The summer is certainly upon us and I know that many of you are taking much needed time off this month but there are a few things I wanted to let you know about this week.

Health Library

We have been working throughout the last few months to begin to better integrate with our colleagues in the Health Library and we are starting to see some wonderful returns already. They hosted our last VPC meeting in Farmington and I know many of you had a chance to either attend or tune in. If you didn’t there were several presentations by staff on some of the programs they are working on and I found it very informative and quite interesting.

We learned about the Hartford Medical Society Historical Library (Powerpoint) which included a tour of eclectic ephemera such as glass eyeballs as well as a rich collection of resources about the evolution of medicine in Connecticut. We also learned more about the health information kiosk for patient education being coordinated out of HealthNet, the consumer health service offered by the library to the public. (Powerpoint) Related to this, just today Janice forwarded me the UConn Health online newsletter, The Pulse and this project was highlighted there. The Research and Information Services librarians are also integrated into the New Curriculum initiative focused on Team Based Learning and are creating targeted resources for this new direction in teaching.

Thank you to all of the staff from all locations who joined the meeting and especially to our hosts for the day – we appreciated the warm welcome (and the food too!) We also continue to work on the branding for the UConn Library as a system, with particular interest in how to brand the Health Library to best reflect its specialized function within the One Library and UConn Health.

The day following VPC Janice and I traveled to the UMass Medical School in Worcester to visit with Elaine Martin, the Director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) New England Region for which UMass is contracted through the National Library of Medicine. The NN/LM serves to improve public health by providing health care providers with access to biomedical information. One of their major goals is to improve access to this kind of information through outreach, funding, and training. This is an opportunity for the UConn Library to not only re-engage with the organization but also see the changes happening to the UMass Medical Library, which is quickly becoming primarily electronic and working to repurpose its spaces.

It is also with pleasure I announce that Jason Nicosia has accepted the position of Instructional Design Specialist. He will begin on July 22nd and will be located at the Stowe Library. Jason’s considerable background in Blackboard, 3D printers, and instructional software, and his relationship with faculty and students will make an important contribution to the development of new library services.

Purposeful Path Forward & Goal Setting

As promised in my last Mashup, Vice Provost Council reviewed the Purposeful Path Forward and the progress we made last year. Many of these accomplishments were outlined in the June Mashup which can be found here. Last year’s work had a common theme, which was a re-imagining of the library and how we see ourselves in the future. This year is about engaging that plan in meaningful ways. As you know the Path is ambitious, and we understand that there needs to be a balance with our resources to keep us on track and working in concert with one another. This year,VPC has agreed that the area, unit, and personal goals should relate to the following three strategic areas of emphasis:

Master Plan

Last year there was significant progress made in creating the plan for the actual facility changes that will take place in Homer Babbidge over the next few years. In the coming year we need to focus on programming what happens inside those spaces. We are asking staff to develop the partnerships, define the services, and utilize the renovations to support the vision of our Purposeful Path.

Public Presence/Promotion

What we do and how we present ourselves is important. From providing excellent customer service, to making our resources and services more discoverable, to adapting our services and programs in new and innovative ways, and sharing our vision with others helps tell the story of the UConn Library.

Integration of UConn Health in the One UConn Library

As I mentioned above, we have made great strides already in working with our colleagues in Farmington and in the coming year we need to realize more of the recommendations found in the One UConn Library report. These activities include the creation of functional teams, coordinated hiring, improved communication, and developing new and innovative ways to better serve all of our communities.

These themes are meant as an overview to start the conversation with your areas and units as you continue to develop your goals. I encourage you to keep an eye on the big picture. All contributions – seemingly big and small – move us successfully along the Path we have set for ourselves and our patrons.

A reminder that area and unit goals are due on July 15th and individual goals are due on August 1st.

Master Plan Space Programming

Antoneta has begun a series of focus groups designed to help us begin the process of programming the activities and services that will occupy the spaces in a renovated HBL. This started last week when a group gathered to talk about what we are calling the tech floor, which is our current Level 1. The attendees for the focus groups include a targeted invitation to stakeholders which includes library staff and other campus departments. The first meeting was in regards to classroom/seminar space needs for both the library and the campus. These focus groups will continue over the summer and extend into fall when we can incorporate feedback from students and faculty as well.

Vice Provost Council/Martha’s Mashup

A reminder that my Mashup is next Wednesday, June 8th at 1:00 in the Class of ’47. It will be an opportunity for me to share with you all of the work we did last year. This means that the VPC meeting next week will be cancelled. The next VPC meeting will be at UConn Health on June 23rd. If you are able to make the trip that would be great, but we will also be providing a stream of the meeting.

