AU Libraries are pleased to announce a new way to ask questions and engage with librarians and staff…LibChat!

LibChat is a chat reference widget embedded on the libraries.alfred.edu website.

If you see this box pop up on the AU Libraries website, it’s not an AI bot-there’s a live human on the other side ready to assist you.  Librarians and staff will be online to monitor the chat Mondays-Fridays between 9:15am and 4:15pm (minus a noon hour lunch break for the humans). We are happy to assist you with everything from quick questions or in-depth research.

If you see the small chat icon in the corner, you can also start a chat this way.  If there is no one online at the time your message will be saved, and we’ll get back to you soon.

We invite you to give it a try!

The Alfred University Libraries are pleased to announce the AU Libraries Community Impact Award, the second of our two new awards to honor our exceptional students.

Nominations will be accepted through March 10^th 

Nomination Form

AU Libraries Community Impact Award

This award acknowledges and celebrates undergraduate or graduate students who have demonstrated exemplary leadership in promoting the Libraries’ values on campus and in the community with clear and positive impacts as the result of these efforts. Some of the Libraries’ core values are a commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppression, support for intellectual and cultural diversity, the free and open pursuit of knowledge, and a passion for sustainability. As part of an ongoing dedication to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, the Alfred University Libraries seek to empower students to explore diversity issues, expand scholarly conversations beyond the historically dominant voices and perspectives, and inspire others to advance social justice.

Student award winners receive $150, a certificate, and recognition for their outstanding efforts at Honors Convocation.

Questions about eligibility or criteria may be sent to libraries@alfred.edu.

The Alfred University Libraries are pleased to accept nominations from AU Faculty and staff for the AU Libraries Outstanding Researcher Award to be given at this year’s Honors Convocation.

Nominations will be accepted through Friday, March 10th.

AU Libraries Outstanding Researcher Award
This award recognizes student researchers at the undergraduate and graduate level who have demonstrated excellence, innovation, and an understanding of information literacy and the research process as part of an original course-related research project, in any format or medium including creative work, which utilizes AU Libraries collections, resources, and services.

Nomination Form for Outstanding Research Award

Student award winners receive $150, a certificate, and recognition for their outstanding efforts at Honors Convocation.

Questions about eligibility or criteria may be sent to libraries@alfred.edu.

You shouldn’t always judge a book by its cover.

Put your trust in fate and choose a book without knowing the title, maybe you will fall in love!

If you don’t like your date there are no hard feelings or awkward breakups, simply return it and try again!

Herrick Library Student Supervisors Amber Weinar and Corrie Kayes coordinated with other Herrick Library student workers to create the display.

Located in Herrick Library’s BookEnd Lounge.

“I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else’s story, the delicious ache of a last page.”
―Naomi Shihab Nye

Insta: au.libraries
TikTok: aulibraries_
Facebook: Alfred University Libraries

The answer is…

mobile refrigeration (ex. refrigerated trucks).

https://www.biography.com/inventors/frederick-jones

Want more Trivia?

Join us for Team Trivia Night in Herrick Library!

Saturday, February 18th 8pm-10pm in the BookEnd Lounge

Come with a group, join one when you arrive or play as a group of one.  Everyone is welcome to join in the fun.

Hosted by DJ Mike Allen.

Pizza & Soda, Milk & Cookies Provided!

>>PRIZES!! for the top 3 teams<<

And the answer is…

Rhianna. The nine-time Grammy award winner’s full name is Robyn Rhianna Fenty.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rihanna

For the record, you may be pronouncing it wrong. Rhianna pronounces her name Rhi-ANNA.

https://time.com/5597167/rihanna-name-pronounce/

Enjoy trivia? Fun Fact:

Herrick Library is hosting Team Trivia

Saturday, February 18th

from 8pm-10pm in the Book End Lounge.

Come with a group, join one when you arrive or play as a group of one.  Everyone is welcome to join in the fun.

Hosted by DJ Mike Allen.

Pizza & Soda, Milk & Cookies Provided!

>>PRIZES!! for the top 3 teams<<

The answer is…

Argentine footballer, Lionel Messi. According to Forbes.com, Lionel (Leo) Messi earned $130 million dollars in 2022. $75 million on the field, $55 million off the field.

https://www.forbes.com/athletes/

Want more fun facts?

Join us for Team Trivia Night in Herrick Library!

Saturday, February 18th 8pm-10pm in the BookEnd Lounge

Come with a group, join one when you arrive or play as a group of one.  Everyone is welcome to join in the fun.

Hosted by DJ Mike Allen.

Pizza & Soda, Milk & Cookies Provided!

>>PRIZES!! for the top 3 teams<<

Congratulations to Scholes Library student employee Tyreek Ormil on being selected as Alfred University’s Sportsman of the Year!

The Empire 8 Conference emphasizes that “Competing with Honor and Integrity” is an essential component of a student-athlete’s experience in conjunction with an institution’s educational mission. Tyreek embodies these traits on and off the field. Tyreek is known for his reliability, hard work and positive attitude.

