Current Kalamazoo College faculty and staff are invited join us virtually in the fourth #ARRK event to be held:
January 19, 2021
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
#ARRK Meeting space (MS Teams – link)
Natalia Carvalho-Pinto and Francisco Villegas will guide a discussion on lessons learned from Dr. D-L Stewart as it relates to freedom, justice, and today’s environments. Attending Dr. Stewart’s keynote on Monday, January 18, 2021 is highly encouraged, but optional. You may also fully participate in this discussion by reading their Inside Higher Ed essay. Readings and more details are available on the Teams site.

The AntiRacism Reading KnooK (#ARRK) is a collaboration between the K-College library staff and our Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) leadership team.  This initiative is NOT a book club, but seeks to facilitate campus-wide engagement with the books in the KCIE #Reading for Change book collection. This collection was created to encourage learning about and facilitate greater access to antiracism information to all members of the campus community. 

#ARRK aims to:
(1) reduce barrier to entry into reading antiracism books,
(2) identify and highlight campus facilitators with experience teaching and/or disciplinary expertise who can provide context and guide discussions of specific texts,
(3) foster broader relationships among faculty and staff, and thus
(4) build greater capacity for an inclusive campus through sustained and focused engagement with shared texts.
(5) help catalyze members of the campus to engage in small group discussions of entire books in the collection (self-organized book clubs, if you will).  

For further information on #ARRK or to volunteer to lead one of these sessions, visit https://libguides.kzoo.edu/ReadingforChange/arrk. 

Students, faculty, and staff may now request K Library books through Library OneSearch for in-person pick up! Please remember the Library building is closed until January 19. You will be able to start requesting K Library books immediately; ILL and MeLCat books will be requestable starting January 11.

From January 11-15, books ready for pickup will be available at the ULC receiving doors on Academy Street.

• You will receive an email notifying you that your item is ready for pick up. For easy pick up, all items will already be checked out to you.
• You may pick items up from 10am-4pm, Monday through Friday at the receiving area on the Academy Street side of the Library. Book pick up will not be available Monday, January 18 (MLK Day).​
• The double doors located on the Academy Street side of the library are locked. You will need to ring the buzzer at the door and wait to be let in. Please be patient! 
• Locate items by your name, take your books from the cart, and exit the same way you entered the building. Please ensure the door closes completely after visiting. ​
• Please wear a face mask when picking up items to keep Information Services staff safe. Patrons are welcome to use the available hand sanitizer near the pick up cart when picking up items.
• For staff safety, all doors leading into the building are locked. No one other than designated staff is allowed to enter the main library space.​

Starting January 19, you may pick up your items on a cart by the Reference Desk in the Library lobby during building open hours:

Monday – Thursday: 9am – 9pm
Friday: 9am – 5pm
Saturday: CLOSED
Sunday: 3pm – 9pm

Face masks are required in the Upjohn Library Commons building.

If you have a concern about your requests or need assistance placing a hold, please email circulation@kzoo.edu.  

Looking for a way to organize and share your scholarly work online that avoids some of the pitfalls of sites like ResearchGate and Academia.edu? ORCID is a not-for-profit organization enabling “transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and affiliations by providing an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.” ORCID allows for “unique IDs that you can use as a researcher to identify your academic work. The IDs help funders, publishers, scholarly societies, and other researchers to quickly find and distinguish your work from materials created by other researchers with similar names.”

We’ve created a Library Guide for faculty to learn more about ORCID. Use this Guide, along with information on the ORCID site to help you easily create your ID and connect your scholarly work.

The Upjohn Library Commons building will continue to be closed during Winter Break. However, we will provide the following services to students, staff, and faculty. Beginning November 25th:

• ​Requested books from the Kalamazoo College Library will be available for pick up Wednesdays (November 25th, December 2nd, 9th, and 16th) from 10am-2pm at the receiving doors on the Academy Street side of the library building.
• Books that are not picked up by December 16th will be returned to the lending library or returned to the library shelves.
• Book requesting from the Kalamazoo College Library collection will end December 15th.
• Book returns will continue to be accepted in the outside book drop on the Academy Street side of the building. Returned items will be checked in once per week. The Library does not charge overdue fines!
• Electronic article delivery through Interlibrary Loan is available through December 23rd.
• Book requesting through Interlibrary Loan is available through November 20th.
• MeLCat requesting is available through December 11th.
• MeLCat visiting patron services has been temporarily suspended. You will not be able to use your Kalamazoo College ID at other libraries. If you need assistance retrieving items from your local library, please contact reference@kzoo.edu. 
• Reference librarians will be available virtually​ Monday-Friday 9am-5pm through December 18th.  

