Dean's Message

Welcome Huskies!

Our library in the Miller Center is an incredible place and space that brings together our community. Our amazing staff, faculty, and student workers are ready to help you in your research, pursuit of your degree or diploma, help you find a great spot to study, or meet with friends. No matter why you might be here, you belong.

Over the last 2.5 years, our library and campus experienced the great challenges and changes brought on by the pandemic. We extended our services, support, and resources to our campus and larger community. We endured these stressful times by supporting each other, recognizing inequities and needs, and continued to provide the care that our students required in their educational journey. We expanded our collection of online resources, provided a multitude of accessible options for studying, technology, and research, and have continued to evolve in how we fulfill our mission to support the intellectual pursuits of our students. We will continue to promote, disseminate, create, and cultivate knowledge, research, information, and partnerships with our faculty, community, and colleagues. It has been challenging at times to stay the course, but we persisted together.

Our highlighted work:

• TAPS (our textbook affordability initiative) has more than 900 items on reserve for students to check out for their courses, saving students on our campus more than $5M in the last 5 years. We were also awarded a Minnesota State grant to explore zero (“Z” degree) options through 2023.
• Teacher-Scholar Event Series—2022 was our first year focused on a myriad of events featuring the amazing work of faculty from across the campus through weekly discussions, workshops, panels, and demonstrations.
• University Library was featured in several stories in the St Cloud State Magazine.
• The Repository hit several milestones this year, celebrating a 10-year anniversary as well as more than 2 million downloads. This work along with the Archives is building a legacy of knowledge, scholarship, and history for our institution.

We always look to our community for their input and suggestions, and we are planning on surveys and other ways to gather these ideas—if you are a student and want to get involved, consider joining the UL Student Advisory! As always, if you need direct support from a librarian or staff, email, call, chat, or stop by and we will be glad to assist you. And, if you are interested in giving to University Library’s initiatives (like TAPS or the Archives), your gift will be part of that legacy as well. 

Have a wonderfully successful academic year, and It’s Time to see you here!

Warm Regards,

Rhonda Huisman
Dean, University Library

Check out the history of the library  St. Cloud State Libraries: Past and Present from 1875