Special and Digital Collections: Summer 2022 Report
With the ebb and bustle of student activity wanning for the summer, the priorities of the Special and Digital Collections shifted to focus on hiring and developing additional library support staff, foundation building for our upcoming migration to a new digital repository platform (Alma Digital), supporting Teachers College Digital Asset Management (Widen) implementation, and—predominantly—collection development.
NEW LIBRARY ASSOCIATES
We were extremely excited to expand the special and digital collections staff to include two new library associates, Victoria Santamorena and Maya Marquardt. Each of our new associates bring specific skillsets and experience that have proven to provide depth and breadth to our staffing and increased capacity to take on important projects.
Ms. Santamorena, currently an MLIS candidate at St. John’s University (2023) and holds a Masters of Arts in English Literature from NYU. Her meticulous attention to detail and knowledge of Victorian-Era literature, history, and culture brings a unique and knowledgeable perspective to many parts of our Teachers’ College collections, including the Macy Art Gallery Library and James Earl Russell Papers.
Maya Marquardt, an aspiring librarian, currently attends Hunter College, CUNY (2024) where she studies Art History and hopes to continue on to study in an MLIS program. Ms. Marquardt brings along with her three years of experience working in the NYPL stacks and is proving invaluable in several inventory and digitization projects that will provide foundational information and data to improve long-term access to our special and digital collections.
DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
With the particular—and perhaps peculiar—sense of quiet within the rooms of Gottesman Libraries throughout the summer terms, came an opportunity to focus on data-driven details surrounding the inevitable migration and implementation from Pocket Knowledge to our new digital repository, Alma Digital.
In collaboration with Project Management Office, and Jon Macmillan specifically, we have been able to assess, analyze, and develop workflows, hierarchies, and a more astute understanding of the working dimensions of the collections currently housed in Pocket Knowledge. Part and parcel with the aforementioned work has been the necessity to reduce the weight of the material currently in PK, while also retaining essential material to the research services that Gottesman Libraries provides.
Thus, a gentle and measured conceptual and practical model of acquisition and deaccession has been necessary, coupled with no small amount of reorganization. The ardent user of PK may have noticed that the overall number of collections trimmed down from a bulky 1900 collections to a trim 500. The process of this thinning required in-depth examination of potential taxonomic structures and hierarchies inherent to the organization of the digital objects housed in the platform. We used typical processes usually associated with user-experience practices and design, such as paper-prototyping and A/B (bucket) testing.
By balancing the ratio of search return precision and accuracy, we were able to determine which tags potentially “double-dipped” into collections and resulted in a series of unnecessary redundancies. This reduction illuminated the conceptual framework for the development of the collection for Alma Digital, as well as uncovered more than a few auditing projects that will need to be completed. So, stay tuned for future developments!
DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
Librarians and information professionals often find that their skill sets and expertise can extend outside of the traditional roles offered by their respective institutions. Gottesman Libraries is no exception to this rule. We have been in regular collaboration with Digital Futures Initiatives and the Office of Digital Communications regarding the Teachers College Digital Asset Management system (Widen). Our role might best be summarized as that of advisory, wherein we offer insights into the role and establishment of metadata, user-experience, information behavior, and long-term management of resources.
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT
This summer has proven a boon to the area of acquisition of Gottesman Libraries Special and Digital Collections. Over the course of the summer, we have appraised, evaluated, assessed, consulted on, digitized or acquired the following collections:
New and Upcoming Acquisitions
Phil Phenix Papers
Consists of correspondence, course materials, speeches, teaching notes, photos, journals and additional ephemera. Hybrid physical and digital collection
Philip Phenix was a member of the Teachers College faculty from 1954 through 1981, acquired notoriety in 1934 when, at age 19, the senior thesis he wrote on "The Absolute Significance of Rotation" while at Princeton University.
