We’re thrilled to welcome Andrew Denny, ’23 to the team! As the college’s new AI Innovation Fellow, Andrew will help to demystify Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and foster critical engagement with AI for pedagogy, research, and other academic endeavors. Working with partners in Technology & Innovation and the Library, he will proactively support faculty who are involved in the college’s AI Innovation Initiative.

Andrew is a 2023 graduate of Davidson College. While he calls Williamsburg, Virginia his home, he has also lived in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Japan, and most recently, Taiwan. During his freshman year at Davidson, Andrew was initially undecided about his academic path. However, the liberal arts curriculum allowed him to explore a broad range of subjects, ultimately leading him to discover a passion for both Computer Science and Chinese Studies. This unique combination sparked his curiosity about the intersection between computers and language, particularly how computers can comprehend and produce human language. Andrew’s growing interest in this field has brought him back to Davidson as the AI Innovation Fellow.

Outside of work, Andrew enjoys running and watching sports. He is an avid supporter of Arsenal Football Club and can often be found watching their matches on the weekends. During the work week, you can find Andrew in the library’s Scholars Studio or over at T&I on Main Street. If you see him, please take a moment to welcome him back to campus!

Michael is a 2024 graduate of Davidson College from Atlanta, Georgia. An English major with a focus on creative-nonfiction, Michael’s writing focuses on his experience in the Asian diaspora, which has left him fascinated with language’s ability to obscure and redefine. Combined with his time serving as a co-chair of Davidson’s Student Initiative for Academic Diversity (SIAD), Michael’s work led him to take on the Library Studio Fellow position where he helps to supervise the student Library Consultants and Research Assistants. Michael also assists in the continual development of training content for the student program to help further develop roles for the future. Aside from work, Michael can almost always be found listening to music and is an avid runner, camper, and photographer.

Nasir, who is originally from Miami, FL, graduated from Davidson College in May ’24 with a B.A. in Sociology. On campus, he was a Bonner Scholar, Resident Advisor, and President of the Tau Omicron Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. At the end of his senior year, he was awarded the Agnes Sentelle Brown Award at Spring 2024 Convocation, a Leadership in Service Award at Davidson College’s annual Celebration of Service, and a Visionary Award at the Black Student Coalition’s Excellence of Onyx: Black Senior Achievement. Some of Nasir’s favorite memories from his senior year include the time he spent with his “Little”, Cadence, at Cornelius Elementary, planning and hosting a free book fair at the Ada Jenkins Center that celebrated Black authors and Black youth literature; playing a solo Djembe piece titled “Djembe Djam” at the Celebration of Service; and composing staple Djembe rhythms to be used during Harambee, a morning session in which scholars sing and cheer to get excited for a day of learning at the Brenda H. Tapia Children Defense Fund Freedom Schools.

Davidson friends, stop by the library’s Scholars Studio and say hello to our wonderful new colleagues. We’re so glad you’ve joined us, Michael and Nas!

The library’s Misinformation Guide, created by Sam Abukhadra 23′ and Professor Jon Heggestad, offers a collection of podcasts, videos, articles, documentaries, and peer-reviewed texts to inform learners about misinformation and illustrate its monumental importance in the world today. 

Davidson College’s Office for Civic Engagement has listed a full semester of Engaging in Democracy events. Check out their Engaging in Democracy webpage with resources for voting, advocacy, and issue awareness.

As always, the library offers reliable news resources and books to help you stay informed. If you need help locating or accessing these resources, please stop by the Information Desk!

This semester, we will offer 20 in-person workshops and one asynchronous online workshop. All in-person workshops will be recorded and uploaded to our landing page the following day for students who cannot attend either of the two dates offered. Registration is required for in-person attendance. Students may register for individual workshops at https://davidson.libcal.com/calendar/events.

To help support this new initiative, we ask that Davidson faculty consider:

• Including the workshop dates and titles in course syllabi
• Encourage students to attend or view the recordings
• Integrate these workshops into your course assignments or offering extra credit for attendance

Please e-mail coursesupport@davidson.edu with any questions!

Kelsey Nation comes to us from Forsyth Technical Community College where she most recently served as Library Technical Services Specialist. With over eight years of experience in library services, Kelsey has excelled in roles that include cataloging, interlibrary loan, circulation, shelf reading, and community programming. Before her current position, she worked as a Library Technician at Forsyth and a Library Associate at the City of Greensboro’s Benjamin Branch Library, where she led adult programming and facilitated literary workshops. Kelsey holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is pursuing a Master of Education in Academic Librarianship from East Carolina University. Her commitment to community engagement is further reflected in her volunteer work, including facilitating the Bards Unbound Poetry Workshop and participating in literary festivals.

