All in a Day’s Work:
Photographs of Women in Connecticut Industry from the collections of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Women in Connecticut have a long and rich history as workers. Their traditional place was in their own homes, where nearly all household goods and services produced were done so through women’s labor. The Industrial Revolution ushered in a new role, that of paid worker, and women entered the workforce in significant numbers. Economically disadvantaged women augmented their household income by working in the textile mills and industrial factories that proliferated across Connecticut. By 1900, 1 in 5 females over age 10 were paid workers, and 25% of them worked in manufacturing.

The influx of southern and eastern Europeans between 1880 and 1920 to Connecticut brought thousands of immigrants into the workforce, including women, eager to contribute to newly established households. As did their American-born counterparts, immigrant women employed in manufacturing faced grueling workdays, hazardous working conditions, and substantially lower pay than men. Yet, work brought with it a sense of empowerment and wage-work provided the immigrant woman a new found freedom that was often not tolerated in the old country.

War accelerated opening the gates to women’s work in industry. During World War I the need for war goods and the absence of men of fighting age gave women new opportunities. But the gains did not last. After the war, returning soldiers expected their jobs back and there was enormous pressure for women to return to their domestic sphere. Most of them did. That pressure remained through the Depression when national sentiment strongly favored men holding the few jobs that were available.

World War II again brought women into industry in large numbers, many becoming skilled factory workers in jobs previously held only by men. The prohibition of married women holding paid jobs faded only as women reassured the country that they were still maintaining their homes and families. The home was still very much the woman’s responsibility, but it was increasingly possible for women to hold down a day job as well.

African-American women forged an alternate path in the workforce. In the late 19th century African-American women worked outside the home in higher percentages than white women, but they were less likely to gain employment in factories. Most worked in agriculture or as domestics. Manufacturing jobs were for the most part racially segregated until the Civil Rights era.

About the Photographs

The photographs in this exhibit are from the Business History Collections in Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center of the University of Connecticut in Storrs. These collections illustrate Connecticut’s rich history as a leader in business and industry, and represent the diverse nature of the state’s industries, ranging from textile mills to complex technology. Many of the companies had their start as family-owned and operated small businesses and evolved into nationally known producers of such products as brass, hardware, machine tools, cutlery, clocks and watches, silk and other textiles, and toiletries. The collections are composed of a wide variety of materials including administrative and financial records, maps and facilities drawings, and advertising samples, as well as thousands of photographs depicting the diversity of workers and their work.

“We Can Do It”

is a short video slide show highlighting women who worked in Hartford area defense industries during World Wars I & II.  Produced by the Trecker Library, it salutes both the “All In a Day’s Work Exhibit” and also the fact that UConn’s Hartford Campus played a significant role in the education of thousands (literally) of men and women moving from civilian to defense occupations during the war years.

Last spring’s very successful Virtual Focus Group activity (see earlier post)  has already led to some improvements at the Trecker Library including an increasingly popular small group meeting space.  Three individual, private study spaces are also about to be implemented.  More improvements are on the way!

This time, instead of responding to questions about library space or other service issues, a new virtual focus group will be asked to help us clarify the results of a large-scale University Libraries survey conducted last fall.  You do not need to have participated in that 2010 survey process to participate now.

That survey, which came from a vendor and was not developed locally, contained some confusing language which we are having trouble interpreting.  Our expectation is that, by responding to a short list of questions, and also to the comments of others over a two week period, virtual focus group members will provide insights which will make our survey results much clearer.  It is critical for us to more fully understand that survey because it is one of the most important planning tools used by the University Libraries as we strive to improve our services to better meet your needs.

At this time, we are asking for volunteers to join our new Virtual Focus Group.  You will be given a confidential web address to gain access to our survey instrument of just five questions.  We know this is a busy time so we ask only that group members visit the blog site three times (although more visits are welcome) to first respond to each of the questions and then to respond to the comments of others.

The only requirement for participation is that you currently be enrolled in one or more classes at the Greater Hartford Campus.

When the Virtual Focus Group concludes,  we will give each volunteer a colorful, personalized certificate featuring a photo of our namesake, Dean Harleigh B. Trecker.    This certificate, acknowledging your valuable assistance, will make a handsome addition to your career portfolio.

Will you help us?  Please e-mail me with your contact information and let me know if you are a graduate or an undergraduate level student.  We hope to start this process November 7th with a conclusion on the 18th.

Regards,

– Bill Uricchio, Library Director  william.uricchio@uconn.edu

Responses covered a number of topics which will be made part of planning sessions for the 2011-2012 academic year.  Suggestions for service improvements were made for 1.  The building;  2.  Copying, faxing and printing;  3. Furnishings;   4.  Group and Quiet Study Rooms;  5.  Hours;  6. Marketing and increasing library usage; 7. Printed and electronic resources; and  8. Technology.

