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Library Services for Faculty: Fall 2021 Updates

The fall 2021 semester is in full swing, and we have some important updates and reminders about library services!
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Phew! Already, the fall 2021 semester is in full swing, and before anybody gets any busier, we want to be sure to give our faculty some updates and reminders about Mann’s services that are particularly important for their work.

Please remember that at this time, face masks must be worn inside the library regardless of your vaccination status. For further guidance on masks/face coverings, please visit the Cornell COVID-19 website.

Research Support

Have more than just a quick question? Mann Library offers a variety of research consultation services for students, faculty, and staff. These are in-depth, customized, one-on-one meetings to discuss resources and search strategies for papers, presentations, theses, or doctoral dissertations. We have teams of librarians that specialize in disciplinary research support in the sciences, social sciences, and design. If you’re working on a project that is interdisciplinary, go ahead and pick any subject librarian team who would fit any part of your project, and we’ll get you started in the right direction. Consultations can be in-person or over Zoom, depending on your preference. Fill out the request form and book your appointment today!

Instruction

Could the students in your class benefit from some good pointers about library resources and services that are particularly relevant to what they’ll be learning and researching in your class? Mann librarians can deliver! To request library instruction for your class(es), please use our instruction request form. Mann Library has a menu of instruction options and ideas for what we can offer to students. This menu may be used as a guideline when filling out your instruction request. We also have a collection of online instruction materials that are accessible to faculty and instructors and can be uploaded to Canvas to incorporate into your course content.

Borrowing & Delivery Services

Cornell’s collection of over 8 million volumes is housed in libraries across campus as well as in the Library Annex facility. You can request books or other items from any Cornell library to be delivered to a library location of your choosing. Requests can be made through the library catalog – just choose your preferred pickup location from the drop-down list. You will be notified by email when your item has arrived at your selected library. See below for some important details regarding borrowing at Mann:

Contactless Pickup

Contactless pickup of library items is available in Mann 112 (off the Mann lobby) and is open  24/7 to the Cornell community. Items ready for pickup are sorted alphabetically by last name and you will receive an email notification when your items are ready for pickup. For the complete list of contactless pickup locations at other libraries across campus, please see the Cornell University Library Contactless Pickup page.

Please note: Contactless pickup is not available for interlibrary loan (ILL) items. ILL items must be picked up at the Mann Help Desk.

Fines & Billing

Woohoo! To support affordability and remove barriers to library use, we have eliminated overdue fines for the late return of most library items across the Cornell Library system. The big exception: any items that are recalled for another patron but returned after the due date noted in the recall notice. The fine for recalled items is $3.00/day – which of course can add up quickly, so don’t ignore those recall notices please!

We should also mention: high-cost and high-demand items (such as laptops, specialized equipment, course reserves) that are not returned on time will now be billed for replacement after two days. Regular items (such as books from the general circulating collections) are billed for replacement after 27 days.

Fines for library materials may be paid at the Mann Library Help Desk by check or credit card. To appeal a fine, please fill out our fine appeal form or contact our billing coordinator at mann_billing@cornell.edu.

Poster Printing

Mann Library is now offering multiple options for poster printing! We also offer course poster registration for classes and departments. Please submit your course registration request 2 weeks in advance using our poster session registration form.

Contactless Poster Printing

If you’d like to avoid standing in line at the Help Desk to get your poster printed, consider using our contactless printing service. Just submit your print job using our contactless printing form. Once you have submitted your print request, you will recieve a confirmation email with a link to our credit card payment gateway. And voilà! Your print job will be available for you to fetch form our contactless pickup area in Mann 112. 

Please note: Turnaround time for contactless printing can be up to two business days. Contactless print jobs are processed Monday – Friday only.

In-Person Poster Printing

Print jobs can also be submitted in-person at the Mann Library Help Desk Monday – Friday, 8am to 5pm. All in-person print jobs must be submitted on a USB drive (if you don’t have one, we can loan you one for this purpose at the Help Desk). For payment, we can accept check, credit card, Cornell Procurement card, or departmental account number. We ask that patrons remain in the building while their job is being printed, so that we can confer with you if any problems come up during printing. Also so we can make sure each poster goes home with the right person – our printing service is in very high demand and can get very busy on any given day!

