Looking In, Looking Out

Feeling rare shades of blue, 
Cerulean, Mazarine, Glaucous, 
Aquamarine, Ultramarine, 
Who could imagine?
Decades on, out of the blue,
An adolescent painting 
Inspires an autumn reflection
For a library leaf in Russell.

At The Window was among other select works in Growth: Selections from the Ziegfeld Collection of International Children’s Art, an exhibition series in three parts this Fall at the Gottesman Libraries. In this painting of an interior scene by Scottish student artist Frank Donnelly, we see a mother and child -- the cycle of life; a bookcase -- reading interests and personal development; and floral arrangements -- harmony and new beginnings. Stark branches of a tree reach above the balcony rails; figure with leaf buds in the design of the exhibit, and mirror the human journey of growth and change -- perhaps not unlike a library which evolves and adapts through time.

Looking inside the Fall Semester, we share the continued development, relevance, and success of the Education Program, and we also highlight accomplishments in Reference and Reader Services, and Library Leadership. With our eyes constant on excellence in the provision of library resources and services, we thrive on the interconnections that make it happen --  the dark, royal, and vibrant blues of Teachers College students, faculty, staff, in addition to colors of the wider community  -- through whom we grow in experience, at times to feel the rarer shades of blue.

Displays and Exhibits

Educational exhibitions are mounted in partnership with the Teachers College community and others with an interest in displaying unique and innovative educational materials, while also regularly showcasing Teachers College's Historical Art Collections. We utilized all floors in Russell Hall to exhibit diverse materials, and also added 360 degree capture of Offit Gallery exhibitions with assistance from the Digital Futures Institute.  

Art shows, designed by Library Associates Soeun Bae and Ashley Wang, comprised: Growth: Select Works from the Ziegfeld Collection of International Children’s Art, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three; commissioned artwork by Teachers College doctoral students, Carina Maye’s Let Me Think About It, and Aimee Ehrman’s Foundational Touchstones; Food In Art: Delicious Inspiration; and Tools and Toys, Paper Mechatronics, by students in MSTU, in collaboration with the Digital Futures Institute.

Similarly book displays are curated and designed by library staff to share the joy of reading, while encouraging greater awareness of available resources and their significance to the Library and College. In Everett Cafe, we featured What’s Your Story? and Sticks, Stones, Clay and Bones; Embodying Tradition and Learning to enhance the gallery exhibitions of the Myers’ awardees. In the Curiosity Cabinets, we featured Enduring Cookbooks: Food for Thought, building upon the gallery show, Food in Art. We delivered Monthly Staff Picks: Urban Resilience in a Warming World: From Survival to Thrive; Making Connections: With a Tribute to Dr. Ruth Westheimer; and Interwoven Identities: A Celebration of Identity – choosing contemporary works from the pedagogical, curriculum and children’s literature collections. In addition we provided seasonal displays of award winning and notable books in the rocket cases along two themes: Autumnal Books for Children and Winter Wonderland.

In addition to the Everett Cafe daily news curation of stories from around the world, we delved into historical news relevant to library resources and the broad field of education: Labor Day; Patriot Day; The Hobbit Is Published; Silent Spring Is Published; Lincoln Designates Thanksgiving Day; Great Chicago Fire; World Food Day; UN Is Founded; Prohibition Begins; Election Day; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Is Dedicated; Lincoln Delivers the Gettysburg Address; Gifting Alice in Wonderland; Remembering Nelson Mandela; Kyoto Protocol; and Charles Dickens Publishes A Christmas Carol.

Instructional

After opening the semester with library tours (plus a second round) and key orientations for new doctoral students and faculty, we continued our two main workshop series: Your Research Journey: The Foundations of Library Research, in 5 parts, and Elevate Your Research, held bi-monthly to build upon the former series. Offerings included: Charting Your Path (9/18, 10/23, 12/4); Searching Strategies (9/25, 10/30, 12/11); Managing Your Citations with Zotero (9/2, 10/6, 12/18);  The Literature Review (10/9, 11/13); and Article Screening for Literature Reviews (10/16, 11/20). For the latter series: Course Resource Lists for Instructors (9/26, 10/10); Navigating AI in Research: Pitfalls and Possibilities (10/3); Level Up Your Lit Review: Leveraging Databases, Citation Mining and Chatbots (10/17); Navigating for Accessibility (11/11); The ABCs of Copyright (11/21). We also offered two studio workshops, led by Carina Maye (10/10) and Aimee Ehrman (11/8), to enhance programming for commissioned art.

To promote usage of databases relevant to academic areas, current offerings, and programs, we highlighted research resources each month along select themes: Essential Research Resources (September); Nutrition Education (October); School Counseling (November); and Holidays and Traditions (December).