Staffing News

Chenwei Zhao will be moving from her current unit of Licensing & Acquisitions to Metadata & Discovery Services. This change is being made as a reflection of the nature of Chenwei’s work in the context of the recently re-organized Collections & Discovery area. This will likely include a change in the physical location of her work station in the coming weeks.

Search Committees

We have several search committees forming to begin filling the positions that were recently approved by the Provost. They include:

Head of Licensing & Acquisitions
Richard Bleiler, Patrick Carr, Hilda Drabek, Merlita Murphy (chair), Elisabeth Umpleby, Hongjie Wang

Head of Metadata & Discovery
Patrick Carr, Janice Christopher, Darcy Kirk, Janice Swiatek (chair), Joelle Thomas

Digital Scholarship & Repository Analyst
Greg Colati (chair), Jennifer Eustis, Michael Howser, Doug Neary, Joel Salisbury (DMD Faculty), Sara Sikes

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Librarian/Specialist
Joel Atkinson, Valori Banfi, Steve Batt, Jill Livingston (chair), Jennifer Snow

And thank you to the search committee for the Financial Services Assistant – Hilda Drabek, Khara Leon (chair), and Bob Swanson. They worked quickly and diligently to recommend a candidate and I expect an announcement on the results shortly.

ELUNA Roundtable

Several library staff members from Storrs, Health and Law campuses attended the ELUNA  (Ex Libris Users of North America) conference last month in Oklahoma City and learned a lot about how to optimize Alma/Primo for our users so we will be hosting a roundtable discussion to share with anyone interested. It will be Wednesday, June 15th from 2-3pm in the HBL Administrative Conference Room. We will be sending out a Skype link separately.

BLC Board Retreat

At the BLC Board Retreat next week I will officially become the next President, representing the 17 academic libraries and research libraries in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. I am excited to continue the important projects that BLC is involved in, particularly those that benefit our library such as the EAST project. I also am looking forward to focusing on my own theme for BLC, which is workforce development. I believe the need to build and develop staff with the right skills in a time of significant transformation within libraries is an issue facing all of us. The first step BLC will be making in this area will happen in parallel with the retreat, with a concurrent workshop for AULs within BLC libraries on this very topic. DeEtta Jones, nationally known author and strategist, will be leading that retreat and Holly will be representing UConn. BLC will receive a report and recommendations from this workshop to start our action plan.

2016 Book Fair

Many of you may have seen the announcement from the Book Fair Committee last week regarding the upcoming 2016 Fair. Due to the transition from the UConn Co-op to Barnes and Noble, we have opted to postpone the Fair this fall and instead look towards hosting the 25th Anniversary event in the spring. We will keep you posted as that progresses but you can see the full announcement here.

ALADN 2016

This Thursday through Saturday Jean and I will be attending the 2016 ALADN (Academic Library Advancement and Development Network) Conference. Hosted by our colleagues at UMass Amherst and sponsored by BLC, the conference will gather professionals in academic library fundraising from across North America to share innovations, best practices, and organizational successes related to fundraising for libraries, including communication and marketing strategies. Jean has represented UConn on the planning committee, chairing the pre-conference program on Thursday titled “Mastering Library Fundraising and Communications – A Fail-proof Plan.”

Vice Provost Council

The VPC meeting scheduled for May 25th has been cancelled. Please hold June 8th at 1:00 for my next Mashup.

Staffing Notes

Congratulations to Jennifer Eustis and Stan Huzarewicz for their recent promotions. Jennifer was promoted to University Librarian III and Stan to University Librarian II. You are invited to celebrate their achievements at a reception in the HBL staff lounge on Wednesday, May 25th from 9-9:30am. You have also heard that Galadriel Chilton will be leaving the UConn Libraries for a new position as the Ivy Plus Director of Collections Initiatives at Yale University. Please join us in wishing her well on Friday, May 27th from 10-11am in the Garden Level/Level B of HBL.

Library Statement on Piracy

The Scholarly Communications Team has responded to the continuing discussion of piracy and copyright law violations through a formal statement against these practices. Many of you are following this conversation closely, highlighted recently by the Sci-Hub website which has been named the world’s largest site for pirated academic papers. The statement, which you can read in its entirety here encourages the use of Open Educational Resources and other new publishing models as a way to transform the landscape. It also offers some suggestions of how to help avoid piracy and copyright violations through protecting usernames, passwords and other login information.

