Library and Information Science Commons^™

Musselman Library Deib Strategic Plan 2024–2027, Musselman Library

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Musselman Library approved its second Inclusion Action Plan in December 2020, for implementation in 2021–2024. To stay abreast of changing needs, the DEIB Committee has collaborated on an updated Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Strategic plan, which addresses what we see as the most pressing issues now and in the upcoming years.

The decision to create a new plan is based on changes at Gettysburg College, including a new Chief Diversity Officer and new institutional priorities and programs, as well as decreases in budget, staffing, enrollment, and tuition revenues.

Our focus will be on three strategic areas, as determined by …

Strategies For Reading Scholarly Articles, Hannah Krauss

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This handout reviews suggested strategies for reading scholarly articles in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, recommending reading out of order based upon the discipline. The second page contains tips for taking notes on articles for research and classes.

Final Report: 2020-2023 Inclusion Action Plan Musselman Library, Musselman Library

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This report documents Musselman Library's accomplishments and progress made on the 2020 Inclusion Action Plan (IAP).

Investing In Textbook Affordability Pays Off For Students, Janelle Wertzberger

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Investing in textbook affordability can have a huge payoff for students—just ask Assistant Professors Alice Brawley Newlin and Marta Maras in the Management department. Their open, customized textbook for Statistical Methods (MGT 235) is completely free. It has been used by over 400 students and saved them an estimated $150,000! The story of how this remarkable outcome was achieved has its origins in Musselman Library. [excerpt]

2022 Gettysburg College Student Textbook And Course Materials Survey Executive Summary, Janelle Wertzberger, Mary R. Elmquist

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In Fall 2022, Musselman Library conducted its second course materials survey, this time in collaboration with 10 other liberal arts colleges from around the country. The results from this new survey illuminate how students are affected by textbook and course material costs, how they cope with these costs, and how effects and behaviors have changed since our 2019 survey.

This report summarizes the background of the project, key findings, and recommendations.

2022 Gettysburg College Textbook Survey Full Report, Mary R. Elmquist, Janelle Wertzberger

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In Fall 2022, Musselman Library conducted its second course materials survey, this time in collaboration with 10 other liberal arts colleges from around the country. This report compiles the results from Gettysburg College participants' responses. Comparisons are also made to the results from Gettysburg's 2019 survey and the larger group of colleges.

Spend, Stress, And Struggle: Gettysburg College Student Textbook And Course Materials Survey 2022, Janelle Wertzberger, Mary Elmquist

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In Fall 2022, Musselman Library conducted its second course materials survey—this time, in collaboration with 10 other liberal arts colleges from around the country. The results from this new survey illuminate how students are affected by textbook and course material costs, how they cope with these costs, and how effects and behaviors have changed since our 2019 survey. We also examine how our students fit into a larger landscape of textbook affordability at similar institutions.

Checking In Without Burning Out: Designing Sustainable Assessment Plans For An Undergraduate Peer-To-Peer Research Mentor Program, Kevin Moore, Hannah Krauss

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Learn how librarians developed a programmatic assessment schedule for their undergraduate, peer-to-peer research consultant service with an emphasis on practicality and sustainability. This poster and its supplementary materials present the finished plan, which addresses 13 programmatic learning outcomes over the course of six semesters, offering one model for how to approach a large-scale assessment project systematically and intentionally without burning out library staff.

Bridging Communities Of Practice: Cross-Institutional Collaboration For Undergraduate Digital Scholars, R.C. Miessler, Clinton K. Baugess, Kevin Moore, Courtney Paddick, Carrie Pirmann

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At Bucknell University and Gettysburg College, an increasing focus on supporting creative undergraduate research as intensive, high-impact experiences has resulted in both institutions implementing library-led digital scholarship fellowships for their students. Gettysburg’s Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship began in 2016, and Bucknell’s Digital Scholarship Summer Research Fellowship in 2017.1 While academic libraries have emerged as leaders on college campuses for digital humanities (DH) services, the programs at Gettysburg and Bucknell are distinctive in their structured curricula, a focus on independent student research, and the development of a local community of practice. Each program situates undergraduate research in the field of digital …

Open Textbooks: Access, Affordability, Inclusion, And Academic Success, Janelle Wertzberger, Mary Elmquist

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Are you curious about how a textbook choice can influence students’ sense of belonging and their academic success?

Open textbooks are full, real textbooks used by many professors here at Gettysburg and across the U.S. They are completely free to access online and also free of most copyright restrictions, meaning it’s legal to copy, share, edit, mix, keep and use those materials. Adopting an open textbook ensures that all students have immediate access to a zero-cost book and provides faculty 100% control over their learning materials. Attend this workshop to learn more about how an open textbook may align with …

Letters For Change: A Scalable Approach For Student Oer Advocacy, Janelle Wertzberger, Theodore Szpakowski

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Learn about a library-led activity designed to empower undergraduate students to advocate for OER at the course level. The exercise helps students research alternative materials and invites them to write a letter to a professor suggesting replacement of commercial course materials with zero-cost or affordable materials.

