What's New    Posted by Dr. Lucinda Zoe, Chief Librarian

New Circulating DVD Leisure Collection
The new HCC Library Circulating/Leisure DVD collection contains adult and juvenile feature titles from major and independent distributors. The collection consists of a wide selection of feature films including the latest Hollywood blockbusters, classics, foreign films (with an emphasis on Spanish-language films), documentaries, and other genres. The circulating collection was created to serve the informational, educational, and recreational needs of the Hostos community. By providing access to a medium combining intellectual content and socialization, the Library supports the educational goals of Hostos as well as fosters intellectual growth and critical thinking proficiencies. The collection also serves to heighten awareness among the community that the Library is a vital part of the student learning experience and offers many resources that facilitate the creation of new ideas and knowledge. Through the popular medium of video, students may be encouraged to explore further the Library’s vast reserve of multimedia, print and online material. Check out a DVD today!
Updated on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 8:26 PM

iSkills Assessment @ Hostos
Students who would like to have 300 free print/copy units and a 1 in 5 chance of winning $100 or a $50 Metro card may be qualified to participate in our iSkills Assessment project this month. If you have between 45-60 credits you can register to take the online interactive assessment test which will measure your Information, Communication and Technology skills. Hostos is participating in this CUNY-wide assessment project that will allow 200 students to get customized ICT reports- (great for building your resume!)The online, real-time, scenario-based test is fun and will only take 75 minutes of your time. First come, first served as we only have spots for the first 200 students who register. Everyone who participates gets 300 free print/copy units and will be entered in the drawing to win either one of 5 $100 cash awards or one of 4 $50 Metro cards. Register today by clicking on the "300 Free Prints/Copies" link on our home page. If you have between 45-60 credits, you qualify to participate, so don't delay- register today!
Updated on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 7:17 PM

Library Survey Winners!
Congratulations to Hostos students Noemi Peralta, Li Yun Lin and Cesar Munoz for participating in the Library Student Satisfaction Survey and winning our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes of a $50 and two $25 Metro Cards in our Valentine's Day drawing! The Library is very grateful and appreciative of our students who take the time to give us feedback on how we are doing. Continued input and suggestions from our community will help the Hostos Library to better serve our students and faculty. We also have an online suggestion box open to everyone to send us ideas and suggestions at any time on the “How are we doing?” link on the Library Home page. Please visit this link at any time and let us know how we are doing and what we can do better. Also, the user satisfaction survey is always available any time you wish to fill it out and let us hear from you. Again, many thanks to all of our participating students and faculty.
Updated on Friday, February 15, 2008 at 12:35 PM

Welcome to our New Evening and Weekend Supervisor-- Emma Kent-Traore
The Library is delighted to welcome a new staff member, Emma Kent-Traore, who will serve as our Evening and Weekend Supervisor. Ms Kent-Traore has a BA in Journalism and comes to Hostos after spending a year working at Brooklyn College in the Reserve Library and two years working at Queens College as the Supervisor of Collections. Prior to coming to the CUNY system, she served as an assistant librarian in an upstate prison, where she learned that everyone “is guilty in prison until they do the research to prove themselves innocent.” She has also worked at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and the Village Voice, where she assisted the Voice writers with research and at times, she got to write a few stories of her own and contributed as a research assistant. Ms Kent-Traore is a welcome addition to the library and we couldn't be more pleased to have her join us.
Updated on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 12:44 PM

Library 2.0 Comes to Hostos
Check out the “What to Read” link under "Our Collections" to see title lists of new acquisitions and experience Library 2.0 technology by signing up and participating in Librarything.com. LibraryThing.com is a web service for organizing and sharing information about books and reading. Sign-up and start adding books to your own catalog. Then, join our Hostos Library group. Write about your favorite books, ask us for our suggestions, see what your library faculty and other members of the group are reading, or ask us for tips on your research projects. Enjoy this new interactive service!
Updated on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 12:24 PM

E-Reserves
Our new E-Reserve service is up and running and getting good reviews from students and faculty. Electronic Reserves (ERes) is a web-based form of reserves service that provides online access to reserve materials. Access to material on electronic reserve is limited to authorized Hostos Community College patrons and is accessible anywhere on campus and off-campus will with a valid barcode via the library's proxy server. Faculty can submit reserve materials to the library to scan and mount on the ERes server. Submission guidelines and procedures, copyright regulations and access information can be found on the Library’s home page under “Our Collections.”
Updated on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 12:22 PM