Open Educational Resources

Next week I will be co-presenting a session titled “The State of Open in CT” at the eVolution and eLearning Conference at Fairfield University. I will be presenting with Kevin Corcoran, the executive director of the CT Distance Learning Consortium and co-chair of the state-wide taskforce.  And thanks to Kathy Labadorf’s continued work on our Davis Educational Foundation funded OER initiatives, we received 247 survey responses from faculty. The survey asked questions to understand their knowledge, use and attitudes on OERs. We are working to collect and present the findings so stay tuned. We have also launched a faculty incentive program, providing funding for faculty willing to read and review and open textbook or modify a course for affordability. You can find more information on the website as well as the presentation from the April 19th workshop if you were unable to attend.

Interlibrary Loan is a STAR

Congratulations to our Interlibrary Loan staff for their recent STAR award from the ALA Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee. The award is an acknowledgement of their continued efforts to rethink library resource sharing and offer excellent ILL services to our users.

Donor Visit

I had the opportunity to meet members of the American Montessori Society’s Archive Committee this week. They were in the Archives for their meeting and to help identify some of the items in the collection held here in the Library. They are a devoted group who seemed to really enjoy their time here. Thanks to Laura Smith for working so closely with them and arranging such a packed day!

A Semester Draws to a Close

As another semester comes to an end, I wanted to acknowledge and thank you for the work you have all done to help our students and faculty. For three straight days this week we have had over 35,000 people come through the doors, including 100 patrons shy of a 12,000 day. The stress of the semester, both with our patrons and our own staff, seem to be highlighted during finals weeks. Over the past few weeks I have given multiple year-end presentations where I have answered some hard questions from our community about the viability of our collections and other policy changes and I have also sensed and confirmed similar tension within our own organization. It is important during these times that we take a moment to reflect that no matter how difficult the situation or conversation is, respecting each other is the greatest priority. The push for civility on campus has been a topic for some time and was recently highlighted by the awarding of a multi-million dollar grant to the Humanities Institute to promote healthier discourse around contentious topics. So as we roll forward with the work of the library we will raise the dialogue needed to foster a collegial and productive environment.  In line with this conversation, I encourage you to attend the University’s Employee Appreciation Event. This is an effort University-wide to celebrate the staff through what has been and will continue to be difficult budget challenges. The program is Wednesday, May 11, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m and RSVPs are due today.

Vice Provost’s Council

The agenda for Wednesday’s meeting can be found here. Please remember to RSVP to Kristen if you are able to attend.

Donor Updates

Over the past month we have had an opportunity to meet with a range of donors as we continue to pursue engagement in this area. Greg, Kristin Eshelman and I gave a presentation to the American Book Collectors (ABC) organization regarding what was happening in the library and the vision for the archives. Made up of members interested in our children’s literature collection, this group has been a constant supporter for years and we look forward to their continued interest.  As many of you know from our Winter newsletter, Len Morris and his wife Georgia donated the U. Roberto Romano papers to the archives last fall. Len was on campus for the film screening of “The Same Heart” which he worked on with Romano before his passing. I was quite touched throughout the documentary and how he was able to frame his experiences in filming such a heart wrenching topic. And just last week Holly and Jean had the opportunity to meet with Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice William Robinson III while he was on campus. Justice Robinson has been a supporter of the Libraries and CLAS for many years and during this visit we had the opportunity to talk about libraries with him and gave him a quick tour.

Copyright & Fair Use Committee

The committee has firmed up our purpose and mission and have begun to get to work on our next steps. One of those steps of note is the committee has agreed to use our ereserves migration as a use case in the process faculty will use to determine fair use. More information about how our ereserves migration will progress is on the upcoming VPC agenda.

Financial News

Last week we were prepped and ready to go forward with a request for a student fee when the President pulled all new and increase fee requests going to the Board of Trustees. In my meeting last week with the Provost, he made a commitment to work with the Library and the Chief Financial Officer to find financial support in lieu of those fees. During that meeting we also got some great news from the Provost, who reviewed our staffing plan and approved the moving forward of 7 newly created positions which means we can begin the submittal process to have them vetted through Human Resources and the President’s Office. These positions are a blend of work that addresses key areas in our existing services and the promotion of strategic initiatives to keep us moving forward. There were others that were on our staffing plan that were not approved but rather sent back to gather more information. I will provide more information on all of these positions and what our plan is in moving forward soon.

