This has been a very active year for the Orlando PTRC. Upon Hal Mendelsohn’s retirement, he was recognized and honored for his outstanding service via a resolution by the PTRCA. After six months of shadowing Hal and studying his ways, I inherited the office of PTRC librarian from him in July 2015. After working as the library liaison to the entire College of Business Administration for the past three years, I have now switched to working with only two departments, sociology & anthropology, in order to have more time to devote to patent and trademark assistance. This is working well, especially since I have contacts within CoBA, the Office of Research and Commercialization (ORC) and the various entrepreneurship offices, and know where to refer people accordingly.
The bulk of my time as PTRC librarian is spent answering phone calls, emails, and conducting in-person Research Consultations with community members and students, and sometimes faculty and staff who are working on inventions independent of their university duties. To prepare them for our visit, I email several helpful websites ahead of time, including my own; I have revised the http://guides.ucf.edu/patents and http://guides.ucf.edu/trademarks pages to reflect the 7-Step Search change to CPC-preferred.
My consultations take place in a screened-off “consultation room” that seats up to 3; a file drawer contains samples of each USPTO pamphlet so I may have them on hand. UCF is currently doing a longitudinal study in which we collect emails of every student (and non-student) we have significant contact with, including patent/trademark users. Our long-standing process is to send a quick survey asking how we’re doing after the consultation.
Two computers are designated for PubEast and PubWest: the consultation room computer for instruction, and the computer in the public area (on an adjustable table near the reference desk) for public use. Websites are available on any of 300+ computers in the building. All community patrons are required to go to a single service point to receive a guest login, but library admittance, internet, and access to library databases is open to the public.
The UCF Office of Research and Commercialization/Office of Technology Transfer handles patent filing (provisional and non-provisional), commercialization and licensing for UCF inventions. In addition to filing patents for which UCF will be the assignee, they also offer limited assistance to community members, so some of my patrons may call on them as well. Several patrons are referred to me by the Blackstone LaunchPad, the student-facing entrepreneurship support and mentoring program. My name and contact info is written on a bulletin board in the middle of their office; EVERYBODY knows who Missy is.
Hal and I worked with Lee Dotson (Information Technology & Digital Initiatives) and John Miner in OTT to get all the patents metadata from the UCF Research Foundation into STARS. STARS, the Showcase of Text, Archives, Research and Scholarship, is UCF’s Institutional Repository managed by the UCF Libraries. STARS (hosted on the Digital Commons platform by bepress) results have a very high relevancy ranking in Google searches, so the usage statistics are beneficial to scholars tracking their impact. Scholars may also create “SelectedWorks” accounts to display their works in an online profile. These profiles are transferable to any other bepress institution that subscribes to the SelectedWorks service.
My outreach activities have varied from highly structured to very casual. I continue to speak to Dr. Holland’s Creativity & Entrepreneurship class, which Hal has worked with over several years. Hal and I ran a mini-workshop during the 2015 Summer Research Academy. I also have attended an I-CORPS information-and-pizza meeting to network with student inventors.
In November 2015, Asad Nawaz, a patent examiner with the USPTO’s University outreach program, visited the campus and presented to students and faculty. Mr. Nawaz was kind enough to share with me his excellent slides explaining various types of intellectual property, some of which I am currently using when speaking to groups.
This spring semester I am giving three “Publishing in the Academy” presentations for graduate students, an “Introduction to patents and trademarks.” Unlike workshops for community members and entrepreneurs, these are focused on using patent literature (and the non-patent art they cite) as research material.
Most recently, met with Technology Transfer staff to discuss World Intellectual Property Day activities. Due to the poor timing of the holiday (April 26, immediately after dissertations are submitted and during exam week), the library has chosen to host an OTT information table, rather than have a speaker or panel presentation that would have poor attendance and distract students from their studies. We hope to determine interest in having a cooperative venture in 2017, but with a more timely date; tentatively February 16 (National Innovator’s Day) is planned, since that would target plenty of graduate students who might be (unwittingly) about to disclose in their theses and dissertations.
I’m looking forward to meeting all my new colleagues at the PTRCP training in March, and representing the PTRCA as their delegate at ALA 2016 in Orlando.
Orlando, FL
University of Central FloridaSubmitted by: Rebecca "Missy" Murphey