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Mann Library

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Month: September

New Faces at Mann – Fall 2026

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Mann Library welcomed two new librarians to our team this summer! Science Research Engagement Librarians Mark Xiang and Sian Eisenhut bring a wide range of experience in scientific research, natural resources, teaching, and information science to their new roles supporting research, learning, and engagement across the sciences and agriculture at Cornell.
 
Mark Xiang, Science Research Engagement Librarian
Mark Xiang joined the Science and Agriculture Libraries at Mann in July as a Science Research Engagement Librarian. With a background spanning both computational and experimental research, Mark brings particular expertise in bioinformatics, data literacy, and research data practices to his work supporting Cornell’s research community.
 
Mark recently completed his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at UCLA, where his research integrated experimental and computational approaches to study immune cell behavior. His experience with research data organization, documentation, and interpretation informs his interest in supporting researchers throughout the research lifecycle and helping them develop the skills needed to work effectively with their data.
 
Teaching and mentorship have also been an important part of Mark’s work. At UCLA, he served as a teaching assistant and mentor to undergraduate researchers and taught quantitative biology to high school students through the QBio-EDGE outreach program. Mark also holds B.S. degrees in Biology and Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
 
Sian Eisenhut, Science Research Engagement Librarian
Sian Eisenhut joined the Science and Agriculture Libraries at Mann in August as a Science Research Engagement Librarian, bringing experience in scientific research and teaching as well as academic library services. Her background in forestry, natural resources, and field-based research will be particularly valuable in supporting Cornell researchers, students, extension practitioners, and agricultural communities.
 
Sian earned her M.L.I.S. from the University at Buffalo, where she worked at the Charles B. Sears Law Library while completing her degree. She also worked at the McGrath Library at Hilbert College, gaining experience in access services, collection management, reference, student engagement, and outreach.
 
Before entering librarianship, Sian completed an M.S. in Forestry and a B.A. in Environmental Geoscience at West Virginia University. Her work there as a graduate research assistant gave her extensive experience conducting scientific research as well as helping undergraduate students build their research skills and science literacy. At Mann, her combination of library and research experience will contribute to instruction, reference, outreach, and engagement with Cornell’s agriculture and life sciences communities and Mann’s distinctive collections.

Please join us in welcoming Mark and Sian to Mann Library!

Celebrate biodiversity at Mann Library on September 24

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What is Cornell doing to better understand — and protect — the diversity of life on our planet?

 

Come find out at Biodiversity Fest on Thursday, September 24, from 11:00am–2:00pm in the Mann Library lobby. Stop by anytime to meet Cornell programs and groups working on biodiversity, conservation, sustainability, and the health of ecosystems around the world and closer to home.

 

Visitors can explore the research, education, and other initiatives happening across Cornell, talk with members of the campus community about their work, and discover opportunities to learn more and get involved. Bring your curiosity and your questions!

 

Biodiversity Fest is part of Mann Library’s From the Brink exhibit program, which explores biodiversity loss, extinction, conservation, and the actions that can help protect species and habitats. While you’re here, take some time to explore the biodiversity-focused exhibits currently on view throughout Mann.

 

The event is free and open to the public. Learn more about the participating programs, labs, departments, and clubs: Biodiversity Fest.

National Voter Registration Day Sept. 15

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Cornellians — National Voter Registration Day is today, Tuesday, September 15!

 

Wondering how to get connected with information about registering to vote, either as a New York State resident or a resident of another state? Stop by the Mann Library lobby between 11:30am and 4:30pm on September 15, where members of Cornell’s student organization Cornell Votes will be on hand to share voter registration information and help you make sure your vote gets counted.

 

You can also find voting and registration information online through Cornell Votes and Cornell’s university-wide voting resources.

 

Forms for registering to vote in New York State, along with more voting-related information, are also available throughout the year at the voter information kiosk on the first floor of Mann Library. Stop by anytime Mann Library is open to check it out!

 

Want to get involved in helping expand access to voting information for Cornell students? Cornell Votes would love to hear from you. Contact them at cornellvotes@cornell.edu to learn more.

