News & Blog

Congratulations to Lily Dubach who has been selected as the 2023-24 Excellence in Librarianship Award winner! The UCF Excellence Awards honor faculty teaching, research, service and advising achievements across campus each year. Lily has been a librarian at UCF since 2017 and is currently the Textbook Affordability Librarian. In this role, she uses her expertise to help faculty find and use free-to-student course materials to replace costly textbooks, so that every student in class has equal and affordable access to these resources.

Since 2016, UCF faculty have taught over 2,317 classes using library-sourced materials, in turn impacting over 107,072 students and potentially saving them over $7.9 million.

As Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) Instructor Vicki Lewis stated in her letter of support for Lily’s award: “Ms. Lily Dubach has been a dedicated UCF employee for many years, and she consistently works tirelessly to serve the institution, its students, and faculty members. The work that she does in her role in the UCF Library system has had a significant impact on my work as an academic instructor and as a result, on my students’ learning.”

Lily’s contributions and work with her colleagues have indeed enhanced teaching and learning at UCF and enriched students’ lives by helping them attain their goals. This award is a solid acknowledgement of her innovation in librarianship and her ability to have an impact here at UCF!

For faculty interested in exploring affordable course materials, please reach out to Lily Dubach, or visit https://library.ucf.edu/textbook-affordability/ to get started. You can also see if your textbook is available as a library eBook by using the eTextbook Check/Request Form. 

“eTextbook Portal” shows you how to identify if your digital textbook is available for free through the library by using the eTextbook Portal.

Click the link to view the video: https://vimeo.com/665607454

To address the evolving needs of students and the increasing demand for streamlined printing, copying, and scanning services, the Print Zone in the John C. Hitt Library has relocated to a more prominent and centralized location on the second floor. This move comes with several significant enhancements aimed at providing a more efficient and user-friendly printing environment. 

Over the past two years, the Print Zone has witnessed a surge in popularity, partly due to the utilization of Student Government print funds across campus since Fall 2021. With the closure of other printing locations on campus, such as the Student Union Computer Lab and All Knight Study areas, the demand for printing services at the Hitt Library has significantly increased. Long lines, insufficient Express Print PCs, inadequate furniture and space for staff to assist students, and not enough printing capacity during peak hours necessitated a better solution. 

The UCF Libraries is sponsoring their second “Love your Libraries” sticker contest! UCF Students are invited to submit original design entries no larger than 4” x 3”. Entries should be submitted as an image file (TIFF,JPEG, BMP, PNG, or GIF format).

The library will select one winning design that reflects the library to print and distribute during Finals Week (April 24 30, 2024). A winner will be announced through library social media and digital signs in the library. The winner will receive 25 printed stickers and an LED light displaying their design!

Contest rules:

• The contest is for UCF students only.
• One entry per student.
• If more than one entry is submitted by a student, all the entries by that person will be disqualified from the contest.
• Judges reserve the right to not select a winner due to limited submissions or lack of exceptional submissions.
• Entries with explicit content will not be considered for this contest.
• Images may be subject to approval by UCF Marketing.

Deadline to submit is March 29th at 5pm!

Submit at https://stars.library.ucf.edu/stickercontest/.

Depending on your major, it is possible that you may have to take classes away from the UCF main campus. As a Hospitality Management student, for example, once you are accepted into the program, most of your degree classes will be located at the Rosen campus. As students of these alternative campuses, you have access to their respective resources.

I intend to introduce you to each campus library. In this part, we will be discussing UCF’s Downtown campus and the Addition Financial Downtown Campus Library. Similar to the UCF main library, the Addition Financial Downtown Campus Library provides important services to students, faculty, and staff.

Services include:
– Checkout of books, DVDs, and course reserves
– Access to electronic resources, including databases, journals, and more
– Printing, copying, and scanning // IT support and Tech lending
– Research assistance via consultations, online chat, phone, text or email
– Borrowing from other libraries via Interlibrary Loan
– Library Instruction and access to subject librarians

As always, students must have their ID to make use of these resources!

The Addition Financial Downtown Campus Library is located on the 2nd floor of the Dr. Phillips Academic Commons. The library is closed on the weekends. During the Fall and Spring, the Downtown Library is open Mondays – Thursdays from 8 am to 9 pm and Fridays from 8 am to 5 pm. During the Summer semester, the library is open Mondays – Thursdays from 8 am to 7 pm and Fridays 8 am to 4 pm.

If you have any questions, you can reach library staff by email at downtownlibrary@ucf.edu or by calling 407-235-3720.

If you’d like to learn more about the Downtown Campus and Library, please visit “Diamond’s Hidden Gems – Downtown” in STARS!