Annual Report FY2021: New Initiatives

The commUNITY Book Club was a collaboration between the UHV Library, Title IX & Equal Opportunity, United Way of the Crossroads, BeWell Victoria, and the Center for Peace Victoria. The commUNITY Book Club was originally created by Be Well Victoria, United Way of the Crossroads and the Center for Peace Victoria and they reached out to the university in the hopes of us encouraging student participation. The UHV Library supported the book club by purchasing titles (primarily eBooks and eAudiobooks) so that the UHV community could participate without having to purchase the book with their own funds, as well as created a commUNITY Book Club guide so that participants could find information about the book and book club in one central location.. The goal of the book club was to read books that were focused on race and diversity. We read: How to be An AntiRacist by Ibram X. Kendi, Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly.

As part of their observance of Black History Month in January 2021, UHV and Dow Chemical Corporation established the UHV Fund for Diversity Resources. The fund, which is ongoing, is to promote the understanding of diverse populations with additions to the library collections on those topics. Donations made by Dow employees were matched by the company. Donations made by UHV employees were matched by UHV. The books purchased were award winning books selected from recommendations of the President’s Race and Diversity Task Force.

Library collections were further enhanced by an additional donation of funds from the President’s Race and Diversity Task Force. Specifically given for the purchase of ebooks, the library selected from lists provided by the Task Force and from lists created by the librarians.

Since face-to-face workshops were not practical during in COVID, the Library turned to online workshops using TEAMS.  Started in the Spring 2021 semester, the Explore Your Roar Workshops are topical and contain information that students may not know about the library and its resources, even if they have attended a library instruction session before.

We had four workshops in the Spring semester and two in the Summer semester for a total of six workshops:

• Advanced Database Searching Techniques (1/26)
• Using Wikipedia Responsibly & Effectively (2/3)
• Finding Business Information (3/2)
• Introduction to Managing Citations (4/1)
• Google Scholar (6/17)
• Introduction to Finding Statistics (7/13)

The workshops were well attended and the library was pleased to be able to use the TEAMS technologies to provide library instruction to students in the online-only environment.  We will be continuing the workshops in the future.