The virtual focus group concept developed from an effort to host an in-person session with volunteer attendees.  Respondents to the initial survey were asked to indicate interest in participating in a subsequent meeting.  Twelve of the original fifty-four respondents said they were willing to do so, but efforts to gather even a subset of that number of busy people in one place at one time proved fruitless.

Instead of working with two or three members of the campus community, a library staff member used online blog software to develop an experimental “virtual” focus group.  In a nutshell, eight questions were to be posted on a specially designed blog and respondents would be invited to comment on either the questions or on the comments of others.

Six of the twelve agreed to participate and over a three week span provided some 90 useful comments and ideas, vastly extending the library’s depth of knowledge of issues to be addressed in future planning/funding cycles.  The large number of comments compared very favorably to the 12 somewhat general statements received as part of the original survey instrument.

At the conclusion of the virtual focus group,  “themes” (similar remarks from more than one respondent) within each of the categories noted above were identified.  For example, several respondents felt that students, as well as the library, would benefit from an expansion of orientation sessions to include all new students, not just incoming freshmen, as part of Trecker marketing efforts.  Library staff will now investigate the feasibility of implementing this, and a number of other very interesting suggested service improvements, in the months ahead.

Regarding the virtual focus group process itself, five of the six students who participated indicated that they found it preferable to in-person focus groups.  The one person preferring the in-person approach still rated it eight on a scale of nine for its value.  All six found the process easy to use and one commented that “I enjoyed the virtual medium so much, it gave me time to think about my answers and give good responses. I would love to answer more questions online”.

We are grateful to the six students who took time to participate.   We gained a large amount of valuable information which helps provide context to the numbers resulting from the online survey.  And we may have also discovered a relatively painless and yet productive way to inform our future planning efforts.

– Bill Uricchio, Library Director

With BookScan, you can send scanned images to your e-mail address, where they will arrive as attachments, or you can save them at the library on your  flash drive.

BookScan can convert the scanned image to a number of file formats including:   pdf, jpg, and tiff.  It can even translate printed text into Word .doc format so it can be utilized in your word processor*.

And it is VERY easy to use as shown in  this video from the Fairfield Public Library:

Please come by and try BookScan — it’s located just inside our front door.

Bill Uricchio – Library Director

*Note:  As with any text converted from an image file, users will have to examine the results very carefully.  In tests we discovered that BookScan did not covert very large fonts on a chapter title page and instead left blanks.  Also, page “71″ at the bottom was converted to “7i” because the original utilized an uppercase “I” instead of a “1″.  Anyone who has used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software will recognize these as typical conversion issues.  Happily, the remainder of the text on the page was flawless.

Although our strategies to improve the usability, look and comfort of the library appear to have us moving in the right direction, we are always wondering if we can still make improvements for our users.

To this end, we joined with the other four regional campus libraries (Avery Point, Stamford, Torrington and Waterbury) to develop an online survey process.  Although slightly different at each location, the surveys were designed to poll our campus communities about how our spaces and furnishings are being used and in support of planning for future upgrades.

Our online survey was conducted in late February and early March.  Along with questions about specific usage, we included an open ended comments box and an invitation to respondents to join us for a focus group to provide further context to the survey results.

A future blog entry will summarize the results of the focus group.  This posting is to provide an overview of the findings of the survey process itself.

Beginning with some demographics, we received 54 responses with the vast majority of respondents being master’s degree students from the University’s School of Social Work, which is headquartered here, and undergraduates from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  These two groups  represent the largest elements of our overall campus population.  We also received twelve comments and, while mostly positive, they pretty much “covered the map” and there were no obvious themes that emerged from them.

Regarding space use, the following pie chart summarizes responses:

Observation:  The general seating areas are all frequently used, less so the two specialized areas for videos and multi-media.

The following pie chart provides an overview of which furnishings are used:

Observation:  The variety of furnishings are all in used in similar manner.

The following bar chart provides more specific  information on what is used, and what isn’t used:

Observations:  Soft chairs are the most popular seating type.    The main floor seating to the right of the entrance, which we call “The Parlor”, and the Quiet Study Room have the heaviest usage.  Least used, as noted earlier, are the video and media rooms.

This table indicates which items listed in our survey were “unknown” to respondents:

Observations:  The fact that many respondents seem unaware of the existence of the video and media rooms is consistent with the previously reported lower usage of both of those spaces.  This probably means the library needs to do a better job of marketing those services.  The same can be said for the main floor lobby room, also known as the Social Work History Room, which is directly across from the library’s entrance and which contains one of our two hi-tech Media:scape workstations.  It may also be that terminology like “Media-scape” is not descriptive enough to let users know what it is and what it does.

Finally, comments about space use included:

“It would be nice for more large chairs. Sometimes they are a turn off though because they have stuff spilt on them.”

