Bern Dibner Library

The library workers of the Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology seek to educate and support our NYU Brooklyn and Tandon community as they research within and transform their information ecosystems. We accomplish this by contributing our expertise to building collections, teaching information literacy, creating welcoming spaces, and facilitating knowledge creation. Learn more about how to access and use our services.

Building collections

We build collections to serve all members of our academic community. This includes working with partners to acquire resources from academic publishers in support of our research enterprise at Tandon. We purchase course reserves for our students to ensure equitable access to expensive textbooks. We work with donors to acquire new collections in the Poly Archives. We acquire and make available software necessary for coursework and research. Within each of the areas, we consider the questions of who has access, who has a voice, and who benefits from these collection’s decisions.

Teaching information literacy

We teach information literacy and other adjacent academic skills. We teach curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular sessions with students at all academic levels at the request of and in partnership with various stakeholders at Tandon and NYU. In all of our instructional opportunities, we treat students as co-creators of knowledge and scholars developing their voice. Students in our spaces are collaborators in the learning process and ultimately knowledge creation.

Creating welcoming spaces

We create welcoming and functional spaces for all of those who visit. We do this by interpreting our spaces and services through engagement and thoughtful service design. We provide quiet areas for contemplative study as well as collaborative spaces for dynamic group work. We create spaces for patrons to engage with and use technology for their academic and research needs.

Facilitating knowledge creation

We facilitate knowledge creation. We engage with our students through programs such as Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) and Hack Dibner and courses in all departments at Tandon. We collaborate with faculty around open access and open science initiatives. In all of these projects, we seek to contextualize the knowledge being created and understand the value associated with it.