Make Hay When the Sun Shines

Whan the sunne shinth make hay. Whiche is to say.
Take time whan time cometh, lest time steale away.

A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue, 1546
-- John Heywood

Come Fall, come harvest. In the country, it’s the season for gathering in crops, or within academic libraries, of bringing together students, faculty and staff for the start of the academic year. Inspired by an old English proverb and a lucky lantern slide, we made the most of a favorable time while it lasted. We saw steady delivery of the Education Program and continuing growth in library leadership. This report highlights aspects of each area and demonstrates how we cultivated library services and provided direction to shape our work.

Education Program

Our series of sponsored events and offerings was robust and collaborative, with variety and diversity built upon the work of the College, its programs, and departments. A long-standing program, its success is due to continual engagement with our students, faculty, and staff who bring new ideas and approaches, expertise and talent, learning and teaching to the Teachers College community. 

Exhibits

Art exhibits were mounted in partnership with commissioned artists of Teachers College, both current students in the Art and Art Education program (As I Am, by Kendal O'Leary and Silent Middens, by Allyson Montana) ; as well as with the Digital Futures Institute and students and faculty in the Department of Math, Science, and Technology (Tools and Toys for Knowledge Construction). We also featured contemporary and historical collections of Teachers College, notably Abstract Painting, by library staff, inspired to create at a summer workshop held by Allyson Montana, Painting and Drawing Studio Fellow --- and Under One Sun: The Passow Collection of Israeli Children's Peace Art, Part Two, following Let Us Put Out the Fire of War (Fall 2022). Visitors reflected on the children’s peace art through an anonymous Q&A box.  Among the comments received: 

-- I love this exhibit and am so glad this art was presented here at Columbia.

-- Education is never wasted.

-- Education can support resolution through understanding that all parties may conflict and have a responsibility to behave morally, especially when it's hard. It can never be only pro-Israel or pro-Palestine; it must be pro-justice.

--Learning about other cultures shows us the humanity we all have in common, allowing us to better empathize with one another.  

-- Blessed are the ones who are pure of heart, for they will see the kingdom of God.

Book displays were curated and designed by library staff for Everett Café and the Second Floor Reading Room. We combined print and electronic selections of titles held in the collections and showcased several interesting and relevant themes – all inspirational for reading. For Everett Cafe: Tentacles of Learning; Affirmative Action; and Anti-Doxing: Your Rights and Responsibilities.  For Staff Picks: More Than a Monolith: Exploring Asian Identities, by Jason Le; Celebrating Alumni (assistance from Ralph Baylor and Vikas Tadad); and Humanizing the Incarcerated, by Lauren Caldwell (Staff Picks); For the 2nd Floor rocket book cases we featured children's books on returning to school.

We also curated news displays through review of headlines in Newseum and weekly for Today in History.  Special topics covered:  Jane Addams Is Born; Reunification of Germany; Alma Thomas Is Born; First Europeans Arrive in Alta California; Thomas Edison and the First Motion Picture; Paddington Bear Makes His Debut; John Dewey Is Born; Luther Posts 95 Theses; Sesame Street Debuts on National Educational Television; World Population Reaches Eight Billion; E = mc² ; First AIDS Awareness Day; Remembering Pearl Harbor; Last Moon Walk; and Winter Solstice.

Instructional Offerings

New Student Orientation took a new turn this year in collaboration with the Office of Graduate Student Life which opted for brief “infomercials” rather than multiple, highly attended, in-person presentations that included overviews of library resources and services. However, librarians participated in the orientations for well-represented audiences of doctoral students and new faculty.

Tours were steady, seeing higher attendance in the first week compared to the second week as students settled into classes. Workshops by reference and reserves librarians were consistent in content and hybrid delivery, once again with the “Your Research Journey” (weekly on Wednesdays) and “Elevate Your Research” (monthly on Thursdays). The topics for the first series were: Charting Your Path ( 10/18, 11/21); Managing Your Citations with Zotero (10/25, 11/29); Advanced Searching Strategies (11/1, 12/6); Finding and Understanding Sources (11/8, 12/13);  and The Literature Review (11/15, 12/20). For the second series: Introduction to Course Resource Lists for Instructors; Making the Most of Course Resource Lists for Instructors (11/9); Navigating for Accessibility; Finding Funding Tools and Sources; Understanding Primary Sources; and Understanding MeSH Terms.

Self guided instruction included promotion of seminal databases each month on formative topics that tied in with programming, courses, instruction, and other offerings: Back to School (September); English Education (October); Teaching of Social Studies (November); and Universal Human Rights (December).

Live Music

Live musical performances continue to bring a range of genres and styles, as well as eager audiences who linger in the atrium or on the Russell stairs to enjoy the remarkable talents of both student and professional musicians. We had returning, as well as new musicians: Claremont Strings and Ensemble (10/3, 11/8, 12/21); Nicholas DiMaria Trio (10/16, 11/13, 12/18);  Noah Rosner (11/20); Mingxuan Lu and Haoyang Sun; Jackson Potter and Melanie Giselle (11/30); Carrie Chen and Jason Zhang; and Voci Vibranti.

