Tarah Jean, Author at FSULIB

Women’s History Month 2021 at FSU

As we celebrate Women’s History Month (WHM), let’s take a stroll down memory lane to reflect on Florida State University’s history—or should I say, the Florida State College for Women.

The Florida State College for Women is what we know as the predecessor institution of FSU today. Not only that, but FSCW was also one of the largest all-female centers of higher learning in the country. From the year of its establishment in 1905 to the year its name changed to FSU in 1947, thousands of young women attended and graduated from FSCW.

Although FSU is no longer an all-female university, there are still significant efforts made by many organizations on campus to place a main focus on celebrating women, especially during Women’s History Month. WHM is celebrated every March to commemorate and raise awareness of the significant contributions of women to our culture and society throughout history. To take part in this celebration, organizations including Women Wednesdays at FSU and the Women Student Union are either taking a closer look at this year’s WHM theme or holding relevant events throughout the month.

FSU’s Interlibrary Loan Department

Are you a patron in need of material that isn’t available at FSU Libraries? If so, their Interlibrary Loan Department has got you covered!

FSU Libraries Interlibrary Loan Department provides the service of giving patrons of the Libraries access to request articles, books and other materials owned by another library or from other outside sources. Through the FSU Libraries Interlibrary Loan services, there are three ways for patrons to get the material they need: using the FSU Catalog, UBorrow, or Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad). FSU Libraries asks for patrons to check the catalog before requesting material from outside sources to see if they have them or not. For a faster delivery of print books from colleges and universities in Florida, patrons can search through UBorrow, an unmediated interlibrary loan service. ILLiad is used to request material from libraries around the world.

Lindsey Eckert, an assistant professor in FSU’s English Department, was able to get access to a copy of Rowden’s A Biographical Sketch of the Most Distinguished Writers of Ancient and Modern Times that she requested from Emory University. Although there were some issues encountered during the process, the endless support of the FSU ILL Department helped her tremendously.

Online Instruction at FSU Libraries

On February 2, 2021, FSU Librarians Liz Dunne, Adam Beauchamp, Rachel Duke, and Lindsey Wharton provided an overview of the online instruction that the Libraries developed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online instruction was presented to the FSU Foundation Board of Trustees to help the members better understand how technology is leveraged by the Libraries to get students engaged in the online learning environment.

Dean of University Libraries Gale Etschmaier started off by mentioning how much FSU Libraries have changed from the past while still being a central center for community at FSU. Even more changes took place in March when FSU Libraries closed their physical spaces as a result of the pandemic. Fortunately, the Libraries were able to provide digital access to materials for the university’s faculty, staff, and students. When FSU Libraries reopened in August, with COVID-19 protocols, fewer students were present in the physical libraries, but a virtual community was still upheld between the Libraries and the students. Online tutoring in chemistry, physics, math, and statistics was offered and subscriptions were made to online books and other educational content that weren’t available beforehand.

The four FSU Librarians who were a part of the given overview took the time to demonstrated the teaching partnerships of FSU Libraries in the online environment that cater to students at the university.

Alternative Textbook Grants

Instructors, this one’s for you!

ABOUT

The Alternative Textbook Grant program caters to main FSU campus instructors as it addresses the rising cost of college textbooks. This textbook affordability initiative by FSU Libraries will be awarding grants of $1,000 each over the 2020-21 academic year to instructors who adopt Open Educational Resources (OERs) or library-licensed materials to replace commercial textbooks. These grants support the university’s strategic goals to support overall student success and enhance diversity and inclusion.

Open textbooks go through the process of being written by experts, peer-reviewed and published under flexible copyright licenses for downloading purposes, distributed, and adapted for free. The grants can also be used to purchase eBooks for course textbooks that are purchased as a part of the FSU Libraries collection with unlimited user licenses.

Love Data Week 2021: Delivering a Better Future

WHAT IS LOVE DATA WEEK?

Love Data Week is a week-long event that is celebrated on an international level to bring more awareness to the importance of research data management, library-based research data services, and more. On top of raising awareness on topics related to these different aspects, Love Data Week also aims to build a community for individuals to get engaged as they participate in the series of events that are held throughout the week.

This year, Love Data Week will be on Feb. 8 to Feb. 12. With the virtual event theme being, “Delivering a Better Future,” participants will be given the opportunity to share how they are using data to invest in having a better future as a result.

While this year’s Love Data Week is soon approaching, check out the Meet Your Data Librarians Podcast from last year’s event to learn more about some of the contributors of the celebration!