Krista Higham Awarded Continuing Education Grant!

Attendees listen to a speaker at the 2024 ALA Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.

Krista Highham, Assistant Professor at Millersville University, was recently awarded a continuing education grant to support attendance at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA). Krista reports that the conversations and sessions always generate new ideas and reminders to do things at Millersville. The full grant report is available here.

Gettysburg College to Bucknell University Site Visit!

Workshop Participants at the Gettysburg College to Bucknell University site visit.

On July 8, 2024, Gettysburg College library’s Digital Humanities Fellows visited Bucknell University to meet up with their Digital Scholarship Summer Research Fellows. Eyoel Delessa (Research, Instruction, and First Year Engagement Librarian, Gettysburg), Jason Snyder (Librarian & Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Bucknell) and Ben Hoover (Student Experience and Outreach Specialist, Bucknell) led the combined fellows in a session about how to talk about their research. In this workshop, the fellows created elevator speeches that pitched their projects to various audiences. In the afternoon, the students showed off their current research projects to each other and solicited feedback. The full report of the site visit is available here.

Emily Reed, Penn State Harrisburg, Awarded Research, Program Design, and Publication Grant!

Emily Reed at the Library Collective’s Collective at Sea cruise

Emily Reed, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Penn State Harrisburg, was recently awarded funding from ACLCP to attend a conference aboard a cruise ship. Emily attended and presented at the Library Collective’s Collective at Sea cruise. The cruise departed May 13, 2024 from Miami, FL for five nights with visits to CocoCay, Bahamas, and Cozumel, Mexico. Emily’s presentation invited participants to experience firsthand an educational learning technology through the lens of cognitive load theory as the theoretical framework. Emily provides a fascinating comparison of attending a land-based conference versus one taking place on a cruise ship. A complete report of Emily’s experience is available here.

Lebanon Valley College to the State Library of Pa Site Visit!

Lebanon Valley College Staff at the State Library of Pennsylvania

On May 14, 2024, library staff from Lebanon Valley College’s Bishop Library visited the State Library of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA. This visit provided an opportunity to network and facilitate new professional connections between staff members. It also offered a glimpse into the multi-year renovations and changes to the State Library’s physical building. Finally, the Lebanon Valley College team gained a more comprehensive overview of the State Library of Pennsylvania’s many services and state-wide resources. The full report of the site visit is available here.

Franklin and Marshall to Penn State University Site Visit!

Dianna Daigle, Nikki Rearich, and Jenn Buch from Franklin and Marshall with Meg Massey from Penn State.

On March 20, library employees from Franklin and Marshall College visited the Pattee and Paterno Libraries at Penn State to learn how the latter was using a recently developed ILLIad addon for ReShare. Franklin and Marshall employees were looking for ways to streamline the system to make it easier for patrons and more efficient for staff. The Franklin and Marshall library employees were also given a tour of the Pattee and Paterno Libraries. Following the tour and lunch, the Penn State employees shared their experiences with the ILLIad addon and how they might impact Franklin and Marshall. The visit was extremely informative and helpful and the Franklin and Marshall library employees left feeling excited about the prospect of creating a more streamline experience for users. The complete report of the visit is available here.

R.C. Miessler, Gettysburg College, Awarded Continuing Education Grant!

R.C. Miessler

R.C. Miessler, digital initiatives librarian, Gettysburg College, was recently awarded funding from ACLCP to complete an online digital preservation course at Indiana University. The course introduces several common applications for digital preservation, including: Teracopy, WinDirStat, Bagger, Bulk Extractor, DataAccessioner and DA Metadata Transformer. The course was instrumental in helping to shape the future of digital archiving at Gettysburg College. A complete report of the grant is available here.

Research, Program Design, and Publication Grant Awarded to Elizabethtown College!

Elizabethtown librarians posing with plants.

Elizabethtown College High Library was recently awarded a Research, Program Design, and Publication Grant for $400 to launch a plant loan program in mid-January 2024. After drawing inspiration from seed libraries and plant exchange programs, they decided to try a new approach: loaning the plants themselves. To grow the collection, they purchased pots, soil, and 35 hardy houseplants (e.g., aloe, peace lily, schefflera, snake, spider plants). They also obtained 10 free cuttings from interested employees. We then invited the campus to a potting party! News of the program spread quickly, with students and staff borrowing the entire collection by the end of the first week. A complete report of the grant is available here.