“The study spaces upstairs doesn’t seem to receive as much attention in terms of design the way the area downstairs does. Better, updated design would aid in more students choosing to study upstairs.”

“Our study group used the room directly across from entrance on the main floor for co-writing an assignment together. It was extremely helpful to see our work on the large screen.”

In conclusion, we are happy to learn that, speaking generally, our new spaces and furnishings are in steady use by library visitors.  That said, we most likely need to ramp up publicity about our many services so we can reduce the percentage of library users who responded “Don’t Know About”  on the survey form.  Hopefully, we will learn more when the focus group convenes.

Our many thanks go to those who responded to the survey.

Bill Uricchio – Library Director

http://tinyurl.com/Trecker2011SpaceSurvey

The deadline for the survey is 5 pm on Friday, March 4^th.

All information provided by you will be confidential except that at the end of the form there is a place to optionally  provide contact information if you are willing to participate in a one-time focus group for the gathering of more detailed information about how we can improve our spaces.  Attendees will receive a $10 gift certificate from the UConn Co-op.  Early survey responders will receive preference in our eventual selection process.

By way of background, we had a major furnishings upgrade in 2009 including the replacing of virtually all of the chairs and tables in the library’s public areas.  In 2010 our attention turned to equipment including the installation of first floor media room, the addition of three large collaborative study workstations, the upgrading of our network wiring and also the replacement of our existing, and the addition of new, public computers.  More improvements are in the works for 2011 (information about them will appear in a future blog entry).

Much of what we have been doing has been in response to user feedback which we receive via e-mail and in-person, as well as by way of the University Libraries’ survey instruments.  Until now, however, we have not held a focus group to learn in more detail what a subset of our users think about our current  public spaces and how we can make them better in the future.

We look forward to your responses.

– Bill Uricchio, Library Director

We considered a number of alternatives including trying to get a used machine, buying a new one and repairing  the current printer.   We decided that a repair was probably not worthwhile given that the unit we have been using is well beyond its service life and not likely to go much further before the another part breaks, that putting another used machine in place might lead to the service stopping sometime during the semester without warning, and that a new machine is not economically feasible given our original plan to phase out the service in a few months.

Why, you might ask, are we phasing out the service?   The increase in business at the library has led to a number of discussions about ways to maximize our staff resources.  While a valuable service to some, cash printing requires a lot of staff time to collect, count and deposit cash according to the University’s rigorous bookkeeping standards.  Additionally, our cash register, which is almost ten years old, has been showing stress and the cost of replacing it is prohibitive.  Finally, we clearly have been increasingly out of step with the rest of the University which has been encouraging use of the Husky One Card to provide users with more convenience (it can be used at the Co-op and elsewhere as well as at the library) and to reduce the amount of cash handling done by University employees, including student assistants.

The Husky One Card has been in increasing use at the Trecker Library and a new, state-of-the-art, One Card printer was put in place just a few months ago.  With the cessation of cash printing, that service will obviously be increasing.  To help the transition for users who have yet to use their One Cards for printing, and for those who are not able to receive One Cards including public users,  we have developed the following information:

“PRINTING WITHOUT CASH”
ALTERNATIVES

For Members of the University Community With UConn I.D. Cards:

If you have a Husky One Card (your official UConn i.d. card) you can load funds (called “Huskybucks”) on it and use it for printing in the library.  Funds can be added via the internet if you have Visa or Mastercard cards.  You can also add funds to it at the Co-op (in the Undergrad Building).

For general  information:  http://www.onecard.uconn.edu/

For information about adding funds to your One Card:  http://www.onecard.uconn.edu/where_deposits.html

For Anyone Without a  UConn I.D. Card:

The UConn Co-op sells cards which can be used for printing.

Please Be Aware that the UConn Co-op on our campus has these published hours:  Monday – Thursday 8:30 am-6:30 pm & Friday 8:30 am-3 pm which are not the same as the library’s regular hours:  Monday to Thursday 9 am – 9 pm  &  Friday and Saturday  10 am – 5 pm.

For All Users: Some, but not all, library databases and electronic journals allow files to be saved on user supplied flash drives or e-mailed for later printing.  Also, word processing files can be saved on user supplied flash drives for printing elsewhere.

We hope this transition is smooth for most of our users and we apologize in advance for any inconvenience it causes.  As a public service operation we strive to be sensitive to our users needs.  Please feel free to ask our staff for assistance at any time.

Bill Uricchio — Library Director

Following is an invitation to participate from Brinley Franklin, UConn’s Vice Provost for Libraries:

“The University of Connecticut Libraries needs your help and participation in the Fall 2010 LibQUAL+^TM Survey.

The LibQual+^TM Survey has been used by more than 1,200 libraries internationally to periodically and consistently track, understand, and act upon their users’ opinions of library service quality.