Please note: We have limited hours for walk-in poster printing due to staffing levels. We hope to be able to offer weekend hours a little later in the semester and will update our hours page accordingly.

We think this covers the essentials for services that faculty rely on from Mann Library during the academic year. But if we did manage to miss something, librarians are here to answer any question that comes up! Check out our Ask a Librarian page for all the different ways you can be in touch, including our 24/7 chat service! We’d be delighted to hear from you!

The New Mann Café is Now Open

The new Mann Café opened August 23 in the Mann Lobby!
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If you’ve been among the many Cornellians missing the smell of good coffee in the Mann Lobby over the summer weeks, we’ve got some great news to share. On Monday, August 23, the new Mann Café opened its doors (off of the Mann Lobby) to offer a welcoming array of hot and cold drinks. By Thursday, August 26, the café will be open and on track for a full service menu—and a lively gathering spot featuring refreshing beverages and healthy food will again be part of the upper campus landscape. There’s lots to be happy about with this new development. Among the features that has Mann Library staff particularly delighted:  

  • Coffee – The new Mann Café will serve locally roasted Copper Horse coffee, a top quality brew that’s become  popular among Ithaca’s java aficionados since it first entered the local coffee roasting scene in 2014.
  • Tea – Not to be outdone, the discerning tea lovers among us are loving the fact that the café will feature fine organic tea by Teatulia, a company committed to regenerative farming and investing in the health, education and livelihoods of the community working in their tea garden.
  • Menu – In addition to the standard grab & go fare for hungry-but-short-on-time customers, Chef Chloe Greenhalgh (who also serves as managing chef for Martha’s Café in MVR) has prepared a menu of hand-crafted breakfast, lunch and dinner food that has something for every type of foodie—from peanut butter & apple-blueberry butter bagels and breakfast burritos (egg or scrambled tofu) to hot ham & cheese panini and vegan (also hot) bbq jackfruit sandwiches.
  • Local Sourcing – Thanks to Cornell Dining’s partnership with the food service vendor Performance Food Group, whenever possible, ingredients for the food prepared on-site will be sourced from within a 250 mile radius of Ithaca.
  • Hours – The café will be open 8am-5pm for the first couple of weeks of the semester, but as the semester gets underway, it will then shift to extended evening hours (we’ve heard as late as 10pm, matching the hours of Mann Library…yay!!) —a boon to those late-working students we see in the library. After Labor Day Weekend, the café will be open seven days a week.
  • Forms of payment – In addition to credit and debit cards, as part of Cornell Dining’s network of campus eateries, the new Mann Café will accept Big Red Bucks for students, and Meal Choice for Cornell staff and retirees.
  • Last but not least, composting and recycling! As with all other dining facilities on campus, a well-honed system of sorting for composting and recycling will be in place, and we’re hoping y’all will use it well. (And by way of refresher for getting our recyclables right:  current guidelines from Sustainable Campus Cornell).  

In short, we say: What’s not to like about one more way that the Cornell campus community can enjoy some good food and drink together while also taking well-deserved pride in continuing to push the campus sustainability envelope? We hope to be running into you at this fun Ag Quad hot spot soon!

Start the school year off right with our September workshops!

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It’s a fact of life—blossoms bear fruit, not to mention seeds for further growth. And this life sciences library hopes to help all the new and returning Cornellians get their 2021 fall semester off to a blooming start with a fresh line up of workshops. Follow the links below to register for what we’ve got going on in September—we’re eager to help you get a strong start on reaping in the sweet rewards of a great school year!  

 

Reminder for faculty & instructors! Submit your course reserves

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Please submit your fall semester course reserves requests by Friday, August 6. Instructions for submitting requests can be found here: www.library.cornell.edu/services/reserves.

The request form for digitizing films for streaming can be completed online: Course Reserves Media Digitization Request Form. Per our Copyright office, every semester we are required to receive a new form for each title that is being used. Please clearly note the “Needed By” date on the form as we prioritize our processing based on this information.

We are also in the process of contacting departments to retrieve their personal/department copies of textbooks from the last few semesters. If you will be needing the materials to go on reserve again for fall 2021, we can hold the books. Otherwise we greatly appreciate your cooperation to take back your valuable books!

