The Open Knowledge Fellowship team is excited to announce that there is a new website for all things “Open” at the Mina Rees Library. We’re pleased to present a central showcase for the Open Knowledge Fellowship, our ongoing multi-week intensive for doctoral students teaching at CUNY. Over 200 individuals have participated since the Fellowship’s inception in 2020, and you can see the wide variety of their disciplines and research interests, through biographical descriptions listing their projects. For a deeper dive, take a look at the series of short essays created as the students reflect on their work (i.e., Waist-deep in OER, Towards a Collective Pursuit of Knowledge, Teaching (and Reforming) the Next Generation of Pirates and Copyright Violators).

Aside from information about the Open Knowledge Fellowship, the new website provides comprehensive resources for accessing and utilizing OER across CUNY. There are links to all of CUNY’s Open Publishing platforms, as well as to helpful resources regarding accessibility and campus OER representatives. We have also included a page of publications & presentations, including a Manifold publication exploring the poet Adrienne Rich’s teaching materials from her time at CUNY. 

The Open Knowledge team consists of founder of the program and Head of Reference, Elvis Bakaitis; Scholarly Communications Librarian & University Liaison, Jill Cirasella; Adjunct Reference Librarian, Margaret Miller; Open Educational Resources Specialist, Patrick McGee; and Chief Librarian Maura Smale. You can learn more about their research and scholarly backgrounds here. In recent years, the program has also hosted guest lectures from CUNY faculty such as Prof. Shawna Brandle; Prof. Ian McDermott; Prof. Junior Tidal, as well as GC library faculty colleagues. 

The Open Knowledge Fellowship is supported through robust funding from New York State, administered by the CUNY Office of Library Services. The Open Knowledge Fellowship was started as the Open Pedagogy Fellowship in 2019, organizing a series of symposia that interrogated the question of “Open” from critical perspectives, with contributions from speakers such as Clelia Rodríguez (author of Decolonizing Academia: Poverty, Oppression and Pain), Nora Almeida. In 2021, the Open Pedagogy Fellowship became the Open Knowledge Intensive, hosting events on the emerging field of black girlhood(s) and the possibilities for abolitionist STEM education. In 2022, the Intensive became the Open Knowledge Fellowship and has run at least two cohorts a year ever since. 

We are additionally proud to share that since 2019, the library’s Open Knowledge project has assisted nearly 250 fellows in the conversion of course syllabi to Zero Textbook Cost courses, saving students thousands of dollars and simultaneously contributing to CUNY’s digital publishing ecosystem. During this time, Fellowship participants have been sustained by over $500,000 in support via OER funding from New York State. 

The new website was designed by our Open Educational Resources Specialist, Patrick McGee. All of the images are sourced from the Wikimedia Commons (referenced in the alt text), and we encourage you to take a closer look as you explore the landing page for Open Knowledge at the Mina Rees Library. You can expect the page to be consistently updated with the latest CUNY OER news and resources. Please reach out to Patrick McGee (pmcgee@gc.cuny.edu) if you have any questions or suggestions for the new site. 

 
Visit the site: Open Knowledge at the Mina Rees Library

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Fortunatus Ezebuo is a PhD student in Biochemistry at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He is currently conducting research on human sodium ion channels and peptide toxins. Fortunatus holds a PhD degree in Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry from Nnamdi Azikiwe University. He currently teaches introductory chemistry laboratory courses at College of Staten Island of The City University of New York.

I was initially drawn to the Open Education Resources (OER) Fellowship because it spoke to my personal and professional interest in issues of access, affordability, inclusivity, and transparency in higher education. In my teaching, I strive to create accessible, student-centered learning experiences. This involves the incorporation of a range of digital tools, formative assessments, and collaborative learning strategies to promote engagement and deeper understanding of course materials. 

There are lots of OER materials in chemistry courses but finding individual material that matches all of the required course contents for the chemistry laboratory courses that I teach was not possible for me during the OER fellowship. This is mainly due to differences in experiment protocols, equipment, experiment duration, reagents, etc. Also, modified experiment protocols may pose a challenge to the acceptance of an OER adapted syllabus by the department, since it will interfere with course scheduling. 

