Collins Library Updates for Summer and Fall
Dear Faculty:
Collins Library staff hope your summer is off to a good start! We want to update you on just a few library-related matters:
Summer:
We will continue most of our current COVID-19 practices during the summer. Library stacks will remain closed, but we will continue to offer the hold/pick up and digitization services. Librarians remain available for virtual research consultations and also can be reached via email. However, we have made a few changes:
- We are no longer requiring seat reservations for individual study on the first floor; instead, students, faculty or staff can simply find an individual study spot.
- To accommodate students who are on campus during the summer term, we are open seven days a week, including until 8:00 pm on Mondays and Thursdays, and both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The library homepage always provides information on current hours.
- All aspects of interlibrary loan borrowing have resumed, including, when necessary, requesting loans of physical materials from libraries outside the United States.
- We are pleased to announce a New Service! OCR for Canvas is a collaborative effort between departmental administrative assistants, Collins Library, Student Accessibility and Accommodation, and faculty, to ensure the accessibility of course readings made available to our students via Canvas. Please refer to this guide for more information and a link to the request form: https://research.pugetsound.edu/OCR_for_Canvas.
Looking ahead to the Fall:
- We anticipate, with no small measure of excitement, that in early August we will re-open our stacks on all floors. The majority of our staff will also be back on campus, too.
- Reserves: We encourage you to integrate electronic full text resources, when available, and/or scanned portions of our print collection (using the new OCR for Canvas service) into your Canvas pages for classes. However, we will offer a limited print reserves option for materials that cannot be accommodated in that way. We will be transitioning to an open reserves system, where students may browse print materials placed on reserve by their professors without first needing to go to the Circulation Desk. Libraries that have implemented open reserves report that more students actually use the materials on reserve when there is less of a barrier to accessing them. Please look for more specific information later in the summer.
- We will continue to offer the new services we created in response to the circumstances of the pandemic. When you or your students need a book, you’ll be able to retrieve it yourself in the stacks or simply place a hold on it and we’ll retrieve it and check it out to you for pickup. Similarly, you and your students may continue to request digitization of portions of the print collection. (Please note that this service is intended to support personal research. If you need materials digitized for posting on Canvas, please use the new OCR for Canvas service.)
- Teaching and Learning: Librarians are eager to continue collaborating with you to offer course-integrated information literacy instruction. However, if you are interested in including an Archives & Special Collections session in the fall, please reach out to your liaison librarian as soon as possible. Due to space limitations, and review of our collections, as well as our desire to reduce wear and tear to some of our primary source materials, we encourage the use of digitized primary sources, when available, and would like to work with you to develop new approaches to your classes.
- Media: We will be moving forward with de-accessioning our VHS tape collection, as the obsolete technology has made the materials inaccessible to our students.
Need Information? Don’t forget the Collins Memorial Library – Library Guides
Questions? Contact your liaison librarian
Comments: Contact Jane Carlin, library director
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