Provost’s Library Advisory Committee

Last week was the yearly annual review from PLAC to the Provost. The review reminded me of the many ways that they have supported the Library this year including weighing in on the Master Plan, advocating for funding collections, approving our collections review, and joining in our work with open educational resources. They have been engaged advocates for the library, asking the Provost the difficult questions about the University’s budget and how he will support the libraries. I would like to thank all the members of PLAC, particularly the chair, Maureen Croteau for all of their work on behalf of the library. Next up in a few weeks will be a condensed version of that presentation to the University Senate on May 2. I will also be hosting a Mashup after the end of the semester in May to show highlights of these presentations as well as a discussion of the challenges we face next year and our goal setting priorities.

UConn Hartford

I am pleased to be joining Michael Howser and our colleagues at the Hartford Campus and Hartford Public Library for an official partnership signing this Thursday. This agreement between the UConn Libraries and the Hartford Public Library is the gateway to a new and exciting chapter in our future. If you did not have a chance to see Michael’s presentation from VPC a few weeks ago, the link is here.

Master Plan

As you all know, the first stages of the Master Plan will start this summer and there are many pieces to coordinate. To help keep things moving we have agreed to temporarily house staff from Planning, Architectural & Engineering Services (PAES) in Francine’s old office to provide better coordination. The staff we expect to be here throughout the summer includes Antoaneta Fedeles who is heading up the project for PAES, and her colleague Jim Libby.

Employee Appreciation/National Library Week

Coincidence that those fell together this year? If you ask me it was perfect. Thanks to those who came to my office last week for some breakfast and to those who attended the brief appreciation ceremony in VPC. I would like to share once again those folks who received longevity awards last week:

10 Years
Valori Banfi
Marsha Lee

15 Years
Stephen Bustamante
Alice Fairfield
Shelley Goldstein
Erika McNeil
Michael Slowik
Suzanne Zack

20 Years
Brian Coleman
Shelley Cudiner
Kim Giard

25 Years
Sandy Gallup
Jane Recchio
Freddie Rick

30 Years
Sheila Lafferty

We also got a surprise visit from the Jonathan’s on Friday, hoping to take a photo with staff to honor National Library Day. We grabbed as many folks as we could in the 5 minutes we had so thanks to those who ran out of their offices for us. It’s nice to know that we are appreciated by students, faculty and dogs alike.

BOT Update

Last week I attended the Board of Trustees meeting and there were several things of interest I would like to share. The first is the good news that the Board approved the move of the UConn Hartford Campus Library to the Hartford Public Library. For those of you who attended our last VPC Open Forum, you were able to get a good look at what is coming from Michael’s presentation. If you were unable to attend, a copy of it can be found here. This rather unprecedented partnership between a public and an academic library is not without it challenges nor is it without significant rewards. Our commitment, as well as that of the Hartford Public Library, isn’t to have a simple tenant relationship but to be part of the fabric of the library. We will have a distinct presence, but will be integrating our offices, reference area, and classrooms throughout the building. We will also work to share resources when possible and work together on public programs, which according to Michael they host over 300 events a year. The timeline is aggressive so the library staff will be working to hone the collections we are moving and pack them up. Construction will start in June and will end the following April. The plan is to move the library in May/June of 2017 which will be a few months before the full campus move for the Fall 2017 start.

Also in regards to another of our Regional Campus Libraries, the Board of Trustees heard impassioned pleas from members of the Torrington community to keep the campus open. Guests included the current and former Mayors. The Academic Affairs Committee outlined their data which included decreased enrollment, low graduate rates, difficulty in recruitment despite efforts, and a general loss of the population in the area. The Committee agreed to bring this to the full Board for a vote at the next meeting.

Finally, the Board discussed the process and progress for a new campus bookstore. Both finalists will be bringing in millions of much needed new revenue to the University and the Provost has earmarked those funds to student services and scholarships. The University is currently in confidential negotiations and they did indicate that the discussion includes the desire for strong community outreach (a minimum of 100 events a year), new technologies, and contractual controls on textbook affordability for students. We should hear the recommendation in the next few weeks.

Master Plan Update

Thanks to Holly for giving an update on the Master Plan at last weeks Open Forum. If you missed it the presentation is here. Things are in fact moving fast, as we have been given $1 million in capital funding to use by the end of the year. We will begin work on a few areas this summer:

• Upgrading the electrical compact shelving and adding new manual shelving on Level A. This is already in process and will result in the addition of approximately 50,000 linear feet of shelving.

• The Humanities Institute will be moving to the new 5th Floor.

