Prompted by the COVID-19 Pandemic, the MSU Libraries completely revamped the lending process for Reserved Reading Materials, including material in the Affordable Textbook Project. To give MSU students, faculty and staff quick access to Reserve material, the MSU Libraries now offers Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) for our high-use Reserve items. We are scanning Reserve items and uploading them to Sharepoint, which allows patrons to request these items via the ‘Get it!’ button in the catalog.  A form is then sent to a Patron Services staff member who emails the patron a link to a digital copy of the requested item. These links expire after a specified time so the MSU Libraries are not violating copyright laws. Low-use Reserve material is still available for check out at Patron Services. Returned items must be quarantined for five days before they can circulate again. It has required the collaboration and hard work of several departments in order to make CDL a viable resource for our MSU patrons.

For more information: https://lib.msu.edu/things-to-know/

Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Libraries are now paging items from the stacks. This is done via the ‘Get It’ button in the catalog or by coming to Circulation during open hours and requesting an item. If requested through the catalog, the Patron may request pick up at Circulation or pick up through the new Luxer One lockers located in the first floor south lobby. These lockers are self-serve and will allow patrons to pick up material without coming in contact with Library staff. The lockers are also used to allow patrons to pick up printed items they have ordered from Hollander MakeCentral.

For more information: Using the Library - Things to Know

The following LibGuides have been created providing a collection of information focused on the central theme of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The collaborators are continuously looking to expand and update these guides with more information and resources to increase DEI awareness across the Libraries, MSU Campus, and the general public.

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in the U.S., colleagues from the Library's Diversity Advisory Committee created a LibGuide compiling MSU Libraries’ and broader online resources to facilitate learning about the long path to voting equality. The guide outlines strategies for research, highlights sources specific to suffrage in Michigan, and explores how black women shaped the U.S. suffrage movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a critical force for change. https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/19thAmendment

A LibGuide was created through collaboration between MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center and the Libraries that is related to waste management, zero waste principles, and the connections to environmental racism/justice. This guide includes information and resources on waste management, consumerism, and the environmental justice impacts of disposing the products we buy. Promotion of the guide to other campus units has generated interest in additional collaboration with the library. https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/environmentaljustice

A LibGuide was created to provide MSU Libraries' staff with information on DEI and related topics. The information presented in this guide can act as an introduction or users can familiarize themselves more intimately with DEI education. Resources and tools will be periodically reviewed and continuously added to the guide in hopes of increasing awareness, improving intercultural understanding, and providing staff with the tools they need and desire to advance their DEI education. https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/staffdevelopment_dei

The COVID-19 video resources were created to assist the MSU community navigate library services that continue to be available after the MSU Library shut down during spring 2020. These videos have been shared widely, and have provided patrons with reassurance and direction for using the library during an uncertain time. A video was also created with information about navigating COVID-19 news to help our community stay informed and avoid misinformation. This video has been adopted by Lansing Community College as well.

When the MSU Libraries experienced COVID-19 related closures, Interlibrary Services (ILS) expanded on its current services to provide increased scanning of documents, and home delivery to all our MSU patrons, increasing book shipments to over 200 books per week. Circulation has provided a paging service with at the door pick up for students who live on campus and cannot receive items via campus mail. ILS staff worked with collections librarians to fulfill ILL requests by leveraging its existing purchase-on-demand service to buy books in lieu of borrowing along. These services along with guiding patrons to the many other emergency resources the library has implemented, has allowed the MSU Libraries to continue to serve our patrons to the best of our abilities during these difficult times.

Per their website, the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) is a gateway to graduate education at Big Ten Academic Alliance universities. The goal of the program is to increase the number of underrepresented students who pursue graduate study and research careers. SROP helps prepare undergraduates for graduate study through intensive research experiences with faculty mentors and enrichment activities. SROP has been happening at MSU for more than 10 years, but not until 2019 did Erik Ponder get involved to promote the library as a resource for SROP interns while on campus. After his brief talk to the 2019 cohort, Erik realized the library could be much more involved in the program, and he set out to convince program director Steven Thomas to give MSU Libraries a larger role. Steven agreed to bring the interns to the library for an afternoon at the beginning of the 10-week program, and Erik created a committee tasked to plan a tailored library introduction. When campus closed, SROP was reimagined as a virtual 4-week program with 28 interns rather than 80, and the MSUL session went virtual as well.

https://grad.msu.edu/srop

The MSU Libraries recently implemented a new program of travel fellowships to support the needs of visiting scholars whose research would benefit from on-site access to materials housed in Special Collections. Any researcher (including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, activists, or independent researchers) residing more than 100 miles from East Lansing is eligible to apply. All recipients give a talk about their research at the MSU Libraries during the fellowship period, and these talks are free and open to the public. The fellowships are supported by generous donors.

The exhibit “Women at MSU: 150 Groundbreaking Years” in the Special Collections Gallery celebrates 150 years since the first women were admitted to what is now Michigan State University. The project brings together colleagues and materials from the MSU Museum, the University Archives and Historical Collections, and the Main Library as well as Special Collections. Spanning from the admission of the first women in 1870 to the Women’s Rights Hearings in 1972 called by President Wharton, the exhibit includes pamphlets, textbooks, women’s handbooks, photographs, student notebooks and scrapbooks, and an audio recording from the 1972 Women’s Rights Hearing. There will be a companion online exhibit for those who are not able to visit the gallery in person.

This exhibit has provided a unique opportunity for colleagues across the libraries, archives, and museum to collaborate and connect to increase our visibility in the MSU community. This collaboration is especially important considering the relatively new reorganization of the University Archives and the MSU Museum under the leadership of the Dean of the Libraries. The exhibit offers a chance to connect the community to the history of women at MSU and to reframe our history from their perspective through the collection items that will be displayed. It will also surely be a way to bring awareness of our collections to Alumni. Since this exhibit is a collaborative effort across departments, it will also expose the community to the different resources and services available at the Main Library, the Murray and Hong Special Collections, the University Archives and Historical Collection, and the MSU Museum.

In response to the ongoing pandemic and the shift of a large number of classes to online, instructional designers within MSU IT Services created professional development training and a peer-review process to provide feedback and assistance to instructors as they create their courses. Librarians have volunteered to serve as facilitators and lead groups of instructors through a modified version of the Quality Matters process to review their courses. Following a two-week Quality Matters training, facilitators provide guidance to faculty on how to perform course reviews, answer questions on the rubric used in the review process, review the completed rubrics, and assist faculty in developing a remediation plan for their course. Over 450 instructors have signed up for the review process, and facilitators work with a new group of approximately 5-6 instructors every two weeks. Through this process, librarians are adding to their instructional design expertise and are partnering with instructors across campus to improve course design, reducing barriers for students and leading to better academic outcomes.