The Gettysburg College Library offers a one-semester career exploration in which undergraduate interns learn about all facets of academic library work. A key goal for the Scholarly Communications department’s contribution is for students to understand the current landscape of textbook publishing, including OER, affordable alternatives, and publisher-led initiatives, in order to effectively advocate for …

Drafting An Assessment Plan For Your Instruction Program: Sustainably Assessing Information Literacy In An Undergraduate Stem Course, Kevin Moore, Clinton K. Baugess

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Assessing student learning across a library instruction program can be infeasible without being strategic, intentional, and realistic. Librarians at a small college will share how they developed a sustainable, 3-year assessment plan for the ACRL Framework and targeted a 100-level biology course-one of the two high-enrollment STEM courses that receive library instruction on their campus each year. The presenters will share their assessment plan, flipped instruction model, workflow-management strategies, and lessons learned for collaborating with STEM faculty to assess information literacy.

Open Educational Resources Activity, Janelle Wertzberger

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This activity is designed to help undergraduate library interns learn about the range of Open Educational Resources (OER) that are available to support college courses. It also helps them find and develop an advocate’s voice.

Scholarly Communications Report On Activities 2020-21, Janelle L. Wertzberger, Mary R. Elmquist

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2020-21 annual report for Scholarly Communications work at Musselman Library, including Gettysburg College's institutional repository, The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. Covers June 2020 – May 2021.

Textbook Remix: An Introduction To Libretexts For Oer Editing, Mary Elmquist, Alice M. Brawley Newlin

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So, you’ve found an open textbook that you really like, but it’s not quite right for your class? LibreTexts might be the answer! Join us for this informal webinar to learn a little more about this online platform designed for customizing and distributing open textbooks. From Gettysburg College, Scholarly Communications Librarian Mary Elmquist will provide an introduction to the platform, its structure and features, and Dr. Alice Brawley Newlin, Assistant Professor of Management, will speak on her ongoing experiences using LibreTexts to edit and implement an open textbook for a Statistical Methods course.

This session should provide insight for both …

Student Textbook Surveys: An Important Component Of A Library Oer Initiative, Janelle Wertzberger, Amanda Langdon, Andrea Hartranft, Mary Elmquist

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A student textbook survey is a potentially powerful tool in the OER advocate’s toolkit. This moderated panel features librarians working within smaller settings and includes representatives from a small, private, liberal arts college, a small public Hispanic-serving institution, and a community college. Panelists will discuss survey goals, research design considerations, approaches to data analysis, and strategies for sharing results. Participants will gain concrete ideas about whether and how a student textbook survey could advance their local OER initiatives, as well as practical tips for how to move ahead with such a project.

Inequitable Impacts Of Textbook Costs At A Small, Private College: Results From A Textbook Survey At Gettysburg College, Sarah Appedu, Mary Elmquist, Janelle Wertzberger, Sharon K. Birch

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Recognizing that higher education settings vary considerably, librarians at Gettysburg College sought to better understand textbook spending behaviors and the effects of costs on our students. We adapted the Florida Virtual Campus 2016 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey to suit the context of our small, private, liberal arts college. Most students spent $300 in Fall 2019. Financial aid awards did not cover the cost of required books and course materials for most students receiving aid. Negative effects were more pronounced for first-generation students and Pell Grant recipients, who were more likely to not purchase required books, to not register …

Peer Research Mentors At Gettysburg College, Meggan D. Smith, Mallory R. Jallas, Clinton K. Baugess, Janelle Wertzberger

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Musselman Library at Gettysburg College developed a Peer Research Mentor (PRM) program to expand the library’s formal research and instruction program. Designed and coordinated by a group of research and instruction librarians, the PRM program is built around a cohort of eight undergraduate students from a variety of class years and disciplines. Each PRM has a librarian supervisor. The PRMs participate in intensive training, provide reference service alongside professional librarians at the Research Help Desk, and develop outreach projects to better connect student patrons with library collections and services. [excerpt]

Access Challenge For Public Health Students, Janelle Wertzberger, Amy B. Dailey

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Health sciences students regularly engage in problem-based learning. This information literacy activity introduces a public health scenario and asks students to use published sources to determine the cause of a described disease and develop a treatment protocol. The activity design highlights different levels of information privilege and invites students to consider challenges to accessing public health information in a variety of settings. The exercise was initially created for undergraduate students in a 300-level global health course.

Musselman Library Inclusion Action Plan - December 2020, Musselman Library

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Action Area 1: Access and Equity – Recruitment and Retention (faculty, staff, students)

Action Area 1: Access and Equity – Policy/Administrative Initiatives

Action Area 2: Campus Climate

Action Area 3: Diversity in Curriculum/Co-curriculum

Action Area 4: Organizational Learning - Internal

A final report on this plan was submitted in March, 2024.