• The Scholarly Design Studio (Scholars’ Collaborative) will be moving to the space recently vacated by the Roper Center.

• Upgrading the lobby furniture and North Entrance (old Newsstand).

There are also some staffing moves:

• The Q,W, & L Centers will move up to the new 4th Floor.

• HuskyTech will be relocating next to ITS on the newly named 2nd Floor.

• Library staff will be consolidated on the 2nd Floor.

We will be working quickly to get plans and time tables and will communicate frequently. For the public we will utilize our social media accounts as well as revive the Babbidge Building Blog. I will also be updating you here in Martha’s Message as well as regular email communications. From what I understand there was some suggestions about the process for renaming the floors and I thank you for those. We will put that into the mix for changing this summer.

Coalition for Networked Information

For the beginning of this week I am attending the CNI Conference. This is always a plethora of briefings from libraries such as ours doing cutting edge work and using or developing new technologies. It is a great opportunity for getting ideas, networking, and building relationships. Some of the highlights I see of interest include starting a textbook revolution, scaling maker spaces, and transforming online reference.

VPC Open Forum

The agenda for the next Open Forum on March 30 is here.

Master Plan Moving Ahead!

All of the work we have done to prepare for the Master Plan is about to pay off! The first piece of funding for the Plan has been earmarked for spending now. One million in capital improvements money has been allocated by the Provost to be used to purchase new compact shelving for Level A, some new furniture for our patrons, improvements to the Fairfield entrance and some staff moves. These funds are in addition to those coming from other sources to move the Humanities Institute and other partner spaces. This aggressive plan will begin immediately as we have until the end of the fiscal year to spend the funds. We are working on the accelerated time plan between now and the end of summer, as well as a proposed three year plan. This will all be reviewed at Wednesday’s Open Forum.

UConn Health Library Open Meeting

I have made a commitment to visiting the UConn Health Library once a month to have a series of open meetings and to meet with staff and others in that community that work closely with the Library. Last week Jill Livingston joined me to give a review of the re-envisioning of the library liaison program. The staff were very engaged, and shared interesting information and perspectives. In addition, Janice and I met with the Deans of Medicine and Dentistry to discuss budgeting, staffing and the fiscal situation in general. I am looking forward to continuing to learn and share ideas.

Happy Spring

The start of Spring also signals the coming end of the semester and a busy time for students and staff. There are RAA’s Annual Reviews, programs, and an increase in usage by our patrons. This week marks the start of our MakerSpace with the opening of the 3D printing services. Please stretch your legs and take a little walk from your office across the plaza (in both directions) to check out the wonderful exhibits on display. The Archives is hosting two exhibits –Seeing Comes Before Words: Artists’ Use of the Male Nude, inspired by the collection of Roger Crossgrove, and Woman a Machine: Gender, Automation, and Created Beings featuring a variety of materials sourced from Archives. Here in Babbidge we have three exhibits in place – on the Plaza is Cuban Bricolage, an exhibit from our collection of artists’ books from the fine press publishing house Ediciones Vigía in Cuba and in the galleries you’ll find mythical storytelling with Astromythos: The Mythical World of Jon Sideriadis and some CT union history in Our Community at Winchester: An Elm City Story in the Stevens Gallery.

And thank you to our essential services crew, who thankfully were not called into action too much this Winter, but did ensure that Homer Babbidge was open and available when the University was closed. This past Monday that staff included Dave, Brian, Barbara and Cait, one of our iDesk students. Hopefully this is the last time this season they will be called to service!!

Operational Equipment Requests

VPC has gone through all of the operational equipment requests from staff so if you had put something in for consideration your AUL or unit head will be in touch as to its status.

BLC Update

The BLC Board Meeting, held in our staff lounge last week, was a nice way to get our peers on site. It was a productive meeting that included sharing the progress on the Rapid Development Project and EAST. Some of the early results from EAST data, which includes 16 million plus title sets across the 36 libraries has netted some interesting numbers. Of those title sets, 50% are owned by one library, 66% are owned by one or two libraries, and 39% of those circulating have no uses. This is clearly the first pass and these numbers will be further flushed out, but for those who enjoy statistics there is a goldmine of data that will be forthcoming from this project. Also during the meeting, Holly and Dorothy Meaney from Tufts reported on the new AUL Workforce Development Workgroup. The workgroup is an effort among AULs across BLC libraries to create a program to address common workforce issues and capitalize on the talents distributed throughout the area. I would also encourage you to consider the next BLC Networking Day, scheduled for May 24th at Brandeis University. There are several Lightening Talks that may be of interest, including two from Greg and Galadriel. Some of the topics being discussed include the scholarly communication design studio, using scrums to create a comprehensive collection assessment framework, streaming through course management systems, visualizations using Tableau, and online research appointment calendars.

