Faculty 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 users to request physical and digital items from Alverno, the other 7 Milwaukee-area schools that comprise the SWITCH consortium, and schools in the UW-Madison resource sharing network. 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. If you have any questions about how to request an item in TOPCAT, please email library@alverno.edu.

The Library maintains a Textbooks Collection that contains copies of books being used in current course offerings. The collection is updated at the beginning of every semester and unused materials are either returned to their permanent location in the library or are returned to instructors if they are personal copies. The library makes purchasing decisions for Textbooks each semester based on the official textbooks listed for the course in BNC. Please ensure your materials are entered into BNC by the deadlines set by Academic Affairs so that we are able to make informed purchasing decisions. Ask your dean for the credentials to log in to the BNC textbook adoption software.

To place items you own into the Textbook Collection, please contact sebastian.black@alverno.edu with your course number and desired loan period (3 days or 7 days.) 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 have a courtesy card, may use ILL to request materials Alverno College Library and other partnered libraries do not have access to.

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. Alverno's collection of streaming video can be found on the college's Media Library server.

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.