At last Friday’s meeting of the CUNY Committee of Academic Technology, I put forward the proposal for a Library Technology Subcommittee. There seemed to be a consensus at the meeting that we should go ahead and set up a space on the Academic Commons where we could figure out what precisely we’d like to do.

Here are some thoughts:

• Pick an issue (or two?) that we want to work on first
• Reach out to people who aren’t on the CUNY CAT but who might be interested in being a part of this subcommittee
• Decide if we want to meet up online or in person before the next CUNY CAT meeting on March 20

I’ve set up this group to be private for now, but that can change too if we decide it should be open. If anyone wants to join, I think they can go to the main page for this group on the Commons and request membership. They can also just email me, and I’ll add them. If anyone else wants to be an admin for this group space on the Commons, let me know.

At last Friday’s meeting of the CUNY Committee of Academic Technology, I put forward the proposal for a Library Technology Subcommittee. There seemed to be a consensus at the meeting that we should go ahead and set up a space on the Academic Commons where we could figure out what precisely we’d like to do.

Here are some thoughts:

• Pick an issue (or two?) that we want to work on first
• Reach out to people who aren’t on the CUNY CAT but who might be interested in being a part of this subcommittee
• Decide if we want to meet up online or in person before the next CUNY CAT meeting on March 20

I’ve set up this group to be private for now, but that can change too if we decide it should be open. If anyone wants to join, I think they can go to the main page for this group on the Commons and request membership. They can also just email me, and I’ll add them. If anyone else wants to be an admin for this group space on the Commons, let me know.

[Kate (She/Her)]

It sounded like a few people at the CAT meeting strongly associate libraries with their physical spaces (which makes sense, of course, and our space is important, perhaps even more important for students in online courses as they still seem to want meeting spaces for team projects and studying), but just as learning is no longer solely about the classroom space, libraries are evolving. In a really general way, I’d say our sub-committee’s goals could be:

[Maura A. Smale (she/her)]

Kate, those goals sound good to me.

I know it’s the very definition of a sticky wicket, esp. since there are so many folks/areas of the college/university that this involves, but I think the issue of university-wide wifi access is super critical for students, faculty, and staff. Frankly, some of us have suboptimal wifi access even on our own campuses. I’d be interested to start discussions around that.

I may not be able to come to a meeting before CAT on 3/20 — the Commons subcommittee usually meets then, and I’m also trying to go to the diversity/inclusion conference that day — but I will catch up online if need be.

Thanks Stephen for getting us started!

[Stephen Francoeur (he/him)]

I think I’m partial toward helping nudge the university to come up with universal wifi solution that works across campuses. While it may not sound immediately like a library-tech issue, if you consider how frequently students from one school use the library at another school that is closer to their job or home, then the connection with libraries is more obvious.

Here at Baruch, we have a system that lets visitors get a temporary guest logon for the wifi (and for the desktop computers). Those guest logons are issued from the circ desk and the ref desk. If the desks aren’t open yet, then the visitor is out of luck. This shouldn’t have to be the case.

And as Maura mentions, the wifi networks that some schools (most?) are often not so hot. We should be pushing for CUNY to find a way to offer easily accessible, stable, and fast wifi at every campus. Students should be able to login easily regardless of what campus they are at.

I like Kate’s goals, too. One thing I’d tweak though is the exclusive focus on online learning in the first goal.

• to support the collaboration between teaching faculty and librarians across all disciplines, in order to meet the research and information literacy needs of students
• to ensure that library resources and services integrate with all educational technology adopted by faculty at CUNY
• to encourage the adoption of educational technology in library department affiliated courses and workshops throughout CUNY

For that third goal, I’m not quite sure what the intent is. To me, it sounds like a goal that is limited to the needs of librarians only (tech adoption for the courses and workshops librarians offer). If that was the point of that goal, it doesn’t sound like something that be right for this larger CUNY CAT to be talking about. But maybe I’m misunderstanding what was meant in that goal.

Perhaps those of us who are interested in this subcommittee (and free) could meet one hour before (at 2 pm) the next CUNY CAT (March 20) in the cafe in the lobby of the Grad Center. I’m hoping we can hash out our goals a bit more, a first project to start working on, and also discuss whether it’s OK to invite librarians not part of the CUNY CAT to join our subcommittee (I think the subcommittee for the CUNY Academic Commons works is open to non-CUNY CAT members, right?)

In a separate post on the larger CUNY CAT forum, I’ll share a Doodle poll to see who might be able to meet next Friday at 2 pm.

[LAROI M. LAWTON]

here at BCC we have 10 guest computers for people who attend other CUNY campuses and have not experienced any hard-core issues with them other than our own students complaining why BCC students cannot use them when there are not any workstations available out in our Commons area. In total we have 185 workstations in that area(40 MACs) Our Wi-Fi is another matter. There are times when it is strong-depending upon the device, and other times when it can be so weak as to be non-existent. But then again, this may be because of the high volume of traffic across the Wi-Fi or not. It would be nice to have a uniform method for all of the CUNY campuses but each one is an island unto itself with different parameters. I like the act that at GC I can log on as a ‘guest’ with little or no issues; when I am at JJ though, it is another matter altogether; with our guest computers, tech help personnel log on these workstations upon request by the patron from another CUNY college or community. Once done, the system is logged off until another request; all guests sign in as well.

Last but not least, I am on the Diversity & Inclusion Conference Committee which is having its conference on the same day as CUNY CAT. As part of the logistics team on this committee, I will not be there as well.

[Stephen Francoeur (he/him)]

Here’s another thing I was wondering about: what do folks think about a message going out on CULIBS inviting other librarians to consider joining our subcommittee? It’s my understanding that subcommittees of the CUNY CAT can include people who aren’t on the CUNY CAT itself.

I’m thinking that by opening up the subcommittee, we’ll get the kind of critical mass of members we will likely need to keep the subcommittee going.