Campus Updates

[alana]

Please share any campus updates using this thread!

[Chrissy O'Grady]

STL enthusiastically welcomed students on Friday, August 25th. We collaborated with student engagement to offer our long-standing favorite event – “Get Tattooed with a Librarian.” Students can casually talk to us while they take and put on temporary tattoos. We also provided tours of the library throughout the day with two of our wonderful student employees.

In August, STL faculty and staff meet with the new Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs William McClure. We had a productive conversation about points of pride and areas where we need support.

Adrianna Martinez, former Research & Education Librarian, left STL for a new position. Adrianna joined the faculty in July 2020. We wish them the best!

[Kate Brent]

Cobleskill is welcoming two new faces in the library:
- Faye Starman started as our electronic resources librarian this week.
- Kathryn Prada starts as our reference adjunct next week.

The chili cook-off is next month - stay tuned for more in the newsletter.

[Adam Saunders]

The SUNY Morrisville Library has been busy over the summer months and for the beginning of the fall semester. Systems Librarian Angela Rhodes has been promoted to Full Librarian. Congratulations Angela!
Our new Instruction Librarian Adam Mizelle is beginning his first full semester here at Morrisville and was voted in as a senator on our College Senate. Online Learning Library Adam Saunders began his tenure as the President of SUNYLA and joined the JED Committee on campus which focuses on student mental and suicide prevention and awareness. There are several ongoing searches that the library is involved in which include the Library Director and Administrative Assistant.

The bulk of the summer was taken up by the beginning phases of our library renovation project and collections weeding. In the spring 2023 semester we had formed the Library Renovation Task Force made up of a selection of representatives from the library, various support service areas, teaching faculty and administration. This task force reviewed potential architects for the project and made their selection. Over the course of the latter half of the spring semester and part of early summer architects reviewed the building and held meetings with campus stakeholders who would be using and occupying future office space. Our goal is to convert the library building into an academic success building, one which would house all areas of student support services.

The first action item as a part of this process was weeding and deselecting a large portion of the library print collection in order to make room for additional support service office spaces. To accommodate changes to the physical space & services offered, we have reduced the footprint of our print collection by roughly 40%. This will enable us to better meet the needs of our dynamic student body going forward. Starting June 5th we deselected 18,000 books in our fiction collection. These were selected based on the following criteria:
•   No use in 13 years
•   Not part of our Sheila Johnson, rare books, or local history collections
•   Not the last copy in SUNY
•   Not older than 1900 or newer than 2000 for publication year.
Then Starting June 26th an additional 15,000 books from the remainder of the collection were deselected.
The Library offered these materials to other SUNY systems and the campus community before the deselection process began. Upon finishing the second set of deselections the library shifted the collection in order to reduce the footprint of the second floor stacks. The library will be removing the empty shelving from the second floor during the winter break.

As the literal dust settled from our deselection process and the fall semester began the library once again offered its Library Lemonade Stand as a treat for freshman during move in day. Despite it being cold and rainy we still had a blast welcoming the new students and their families to campus.

[fitzgeraldl]

Hello from SUNY Canton!

Over the summer we hired a new Student Success and Support Librarian. Joe Malek joins us from Niagra University and is excited to experience his first fall semester at Canton.

Our Library Director, Anna Wong, just completed a certificate in Open Education Librarianship and states "They are now accepting 2024 application – Personally I would highly recommend the program to anyone who would like to grow professionally in the area of open education initiatives." You can look into it more here: https://open.umn.edu/oen/certificate-in-open-education-librarianship

We have expanded our arts in the Learning Commons initiative for the fall semester. Building upon our weekly music hour in the cafe and our semesterly Open Mic Night, we have started displaying art collections from the faculty and we are employing students to create themed artwork that will rotate every year.

We hope everyone has a great start to the semester!

[Michelle Bowers]

We’re excited to announce that last month, Rebecca Kindon accepted the position of Director of the Health Sciences Library. Rebecca has been tirelessly serving Upstate for over 18 years, most recently as our Interim Director.

We also want to give a warm welcome to Shelby Manchester, our new Access Services Assistant & Work Study Supervisor. Shelby joined us on August 24th and has been adapting quickly to all the activity of a new fall semester.

The library is hosting a student-run bake sale next week to support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Syracuse/Liverpool Walk Out of Darkness.  For extra incentive, several faculty are supporting the sale by agreeing to get a pie to the face if the sale meets its fundraising goals.

[erinwilburn]

SUNY Broome Community College welcomed Dr. Tony Hawkins as our 8th president in July.  Previously, Dr. Hawkins was the provost and executive vice president of academic affairs, continuing education, and workforce development at Frederick Community College in Maryland.  His first Kick-off Assembly seemed lively and successful, and included a student panel discussion on the theme "This Is Who I Am/We Are."  The campus plans to use that theme throughout programming and events for this academic year.

In the library, we've set up several study rooms as collaborative work spaces, freshened up the paint and changed the light bulbs, and welcomed students back to campus on August 28.  After the library staff completed an ambitious weeding project last summer and wrote/revised collection development policies over the winter, Access Services librarian Erin Wilburn spent this past summer attempting to create an accurate inventory of the current collection.  That process is still ongoing - stay tuned for details, especially if you enjoy data and documentation.

[jaime.neudecker]

Hello from SUNY Purchase College. We are excited to share that we have a new library director, Tony White.

