-benefit problem)? Academic librarians need to identify the actual problem, because failing to find a solution poses a significant threat. This study seeks to discover what happens to students’ choices when they are given opportunities to compare alternatives and make informed choices. This proposal will allow the publication of results obtained from a three-year study at Drexel University, while seeking IRB clearance from Baruch College (CUNY) to conduct a formal research experiment using human subjects.
Panel: Library; Renewal
Witnesses to the Scaffold: First-hand Accounts of Public Executions by English Literary Figures
This collection of essays will include six or seven first-hand accounts by well-known writers, primarily from the 18th and 19th centuries, on their experiences as spectators at public executions. (Public hangings ended in England in 1868). Each account will be accompanied by an essay that will document the particular crime being punished and general public reaction to it. I shall also give some analysis of the author’s perspective on the event and any identifiable agenda the account appears to support. The objective of this project is to determine what the best and the brightest thought about a fundamentally barbaric institution which persisted long after English society had become modernized. Individual accounts are, of course, colored by the writer’s beliefs about punishment. However, they are also influenced by the nature of the crime being punished and the intense debates at the time over whether any punishment should be capital and, if so, whether its infliction should be a public spectacle. The initial focus was indeed on these debates, which lasted in various forms for over a century. What these accounts say about their authors’ opinions of the behavior and morality of the huge mobs which usually attended public hangings is of great interest.
Compiled by Prof. Anne Leonard, NYC College of Technology, 2006.
