Welcome to The Library is the Heart...

This will be my way of keeping the Villa Julie Community apprised of what is new in the library. I hope you find it useful and will visit regularly. My plan is to update it weekly, though I may need to change that as I see how much material I have, as well as how much time!

Library staff are very busy, as you might imagine, teaching classes and responding to reference inquiries, reserves requests, and the need for laptop and data display loans, while working to keep things in order and problem-solve. So far, library staff have delivered 38 orientations, workshops, and instruction sessions, and there are many more booked. We've reached about 547 people in those sessions.

Sue Bonsteel's recent Web 2.0 Faculty Workshop was a success. About 10 faculty learned about social networking tools such as blogs (you are reading one now!), wikis, and more, and discussed how they might be used in teaching and professional development.

You may have noticed that the library is in the midst of adding technology tools to the Maryland Room: the most obvious addition is the 50-inch plasma screen, which will be primarily used for Film, Video and Theater film viewing. Students will be able to see feature films with the correct aspect ratio and get a taste of a large screen experience on campus. Also under construction is a nursing pod cluster, simply workstations that will feature programs specific to the nrusing program, e.g. NCLEX review software and the like. This cluster is the brainchild of library friend Dr. Judy Feustle. We hope it will be up and running in the next few weeks.

Last but not least, John McNally, whose office is located in the library, has set up an Instructional Technology Resource Center. This Center will be a place for faculty to go to create tools for teaching with technology. Available software includes Adobe Photoshop Elements, Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Microsoft Office 2007. All of these programs can be used to create web pages, create or enhance graphics and create or edit podcasts or audio files for use in BlackBoard and/or traditional courses. Four computers have network access.Limited assistance and training is provided on from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday thru Friday, although appointments for training can be arranged. To set up an appointment or request assistance with using a program, contact John McNally in LRC 10A in person, by phone or email John McNally. Library staff member Sue Bonsteel and I will be helping with the ITRC after we get some training from John.