News & Blog

The UCF Libraries is proud to share that Sara Duff was selected as a recipient for the 2024 UCF Research Incentive Award (RIA). This annual award recognizes the outstanding impact of UCF faculty’s research, creative and scholarly output. As part of UCF faculty, many UCF librarians engage in research, creative, or scholarly activities while striving for excellence in supporting the library mission. Two other librarians won the RIA in previous years.

Sara joined UCF Libraries in 2017 as the Acquisitions & Collection Assessment Librarian. She has consistently provided outstanding collection services in investigating and acquiring library resources, such as textbooks and streaming video for classes, to directly support UCF’s academic mission. In 2022, Sara was awarded the Excellence in Librarianship. Sara is an avid reader and passionate about sharing knowledge to the library profession. She conducts research informed by her library work. The research results have been turned into books, articles, and presentations. 

In 2020, Sara co-authored a Routledge book with another librarian Tina Buck, Guidance for Librarians Transitioning to a New Environment. They surveyed librarians from a few countries working at different types of libraries. Their research findings demystify the perceived barriers between various types and environments of librarianship and provide a roadmap for successful transitions across the library types. The book has received international accolades and already been added to over 127 libraries in 19 countries.

Two years later in 2022, Sara co-edited Zines in Libraries: Selecting, Purchasing, and Processing, a book published by the American Library Association. This title becomes one of the only two books sharing best practices in building library zines collections. It earned favorable reviews from Choice, Booklist, Library Resources & Technical Services, and Technicalities.

In addition to authorship in books, Sara has maintained a productive and consistent research record by contributing to articles to peer reviewed journals and presentations to conferences on library collection services. Several examples of her past research include evaluating different electronic acquisition models, acquiring textbooks to enable affordability, open access, analyses of new workflow. All topics represent current trends in libraries and have generated extensive interest.

Congratulations to Sara Duff!

Lee Dotson, Digital Initiatives Librarian and manager of STARS (Showcase of Text, Archives, Research & Scholarship), UCF’s institutional digital repository, has been accepted into the prestigious Digital POWRR Peer Assessment Program for the year 2024. POWRR stands for Preserving (digital) Objects with Restricted Resources. This program is sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). 

The Digital POWRR Peer Assessment Program is an exclusive initiative that is designed to empower individuals to address the challenges of preserving digital assets, especially when faced with limited resources. Lee will engage with a cohort in a year-long comprehensive assessment process, collaborating to evaluate and improve digital preservation strategies and practices. Participants will work closely with peers and mentors, conduct an institutional case study, generate a longer peer assessment report, present findings through a final project showcase, and write a white paper that will be published.  
 

Participants also receive a participation stipend as well as a “Technology Start Up” award that can be provisioned towards helping to jump start digital preservation activities. 

Congratulations to Lee on this significant achievement! Her participation in this Program is an investment in both her personal and our organizational growth. The digital preservation skills acquired, coupled with her strengthened network and gained leadership capabilities, will contribute significantly to advancing the digital preservation efforts of the UCF Libraries and facilitate deeper collaboration with Special Collections and University Archives. 

On July13th the UCF Libraries switches to Primo, a new library system replacing the library catalog and QuickSearch.

Primo is a next-generation integrated library system (ILS) that leverages cloud-based services and offers a responsive web and mobile design. Primo will improve access to materials and enhance the user experience for students, faculty, and staff. Specifically, Primo allows for:

• searching across books, chapters, articles, videos, and many other document types,
• cross searching the library collections of all 40 Florida public universities and state colleges, and
• virtual browsing, to show book jackets and titles organized as they would appear on the shelf.  This feature is especially useful as more items are stored in the Automated Retrieval Center (ARC).

Migrating to Primo means that links to the old library catalog and to QuickSearch will stop working.  Links that need to be updated include:

• all links to the current library catalog, including records for books, ebooks, videos, and other documents,
• all links to content on QuickSearch (EBSCO Discovery Service), including articles, book chapters, Research Starters, and other documents, and
• all links created using the QuickSearch Lite tool in Canvas.

Please contact your Subject Librarian for assistance with updating course links, chat with library staff real time for an immediate response to questions, or use Report a Problem for issues with accessing electronic materials or other library resources.  

Take a look at Primo!  Contact Library Instruction to schedule an introduction to Primo for your class.

There’s still time to see 45 Years of Collecting: UCF Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives! This exhibit will be on display in the fourth floor gallery at John C Hitt Library. Please note the gallery IS open every weekday from 9am – 4pm. The lights are out until the door opens to preserve the collection but please do come in and visit!

This broad range of materials highlights the evolution of the library’s collection over the past 45 years.

It includes great UCF items like Daunte Culpepper’s football, Spirit Splash rubber duckie, Knightro squishy toy, Pegasus yearbook, and some Citronaut memorabilia.

Check out gorgeous handmade selections from our bookarts like Penumbra by Ke Francis.

See the oldest item in our collection, a Vulgate Bible from 1546 or local central Florida memorabilia from old tourist pamphlets to Pulse Memorial inspired artworks.

The exhibit runs from February 2021 through April 2021 in the new 4^th floor Special Collections & University Archives’ Gallery in the John C. Hitt Library.

For more information, email speccoll@ucf.edu.

Sarah Norris, UCF Scholarly Communications Librarian, and Rich Gause, UCF Government Information Librarian, will provide a session on Copyright, Fair Use, and Online Teaching During Emergency Circumstances. This session will be held via Zoom on Thursday, May 7^th at 3 p.m. All UCF faculty are welcome to attend. The session will provide a bit of information on fair use (exploring the four fair use factors in depth) and other components that will be helpful as you consider the materials you need when teaching online. 

Specific copyright and fair use questions can be directed to Sarah Norris and Rich Gause ahead of time or during the session. 

Zoom Link for the online session

See also our online guide “Academic Resources during COVID-19 Situation: Copyright Clarifications”