Talks

We hosted a variety of talks, from book to guest to art, to encourage thinking, conversation, and action on a broad range of interesting and relevant topics and needs.

Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation is a collaboration with Adelphi and Song for Hope, dating back to 2018 and the work of Teachers College Student Activists for the Arts led by its president Carolina Cambronera-Valera. We experienced another full and rewarding season of talks by artists, students teachers, social workers, and scientists all passionate about justice on many levels: social, racial, educational, and environmental.  The topics addressed constituted: Indigenous Images on Gentrified Lands, with Brenda Perez; Are We Free to Move About the World: The Passport in Contemporary Art, with Grace Aneiza Ali and Mona Bozorgi; Fall in Love: Painting Impressions from Nature, with Sophia Apstoglou; Helping Adult Learners Tell Their Stories through Photo-Literature, with Flavia Ramos;  Art of Words, with Mgim Ngousse; Creativity Heals in an Uncreative Place: Art Therapy in Prisons, with David Gussak; Can Community Music Help Create More Equitable Societies? with Byrdie-Leigh Bartleet; Conservation of Sea Stars in the North Atlantic Ocean, with Melina Giakoumis; Art Methodologies for Freedom, Healing, and Understanding in Teaching and Research, with TC alumna Abby C. Emerson; It's Never Too Late, with Patty Labriola; Art, Money, and Change in Puerto Rico, with Frances Negrón-Muntaner; Advancing Advocacy through Social Justice Art, with Vicki Rosenthal); and Spread and Inspire Change Around You Through The Simple Act of Loving-Kindness, with Michelle Anglisano & Kristen McDermott.

Co-sponsored by the Graduate Writing Center, Book Club met bi-monthly; we again read memoirs connected to education and growth in different ways: learning and understanding via classroom, life experiences, and familial relationships. Our chosen memoirs were: The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls (9/26); Beautiful Country, by Qian Julia Wang (10/24); and Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, by Sarah Smarsh  (11/28).

Book talks celebrate scholarly achievements of our faculty, alumni, visiting scholars, and others who were keen to share their work and engage with the community.  Coordinated by Research Professor Aurelie Athan, Department of Clinical Psychology, and in collaboration with KORA (former Maternal Psychology Lab at Teachers College), we co-sponsored talks with external authors:  Women without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Motherhood, with Ruby Warrington; Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control, with Amanda Montei; and Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood, with Minna Dubin.

Regarding faculty, we hosted: Gareth B. Matthews, the Child's Philosopher, with Megan Laverty and Maughn Rollins Gregory; Studying Pre-School at Scale in North Carolina, with Tyler Watts; Growing for Justice: A Developmental Continuum of Leadership Capacities, with Ellie Drago-Severson, Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Deborah Lawrence-Brooks (co-sponsor ODCA); Turning Points: Responsive Pedagogies in Studio Art Education, with Richard Jochum, Judy Burton, et al. (co-sponsor Art and Art Education); Race & Rurality: Considerations for Advancing Higher Education Equity, with Tyler Hallmark; and Reconceptualizing Education for Newcomer Students, with Jordan Corson (co-sponsor Curriculum and Teaching).

Book talks with alumni comprised: Sustainability: We Need to Talk, with Isabel Rimanoczy, plus Celebrating Alumni Authors; Humanizing Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth : 20 Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond, with Monisha Bajaj, et al; and Ignatian Pedagogy for Public Schools, with Benjamin Brenkert (postponed).

Concomitant with the annual  conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, supported by the Morton Deutsch Center for Conflict Resolution, we hosted returning visiting scholar Evelin Linder for a pre book launch of On the Path of My Father.

Art and guest talks similarly celebrated the work of commissioned artists who opened their exhibitions in Offit Gallery and partnered with the Library in bringing new work with focused themes to the attention of the community. Art opening talks were held for As I Am, with Kendal O'Leary, and Silent Middens, with Allyson Montana.  Two talks were co-hosted with the Edmund Gordon Institute for Urban and Minority Education: Storytelling Black Queer Flesh and Worth-Making for Reproductive Justice and Urban Education, with Nasette Falu; and Connecting, Curating, and Constructing Mathematical and STEAM Learning through Purposeful Pedagogy, with Dyanne Baptiste Porter.

Summary

Exhibits,  92 

Art,  5 

Book,  7

Regular News,  65

Special News,  15 

Instruction,  37  (Attendees,  467)

Self Guided,  4 

Tours and Orientations,  11  (Attendees,  238)

Workshops,  22  (Attendees,  229)

Live Music,  15 

Talks,  37  (Attendees,  746)

Total Offerings,  181  (Attendees,  1,213)

Leadership

As we harvested opportunities to provide high quality services, so we embraced leadership through planning, communicating, staffing, and special initiatives. We represented the library; coordinated with campus colleagues to achieve goals; and worked towards ensuring the maintenance, comfort, and aesthetics of our physical spaces.