Live Music

TC student and affiliated musicians returned to share their exceptional talent in the form of trios, duet, and solo performances across a range of instruments and genres: Nicholas DiMaria Trio, jazz - trumpet, bass, drums (9/4, 10/3, 11/25); Claremont Strings, classical - violin, cello-flute (9/12, 9/25, 11/26, 12/16); Noah Rosner, guitar-folk (10/10, 11/14); Jackson Potter and Melanie Giselle, guitar and vocals - jazz (10/15, 11/26); Jason Zhang and Maggie Jin- vocals, keyboard -  pop (11/20); and Voci Vibranti, piano, choral (12/4). New student musicians from the Meow Meow project also joined with vocals and guitar (12/2).

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.

Art talks strengthened the gallery and curiosity cabinet displays, including a Nutrition Salon with students of Professor Pam Koch on Cookbooks to Curriculum, presented by Conrad Lochner (history of the curriculum) and Jennifer Govan (curation, nourishing spaces);  Let Me Think About It, by Carina Maye; and Foundational Touchstones, by Aimee Ehrman.

Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation is jointly sponsored by Adelphi University, Sing for Hope, and the Gottesman Libraries. A movement with committed social artivists, Artivism: The Power of Art Social Transformation, grew out of Illuminations of Social Imagination: Learning From Maxine Greene, (Dio Press, 2019), edited by Teachers College alumni Courtney Weida and Carolina Cambronero-Varela, and Dolapo Adeniji-Neill, of Adelphi University. The talks comprised: Poeartistry: Self Esteem Through Self Definition (Bam Supremereign); Music as a Social Transformative Tool (Sabtiago Carvajal, Flora Zenit); The Frailty of a Butterfly: My Journey Through Newborn Loss (Mary Wasacz); Art Heals (Constance Ivana); How the CIA Created American Literature (Sheriann Lewitt); Against the Status Quo: Activism, Art, and Identity (Alex Syreniva); Where Colors Do the Talking (Danielle Chery); Deepening Educational Impact with Artistic Inquiry (Erin M. Price); and Tongobriga, Portugal and the Erasure of the Local Community (Brun Miguel Resende)

Book talks aim to recognize scholarly achievements of our members and share work being done at Teachers College. They were entitled: Scaffolding the Language of Power, with Katie Strom, held in collaboration with the Department of Curriculum and Teaching; Anxiety Culture, with John Allegrante and Contributors, in collaboration with Health and Behavior Studies; Designing for Empathy, with Aybars Aşçı & Julia Higdon, hosted by Digital Futures Institute; Human Resources for the Non-HR Manager, with Elissa L. Perry, in collaboration with Social-Organizational Psychology; and The Working, with BrightFlame, in partnership with the Center for Sustainable Futures.

A collaboration with the Graduate Writing Center, Book Club was held monthly on memoirs of choice:  Easy Beauty, by Chloe Cooper; The Pale-Faced Lie, by David Crow, who joined us online; and Breaking Night, by Teachers College alumna Liz Murray. 

Guest talks represent further campus interconnections. We promoted the following virtual talks, with a nod  to Roshnara Kissoon, Reserves and Support Services Librarian, who served on the CU Libraries planning committee for Open Access Week, October 21st-27th:  Managing Risk: Protect Your Work and Yourself in in OA Landscape; What Is the Place of Open Knowledge Communities in the Development and Use of AI?; Community and the Commons: The Ethics of Crowd-Sourced Reuse; and Digitizing Vietnam.

Summary

Displays and Exhibits,  101
Art,  7
Book,  8
Regular News,  70   
Special News,  16  

Instructional,  37  (Attendees,  698)
Self Guided,  4 
Tours,  10 (Attendees,  92)
Orientations,   2 (Attendees,   275) 
Workshops,  21  (Attendees,  331)

Live Music,  14
Choral,   1
Classical,   4
Folk,   2
Jazz,   5
Pop,   2

Talks,  24  (Attendees,  1,164)
Art,   3 (Attendees,    89)
Artivism,   9 (Attendees,   667)
Book,   5 (Attendees,   188)
Book Club,   3 (Attendees,   50)
Guest,   4   (Attendees,   170)

Total Offerings,  176 (Attendees,  1,862)

Reference and Reader Services

Gottesman relies upon a strong team of Library Associates who support the work of the unit and contribute to the delivery of information, reference, and readership by opening and closing the library; staffing the Services Desk (in person, online, chat, telephone); assisting patrons with any number and variety of library-related questions; curating the daily news in Everett Cafe; and partaking in special projects to facilitate access to and use of collections; spaces, and technology, including printing and scanning.

Coordinated by Abby McGuire, Library Specialist for Circulation and User Experience, circulation-related projects included: maintenance of the Tower stacks, Third Floor Loft, with regular shelf reading and cleaning (40 hours spent by Library Associates as of late October); facilitating TC student readership at New York Public, with 27 applications submitted to our local branch George Bruce Library (enabling access to  popular resources, media, and programs not held on the TC / CU campus);  and review of missing items (searching and updating records in the catalog). In coordination with TC Information Technology, we implemented a closing song, with helpful feedback from users that affected length and pleasing choice of audio.

