LibraryBuzz

Welcome to a new semester! And welcome new students, staff, and faculty.

Come visit us on the 4th floor of the Library building Mondays-Thursdays from 9am-9pm, Fridays from 9am-7pm, and Saturdays 10am-3pm.  Learning or teaching online? We’ve still got you covered.

Get virtual help 24X7

If you’re off campus or up late working on a project and need help Just Ask us! 

You can chat with (real human!) CUNY Librarians on weekdays and librarians from other institutions on evenings and weekends. 

Access Library Resources from Off-Campus

Use your CUNY login to access library databases, research articles, movies, and ebooks from off campus. Login to “My Library Account” on the library website to see your loans, renew books, and check on requests for books from other CUNY campuses. 

If your preferred name isn’t associated with your library account, you can change that! 

Maybe you didn’t already know…

City Tech students, faculty, and staff have free access to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal! Use your City Tech email to sign up (or renew your subscription). 

The library lends podcasting equipment! Check out a podcasting kit from our multimedia lab. And while you’re at it…check out one of our portable turntables and our extensive vinyl record collection.

Course Reserves

Faculty can place textbooks and required readings in the Library’s Reserve Collection for your students to use in the library.

Please place your requests as soon as possible as we purchase on a first-come, first-served basis. Request materials to be placed on reserve using this Course Reserves Request Form. 

Questions?  Email us: NYCCTCirculation@citytech.cuny.edu 

Need Something We Don’t Have?

CUNY students, faculty, and staff can request books from other CUNY AND State University of New York (SUNY) Libraries! Through these partnerships, the City Tech community has access to over 12 million items from 52 campuses.

You can also request physical books and digital articles and book chapters not available at CUNY or SUNY through Interlibrary loan (ILL). You can even request multimedia materials.

Your CUNY login is connected to your ILL account, so you’ll have one less password to remember! Questions? Email us: interlibraryloan@citytech.cuny.edu

Library Instruction Offerings 

Are you assigning papers or projects that require library research? You can request a library instruction session for your class. Librarians have also developed research guides to support asynchronous courses and for students who want to learn at their own pace.

Contact your library subject specialist to find out more about support for your asynchronous class. For general questions about library instruction, contact Prof. Anne Leonard, library instruction coordinator.

Open Educational Resources

Identify open and free resources to support teaching, browse your colleagues’ contributions, and much more via the OER at City Tech site. Follow our blog for New & Noteworthy OER available in your discipline.

Questions about seeking funding to create OER, assigning OER and other zero-cost resources? Contact Prof. Cailean Cooney, OER coordinator.

*New* Faculty Workshops

Teaching Research in the Disciplines

These 2-part workshops are an opportunity for faculty across the college to collectively explore discipline-specific research practices, the ways they are integrated into assignments and activities, and how they prepare students to use information in their field after graduation.

Full-time and part-time City Tech faculty are invited to take part in a series of 3 online workshops this fall. We will explore the Wikiverse together and get hands-on practice with how Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other Wiki projects can play a dynamic role in the classroom.

Dates and Times: Workshops will take place online on Tuesdays September 22, October 20, and November 17 from 1-2pm. Faculty are asked to commit to participate in the full 3 sequence of workshops.

More information and registration details. Part-time faculty who participate will be compensated at their hourly non-teaching adjunct rate for attending.

Support for Scholarly Publishing 

The library can support your research and help you throughout the publication lifecycle! 

This fall, learn how Academic Works can make your publications more visible, increasing readership and citation, at our Academic Works Demystified (Oct. 29, 11:30-12:30) workshop. Registration.

Want to save time and energy on your literature review? Come to our Get Organized: Zotero Basics (Nov. 4, 4-5:30 PM). Zotero is software that helps you manage your citations and more. Registration.

We offer a Scholarly Publishing Clinic, a virtual office-hour on the first Tuesday of each month at 3 PM; consultations are also available on demand.

Contact Prof. Monica Berger to set up a consultation and learn more about how the library supports scholarly publishing.

Showcasing Student Work 

Calling all student artists and makers!

The library is creating more spaces to showcase student art and visual projects. We have several vertical display cases near our entrance as well as a flat glass-top display case, poster stands, a digital monitor for still images, and an active social media presence. We are also open to creatively repurposing other underutilized spaces in the library for larger scale projects. All disciplines are welcome. 

