Message from Dean Burhanna

Friends,

As we start a new year and a new academic semester, I send my best wishes for success!

In 2022, University Libraries returned to more robust operations. We move forward with optimism, respecting what we learned during the pandemic and planning for an engaging future to support the success of our users wherever they are in the world.

We enjoyed several successes and accomplishments over the past year:

• University Libraries welcomed more than 2,200 students to campus as we returned to our in-person Late Night at the Library celebration to launch the fall semester.
• In the fall of 2022, we returned to staffing a welcome desk in the lobby of the University Library as a way to say hello and guide students and visitors during some of the building’s busiest hours.
• Alumnus Lloyd De Vos (’70) headlined our Constitution Day Event and engaged in a lively discussion with a panel of students.
• We successfully became a member of the HathiTrust, giving our users access to more than 17 million digitized texts.
• Kent State LaunchNET celebrated its 10^th anniversary while debuting the Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurship Suite in the DI Hub.
• The Kent State University Press published “Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic,” which shared many of the responses to a community poetry project facilitated by the Kent State’s Wick Poetry Center and the Poetry Center of the University of Arizona. In the fall, this work was transformed into an interactive play that debuted at the National Academy of Sciences.
• The May 4 Visitors Center completed an updated visioning process.
• We raised more than $10,000 for our student scholarship fund.

The year to come promises to be equally eventful and exciting. Here are just a few things to look forward to:

• The opening of our new Fashion Library in Rockwell Hall (date coming soon – most likely, late April).
• Celebrating the digitization of the Lafayette Tolliver Photograph Collection (event scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 23).
• Recognizing the 10th Anniversary of the May 4 Visitors Center.
• The inaugural meeting of University Libraries’ Student Advisory Council.
• Advanced goals around student affordability with OER education and support.
• Continued support of open access and data management to help Kent State researchers succeed.
• Continue to optimize our library spaces for student belonging and success.

We are grateful to all of you, our partners and collaborators. We do very little by ourselves, but together, we accomplish a great deal. Thank you for your support and we hope to see you, whether online or in-person, in our libraries soon.