Tony joins us from Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) University in Toronto, the largest and oldest art and design university in Canada, where he served as the University Librarian and Director of Library Services. Prior to OCAD University, White held leadership roles at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where he served as Associate Chief Librarian, as Director of the Decker Library at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and as Head of the Fine Arts Library and Director, Specialization in Art Librarianship at Indiana University, Bloomington. We are thrilled to have him join our department!

Our new IR (https://soar.suny.edu/handle/20.500.12648/7340) is now up in SOAR as well. The creation of the repository has been years in the making and represents a major milestone for the Library and the College. For the first time in the College’s history, students and faculty will be able to search and access student projects, master’s theses, and capstone papers online. This is a major win for our students, faculty, and alumni who will now be able to locate their own past work and learn from the works of their peers.

Currently, 1,788 projects from Fall 2020 to Spring 2023 are online and available through the repository. And more projects on are the way!

[jireland]

The Utica campus library received a donation of tables from the ThINcubator which prompted us to re-design the library computer lab. Formally the tables were lined up along the wall with an aisle of tables in the center. We reconfigured so students are now at tables facing the front with two computers at each table. It is now much easier to do group work and pairing exercises during BIs. Our library director, Steve Frisbee did a great job coordinating with facilities and IT to get everything ready for the start of the semester.

We also purchased new chairs, modular seating, and whiteboard tables for the study area of the Utica library.

The Rome campus library continues to struggle with mold issues. As a precaution, the Rome collection is not available through interlibrary loan.

Dr. Esmilda Abreu is MVCC's new VP of Student Affairs. She started in July.

MVCC tried a new inclusive access book program called Academic Advantage Pack this semester through our bookstore Barnes & Noble. It did not go smoothly and was not welcomed by staff. Curious about other school's experience with it.

[jenndevito]

SBU Libraries will be hosting The Human Library on November 1st. This event is designed to challenge stereotypes and encourage dialogue between people. Participants can “check out” a Human Book for 20 minute conversations. https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/HumanLibrary

The library is working on a new strategic plan: https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/strategic-plan-2024

[cfishner]

SUNY Delhi has been bustling! We welcomed our largest class of incoming students in 6 years, and the library has been feeling it. Study rooms are full, the computer stations are busy, and reference questions and instruction sessions are already up in numbers.

The library participated in Welcome Weekend by offering a Make Your Own Button station using weeded books and magazines and had over 30 students stop by during the Sunday picnic - many who stayed and hung out socializing to make new friends.

Library staff are getting ready to host the 5th annual LibraryCon on October 18th - this year's theme is "Villains".

Respectfully,
Carrie Fishner, Delegate

[mbeechey]

MCC Libraries has had a great start to the semester with our buildings busy with new and returning students. As in past semesters, the library is THE place to be on campus. 

At our Downtown Campus, our Senior Library Clerk, Dennis Woodyard, retired and we moved another clerk from our Brighton Campus to fill that position.  We are currently in the search for a new clerk, as well as the position of our First Year Experience Librarian which was vacated recently when Seyvion Scott left to pursue her PhD. We wish them both well!

The summer of inventory and serious shelf-reading should be wrapping up soon and we are excited that our collection will be in the best shape it's been in for a long time! Our student workers have been critical in getting this work done.

We've been working on facelifts for some of our space-- awaiting the delivery of new furniture for our quiet floor and we hope to add more improvements as the budget allows.

Our very popular semester-long laptop loan program is continuing and we will be adding an additional 50 laptops soon. 

[kstanwicks]

Organizational & Personnel Updates
- Rachael Haines has been named Head of Finance and Administration
- Ann Gunning retired from her position as Library Personnel Coordinator. A search is underway for a new personnel coordinator.

Space Transformations: we are continuing to look at potential transformations for our library spaces. Elaine Lasda, Ryan Clow, Lauren Puzier, and Kabel Stanwicks are conducting physical and virtual visits with a number of academic libraries to explore trends in academic library spaces and services. We partnered with Undergraduate Education and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to provide tutoring spaces in the University Library, we have also partnered with Disability Access and Inclusion Student Services to provide students with alternative testing space in the University Library. We are beginning conversations with the Office of Academic Progression and Success to assess space and service needs for student-parents.

Amanda Lowe coordinated a Banned Books Readout that took place on 9/14. This well-attended event was part of UAlbany's Free Speech and Civil Discourse Symposium.

The Department of Special Collections and Archives is working with University Athletics to provide clips, images, and news stories for the football team as they mark their 50th season.

[Tina Kiernan]

The librarians at Dutchess Community College have been working on several projects: revising our information literacy presentations to include more surveys and polls to gain insight into students’ perceptions of the library and our info lit programs, launching our new zine section, and deselecting titles from our main collection. We have increased our student outreach by hosting programs in the dorms and have expanded our graphic novel collection through an anonymous donation.

[Dana Laird]

Our semester got off to a great start here at Brockport. Visits to the library are up over the first couple of weeks of Fall 2022. We have several upcoming events, including a True Crime-a-thon event later this semester.

Since the spring semester, we've welcomed three new library staff: Brigette Meskell, Collection and Assessment Librarian, Rachel Pazda, Resource Sharing Associate, and Casey Spark, Systems and Discovery Librarian. Linda Hacker retired from her position as Research and Instruction Librarian and Claire Pitcairn has left Brockport and is now at University of Rochester.

We currently have two active searches: Head of Research and Instruction as well as Research and Instruction Librarian.