As in the past, the LibQual+^TM Survey results will inform our Libraries’ planning on how to best provide library services to the UConn community. This survey process has been reviewed by UConn’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) and all responses are confidential and will not be associated with a respondent’s e-mail address or other personal information.”

The link to the survey can be found in your e-mail. If you missed the e-mail (reminders also containing the link will be sent later), have questions, or need assistance in any way, please contact librarysurveys@uconn.edu

Please complete the survey by:  December 10, 2010

Thanks for participating!

__________________________________________________________

*SPECIAL NOTE TO STUDENTS:

One participating eligible student (grad or undergrad) will win a $500 GIFT CARD from the UConn Co-op!  Please note the “Fine Print” following for the contest rules.

Fine Print:  Participation in the drawing is optional.  Eligible students must be registered to take classes at the University of Connecticut during the Fall, 2010 semester; have completed no more than one online survey;  have entered an optional “uconn.edu” e-mail address at the time the online survey form is completed; not be an employee of the State of Connecticut, including student employees of the University, or of the UConn Co-op; permit the University of Connecticut to make public a photograph, name, home town, academic year and major of the winning entrant; agree to any rules and restrictions placed upon the use of the gift certificate by the UConn Co-op.

____________________________________________________________________

**And now, “the rest of the story”:

The University Libraries strives to be user centered and we have discovered through the years that surveys are an important way, if not the most important way,  for us to receive information  for planning at every level of the organization. Results from earlier versions of this particular survey, when combined with data from our  local surveys,  fed planning activities which led to the recent upgrades of facilities and equipment at the Trecker Library as well as large scale improvements to the University Libraries collection of digital resources among other significant advances.

The University Libraries conducts two comprehensive surveys on a three year cycle (the third year is devoted to internal organizational assessments).  This survey, LibQual+, is a product of the Association of Research Libraries and, because it is largely standardized, provides needed local information but also allows the University Libraries to compare itself to peer institutions utilizing the same instrument.  Peer to peer comparisons provide a useful perspective in determining our strengths and weaknesses.

The other comprehensive assessment is the User Survey, an entirely homegrown survey process.  The User Survey is tailored much more closely to the UConn environment than LibQual+ and so allows our questions to be more specific to our operations.  We lose the capability to do peer comparisons but we have found that the two surveys complement each other very nicely.

Common to both surveys is an overall satisfaction question, which we use to chart general progress, and also an optional open ended question which affords survey takers an opportunity to provide comments — often the most interesting outcome of any survey activity.

So, please take our survey — it is truly the best way to help us help you.

Bill Uricchio — Library Director

Door counts jump at the busy Trecker Library

The reasons for the declining counts are many and have affected other academic libraries as well.  Among the most significant is the ongoing movement away from paper and to digital resources which can be accessed without visiting libraries at all.   At Trecker, an additional factor has been the physical condition of the library which hardly has been an inducement for someone to want to come and, especially, to spend time here.

A post on this blog from a year ago, “New Furnishings Arrive”, signaled the fact that the University Libraries, with support from the University administration, was making a significant effort to improve the Trecker Library.  To make it, if you will, a “destination” for comfortable research and study, and not just a place to visit when required to do so.

In the interim between October and now, another round of equipment (some of it reported in “Time to Collaborate” below) and furnishings has been completed.

How have these upgrades been received?  We are looking forward to what we hope will be positive responses to questions about our “library as place” as part of a significant satisfaction survey being conducted by the Libraries this fall.  For now, though, we have already received some very good news about the door counts mentioned above:  Our 2009-10 counts are 33% higher than the same time period last year!  For us, given the door count’s history here , this is very exciting news indeed.

There is, of course, a downside to such a fantastic increase in usage:  more noise, fewer available seats, occasional waiting for SuperHomer computers, and so forth.  Rest assured, though, that we are already planning for improvements to alleviate some of those situations.  In the meantime, please continue to visit the library.  Your presence here is what “makes our day” in so many ways.

Bill Uricchio — Library Director

Diversity banners adorn the Trecker Library

we are the University’s most diverse location with a population of over 40% drawn from ethnic and other minority groups.  In tribute to this cultural mosaic, which enlivens our campus community in many positive ways, Social Work Librarian Jan Lambert, assisted by Access Services Coordinator Claudia Lopes and Humanities and Sciences Librarian Marsha Lee, lead a project to install colorful banners bearing words encouraging multicultural fellowship.

The campus community was asked to submit proposed wording which supported our diversity theme.  Staff who had this project as a goal reviewed the words and made the final selection: Enrichment, Encouragement, Worth, Belonging, Respect, and Individuality. The banners, installed at the end of August,  hang on the main floor of the library.

For more information:  jan.lambert@uconn.edu

Bill Uricchio – Library Director