If you have any questions, please contact our course reserves coordinator, Wendy Thompson, at mann_reserve@cornell.edu or by phone at (607) 255-3296.

Public Computers Are Back at the Library

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Woohoo! Another happy milestone in Cornell’s progress back to the (post-COVID) future has been reached. Public computers are available again at Cornell’s libraries, Mann included. We’re pretty sure that’s welcome news to those of you spending this scorcher of a summer with us here in Ithaca—no more lugging that laptop around in the heat.   A couple of caveats to go with that good news, just so we’re all on the same page:

  • CU-Print software has NOT yet been installed on the public desktops. So if you anticipate needing to print while you are in the Library, you’ll still need to haul that laptop along. (We’ll be installing the CU-Print software as soon as CIT provides it.)

  • Planning to use an Adobe product on one of our public computers? Adobe software licensing now requires users to log in with an Adobe ID.  Adobe IDs are free and instructions for creating or updating an Adobe ID can be found here: https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/create-update-adobe-id.html. If you run into problems with that or need further instructions from Cornell, you can contact the IT@Cornell help service at https://it.cornell.edu/support.

More good news about services and facilities at the Library will be coming over the weeks ahead. Stay tuned via our news page–and do drop by the library when you get the chance. We’ll be happy to see you!

Service Interruption Reminder

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A quick but important reminder for on-campus Cornellians and other library visitors—Cornell University Library is in the final stages of transitioning from our 20-year-old library management system to an new, open source system with modern functionalities and improved sustainability.  Please remember that borrowing services such as on-site checkouts, new requests for contactless pickup, retrieval from the Annex, and library-to-library delivery will be unavailable from Monday, June 21 through Thursday, July 1. 

 

Need a book? If you anticipate needing an item from the Mann Library collection or any other library collection on campus between June 21 and July 1, please come check it out in person before next Monday, or plan on visiting us after July 1. You will still be able to place scan requests for articles and book chapters. 

 

Have a book to return to the collection? Items that are returned after June 21 will be processed as soon as possible, but may still appear on your account until July 16. No fines will be incurred. Items with due dates between June 14 and July 12 have been automatically renewed so that nothing needs to be returned during the service outage. The new due dates will be reflected in My Account. 

 

If you have any questions or extenuating circumstances for borrowing a book from the Mann stacks between June 21 and July 1, please contact us at mann_circ@cornell.edu. For questions about items from the stacks at other libraries, you can get more information and contact info at: https://www.library.cornell.edu/pause

Written in Petals: The Language of Flowers in Victorian Europe

bit.ly/written-in-petals
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White lilies for grief. Snowdrops for hope. Daisies for innocence. Red roses for love, yellow for friendship. Floriography – sending messages with flowers – is an ancient art, rooted in the symbolism of China, Egypt, and Assyria.  In 19th century Europe a floriography-centered literary genre blossomed and a publishing industry that produced poetry, dictionaries, essay collections and often exquisite botanical art flourished. Drawing from a collection of gems donated to Mann by garden writer Isabel Zucker ’26, this new online exhibit at Mann Library provides a tour of the Language of Flowers as a cultural phenomenon that flourished during the Victorian era. As this display reminds us, what we humans see in nature—in this case flowers—reveals much about how we see and relate to ourselves.

Viewable online at exhibits.library.cornell.edu/written-in-petals

Hot Summer News: Updates on Services at Mann

Original artwork by Daisy Wiley
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A hot summer is underway on the Cornell campus, but cool Mann Library is open! Here is an overview of our summer services, including important information about service interruptions with Cornell University Library’s transition to a new platform for online library services (including the library catalog, equipment loans, and new acquisitions). 

Borrowing from our stacks

  • BorrowDirect and Interlibrary Loan are now officially paused until July 1.

  • The request service for contactless pick-up of books from Mann (and all Cornell libraries) will pause from June 17 until July 1.

  • Various circulation services such as on-site checkouts, new requests for contactless pickup, retrieval from the Annex, and library-to-library delivery will be unavailable from June 21 until July 1.

  • For up-to-date information about these interruptions, please see cornell.edu/pause

Equipment loans at Mann

  • Again, because of the Library’s transition to a new catalog, equipment loans at Mann are unavailable until July 1.

