Dear Colleagues,

It has been a true pleasure to meet many of you since I started my role as the Director of the Michael Schwartz Library in July 2025. Everyone has been very welcoming, many new ideas have developed, and my excellent colleagues and I will continue to ensure our Library meets your needs and supports success and learning in the CSU community.

Here are just a few of the many things we're working and collaborating on, and you can read about more below:

• Library employees are preparing to roll out a CSU Library/OhioLINK app and are planning a new course reserves system.
• In Library spaces this spring, look for an exhibit celebrating CSU's history, the Digital CSU Showcase in April, wellness resources and spaces, and various speakers and events open to all.
• We continue to provide significant support for students in terms of affordable course materials - these advocacy efforts have saved students more than $2 million in textbook costs (visit our Affordable Learning website)
• Our subject librarians deliver tailored information literacy sessions, research instruction or library orientations to classes each semester, and are preparing to offer a for-credit course next year related to digital literacies.
• We responsibly manage our scholarly resource budgets, using cost per use analyses and your feedback to help us make decisions about journals, e-resources and other content.
• Our digital collections full of historical and scholarly content are always growing – these include our institutional repository, Engaged Scholarship @ Cleveland State University, and the Cleveland Memory Project.
• If you’re reading this, you have the opportunity to join our Friends of the Library, now with some new membership levels and benefits.

We’re also finishing a strategic plan for the Library, aligned with the goals of Cleveland State United, building on the Library’s strong foundation and helping shape its future. If you have any thoughts or questions about this or anything related to the Library, we welcome your ideas and partnership going forward. Please feel free to reach out to me any time, to your subject librarian, or contact us by any means you prefer.

Have a great Spring semester!

Scott Vine

Michael Schwartz Library Director

Librarian Featured on

Viking Voices Podcast 

Mandi Goodsett, Performing Arts and Humanities Librarian, recently took the mic on the Viking Voices podcast with host Matt Lupica, University Marketing. Mandi talked about what drives her to make textbooks more affordable for students and how advocacy efforts at the Library and across campus are already delivering results.

Save the date for Giving Day on February 26, 2026

Join the CSU community in supporting the Michael Schwartz Library and help us provide students with the resources, technology, and support they need to succeed.

Academic Writing Club for CSU Graduate Students & Faculty

by Mandi Goodsett, Performing Arts & Humanities Librarian, OER and Copyright Advisor

Are you a faculty member or graduate student working on an academic writing project? Looking for structure, support, and accountability to stay on track? Join our Academic Writing Club — a weekly space dedicated to writing, goal-setting, and peer encouragement.

The library, in partnership with retired Writing Center Director Dr. Mary McDonald, is offering another informal writing club this semester. Our synchronous meetings will be on Fridays at 11am, but folks are welcome to sign up just to receive Mary McDonald's helpful short video with writing tips each week. The focus of our group this semester is Renewal, Purpose, and Peace in your Writing. Link to the sign up form below.

This semester we’ll be loosely following the content of How to Create Happiness at Work by Angelica Riberio and Writing with Purpose, Peace, and Passion by Margarita Huerta. Reading the books is optional.

We will meet via Zoom from 11 am - 12 noon

on Fridays through May 1st, 2026

Registrants will receive a calendar invitation with the Zoom link.

Digital CSU Student Showcase

by Ben Richards, Business & Communication Librarian

Digital CSU, in partnership with the Michael Schwartz Library, invites students to submit digital and multimedia projects for the Spring 2026 Digital CSU Student Showcase, taking place on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 in the Michael Schwartz Library, 1st floor, from 12:30 am - 2:30 pm. Students can participate as their schedule allows.

The Digital CSU Student Showcase is an opportunity for students to present finished or in-progress digital projects created for their courses in a poster session style event to their faculty, staff, and their peers. Digital projects might include websites, video or audio productions, presentations, podcasts, interactive visualizations, lesson plans, or maps - if you're not sure about your project, send an email to b.c.richards@csuohio.edu.

HOW STUDENTS CAN REGISTER

Students can register to participate in the event by scanning the QR code on the flyer or by clicking the registration button below.

SHARE THE INVITATION WITH STUDENTS!