The Dh Toolkit: A Collaborative, Open, And Extensible Experiment In Pedagogy., R.C. Miessler, Kevin Moore

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In the summer of 2020, librarians and undergraduates at Gettysburg College collaborated virtually to develop the DH Toolkit, a collection of digital learning objects for Digital Humanities tools and concepts. This lightning talk will discuss the collaborative framework for creating the toolkit and its future in DH pedagogy at Gettysburg.

Using A Student Textbook Survey To Advance An Oer Initiative, Sarah Appedu, Mary Elmquist, Janelle Wertzberger

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Learn how one library created, administered, and used the results of a student textbook survey in order to advance an OER initiative. We will cover fundamental details, including how we modified an existing survey, chose an administration tool, and promoted the survey. Additionally, we will share our approach to analyzing data and sharing results with various campus stakeholders. This session will focus on the practical aspects of the project in hopes that other libraries will feel empowered to conduct local surveys that support programmatic goals.

(Re)Opening Education: Applying The 5 R'S For Open Pedagogy, Sarah Appedu, Mary R. Elmquist

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Open Pedagogy allows instructors and students to find creative solutions to the world’s problems and gets everyone involved in the process of putting ideas into action. This presentation encourages librarians use Jhangiani's 5 Rs for Open Pedagogy as a framework for thinking through a variety of pedagogical challenges related to teaching in the present context of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Best Practices: Accessibility & Equity For E-Learning Content, Mary R. Elmquist, R.C. Miessler

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When creating digital objects for use in teaching, instructors have an opportunity to expand the usability of their materials by adding accessibility features. This session presents a broad definition of accessibility, explains why it is important for instructors to consider accessibility as they create digital teaching materials, and describes some strategies and best practices for adding accessibility to digital learning objects.

Best Practices For Designing Online Learning Objects​, Mary R. Elmquist, Kevin Moore

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Before designing materials to support online learning, it's important to take stock of what we know about how people learn in online spaces. This presentation will unpack a few e-learning myths and discuss concrete strategies for developing pedagogically sound videos, interactive tutorials, and other asynchronous online learning objects.

Scholarly Communications Report On Activities 2019-20, Janelle L. Wertzberger, Mary R. Elmquist, Sarah Appedu

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2019-20 annual report for Scholarly Communications work at Musselman Library, including Gettysburg College's institutional repository, The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. Covers June 2019-May 2020.

'Shut Up And Take The Mellon Money!': Adapting A Library-Led Digital Humanities Program To Accommodate Grant Funding., R.C. Miessler, Kevin Moore

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This presentation discusses how the team of librarians who facilitate Musselman Library's Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship program have negotiated the shift from local to grant funding, focusing on how we have organized our team and adapted program outcomes, assessment, and reporting to fit the requirements of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Presidential Leadership Grant. We review some unexpected challenges when working with grant funding and how we have successfully worked within the parameters of the grant to fit our needs locally.

Redesign Your Writing & Research Assignments, Melissa Forbes, Kerri Odess-Harnish, Meggan D. Smith

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With so many variables to account for in the fall, the writing and research assignments we designed for a 14-week semester with regular in-person access to campus resources may no longer be realistic or effective. Join Melissa Forbes, Director of the Writing Center and First-Year Writing, and Research & Instruction Librarians Kerri Odess-Harnish and Meggan Smith for tips on redesigning writing and research assignments to help students succeed whatever the semester looks like. A short 10-minute presentation will be followed by Q&A and open discussion.

Designing Digital Projects For Your Courses, R.C. Miessler, John Dettinger

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R.C. Miessler (Systems Librarian) and John Dettinger (Assistant Director of User Services) deliver a 30-minute workshop on how to design digital projects for your courses. They provide a model for digital project assignment design, including planning, instruction, and assessment strategies, as well as address how to successfully negotiate copyright concerns.

Accessible, Adaptable, Affordable: How Oer And Low-Cost Materials Can Future-Proof Your Courses, Janelle L. Wertzberger, Mary R. Elmquist, Sarah Appedu

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Janelle Wertzberger, Mary Elmquist, Sarah Appendu. Sarah Principato (Environmental Studies), Alecea Standlee (Sociology), Mercedes Valmisa (Philosophy) When COVID-19 caused an emergency pivot to online teaching and learning, students and faculty suddenly needed course materials that were accessible and adaptable in that context. Open educational resources (OER) offer flexibility and resiliency in any mode of instruction, while simultaneously reducing inequities among students. Faculty can employ other strategies to reduce student costs, as well. Hosted by the Musselman Library Scholarly Communications team, this session will include a short presentation, testimonials from faculty who are already teaching with OER and other low-cost materials, …