WGSS Salon Success

I am pleased to report that our first salon collaboration with the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies was a success. We will be co-hosting the second of the two in the Feminism/s & Future/s series on Wednesday, March 23rd from 12:30-2:00 in the Scholars’ Collaborative. The title is “The History of Science Fiction and Social Change” and you can find more information here.

Enjoy what remains of your St. Patrick’s Day!

VPC Open Forum

Thank you all for your time and attention this Wednesday at the Vice Provost’s Open Forum. Transitioning to a new structure and new roles will require flexibility and collegiality and in the end I believe we will be stronger and better poised to make gains in our Purposeful Path Forward. We will continue to work towards better defining our job descriptions and titles before May 1 to help further clarify roles and responsibilities. If you were unable to attend or would like to see the presentation again, it can be found on Ibis. I am also available to anyone who may have any questions.

Master Plan Update

Last night I had the pleasure of presenting the draft Master Plan to USG’s Academic Affairs Committee. They were very pleased with many of the ideas for improving the library spaces and has some suggestions that we will take back to the planners. We are working on getting the boards up and around next week for review and will also be working to get the full report with all of the data collected available in the coming weeks. There have been questions regarding the off-site preservation facility and I will keep you posted as I hear more about that proposal.

UConn/UCPEA Contract

As you all know, the contract that was approved by UConn and UCPEA is under scrutiny at the CT State Legislature. The contract was approved by UConn management and the union through a fair process and in good faith. Alice and Jo Ann shared with me the anticipated vote by the legislature on March 9th and the plan to provide bus service for UCPEA members. I fully support any staff who wish to attend this rally as long as it does not affect the services of the library. If you plan on attending, please work with your supervisor to ensure that the needs of our users are being met during your absence.

And since today is Employee Appreciation Day, I wanted to thank you all for all the work you put in every day. As I said on Wednesday, we have had to make some difficult choices and accept our new fiscal realities and that has not been easy.  I do appreciate all that each of you do for our patrons and for each other. You should be as proud as I am of what we have and will continue to accomplish together.

Homer Babbidge Master Plan

The minutes from the February 17th VPC Open Forum are now available on Ibis, including the PowerPoint that reviews the latest updates to the Master Plan. I shared a summary with the Provost this morning in preparation of a presentation to the Council of Deans next week and USG’s Academic Affairs Committee. We will also have the full report available and the boards recirculated for public comment shortly.

Office of the Vice Provost

As you all know, Francine’s last day here at the UConn Libraries was yesterday. I want to once again thank her for her 25 years of service. She was an incredible resource for me when I came here and I have heard from so many of you who are equally saddened by her departure. But our loss is her family’s gain. I know that she will truly enjoy spending time with them, particularly her grandchildren. We are working on the redistribution of her duties and the plan will be laid out at the next VPC Open Forum on March 2.

Open Textbook Initiatives 

Last week the state wide task force on open textbooks met in Hartford. I was elected co-chair along with Kevin Corcoran, the executive director of the CT Distance Learning Consortium. He is also the representative for the Board of Regents. I am also pleased to share that the committee here at UConn continues to make progress on their goals, including the planning for an upcoming symposium scheduled for April 19th. We have secured a nationally known speaker for the keynote and continue to fill out the remainder of our guests. Stay tuned for more information.

Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Salons

We are pleased to be sponsoring two salons in March with Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS). Under the theme of Feminism/s and Future/s, the first program is titled “The Politics of the Post-Apocalypse: Race, Gender, and Sexuality After the End” and is scheduled for March 2 from 4 to 5:30pm in the Class of 1947. Joining in the conversation will be Assistant Professor in Residence Barbara Gurr, who edited the book “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Post-Apocalyptic TV and Film” and her colleagues from Quinnipiac University and the University of Vermont. Our participation is a wonderful example of putting our Purposeful Path Forward into action by working with partners to explore new and unique research (1.3). The second salon will be later in March (date still to be determined) and I encourage you to find our more at https://blogs.lib.uconn.edu/news/feminisms-and-futures-salons/ 

Boston Library Consortium Board of Directors Meeting

The March 8 BLC Board Meeting will be held here at UConn. We will be welcoming colleagues from across New England and will be utilizing the Staff Lounge for the day. We appreciate your flexibility with the space.