Faculty are invited to please share the invitation with their students

(click the image to the left to access the flyer) or forward this email.

OpenCon Ohio 2026 Call for Proposals and Call for Registration

Friday, May 15, 2026

We invite you to submit proposals for lightning talk presentations for OpenCon Ohio 2026 virtual conference!  

OpenCon Ohio will be held online the week of May 11-15, 2026. During the week, asynchronous conversations will be held online in Discord to discuss prerecorded lightning talks. On Friday, May 15, we will have live presentations and interactive conversations via Zoom! 



Lightning talks should preferably be related to the theme of Reimagining Learning: The Future of Open Education, though other topics are welcome. If accepted, lightning talks will be prerecorded and submitted for viewing by conference participants May 11 - 15. Presenters of lightning talks will engage with participants asynchronously on the conference web platform. 

All proposal submissions are due on March 20th, and decisions about accepted submissions will be communicated by April 3rd, if not earlier. Proposals will be evaluated according to the proposal rubric.

Accepted lightning talks should be recorded and submitted to the conference planning team by May 4th. Additional information about structure and format will be provided to lightning talk speakers.

Call for Registration 

If you are interested in attending an open education conference that:   

• Offers maximal flexibility for attendees to view content when it is convenient  
• Has an amazing keynote speaker  
• Prioritizes community building, both synchronous and asynchronous  
• Is in its 9th year of supporting the open ed community  
• Is completely free and online ...  

... then we hope you will join us for OpenCon Ohio 2026!  

We are also pleased to offer an in-person component to our event for the first time since 2020. Our in-person preconference event will be held at Cleveland State University on Thursday, May 14th. The free preconference is meant to build community, allow for the exchange of ideas and resources, and offer training related to textbook affordability for our Ohio colleagues. The intended audience for this event is support staff at Ohio institutions. Registration (while spots last) includes breakfast and lunch. The preconference is generously sponsored by the Midwest Higher Education Compact (MHEC).  

Registration for the May 14th preconference is open through February 27th. 

Registration for the May 15th virtual conference is open through May 8th. 

Find more information on the OpenCon Ohio 2026 website

Elevate Your Teaching with the CSU Faculty AI Literacy Certificate

Whether the thought of Generative AI makes you stressed, excited, worried, or a combination of these, it’s important for faculty to have a baseline understanding of what Generative AI is and to be able to develop informed AI guidelines for the classroom. 

The Office of Instructional Excellence, in partnership with the Michael Schwartz Library, has developed a short, asynchronous certificate course for faculty to help bridge this gap. Participants will gain skills and knowledge about generative AI that will help them make more informed decisions about classroom AI policy, as well as their use of generative AI for teaching, research, and productivity.

Questions? Please contact Mandi Goodsett at a.goodsett@csuohio.edu. 

MSL Librarian Insights Videos

The library's subject librarians continue to offer short videos about AI and research, avoiding misinformation, and other information literacy topics in our email newsletter, MSL Librarian Insights. Videos go out about twice per month and generally are only 5-10 minutes long. Topics in store for this semester include ethical use of AI in research, AI and agency, content for news literacy week, and guidance about how to scaffold use of academic articles in undergraduate research assignments.

A Look Back at CSU and Time Capsule Exhibit

From vintage photos to well-loved yearbooks, A Look Back at Cleveland State University is a nostalgic stroll through CSU history—filled with anniversary keepsakes, photos, and fun facts you may not know (but will love to discover!). Included with this display is CSU’s 60th Anniversary Time Capsule. 

Time Capsule 

To celebrate its past, present, and future, the University collected items that capture the CSU spirit in 2025. The selected items represent academic innovation, new campus developments, Viking pride, and a deep sense of community.   Later this academic year, the items will be sealed in a time capsule to be stored in the University Archives with instructions to open on September 28, 2065 on the University’s 100th anniversary of classes.

Through March 2026 in the Michael Schwartz Library, 1st floor. 

Coming Soon: A New Mobile App for CSU Libraries

by Donna Stewart, Web Specialist and Jeff Beuck, Manager, Library Sytstems

The Michael Schwartz and Law Libraries have teamed up with OhioLINK to provide a new mobile app that puts library services right at your fingertips. The app is designed around student and faculty feedback, with tools to make accessing library information quicker and simpler.