Study spaces and lockers

  • Individual and group study rooms are available to book via our website, but as a reminder, rooms are limited to grads and undergrads.

  • Use of all other study spaces in the library building no longer requires a reservation, and our doors are open to all who wish to enter during our normal hours of operation (no card swipe access required). For Mann’s summer hours, check out our hours page.

  • Fully vaccinated students, faculty and staff are no longer required to wear masks in campus buildings or social distance.

  • Unvaccinated Cornellians and all non-Cornell visitors must continue to wear masks and follow Cornell’s social distancing requirements when in Mann Library spaces. We are following Cornell University-wide rules in this regard; to see those, we encourage you to visit Cornell’s Public Health Requirements pages at https://covid.cornell.edu/students/public-health-requirements/.

  • Public computers are being re-installed in our spaces shortly. We will update this page when they are available for use.

  • Lockers are currently not available for use.

As the summer proceeds and Mann continues to get reset for a normal fall semester at Cornell, we’ll be posting updates about our spaces and services. So check back often for the skinny. And stay cool and hydrated in the meantime. It’s been a sizzler of a summer so far—and July is still ahead!

Ag Quad Quest 2021

Image by Eveline Ferretti
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ALL THE TOKENS HAVE NOW BEEN CLAIMED AND THE SCAVENGER HUNT IS NOW OVER. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PLAYED!

 

Game’s on for the last few weeks of the spring 2021 semester on the Cornell campus. All you crazy-busy students out there, we know what a stressful stretch it is for you. While the social distancing requirements of the pandemic year are still crimping our style for planning good stress-busters, we do have one trick up our sleeves—an actual scavenger hunt on the Ag Quad.

 

Some of you may be thinking: no way can I add one more thing to my plate right now! To you we say, please know we are taking this slow (as in totally at your own pace) and easy (as in, we’re not in this to stump you, but to make the finding fun and fast).

 

Clues for different treasures will be posted every few days here on this page (starting with the first two for this week below); join in at any point whenever you find yourself wanting to take a break from the books, computer screens, lab assignments or whatever else may be paining your petuzzi right now. We’ll be clueing you into about 6 different hiding spots over the next two weeks; find one treasure, or find them all. Our biggest hope with this is to give you more good reason to hope outside for some quick, spirit-uplifting, mind-refreshing, idea-boosting, treasure-rewarding fun.

 

Any questions, give us a shout at mann_outreach@cornell.edu. And check this page again often—new clues posted every few days. Lots of prizes to go with them—from highlighters to mugs. We hope you enjoy, and we wish you the very best of luck, with the scavenger hunt, your finals, and everything!

 

Treasure 1

You’ll find this cache on the Ag Quad when you find the European cousin of a tall American beauty that was once abundantly present from Maine to Mississippi—until a nasty, early 19th century blight brought her to functional extinction in her original range in the eastern U.S.

Additional hints: This tall leafy specimen is about to bloom and provides cool shade for enjoying your lunch on the Ag Quad, if you don’ t mind stone-hard seats.   Be sure to look up to find a tag in memory of a beloved former Mann Library Director. Still stumped? We’re pretty sure this nifty cartographic tool will give you what you need to find the spot: http://bit.ly/ag-quad-treasure1 Update: All the tokens for Treasure 1 have been found!

 

Treasure 2

To find our 2nd prize for Mann’s Ag Quad Quest 2021, get to spot that’s on higher plane on the Ag Quad (as, you’ll need to climb some outdoor stairs!). You’ll know you’re close when you see the name of a former CALS Dean. But you’ll be nearer still when you turn around and get close enough to almost touch a couple of Mann Library windows. 
Additional hints: This evergreen woody producer (names rhymes with Jupiter) makes a great but prickly hiding spot. Update: All the tokens for Treasure 2 have been found!

 

Treasure 3

Find the Excelsior seal on the Mann Library building. The younger of the two elms* standing guard beneath this lofty architectural touch harbors the cache. (*Email us the scientific name of the tree for a bonus prize!) Update: All the tokens for Treasure 3 have been found!

 

Treasure 4

Take a break at this private little spot close to Mann Library and you’ll learn a little about the SITES Accredited Garden that it’s part of. Enjoy a moment on the comfortable bench, and before you leave, be sure to check the boxwood behind you for your next treasure! Update: All the tokens for Treasure 4 have been found!