Students and faculty with ideas for showcasing student work or for collaborative programming can reach out to Prof. Nora Almeida, Outreach Librarian. 

We’re Sharing Space with the Writing Center

City Tech’s Writing Center has moved to the Ursula C. Schwerin Library for the Fall 2026 term. Check out the Writing Center’s updated website and make an appointment with a writing tutor today!

• Writing Center location: Library, Room 441-A
• Writing Center hours: Monday – Friday, 10:00am – 6:00pm (Sep. 8 – Dec. 21, excluding holidays)

Don’t Be a Stranger

Have questions about library resources and services but not sure how to reach us? Want to make sure you get the latest updates about changing policies, new resources, and digital tools available through the library? 

Subscribe to the LibraryBuzz blog to get the latest in your inbox or follow us on Bluesky and Instagram

The Ursula C. Schwerin Library at New York City College of Technology, CUNY (City Tech) seeks to hire an Evening Reference Librarian for part-time work during the Fall 2026 semester. City Tech is a comprehensive college in downtown Brooklyn, offering associate and baccalaureate degrees in technology and health related degree programs, other career-oriented degrees and liberal arts transfer degrees in its Schools of Arts and Sciences, Technology and Design, and Professional Studies. The adjunct reference and instruction librarian will be responsible for providing high quality reference service in person.

Successful candidates will have experience working in an academic library; experience providing in-person and online library reference; experience with library instruction; the ability to work as part of a team of diverse individuals; and excellent communication skills, including the ability to interact positively with colleagues, students, faculty, staff in the library and at the college. The salary range is $53.76 – $60.78/hour based on qualifications and experience.

Applicants must have an ALA-accredited MLIS; an additional graduate degree is required for appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor.

Applicants should send a cover letter and CV by email to Prof. Keith Muchowski at keith.muchowski15@login.cuny.edu. The position is open until filled, and review of applications will begin immediately.

Full-time and part-time City Tech faculty are invited to take part in a series of 3 online workshops this fall. We will explore the Wikiverse together and get hands-on practice with how Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other Wiki projects can play a dynamic role in the classroom.

Session outline:

1. The Wikiverse: a tool for teaching and learning
   Tues. September 22, 2026, 1-2 PM (online)
   In this presentation-based workshop, faculty will: learn about core concepts of wikipedia and the parts of a wikipedia article; investigate how editing wiki projects can be a tool for collaborative knowledge creation; explore contributing to and using wikimedia commons; and discover the CUNY wikiverse.
   
2. Dig deeper into wiki projects for the classroom
   Tues. October 20, 2026, 1-2 PM (online)
   In this hands-on session, faculty will look more closely at how to edit Wikipedia articles, support students in Wikipedia editing, and other types of collaborative classwork and various Wiki projects can support learning outcomes. We will also take a closer look at how Wikipedia is a primary source for teaching about current events and about scholarship as conversation.
   
3. Hands on: designing learning activities in wiki projects
   Tues. November 17, 2026, 1-2 PM (online)
   In our final session together we will build on some of the features of Wikipedia and Wiki projects that we have explored. Each participant will develop an assignment or in-class activity using one of the templates provided in session and tailor to their course content focus and learning outcomes. 

Program details:

Workshops will take place online on the following Tuesdays: September 22, October 20, and November 17 2026 from 1-2pm. Faculty are asked to commit to participate in the full 3 sequence of workshops. 

To provide individualized attention to each instructional context, this program will be capped at 12 participants total. Sign up to reserve a spot!

Part-time faculty will be compensated at their hourly non-teaching adjunct rate for their participation. 

Register here!

Questions? Reach out to Jen Hoyer: jennifer.hoyer18[at]citytech.cuny.edu

Thanks to Open Educational Resources at City Tech and OER at CUNY for support!

The City Tech Library is offering 2-part workshops for faculty across the college to collectively explore discipline-specific research practices, the ways they are integrated into assignments and activities, and how they prepare students to use information in their field after graduation. We will offer the 2-part workshop twice:

• In person on October 1^st and October 8^th from 1pm-2pm. Both in L540, the library classroom. Register before September 25.
• Online on November 10^th and October 12^th from 2pm-3pm. Register on Zoom before October 31.