With the new app, you'll be able to:

• Search the CSU Libraries and OhioLINK collections, check availability, and access e-resources, course reserves, and full-text materials.
• Connect to your library account to renew items, see due dates, and even view holds and fines.
• Stay informed with up-to-date hours, contact details, and alerts from both libraries.
• Use a digital CSU ID on your phone to check out books and other items.

The new OhioLINK Libraries mobile app for iOS and Android is coming soon—stay tuned for launch details and instructions for downloading it to your mobile device. 

Take a Breath: Your Wellness Resources Are Here

You belong here—and that includes taking care of yourself.

Academic life can be overwhelming. That's why the library now offers wellness resources designed specifically for stress relief and mental clarity.

Wellness Kits (4-hour checkout)

Art Kits – Drawing supplies, colored pencils, crayons, and origami materials for creative expression.

Stress Release Kits – Therapy tangles, sensory games, and mindfulness cards for grounding yourself.

Puzzle Kits – Mini puzzles and brain teasers for a refreshing mental break.

Also available: yoga mats, 1000-piece puzzles, sound machines, and a light therapy lamp.

Quiet Reflection Room (RT 331)

Need space to breathe? This private, welcoming room is available for meditation, mindfulness, or virtual therapy sessions. Accommodates up to 3 students, first-come, first-served. Just borrow a key from the 1st floor Library Help Desk.

You belong here—in all your complexity, with all your needs. Taking care of yourself isn't a distraction from success—it's part of it.

Visit the 1st floor Library Help Desk to check out

wellness kits or access the Quiet Reflection Room.

Michael Schwartz Library and CSU OER Committee Win $10,000 DOERS Grant to Support Open Educational Resources

The CSU OER Committee, in partnership with the Michael Schwartz Library, is thrilled to announce that CSU was selected to receive a $10,000 DOERS Student Success Through OER Rubric grant for 2026. DOERS is a non-profit organization made up of open education leaders across the United States and Canada, and the funding for much of its work comes from the Hewlett Foundation. This particular grant supports institutions as they apply the DOERS Student Success through OER Rubric to their own open education efforts. The grant team, which is made up of staff, faculty, and administrators from across campus, hopes to use the grant to improve OER adoption among Core Curriculum classes, where student enrollment is high and textbook savings can have a big impact. The work of this grant will be completed by the end of 2026.

Grant recipients from l-r: Erin Avram, Keli P. Paragios, Adam Sonstegard,

Jenn Soros, Barbara Milliken, and Michael Wiitala

Would you like to learn more about the Affordable Learning community? 

To subscribe to the CSU Affordability Learning Advocates Newsletter,

email Mandi Goodsett, Michael Schwartz Library, at a.goodsett@csuohio.edu or Heather Caprette CSU Online (Center for eLearning) at h.caprette@csuohio.edu

You can unsubscribe at any time.

A New Open Textbook from EngagedScholarship @ Cleveland State University

Cleveland State University's MSL Academic Endeavors, publishing imprint of the Michael Schwartz Library, has published a new Chemistry textbook, Exploring Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry, by Dr. W. Christopher Boyd.

His textbook covers the fundamentals of inorganic and organometallic chemistry for undergraduate and graduate students. Both theories of structure and bonding and reaction chemistry are covered, with applications to the catalysis of organic reactions, biochemistry, and drug design. A modular approach allows for basic materials of each chapter to be covered in an undergraduate course, with more advanced material suitable for M.S. and Ph.D. students."

About the Author

Dr. Boyd (B.A. Oberlin College, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) is an inorganic chemist who has taught in Cleveland State University's Department of Chemistry since 2014. His research focuses on the coordination chemistry of azodioxides, the dimers of nitrosoarenes, and the application of the resulting complexes to anticancer drug design. He is a recent recipient of CSU’s Textbook Affordability Grant and he created this textbook for use in his Chemistry courses at CSU.

More OER created by CSU faculty can be found in

EngagedScholarship @ Cleveland State University Open Educational Resources.