Information Learning Commons @ Hostos
The Library has undergone a radically transformation to become a key component of the new Hostos Information Learning Commons. Our vision for the Information Learning Commons is to create spaces that enhance student learning and fosters integration, collaboration, and a sense of community while encouraging independent and critical thinking in an active learning environment. Four Information Learning Commons (ILC) venues will provide research and reference support, access to technology and point-of-use instruction to students. The (ILC) makes digital library resources, learning software, technology and tutoring support more available to students in an environment rich with resources and help on demand. Students will be able to conduct research, obtain reference and tutorial assistance, write papers, create PowerPoint presentations, tabulate data, design web-pages and collaborate in small groups on multimedia projects in a one-stop shopping mode. The ILC sites also include the Hostos Academic Learning Center (HALC), the Academic Computing Center, and the Office of Instructional Technology will provide a similar venue to faculty through its Faculty Development Center. Fore more details on specific services, check out the ILC Web site on the right hand side of the Library Web page. Come in and check us out!
Updated on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 8:01 PM

Friend Us! IM Chat Reference
The library is now offering a new instant messaging (IM) chat reference service that allows you to send a quick text message to library faculty for immediate help and assistance with reference and research support. You can send a text message from your own IM account, or if you don't have one, you can use the embedded Meebo "widget" on our IM Reference page, accessible from the "Research Help" menu on our home page. So, if you haven't done so already, make the Library your "friend" and Friend Us!
Updated on Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 10:09 AM

Two New Online Resources in Black Culture and Women and Social Movements
We have access to two new databases through the CUNY Digital Library Initiative: BLACK THOUGHT AND CULTURE which covers African American studies, black studies, American history, political science, and literature and contains 989 sources with 947 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material. The second new resource is the WOMEN AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SCHOLAR'S EDITION, which includes 72 document projects with 2,100 documents, 28,000 pages of additional full-text documents, and 1,600 primary authors. It includes as well book, film and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. Both resources are easily accessible via the library’s Web site in the Online Databases section under Our Collections. Enjoy these new collections and please come see us in the Reference area for additional support and help if needed.
Updated on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 6:08 PM

Book cover art in the library catalog
Through a CUNY-wide subscription to Syndetics, cover art for books is now available when you search our online catalog, CUNY+. Book cover art is available both in individual bibliographic records and also in the results list for keyword searches. In addition to cover art, the service also provides a look into the book at the Table of Contents and a brief summary/abstract.

We also have a new CUNY-wide subscription to Social Explorer. This electronic resource provides access to demographic information about the United States. It includes hundreds of interactive data maps of the United States, including historical data back to 1940.
Updated on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 3:04 PM

The Hostos College Library receives ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award for 2007
We were honored to be awarded the 2007 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award in the Community College category from the Association of College and Research Libraries. This prestigious national award recognizes the staff of a college, university, and community college library for programs that deliver exemplary services and resources to further the educational mission of the institution. The Hostos Community College Library was recognized for putting the “community” in community college. According to Frances Maloy, chair of the 2007 Excellence in Academic Libraries Selection Committee, “the Hostos Library staff demonstrates exemplary partnership and leadership with faculty in developing new curricular design and revitalization through the development of new courses designed to teach information literacy, critical thinking, computer literacy, and also by creating bilingual online learning environments.” The Hostos library will receive $3,000 and a plaque, to be presented at an award ceremony held on campus this April 25th in the Art Gallery from 6:00-8:00pm. The Library also will receive special recognition at the ACRL President’s Program during the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in June in Washington D.C.
Updated on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 9:10 AM

Professors Johnson and Lyons Presented Session at Princeton Symposium
Professors Rhonda Johnson and Kate Lyons presented a session entitled “Where's the Gap? Exploring the Technological Continuum in Academic Libraries” at a Princeton symposium on “Technology and Library Services: Meeting Today's Users' Needs” on March 15, 2007. This academic library symposium is sponsored by the Princeton University Library and the NJLA College and University Section/ACRL New Jersey Chapter. Their presentation examines the “digital divide” as it has evolved into a “technology continuum.” Exploring this continuum in academic libraries provides insight into how technology is incorporated into the provision of services. Determining where a library, its faculty and staff, and library users are positioned in this continuum may potentially influence decisions on what services to provide, and greatly affects the service’s success or failure in the library. They will provide a framework for determining the “technology continuum” in a library, and a dialogue about evaluating a library’s continuum.
Updated on Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 7:15 PM

New Serials/Acquisition Librarian- Jennifer Tang
The Library department is thrilled to welcome a new faculty member this year, Professor Jennifer Tang, our new Serials/Acquisition Librarian. Prof. Tang has an MFA in Fiction Writing and a background in public relations, with over six years as a public relations writer. Prior to coming to Hostos, she served as Manager of Media Relations at the New York Academy of Sciences, the Assistant to the Director of Public Relations at Kingsborough Community College and as a Serials Librarian at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Updated on Thursday, March 08, 2007 at 6:23 PM