We’re so excited to have Kelsey on board! You can find Kelsey back in the ILL area of the library. Stop by and say hello (and share a favorite poem if you have one!) the next time you are on campus.

Our new Digital Humanities Librarian, Leah Duncan, will join us from Louisiana State University Library’s Special Collections, where she served as Digital Engagement and Educational Services Librarian. Leah, who also holds a PhD in English, was recently awarded LSU’s Early Career Librarian Award, which “recognizes an LSU Libraries faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional accomplishment in the LSU Libraries through initiative, creativity, and the ability to make a significant contribution to the Libraries.” Highlights from Leah’s tenure include serving as the Chair of the Louisiana Digital Consortium and as the co-editor of the Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship.

Emily Sartorius Murphy will join us as Davidson’s new Media Creation and Curation Librarian. Most recently, Emily served as Texas A&M Corpus Christi’s I-Know Instructional Design Librarian, where she spearheaded her library’s digital information literacy quality enhancement program (the I-Know program). Emily, who holds a teaching degree from Grand Valley State University and her MLIS from University of Michigan, demonstrates a commitment to using technology and information literacy to amplify marginalized voices and lower barriers to access. Emily brings a wealth of experience in creating asynchronous content and assessment–especially video–that will immediately contribute to the library’s teaching and learning initiatives.

Leah and Emily are joining the library at an exciting time in our history as we enter into our Library Transformation project. You’ll find our talented new colleagues in the library beginning May 20, 2024. We hope you’ll stop by and say hello!

Course Support: Meet with the course support team to discuss course design, teaching with technology, incorporating archival and special collections into course projects, or integrating information and digital literacy objectives into courses. 

• Please contact coursesupport@davidson.edu as soon as possible if you are planning on assigning a digital or research project. It’s never too early!

• A new version of Moodle was released in June. Need help navigating the changes? Sign up for a Moodle session with instructional designer Holly White. You can also direct your Moodle questions to coursesupport@davidson.edu.  

• For an overview of how the library can support your teaching and research needs, refer to our faculty services page.

• Students can request support for library research or digital project work via https://davidson.libguides.com/research-assistance. You can also request that the library team provide group instruction to your classes via coursesupport@davidson.edu. 

• If you plan to have your students use archival or rare book collections for the fall semester, please complete the Archives & Special Collections Course Collaboration Form by September 12. 

• Multimedia equipment (such as cameras, tripods, and microphones) is available for checkout to students for class and independent projects. Contact coursesupport@davidson.edu with any questions.  

Please consider including information about library services and resources in your syllabus:

Research and Digital Project Assistance: Set up an appointment with an expert to get help with research and digital tools: https://davidson.libguides.com/research-assistance. 

Library Resources: Search the library catalog https://www.davidson.edu/library to find items in the library’s collection. Visit the research guides https://davidson.libguides.com/ to find subject specific resources. Questions? Contact library@davidson.edu. 

Course Materials: The library will continue to prioritize digital course materials as part of our course reserves service. When possible, we will secure digital access to course materials, acquire eBooks, provide video digitization support, and provide portions of works (e.g. book chapters).

More information can be found on the Electronic Course Resource Support page. If you are interested in using Leganto to assemble reading lists for your course, you can visit the Leganto: Reading Lists guide or contact coursesupport@davidson.edu for assistance. Requests for physical reserves or questions about our course reserves service can be directed to Jason Radcliffe (jaradcliffe@davidson.edu). 

Media Digitization Requests: If you have any films that are required for your course that need to be digitized, please visit the Digitizing Video Request page of the “How To Find Videos” guide. Faculty can now initiate a digitization request by locating a DVD in the catalog, signing in, and selecting the “Digitization” option. 

Please contact Jason Radcliffe (jaradcliffe@davidson.edu) with any questions about the process. If you are unable to locate a media title in our collections (streaming or DVD), please submit a purchase request using the Library Materials Request Form.

Interlibrary Loan: ILL provides delivery of both physical and digital resources from libraries around the world. Articles and chapters are provided digitally and quickly. ILL often saves time by providing digitization of scholarly material–whether located in Davidson College Library or elsewhere–delivered via email.  Requested physical items will be made available for pickup at the front desk. Please contact Joe Gutekanst (ill@davidson.edu) with any questions.

Request & Pick-Up: If you would like to request an item for pickup from the library stacks, use the “Request this item” link in the library catalog and log on to ILLiad to make requests. Items are retrieved and made available for pickup at the front desk. Chapters and articles are scanned and sent via email. Please contact Joe Gutekanst (ill@davidson.ed ) with any questions.