The University offered the graduate a position in the Department of Theoretical Physics. Instead, he took a position with Metropolitan Life Insurance. In 1950, he received a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from Columbia University, and in 1954, joined the faculty of Teachers College. While at Teachers College, Dr. Phenix wrote and spoke about religion's role in publicly supported institutions.
Albert Heckman Papers
Diaries and Journals.
Heckman was an artist working primarily in lithograph prints and taught at Teachers College in New York and later settled in Woodstock, New York. He was active with Gustave van Groschwitz and the WPA printmakers in the 1930s
Maxine Greene and Sue Middleton Papers
Correspondence and photos. Digital and Physical
Maxine Greene graduated from Barnard College in 1938 and earned a master’s degree in 1949 and a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Education in 1955, both from New York University. She taught at Montclair College and Brooklyn College before joining the faculty of TC in 1965 as the sole woman in the Philosophy of Education Department.
Her education theories draw on the writings of phenomenologists and existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Soren Kierkegaard and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, but among her contemporaries she is often spoken of and written about in the context of social activists and teacher-scholars such as Paulo Freire, Hannah Arendt, and Fritjof Capra.
https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2014/may/maxine-greene-tcs-great-philosopher-dies-at-96/
Sue Middleton (born 1947) is a retired New Zealand academic who spent her career at the University of Waikato focusing on life.
After a 1979 MSc thesis, A phenomenological perspective for the classroom teacher and its application to the education of women at Victoria University of Wellington and a 1985 PhD dissertation Feminism and education in post-war New Zealand: a sociological analysis at University of Waikato, New Zealand, Middleton joined the faculty.
From 2000 to 2006 Middleton was director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy.
In 2013, Middleton was awarded Emeritus Professor by the University of Waikato.
Middleton is credited for pioneering New Zealand's first studies centered around "women and education [sic] and education and sexuality."
In 2019, Middleton and Helen May co-edited For Women and Children: a tribute to Geraldine McDonald, a collection of writings in honors of the life and work of researcher Geraldine McDonald.
https://profiles.waikato.ac.nz/sue.middleton
Elaine Rigolosi Papers
Collection of course syllabi, correspondence, literature reviews, faculty meetings, institutional history. Physical.
Dr. Rigolosi began her career at TC in 1976 and over her years here held a variety of positions that included Director of the Institute of Research and Service in Nursing Education, Chair of the Department of Nursing Education, and Chair of the Department of Organization and Leadership. As the leader of the Executive Program for Nurses, a position she held since 1996, she fostered excellence and was a primary driver behind the program’s consistently high national ranking.
Alongside her roles at TC, she was a practicing attorney who consulted widely with healthcare organizations and other businesses and was a prolific writer on nursing leadership and education. She published several books—including Management and Leadership in Nursing and Health Care: An Experiential Approach and The Nursing Process: A Humanistic Approach—and countless articles.
https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2022/march/sad-news-the-passing-of-elaine-rigolosi/
Digitization Projects
Manuscript Group 1
This collection consists of valuable education manuscripts dating back to the 17th century from such notable thinkers as Booker T. Washington, William James, Henry Barnard, Thomas Jefferson, Grace Dodge, Fredrick Froebel, and many others.
Institute of Philosophy and Politics in Education
The Institute of Philosophy and Politics of Education dealt with “studies that consider education in its broadest sense, that call upon the resources of more than one scholarly discipline, and that are designed to shed light on the relationship between educational programs and the civilizations that sustain them” (Prof. Lawrence Cremin)
Other
- In-depth assessment of Macy Art Gallery Monograph Collection
Consisting of 617 monographs and additional audio/visual material, the Macy Art Gallery Monograph Collection serves the Art and Education department faculty and students illustrating 18th and 19th century trends in art and education, aesthetics, and studio practices. Data available upon request
- Reducing Restrictions to 1968 student strike material
A portion of this Record Group on Student Affairs documents student grievances and administration response to the events surrounding May 1968. Content was previously restricted.
