Connect: Advancing a community of learners
Accessibility and ILS
Books in Print Converted to PDF Optical Character Recognition (OCR) This project advances equity and accessibility for our users. It will provide a mechanism for students to request needed print books in PDF OCR format, creating effective and user-friendly access to these resources.
Year Approved: 2023
Framework for Evaluating Strategic Investments in Scholarly Communication
A plethora of opportunities exist for libraries to invest in scholarly communication and scholcomm-adjacent initiatives, beyond the traditional acquisition of content and technology. Opportunities include supporting efforts to make cultural heritage materials open access, investing in open infrastructure, becoming institutional members of organizations that work in these spaces, entering into transformative agreements with publishers, and more. However, the UConn Library lacks a framework for evaluating and deciding on opportunities for us to contribute to scholcomm organizations and initiatives. The evaluative framework, in the form of a short guiding document, will be posted on Confluence for the use of library staff who are making such evaluations and recommendations. Elements of the evaluative framework may be incorporated into the Library's Collection Development Policy.
Year Approved: 2022
Evolving Patterns of Undergraduate Research and Course Assignments
This study seeks to clarify the ways that undergraduate research assignments in non-W classes have evolved with the reduction or elimination of Graduate teaching assistants in recent years. The goal is to assess the impact of these changes on library use. The study will collect data on types and number of research paper and other research assignments requiring library use in non-W classes at UConn over a twenty year period. It will also track the reduction and elimination of Graduate Research assistantships over the same period, since, according to anecdotal evidence, this has resulted in a diminution of paper assignments due to the disappearance of the grading work force. It will consult the syllabi of departments that post them, the ref chat statistics from 2010 which are keyword searchable and may reveal which questions are related to research assignments, the RIO statistics, and will tabulate the numbers of W courses over the same period. Interviews with faculty will be conducted to augment the data with qualitative research. Along with a review of the related scholarly literature in the fields of Higher Education and Library and Information Science.
Year Approved: 2020
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Collections
This project seeks to form a working group to develop guiding principles for fostering inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) in UConn Library collections. The working group will develop a set of guiding principles for fostering inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in the Library’s collections, gathering information and feedback through research, conversation with Library staff, and consultation with campus partners. These principles will help inform future collecting activities, collection development policy revisions, and engagement with Library collections stakeholders, including faculty, students, researchers, and donors.
Year Approved: 2020
Looking Back to Look Ahead: Examining The Impact of the Pandemic
This project aims to collate qualitative data on our library staff’s experience of the pandemic, specifically as it affected the functions/services we support for both internal and external stakeholders. We have already been creating comparative quantitative pictures of “before” and “during” the pandemic, but this project’s aim is to add staff reflection to those data pictures. The bulk of this work will be accomplished through a range of Conversations to be held (in person!) this fall at all UConn campuses, including the Health Services Library. Through these conversations, we hope to explore how the pandemic affected our services, what changes have or will become permanent, and how we envision this experience impacting library services in the less immediate future.
Year Approved: 2021
Scholarly Communications Environmental Scan
This project is aimed at undertaking an environmental scan of Scholarly Communication work accomplished mainly within the last 3-5 years. By interviewing members of the Scholarly Communication Coordinating Group, I plan to compile the goals and accomplishments of the SCCG, trace work done in OA and OER, and outline future projects. This project will result in an informal White Paper that will also include possible milestones for the future of work in Scholarly Communication at UConn, as well as a virtual presentation on the findings. After the initial focus on Scholarly Communication work at UConn, this project may expand to include an environmental scan of peer and aspirant institutions.
Year Approved: 2020
Wellness Library Collection
The Wellness Library team will develop an ebook collection with titles on self-care topics, such as yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and health awareness.
Year Approved: 2020
Empower: Investing in ourselves and sharing our expertise
Library Connections
We are advancing a culture of exploration, assessment and reflection by providing opportunities for staff to learn about other units in the library in order to find areas of collaboration and support. Library Connections is a 4-year voluntary program for library units to offer an open house to share the work they are doing and open opportunities for partnering.
Year Approved: 2024
Liberated Zine Zone
The Liberated Zine Zone establishes a circulating Zine Collection in the Leisure Reading room in Babbidge Library. By creating a circulating zine collection that will work in collaboration with the Maker Studio and Archives & Special Collections, we will create a participatory collection that showcases a format that features voices not often found in traditional library materials in a fun, visible, and easily marketable way.
Year Approved: 2022
Student Employee Appreciation Week Extravaganza!
This project worked with student supervisors and staff across all UConn Library branches to coordinate an awesome week of giveaways and appreciation for our student employees in April and subsequently assessed the impact and feasibility of continuing yearly coordinated appreciation programs.
Year Approved: 2022
Coffee Connections
This project is a small step in facilitating coworkers' connections, allowing our Library community to engage in one-to-one, short, and meaningful interactions. It aims to strengthen ties (and establish new ones) between Library colleagues. To promote better communication between individuals, participants can use a set of teambuilding questions to help colleagues discover new things about one another that can deepen trust based on emotional bond and interpersonal relatedness. We can expect increased employee engagement and channels of communication, with half of our Library staff participate in this project.
