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Month: September

Soil Fair @ Ag Day this Friday 9/30!

This event complements our ongoing soil-themed exhibits, Grounded and Mud Paintings, on display at Mann through October.
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Soil is the foundation of our food systems and our planet’s most biodiverse habitat. It also has a key part to play in humankind’s ability to mitigate and manage the process and effects of global warming.  


Important as it is to our planet’s life support system, there is much to be learned about this vital but under-appreciated resource.  The Cornell community and wider Ithaca area public are warmly invited to explore some of what’s happening at Cornell to advance our knowledge about soil, its life-sustaining qualities for a healthy future, and the various ways we can work to protect and support its vital role in our global agro-ecoystem.  Join us at the Soil Fair that will be part of this year’s Ag Day being organized by Alpha Zeta Cornell on the Ag Quad on Friday,, September 30, 9:00 to 4:30 p.m. Look for us on the Tsujimoto Plaza in front of Mann Library!

 

Programs, information tables and partners at the Fair will include:  

 

Cornell University Library Grants Program for Digital Collections

Your idea + our technical expertise = a great digital collection!
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Attention all Cornell faculty and post-A exam graduate students: Do you have an idea for a new digital collection that will support research and teaching at Cornell? Perhaps you know of a collection of images or objects we can photograph, or have analog material – DAT tapes, slides, negatives, or cassette tapes – related to your research or the history of your field? The Grants Program for Digital Collections funds several digitization projects each year, and all you need to apply is a good idea!

 

Examples of proposals that are within the scope of the grants program include:

  • Creating new digital collections from Library, departmental, faculty, or graduate student-held resources that are regularly used in teaching or research, including lecture notes, slides, photographs, printed documents, manuscripts, or audiovisual materials. 
  • Digitizing archival collections or unique materials held by Cornell University, which are instrumental in supporting learning, teaching, and research, as well as supporting the University’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. 
  • Converting materials or born-digital content held by other cultural institutions, that will support teaching and research at Cornell — especially combining dispersed resources to create new and enriched ones. 
  • Projects that will subsequently support new research methods, innovative data visualization, and tools that enable novel ways of analysis and interpretation.

50+ diverse projects have been funded over the past twelve years. Interdisciplinary collaborations across the University are encouraged. Email dcaps@cornell.edu with any questions. Note: Final selection of materials will be subject to ability to clear copyright.

 

Inquiries requested by October 1, 2022 | Application due October 31, 2022

 

The 2022 grant cycle is now closed. Please check back in August 2023 for information about the next cycle.

Voting Info at the Library

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No better day than National Voter Registration Day to announce a new info resource at Mann Library: a kiosk on Mann’s 1st floor offering some forms and handouts students will find helpful for making their voice heard in the U.S. election process. Here’s what you’ll find there:

 

The voting info kiosk at Mann is made possible by a partnership between Mann Library and Cornell Votes, a non-partisan student organization dedicated to fostering a campus culture which every person exercises their right to have a voice in their representation. Care to get involved with this good effort, or want further info on any question you might have about registering to vote? Sending an email to Cornell Votes will do the trick!  

Fall 2022 Chats in the Stacks @ Mann Library

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We are pleased to share our line-up of fall book talks, which will be held in-person in Mann Library 160. You can find all recordings of our past Chats in the Stacks on our YouTube channel.

 

September 22, 4pm

Mann Library, Room 160

Harold van Es, Building Soils for Better Crops: Ecological Management for Healthy Soils

Organic matter was once extolled as the essential soil ingredient, but the availability of inexpensive synthetic fertilizers and the mass industrialization of farming after World War II have led to a serious soil crisis. What can we do to increase the vitality of soils today and for future generations? In this book talk, Harold van Es explains how soil health has degraded at the global level, and the steps that everyone can take—from home gardeners and small farmers to large agricultural corporations and food industries—to improve and preserve this essential resource. 

 

October 13, 4pm

Mann Library, Room 160

Chris Barrett, Socio-Technical Innovation Bundles for Agri-Food Systems Transformation

While dramatic advances in human well-being have been achieved worldwide through technological and institutional innovations in agri-food systems, adverse impacts on climate, the natural environment, public health, and social justice increasingly impede further, sustained progress. How humanity can innovate to bring about local and global agri-food systems that more equitably, healthfully, and sustainably expand on past progress is the fundamental question posed in Socio-Technical Innovation Bundles for Agri-Food System Transformation, a synthesis of the current state of the world’s agri-food systems, and an examination of key external drivers of change anticipated over the next 25–50 years.