We saw significant increases in the number of individual research consultations for students of Teachers College, who met regularly with librarians Ava Kaplan and Jennifer Govan to review relevant tools and strategies. Examples of student research topics included: Indigenous Education, Settler-Colonialism, and Critical Literacies; Fashion Anthropology; Current Issues in Mental Health Counseling in NYC; Gifted Children's Metacognition; Family Engagement in Education; TC's Community Ceramics Program; Long-Term Impact of Voluntary Teachers in Rural China; Consumption of Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) and the Associated Health Risks, and Machine Learning and Community colleges, among many others.

Course-specific instruction, or library information sessions, held by Ava Kaplan, Research and Instruction Librarian, for 20 classes at Teachers College, grew by 4 sessions over the total number from Fall 2023. This semester instruction was delivered to all academic departments, including one pre-recorded session (MSTU) and one for the Columbia Coaching Certificate Program that focused on open access resources. Following up on our open invitation for instruction, the following faculty partook with their classes: Patricia Martinez-Alvarez, Lori Quinn, Anlys Olivera, Charles Basch, Elaine Smolen, Nicholas Limerick, Mel Collier-Meek, Jacqueline Simmons, Daniela Romero, Amanda Earl, Daniela Romero, Felicia Mensah, Brittany Kenyon, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, Gemma Moya-Galé, Selena Cardona, Denise Mahfood, Michael Cerda, Terry Maltbia, Nicole Johnson, and Christine Morris.

Despite budget reductions that led to shorter hours and the continuing freeze on rehiring the Head of Reference and Reader Services, the Library saw consistently heavy usage over the semester; rooms, seats, and other spaces were well occupied, and we remained vibrant, attuned, and responsive to meeting the needs of our users.

Summary

Reader 

Hours Open Per Week,   74

Average Daily Visitors,   678

Room / Seat Bookings,   7,733

Books Paged,   518
Books Checked-Out,   3,095
Books Returned,   2,837
Books AutoRenewed,   132

NYPL Applications,   27

Reference 

Consultations,   155 

Course-Specific Instruction,   20 (Attendees,   295) 

Non-Ticketed Transactions:   1,538
In Person,   1,486

Telephone,   52

Ticketed Transactions:   1,144
Ask a Librarian,   1,006
Live Chat,   138

Instagram Followers,    577

Leadership

Participation in research and information services was necessary to meet demand in key areas (instruction: specifically tickets, research consultations, tours; and circulation: patron accounts), while  assuming reporting of 1.5 additional professional staff.

RegularTuesday meetings were maintained for the Library Roundtable and Gottesman Working Groups for Technical Services, Reference and Reader Services, and Planning. Individual meetings with staff and/or units were held every other week to balance ongoing needs in Reference and Reader Services.

In addition, select vendor meetings were attended with Exlibris, for Alma Discovery planning and AI applications; with faculty and staff from external organizations, as well as internally, for accreditation visits (Organization and Leadership, October; Nutrition/Dietetics, October; and Middle States, December). Training was undertaken for new College platforms, including the Navex Policy Library. There was periodic planning with OASID for EEAAP (compliant access to digitized resources and possible participation in national shared initiatives). Monthly campus meetings of the Columbia University Libraries Collections Forum, and Access Services Planning and Strategy Committee, as well as the TC Digital Futures Institute, were also attended.

E-books relevant to art and art education were selected and acquired to build upon strengths in the library collections, and the call for proposals for commissioned art was submitted via the website, newsletter, and e-boards -- both projects reflective of our commitment to art and art-related initiatives funded through The Myers Foundation. A special project in coordination with Cabinet and Facilities was the re-installation of 15 historical portraits in new library and college spaces, to which we added QR codes for discovery of insightful archival resources.

We issued the newsletter, Bookends and Beginnings, from September through December, with delivery to 6,659 subscribers and an average read rate of 70%.

In addition we published an Annual Report, 2023-2024 to summarize and share accomplishments of the past year, and, in coordination with the relevant offices at Teachers College, we submitted grant applications to New York State (Coordinated Collection Development) and the National Historical Publication and Records Commission (for preservation and digitization of archival audio holdings). 

The stark branches outside Russell Hall will bring an abundance of white pear tree blossoms once again this Spring. There is a notable view from arched library windows onto the new Semester, with renewed faith and hope after the longer, darker days of Winter.

Read additional semester reports for more detailed information on the work of library units.

Images:

Donnelly, Frank. At The Window. Glasgow, Scotland, 1957. From The Ziegfeld Collection of International Children’s Art, Courtesy of Teachers College, Columbia University.

Newman, Ronald. A View From The School Window. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania., 1956. From The Ziegfeld Collection of International Children’s Art, Courtesy of Teachers College, Columbia University.