LibraryBuzz

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!

Our Archives Week Open House this year (read more about over here!) included a display of book stamps that help tell the history of City Tech Library. While you can read more about our library’s history on our website, we’re sharing some of our display here in digital form.

This project grew out of our interest in collecting the various book stamps used by our library and by the institutions and libraries that have merged into what is now NYC College of Technology (known colloquially as City Tech). While we weren’t able to locate stamps for some of the earliest versions of City Tech Library, we found more than we expected: many library addresses we didn’t know even about and library branches we hadn’t heard of. 

Tracing the history of our library has helped us think about the various ways libraries have served students over time, and we get a glimpse of past iterations of library services through the illustrations also on display in this room. These illustrations are from City Tech Library’s archive; we are excited to keep exploring and learn more about what they were initially used for.

As part of the trade schools movement, the New York Trade School (founded as The Technical Schools of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and later known as Voorhees Technical Institute) was part of a larger movement by union leaders and philanthropists to educate workers and provide educational opportunities to immigrants. Voorhees Technical Institute was located on West 41st Street in Manhattan, in a building that still exists near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. While our library no longer has books from its earliest iterations as the New York Trade School, several books from various branches of the Voorhees Technical Institute were incorporated into our collections.

The New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences was founded in 1946 under legislation that set aside funds to support returning GIs following World War II; classes were initially held in the old Public School 15 building in downtown Brooklyn. In the 1950s, classes were also held at the Hotel St. George at 111 Hicks St, Brooklyn. The library was, for at least some of this time, located in a building at 300 Pearl Street in downtown Brooklyn.

New York City Community College, also known as the Community College of Applied Arts and Sciences, grew from the small set of technical programs offered when it was founded as The New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences to boast more than 10,000 graduates by 1963. And while it was part of the State University of New York system in the early 1960s, known for a time as SUNY Tech, it became part of the CUNY system mid-decade. The library had several locations during the lifespan of New York City Community College: in its previous location at 300 Pearl Street; at 12 Franklin Street; on Livingston Street; and at the current address, 300 Jay Street.

Following New York City’s funding crisis of the 1970s and cuts broadly to community colleges across the city, the school’s name was changed to New York City Technical College in 1980 and its charter was amended to designate it an “urban technical institute,” with permission to grant 4-year degrees as well as associates degrees. 

The name of City Tech was formally changed to New York City College of Technology in July 2002, to emphasize its high-tech workforce development focus and to distinguish it from other technical schools. 

This project was compiled by Prof. Jen Hoyer and Prof. Kel Karpinski