 

November 2, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160

Robert Connelly, Frameworks, Tensegrities, and Symmetry

Geometry has been a wonderful attraction since the time of Archimedes. We all have our prejudices and points of view. Some are from the problem of making a structure rigid. Some are from the problem of making a surface flexible. Some are beautiful Art. Tensegrities are all of those as collections of points with distance constraints. Some are rigid but very squishy, but they all can be seen and felt. In this book talk, Robert Connelly, professor in the Department of Mathematics and a pioneer in the study of tensegrities, will discuss the latest edition of Frameworks, Tensegrities, and Symmetry (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

 

November 10, 4pm CANCELLED

Mann Library, Room 160

Jenny Goldstein, The Nature of Data: Infrastructures, Environments, Politics

It is not possible to fully understand current global environmental politics and responses to environmental challenges without understanding the role of data platforms, devices, standards, and institutions, according to Jenny Goldstein, assistant professor in Global Development. In this book talk, Goldstein discusses her new book, The Nature of Data (coedited with Eric Nost, assistant professor at the University of Guelph), which brings together scholars from geography, anthropology, science and technology studies, and ecology to explore these connections, and reveal how environmental politics are waged in the digital realm.

Fall 2022 Workshops @ Mann Library

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We want to help all new and returning Cornellians start the semester off right with our selection of fall workshops. There is no better time to start building those research skills, and with our wide selection of pre-recorded workshops, you can explore these sessions at a time and place that works best for you!

 

Visit our Workshops page for the full listing of asynchronous workshops, including help with searching and literature reviews, citation management software (Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote), the nuts and bolts of systematic reviews, and research data management.

 

And be sure to check out the schedule of live workshops this semester, which are being offered in-person in Stone Classroom (Mann 103):

 

Intro to QGIS

Tuesday, September 27, 3-5pm

Learn the basics of QGIS, the popular free and open-source desktop GIS application for mapping and geospatial analysis. We will work together through examples of loading common types of data, modifying the display styles, and performing some basic analysis.

 

Introduction to Bloomberg

Monday, September 12, 5-6pm

Tuesday, September 27, 12-1pm

Tuesday, October 4, 4:30- 5:30pm

Hundreds of thousands of investment professionals rely on the most comprehensive financial research tool on the market – Bloomberg. Give yourself a competitive advantage by learning the basics of how to navigate Bloomberg quickly and efficiently.

 

Introduction to Market Research

Thursday, September 22, 4:30-5:30pm

Tuesday, October 4, 12-1pm

Understanding the consumer is essential for any successful business. Market research encompasses a number of aspects critical to understanding the consumer, ranging from their demographic make-up to their attitudes and behavior regarding a product or service. This workshop will introduce attendees to the basics of market research, highlighting key concepts that dictate what information is available, and exposing attendees to Cornell’s top resources for discovering this information.

 

For the full listing of all Cornell University Library workshops, visit the CUL Workshops calendar.

Reproducible Research Workshop Series

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Good research is reproducible, replicable, and transparent. The Cornell University Library and RDMSG are collaborating to offer a free reproducible research workshop series covering available tools and overarching best practices to help you document, organize, and publish your research data while keeping it safe and maximizing your research impact. Follow the links below to register!

 

Organization for Spreadsheets / TIDY Data, Thursday 10/14, 10:30am to 12pm

Good data organization is the foundation of a research project. Most researchers have data in spreadsheets, so it’s the place that we will start. In this workshop, we’ll learn good data entry practices, different approaches for working with data in spreadsheets, and how to optimize your final “data package” to fulfill research quality and reproducibility requirements and facilitate new research.

 

How and Where to Publish your Data, Thursday 11/4, 10:10am to 12pm

We are frequently asked to share, archive, or otherwise publish data by funders and publishers, but few instructions exist on how to find a repository, and how to prepare your data and metadata for sharing. This workshop will provide hands-on experience preparing data for publishing by “curating” an example dataset and identifying common data issues. Participants will also learn about the overall role of repositories within the data sharing landscape and learn strategies for locating and evaluating repositories.