Readership update for EngagedScholarship @ Cleveland State University

In 2025 (January 1, 2025 - December 31, 2025), EngagedScholarship @ CSU recorded 1,595,153 full-text downloads and 1,656 audio and video streams. Additionally, 299 new submissions were posted, bringing the total number of works in the repository to 22,845.

During this period, Cleveland State University scholarship was read by 8,919 institutions across 228 countries.

Above: Readership Distribution Map; January 2025 - December 2025

Click the map to access the interactive Dashboard.



Readership reports can be generated for individual colleges and departments. Please contact an ES@CSU Administrator at library.es@csuohio.edu for more information.

Black Trailblazers of Cleveland

In honor of Black History Month, the Michael Schwartz Library invites you to explore Black Trailblazers, Leaders, Activists, and Intellectuals in Cleveland, a powerful digital collection available through the Cleveland Memory Project.

This collection highlights hundreds of Black Clevelanders whose leadership, creativity, and advocacy helped shape the city’s history. Drawing from historic photographs in the Cleveland Press Collection, the exhibit connects faces with stories—introducing visitors to educators, artists, inventors, civil rights leaders, public servants, and community builders whose impact continues to resonate today.

More than a photographic archive, the Black Trailblazers collection serves as a gateway to deeper learning, linking users to biographies, related exhibits, and additional resources that provide historical context and encourage exploration of Cleveland’s rich Black history.

Students, faculty, staff, and community members are encouraged to explore this collection and reflect on the local stories that are an essential part of our shared history.

Library Spring 2026 Semester Hours

Through May 8th, 2026



After 5:00 p.m. and on Sundays, a swipe of

your current Viking Card is required to enter the Library.

Library Building Hours

Monday-Thursday 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Saturday Closed

Sunday 1:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Exceptions

Closed on University Holidays

Monday, February 16th (Presidents Day)

Spring Recess

Sunday, March 8th Closed

Monday, March 9th - Friday, March 13th 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, March 14th Closed

Sunday, March 15th 1:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Finals Week May 4 - May 8

Sunday, May 3rd - Thursday, May 7th 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. (Extended Hours)

Friday, May 8th 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, May 9th - Sunday May 10th Closed

Chat, text, and phone assistance will be unavailable during the University Holidays

Chat, Phone, and Text Hours

Ask a Librarian: use the chat box, call us at 216-687-5300, or text us at 216-820-9691

Monday-Thursday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Friday 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

The Library Help Desk

The Desk is open whenever the Library is open.

For more information, visit Library Hours at library.csuohio.edu/information/hours.html

Special Collections and Archives are Closed

The Special Collections and Archives units are currently closed. Limited services will still be provided and researchers can fill out this form to request assistance.

Activate your Access to the New York Times

Faculty, Staff, and Students of Cleveland State enjoy access to the New York Times courtesy of the Library. Discover original, quality journalism that helps you understand the world—and make the most of every part of life. Activate your access at AccessNYT.com.

Library Services

For a complete list of Library services, visit https://library.csuohio.edu/services/.

The Friends of the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University is closely associated with the Michael Schwartz Library but is an independent organization whose purpose is to support the library in a number of different ways. By sponsoring programs of interest to faculty, staff, students and the general public we hope to attract favorable attention for the library and interest in its activities. We hope to see you at one our upcoming events, including our first book discussion.

Save the Dates

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

12:00 - 1:30 pm

Book Discussion of The Women by Kristin Hannah

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Meet Janice Mitchell/Book Signing/Lunch

Author of My Ticket to Ride: How I Ran Away to England to Meet the Beatles and Got Rock and Roll Banned in Cleveland (A True Story from 1964)

These books are on sale now at Viking Outfitters in the CSU Student Center.

Find details on the 2025/2026 Friends of the Library Events website and in the forthcoming Friends of the Library Newsletter.

In addition to this newsletter, the library offers many other channels to stay up-to-date with all the latest news and information about our resources, services, and facilities. You can subscribe to our blog https://researchguides.csuohio.edu/blog , like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MichaelSchwartzLibrary/, follow us on X: @SchwartzLibrary, and explore us on Instagram: SchwartzLibrary/.