Andrea M. Bartelstein

"You can hear directions, or you can have the option of getting the same instructions in a text message," reference librarian Andrea Bartelstein said, adding that instructions for this process can be found on flyers that will be posted around the library by the end of this week.

Once students have dialed in their book search, a recording will lead them to the book's location.The directions originate from the reference desk on the first floor of Berry Library and include cardinal directions and instructions on which elevators or staircases to use.The recordings also include points of reference such as the information desk, the Kiewit Instructional Center and the brick wall in Berry Main Hall, Bartelstein said.
...
The primary impetus for installing the new features was the difficulty that many students have when navigating Baker-Berry Library, Bartelstein said.

"You've got these two connected buildings; even I couldn't find things when I first came here," she said."The structure is very complex."

According to Bartelstein, the system was inspired when Guide by Cell, the company currently used by the library to provide students with cell phone-guided tours of the facility, added a text message function to its services a few weeks ago.This development led Bartelstein to consider many new possibilities for helping students at the library.

"We wanted to extend the usefulness of the tours," Bartelstein said."When you go on a tour, it's probably something you'll only listen to once, but these services can be used by students every day."

The cell service, however, is still in its fledgling stages and needs to be improved, Bartelstein said.For example, the new service only offers directions to books using Library of Congress classifications, whereas students who need books with the Dewey Decimal System or the Dartmouth's old classifications will still have to go to the reference desk for information.Books located in libraries other than Baker-Berry are not included in the directory.

Bartelstein said she hopes students actively provide feedback, which they can do through the Guide by Cell technology, by posting on the library's website or by sending an email to the library's reference desk.

Alongside the new directions and feedback options, Bartelstein said her future plans include recording podcasts of library tours and creating a text message notification system that would allow students to learn about upcoming workshops, classes, speakers and seminars at the library.

Andrea Bartelstein, Instructional Services Coordinator, interviews Ellen Keith, Reference Services Coordinator at Eisenhower Library.
...
Andrea Bartelstein, Instructional Services Coordinator, interviews Ellen Keith, Reference Services Coordinator at Eisenhower Library.

In the same issue, pp. 40-42, is Libraries Close in on Distance Education by Elizabeth E. Kirk and Andrea M. Bartelstein.
...
Librarians have emerged as activists for their services, inserting themselves into the development of distance-based programs. Elizabeth E. Kirk is Distance Education Librarian, and Andrea M. Bartelstein is Instructional Services Coordinator and Resource Services Librarian for Education and Women's Studies, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.The article includes lists of distance education resources online and listservs dedicated to distance and off-campus issues.

Mike Creech, Web Development Coordinator, David Reynolds, Metatdata Librarian, & Andrea Bartelstein, Instructional Services Coordinator, Johns Hopkins University

Partly a librarian's cri de coeur in the Internet Age and partly a swipe at the Web's relentless encroachment on library turf, this memo was drafted in August 2001 by Andrea Bartelstein, an instructional services coordinator and resource services librarian at Hopkins' Milton S. Eisenhower Library.She and her colleagues frequently discuss how they can compete with the Web and pry freshmen and other so-called "novice researchers" away from it long enough to explain to them: 1) Everything is not available on the Web 2) If it is, it may not be reliable, and 3) Hopkins librarians have databases, resources, skills, and tricks that can't be "googled."
...
To give an example of the library's continuing quest to preserve student mental health, Bartelstein recalls a novice undergraduate daunted by an upcoming 25-page research paper about the evolution of advertising for a certain product.Unable to find information she needed and unsure where to start, the student was about to give up until Bartelstein showed her the library's full-text search of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.Within minutes the young woman was pulling up facsimiles of display ads for the product from the 1930s.The student went from stressed-out and overwhelmed to engaged and having fun, says Bartelstein, noting, "Those are the moments we live for!"

The library is still very much a physical place, not just an online portal to exclusive information resources.While library reference queries have been declining nationally, MSE Library staff-user interactions were up 9 percent in 2001-2002 to 37,000 (though many were of the basic "Where's the restroom?"
...
"What I'm trying to say is that we are not here as librarians being fuddy-duddies and saying the Web is just bad," says Bartelstein."I use it all the time.It's less about format than it is about content and suitability for one's purposes."Want to know about changes in French peasant life after the Franco-Prussian War?
...
"A library is a place of inquiry, not a big warehouse of random bits of information," says Bartelstein."What we're trying to do is give [students] a broader universe of what's available."

Return to February 2003 Table of Contents

"We are all subject specialists," said Andrea Bartelstein, the librarian in charge of Women, Gender and Sexuality and Education acquisitions."We have a chemistry librarian and a physics and astronomy librarian and so forth."

The librarians, several of whom hold PhDs in their respective fields, use their extensive knowledge of their subjects to best select the books that will support the school's curriculum.

"We're liasons to students, faculty and staff in the various departments and programs," said Bartelstein."You want to make sure you're building a larger collection that supports research and teaching, getting what people need to do their work. [To do this] we make what's called a collection profile.For every subject area, there's a profile for that collection based on what kind of teaching and research goes on at Hopkins.The librarians develop relationships with faculty and students so that we know what classes are being taught, what kind of research professors and grad students are doing."

"We of course get recommendations from faculty and students," added Bartelstein."We have a purchase recommendation form online."The form is available at http://www.library.jhu.edu/services/forms/purchase.html.

Currently the library holds over 2.6 million books, and with new materials arriving every week, the collection continues to grow.

"People think libraries are these static things," said Bartelstein.
...
"We try hard to publicize [new acquisitions]," said Bartelstein.
...
Journals, in particular, are really, really, really, really expensive," said Bartelstein.
...
For example, my colleague is the English librarian and the Film and Media studies librarian and she has all the new fiction and fun stuff like that," said Bartelstein."I have Women, Gender and Sexuality so that's a lot of interesting stuff, too.Sometimes you get caught up reading this stuff!"

"You also have to build a library collection that anticipates what people are going to need in the future," said Bartelstein.