Howdy from the Texas A&M University Business Library & Collaboration Commons, home of the College Station, Texas PTRC since December 22, 1983. I, Jared Hoppenfeld, along with assistance from library staff member Boyd Conerway, are happy to assist students, faculty, and community members with their P&T questions.
If our library name sounds new to you, you are correct! After 25 years of being named the West Campus Library, we decided to rebrand to better illustrate who we mainly support, the Mays Business School. At the same time of our renaming, we also celebrated our 25th anniversary with an event attended by approximately 100 guests.
Last year, I reported that we were following in the footsteps of Clemson and Rice, working on a Texas A&M University Patent Collection within our institutional repository, OAKTrust. I am happy to say that during the Summer of 2019, our collection went live with an initial batch load of 861 patents. The collection is updated three times per year and now has 943 patents.
This past year, I presented about patents and trademarks at an on-campus business incubator and also attended a Women Inventors workshop where I networked with attendees who were interested in intellectual property. After having incorporated Paulina’s (UMass Amherst) patent coloring book idea into outreach events last year, I borrowed Paulina’s Star Wars and toy patents coloring book ideas this year to create my own when on behalf of my PTRC, I staffed a table at a STEM night at my kids’ school. The coloring books were well-received.