Fall 2026 Chats in the Stacks

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Our Chats in the Stacks book talk series returns this fall with a new lineup of Cornell authors exploring the trees that have shaped American culture, the changing needs of veterinary practice, and the hidden mathematics powering our modern world.

 

All book talks begin at 4:30pm in Mann Library Room 160 and are free and open to the public. Additional information, including virtual attendance details when available, can be found through the individual event listings below.

 

Recordings of past talks are also available through the Chats in the Stacks collection on the Mann Library YouTube channel.

 

Thursday, September 10

Evergreen: The Trees That Shaped America

From towering redwoods and the lumber industries of the East to Christmas trees and evergreen decorations in American homes, evergreens have played an enduring role in the nation’s culture, economy, and relationship with the natural world. Join Trent Preszler, professor of practice in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, for a discussion of his book Evergreen: The Trees That Shaped America (Little, Brown & Co., 2025). Preszler takes readers on a journey through the history of evergreens in America, exploring their economic and cultural significance while reflecting on the tension between our appreciation of nature and our desire to control and consume it. Evergreen was longlisted for the 2026 PEN America E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.

 

Thursday, October 1

Practical Guide to Adding Livestock to Your Veterinary Practice

As small-scale farming grows in suburban, rural, and even urban communities, veterinarians are increasingly being called upon to care for livestock alongside more familiar companion and equine patients. Michelle Buckley, assistant professor of practice in Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, will discuss Practical Guide to Adding Livestock to Your Veterinary Practice (Wiley, 2026), co-authored with Allison Vander Plaats of Iowa State University. Designed for veterinarians who may be less familiar with livestock medicine, the book offers practical guidance on the physiology, management, handling, and regulatory considerations involved in caring for cattle, pigs, small ruminants, and camelids.

 

Tuesday, November 17

Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World

Math is working behind the scenes every time we search the web, stream a movie, upload a photo, use artificial intelligence, or rely on countless other technologies that shape everyday life. But what happens when the mathematical systems we create become so large and complex that we struggle to understand them ourselves? Cornell mathematicians Steven Strogatz and Alex Townsend will discuss their new book, Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World (Little, Brown, 2026). Written for a general audience, the book explores how concepts such as linear algebra, matrices, vectors, networks, and optimization became essential building blocks of our digital world—and considers the opportunities and challenges that arise as increasingly powerful mathematical tools transform technology and society.

Help us improve our virtual exhibits!

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Did you know that Cornell University Library has an impressive number of virtual exhibits that you can access for free? From Circus Fashion to Botanical Innovations to Arachnophilia, our diverse collection of online exhibits is bound to have something to pique your interest! Find your next obsession here: exhibits.library.cornell.edu/. You can find a curated list of all the Mann Library exhibits on our website: mann.library.cornell.edu/virtual-exhibits

 

While you’re exploring, consider helping us make our exhibits page even more user friendly! Be sure to click the red “Help us redesign!” button on the right side of the page to share your feedback and let our team of developers know how the site can be improved.

 

Interested in helping us with further user testing? Send an email to help-exhibits-library@cornell.edu and you may be selected to participate in a longer usability test. Your feedback is invaluable as we work to improve the user experience of our virtual exhibits page. So if you’re a frequent flyer, or even a newcomer, we want to hear your thoughts!

Exhibit Opening: Our Stories in Motion

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View the art, media, and writing of Cornell students and staff who share the ways that migration shapes their lives in this Mann Library exhibit. “Our Stories in Motion: A Migrations Exhibit” will showcase winning submissions from the Migrations Program’s creative writing and art competition and an interactive digital space where you can share your own migration story. Join us for the opening celebration this Friday, September 19, from 3 to 5pm in Mann Room 102. Speakers will include writer and multidisciplinary artist Cathy Linh Che and political cartoonist Pedro Molina. 

 

About the Speakers
Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025),  Split (Alice James Books), and co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.

