Dean of University Libraries Fall Message to Parents
Dear UMass Families,
As I write this, midterm is upon us, and the Libraries are filled with students studying, collaborating, and creating. We support your student’s success with resources and services, including a librarian for every discipline. Just as integral to the Libraries’ mission, we foster connectedness and a sense of belonging with spaces and opportunities for students to pause, recharge, and gather for fun with friends.
In late October, we host events celebrating international Open Access Week, calling for free and equitable access to scholarly research. One facet of open access is aimed at saving your student money by reducing or eliminating the cost of textbooks: the Libraries’ Open Educational Resources initiative has saved millions of dollars for UMass families already.
Furthering Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) is one of the library’s major goals this year. This semester, we worked with campus partners to host a dance class celebrating LatinX Heritage Month, and we purchased Powerlands, a film about the displacement of indigenous people and the environmental damage caused by chemical companies. This film was made by Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a young Navajo artist, and we will be welcoming them to campus in November for a screening and conversation with students. We are also convening a task force comprised of library staff to curate a selection of ebook titles related to JEDI that will be available to all members of our community who wish to engage further with this vital effort.
When the library is this busy, we especially appreciate our incredible student workers. We are the second largest employer of students on campus, and they perform a wide variety of jobs from technical services (helping keep hundreds of library computers up and running) to handling and scanning for digitization historical documents in Special Collections and University Archives. We take our role as mentors seriously, appreciating that students build valuable skills on the job as well as in the classroom.
Additional opportunities for anyone in our community to build skills and knowledge are offered through the Libraries’ Workshop Series. Librarians and staff teach free classes online and in person on topics ranging from writing computer code and building websites to plant chromatography and sonnets.
Wishing you a happy and productive fall,
Nandita S. Mani
Dean of University Libraries
This semester, the Libraries’ are piloting a space we are co-creating with students on floor two of the W. E. B. Du Bois Library to foster connecting and a sense of belonging. Puzzles, games, craft supplies, and movable chairs and tables are always available, and on Thursday nights the Libraries’ Outreach Series features events open to all such as bingo, earring-making, and open mic .