Top 10 Library Stories for 2024
Each year, we look back on some of the most important projects we’ve pursued at the San Diego State University Library as well as some of the most significant contributions we’ve made both to the strategic goals of the university and to the day-to-day concerns of our community.
Looking back at another full year of our work on the library strategic plan and our contributions to the SDSU strategic plan, we are happy to share this review of a busy 2024.
To keep up to date on everything happening in (and around) the University Library, please visit the Library News all year round!
#10 - Public Programs Come Back to Full Strength
One of the most significant changes in the day-to-day life of the library during and after the COVID-19 pandemic was the decrease in public programs in the University Library. While we continued to provide a robust set of online offerings, it was only in the past year that we saw the “full slate” of public programs come back to the library, including the Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers’ Series (in collaboration with the Department of English and Comparative Literature), Black Research Symposium (in collaboration with the Black Resource Center), and the Digital Humanities Showcase. In addition, the library hosted a number of exhibitions, including major exhibitions on Comics Studies and Surf Studies (with the California Surf Museum) as well as “pop-up” displays on a variety of topics, including this November 2024 collection of resources for Native American Heritage Month. Finally, we continued to build on campus and community partnerships for programs like the Banned Books Week Read-Out with Associated Students and Library Card Sign-Up Month with San Diego County Library. The University Library serves as a cross-roads at the heart of our campus and one of the most active resources for learning outside the classroom and we look forward to launching new programs within the library and in collaboration with campus and community partners in 2025.
Bonus content: Read the Daily Aztec story about Banned Books Week (2024).
#9 - Archival Acquisitions Strengthen Science Fiction Collections
Amanda Kent '24 works to catalog new archival materials
San Diego State University has been a center for the study of science fiction (also referred to as speculative fiction) since the 1960s, when Elizabeth Chater began teaching her path-breaking course in science fiction writing. Among her faculty colleagues was Vernor Vinge, winner of the Hugo Award for his 2006 novel Rainbows End (among other award-winning works), and among her students was Greg Bear, a co-founder of San Diego Comic-Con and winner of the Hugo Award for his 1986 short story, “Tangents.” In 2024, the archives of both Vinge and Bear joined those of Chater in our Department of Special Collections and University Archives to provide additional resources for those either studying science fiction or employing science fiction as a means of studying other issues. These archival collections were only part of the additions to our special collections in 2024, with other areas of focus including Latinx and Indigenous collections, graphic design collections, and continuing additions to our distinctive collections in the study of alternative religious movements in the United States as well as comics and graphic arts.
#8 - CLIR Grant Received to Expand and Provide Access to Chicana/o Collections
Latin American and Indigenous Communities Archivist Erika Esquivel and Natalie Santizo, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies in the College of Arts and Letters, examine some of the materials to be archived
Together with the College of Arts and Letters, the University Library has received a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to enhance and promote greater access to its Chicana/o Archive, which was “established in 2007 to preserve the histories of Chicana/o people in the San Diego area.” This $300,000 grant, for which Latin American and Indigenous Communities Archivist Erika Esquivel will serve as co-principal investigator, will support the digitization of the existing archival materials as well as support opportunities to add to the archives through engagement with the Chicana/o community in San Diego.
#7 - Collaborating with Campus Colleagues to Support Health and Wellness
The Pick Me Up Kit addressing anxiety
As recently reported by Inside Higher Ed, access to resources supporting health and wellness on campus is critical to promoting student success, especially resources aimed at lessening stress and promoting mental health. Joining campus partners in the Live Well Aztecs program, including Associated Students and Student Health Services, the University Library continues to promote easier access to health and wellness resources for students. In 2023, we launched the single-use study rooms that can be used by students to conduct tele-health meetings (among other users), and this year Health Sciences Librarian Cat Ellis spearheaded the development and implementation of our new “Pick-Me-Up Kits,” providing immediate access to resources providing educational resources on topics including anxiety, depression, and therapy. The Library has collaborated with Associated Students on health and wellness initiatives for several years, especially in providing “de-stressing” opportunities during final examination period, but building programs in collaboration with other campus partners allows us to further define and deliver on the library’s potential for a distinctive contribution to the campus-wide focus on supporting student health and wellness.