Read about all ten students who received Empire 8 All-Conference honors.

Information literacy is not just for research projects! Alfred University Librarians Kevin Adams, Samantha Dannick, John Hosford, and Mechele Romanchock will present a brief overview of information literacy theory followed by practical strategies for fact-checking, avoiding misinformation, and applying information literacy concepts in daily life as well as in the classroom.

The panel presentation will be Thursday, November, 10th in-person from 12:10 to 1:00pm in Nevins Theatre, Powell Campus Center.

For those not able to make it to Nevins, there is a Zoom link which is the same each week.

The Bergren Forum is sponsored by the Division of Human Studies and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Bring a brown bag lunch if you wish. Coffee and tea will be provided.

But people who Zoom in will have to make their own tea or coffee.

In the summer of 2020, Alfred University Libraries made a Commitment to Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression. In this commitment, we affirmed our support for the mission of the Black Lives Matter movement, recognized the role libraries have played in creating and perpetuating systems of oppression (we are not immune), and committed to action items — both short-term and long-term — designed to strengthen the inclusivity of AU Libraries. Our commitment was intended to be a living document, supporting a sustainable and ongoing process of change. 

To provide accountability and ensure we kept our momentum, we published an Update on our Commitment in October 2021. 

In this post, we continue informing the Alfred University community on our progress and lay out where we plan on going next. 

2021-22 Progress:

• We continued working to establish a Student Advisory Group (SAG) with the mission of providing a dedicated venue for student input and feedback on where the Libraries are doing well and where there is room for improvement. 
  • We acknowledge that at this point we have had difficulty sustaining the SAG, but we believe it is important to keep working towards this goal.
  • Over the course of the year we worked to secure both funds and permission from University administration to pay SAG members for their time and contributions to the Libraries. We believe that compensating people for their mental and emotional labor is important, and we are excited to have accomplished this piece of implementing the SAG.
• Bystander Intervention and Conflict Deescalation training facilitated by Right to Be (formerly Hollaback!) was incorporated into the Fall AU Libraries retreat for all professional library personnel.
• Incorporated the Alfred University Land Acknowledgement (developed in collaboration with the Seneca Nation) and a page on accessibility in the libraries into the new AU Libraries website (libraries.alfred.edu)
• A reading and discussion group for library personnel focused on anti-racism and anti-oppression met several times. We discussed:
  • First meeting: Convened the group, established ground rules/norms, discussed the overall mission of the group, and brainstormed articles to read.
  • Khuu, Michelle. “Make the Library Loud: Removing communication barriers for library workers with hearing loss.” up//root. 
  • Brown, Jennifer. “Are student workers the answer to our diversity ‘problem’?” WOC+lib. 
  • Farkas, Meredith. “So I’m a conspiracy theorist now? A call for retraction.” Information Wants To Be Free. and Soehner, Catherine B. and Chanel Roe. “Conspiratorial Thinking in Academic Libraries: Implications for Change Management and Leadership.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
• All professional library personnel were encouraged to participate in Safe Zone training.
• Established a Zine collection to add voices, perspectives, and modalities of expression not traditionally included in academic libraries.
• Subscribed to the Black Life in America database and the Diversity and Ethnic Studies electronic book collection to improve coverage of the experience and impact of African Americans, and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Conducted an audit of furniture in public library spaces aimed at evaluating the presence of products of prison labor. The process and outcomes of this audit were presented at the annual conference of the SUNY Librarians Association.

Ongoing Projects:

• Continue working with the Student Advisory Group to hear, discuss, and integrate student suggestions and feedback for library collections, events, projects, services, displays, and policies.
• Continue reading and discussion group for library personnel focused on anti-racism and anti-oppression topics. 
• Continue soliciting feedback from the student body on “What would make you feel more welcome and/or comfortable in the Alfred University Libraries?”
• Strongly encourage all professional library personnel to participate in Safe Zone training.
• Integrate anti-racist and/or anti-oppression values and language into the Alfred University Libraries Mission, Vision, and Values. 
• Expand the Libraries’ anti-oppression efforts to explicitly incorporate other marginalized populations, such as the LGBTQ+ and disability communities. 
• Include the Alfred University land-acknowledgement statement at the start of all library programs.
• Survey library staff for feedback on bystander intervention and conflict de escalation training.

New Action Items:

• Implement ethical purchasing recommendations for furniture, and continue to develop guidelines for other library purchases.  
• Contribute to discussions within SUNY about bias in catalog records/critical cataloging.
• Encourage staff to include pronouns in email signatures.
• Develop documentation of equitable hiring procedures — based on the 2020-21 librarian search process and a continued evaluation of best-practices — to inform future library searches. 
  • Along with notes about the aspects of the search which improved equity, this documentation should include notes on the trouble-spots which were identified during the search and suggestions for addressing them in future searches.