Welcome from the Dean
Hello and welcome to the MSU Library! More than just a building, the MSU Library is an organization dedicated to helping students, faculty, staff, our community, Montanans, and anyone connecting with our resources. We guide you in navigating our complex information environment and finding what is needed to learn and create new knowledge.
We have over 55 library faculty and staff and dozens of student employees here to collaborate and consult with you. I invite you to meet with a librarian to help you explore the many resources available to you. We provide services such as modern spaces for study, access to technologies for checkout, unique archival collections, and digital collections.
With over 20,000 visits to the library in a typical week and over 1.5 million visits to our website annually, the library is one of the most highly used resources on our campus. To help students succeed, we are eager collaborators in the classroom and beyond. Likewise, we support the research enterprise with services such as data management planning, publishing, and scholarly communication.
In a challenging information landscape, we are leaders in teaching about uses of Artificial Intelligence in the classroom and for research, understanding the role of misinformation and disinformation in our society, and evaluating and citing information resources.
Some recent examples of our work include spearheading efforts to reduce costs for undergraduate education. We promote the use of freely available Open Educational Resources (OER) in place of high-cost textbooks. Since 2019, the MSU Library's OER Program initiative has reached:
- 29,043 students saving them over 3.8 million dollars
- 60 faculty using or developing OER
- 33 faculty writing, publishing, or adapting new OER materials ranging from online video lab experiments, workbooks and manuals, to traditional textbooks
Similarly, we offer Wi-Fi hot spot checkout to students who cannot afford or find themselves without internet access.
I welcome hearing from you and how we can help you with any research and learning needs you may have!
Sincerely,
Doralyn Rossmann, MSLS, MPA
Professor and Dean