Participating faculty are strongly encouraged to attend both workshops. Part-time faculty participants will be compensated at 2 hours at their non-teaching adjunct rate for completion of the workshop.

Part 1 of the workshop will be a facilitated dialogue framed around research practices that students need to successfully complete assignments in their degree programs and in professional settings. During this workshop, faculty will identify and examine the landscape of information needs and core resources that students need to succeed in different fields. 

Part 2 of the workshop will focus on refining or creating assignments and activities that incorporate research and how those assignments and activities enable students to gain familiarity with discipline specific information practices and core resources identified in Part 1. Come prepared with an assignment or activity that you want to revise, or devise.

Questions are welcome! Please get in touch: Anne Leonard or Nora Almeida

Thanks to Open Educational Resources at City Tech and OER at CUNY for support!

This summer, SYEP intern and incoming City Tech student, Sabrina McAnuff, created an innovative display of fiction and nonfiction books around the theme of technology and imagination. In her blog post below, she highlights some of her favorite titles and explains the value of reading science fiction as a STEM student. Sabrina holds a certificate as an Emergency Medical Technician and she plans to major in Radiologic Technology at City Tech beginning this Fall.

Hello, City Tech community! If you are walking past the library this week, stop for a moment and take a look at our new display on technology and science fiction! Why combine books on technology with science fiction? Combining both of them allows us to explore not just how they work together, but how we use (or might use) technology in our daily lives. Technology can give us tools while sci-fi can spur our imagination about what may happen in the future. Whether you are a student of technology or the humanities, there is something here to challenge how you view the future.

Dive into Sci-Fi

First, let’s explore science fiction. Reading sci-fi challenges STEM students to consider the future uses of technology, and it can push us to think more about how it can impact our society. Some books on display are worrisome because technology’s impact depends on how people use it and it can be dangerous. The more worrisome a book is, however, the more challenging it becomes. If you are interested in space adventures, you should check out Isaac Asimov’s Foundation’s Edge and Foundations And Empire. This series explains the inevitable fall of a galactic empire and the efforts of Hari Seldon to shape the future of humanity.

In George Orwell’s 1984, the Thought Police turns technology into a weapon, using cameras to watch citizens’ every move and eliminate personal privacy. If you are interested in learning more about climate change, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson would be a good book to explore. And, if you’re interested in Star Wars, try Culture, Identities, and Technology in the Star Wars films: Essays on the Two Trilogies for a discussion on how droids are like real-life robots.

The Future of Medicine

Technology is complex and impactful, changing how we live today. In addition to sci-fi titles, I also picked out some nonfiction books that show how medicine and technology are working together. If you’re curious about X-rays and what’s beneath the surface level, check out Invisible Light. The Patient Will See You Now talks about how smartphones are giving people more control over their healthcare. Deep Medicine looks at how artificial intelligence could help fix problems in healthcare and make things easier for doctors, allowing them to focus more on patients. By contrast, The Doctor and the Algorithm: Promise, Peril, and the Future of Health AI examines the risks artificial intelligence poses to health equity and patient trust.

How Tech Affects Our Lives

Lots of people use smartphones, computers, and the internet everyday. Some books here talk about how screens and apps change the way we live and talk to each other. Look for The App Generation, Civic Media, Hey Cyba, and Captivating Technology, all of which explore how screen apps influence our daily lives. Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age examines how digital tools reshape our identities and communications. And, This Is For Everyone is all about how the internet connects us all.

By exploring new technologies like AI, and digital while also including sci-fi, this collection helps students think about the future in imaginative ways. Don’t miss out! Come to the library, check out the display, and maybe find your next favorite book!

The City Tech Library is closing early today at 2:30pm because of vapor intrusion from work on the roof. We will resume regular hours on Monday, August 10th. Students needing a computer or printer can work in the Atrium Learning Center lab until 5pm.

The air conditioning and ventilation are not working inside the library today, so we are closing at 3pm. You can find a cooling center at NYC Cool Options. The closest cooling center to campus is the Brooklyn Heights library, open until 8pm today.

Stay cool!