Sarah B Cohn

MLS, MA

Assistant Professor | Head of Reference
The City College of New York | Cohen Library
scohn @ ccny.cuny.edu | Google Scholar | CCNY Profile | ORCID

Education

The Graduate Center, CUNY

Master of Arts

2017

Liberal Studies, concentration in Digital Humanities

Queens College, CUNY

Master of Library Science

2011

University of Oregon

Bachelor of Arts

2000

Major: Political Science. Minor: Women's Studies

Library Experience

Head of Reference, Assistant Professor

2019-present

Reference & Instruction Librarian, Assistant Professor

2018-2019

The City College of New York, Cohen Library, New York, NY

  • Design and teach information literacy sessions covering research and library skills to first-year classes, subject-specific courses, and graduate courses.
  • Provide research assistance to students, faculty, and staff—in person and online.
  • Manage in-person and online reference desks, including scheduling 15 librarians for shifts on both.
  • Outreach, instruction, and collection development for the School of Education, the Economics Department, and the multi-disciplinary subject area of LGBTQ+ studies.

Major Projects

  • Ongoing collaboration with the LGBTQ+ Center on their grant for purchase of books to be donated to Cohen Library to ensure wider collection representation of scholarly queer titles. Worked with our Cataloger to set up a catalog featured collection as a way to highlight these titles.
  • Undertook the overhaul of a never-weeded 11,000 item collection of children’s material, including collection analysis, weeding, and new book purchasing.
  • Worked with the student group CCNY Dream Team to create a display in the Cohen Library’s atrium display case. Details are on the related blog post.
  • Built Library FAQ on library access and policies to support reference librarians, students, faculty, and staff while we were fully remote in 2020. Available at ccny.libanswers.com
  • Created a Research Toolkit to support student research needs. Available at library.ccny.cuny.edu/researchtoolkit
  • Developed the syllabus for the Library’s first credit-bearing course, Research in the Digital Age: Media and Information Literacy. Articulated the case for the course at the campus curriculum committee.
  • Web developer responsible for writing all code (HTML, CSS, JS) for new library website home page.
  • Project manager coordinating 4 librarians on 6-month website platform migration.

Instructional Services Librarian

2016-2018

Pace University, Birnbaum Library, New York, NY

  • Designed and taught information literacy sessions covering research and library skills to first-year classes, subject-specific courses, and graduate courses.
  • Provided research assistance to students, faculty, and staff—in person and online.
  • Offered outreach to students and faculty through library programming and University events.
  • Collaborated in long and short-term planning of the library’s information literacy program.

Major Projects

  • Served as the lead librarian on an information literacy assessment team. Evaluated and updated learning outcomes and realigned the existing information literacy assessment survey to these outcomes. Responsible for the distribution, management, and data collection of the assessment.
  • Completed a redesign and content update of the online module of library instruction for English 201 courses.

Assistant Librarian I, Information Services

2015-2016

Visiting Assistant Librarian, Information Services

2012-2015

Manhattan College, O’Malley Library, Bronx, NY

  • Designed and taught information literacy sessions covering research and library skills to first-year classes, subject-specific courses, and graduate courses.
  • Taught library resource and technology workshops.
  • Provided research assistance to students, faculty, and staff—in person and online.
  • Outreach to students and faculty through library programming and social media.
  • Collaborated in long and short-term planning of the library’s information literacy program.
  • Assessed information literacy needs and outcomes through a multi-pronged evaluation approach.
  • Created and conduct website usability tests in anticipation of a major site redesign.
  • Created and implemented library user survey.

Major Projects

  • Revised and expanded the rubric for assessing information literacy outcomes in first year student writing.
  • Implemented an embedded librarian in a pilot version of English 110 online, co-created with English faculty and college Instructional Designers.
  • Increased the number, quality, and use of course-specific LibGuides.

Assistant Librarian

2010-2012

International Culinary Center, New York, NY

  • Provided research, circulation, and technological assistance to students, chef instructors, and staff.
  • Copy and original cataloging of new, rare, and foreign language items.
  • Organized and facilitated student book club meetings.
  • Updated, edited, and revised library wiki in support of school curriculum.
  • Collection maintenance and development of cookbooks, food writing, and restaurant management.
  • Maintained library social media accounts.

Reference and Technical Services Intern

2011

St. Joseph’s College, McEntegart Library, Brooklyn, NY

  • Reviewed student theses and assign appropriate LC subject headings and call numbers.
  • Provided research assistance to students in person, via IM and email.

