Library News Blog

NYC councilmember Elizabeth Crowley bestows a citation on Robert Shumate, joined by Charles Jennings,  Director of the Christian Regenhard Center; Elizabeth Hovey, History Dept.; and Ellen Belcher,  Library. Photo from the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies, via Twitter.

Hovey Memorial Lecture

The Lloyd Sealy Library co-sponsored a lecture from Robert Shumate on October 19, 2016. Beginning as a Maine State Trooper, Shumate (second from left) went on to develop and install the first online police computing systems in 1964, launching modern computer-aided dispatch and records management. He led the formation of the IJIS Institute, devoted to public safety information sharing. Shumate came to John Jay to honor his late protégé, 911 pioneer Scott Hovey. The Library’s Special Collections acquired Hovey’s professional papers.

Supermax Prisons Book Talk

Dr. Keramet Reiter is an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, and a graduate alumna of John Jay. On November 10, 2016, Dr. Reiter presented a book talk on her latest monograph, 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and The Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. The Library co-sponsored this Sociology Book Talk and has acquired 23/7, soon available in the Stacks.

John Timoney oral history highlighted

John F. Timoney (1948-2016) rose through the ranks of the New York Police Department to become Chief of Department and then First Deputy Commissioner under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton (1994-1996). He was later Police Commissioner in Philadelphia and Chief of Police in Miami. Chief Timoney was also a John Jay College alumnus, graduating in 1974 with a degree in History. In 2010, I sat with John Timoney for an oral history interview, during which he discussed his career in the NYPD and the transformation of the department under Bratton, especially the introduction of Compstat. You can read the oral history interview in the Library’s Digital Collections. --Jeffrey Kroessler

Timoney’s 2010 memoir, Beat Cop to Top Cop: A Tale of Three Cities, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, is available at the Library in the Stacks, HV7911 .T563 A3 2010.

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Read more from the Fall 2016 issue of Classified Information, the Library newsletter

Ellen Belcher and Karina Croucher published a book chapter “Exchanges of Identity in Prehistoric Anatolian Figurines” in the Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (9th ICAANE). It can be read on Academic Works. Her article on “Identifying Female in the Halaf: Prehistoric Agency and Modern Interpretations” appeared in the Journal of Archaeological Method & Theory, 23(3). She also prepared an exhibit from the Scott Hovey Papers and appeared on the panel of the first annual Hovey Memorial Lecture on October 19.

Kathleen Collins’s book, Dr. Joyce Brothers: The Founding Mother of TV Psychology, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in September.

Robin Davis earned her MA degree in Computational Linguistics in May from the Graduate Center upon completing her thesis, “Nondescript: A web tool for subverting authorship attribution,” available in Academic Works and on GitHub. She also presented “Die Hard: Saving the Web for Scholars” as the closing remarks of the Eastern New York ACRL Conference at Skidmore College in May. She published two “Internet Connection” columns in Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 35(1) and 35(2).

Jeffrey Kroessler presented on the history of Sunnyside Gardens at the AIA New York State Design Conference in September. In October, he gave a talk about the preservation of Sunnyside at “Preservation in the US: 50 Years On” at Salve Regina University. He reviewed Politics across the Hudson: the Tappan Zee Megaproject by Philip Mark Plotch for Planning Perspectives, and his article on “The Limits of Liberal Planning: the Lindsay Administration’s Failed Plan to Control Development on Staten Island” appeared in Journal of Planning History. After the bombing in Chelsea in September he published “Anarchists, Puerto Ricans, Croatians Too: Nearly Everyone’s Attacked NYC” in the Daily Beast.

Karen Okamoto recently published articles on open government data: “Introducing open government data” appeared in The Reference Librarian and “What is being done with open government data?” in Webology.

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Read more from the Fall 2016 issue of Classified Information, the Library newsletter

Admirers of Roman antiquities know Giovanni Batista Piranesi (1720–1778) for his Vedute (Views) of the ruins of this mighty empire that ruled much of the known world in ancient times. We, in the criminal justice field, however, look to his Carceri d’invenzione (Imaginary Prisons) for an almost surrealist, Kafkaesque view of the dread and terror of incarceration. Michel Foucault, in his flawed but seminal work on prisons, presented a view of the power and control of these institutions that became oh-so-fashionable among scholars. Piranesi, however, anticipated Foucault’s theory by over 150 years with his graphic fantastic descriptions of the horror of these monstrous, fantasy prisons. Opiumeater Thomas De Quincy aptly described the Carceri in 1820: prisons “representing vast Gothic halls, on the floor of which stood all sorts of engines and machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, catapults … expressive of enormous power put forth, and resistance overcome.”

Piranesi began his etchings of prisons in 1745 with a first slate of fourteen prints. In 1761 he reworked the etchings and added two new images. He finished with sixteen numbered plates, each 15” X 21.” These deeply disturbing views highlight the horror and vast fantastic spaces of prisons.

Piranesi’s prison etchings inspired the writer Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, a book often referenced but rarely read) and Jean Adhemar of the Bibliothèque nationale de France to write an essay and critical analysis of the sixteen prints in the Trianon Press’s edition of the work published in 1949. Trianon issued 212 copies signed by Huxley, with twelve of them “hors commerce” lettered A to L. The Sealy Library was fortunate to acquire one of the 12 special copies, the “G” issue, of this outstanding work. We have found only two from the regular edition in American libraries, and seven in foreign libraries. The Sealy Library’s special copy is the only one in an institution.

We greatly await the opening of our new Special Collections and Rare Book Room, expected by the end of the year, which will provide the housing our unique materials deserve.

Larry E. Sullivan

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Read more from the Fall 2016 issue of Classified Information, the Library newsletter

CUNY-Wide Library Amnesty Program

Return your overdue library books without paying a fine!