To overcome the problem of not finding individual OER materials that matched all of the required course contents for the chemistry laboratory courses, I obtained OER materials from different sources. Now, I have the ability to adapt, remix, and contextualize these materials to meet the needs of my students, before seeking approval from the relevant authorities at the College of Staten Island. The adapted/remixed syllabus and course site not only supports my teaching, but allows for more active learning through customized content. It removes financial barriers that might have hindered student success in my class, while enhancing accessibility, inclusivity, and student empowerment.

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Reina Gattuso (she/her) lives, teaches, and writes in New York City. She’s a teacher at Hunter College, a contributing writer to the cultural learning platform Curationist, a PhD student in cultural anthropology, and a student of kathak dance.

It is contradictory to say that anthropology is for everyone, because historically it decidedly has not been. When teaching anthropological history, we grapple with the fact that colonial officials looking to catalogue and control the people they claimed to rule were key to the founding of anthropology as an academic discipline – and as a weapon to inflict discipline. So, how can learning anthropology help CUNY students and our broader community (including those of us who call ourselves teachers!) access the liberatory and transformative education we all deserve?

For me, this starts with participant observation, anthropology’s classic tool. Participant observation is when we participate in…and observe…the world, in order to learn about and develop our understanding of human social life. How does the society I’ve been plopped down into function? Are all cultures like this? How could the world look different? From the time we’re babies learning to communicate with our caretakers – experimenting to see how many times the grownups will pick up the food we playfully drop on the floor – all human beings do participant observation. And all human beings are experts on our own social lives. 

At its most democratic, then, anthropology is simply a set of tools and resources that helps us make sense of what we already intuit, and that helps us situate our observations in relationship to the vast diversity of human life.

This is where Open Knowledge comes in. If participant observation is an inherently democratic method, we need equally democratic ways of accessing the knowledge created by others, and sharing our contributions in turn. Fighting exploitative and profit-oriented practices within academic publishing is particularly important when we consider how much of the knowledge that makes up the anthropological “canon” was stolen from the communities being “studied” in the first place. CUNY students are often descendants of these communities, so forcing students to pay for that same knowledge continues a cycle of colonial and capitalist violence (one of the many reasons we need a free and open CUNY!). Our students’ right to knowledge that is lifegiving to them is deeper than any institution can gate-keep; our job as education and culture workers is simply to facilitate folks’ access to what is already, and has always been, theirs. Just as, moving forward, consensually produced and shared knowledge ought to belong to everybody. 

There is actually an abundance of Open Educational Resources available for anthropological learning. We can get creative about the kinds of materials we draw on, and the kinds of knowledge we consider authoritative, to encourage students to ask how we come to know what we know – and affirm that we are all knowledge makers. 

In our course, we dream about what a city can be with imaginative materials from the folks over at Anthropology for Kids (because we’re all kids at heart!). We access OER textbooks created by fellow teachers and learners on platforms like Manifold and Pressbooks, including developing our visual analysis skills and learning about modes of economic exchange. We analyze public domain archival materials, such as the British colonial People of India photo book, to learn about histories of race and racialization – and we use our imaginations (“How might this person have felt about being photographed? What might she have dreamed about? How could we research to learn more about her life?”) to think about the gaps in the archives. We engage other open-access projects, for example learning about cultural knowledge systems and the violence of colonial epistemicide through the Aztec Codex Mendoza (this links to the platform Curationist, which I also write for!). Finally, we benefit greatly from the efforts of other anthropologists to make their work more accessible – for example, we’re able to learn about gender and sexuality through an Open-Access journal published by the wonderful feminists at Feminist Anthropology.

Our course is centered around students’ fieldnotes – their written observations of daily life – which we examine together in order to derive central anthropological concepts. For example, what does running late for class because we had to care for a relative, and then the train broke down, tell us about reproductive labor and infrastructure? And more importantly, how can the concepts of reproductive labor and infrastructure help us move toward a world where we can all access the caring support, and free public transportation, we need? If the concepts don’t help us meet our needs – we should teach different concepts! 

So, for the Open Knowledge Fellowship final project, I made a CUNY Commons site that can function as a container for collective student-authored ethnography of New York City. If students in subsequent classes are interested, we can continue adding our experiences – if they’re not interested, the site can remain a neat template for other folks looking to facilitate collective ethnography, adaptable to their local context. 

This last part – about the site only truly coming to life if students wish to engage with it – is, to me, key to OER. The process is what is important; ‘openness’ is about getting rid of cost and copyright barriers, but it is first and foremost about creating spaces where we can open our minds and hearts, and really hear each other. The project only works if it works for a particular group of learners – like any collective project – and that’s okay!

Something else I am thinking about is that another part of openness is being real with students, especially about the fact that we, the “teachers,” do not have all the answers (or really…any of “the answers”). Which is just fine – because education is for all of us, together. So here is the question I wake up with everyday and pray to understand: What could learning feel like if we let go of coercion and punishment and the hoarding of resources (financial, intellectual…) and made a commitment, first and foremost, to one another? I don’t know – but CUNY students, and all our brilliant and precious communities in New York City, teach me.

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Mikaela Elliott is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research focuses on developing inclusive psychometric assessments that integrate emerging technologies to better represent individuals with developmental disabilities and other historically underrepresented groups. In her teaching, she emphasizes research literacy and the real-world implications of developmental science.

I decided to join the OER Fellowship while preparing to teach Child Development for the first time. I was looking at the cost of the instructor edition of the recommended textbook, and even with renting options and discounts, it was hard to swallow. That textbooks were expensive wasn’t news, but it was still demoralizing;I definitely couldn’t imagine asking students to cover that cost.

For many students, the first task of the new semester is not reading, it’s figuring out how to afford the textbook. The average psychology textbook costs between $100 and $150; in some cases, it is closer to $400. That is not incidental spending in the slightest. In a typical three-credit course, students spend roughly 40–60 hours engaging with the textbook across a semester. At $120, that translates to approximately $2 to $3 per hour, just for access to the material. To put it another way, it’s like paying to unlock a news article behind a paywall each time they open the textbook —something many of us balk at on principle. We pause. We ask: Is it worth it?

Yet, semester after semester, we ask students to make that financial commitment for a textbook or resource they might never use again after the final exam.

Personally, I’d hesitate to spend $100 on something I might enjoy but could easily drop after a few months. So why do we expect students to take that same risk for a required textbook, especially when their participation and success in the course depend on it?

The Open Knowledge Fellowship gave me a way to tackle the cost barrier. Before joining the Fellowship, I thought “open” just meant “free.” I wasn’t aware of the differences between openly accessible, openly licensed, and publicly available materials. The Fellowship helped me understand these distinctions and how to spot them. I learned how to read Creative Commons licenses, figure out if a resource can be revised or remixed, and how to give proper credit when adapting materials. I also picked up strategies for finding high-quality open materials for many psychology courses. Now, I go beyond simple web searches and use repositories, library databases, and subject-specific OER hubs.

At first, I was hesitant to use OERs and unsure about potential boundaries to access.. I worried whether all the free materials I shared with students were allowed under copyright law, or if I had accidentally made a mistake. Through our sessions in the fellowship, I learned what constitutes copyrighted, fair use, open-access, and openly licensed materials. Instead of uploading resources and hoping they fell under fair use, I now intentionally select resources that are safe and beneficial to share. After the Open Knowledge Fellowship, I feel much more comfortable choosing the materials to include in my courses.

Arguably, the most important lesson I learned is that Open Knowledge isn’t just about copying materials; it is about contributing to the world of Open Educational Resources, which will, in turn, benefit us all as educators and students alike. When I adapt a text, reorganize chapters, or build assignments around OER, I contribute to a shared pool of teaching materials that others can build on. And because my course site is openly accessible, those adaptations can circulate beyond my own classroom. 

Using OERs brings real and far-reaching benefits to one’s pedagogical practice. When research is openly available, it can be used in classrooms, accessed by practitioners, and read beyond paywalls. Open scholarship broadens who can engage with academic knowledge — and that benefits everyone! It strengthens public trust in higher education and ensures that the knowledge produced at CUNY remains accessible to the communities that make up the institution.

Overall, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have taken part in this fellowship and would highly recommend it to any instructor!

Mina Rees Library Spring Hours 2026 | Closed on Memorial Day (5/25) 

Upcoming Events

Drop-In Sessions:

Zotero Drop-In Help

Monday 5/4, 5/11, 5/18, and 5/25, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

Stephen Klein (Digital Services Librarian) holds one-on-one Zotero virtual office hours for drop-in video consultations on Mondays 3-4pm. Zotero is open source citation software enabling users to easily collect, organize, cite and share.

Archival Research Drop-In Hour

Wednesday 5/13, 11:00am – 12:00pm

Have a question about archival research? GC community members are invited to stop by our bi-weekly online office hours for one-on-one assistance with archives-related topics. Bring your questions about finding analog and digital sources, using archives, conducting background research, and more.

Have a question but can’t make the drop-in session? Contact Donna Davey at ddavey@gc.cuny.edu to discuss over email or set up a consultation.

Scholarly Publishing Drop-In Hour

Thursday 5/14 and 5/28, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

This drop-in session is for any member of the Graduate Center community with questions about scholarly publishing or other aspects of scholarly communication.

Have a question but can’t make the drop-in session? Contact Jill Cirasella (Scholarly Communication Librarian and University Liaison) at jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu to discuss over email or set up a one-on-one consultation.

Workshops and Other Events:

We Know It Well: Red Scare at CUNY and the Archival Politics of Dissent

Monday 5/4, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Join archivists, activists, and scholars for an evening of study and strategizing for resisting the new McCarthyism on college campuses. This panel discussion features Mariame Kaba, Jeanne Theoharis, Marianne LaBatto, and Ted Schmiedeler, moderated by Shana L. Redmond, and is on the history of the Red Scare at CUNY, the importance of collecting and preserving our stories in times of political upheaval, and archival strategies for navigating the present conjuncture.

Throughout the 1930s, students and faculty from City College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Queens College – the four senior colleges in New York City before their consolidation as the City University of New York (CUNY) – were part of a broad base of leftist intellectuals and dissidents responding to the economic conditions of the Depression, the growing threat of fascism, and political repression by their schools’ administrations. They demonstrated and organized against heightening militarism abroad, social and economic injustice at home, and fascism everywhere.

During World War II, fears of Communist subversion coalesced into a series of investigations into the personal beliefs and associations of New York City’s public school and municipal college teachers. The techniques used against New York State teachers and CUNY faculty were to find new life in the next wave of anti-communist investigations known as McCarthyism.

This event is organized to coincide with the publication of Red Scare at CUNY: A Research Guide, a comprehensive guide to archival collections documenting anti-communist repression of faculty, staff, and students at CUNY, and is co-sponsored by the CUNY Digital History Archive, the Mina Rees Library, the American Social History Project, the Center for the Humanities, PS2, and PSC/CUNY. Support for this program is provided by the Cultivating Archives & Institutional Memory project, a 3-year project to explore and strengthen archives across CUNY’s 26 campuses funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Radio in the Orchard (TRiO)— a radical rehearsal in scholarly and creative futures.

Additional Updates:

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Our live chat service is available 24/7 and will be answered by a Graduate Center librarian, or another librarian at CUNY. During late-night hours, an academic librarian from one of our partner libraries may assist you, and we’ll follow up asap with additional information.

Interlibrary Loan

As always, we encourage everyone to submit InterLibrary Loan (ILL) requests! ILL is an excellent way to obtain materials beyond the Graduate Center Library, in the form of print books, electronic articles/Ebook chapters, DVD’s, microfilm and more. Find out more about ILL on our InterLibrary Loan FAQ page.

Set up a Consultation with your Subject Librarian

Visit the Library Directory to find the librarian for your program. Feel free to select a time/date from the calendar that works for you to meet with them.

We’re happy to make arrangements to meet with you at other times, so also feel free to reach out by email.

Grants and Funding

Visit our Grants and Funding guide for information on a wide range of opportunities and resources. For further information, see this article from the Office of Communications and Marketing on finding and maintaining grants in an uncertain world.

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

H. Hüma Yardım is a PhD student in History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research interests focus on medicine, incarceration, social history, memory studies, and photography in the late Ottoman Empire. 

One of the reasons I applied to the Open Knowledge Fellowship was to become more aware not only of Open Educational Resources themselves and how to access them, but also of the labor that goes into creating them. As a PhD student and an educator who relies on Open-Access publications in my daily work, it can be easy to simply find a source and forget to appreciate the people behind it. I wanted to change my relationship to scholarly publishing.

In the fellowship, I received training in  finding OER to use in the classroom, as well as how to be discerning in selecting resources.. As I cite works or create syllabi for my classes, it is essential to select materials that help  my students learn how to critically engage with a text and make sense of the world through literature. By bringing together a multidisciplinary cohort, the Fellowship also provided a space to discuss concerns within our fields while learning how scholars in other disciplines approach similar issues.

Case studies presented by previous Fellows demonstrated how the resources we create for our classes can be made accessible to a wider audience.  Maura McCreight’s presentation on her Open and Accessible Photographic History Manifold project gave me a new perspective on the potentials for writing about my work beyond the scope of an academic audience. Through that presentation, together with another given by Librarian Donna Davey on how to access archival resources, I became familiar with digital archives that I would not normally consider having access to as a historian of the Ottoman Empire. Another highlight of the fellowship was learning more about the CUNY Academic Commons website. Although I was familiar with it from a Digital Humanities class I took, I wasn’t aware of how much I could do with the Commons, from creating a syllabus page to having an integrated blog page for class updates.

The emphasis on creating an accessible syllabus is the most important takeaway for me from this fellowship. Before the program, my understanding of an accessible syllabus was limited to one that consisted mainly of open-access sources. However, the fellowship helped me recognize that an accessible syllabus should address the needs of all students in the classroom and be written in clear, concise language with a well-organized structure. During the discussions and training sessions, I was not only asked to create a syllabus, but I also engaged in conversations that allowed me to see how others approach accessibility and how they integrate OER into their coursework. These exchanges helped me think more critically about how I could incorporate similar strategies into my own teaching.

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Felix Yirdong is a Fulbright alumnus and doctoral student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science Program at The CUNY Graduate Center. His research examines the conditions under which a desire for death emerges and the culturally specific factors that shape risk for suicidal ideation and attempts among ethnoracially minoritized youth. He is particularly interested in how childhood adversity, emotional regulation, and social connectedness interact to influence adolescent suicide risk. Felix holds an MA in Psychology from The New School, New York. He currently teaches Health Psychology at Hunter College.

Knowledge has the greatest impact when it is accessible. Yet for many students and educators,  especially those working in low-resourced contexts, accessing high-quality academic materials can be surprisingly difficult – an experience I associate with. My recent participation in the Graduate Center Open Knowledge Fellowship (OKF) challenged me to think more critically about these barriers and how graduate instructors like me can play a role in expanding equitable access to learning.

As a doctoral student, much of my learning trajectory has been shaped by access – access to not just the right mentors alone but also access to academic materials and institutional resources that made it possible to engage deeply with scholarly knowledge. However, this access is not universally shared. In many educational settings, especially those serving students from marginalized or low-resourced backgrounds, obtaining learning materials can be an arduous task. Paywalls, restrictive licensing, and the monetization of knowledge – while understandable from the perspective of authors and publishers often create systemic barriers to information that should ideally support broad learning and intellectual development. 

My interest in the OKF started after a colleague of mine shared several open-access resources with me. These materials demonstrated that high-quality educational content could be freely available and widely distributed if knowledge about their availability is shared by educators. As a graduate instructor to undergraduate health psychology students, I immediately recognized how valuable such resources could be for my students. I was convinced that many of them would benefit greatly from open learning materials that reduce financial burdens and structural barriers to educational and learning materials. 

The Open Knowledge Fellowship proved to be an enriching and transformative learning experience. One of the most valuable aspects of the program was being introduced to the broader ecosystem of open educational resources (OER). Through workshops and guided activities, I learned how educators can identify, adapt, and integrate freely accessible materials into their teaching practices.

Another key component of the fellowship involved learning how to develop a personal teaching website. This process helped me envision how digital platforms can serve as repositories for course materials, lecture notes, and curated resources that students can access freely. Building a teaching website also highlighted the potential of technology to extend learning beyond the traditional classroom. The fellowship also introduced me to thoughtful ways of incorporating generative artificial intelligence into my teaching and learning. Rather than viewing AI solely as a technological novelty, the program emphasized how it can be used responsibly to enhance student engagement, support critical thinking, and assist in the creation of accessible learning materials. Equally important was the sense of community fostered throughout the Fellowship. Engaging with peers who shared a commitment to open knowledge created a supportive environment for collaboration and idea exchange. Hearing about the diverse ways my peers were applying OER in their classrooms broadened my perspective and inspired new possibilities for my own teaching.

My participation in the Open Knowledge Fellowship was both intellectually stimulating and practically empowering. Beyond learning how to build a teaching website, the experience deepened my understanding of how open knowledge initiatives can contribute to democratizing education. I now feel better equipped to share learning materials more widely – not only with my students but also with a broader audience interested in health psychology. I have no doubt that the fellowship refined my approach to teaching. It encouraged me to think more intentionally about how to design interactive learning environments that prioritize accessibility, engagement, and inclusivity. Integrating OER into my courses allows students to focus more on learning and less on navigating barriers to information.

I am deeply grateful to the City University Graduate Center Mina Rees Library for generously sponsoring this fellowship opportunity. I also extend sincere thanks to all the facilitators and fellow participants whose enthusiasm and collaboration made the experience both meaningful and inspiring. Ultimately, the Fellowship reinforced a simple but powerful idea: when educators commit to sharing knowledge openly, they expand the possibilities for learning far beyond the classroom.

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Hope Cullinan is a PhD student in the Department of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center, interested in Spanish language in the United States and the use of art and performance cultural formation and language learning. She did graduate coursework in Spanish at Hunter College and has an MSc in Art History from Edinburgh University (UK). As a Graduate Teaching Fellow, she teaches Spanish at Queens College.

Those of us who teach language in New York City are particularly lucky to do so in a full and varied linguistic landscape. Teaching Spanish is even more fun: those indirect objects we’ve been learning you probably heard on the bus on your way here. Most CUNY students have some experience with Spanish language at school, at home, with their friends, through television or overhead conversation. The Spanish that our students know is also varied—they hear and speak Spanish from different parts of the world, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Aside from learning grammar, we often discuss linguistic and cultural variation, and Spanish language in New York City, the United States, and beyond.

For that reason, I try to have a variety of things beyond our textbook to read, watch, listen to, and discuss in class. I was grateful during the Open Knowledge Fellowship to have the time, focus, and invaluable guidance of the Graduate Center’s specialists to create an open access collection of texts on Manifold that my students and I can use together in class (and that they can return to after the semester is over). Styled loosely on the “reader”, a learning tool with a long history in language classes, I’ve put together texts that aim to get students talking about New York City, thinking about language, and playing with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and meaning. So far this semester, we’ve read the Cuban writer José Martí, who wrote about the blizzard of 1888 in New York City (we returned to this text twice, during two snowstorms that closed the college), and discussed narration in different past tenses while reading excepts of the Florentine Codex (which we also used to write poetry).

After becoming interested in Open Education Resources—invaluable tools in making knowledge available to everyone—I heard about the Open Knowledge Fellowship. My hope in my career is to serve the broadest possible public, and the Fellowship allowed me to expand the work that I do at CUNY beyond our classroom in Queens by creating something that is freely available to other teachers and students. Next, I’d like to get students involved in the project itself, using Manifold’s annotation function. When they are most invested in their own learning and are happy to be together in a classroom sharing language, it’s a thing to behold. At a point in which we are all deciding how we use technology to teach and learn and live our lives, the ability to share language in our classroom in New York City and with other students and teachers wherever they are is truly meaningful.

Finding public domain material for intermediate Spanish students led me to a 1923 newspaper advertisement for real estate in Flushing, which makes a good conversation starter in classes at Queens College. “What is your opinion?” the ad asks, saying that “Flushing is a beautiful place.” Students can respond a hundred years later.

This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Sergei Rozhkov is a PhD student in Biology at the CUNY Graduate Center, affiliated with the CUNY School of Medicine. His research interests focus on cancer immunotherapy, biotechnology, and drug discovery. As part of his teaching responsibilities, Sergei teaches Human Biology and Biology 101 courses at CCNY campuses.

Before attending the Open Knowledge Fellowship, I rarely paused to think critically about the types of materials I relied on when preparing my classes or the resources I shared with my students. Like many instructors, I focused primarily on content quality and relevance, without paying much attention to whether those materials were openly accessible or how easily students could continue using them beyond the classroom. Reading the fellowship description was a turning point—it made me realize that evaluating the openness of educational resources could significantly enhance both teaching and learning.

Participating in the fellowship gave me a structured opportunity to explore the landscape of open educational resources and to better understand what “open access” truly means in practice. I learned about different types of open resources, including textbooks, databases, digital tools, and multimedia content, and discovered several high-quality materials directly relevant to the course I am teaching. For example, I identified open-access databases containing stained human tissues and organs, which serve as valuable resources for students studying human histology. This experience reshaped how I think about course design and reinforced the importance of equity and accessibility in education.

Throughout the fellowship, we engaged in meaningful discussions on timely topics such as the use of artificial intelligence in education, ethical considerations around data and authorship, and strategies for integrating open resources into curricula. One particularly valuable component was learning how to use the CUNY Academic Commons as a platform for building a course website. We were given ample time to think through the structure and design of our sites, experiment with different layouts, and ask detailed questions about technical features such as page setup, navigation, and content organization. As a result of that, I created a Commons course site, which I am making more and more helpful for my students. 

Equally important was the collaborative aspect of the fellowship. Seeing the projects developed by other participants allowed me to reflect on my own work, gain inspiration, and identify areas for improvement. Beyond the academic benefits, I also had the pleasure of meeting many thoughtful and engaging colleagues. Attending the fellowship seminars became not only a learning experience but also a meaningful way to connect, exchange ideas, and build a sense of community.

Mina Rees Library Spring Hours 2026

Upcoming Events

Drop-In Sessions:

Zotero Drop-In Help

Monday 4/6, 4/13, 4/20, and 4/27, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

Stephen Klein (Digital Services Librarian) holds one-on-one Zotero virtual office hours for drop-in video consultations on Mondays 3-4pm. Zotero is open source citation software enabling users to easily collect, organize, cite and share.

Archival Research Drop-In Hour

Wednesday 4/1, 4/15, and 4/29, 11:00am – 12:00pm

Have a question about archival research? GC community members are invited to stop by our bi-weekly online office hours for one-on-one assistance with archives-related topics. Bring your questions about finding analog and digital sources, using archives, conducting background research, and more.

Have a question but can’t make the drop-in session? Contact Donna Davey at ddavey@gc.cuny.edu to discuss over email or set up a consultation.

Scholarly Publishing Drop-In Hour

Thursday 4/2, 4/16, and 4/30, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

This drop-in session is for any member of the Graduate Center community with questions about scholarly publishing or other aspects of scholarly communication.

Have a question but can’t make the drop-in session? Contact Jill Cirasella (Scholarly Communication Librarian and University Liaison) at jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu to discuss over email or set up a one-on-one consultation.

Dissertation Office Drop-in Hours

Tuesday 4/7, 4/14, 4/21, and 4/28, 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Thursday 4/9, 4/16, 4/23, and 4/30, 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Have a last-minute concern about depositing your dissertation or thesis? The library’s Dissertation Office dedicates time for drop-in Zoom consultations most Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2-4pm. Specific hours may vary from week to week; see registration page. Advance registration is not required but you must fill out the registration form to be connected. If another student is being assisted, you’ll be kept in the “waiting room” until the librarian is available.

(NB: Students are still welcome to stop by the Dissertation Office (room 2304) at other times or request an online or in-person appointment during regular business hours by emailing Roxanne Shirazi at rshirazi@gc.cuny.edu.)

Workshops and Other Events:

Intro to Zotero for Citation Management (Science Workshop Series)

Thursday 4/9 and Thursday 4/23, 11:00am – 12:00pm

This workshop will teach you how to use Zotero, free open-source software that can manage your research and create your bibliographies. We will create accounts, install the software, and get you started in using this time-saving tool.

“Let’s Archive It!” Three CUNY Archivists on What it Means to Steward Collections

Monday 4/13, 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Doing archival research? Teaching with archives? Creating digital archives? Come hear from three CUNY archivists about the exciting archival work that is happening here at the Graduate Center and across the CUNYverse. Our speakers will discuss the differences between approaching sources as an archivist and a researcher; share initial findings from Cultivating Archives & Institutional Memory, an ambitious project to unify practice at CUNY’s 31 libraries and 100 cultural centers and institutes; and explore strategies for teaching CUNY’s activist histories in undergraduate classrooms across CUNY.

Speakers:

Jessica Webster is the Head of Archives and Special Collections at Baruch College as well as a PhD student in history at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her talk will focus on the nature of archival work, the differences between engaging with archival sources as an archivist and as a researcher, and her career modulating between both worlds.

Natalie Milbrodt serves as the inaugural University Archivist for the City University of New York (CUNY) where her team is responsible for implementing strategies and systems for increased collection discovery and use. Her responsibilities also include coordination and planning for digital preservation and records management across the organization.

Roxanne Shirazi is associate professor and Head of Archives and Special Collections at the Mina Rees Library of the CUNY Graduate Center, where she also oversees the Dissertation Office. Since 2022, Roxanne has served as project director for the CUNY Digital History Archive. She’ll discuss recent efforts to bring CUNY’s activist histories into undergraduate classrooms by building community around teaching with primary sources from CUNY archives.

Moderated by Maggie Schreiner, Digital Fellow at Graduate Center Digital Initiatives, PhD candidate in History, and archivist.

Introduction to Archival Research

Wednesday 4/22, 2:00pm – 3:00pm

New to archival research and wondering where to begin?  Please join us for this introductory workshop that will cover the basics, including finding aids, background research, and finding and using digital and analog archival materials.  We will explore ArchiveGrid and other search tools, and visit some stellar online portals such as the Digital Public Library of America and the Library of Congress Digital Collections.

Prior to the online class, attendees will be asked to review sections of our Archival Research Guide that will provide a foundation for the searching we will do during the workshop.

Attendees are welcome to bring their own research topics to the class or use one of our sample topics for hands-on searching.

AI and Scholarly Publishing: A 30,000-Foot View

Wednesday 4/29, 6:30pm – 7:30pm and Friday 5/1, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

This workshop will look at how AI is changing scholarly publishing, especially journal publishing. We’ll consider the following topics:

• Publishers’ policies for authors and peer reviewers regarding the use of AI tools
• Complexities surrounding authors’ disclosure of use of AI tools
• Ways in which editors and publishers employ AI in their own workflows
• How publishers are profiting from the AI boom
• How AI intersects with copyright
• …and more!

Please note that this workshop is focused on the intersection of AI and scholarly publishing. It will not cover the many ways researchers can and do use AI during research activities that are not connected to the preparation of a manuscript or the publishing process.

Additional Updates:

Electronic Arts Intermix: Seeking CUNY Feedback!

Librarians from CUNY libraries have been collaborating with the local arts nonprofit Electronic Arts Intermix to provide access to their streaming educational video service.

We are seeking feedback from all CUNY community members: how have you used these videos in your research and teaching? What impact has our access had upon your work?

Fill out this survey to share your thoughts, which will help us to expand access at CUNY! and/or reach out to Alycia Sellie (asellie@gc.cuny.edu) if you would be interested to help us with further collaborations with EAI.

Manhattan Research Library Initiative (MaRLI)

There are two special programs for additional library access available to the GC community via the New York Public Library:

1. Enhanced New York Public Library borrowing for GC Students and Faculty: The New York Public Library (NYPL) offers increased borrowing privileges for CUNY GC affiliates. With a current NYPL card and Graduate Center affiliation, researchers have ability to borrow select NYPL research materials usually reserved for on-site use. See full details on this page. This program does not require an application, but you must register your NYPL card at the GC Library by visiting the second floor reference desk and obtain a special sticker for your NYPL card.
2. Access to New York University and Butler Library at Columbia University: MaRLI also can give ongoing access and borrowing privileges to these nearby libraries, but students must go through an annual application process. This program is not just for the GC; any NYPL cardholder in good standing can apply, and you will need to schedule a meeting with an NYPL librarian as part of the application. See more details about the process on the GC library libguide or contact the GC librarian who works with your program for further assistance.

24/7 Chat Reference

Our live chat service is available 24/7 and will be answered by a Graduate Center librarian, or another librarian at CUNY. During late-night hours, an academic librarian from one of our partner libraries may assist you, and we’ll follow up asap with additional information.

Interlibrary Loan

As always, we encourage everyone to submit InterLibrary Loan (ILL) requests! ILL is an excellent way to obtain materials beyond the Graduate Center Library, in the form of print books, electronic articles/Ebook chapters, DVD’s, microfilm and more. Find out more about ILL on our InterLibrary Loan FAQ page.

Set up a Consultation with your Subject Librarian

Visit the Library Directory to find the librarian for your program. Feel free to select a time/date from the calendar that works for you to meet with them.

We’re happy to make arrangements to meet with you at other times, so also feel free to reach out by email.

Grants and Funding

Visit our Grants and Funding guide for information on a wide range of opportunities and resources. For further information, see this article from the Office of Communications and Marketing on finding and maintaining grants in an uncertain world.