The Public Education Fund at Mann Library

What do waterbears, teenagers, and ivory-billed woodpeckers have in common? They’ve all been the focus of discussion in Mann Library’s Chats in the Stacks book talk series. Since 2002, the Chats in the Stacks program has hosted new authors from departments across the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Human Ecology.

The library’s Chats in the Stacks series is part of Mann’s wider effort to enrich its role as a learning center on the Cornell University campus. Pursuing this initiative first became possible through a generous gift by Dr. Mary Morrison of Cornell’s Division of Nutrition, which established the Public Education Fund for Mann Library. The fund’s aim is to support special programs that help disseminate and exchange new ideas across different disciplines on the Cornell campus and the wider Ithaca area community.

Additional gifts recently made to the Fund by Dr. Morrison and other friends of the library have made it possible for Mann’s repertoire of public events to grow during recent semesters. In addition to two to three Chats in the Stacks book talks each semester, the library is now able to host occasional special lectures. Last October, for example, a talk on heirloom apples and artisanal cider making by Mary Jean Wesler (NYS Agricultural Experiment Station) and Ian Merwin (Dept. of Horticulture)—apple and cider tasting included!—drew an enthusiastic crowd, hailing from many different fields on campus and different walks of life in the Ithaca area.

In an age where new information technology is making it possible to go long stretches without having to leave your desktop PC, the Public Education Fund has established at Mann a much welcomed public venue for collegial interaction and the lively cross-fertilization of new ideas.