The Upjohn Library Commons building will be CLOSED and there will be no library services December 23rd through January 3rd. Look for future announcements of Winter Term library services in early January. ​

Current employees and Board of Trustee members are invited join us virtually in the third #ARRK event to be held:
November 17, 2020
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
#ARRK Meeting space (MS Teams – link)
Bruce Mills will lead a discussion of James Baldwin’s essays “In Search of a Majority” and “Notes of a Native Son”
Readings available in the Teams site.

The AntiRacism Reading KnooK (#ARRK) is a collaboration between the K-College library staff and our Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) leadership team.  This initiative is NOT a book club, but seeks to facilitate campus-wide engagement with the books in the KCIE #Reading for Change book collection. This collection was created to encourage learning about and facilitate greater access to antiracism information to all members of the campus community. 

#ARRK aims to:
(1) reduce barrier to entry into reading antiracism books,
(2) identify and highlight campus facilitators with experience teaching and/or disciplinary expertise who can provide context and guide discussions of specific texts,
(3) foster broader relationships among faculty and staff, and thus
(4) build greater capacity for an inclusive campus through sustained and focused engagement with shared texts.
(5) help catalyze members of the campus to engage in small group discussions of entire books in the collection (self-organized book clubs, if you will).  

For further information on #ARRK or to volunteer to lead one of these sessions, visit https://libguides.kzoo.edu/ReadingforChange/arrk. 

Many libraries and archives are asking people to document their experiences during the pandemic, and the Kalamazoo College Archives wants your stories!

The Kalamazoo College Archives invites students, faculty, and staff) to document their personal experiences during the COVID-19 crisis. Daily life under a global pandemic will be an important research topic in the future and the College Archives seeks to preserve these stories.

You can submit your experiences in a variety of ways: write a journal, submit photos or artwork, write poetry, or make videos. We want to know about topics like:

• The shift to distance learning
• Displacement from residence halls or off-campus housing
• Working your campus job remotely
• Staying in touch with friends and family
• The international student experience
• Student organization activities
• Social distancing
• Self-quarantine
• Changes in leisure activities, celebrations, religious events

Visit the Kalamazoo College Archives for more information about format and content. We want to hear from you!

Reference Librarians are available to help you! We welcome hard questions, easy questions, long questions, and short questions. If in doubt, just ask us your question!

You can ask us a question by email, Teams chat, or web form at any time! If you want to know more about us, visit Research Help.

To ask your question, you can:

• Visit Research Rescue to make an appointment, or
• Email us at reference@kzoo.edu, or
• Ask a question of the Reference Librarians with this online form.

Individual research help by Research Rescue video call appointment is available during these times (in the Eastern US Time Zone):

Monday – Thursday: 8 a.m. – 11 p.m.
Friday: 8 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturday: 12 – 5 p.m.
Sunday: 12 – 9 p.m.

We look forward to helping you!

Textbook costs are skyrocketing, and many students have trouble accessing the readings they need for class.

Open access texts (often called Open Educational Resources, or OER) are free to read online, often free to download, and may be available as a low cost print format option. Many open access texts have a Creative Commons license that allow an instructor to alter the text for their course. 

Studies show that students who use OERs in class achieve academic success and experience significant cost savings. Using OERs for courses can help reduce the economic inequality many students experience.

What can faculty do to help with high textbook prices? There are lots of alternatives and librarians can help! See our OER guide at https://libguides.kzoo.edu/oer

Current employees and Board of Trustee members are invited join us virtually in the second #ARRK event to be held:
October 20, 2020
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
#ARRK Meeting space (MS Teams – link)
Lisa Brock will lead a discussion of Chapter 1 from Beverly Daniel Tatums’  Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

The AntiRacism Reading KnooK (#ARRK) is a collaboration between the K-College library staff and our Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) leadership team.  This initiative is NOT a book club, but seeks to facilitate campus-wide engagement with the books in the KCIE #Reading for Change book collection. This collection was created to encourage learning about and facilitate greater access to antiracism information to all members of the campus community. 

#ARRK aims to:
(1) reduce barrier to entry into reading antiracism books,
(2) identify and highlight campus facilitators with experience teaching and/or disciplinary expertise who can provide context and guide discussions of specific texts,
(3) foster broader relationships among faculty and staff, and thus
(4) build greater capacity for an inclusive campus through sustained and focused engagement with shared texts.
(5) help catalyze members of the campus to engage in small group discussions of entire books in the collection (self-organized book clubs, if you will).  

Every employee of the College and members of the Board of Trustees was sent a copy of this book in August.

If you did not receive a book, contact Regina Stevens-Truss (Regina.Stevens-Truss@kzoo.edu) or Bruce Mills (Bruce.Mills@kzoo.edu).

For further information on #ARRK or to volunteer to lead one of these sessions, visit https://libguides.kzoo.edu/ReadingforChange/arrk.