PTRC News for 2021

Ann Arbor, MI PTRC is located in the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library (AAEL) in the Duderstadt Center at the University of Michigan. AAEL houses the Art & Design, Architecture & Urban Planning and Engineering Collections.  Leena Lalwani is the PTRC rep and provides the service along with her other engineering librarian colleagues Paul Grochowski, Jamie Niehof and Joanna Thielen who is our newest engineering librarian.   Leena Lalwani was  part of the Center for Entrepreneurship panel at Washtenaw Community College in Fall 2019 which was attended by students and the community at large and in the Winter 2020 she also presented at the Lyon Township Public library.  Continue reading

Greetings from the Austin (Texas) PTRC.  I’m Larayne Dallas, Engineering Librarian at the University of Texas at Austin.  At UT-Austin, PTRC services are offered through the Engineering Library; the library has been part of the program since 1983.  I have been on the staff — and associated with the program — for 34 years.  Though I am the designated staff member for PTRC services, Lydia Fletcher, the Physics-Math-Astronomy Librarian, has a significant role in providing patent information as contact for junior-level design classes in the College of Engineering.  Continue reading

The Paul Laurence Dunbar Library has been a PTRC since 2000.  Our PTRC collection is located in the commons area of the main library.  Access to PubWEST and PubEAST is through our Information Desk.  Our PTRC workstation is in a standalone area for more privacy.

In August 2020, our library building opened to the public but reference services continued to be provided remotely.  This included the PTRC.  I held 2 public WebEx programs on patents and trademarks with a total attendance of 11.  Continue reading

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Highland Heights PTRC customer activity and outreach remained steady with 85 one-on-one virtual customer meetings, and multiple presentations for groups thanks to Zoom. Onsite PTRC rep John Schlipp supports intellectual property awareness for our Northern Kentucky University (NKU) campus customers, as well as the regional community including nearby Cincinnati, Ohio and the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Campus and community constituents this year included patent and trademark clients referred to us from NKU’s Institute for Health Innovation; Continue reading

Michigan Technological University’s J. Robert Van Pelt and John and Ruanne Opie Library in Houghton, MI has been home to a PTRC since 2013. Annelise Doll, Scholarly Communications Librarian, has served as the representative since 2019. Despite the complications brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Annelise has continued to faithfully provide virtual services for consultations and groups via phone, email, and zoom.

On October 7th, 2020, Annelise partnered with Michigan Tech’s Husky Innovate Program to offer the 2nd annual “Protect Your Innovation” zoom workshop to the program’s undergraduate students. Continue reading

The Minneapolis Central Library (Hennepin County Library system) was designated as a PTRC in the fall of 1980.

Walt Johnson began working at Minneapolis Central in 1994 and was the 13th PTRC Fellowship Librarian from Oct 2002-2004.

Amelia Cohoes began working at Minneapolis Central Library in 2017 and was the 30th PTRCP Fellowship Librarian from August 2018 – July 2019.

Like everyone else, we weathered the unexpected changes COVID hath wrought onto our PTRC this past year. Continue reading

The Orlando PTRC has been located at the John C. Hitt Library at the University of Central Florida since December 30, 1988.  This has been an unusual year in more ways than one.  Like most libraries, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to close our doors and move nearly all in-person services to remote-only.  Working from home, while initially difficult, has fostered an interesting kind of intimacy, allowing us through Teams meetings to get a glimpse of our coworkers’ lives via their home offices, Continue reading

 

• As the Representative for USPTO’s PTRC, Rutgers University in Piscataway, I have been extremely busy with patron trainings, references, database searching and answering AAL and Ref Chat question about IP.  Based on reference statistical report, out of 668 reference questions answered by me between Jan.1, 2020 and Feb, 25 2021, I provided answers to 71 IP related questions.  Most of the IP questions and training needed more than one hour to accomplish.

 Continue reading