Instructor Resources
A common sticking point for Alverno students is the research they are required to do at intermediate and advanced levels of the curriculum. Our subject liaison librarians have a passion for teaching students the information literacy skills they need to think critically about the information they consume, have a voice in the scholarly conversation around an issue, and develop their own understanding of information that will not only help them through the rest of their time at Alverno, but well into their future as professionals and members of our communities as well.
Your liaison librarian will work with you to develop the research instruction that makes the most sense for your class. In the past, librarians have worked with instructors to create:
- whole-class instruction sessions in person and over Zoom
- assignments requiring a one-on-one research consultation with a librarian for every student in a course
- new course materials including course revisions, interactive digital learning objects, and assignments
- targeted tutorials for complex concepts like evidence based practice
We are eager to work with instructors and always open to new suggestions for collaboration up to and including being embedded in your courses. Embedded librarians take on an active role similar to co-teaching and this approach allows for a highly effective blend of the instructor's discipline-specific expertise and the librarian's research expertise.
Contact the librarian liaison for your subject area to learn more about how we can help you support your students in their learning.
The Alverno College Library's discovery tool, TOPCAT, allows all users with valid login credentials to request physical and digital items from Alverno College Library and our resource sharing partner institutions, which include:
-
SWITCH Library Consortium
- Concordia University Wisconsin
- Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design
- Mount Mary University
- Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology
- St. Francis Seminary
- Wisconsin Lutheran College
- UW System
- Eau Claire
- Green Bay
- Madison
- Oshkosh
- Parkside
- River Falls
- Whitewater
After signing in with their Alverno username and password, patrons will see options for requesting physical items, requesting scans of articles/book chapters, and requesting items from other libraries. In most cases, both digital and physical items available from one of the partners listed above will arrive within a few days to a week. Patrons will receive an email from SWITCH Libraries once their item is available for download or for pickup from the hold shelf.
If you have any questions about how to request an item in TOPCAT, please email library@alverno.edu.
The Library maintains a Textbooks Collection of books and other items assigned in active courses for student use. These items are available for either 3 day or 7 day loan based on number of copies, instructor preference, course enrollment, and other factors and do accrue overdue fines of $2.00 per day to encourage students to return them on time so that others in the course may use them. Students may pay overdue fines for Textbooks Collection items with donations to the Alverno Food Pantry. Each item donated will remove $2.00 in fines from the student's account.
The Textbooks Collection is updated at the beginning of each Weekday/Weekend College semester (fall, spring, and summer) based on textbook assignments in BNC Virtual Bookstore. Please ensure your assigned textbooks are entered into BNC by the deadlines set by Academic Affairs so that we are able to accurately update the collection and make informed purchasing decisions as our budget allows. Items that are not assigned to an active course will be returned either to their permanent location in the library or to instructors' mailboxes if they are personal copies.
To temporarily place your personal copy of an item into the Textbooks Collection, please bring the item to the Library Help Desk. Please be aware that personal copies will receive library markup including permanent stickers and will be treated as normal library items as long as they are in our collection.
To request the library purchase materials for the Textbooks Collection or for any other collection, please contact the Library Liaison for your subject area.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is the process through which libraries that are not part of the same consortium share materials with each other. All Alverno patrons with a valid account, including community members who sign up for a courtesy card, may use ILL to request materials unavailable through the Alverno College Library or our partner libraries, which include:
- SWITCH
- Concordia University Wisconsin
- Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design
- Mount Mary University
- Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology
- St. Francis Seminary
- Wisconsin Lutheran College
- UW System
- Eau Claire
- Green Bay
- Madison
- Oshkosh
- Parkside
- River Falls
- Whitewater
Please note that we are often unable to obtain copies of dissertations and theses because many institutions charge even libraries for copies of them. It can be better to reach out directly to the author to ask for a copy, as most will be happy to share their research with someone who is interested in it.
The library does not digitize materials for instructors to use in their courses. Instead, instructors are encouraged to create their own scans of texts they would like to post in their Moodle courses. The library has several scanners available for patrons to use and instructors may also scan items using a scanning app on their phones such as Adobe Scan. We encourage you to be mindful of copyright restrictions. Scanning and posting a single chapter of a book could be copyright compliant under the Fair Use Doctrine, but posting multiple chapter or an entire book is not. The best course of action is to get permission to use the content from the copyright holder or to use content licensed under an open license like Creative Commons.
Although the library does not digitize audiovisual materials, we validate that the content is legally owned by either the library or the instructor. Media Hub can digitize these materials and place copies on their server for instructor use for a maximum of 30 days. To start the process, please contact your liaison librarian. Exceptions apply for video with purchased streaming rights. If you have any questions, please contact Media Hub.
The Alverno College Library Digital Commons is an institutional repository for scholarly works produced by Alverno College students, faculty, and staff. This includes master's theses, doctoral dissertations, graduate capstone projects, student/faculty research projects, faculty-created Open Educational Resources (OER), and published faculty and staff research.
More information about the Commons can be found on its FAQ page.
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