Interview with Chris Filstrup

The Library Club: Who are you and what do you do?

Chris Filstrup: Who am I? I sit with a Zen group every week trying not to think about this question. What do I do? I’m an administrator, and in that capacity, inter alia, I represent the library to the university administration; I allocate resources as wisely as I can; and I encourage staff to be high level service providers. Now and then I staff the reference desk and hope that no one asks about government documents.

The Library Club: We heard you were a Philosophy Major, can you tell us about it?

Chris Filstrup: I wish. Rather, as an undergraduate, I was a political science major. I have a Master’s in Middle East Studies, and I never finished a doctoral program in the history of religions. Instead, I went to library school and got a job. In my next life I will major in philosophy.

The Library Club: How did you become the SBU Library Director?

Chris Filstrup: I moved from one library to another four times. This is the usual path of out and up. Previous to coming to SBU, I was head of technical services and collection development at North Carolina State University.

The Library Club: Lots of people feel books are going the way of the dinosaur…do you think books = dinosaurs?

Chris Filstrup: This must be a question about ink-on-paper books, or are electronic books no longer books? I’m pretty sure the printed codex will survive in the foreseeable future. It’s a terrific, portable format. I do think that the distribution of long scholarly texts will follow scholarly articles into the electronic arena. Publishers will sell or lease the electronic file, and libraries and individual readers will either read it online or print a paper version. I think there will continue to be lots of printing on paper but I may be a captive of my bookish upbringing. Publishing books in electronic, networkable formats will improve distribution and eliminate the current in-print/out-of-print problem. Will electronic readers make inroads? This may be a cultural more than a technical question. I used an electronic book reader about 7-8 years ago, and it was all right. A little heavy but ok for reading in bed. We have on order a Kindle book reader to play around with — interestingly, Kindles are out of stock.

The Library Club: Rumor has it you went to Iraq, when, why and would you go again?

Chris Filstrup: Not a rumor. I went in November 2003 as part of a USAID grant that SBU received to rebuild archaeology programs and libraries in Iraq. Faculty on both sides of the campus participated in this effort, and three or four of us went to Baghdad to establish relationships and start up projects to train archaeologists and develop water monitoring labs as well as work on rebuilding libraries at the Universities of Baghdad and Mosul. I was deeply affected by the courage of the Iraqis who kept the libraries open in the midst of escalating violence. As we all know, much of Iraq declined into something like a civil war. The grant was not renewed, so I didn’t return. Yes, I would return if the violence subsides.

The Library Club: What new things can we expect from the library in the next few years?

Chris Filstrup: Better management of electronic resources; easier search tools which allow users to search all our resources; the creation of an institutional repository to capture SBU research productivity; digitization of our unique resources, mostly in Special Collections; increased cooperation with other SUNY libraries; moving reference services online.

The Library Club: To wrap things up, which bumper sticker are we likely to find on your car?

Chris Filstrup: “Librarians know the answers… Do you know the questions?” OR “Librarians have high shelf esteem!” (Feel free to make one up for your car!)

Interview by Anuj Malhotra

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The Driver

The Library Club is proud to announce that our autographed copy of Alex Roy’s The driver : my dangerous pursuit of speed and truth in the outlaw racing world (now that’s how you write a book title!) is now held in the Stony Book University’s Special Collection department. As far as we know we are the first university to have the book, none the less signed and held in the perfect atmospheric condition to preserve it for eternity.

Check out the link to the SBU Catalogue

As a side note, I have to say it is a great read. Not too many books have been written on this subculture so if you are in the position to select books for your library do pick this book up to fill that gap in American History. The book is a real page turner. It’s hard to think of a cooler book with this much street cred. If you or someone you know likes to read exciting tales about overcoming incredible odds, get it. Know someone that thinks reading is dumb? This will convert them. While you’re at it check out Alex’s blog and The Moth.

Special thanks to Lynn Toscano, Jason Torre, and of course Alex Roy for his support for libraries.

~Victor

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Interview with Aimee deChambeau

The Library Club: Who are you?

Aimee deChambeau: Well, I’m Aimee deChambeau, e-Resources Librarian in Melville library. I have a longer title, but I prefer this shortened version. I’m also the librarian for the School of Journalism. To some of my friends I’m also known as the Empress-Tsarina.

The Library Club: What do you do at the library?

Aimee deChambeau: I work with Nathan Baum to manage the library’s electronic resources - our online databases and journals. We work with outside vendors to ensure that access to the online resources is uninterrupted. I also select the books and other library resources that support teaching and research for journalism.

The Library Club: When did you start working here?

Aimee deChambeau: Sept 2005.

The Library Club: When did you first know you wanted to be a librarian?

 Aimee deChambeau: Well, this is actually a funny thing. I went through a number of different majors in college. I started out as a German major, thinking I’d be a translator. Then I switched to English, thinking I’d eventually go to law school. It was actually my Mom who thought I should try Library Science! She was *so* right (as Moms often are) - I loved my classes from the very beginning and have been doing library things ever since. Most librarians actually start their studies in Grad school. My undergrad and grad degrees are all in Library Science, so it’s really been my focus since I gave it a try and ended up loving it.

The Library Club: What is Galaxy and why should students use it?

Aimee deChambeau: Galaxy is a system that takes your search and passes it to a number of different library databases. By “database” I primarily mean the electronic literature indexes. Galaxy lets you search say 10 or 15 (or 50) databases at once rather than individually. It’s best for discovering which of the resources it searches will be most productive for your topic. The real nitty-gritty searches still need to be done in the individual database.

The Library Club: What is the best way to use library databases?

Aimee deChambeau: If you don’t know where to begin you should try searching a few terms in Galaxy and see which databases find the most hits. You can use the references Galaxy returns, and/or you can go into the individual databases and create more complex searches. I have to say, it never hurts to look at the Help files for any system you search so that you can learn the most effective techniques - this is true even for the internet search engines.

The Library Club: Why should I use databases instead of Google?

Aimee deChambeau: Ah, excellent question. Google does not include everything. As a matter of fact, many companies that index the research literature in specific subject areas will not allow Google or any online search engine to index their work - they’ve invested too much money in indexing it to allow somone else to make it available to you. The result is a vast sea of specialized information that you will never uncover unless you’re searching these specialized resources.

The Library Club: Do you envision yourself being able to improve SBU with your super awesome information retrieval skills?

Aimee deChambeau: Well, I certainly hope that when I help students and faculty figure out more efficient, effective, and productive ways to do their searching then yes, I am improving SBU. You don’t want a researcher replicating research that’s already been done just because s/he didn’t uncover that fact when doing the background literature review.

The Library Club: There are currently only humans in The Library Club.  Do you consent to your horse being an honorary LC member, thereby transcending the man/beast academic barrier?

Aimee deChambeau: Sally would be honored to be a member. She thinks it’s especially important to educate people about bibliomulas (book mules) and other animals involved the provision library resources and services. She’s also a strong advocate for library music CD collections - she’s a very big fan of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar music.

 Sally

 

Interview by Lauren Guenveur.

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Content with Content DM

The Library Club is entering a pilot project with SBU’s Special Collections department. The idea is to use Content DM to document SBU Clubs. This is pretty exciting and we have uploaded a good portion of our content on there already.  So do check it out.  And while you’re there, check out some of the other collection!

Special shout out to Jason Torre for the support and training!

Our Collection

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