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Month: June

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!

New Course: Navigating Today’s Information Chaos

Register at bit.ly/ALS1200
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In 1987, a weekday edition of the New York Times contained more written information than the average person was likely to encounter in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England. Imagine what we could say about the amount of information we encounter in our daily lives today–if you can! For a citizenry to be constructively engaged, it must be well-informed. Yet, as more information floods the information landscape, worrisome material also spreads, often quickly. What puts some information into the “worrisome quality” category? What makes it valuable? A new course led by librarian Ashley Shea, Head of Instruction Initiatives at Mann Library, aims to help students master these questions for a lifetime of success as critical thinkers, professionals and citizens.

 

This new 1-credit course will equip students with the skills needed to navigate today’s vast sea of (dis)information. By analyzing different information platforms, students will develop a nuanced, critical approach to finding, evaluating and using information responsibly in the digital age. Will meet on Fridays, 11:15 am – 12:05 pm.

 

1200, or “Information Chaos: Navigating Today’s Information Landscape,” will cover the theoretical, methodological and practical concepts and skills needed to understand and evaluate today’s vast information landscape. The course will focus primarily on information systems in the U.S., although several prominent examples of international information systems will also be included. At the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Compare various information types that exist and articulate the value(s) and problems(s) of each;
  • Recognize the structural and ideological differences between various information systems (I.e., News sites, academic databases, federal repositories, etc.) that produce and disseminate information;
  • Translate complex research questions into a search strategy with appropriate search tools and platforms;
  • Apply various assessment tools to evaluate the credibility of information;
  • Utilize citation management software to organize information conceptually and thoughtfully;
  • Demonstrate understanding of attribution by properly citing the work of others.

Most of the readings and videos for this class will be open education resources (OERs) that are openly licensed and freely available online. In addition to assessing the quality of information available to researchers today, the topic of access to information will be an important component of this class. By making materials that are freely available to anyone regardless of location or means central to class assignments, the course will underscore this point.

 

As a 1 credit course, ALS 1200 will involve a final assignment: Students will be charged with creating an infographic that profiles a chosen information platform to effectively communicate its key features (scope, scale, history, financing, verifiability, transparency) for a broad but robust assessment of its quality as an information resource. We look forward to seeing what they come up with as newly minted pathfinders on the information frontier!

 

Visit ALS 1200 information & registration. 

Fledgling alert! Turning a blind window for young hawk survival

If you find yourself on Tower Rd, watch out as the red hawk fledglings learn to fly!
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Big Red and Arthur’s baby hawks above the Athletic Field on Tower Road have fledged and are busy testing their wings around the Ag Quad. During this time, large window areas pose a particular risk to their survival as inexperienced flyers are unfortunately prone to mistaking any reflection (of trees, sky, etc.) they may see in large exterior windows for the real thing.

 

What can we do to help these vulnerable teenagers avoid catastrophic collision? Keeping the blinds lowered in the large windows in Mann’s various individual and group study spaces is one good strategy. Mann staff will be lowering the window blinds each morning for the rest of the summer. We are hoping that our study room users will help us in this effort by keeping the blinds down while using these rooms. Or, if you find it necessary to raise the blinds, we ask that you be sure to lower them again when leaving the space. We thank you for your help getting these young birds through their risky teenage years!

It’s a Women’s World Cup Soccer Summer!

These passionate fans are gathered to watch the games in the Mann Lobby
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The summer soccer thrill has started. While only one national women’s soccer team will win the World Cup title on July 7, between now and then the whole world will share in the excitement, glories and, yes, agonies, of the tournament, played on a global stage. You in? Following our usual tradition when it comes to this world sport, in the Mann Lobby we will be streaming almost all matches that fall during our summer hours of operation—that means all games between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and between 8:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. Friday, and generally most games that fall on Saturday afternoon between 1:00 though 5:00 p.m. We’re hoping that we’ll see many of you soccer lovers in the lobby in the next few weeks—and that we’ll catch at least some of you wearing your favorite national team colors. Let’s hear it for the beautiful game!

 

View the full World Cup tournament schedule.