Continuing Education Grant Award!

LLX 2024 ShopTalk, Baltimore MD.

From January 20th-22nd, 2024, Frank Vitale IV attended the 2024 ALA LibLearnX Conference in Baltimore, Maryland thanks to the generous support of an ACLCP Continuing Education grant. During the conference, he participated in several panel sessions and workshops on topics including instructional accessibility, library services for student parents, experiential learning in libraries, and collection diversity. These discussions and sessions have given him a few new ideas to consider implementing at his institution, and strengthened his resolve to continue some of the work he’s already doing in these areas. This was Frank’s first presentation at a national-level library science conference, and the entire experience was enlightening as an early career librarian. Frank is thankful for ACLCP’s support his attendance at ALA LLX. without which he would not have been able to attend or present at the  conference. The complete report of the his visit is available here.

Millersville to Penn State Harrisburg Site Visit!

On Tuesday, July 18th, 2023, two employees and two students from Millersville University’s Archives & Special Collections visited their colleagues at the Archives and Special Collections at Penn State Harrisburg, Madlyn L. Hanes Library, part of the Penn State University Libraries for a day of discussions and tours.

The visit started with a discussion of the collections, programs, and activities of the Archives and Special Collections at PSU Harrisburg, followed by an exploration of some of the repository’s most notable special collections and archival materials. There was then time for a tour of the reading room, processing, and collection storage spaces, which started many interesting conversations that extended over the lunch hour. Among the many topics of conversation were exhibition activities, instructional opportunities, special collections environmental controls, continuing professional development opportunities, and the similarities and differences between the two institutions. Pictured in the accompanying photo are (left to right): Elizabeth McIlhenney, Ashley Sherman, Frank Vitale, Sarah Gehret, and Alex Poland. The complete report of the visit is available here.

Continuing Education Grant Award!

Stephanie Thompson, McNairy Library and Learning Forum, Millersville University, was recently awarded a continuing education grant to attend the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference that took place from March 15 through 18, 2023 in Pittsburg, PA. The report of Stephanie’s attendance is available here.

Messiah to Susquehanna Site Visit!

On June 21, 2022, five Messiah University librarians and four support staff visited Susquehanna’s Blough Weis Library.

The visit started with a detailed tour of the library spaces. Special attention was given to the main floor which was renovated in 2014. The tour also included conversations about classroom space for information literacy, weeding projects, and staff offices. Then there was discussion time to chat about instruction and liaison opportunities for librarians at our respective campuses. A separate group gathered to talk about ExLibris’s Alma. Messiah recently migrated to Alma in 2021 and benefited from hearing about Susquehanna’s experiences. The group enjoyed a meal together in the library’s café area. Afterwards the Messiah group explored the library’s Shakespeare garden, a special library project that includes 175 plants and herbs mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings. The attendees benefited from meeting with colleagues and many ideas were exchanged.

Continuing Education Grant Award!

Jasmine Smith, Reference and Instruction Librarian at Alvernia University, was recently awarded an ACLCP continuing education grant to attend the the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) in Gettysburg, PA. The Fall 2021 conference took place from October 7 to October 9. The conference theme was Sites of Memory. The full report of Jasmine’s attendance is available here.

Juniata to Elizabethtown Peer-to-Peer Site Visit!

On July 11, 2019 four members of Juniata College’s Beeghly Library staff visited the High Library and Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.

Juniata Group Photo

The visit featured a tour and discussion of the Hess Special Collections and Archives, lunch at Lucky Ducks Bar and Grille, and a tour and discussion of the Young Center. The full report of the visit is available here.

Lebanon Valley and Elizabethtown Peer-to-Peer Site Visit!

On July 10, 2019 sixteen employees from the Lebanon Valley College and Elizabethtown College libraries met at central off-site location to prepare for implementing Ex Libris’ Alma and Primo at both campuses.

Lebanon Valley College and Elizabethtown College Group Photo

The full report of the visit is available here.

Harrisburg University to Dickinson Peer-to-Peer Site Visit!

On July 29, 2019, three members of the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology Library staff visited Dickinson College’s Waidner-Spahr Library to discuss student employee management, digital projects and archives, and information literacy. The library staff of the two institutions shared lunch at Kimberly’s Café and Creamery after our conversations. The full report of the visit is available here.