Community engagement

Bringing map literacy to public schools

Map Librarian Ryan Mattke and the Borchert Map Library launched its first summer teaching fellowship, building an inclusion network of K-12 educators from across the Twin Cities metro area. The three-month long fellowship connected teachers with Libraries resources, helping them navigate technologies — including ArcGIS Online, a mapping and analysis software, and ArcGIS StoryMaps, a tool for displaying online maps and adding context — and integrating those geographic information systems into their classrooms. Read the full story.

Twin City high schoolers learn the basics of orthopedic surgery in the Makerspace

The Perry Initiative, an organization that provides hands-on experience and mentorship support for women entering orthopedic surgery and engineering, partnered with the U of M Medical School and Libraries Makerspace staff to host two outreach programs for local high schoolers and medical students.

The Makerspace in the Health Science Library opened its doors for the Perry Initiative and provided a space for mock surgeries, where students learned how to handle femur fracture repairs, apply casts for a broken arm, and perform fundamental stitching techniques. Read the full story.

Engagement, outreach, and community partnerships

The Libraries’ Engagement, Outreach, and Community Partnerships team participated in 46 distinct outreach events and partnerships in FY24, with 20 community partners and over 40 University partners. Highlights included visits from public librarians and teachers to learn about emerging technology and makerspaces in education; summer camp experiences for grade schoolers in the Toaster; a “Tinker @ the Toaster” design challenge with Test Kitchen, a local restaurant; and a partnership with the Racial Justice STEAM Collective at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

New databases support tomorrow’s health professionals

Minitex, an information and resource sharing program of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the U of M Libraries, added two new health care databases to its online library. The ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health and EBSCO Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases will help to expand access to health care information for Minnesotans and training materials for future health care workers while freeing up funds for libraries and nurse-training programs across the state. Read the full story.

Minitex in FY24:

• Minnesotans found 11,309,434 full-text items by searching eLibrary Minnesota (ELM), an 1.9% increase from last year
• Minnesotans searched ELM 54,975,523 times, a 19% increase
• Minitex delivered 774,360 items, a 7% increase
• Minnesota libraries saved over $3.23 million through the Minitex Cooperative Purchasing program

Events highlights

Every year the Libraries brings authors, artists, performers, and scholars to share their perspectives with our campus and community. Check out some of this year’s highlights below — and visit our YouTube channel to watch recordings from these and other Libraries events!

Poet and author Dr. Gwen Westerman and Angie Ohler, Associate University Librarian, pose with Westerman’s new book “Songs, Blood Deep” at the 15th Annual Pankake Poetry Reading on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 at Elmer L. Andersen Library.

In fall 2023, author Samuel Freedman spoke about his new book, “Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights.” Freedman used the expansive resources of the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives as he conducted research for the book. The conversation was moderated by Kirsten Delegard, co-founder of the University Libraries’ Mapping Prejudice project.

Dr. Keith Mayes, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, was the featured speaker at the annual A Feast of Words event on Jan. 31, 2024 at the Campus Club in Coffman Memorial Union.

In his talk, “Pursuing Diagnosis: Academic Underachievement and the Racialization of Special Education in Public Schools,” Dr. Mayes discussed the racial overrepresentation of Black students in special education, which emerged as a grand challenge in the 1980s and 1990s, spawning debates around the country about how to reduce it.

A Feast of Words is part of the Friends Forum: A Series for Curious Minds, an exciting series of events to spark your curiosity and challenge your thinking, brought to you by the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries.