Compiled below are the comprehensive outputs from the Mina Rees Library Open Knowledge Team. These include critical essays on OER and pedagogy, reflections on the development of the Fellowship, and archival publications.
Annotated Resource Guides offer an in-depth look at a variety of topics, through a critical lens with a focus on open resources. Towards a Critically Open Future contains work by Brian Mercado, Angela LaScala-Gruenewald, Nicole Cote, Tania Avilés Vergara, and Maria Victoria Salazar. Edited by Reference Librarian Elvis Bakaitis.
This project presents reflections by CUNY Graduate Center faculty, staff, and students on ongoing work on open educational resources and open pedagogy. These projects have been supported by the Teaching and Learning Center and GC Digital Initiatives. Reference Librarian Elvis Bakaitis contributes an OER Literature Review.
The New York City College of Technology (CityTech) fosters robust and interdisciplinary work involving Open Educational Resources. This compilation brings together the reflections of twelve faculty members about the intersection of open resources with Theater Arts, English Literature, Communication Design, Nursing, and Library & Information Science. Edited by Reference Librarian Elvis Bakaitis.
Intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy captures current open education and information literacy theory and practice and provides inspiration for the future. Chapters include practical applications, theoretical musings, literature reviews, and case studies and discuss social justice issues, collaboration, open pedagogy, training, and advocacy. Reference Librarian Elvis Bakaitis and Dean of Barnard Library Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz contribute a chapter on “defining a student-centered pedagogy.”
In this presentation from 2021, Reference Librarian Elvis Bakaitis, Associate Librarian for Scholarly Communication Jill Cirasella, and Lehman College Assessment-Data Management Librarian Katelyn Angell will discuss the program as an in-depth intervention in the often narrowly focused landscape of OER initiatives, which tend to highlight course cost as the primary and only concern. The Open Pedagogy Fellowship, given its context at the doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York, is positioned to impact scholarship going forward, starting with those on the path towards the PhD.
The Scholarly Communications Cookbook features 84 recipes that can help you establish programs, teach concepts, conduct outreach, and use scholarly communications technologies in your library. Reference Librarian Elvis Bakaitis and Lehman College Assessment-Data Management Librarian Katelyn Angell contribute a chapter on the “assembly of a multilevel exhibit of open resources.”
In this collective effort, a team of Lost & Found editors explore Adrienne Rich’s teaching materials from her formative years during the turbulent and exhilarating student strike for Open Admissions in the late 1960s at the City University of New York. The digital edition of this text was prepared by Dasharah Green (Ph.D. Program in English, CUNY Graduate Center) and Roxanne Shirazi (CUNY Digital History Archive) and was supported by open educational resources funding from the Office of Library Services, The City University of New York.
How can we integrate the principles, practicalities, and complexities of open educational resources (OER) and open access scholarly literature into graduate-level education? Jill Cirasella, Elvis Bakaitis, and Patrick McGee delivered this presentation on the Open Knowledge Fellowship at the Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students Conference, March 17-18, 2026.
