• Spring 2024 Message from the Dean school Dean's Communication

  March 04, 2024

  Welcome! I hope the spring break provided a good opportunity for some rest and relaxation amid a busy semester. The MSU Libraries has also seen a lively term, and as we look ahead I wanted to take a moment to share some important updates.Spring semester hours. Regular hours following spring break resumed Monday, March 4. The MSU Libraries is typically open 24 hours per day on Monday through Thursday, with later opening and earlier closing times on the weekends. Regular hours will shift beginning with the last class day of the spring semester on Friday, April 26, as we head into our shortened summer hours. Please note that for safety and security purposes, all students, staff and faculty are required to scan their MSU ID to access the MSU Main Library building between 10:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. on Sunday – Thursday. A complete schedule for the Main Library hours is available here.MSU Press director appointment. In October Elizabeth Demers was appointed director of the MSU Press. Demers comes to MSU from the University of Michigan Press, where she was hired as editorial director in 2017. She also previously held positions at Johns Hopkins University Press, Quarto Publishing and Potomac Books. Demers received undergraduate degrees in English and French from MSU as well as a master’s in comparative literature. She also earned a doctorate in history at MSU. In addition to her education at MSU, she obtained a Master of Business Administration at the University of Maryland. Demers has expressed enthusiasm about the opportunity to lead MSU Press, noting that she is “thrilled to be a part of MSU Press’s tradition of outstanding scholarship and community engagement.”Harmful Language Remediation Group. The Harmful Language Remediation Working Group (HLRWG) at MSU Libraries formed in fall 2022 with the goal of identifying, assessing and responding to harmful language issues in the MSU Libraries’ descriptive metadata. The primary role of the HLRWG is to facilitate and track harmful language remediation projects across the MSU Libraries. The group has recently developed a publicly available form that can be used to report instances of potentially harmful language in the MSU Libraries catalog. This form is available here.Building construction. In August 2022 the Libraries began working in partnership with brightspot strategy to reimagine our spaces and services to be more responsive to current and future needs of our faculty, staff and students. Several phases have already been completed while others have seen significant progress. Our new MSU Libraries Starbucks opened at the beginning of the spring semester, with updated seating in the café area as well as an option for mobile ordering, and the reconfiguration of 2-West is now also complete and home to the MSU Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation and the Office of Faculty and Academic Staff Development. Construction on 3-East to relocate our Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections is progressing with plans to install shelving in April; this project phase is expected to continue into Fall 2024. Ongoing updates are available on our website at lib.msu.edu.We are looking forward to supporting your learning and research needs as we approach the end of the spring semester (and beyond!). As a reminder, if you are unable to find an answer on our website or would like to speak to someone in person, we are available at our information desks as well as by phone at (517) 353-8700.With warm wishes for a productive semester,Neil Romanosky, Ph.D. Dean of LibrariesView All News Articles

  
• MSU Libraries raises second-highest amount in Give Green Day history

  April 10, 2024

  Elise Jajuga

  EAST LANSING, Mich., April 2024 – The Michigan State University Libraries echoed the overall success of MSU this past Give Green Day in raising the second-highest gift amount since the program’s inception.Beginning in 2016, Spartans from all over the world have been coming together on Give Green Day to show support for MSU. On March 12 of this year the University raised $1.46M for Give Green Day, the second-highest amount in the history of the campaign, with a total of 6,905 gifts. The contribution of the MSU Libraries to this outstanding number included $11,900 from 82 total gifts, with the majority of the funds going to support student programming. The Student Programming Fund received $9,600 from 54 gifts, which will be primarily used to expand extracurricular learning opportunities with a focus on community building. In addition to raising the second-highest amount of funds in Give Green Day history, MSU Libraries also unlocked the matching challenge gift from MSU Federal Credit Union, and in doing so had the highest number of staff gifts in any unit during a specific hour of the day.MSU Libraries Head of Outreach and Engagement Holly Flynn was thrilled about the amount raised by the Libraries and the support it will lend to the activities and services her unit provides. “It’s always amazing to see the community come together on Give Green Day, but this year was close to exceptional,” she said. “These funds will allow the Libraries to continue to expand upon our rich variety of programming for students, including talks by award-winning authors, film screenings, educational resource fairs and more.”The programming around the upcoming finals week activities at the MSU Libraries is a good example of where this year’s Give Green Day funding could be allocated in the future, Flynn said. The finals week events lineup for this semester, supported by MSU Federal Credit Union, includes the Libraries’ famous Night of a Thousand Donuts beginning at 7 p.m. on April 16, where Libraries employees will be handing out donuts, coffee, juice and fruit to students at both the Main Library and William C. Gast Business Library. Other activities and services scheduled to help students stay motivated leading up to finals week include therapy dogs, crafting meetups in the Hollander Makerspace, gaming and virtual reality opportunities, and a honey tasting. The MSU Federal Credit Union will also have an information table available at the Libraries on April 17, 18, 22 and 23, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.MSU Libraries Director of Development Caitlyn Perry Dial emphasized the significance of the Give Green Day 2024 campaign in providing student support at the Libraries. “Student programming funds are the heartbeat of MSU Libraries, which is both the center of academic life on campus and a hub for community building,” Dial said. “By supporting student programming, we not only invest in the growth and enrichment of our student body but also fortify the very foundation of our libraries as vibrant hubs of learning, innovation and inclusive intellectual exchange.”To learn more about supporting student programming at MSU Libraries, visit the online giving page here.View All News Articles

  
• MSU Libraries and Taylor & Francis Announce New Open Access Partnership

  April 08, 2024

  Supporting Michigan State University (MSU) Libraries’ mission to promote equal access to information for all, a new transformative agreement will allow MSU researchers to publish open access (OA) articles at no cost to them in 2,500 Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals.The three-year read-and-publish agreement ensures faculty and students have continued read-access to all Taylor & Francis journals while also supporting hundreds of researchers to choose open access in both hybrid and full OA titles.MSU is recognized as one of the top research universities, its thousands of staff pushing the boundaries of discovery and yielding solutions that make daily life better. The new agreement with Taylor & Francis aims to drive even greater global reach and application of that research through the power of open access.MSU Libraries Dean Neil Romanosky said: “I’m extremely pleased that MSU Libraries is able to partner with Taylor & Francis to provide a means for MSU authors to publish their research open access at no cost to them. This agreement significantly extends MSU’s support for open access with one of the top publishers for MSU. Promoting open access journal publishing promotes community engaged scholarship, which aligns with MSU’s strategic plan and the values of the greater MSU community.”Jeff Voci, Senior Vice President & Commercial Lead – Americas at Taylor & Francis, added: “It’s been a really positive experience collaborating with our partners at MSU to devise an arrangement that supports their objective of advancing knowledge, a priority we share.”“Taylor & Francis is a leading publisher of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) journals, disciplines that usually have very little funding for open access. MSU’s investment in OA will therefore make a major difference to the global impact of its HSS research.”Taylor & Francis’ open access program includes over 300 fully OA journals, more than 2,490 Open Select (hybrid) journals, 1,700+ OA books and a range of F1000 open research platforms. It was recently announced that PeerJ, a pioneer in broad-scope OA journals, has joined Taylor & Francis.MSU joins more than 700 global institutions partnering with Taylor & Francis through a transformative agreement, including 11 others in the Americas. These agreements reflect the diverse priorities of their research communities, as well as a shared vision of fostering open research practices.Contact: Elise Jajuga, MSU Libraries Communications ManagerView All News Articles

  

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