Year Approved: 2020
Creating a Communications Culture
Great communication is a piece of the organizational foundation required for the Library to succeed. It benefits the organization by increasing productivity and efficiency, builds stronger teams and collaborations, and fosters innovation and creativity. Healthy communications are also good for us as individuals, not just in engaging us, but giving us a voice. Ensuring we have a positive culture of communications is critical to creating equity and belonging for everyone.
Year Approved: 2020
Video Services Pilot
This workgroup will leverage skills and resources across the Library to produce videos that can be used to reach our community. Through hands-on work in the production of three videos, this workgroup expects to have two deliverables - the development of a workflow and a recommendation for the resources the Library will need to increase efficiency in video production. If the project is a success, the workgroup will announce the service and preferred workflows to Library staff.
Year Approved: 2020
Grant Writing, Support, and Locating Funding Opportunities Working Group
This working group will investigate three topics related to library grant writing and funding: Grant writing, UConn grant support, and locating funding opportunities. Information about all three topics will be shared with the library staff to aid in professional development and enhancement of library services, empowering staff to pursue new projects.
Year Approved: 2020
Engage: Evolving our role at UConn and beyond
Avery Point Library of Things
The Avery Point library will develop a Library of Things specific for students’ on campus use to increase use of outdoor spaces on the Avery Point campus for enjoyment and stress relief by providing access to free, shared outdoor equipment and games maintained by the library. A Library of Things is a collection of non-book objects, often high-priced or infrequently used, that are stored and loaned out from the library. By providing access to a collection of outdoor equipment and games, we enable and provide incentive for the students to engage with the campus, nature, and each other.
Year Approved: 2024
Library Connections at the Hartford Campus
Our goal is to become an active partner in student success by increasing accessibility and meeting community needs through a more inclusive and welcoming library. A multi-pronged approach with Library pop-up events that highlight the library’s diverse collections and services, including Latinx Heritage Month, LGBTQ+ History Month, Native American History Month, Universal Human Rights Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Arab American History Month, Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Library Signature events including a Halloween information literacy contest with students learning about and demonstrating information literacy skills through a series of guided exercises and a Blind Date with a Book to highlight and encourage leisure reading. Collaboration with campus and community through supporting the Big Read grant for Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and the Fresh Check Day and Exam De-Stressing, expanding our partnership with Hartford’s SHaW staff to highlight the library’s VR/AR technology and how it can be leveraged for meditation and mindfulness in support of student success.
Year Approved: 2023
Puerto Rican and Connecticut Historical Documents Transcription Project
The Puerto Rican and Connecticut Historical Documents Transcription Project working group would make some of the significant digital collections and important state documents held by the UConn Library and in the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA) more accessible for students, faculty, and researchers. It would compare the use of two approaches to make digitized hand-written documents more accessible by testing a crowd-sourced platform called FromThePage against Ocelus, a Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) automated process developed by the French company Teklia.
Year Approved: 2023
2023 Black History Month Program Series
This project seeks to develop, plan, and facilitate a Black History Month outreach series on the theme of Black Resistance, established by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). This innovative project will engage members of the UConn and Connecticut communities through the application of Library staff expertise and interdisciplinary resources to advance cultural exchange and equitable learning.
Year Approved: 2023
Evaluating and Re-envisioning Student Employment through an LTE Lens
This project collaborates with key partners to evaluate and design a framework to re-envision the student employment program at the UConn Library through the lens of UConn's Life Transformative Education initiative. This project will evaluate spaces for transformation and growth within our student employment programs, relying on shared knowledge, inquiry, and collaboration throughout the process. The project team is committed to developing new initiatives and supporting student success building upon existing and forging new campus relationships.
Year Approved: 2022
Building a Collection on Small Businesses in Connecticut
This project will gather, preserve and make accessible marketing and other original resources from active small businesses in Connecticut. The collection will include documents that illustrate the establishment and growth of small businesses based in Connecticut, to serve as examples of how modern small businesses in Connecticut originated and evolved, and to inform and educate future entrepreneurs and scholars on the successes, and even failures, of these endeavors. While the primary goal is to serve as a resource principally for students and faculty in UConn’s School of Business, the documents will be available in the Connecticut Digital Archive as a resource for anyone interested in Connecticut’s economic, manufacturing and cultural interests, and as a resource to draw small businesses to the state and to support their economic growth.
Year Approved: 2020
3D Data Acquisition, Visualization, and Archiving of Selected Lithics
This interdisciplinary, cross-campus working group is made up of faculty from the Anthropology Department, and staff from the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, Office of the State Archaeologist, and the UConn Library. Its goal is to run 10 - 20 stone artifacts from the State Museum's Caldwell Collection through a newly developed, highly refined 3D digitization workflow that will produce 3D assets for eventual online classroom use by members of the Anthropology Dept. and archaeology educators and scholars at large.
Year Approved: 2020