Faculty Resource Fair and Happy Hour:  

Join us for the library’s first annual Faculty Resource Fair (and reception) on Tuesday, August 22 between the hours of 1:00 and 5:00 PM. Featuring a mix of programming from teaching & learning partners across campus—stop by to learn what’s new, get what you need for your fall courses, and connect with colleagues…and don’t miss the wine and cheese reception at 4:00 PM! Participating Centers include: Center for Civic Engagement, Center for Teaching and Learning, Davidson Arts & Creative Engagement, Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, E.H. Little Library, Hurt Hub and T&I. Full schedule is forthcoming. 

Dewey Reference Collection Review, Part II

Library staff have reviewed the remainder of the Dewey Reference collection (400-900 call no. ranges) located on the first floor of the library. As in the Spring, faculty will be invited to provide input on resources essential for teaching and research or items of interest for their personal collection. Stay tuned for an invitation and further details on upcoming collection reviews. 

See you at the library!

Melissa brings a wealth of specialized knowledge and experiences to Davidson. She is a native of western North Carolina and graduate of the MLIS program at the University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies (UA SLIS) where she received a Certificate in Archival Studies with additional concentrations in metadata, cataloging, digital libraries, and user services. She holds additional graduate degrees in American Studies (Cal State) and Liberal Arts (Emory) and has subject expertise in American history and American studies, liberal arts and interdisciplinary studies, English language and literature, composition and rhetoric, women’s and gender studies, disability studies, and health science humanities. Prior to joining Davidson, Melissa worked as the electronic resources librarian at Birmingham-Southern College (BSC). Her professional ethics focuses on comprehensive and sustainable preservation of cultural heritage, transparency and accountability in records management, the provision of meaningful long-term access, user-centered design of search and discovery tools, inclusivity in the service of social justice. Her mission is to maximize discovery of and access to library resources via existing and emergent technologies. 

The next time you’re in the library, please stop by and say hi! Melissa’s office can be found in the back area of the library, near ILL services (just ask Joe for direction). No doubt, you will also catch her out and about at campus events this fall. We’re go glad you’ve joined us, Melissa!

The library’s strategic directions are aligned with Davidson College’s purpose of assisting students in developing humane instincts and disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service. The College’s aspirations provide further guidance in living out our shared commitments to a vibrant future. Finally, the library’s values encapsulate our sustained devotion to inclusion, discovery, openness, engagement​, and stewardship​.

From the library’s current strategic directions, we’ve identified priorities that will strengthen our capacity, build on existing success, and provide a strong foundation for our future library. The following objectives, aligned with team-generated “great ideas” identified as priority projects, will guide the library’s work for FY24: 

• We will cultivate a holistic student workforce program that aligns with high-impact practices.
• We will define the library’s role in access and use of College scholarship.
• We will focus efforts to ID, digitize, and make Davidson’s unique collections more discoverable across the globe.
• We will make way for the Library of the Future!

In the coming year we will work together to intentionally and reflectively engage our collective student workforce. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As a joint team, we will help our students develop transferable skills and articulate how their experiences with us connect to the larger story of their goals at Davidson and beyond. Additionally, we will articulate the library’s relationship to college scholarship and develop a comprehensive policy that addresses the collection, promotion, and preservation of print and digital college scholarship. As part of this work, we will assess, recommend, and implement changes to systems, workflows, and procedures that demonstrate our deep commitment to making Davidson’s collections discoverable across the globe. The Library of the Future is not some distant concept. To ready ourselves for the future library, we will tackle collections projects; formulate service plans, policies, and programming; reimagine our models of service in alignment with our library of the future aspirations; and establish sustainable structures, processes, programming, and policies needed for our organizational success. When the time comes, we will be ready.

If you’re interested in hearing more about any of our projects or strategic initiatives, I’m always happy to chat about our work. Until then…have a great summer!

Please note: If you would prefer to peruse the Dewey Reference before the scheduled open hours, reach out to us. Directions and review slips are located near the Dewey Reference stacks on the first floor of the library. 

As you might recall from the Library of the Future Task Force report, one of the short-term recommendations for the library was to address the library’s 15-year history of using two classification systems. Importantly, the Dewey Reference collection has already been reviewed by faculty several years ago, and what remains was deemed in need of further evaluation. Over the past several months, librarians and archivists have been working on identifying books from this collection to be reclassified and moved to Archives and Special Collections or to our Library of Congress classified stacks; but a significant number of Dewey reference books remain for faculty review. 

Your participation in this process will guide us in our next step, which is to review the 180K Dewey volumes on the library’s second floor. A comprehensive review of these books will be a large endeavor, but a necessary one as we continue to prepare for our library of the future (it’s on the horizon)!

Photo by Jess Watters on StockSnap.