LibraryBuzz

Welcome to a (still) rather new semester. And welcome to all of our new students and faculty.

Need a book, a quiet place to study or work on a project, or research help?  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

You can place textbooks and required readings for your courses 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 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 this partnership with SUNY, the CUNY community has access to over 12 million items from 52 campuses. Deliveries take 3 to 15 business days. 

Ask a City Tech librarian or chat with us if you need help requesting something from another library.

Faculty, staff, and students can also request physical books not available at CUNY or SUNY through Interlibrary loan (ILL). We are also continuing to fill article and individual book chapter requests and deliver them electronically. ILL is great for scholarly research and course assignments. We can also request multimedia materials and have a new reader for research on microfilm!

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. We also offer 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.

We’re editing Wikipedia!

Did you know that CUNY has a Wikimedian in Residence? City Tech Library is so excited to use this support for wiki work on campus. We’re organizing a series of events related to Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other Wikiprojects this year, through support from the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit cityte.ch/wiki to check out what we’ve planned. Up next on our calendars: NYC’s Wikipedia Day is at City Tech in March, and an Archives+CUNY+Wikipedia editathon in April!

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.

Faculty Workshop: Information Literacy in your discipline

• Date and Time: Tuesday, February 24, 3PM – 4PM
• Register online! by February 23 to participate

Workshop participants will brainstorm and draft a brief information literacy manifesto that articulates the priorities for ethical information use, essential research skills, and information discovery in their field. This working document will guide curriculum development and help students understand discipline-specific expectations for information literacy.

Participants are encouraged to bring questions to the workshop. Part-time faculty who participate will be compensated at their hourly non-teaching adjunct rate for attending.

Questions? Please contact Anne Leonard, Information Literacy Coordinator.

Support for Scholarly Publishing 

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

We offer a workshop series every semester. This spring, we’ll offer our usual workshop to help you find data and other evidence for your PARSE, Get Evidence! on March 31, 1:00-2:00 PM. Registration. Want to save time and energy on your literature review? Come to our Get Organized: Zotero Basics (May 6, 12-1:30 PM). Zotero is software that helps you manage your citations and more. Registration.

In addition to our Scholarly Publishing Clinic, a monthly office hour for virtual consultations on the first Tuesday of the month at 3 PM, consultations are 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 creative work and projects with visual components. 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. Projects in 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. 

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 @citytechlibrary

Join student activists and educators for Higher Education Action Day on February 25th. This is an opportunity to directly talk to state legislators about the need for more affordable tuition and more funding to support your educational experience. NYPIRG (local organizers with an office on campus) will provide free buses up to Albany for a 1 day trip.

Here is more information about the event and registration details.

Every voice matters!

This fall, students in Professor Robin Michals’ Photography I class have been contributing images to Wikimedia Commons with support from CUNY’s Wikimedia in Residence, Richard Knipel. We are so excited to see their work online!

All their photo uploads can be explored on the Contributions from Communication Design students, CUNY City Tech  category page. In addition to being available on the Commons under Creative Commons licenses, it’s exciting to see these already being incorporated into wikidata items and wikipedia articles in various languages.

I visited one of their classes to chat with them about the impact of their contributions to Wikimedia Commons and to hear their thoughts on the images they added. Check out some student reflections on their images below:

Of Fort Greene Park in Autumn, Kylan Whittaker explained, “My mom used to take me there a lot when I was a kid, so I made a lot of good memories in that park.”

Wikipedia user Photonatomist explained that Crotona Park Pond is “vast” and feels like “a calm place to be.”

Nurcan Akca says of I.S.125 Thomas J. McCann Intermediate School: It was my middle school!

Rodrigue says of Canarsie Skate Park: “That place is special because it’s close to home and it’s a large place where friends and family can come together to have fun. “

When I asked students what it means to them that their work is now on Wikimedia Commons, they had a few more thoughts to share:

To me it feels nice that I can share a part of my life to others and basically create an invitation to others to have similar experiences as me.

It makes me proud knowing that my work is being used in Wikipedia commons. It scales out my work and makes me really grasp how impactful my photography can be.

I’m famous!

Last Wednesday, December 3, a small group of faculty from across the college met to discuss our first book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This 1999 coming-of-age novel has been widely acclaimed and also widely challenged and banned for its truthful depiction of some of the universal challenges of adolescence.

The Banned Books book club will meet again in late February to discuss The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Everyone in the City Tech community is welcome to participate! Stay tuned for details about when and where we will meet. The City Tech library, all CUNY libraries, and all NYC public libraries own copies of this book that you can borrow. If you have questions about getting The Bluest Eye from City Tech or another library, visit us and ask any librarian. Hope to read banned and challenged books with you in 2026!

#CUNYTUESDAY 2025

#CITYTECHTUESDAY: Support the City Tech Library!

The 2025 #CUNYTUESDAY campaign is here, and the faculty and staff of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library are proud to be part of this year’s effort to support student success at City Tech!

We’ve set an ambitious goal of $17,000 to help us expand our services, upgrade student study spaces, and deepen our programming.

But no matter the amount, every gift matters. Your support—whether large or small—makes a meaningful difference.

Here are just a few of the things your donation can help make possible:

• White noise generators to support quiet, focused study
• Upgrading our study rooms with new furniture and equipment
• Supporting field research trips and guest lectures that enrich student learning
• New display shelving for leisure reading and curated collections

These are just a few examples—your gift allows us to be responsive and flexible, meeting student needs as they emerge throughout the year.

The Library is a cornerstone of academic life at City Tech—connecting students with the resources, spaces, and support they need to succeed.

Help us meet this year’s ambitious goal.

Give what you can. Every gift counts. Every student benefits.

Thank you for being part of our community!