Library Assistant

2009-2011

Berkeley Carroll School, Brooklyn, NY

  • Copy and original cataloging of books, periodicals, and non-print media.
  • Provided circulation, reference, and technological assistance to students and staff.
  • Assisted in collection maintenance, including de-selection, research of replacement material.
  • Created teacher resource guides and library displays.
  • Wrote content for library blog.

Scholarship

Publications

Peer Reviewed Articles

Cohn, S. B. (forthcoming April 2024). Lending Seeds, Growing Justice: Seed Lending in Public and Academic Libraries. Library Quarterly.

Cohn, S. B., & Levitan, G. (2022). It’s All Improv to Me: Infusing Play Into Library Instruction. Journal of Play in Adulthood, 4(2), 126-137. https://doi.org/10.5920/jpa.1031

Cohn, S. B. (2022). Remote Reading: A Shelf List Analysis of an Academic Library’s Juvenile Collection. Collection and Curation, 41(4), 125-132. doi.org/10.1108/CC-10-2021-0027

Cohn, S. B., & Hyams, R. (2021). Our Year of Remote Reference: COVID19’s Impact on Reference Services and Librarians. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 25(4), 127–144. doi.org/10.1080/10875301.2021.1978031

Cohn, S. B. (2021). Professional Ethics and Learning Analytics: A Reflection on a Cross-Departmental Assessment Project. Urban Library Journal, 27(1). academicworks.cuny.edu/ulj/vol27/iss1/1

Book Chapters

Cohn, S. B., & Handfield, A. (2015). Google Trends as an Academic Research Tool: Expanding Scholarly Search Strategies. In C. Smallwood (Ed.), The Complete Guide to Using Google in Libraries: Instruction, Administration, and Staff Productivity (pp. 35–40). Rowman & Littlefield.

Cohn, S. B., & Handfield, A. (2015). Incorporating Google Trends into Library Administration: Marketing, Outreach, and Collection Development. In C. Smallwood (Ed.), The Complete Guide to Using Google in Libraries: Instruction, Administration, and Staff Productivity (pp. 131–134). Rowman & Littlefield.

Other Publications

Cohn, S. B., & Hyams, R. (2021). Making Room for TBD: Adapting Library Websites During a Pandemic. Computers in Libraries, 41(2), 18–21. academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_pubs/845

Cohn, S. B. (2020). Clara Lemlich Shavelson (U.S. National Park Service). nps.gov/people/clara-lemlich-shavelson

Cohn, S. B. (2020). Rose Schneiderman (U.S. National Park Service). nps.gov/people/rose-schneiderman

Cohn, S. B. (2017). Clara Lemlich Shavelson – An Activist Life. clara.commons.gc.cuny.edu

Presentations

Conference Presentations

Cohn, S. B. (2022, May 13). Exclusionary Architecture: Physical Barriers to Accessing a Children’s Collection. LACUNY Institute 2022, New York, NY. 2022lacunyinst.commons.gc.cuny.edu

López, M., Hill, S., Stoeva, D., Cohn, S. B., & Kreitz, K. (2020, February 3). Histories and Representations of Communities Across the Five Boroughs. NYC Digital Humanities Week, New York, NY. nycdh.org/dhweek/event/kickoff-2020

Cohn, S. B. (2019, April 8). Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good: Teaching Critical Evaluation of Information. Association of College and Research Libraries Conference, Cleveland, OH.

Beeman, K., & Cohn, S. B. (2013, February). The Cookbook as Art and Status Object. 2nd Annual Cookbook Conference, New York, NY.

Selected Professional Development Presentations

Cohn, S. B. (2019, September). Active Learning. CCNY Libraries Information Literacy Workshop, New York, NY.

Cohn, S. B. (2019, July). Introduction to Data Visualization. A Day of Data Visualization at the Levich Institute, New York, NY.

Cohn, S. B. (2019, February). Zotero. CCNY Libraries Week Workshop, New York, NY.

Cohn, S. B. (2019, February). Introduction to Data Visualization. CCNY Libraries Week Workshop, New York, NY.

Cohn, S. B. (2019, October). Developing Information Literacy Classes. CCNY Libraries Information Literacy Workshop, New York, NY.

Teaching

Credit Bearing

LIB 10000: Research in the Digital Age: Media and Information Literacy

Spring 2023, in person.

Spring 2022, in person. Syllabus at academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_oers/388

Fall 2020, online. Syllabus at researchfall20.commons.gc.cuny.edu

Library Information Literacy Instruction

Library instruction taught in the following subjects

FORTHCOMING

CV

Download a PDF of my full CV

Cohn CV