City Tech’s Ursula C. Schwerin Library recently received a Building Library Capacity grant from the American Library Association (ALA), intended to help improve library operations and services by ensuring broader access to technology, expanding collections, and providing additional staffing while maintaining existing services throughout 2023. Thanks to a proposal written by Interim Chief Librarian and Associate Professor Anne Leonard, rank Professor Monica Berger, and rank Professor Junior Tidal, the College’s library was one of 17 awardees at minority-serving institutions (MSI) to receive the $10,000 grant.

This grant will provide students, faculty, and staff with access to new equipment, focusing primarily on audio technology including podcasting kits, a podcasting booth, and portable turntables, which will allow anyone to listen to the library’s vinyl LP collection and create their own podcasts. Some funding will also be used to add more albums to the library’s existing collection of over 2,000 vinyl recordings. To this end, the library is planning on collecting student input for album recommendations in order to reflect the College’s diversity, focusing on recordings by and for members from marginalized communities such as LatinX/Hispanic artists.

City Tech Chief Librarian and Library Department Head Anne Leonard says, “I’m thrilled that City Tech Library is among such a distinguished group of Building Library Capacity grantees. I’m especially looking forward to students’ input on growing our record collection to include many more LatinX musicians and artists.”

Professor and Web Services & Multimedia Librarian Junior Tidal notes, “I am excited that the ALA Building Library Capacity grant will not only expose City Tech students to the library's existing vinyl record collection, but will also allow them the opportunity to provide input on future music acquisitions.”

“Podcasting equipment that students can borrow has been on our wish list for years. We want to encourage our students to envision the library as a place that supports them as knowledge creators; podcasting opens up many possibilities for students to express themselves whether for an assignment or independently,” says Associate Professor and Instruction & Scholarly Communications Librarian Monica Berger.

For more information about the ALA’s Building Library Capacity grant, please visit www.shorturl.at/zBCDW.

To contribute comments and suggestions for additions to the library’s record collection, visit www.library.citytech.cuny.edu/comments.php. For updates on the activities and resources coming from the grant, follow City Tech Library on Instagram @citytechlibrary and subscribe to LibraryBuzz blog posts.