 

Cornell Center for Social Sciences is also offering How to Make your Research Transparent and Reproducible, Wednesday 10/6, 1 to 3pm.

 

View the full list of all Cornell University Library data and GIS Workshops or contact us at rdmsg-help@cornell.edu to let us help you find the workshop you need!​

Landscape Sculptures: Conversations with Land and Water

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Press Release Mann Gallery
For Immediate Release, September 30, 2021
 
June Szabo: Landscape Sculptures, Conversations with Land and Water, a new exhibition by Finger Lakes sculptor June B W Szabo explores the themes of decay and renewal, loss, and place through wood and wire sculptures inspired by regional geomorphology.
 
Ithaca, N.Y. – A new exhibition, Landscape Sculptures, Conversations with Land and Water, opened in late September in the Mann Gallery at Cornell University’s Mann Library. It features the work of sculptor June B W Szabo whose wood and woven copper wire sculptures explore themes of loss, the temporal nature of place, and decay as a means of renewal. A longtime resident of the Finger Lakes Szabo’s process begins with personal exploration of a regional landscape, enhanced by highly detailed relief maps and deep research into the geomorphology of each location. In her studio these experiences are rendered material through Szabo’s manipulation of beads, copper wire, and local hardwoods.
 
The exhibition, which brings together objects from the most recent period of Szabo’s practice, includes a number of new works. In describing the common thread shared by all the sculptures in the show, Szabo says the “thought that has guided me for this installation is that of letting go. There is much in all our lives that we have little control over, which can be a source of anxiety and a sense of loss. Working wood and wire to reflect on how land is built up as it’s worn down over time, how decomposition in fungi and plants leads to new growth —for me this work has been a lesson in what we gain by letting go.”
 
Indeed, her new sculpture Let Go to Grow created by wrapping and coiling copper wire, explores how the renewal seen in spring and summer landscapes depends on the loss and decay that occur each fall and winter. Reflecting on trees that have the power to “let go” of their own leaves in any season as a defense against stressors and as a means of renewal, this work proposes that letting go of fear and being open to nature’s law of return makes room for growth. In another new piece, Restoration, a hanging sculpture carved from poplar, Szabo references a moraine—an intriguing landform built by a thick accumulation of glacial drift transformed by wind and time into a forested expanse—which serves as a powerful metaphor for recovery and restoration.
 
Reflecting on the influences that have shaped her work Szabo cites the teaching of many Cornell scholars, including beloved geology professors O.D. Von Engeln and Arthur Bloom, whose many books detailing the geography and glacial history of the Finger Lakes Region have accompanied her throughout her journeys.
 
Landscape Sculptures, Conversations with Land and Water, will be on display at the Mann Gallery from September 18, 2021, until January 15, 2022. Mann Library is located on the Cornell University Ag Quad, Ithaca, NY. 

Chats in the Stacks Fall 2021

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The Cornell University Library Chats in the Stacks is a series of book talks featuring recent publications by Cornell authors. This semester, all the book talks will be virtual, so you can tune in from wherever you are! A live Q&A with the author will follow each talk, and the audience is encouraged to submit their questions in the chat.

We’re excited to share the fall line-up for the Mann chats below:

October 14, 2021 4pm

Eswar Prasad (Dyson School): The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance

The concept of money is about to be fundamentally redefined, says Eswar Prasad, the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy at Cornell University. In a live, virtual Chats in the Stacks book talk on his new book, The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Harvard University Press, 2021), Prasad explains how this transformation will impact corporations, banks, states, and individuals. Changes may lead to improvements in efficiency, personalization of services, and market access for the unbanked, but they may also bring instability, lack of accountability, and the erosion of privacy. The Future of Money explains how to maximize the best and prepare against the worst, as businesses, governments, and individuals embrace new financial technologies that have the power to fundamentally change our lives. Prasad is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and previous chief of the financial studies division in the International Monetary Fund’s research department.