To receive amnesty on library fines, all of the following must apply to you:

• You return the book between Nov. 14–23, 2016
• The book is from the Stacks (circulating) and in good condition
• The book has an overdue fine only (no recall fines)

If you qualify, any fines that have accrued for the book you return Nov. 14–23 will be forgiven.

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If any of the following apply to you, you are not eligible for library amnesty.

• You have already returned the item before Nov. 14 and have a fine on your account
• You have a recall fine on your account (the book is overdue and another patron has requested it)
• You have lost or damaged the book
• The book is a Reserves book

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For additional information, ask the Circulation Desk in the Library in person or by phone: (212) 237-8000

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Dr. Keramet Reiter is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and at the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine. She received her JD and PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley and a master's degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. She studies prisons, prisoners' rights, and the impact of prison and punishment policy on individuals, communities, and legal systems.

Her latest book is titled 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and The Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. Originally meant to be brief and exceptional, solitary confinement in U.S. prisons has become long-term and common. Prisoners in solitary spend twenty-three hours a day in featureless cells, with no visitors or human contact for years on end. They are held entirely at administrators' discretion, with no judges or juries involved. In 23/7, legal scholar Keramet Reiter tells the history of an original "supermax," California's Pelican Bay State Prison, where extreme conditions sparked statewide hunger strikes in 2011 and 2013-—the latter involving nearly 30,000 prisoners. Reiter describes how the Pelican Bay prison was created—with literally no legislative oversight—as a panicked response to the perceived rise of black radicalism in California prisons in the 1970s. Through stories of gang bosses, small-time parolees, and others, she portrays the arbitrary manner in which prisoners are chosen for solitary confinement, held for years, and routinely released directly onto the streets. Here we see the social costs and mental havoc of years in isolation. The product of fifteen years of research in and about prisons, this book is instant required reading on a topic that increasingly commands national attention.

After the book talk, there will be a book raffle. Dr. Reiter will be available for book signing.

Refreshments will be served at this event.

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Sociology Talk presented by the Department of Sociology. Co-sponsored by Lloyd Sealy Library.

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Information about this talk comes courtesy of the Dept. of Sociology.

Graduate students,

Do you need one-on-one help with your research project or assistance finding appropriate resources for an assignment? Would you like to improve your research skills? If yes, then drop into one of the Library’s Walk-in Research Clinics and get the help you need just when you need it most.

FALL 2016 DATES

Tuesday              Nov. 1            5-6 pm                    Lloyd Sealy Library Classroom

Tuesday              Nov. 8            5-6 pm                    Lloyd Sealy Library Classroom

Thursday            Nov. 10         5-6 pm                      Lloyd Sealy Library Conference Room

Wednesday        Nov. 16         5-6 pm                     Lloyd Sealy Library Classroom

Thursday            Nov. 17         4:30-5:30 pm          Lloyd Sealy Library Classroom

NO RSVP NECESSARY

For more information, contact Graduate Studies Librarian,

Kathleen Collins, at kcollins@jjay.cuny.edu.

October 24 - 30, 2016 | Everywhere 

This week we showcase Open Access publishing with an exhibit in the Library’s Niederhoffer Lounge.  Please do visit our physical exhibit, and/or our online Library guides on Open Access . Find out how John Jay professors are sharing and preserving their research outputs on CUNY’s institutional repository Academic Works.   

Maureen Richards & Ellen Sexton

John F. Timoney (1948-2016) rose through the ranks of the New York Police Department to become Chief of Department and then First Deputy Commissioner under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton (1994-1996). He was later Police Commissioner in Philadelphia and Chief of Police in Miami. Chief Timoney was also a John Jay College alumnus, graduating in 1974 with a degree in History. In 2010, I sat with John Timoney for an oral history interview, during which he discussed his career in the NYPD and the transformation of the department under Bratton, especially the introduction of Compstat. Read this interview in our Digital Collections.

Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Associate Professor

Lloyd Sealy Library

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More resources about John F. Timoney from the Lloyd Sealy Library

Beat Cop to Top Cop: A Tale of Three Cities, Timoney's 2010 memoir published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, is available at the Library: Stacks HV7911 .T563 A3 2010 (catalog record).

"Police Leadership Lessons Learned Along the Way," a 2007 panel featuring John F. Timoney and other law enforcement officials. The panel recording is available as a DVD under call number: Media Reserve DVD-JJ8051 (catalog record).

"A New Beginning?: Exploring the Criminal Justice Challenges Over the Next Four Years," the 4th annual Harry F. Guggenheim Symposium held at John Jay in 2009. Panel 4, "Privacy, Civil Liberties and Homeland Security," features John F. Timoney and others. The panel recording is available as a DVD under call number: Media Reserve DVD-JJ8162 (catalog record).

John F. Timoney's yearbook photo (left) from the 1974 John Jay yearbook. Source: John Jay College Archives, Special Collections, Lloyd Sealy Library.

The library has just started a new subscription to Kanopy, a video-streaming service for educational institutions providing on-demand access to more than 26,000 films of all genres and across the disciplines. It includes documentaries, feature films and instructional films. An unlimited number of users can watch a film simultaneously making it ideal for whole-class assignments. Award-winning collections include titles from PBS, BBC, Criterion Collection, Media Education Foundation and more.

UPDATE: Please note that as of 4/19/2018,  we had to curtail our Kanopy service for financial reasons.  We can offer access to additional Kanopy titles only to faculty for use in their classes.   Faculty needing access to new titles are asked to email the media librarian  Ellen Sexton  esexton at jjay.cuny.edu

Try Kanopy »
Requires a John Jay login when accessed off-campus