Meet Eamon, who helps faculty, staff, and students connect directly with expert librarians remotely through the Ask a Librarian service

Q: What was your transition from in-person work to remote work like? Describe your typical day while working from home. It was a very abrupt transition! I had the chance to get some items from my office before remote work began, but I started working from home on March 16 and didn’t set foot on […]

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Declassified Government Documents Held in the Libraries’ Collections are Now Significantly Easier to Search and Discover

Columbia University Libraries and the History Lab are pleased to announce an important milestone in a multi-year project to significantly improve the discoverability of declassified government documents held in the Libraries’ collection via the Freedom of Information Archive (FOIArchive). Integration of the U.S. based collections of the archive in the Columbia Libraries’ catalog now enables […]

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Meet Candice, who implemented an online library seat reservation system in a few short weeks from her dining room table

Q: What is your role in the Libraries, and what is your “office space” like these days since you’re not physically on campus?  I’m the Head of Web Services for the Libraries. I’m responsible for managing what we call the Libraries web presence, which means the sites that provide library services and resources. Those sites […]

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Meet Zak, who is on campus almost daily helping to keep the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library safely open for study space and collection access

Q: What does your work at the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library entail on a daily basis, and how is it different from before?  With the help of an excellent team of five people, I oversee Access Services at Avery Library. Access Services encompasses a lot of the public services our users associate with […]

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Columbia University Libraries Announces Studio Remote

Columbia University Libraries’ Studio, a space and practice that enables and promotes collaborative, ethical, fair, and sustainable digital and data-driven research and pedagogy, now streams ideas and projects on Twitch. The Studio, led by Digital Scholarship Librarian Alex Gil and Research Data Librarian Moacir P. de Sá Pereira, adapted its programming to a virtual learning […]

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Meet Jim, who led the effort to reopen library spaces safely and launched new services to connect users with collections and tools

Q: You’ve been wearing a lot of figurative hats at the Libraries these days. What is your job normally, and how has it changed since March? My normal job is Head of Access & User Experience for the Science, Engineering & Social Science Libraries. I lead a really excellent team who work across 6 campus […]

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Columbia Law School Names Simon Canick Director of the Arthur W. Diamond Law Library

Columbia Law School has announced the appointment of Simon Canick as director of the Arthur W. Diamond Law Library at Columbia Law School, effective January 2021. Canick began his professional career as a reference librarian in the Columbia law library over two decades ago. In the years since, he has led academic libraries and information […]

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Update on Library Hours for Thanksgiving Weekend

All libraries will be CLOSED on Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27 for Thanksgiving, a University holiday. Butler Library will be OPEN on Saturday, November 28 and Sunday, November 29; all other libraries will be closed on those days. Normal library hours for the fall semester will resume on Monday, November 30. Six libraries […]

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Columbia University Libraries and LYRASIS Announce Copyright Advisory Board Members

LYRASIS, a global non-profit membership organization providing technology and content solutions for libraries, museums, archives, and research communities, and Columbia University Libraries are pleased to announce the members of the Advisory Board for the newly-formed Virtual Copyright Education Center. As previously announced, LYRASIS and the Libraries joined forces to pilot the new program, which will […]

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Meet Lauren, who is digitizing rare Muslim World manuscripts to ensure scholars around the world can access these materials from anywhere, anytime

Q: What is the project you’re working on currently, and what is your particular role? I’m working on the Manuscripts of the Muslim World project, a grant-funded effort by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) that is shared between Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and Bryn Mawr and […]

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