 

Pedro X. Molina is an award-winning Nicaraguan political cartoonist known for his sharp critiques of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. Forced into exile in 2018 after government reprisals against independent media, he now lives and works in the United States, creating cartoons for outlets including Confidencial, Counterpoint, the Washington Post, and Politico. A 2021–22 Institute of International Education Artist Protection Fund fellow at Cornell University and current visiting critic with the Einaudi Center’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program, Molina has also been a visiting scholar at Ithaca College and the Brunell Visiting Scholar at Cayuga Community College. His work has earned major international honors, including the 2021 Gabo Award for Excellence and the 2023 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent.

 

This event is supported by the Migrations Program, part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Mellon Foundation’s Just Futures Initiative. Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program

National Voter Registration Day Sept. 16

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Cornellians—National Voter Registration Day is Tuesday, September 16!

 

Wondering how to get connected with information about registering to vote—either as a New York State resident or a resident of any other state? You have some great, easily accessible options. Drop by the tables that will be staffed by members of Cornell’s student organization Cornell Votes in the Mann Library lobby from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. (yes, that would be all day long!) on 9/16. You can also check out the information available on cornellvotes.org and vote.cornell.edu.

 

Forms for registering to vote in New York State along with more voting-related information are also available at the kiosk located on the first floor of Mann Library throughout the year. Stop by anytime Mann Library is open to check it out!

 

Want to get involved to help expand access to voting information for Cornell students? Cornell Votes would love to hear from you. Contact them at cornellvotes@cornell.edu and they will be in touch.

Fall 2025 Chats in the Stacks

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We are pleased to announce the schedule for Mann Library’s fall semester book talks! All our Chats in the Stacks book talks start at 4:30pm and are held in-person in Mann Library Room 160 as well as livestreamed. You can find all recordings of our past Chats in the Stacks on our YouTube channel. 

 

Thursday, September 25, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

The Ocean’s Menagerie: How Earth’s Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life

Have you heard of the incredible “superpowers” of spineless creatures such as corals stronger than steel, or sponges who create their own chemical compounds to fight off disease? Their amazing abilities might just hold the key to our own survival, says marine ecologist Drew Harvell, professor emerita of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Join us for a live, hybrid, Chats in the Stacks book talk with Harvell as she dives into the world of underwater marvels and her latest publication, The Ocean’s Menagerie: How Earth’s Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life (Penguin Random House, 2025). Harvell will discuss how ocean invertebrates, among the oldest and most diverse organisms on earth, are seemingly able to bend the “rules” of land-based biology with 600 million years of adaptation to problems of disease, energy consumption, nutrition, and defense, and how their biomedical, engineering, and energy innovations could inspire solutions to many issues facing us humans and our changing planet.

 

Thursday, October 16, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

Peace by Design

Design can promote healing in healthcare environments, contribute to mental health, reduce gun violence, and positively impact health and racial equity, all of which contribute to a more peaceful world, says Mardelle McCuskey Shepley, emerita professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and Emerita Director of the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures. Join us for a live, hybrid, Chats in the Stacks book talk where Shepley will discuss her latest publication, Peace by Design (Routledge, 2025). The book embraces a wide range of perspectives from the fields of graphic design, industrial design, fashion design, interior design, architecture, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, and urban design. The focus on profound impacts serves to both inspire young designers and design researchers to achieve their maximum societal contributions and support experienced designers seeking reaffirmation of their social goals. 

 

Thursday, November 13, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

The Remaking of Memory in the Age of the Internet and Social Media

How have new technologies and media affected our human capacity for memory? Until recently, optimism about the potential for strengthening individuals’ human memory through the storage, representational, reproductive, and connective capacities of digital media has prevailed. But these past views of how memory works are being challenged amidst today’s digital maelstrom. In particular, the Internet, and social media platforms, have profoundly transformed the ways individuals receive, store, share, and lose information. Memory has become more externalized, dialogical, and transactive, yet at the same time, unwieldy, opaque, and inaccessible. In The Remaking of Memory in the Age of the Internet and Social Media published by Oxford University Press in 2024,  Qi Wang (Professor of Human Development, Psychology, and Cognitive Science at Cornell University) and Andrew Hoskins (Professor of AI, Memory and War, University of Edinburgh) have assembled scholars from cognitive psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and media and communication studies to synthesize emerging social and cognitive science research on the impact of the Internet and social media on remembering and forgetting. They probe whether human memory is being threatened by a shift from a healthy reliance to a dependency on digital media and technologies. 