 

November 2, 2021 4pm

Phil McMichael (Global Development): Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective

How has development thinking and practice shaped our world? The answer lies in four interconnected phenomena—colonialism, the development era, the neoliberal globalization project, and sustainable development—according to Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, 7th Edition, (Sage Publications, 2021), written by Philip McMichael, professor emeritus in the Department of Global Development, and Heloise Weber, senior lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. In this live, virtual book talk, McMichael discusses “the development paradox” and how powerful nation-states aiming toward progress and prosperity can also produce crises that threaten the health and well-being of millions of urban-dwellers and rural cultures. McMichael also explores the possibilities of a world with more just social, ecological, and political relations.

 

November 18, 2021 4pm

Qi Wang (Human Development): Remembering and Forgetting Early Childhood

Our earliest memories are complex and ever-shifting. In a live, virtual Chats in the Stacks book talk, Qi Wang—professor of human development and psychology in the College of Human Ecology—will discuss insights from Remembering and Forgetting Early Childhood (Routledge, 2020), a book she co-edited with Sami Gülgöz. Originally published as a special issue of Memory, the book deepens our understanding of the dynamics that influence the accessibility, content, and accuracy of memories from early childhood, and how the development of autobiographical memory is shaped by a variety of interactive social and cognitive factors.

 

November 23, 2021 4pm

Lourdes Casanova (Emerging Markets Institute) and Anne Miroux (Emerging Markets Institute)

As emerging markets have come to represent the largest share of global GDP, corporations in these economies have taken on a new level of importance in driving innovation, local development, and global competition. In a live, virtual Chats in the Stacks talk, Lourdes Casanova (Gail and Rob Cañizares Director of the Emerging Markets Institute, S. C. Johnson Graduate School of Management) and Anne Miroux (Faculty Fellow, Emerging Market Institute), discuss their new book Innovation from Emerging Markets: From Copycats to Leaders (Cambridge University Press 2021). Building upon research conducted by the Emerging Multinational Research Network (EMRN), this collection includes studies of innovation in regions that have not previously received focused analysis as well as a re-examination of dominant theories of innovation and capability creation based on a broad range of case studies and research insights. A live Q&A will follow the talk. The audience is encouraged to submit their questions in the chat.

 

December 2, 2021 4pm

Denise Green (Fiber Science and Apparel Design): Fashion and Cultural Studies

Fashion can be considered from cultural, technical, and theoretical perspectives. In a live, virtual Chats in the Stacks talk, Denise Green and Susan B. Kaiser discuss their book, Fashion and Cultural Studies, 2nd Edition, which explores how race, ethnicity, class, gender, and other identities are woven into the clothes we wear. Green is an associate professor of fashion design and the director of Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, and Kaiser is professor emerita of design, textiles, and clothing, and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Davis. Drawing from intersectionality in feminist theory and cultural studies, they interrogate the complex entanglements of production, regulation, distribution, consumption, and subject formation within and through fashion. 

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!

Accessible Course Reserves for a Hybrid Semester

Photo by Eveline Ferretti
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This semester, the Library’s course reserves service has moved into an online, accessible environment to the fullest degree possible, while remaining responsive to instructor needs.

 

In order to support equitable access for students studying remotely and comply with quarantine guidelines for library materials, we are following these guidelines:

  • If items in physical formats are requested, the Library’s course reserves team will make every effort to purchase or license an accessible digital version instead.
  • If there is no digital version available, we will follow the priorities established by the instructor and will digitize course materials to the fullest extent allowed by copyright law.
  • If neither of the above strategies is successful or there are overriding considerations, the Library will endeavor to make more physical format copies available than usual in order to minimize the checkout delays caused by the quarantine process.

Physical course reserves are available at Mann and Uris Libraries. Students must have a seat reservation for quiet study in order to come into the library to use the course reserve materials.

 

At Mann Library, these items are shelved on the 1st floor outside the Stone Classroom. We are housing materials usually on reserve at Mann, Math, and ILR libraries. Materials are shelved by course number, and are available on a first come, first served basis. Students can use these materials while they are at the library, but must return them to the shelves when they are finished. We ask students to be mindful that these materials are a shared resource and to please return them to the shelves as soon as they are finished using them.

 

Course reserves at Mann are available all the hours the library is open for quiet study. Questions about course reserves? Contact our Mann course reserves coordinator: mann_reserve@cornell.edu.