News & Blog

Wednesday, October 7, 2020
3:00 pm- 4:30 pm

Register to attend at Zoom – Supporting Hispanic/Latinx Communities through Florida Libraries 

Please join us next week for the UCF Libraries’ inaugural event to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, “Supporting Hispanic/LatinX Communities through Florida Libraries.” Sandy Avila, Science Librarian and UCF’s Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Engagement Librarian will moderate an informative panel highlighting the role Florida library staff play in supporting their diverse Hispanic/LatinX communities in the Panhandle, around Central Florida, and in South Florida.

Come join our fantastic speakers from the Bay County Public Library, Orange County Library System, and Broward College as we share insights into our Hispanic communities and how we are serving their needs.

Heather Ogilvie
Bay County Public Library

Heather Ogilvie is the Outreach Librarian for Bay County Public Library in Panama City, Florida. She specializes in nontraditional library services, using community partnerships to create innovative solutions for underserved populations. Ms. Ogilvie was the recipient of the 2020 American Library Association’s Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity for her work in Florida Panhandle after the aftermath of Hurricane Michael a Category 5 storm. Despite adversity, Ms. Ogilvie was able to serve outreach sites by helping to rebuild personal libraries destroyed in the storm and other materials to assist in community recovery.

Brigitte Martinez
Orange County Library System

Brigitte Martinez is the Assistant Manager for Marketing and Public Relations at the Orange County Library System. She studied Biology at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, in Santurce Puerto Rico.
Ms. Martinez’s job is to inform and educate Central Florida’s multicultural community by holding events, opportunities and programs that the Orange County Library offers. These services help improve lives.

Cristy Moran
Broward College

Cristy Moran is a faculty librarian at Broward College, an institution which serves a predominantly minority population, including a 38% Latinx student body. She is a critical librarian, a lifelong South Floridian, and Hispanic-American of Cuban heritage.

The University of Central Florida Libraries wish to welcome our international graduate students to a virtual library orientation on August 18, 2020, 3:00 – 5:00pm. Attendees will learn how the UCF Library System supports our international graduate students and their research. This two-hour event is designed for new and returning international students.

Participants will have the opportunity to connect with their subject specialist librarian, to learn about the Libraries’ collections and resources, and to leave the event knowing how to contact a subject librarian in their area of research.

The program will cover a variety of important topics including library cultural adaption, scholarship/publishing academic integrity and resources, etc.

Register through our Qualtrics form

UCF Libraries is building a digital time capsule, based on this year’s Diversity Week theme, Stronger Together: Unified! Connected! Family!

In this unprecedented year marked by COVID-19 and the continued fight for racial equity, we ask you to tell your story, share your voice, and be heard. Chronicle your connection to this year’s theme by contributing photographs you have taken, illustrations you have created, or text you have penned. You can influence how the present will be remembered. Share your message.

Submission information:

• Open to UCF students, faculty, staff, and UCF Alumni. 
• One submission per person. 
• Submissions will be digitized and housed in STARS. STARS is UCF’s digital repository to publicize, disseminate, and preserve works by, for, and about UCF.
• Submissions must be sized 8 ½” X 11” in a landscape orientation.
• Submissions formats are pdf, jpg, png, or docx.
• All submissions must be original work(s).
• Participants must submit a consent form granting permission for their content to be digitized and placed into STARS as part of the Qualtrics form.
• Submissions will be accepted August 1, 2020 – October 25, 2020.
• Sexually explicit content will not be accepted, and UCF Libraries reserves the right to omit any submission.
• All works will be placed into the digital time capsule as received; no editing services will be provided.

Submit at the Knights Stronger Together Digital Time Capsule Qualtrics form.

UCF Libraries wants to see your design skills! Will you accept our design challenge?

Select one of the titles below and illustrate the cover for that book. The submission deadline is Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 11:59PM.

• Knightro and the Strange, Scary Pandemic Semester
• Knugget Takes a Vacation
• The Golden Vulture Strikes Again

For full contest rules and to submit your illustration, check out the contest page.

• Contests 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 sexual content will not be considered for this contest.

The winner will be announced on Monday, August 3, 2020. Prizes include a #UCFLibraries water bottle and a limited edition Quiet Space Rubber Duckie.

The 2020 Summer Knights Reading Challenge kicks off on June 1st and ends on August 1st. This year’s challenge will be a book bingo, with each square consisting of a different genre or category. Participants will receive brand new UCF themed coloring pages and bingo winners will receive a limited edition sticker. 

The challenge is open to all UCF students, faculty, and staff as well as those from the Downtown Valencia Campus. For more information and to sign up to participate, visit our 2020 Summer Knights Reading Challenge libguide. A link to the bingo card and coloring pages will be emailed to those who sign up.