Fall 2025 Workshops @ Mann Library

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Looking for that lightbulb moment? Library workshops are an excellent way to level up your research skills, and did we mention they’re free?? Whether you prefer to attend in-person or virtually, we have options that will work for everyone’s schedule. We also have a wide selection of pre-recorded workshops that can be viewed asynchronously at your convenience: mann.library.cornell.edu/workshops. Don’t see what you’re looking for? You can request a workshop by filling out our Workshop Request Form. This semester we’re excited to offer the Data Den, a new workshop series from our colleagues in Research Data and Open Scholarship (RDOS). See the list below or view all available library workshops at spaces.library.cornell.edu/calendar/CULworkshops

 

Data Den Workshop Series

Research Data and Open Scholarship is excited to be hosting the Data Den, a series of data skills workshops, this semester. Each workshop will introduce participants to a different tool or skill used for data collection, analysis, and sharing. All workshops are open to learners of all levels, with no prior experience required. Workshops will be offered hybrid (both in person and online) in Stone Classroom (Mann 103) unless otherwise specified. Find more information and register here: bit.ly/DataDen2025

 

In addition to the data skills workshop series, there are several other workshops being offered this semester:

 

Fall 2024 Chats in the Stacks

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We’re pleased to share the schedule of our fall semester book talks! All our Chats in the Stacks book talks will be held in-person in Mann Library Room 160 and livestreamed, and will start at 4:30pm. You can find all recordings of our past Chats in the Stacks on our YouTube channel. 

 

Thursday, September 26, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

The Future of India’s Social Safety Nets: Focus, Form, and Scope

An array of social welfare programs have emerged in independent India, but how and for whom have these programs been constructed, what have their impact been, and what are the key challenges for the future? Unpacking India’s social welfare programs in terms of their three essential aspects—focus (intended beneficiaries), form (transfer modalities), and scope (developmental objectives) Prabhu L. Pingali (SC Johnson College of Business) and Andaleeb Rahman (Global Development) provide a comprehensive analysis of India’s safety net, combining insights from interdisciplinary scholarship on economic development, social protection, and the social policy process. The work assesses the achievements and shortcomings of these programs, while also proposing a transferrable framework that can help foster human resilience through social protection. 

 

Thursday, October 17, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

The Social Lives of Land

Understanding how people are living on, with, and from their land reveals the often-hidden dynamics of contemporary social and political change, according to Wendy Wolford, Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Global Development and vice provost for International Affairs. This topic is explored in the new publication The Social Lives of Land (Cornell University Press, 2024) which she co-edited with Michael Goldman and Nancy Lee Peluso. Wolford will discuss how The Social Lives of Land weaves together novel theoretical and empirical insights and contributions from multiple disciplines and geographic locations to uncover histories and re-tell stories that focus on the lived experiences of rural and urban land dispossession and repossession. 

 

Thursday, November 7, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

Wildlife Disease and Health in Conservation

Most existing and emerging infectious diseases have their origin in animal populations. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic the need to understand the cause and impacts of wildlife diseases, as well as how to manage them, has only become increasingly salient. Join us for a live, hybrid book talk with Robin Radcliffe, associate professor of practice in Wildlife and Conservation Medicine in the Veterinary School, and David Jessup, former senior wildlife veterinarian of the California Department of Fish and Game and former executive manager of the Wildlife Disease Association, for a discussion of their new coedited volume Wildlife Disease and Health in Conservation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023).

 

Thursday, November 21, 4:30pm

Mann Library, Room 160 and livestreamed

Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners

Thomas D. Seeley, Horace White Professor Emeritus in Biology in the Dept. of Neurobiology and Behavior, has devoted nearly six decades to the study of honey bees and their colonies. In this book talk, Seeley takes us inside a world seldom seen even by beekeepers, to illuminate mysteries of honey bee behavior including how they choose a home for their colony, keep the colony inhabitants warm, and defended the colony from intruders. Weaving personal stories with the latest science, Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners shows both the excitement of scientific discovery and how it continues to shape our understanding of these vitally important insects.