The DoIT Technology Support Center is now hiring student consultants for the Spring semester. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on UMBCworks to apply.

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide-range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone, online and in person;

• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;

• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;

• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);

• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;

• Complete in-person or online training about quality support as defined inumbc.edu/go/ticketrubric;

• Respond to all work related communications in a timely manner;

• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in person.

• Demonstrated writing ability.

• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.

• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.

• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.

TSC Senior Student Job Description

TSC student consultants who have worked as a student consultant for at least two semesters can apply to be promoted to Senior Student Consultant and given additional responsibilities after demonstrating exemplary performance of the responsibilities listed above as well as a noticeable willingness to aid in the improvement of the TSC as a whole.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Ticket maintenance in TSC Support (with elevated privileges, including password reset)

• Answer x5-3600 (internal DoIT line) if full-time TSC staff members are unavailable

• Interact with customers and TSC student staff as an “assistant manager” if full-time staff is not present

• Serve as a mentor to current student consultants

• Assist new hires with training

• Assist in Drop-In training sessions hosted by the TSC

• Willingness to work remotely over breaks or during evening hours.

From illuminated manuscripts to graphic novels, illustrations have always had a place with books. One way this occurs is with hidden fore-edge paintings. This is the practice of decorating the fore-edge (the opposite of the spine) of a book with an image that can only be seen if the pages are fanned a certain way. A royal bookbinder named Samuel Mearne is credited with being the first person to hide an image this way during the mid-17th century. According to legend, a friend of King Charles II of England would frequently borrow the King’s books and claim them as her own. Mearne and Charles conspired to hide the King’s coat-of-arms on a book before lending it to this dishonest friend. When the friend denied Charles’ ownership of the book, he fanned the pages out to reveal his symbol.

As the Romantic idea of the “picturesque” became popular for landscape painters, bookbinders began to include such scenes on the fore-edges of books. The landscapes chosen would correspond to the subject of the text. The popularity of hidden fore-edge painting waned until an influential bookbinder named William Edwards of Halifax revived it in the late 18th century.

Hidden fore-edge painting is created by clamping the fanned out pages of a book. The artist will then use watercolors to paint the desired image on the fore-edge. After the paint dries, the clamp is released and the edges of the book are gilded. Some modern-day artists will purchase old books that are already gilded and put hidden paintings on them.

At Special Collections we have four books with hidden fore-edge paintings.

A History of British Reptiles by Thomas Bell was published in 1839. The book is illustrated throughout with woodblock print images of various reptiles. Hidden in the fore-edge is a colorful painting of a snake. 

We also have a series titled Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, Collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland; With a Few of Modern Date, Founded Upon Local Tradition. This is a collection of Scottish folk songs collected by Walter Scott in 1806. According to an inscription from a previous owner, the painting on Volume 1 depicts Gilnockie Tower, home of Johnnie Armstrong. Johnnie Armstrong (also Johnie Armstrang) was a Scottish Border reiver, or plunderer, who was executed by James V. His tale became one of the ballads transcribed by Bell. Volume 2 has a street scene featuring the home of John Knox of Edinburgh. Knox was a key player in Scotland’s Protestant Reformation during the 16th century. The fore-edge painting on Volume three is a landscape scene. An inscription from a previous owner notes that a portion of Craigmillar Castle, a medieval structure located in Edinburgh.

To see the books for yourself, visit Special Collections in room 104 of the Albin O. Kuhn Library. Monday through Friday from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. On Thursdays we are open until 8:00pm. For more examples of hidden fore-edge painting, visit the Boston Public Library’s website on the topic http://foreedge.bpl.org/.

Sources:

Dutter, Vera E. "The Ancient Art of Fore-Edge Painting." American Artist 33.1 (1969): 56-57, 62. Print.

Weber, Carl J. Fore-edge Painting: a historical survey of a curious art in book decoration. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Harvey House, 1966. Print.