#6 - Citizen Science Program Launched
Citizen science (also known as community science) is an approach to engaging members of the public in the collection and interpretation of scientific data, often on topics of concern in the participating community. Local examples of citizen science programs supported in San Diego include the San Diego Plant Atlas and the Flying Squirrels of Southern California project, both housed at the San Diego Natural History Museum. For the first time, the University Library served as a partner in “Citizen Science Month,” providing workshops and programs encouraging SDSU community members to participate in the City Nature Challenge, contribute to efforts to collect and dispose of litter, and participate in the “All of Us” research program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Spearheaded by Sciences and Sustainability Librarian Sarah Tribelhorn, our initial foray into citizen science programs supports a number of strategic initiatives within the library, including research data services, sustainability, and community engagement.
Bonus content: Read more about citizen science initiatives in the SDSU Library on the SciStarter blog.
#5 - New Course Highlights Misinformation and How to Combat It
Over the past three years, Merriam-Webster has selected words related to misinformation and disinformation as its “word of the year,” including: gaslighting (2022), authentic (2023), and polarization (2024). As its editors wrote in 2022: “In this age of misinformation - of 'fake news', conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deep fakes - gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time.” Misinformation, sometimes related to health information, climate change information, or political information, is increasingly recognized an issue of concern in our society, a concern that has grown with the potential presented by artificial intelligence tools to generate and disseminate false narratives. Students in Online Learning Librarian Rebecca Nowicki’s new course, “Fighting Misinformation: Locating and Using Reliable Sources for College and Everyday Life” (HON 113), are prepared with the tools to critically evaluate information, recognize the tricks and tools increasingly employed to spread misinformation, and serve as a resource for the classrooms and community in promoting and making greater use of accurate information to make important decisions in their lives.
#4 - Summer Institute for K-12 Teachers
With support from a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, faculty from the University Library and the College of Arts and Letters conducted a summer institute for K-12 teachers from around the country focused on how to teach social justice concepts using comics and graphic novels. This latest grant project demonstrates the continuing growth of the Center for Comics Studies, an interdisciplinary initiative co-led by Comic Arts Curator Pamela Jackson, and the impact on teaching, learning, scholarship, and engagement of academic programs supported by distinctive library collections and services.
#3 - NEH Grant Received to Expand Collaboration with Tijuana Archives
Another $300,00 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities allowed the University Library to continue, and expand upon, its collaboration with Tijuana’s Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura to provide digital access to materials housed in the Archivo Histórico de Tijuana. Led by Lisa Lamont, Head of Digital Collections, the “Preserving and Revealing Tijuana’s Past” project will provide access to local history collections through our “Colecciones de Instituciones Mexicanas” portal. Complementing similar initiatives supporting the provision of digital access to materials related to the San Diego and transborder Latinx communities, this project with further demonstrate the capacity for the University Library to support the SDSU goal of strengthening its role as a Hispanic-serving research university with a commitment to its place on the U.S.-Mexico border.
#2 - Sustainability in Libraries
In collaboration with campus and community partners, the San Diego State University Library has emerged as a national leader in the discussion of sustainable practices in academic libraries and the discussion of the contributions that libraries make to sustainable communities. Led by Sciences and Sustainability Librarian Sarah Tribelhorn, the library has become a key part of the university’s sustainability plan, contributing to our recognition by The Princeton Review as one of the “Top 50 Green Colleges” in the United States. Our strategic commitment to sustainability in libraries and to supporting sustainability planning at the campus level has resulted in strengthening partnerships both with campus partners such as Associated Students and the Office of Energy and Sustainability, but also with library partners throughout San Diego County. Following the lead of San Diego County Library, we are currently pursuing Sustainable Libraries Initiative certification and hope to announce our successful receipt of SLI certification in 2025.
Bonus content: Read more about the early stages of sustainability planning in the SDSU Library in this article from College & Research Libraries News.
#1 - Information Issues Initiative Continues to Grow
Sciences and Sustainability Librarian Sarah Tribelhorn presents at the 2024 SDSU Sustainability Summit
Continuing the successful pilot of the San Diego Health Information Partnership program last year, SDSU librarians expanded the renamed “Information Issues Partnership” with colleagues from San Diego Circuit libraries (University of California San Diego, San Diego Public Library, San Diego County Library, University of San Diego, and California State University San Marcos) to include programs focused on Climate Change Information and Sustainability. A series of author talks were presented as part of this program in collaboration with the All of Us research program at UC San Diego Health, and Circuit team members were invited to share their approach to promoting “collective impact on information issues” to several professional organizations, including at the annual meeting of the American Library Association in June 2024.
Thank you for being part of the San Diego State University Library community in 2024! If you would like to know more about any of the stories above, please contact your liaison librarian. We look forward to working with you to write new stories in 2025!
