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Summer hours at Penn State University Libraries’ locations University-wide begin Sunday, May 5, and continue through Sunday, Aug. 25. Hours vary across University Park and Commonwealth Campus Libraries’ locations and are listed on the University Libraries website on the Hours and Locations page. 

Penn State University Libraries recognized 12 outstanding faculty and staff April 11, from among its more than 500 employees. Faye Chadwell, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, presided over an awards ceremony to continue a tradition of recognizing employees that spans at least 50 years.

The week leading up to finals week can be a stressful time for students at any higher education campus. To help students at Penn State, University Libraries across many of Penn State’s campuses, including Penn State DuBois, offered many stress-reducing activities to help students relax as they prepared for final exams and end-of-semester projects.

Mihoko Hosoi, Penn State University Libraries associate dean for collections, research and scholarly communications, has been selected to participate in the 2024 UCLA Library Senior Fellows program.

Penn State Wilkes-Barre recently held its annual student research fair, "Celebration of Scholarship," showcasing the outstanding research and scholarly work of campus students and faculty. This year's event featured 41 posters and 71 student participants, with 23 faculty and staff judges evaluating the submissions.

Penn State University Libraries’ 2024 William D. Minter Lectureship in Conservation will feature guest lecturer Diane Maurer, an internationally recognized paper marbler from Spring Mills, Pennsylvania. Maurer will speak on April 25, in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, and online via Zoom.   

Penn State University Libraries’ Teaching and Learning with Technology Learning Design Team will host its three-day Digital Education Exchange Retreat in May for Penn State faculty interested in creating Technology-Enhanced Experiences. The goal is to leverage community technology platforms to provide students rich, instant and dynamic connections that support engaged learning.

During finals week, De-stress Fest takes place at five branch libraries across the University Park campus and at ten Penn State campuses across the commonwealth, offering free snacks, games, activities, art therapy and other stress-management options, which vary with location.

Book artist and educator IBe’ Crawley will deliver the Penn State University Libraries’ 2024 Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts, titled "Black Beauty in the Artist’s Book 11033."  The free lecture takes place on Thursday, April 25, at 1-2 p.m. via Zoom.

Book artist and educator IBe’ Crawley will deliver the Penn State University Libraries’ 2024 Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts, titled "Black Beauty in the Artist’s Book 11033."  The free lecture takes place on Thursday, April 25, at 1-2 p.m. via Zoom.

Penn State University Libraries, through its LibWell Initiative and sensory rooms pilot program, has received national recognition from the American Library Association (ALA) in its State of America’s Libraries 2024 report. Issued annually by ALA during National Library Week, the report informs the public about important trends and prominent issues facing American libraries today.

Thavolia Glymph will present three Brose Distinguished Lectures April 18-20 in Paterno Library's Foster Auditorium on the Penn State University Park campus. All three presentations are free and open to the public.

Penn State Libraries’ Open Publishing program has launched the online “Bibliography of Library History, 1990–2022.” Published semi-annually since 1990, the bibliography is a long-running effort to help library historians identify the latest books, articles, chapters and dissertations in the field of library history, with an emphasis on North American and European scholarship.

Applications are now open for the next Blended Learning Transformation workshop series, open to faculty, instructors and lecturers from all Penn State campuses who are interested in learning how to incorporate remote and online teaching experiences and various technology tools into face-to-face courses. 

Penn State’s Open Education Engagement Series, offered online by Penn State University Libraries, is a series of interactive sessions on topics related to open educational resources (OER). The spring 2024 series focuses on OER technologies and University resources and support available to instructors and staff interested in learning more about OER.

Political Song-a-Palooza, a musical showcase sponsored by Penn State University Libraries and featuring new, old, and original political or protest music, takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 20 at the State Theatre in downtown State College.

Penn State University Libraries has opened the application for the 2024–25 OER Leads Faculty Adoption Grants. These grants give faculty the opportunity to customize their courses to adopt open educational resources (OER), thus ensuring their students have free and ongoing access to their course materials. The application deadline is April 20.

Children’s author and poet Janet Wong will visit Penn State Harrisburg on Tuesday, April 16. Wong will present workshops on writing and teaching poetry at 9 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. in the Hanes Library’s Morrison Gallery on campus.

Essayist, poet and Penn State alumna Christine Hume will offer a reading as part of this year’s Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 11, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on the University Park campus.

Since ancient times, the camera obscura was used to safely observe solar eclipses without risk of damaging the eyes by looking directly into the sun. In “My Dark Room: Spaces of the Inner Self in Eighteenth-Century England,” Julie Park, Paterno Family Librarian for Literature, Penn State University Libraries, and professor of English at Penn State, explains that it also is a pivotal paradigm for the experience of introspection in daily life.