 

Treasure 5

The Ag Quad is graced by the presence of some towering older oak trees—with a  few smaller teenagers coming into their own as well.  Find the young white oak tree that’s tagged in honor of Mann Library special projects librarian Wallace Olsen, whose early work at Mann helped develop our Core Historical Literature of Agriculture, and you’ll have snagged your next treasure. Update: All the tokens for Treasure 5 have been found!

 

For these final two quests, you’ll need to leave the Ag Quad proper, but not by much. We suggest you maybe look for these as you head up behind Bradfield Hall to the Dairy Bar for some Cornell ice cream—you deserve the treat!

 

Treasure 6

Honey locust trees are frequent favorites in urban landscapes—and the leafy giants that are guarding this next treasure spot have helped turn what would be a very hot outdoor corner of the Mann building into a cool oasis. While you enjoy the dappled shade, look around for an inspiring word that rhymes with “respect” and it won’t take you long to find the cache!

Additional hint: Find the right honey locusts using the mapping tool on this page of our Trees of Cornell exhibit. Update: All the tokens for Treasure 6 have been found!

 

Treasure 7

The sign by this next treasure spot may have you thinking of lunch, but really it’s all about sustainable landscaping. Find the bioswale in question, and you’ll be very close. Look around to find the thing that pill bugs, worms, salamanders and other delightful  (hey, we’re into the life sciences!) creepy crawlies like to hide under and you’ll find your cache.

Additional hint: Visit this page to find out Cornell’s bioswales (what they are, what they do, where they’re located) and other campus features on the Sustainable Landscapes Trail. Update: All the tokens for Treasure 7 have been found!

Manndible Café closing

Photo by Jenny Leijonhufvud
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It is with sadness but also with great appreciation that we share the news of Manndible Café’s closing at the end of this spring 2021 semester. Their last day of service will be May 21st.

 

Located just off the Mann lobby, Manndible Café has been the Cornell Ag Quad’s landmark hub for healthy food since the reopening of the fully renovated Mann Library building in 2007. For the past fourteen years, owners Kathleen Pasetty and Pam Gueldner have worked alongside their legendary friendly staff to offer fresh, locally sourced and sustainably produced foods. Their signature burritos, poquitos, Friday curries, and creative coffee/chai beverages will be sorely missed by the Cornell and Ithaca community.

 

The Manndible staff have valued the opportunity to be part of the Cornell Ag Quad. In the words of Pasetty and Gueldner: “We are so grateful for the time we have spent on Cornell campus and at Mann Library. Our mission has been to make a welcoming space for everyone while supporting local producers, offering healthy food and drinks, and collaborating with members of the Cornell community. We are proud of what we’ve accomplished. You, our wonderful customers, along with our fabulous staff have made Manndible a special place, and we will cherish the relationships and memories we will carry with us.  We are moving on to other careers after twenty-five years in business together, and we thank you for all of your support over the years and for contributing to our success.”

 

Manndible + Mann Library collaborations have been many over the years—including “Snacks in the Stacks” giveaways during finals weeks, lively Earth Week campaigns promoting re-useable mugs & cutlery, and voter registration/Election Day celebrations to name just a few—and we have loved each and every one of them. Notes Mann’s Interim Director Sara E. Wright: “Manndible Café’s delicious food and coffee have been beloved staples for the hard-working students, faculty and staff around the Ag Quad, and the café has served as a hub for countless conversations and collaborations throughout the years. This has been a cherished partnership and we wish Kathleen, Pam, and their staff continued success in their future pursuits.”

 

In appreciation of Manndible Café’s many contributions to sustainable food culture and community on the Cornell Ag Quad, Mann Library will be holding a fire sale of our “Where minds (and friends) meet” mugs ($5 per mug) on the first day of study week on the Ag Quad plaza in front of the Mann building. Manndible will be offering free Manndible water bottles too, for as long as supplies last.  Mark your calendars for May 17, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. and drop by to give the Manndible team a most heartfelt thank you and farewell!

 

Questions about planning for a new Ag Quad café may be directed to Samara Sit, CALS Associate Dean for Marketing & Communications.