We held weekly meetings with unit heads and monthly meetings with three library working groups (Technology, Reference and Reader Services, Teachers College Digital Collections), as well as all-staff (Library Roundtable) to share ongoing work and projects; continue planning; and address needs. Meetings continued with TCIT to plan upcoming library technology projects, including digital storage; expanded seat reservations; e-board-website integration; and visual presentation of the library's new spatial sensory technology. We attended periodic planning meetings led by the Division of Student Affairs for 2025 Middle States accreditation and gathered preliminary documentation; participated in the Provost's focus group, Dialogue I: TC Commitments to Our Students; and reviewed with OASID our EEAAP for digital collections. In addition, we attended the monthly Collections Forum and Access Services Planning Strategy Committee (ASPSC) at Columbia University Libraries. We took additional Anaplan training to assist with budget review and discussed financial needs moving forward. We also developed a three year strategic plan to guide the library through 2027, offering three main areas of focus.

Communications included not only reminders to instructors about course reserves and instructional opportunities, but delivery of monthly news, events, offerings, and blogs via Bookends and Beginnings, library website, and/or boards. We refined a new policy for inclusive, informed and respectful language in library and  archival descriptions; tuned processes for requesting research and archival consultations; and updated our Staff page with a fresh look. We consulted with College Counsel and the Digital Futures Institute on library subscriptions; joined TC Cybersecurity meetings; and hosted Columbia University Libraries' Directors (CUL, Law, Barnard, Health Sciences) to present our work in staffing, technology, and special projects, 2020-2023. We met with College Administration to address campus concerns relating to global political developments and lent support for students, while raising awareness of campus resources and practices. We also coordinated with the Office of Risk Management on insurance for the collections.

We continued rebuilding the staff of the library. We hired Amber Protzmann, Manager of Operations (Library) and two Library Associates for Art and Design, Ashley Wang and Souen Bae. We also began recruiting a new Head of Technical Services and Metadata Librarian. 

Special Projects constituted the Myers Foundation annual conference, held in Florida, where we presented our work in art and art education; framing (conservation of) the McNeeley Costume Drawings Collection; creation of a new exhibition space in the third floor reading room;  commercial grade carpet and LVT selections to refurbish the 1st floor (part of a three-year capital project); and successful completion of the New York State Coordinated Collection Development Grant Application for 2023-2024.

Afterthoughts

It's fitting that two books chosen for the Book Club relate to farming: Educated, by Tara Westover (read in Fall 2022), and Heartland, by Sarah Smarsh (Fall 2023). Set in Idaho,  the former brings out the poetic beauty and symbolism of landscape. 

... The gales are strong this close to the mountain, as if the peak itself is exhaling. Down below, the valley is peaceful, undisturbed. Meanwhile our farm dances: the heavy conifer trees sway slowly, while the sagebrush and thistles quiver, bowing before every puff and pocket of air. Behind me a gentle hill slopes upward and stitches itself to the mountain base. If I look up, I can see the dark form of the Indian Princess.

The hill is paved with wild wheat. If the conifers and sage- brush are soloists, the wheat field is a corps de ballet, each stem following all the rest in bursts of movement, a million ballerinas bending, one after the other, as great gales dent their golden heads. The shape of that dent lasts only a moment, and is as close as anyone gets to seeing wind.

-- Tara Westover, Prologue, p.8 Educated
 

Set in Kansas, the other more bluntly describes the economic, social, and political hardships of farmers and the impact of farming as a way of life.

Mom and Dad had their first fireworks stand the year Reagan was reelected—selling American pride in a field next to a two-lane blacktop while think tanks sold "trickle-down" economics. It's funny that both of their children were born weeks before an election that Reagan won. We would be able to map our lives against the destruction of the working class: the demise of the family farm, the dismantling of public health care, the defunding of public schools, wages so stagnant that full-time workers could no longer pay the bills. Historic wealth inequality was old news to us by the time it hit newspapers in the new millennium.

-- Sarah Smarsh, Heartland (Book Browse)

Through these memoirs, we follow the journey toward knowledge and understanding of home, oneself, one's family, and society -- and draw parallels with the process of learning, wherever we are, whatever the season.

It's also interesting to note that the British Women's Defense Relief Corps was created in 1914 to employ women, particularly in agriculture, as men were released to join the Armed Forces.  Female laborers during the First World War not only helped to reduce food shortages, but also ensured the harvest of flax that was used to make linen as surface material for the wings of airplanes. Indeed, making hay was no mean feat.

Images:

• Women’s Defense Corps of England, Making Hay. N.p., 1930.  From The Rothman Lantern Slide Collection, Courtesy of the Teachers College, Columbia University.
• Rooney, M, and W.G. Whiteford. The Gray Farm. N.p., 1957. From The Ziegfeld Collection of International Children's Art, Courtesy of the Teachers College, Columbia University.