A fresh coat of paint for the Library!

Visitors and library users are liking the new paint in the library @Greenspring campus. We chose intense colors based on student feedback, and we love the way it makes everything pop! Even the spotty old carpet and old wall decorations look fresh and alive. Thanks to faculty in VCD, especially Amanda and Milagros, for guidance on choosing colors. Sue Bonsteel oversees the project and deserves praise for pulling it off.

I attended an E-book Expo in Harrisburg last Friday, and learned lots. Yes, e-books are getting better, there is no doubt about it. There are a lot of varying formats and options out there, and a lot of things to consider when choosing to purchase in an academic library setting. In addition to the interface, we need to worry about whether access is perpetual, are there digital rights issues, can the book be shared, etc. Meanwhile, Kindle and Sony E-book lending at the Libarry here seems to be going very well. I am working on creating a survey to eb completed by those who have borrowed a device. I'll share the results with the SU community in January.

What is a library?

Last week, I attended the opening of the Goucher College Atheneum, a fabulous new building that was designed to create a learning and community space at the heart of the Goucher campus. Part of the festivities included a panel of distinguished librarians and scholars (including Goucher's President, Sanford J. Ungar, Nancy Magnuson, College librarian, Jim Neal of Columbia University, and Carla Haydn of Enoch Pratt, among others) who posed the question "What is a library?" A complex question in these turbulent times! The eloquent responses from the panelists as well as the audience comments and questions brought home to me that academic libraries are very much needed as community and individual learning spaces. If colleges and universities want to create a community spirit, they need to think about designing spaces, democratic spaces where students and faculty alike feel comfortable browsing for reading material, working on their laptops in the seclusion of the book stacks, or working together to create a group project, multi-media, Powerpoint presentation, whatever! I recently read an apt quotation from an African student who recently was afforded the luxury of a library at her campus. She said, "The library has put us in the spirit of studying!" Yes indeed! I have spoken to many residential students here at Stevenson who are learning that they need to escape the many temptations available in the dorm to get into the spirit of studying and concentration in order to comprehend the material and actually internalize what they are reading. Of course the other aspect of the library is the staff: nothing beats a good librarian who can help you find that pesky fulltext article you can't seem to locate, even though Google takes you to the site that wants to sell it to you for $30 or more if you will just put your credit card number into the form please! Congratulations to Goucher on providing its students with the most functional and beautiful collaborative learning space I've seen in a long time: I predict the building will garner much recognition.

Reading for pleasure...

One of the things SU students would like is to be able to BROWSE the library collections to find books to read for fun! This is something we learned from all of the conversations and student presentations we attended last year on how to make the libraries more student-friendly. Librarians are extremely happy to help students find something worthwhile to read, even if it is "just for fun!" So we've put together Browsing collections at both library locations. Check them out! At Greenspring we also have a Manga collection as well as graphic novels. If you don't see what you want on the browsing shelves, just ask a librarian: we'll be happy to point you to the appropriate area.

Avid readers will also be interested to know that one of our graduates has written an entertaining and interesting book called "Receive Me Falling." Erika Robuck (Class of '99) will be here at the Greenspring Campus on October 16th to talk about and read from her work. I have read it and recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good story with a well-researched historical setting. The book even has a ghost or two!

Welcome back! Read on.

Summer in the Heart of Campus...

What are the Library staff up to this summer? We are preparing for Fall by readying the collections, facilities, and ourselves for the upcoming semester. Here are some projects we're working on:

Weeding the collections: you will see fewer print periodicals and books that are out-of-date or no longer supportive of teaching and research needs at Stevenson.

New layout at both School of Business and Greenspring Campus library locations: there will be additional seating in the School of Business (welcome news for the students who reside there and like to study and work in the SB Lib.) The Greenspring campus library will sport some new furniture and signage, all chosen based on what students said they wanted to see there (thanks to all of the students who helped us: students in Dr. Leeane Bell's, Dr. Derek Greene's, and Milagros Ponce de Leon's classes laste year).

Leisure Reading Collection: a group of library staff members is working on acquiring books that students can read to relax. One of the library's aims is to encourage leisure reading, an activity that is necessary to growth, according to a new study called To Read or Not To Read. The study "confirms that...
reading is an irreplaceable activity in developing productive and active adults as well as healthy communities. Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media, they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading."

As you can tell from the above list, making our libraries the very best that they can be to enhance campus life and support teaching and research is the goal of the library staff. See you in the Fall!

Change in the air...

Look around and you'll notice some positive changes in the Library at the Greenspring Campus. Students in Dr. Bell's OCO class last semester asked for a media viewing room, and we luckily had a vacated office site that we could convert. We've also added some brightly-colored new signs to indicate what is where and, in particular, what to find on the second floor. Check it out!

Also new this semester: we are hosting two library interns. Marc Grossblatt, a recent SU graduate, and Mike Kiel who is just about to graduate with his Master of Library Science at UMCP. Marc is exploring the possibilities of a future career in librarianship, while Mike is gaining field experience prepatory to landing his first professional job. We're happy to have both Mike and Marc.

April is around the corner, and it is Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month,a personal interest of mone. If you'd like to learn how you can help, I have a wonderful guide for you here. The guide, entitled Animal Welfare Advocacy: Web Sites to Educate and Inspire, presents the leading animal welfare organizations that have websites where you can locate quality information on this important topic. Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back, or simply welcome for those who are new to Stevenson University! Both libraries (Greenspring and the School of Business) will close early this week, and regular hours will resume when classes begin on January 12th. I want to remind you that if you have a need for Reserve material to be made available to your students, please contact a library staff member as soon as possible. We have been busy over the Winter Break updating the Library website, adding databases, and getting things ready for you and your students. We are also responding to suggestions we have received from students in Dr. Leeanne Bell's OCO class last semester, so watch for some improvements. One that we are working on is creating a group media viewing room on the first floor. New computers were purchased by the IT Department (thank you to Tom Hopkins and the IT Staff for this) and installed in the LRC 17 Library Instruction Room. The new machines, in addition to upgraded wiring, should make the LRC 17 lab comparable in terms of speed with any lab on the Greenspring Campus. Again, thanks to IT, we expanded wireless coverage to the Library Second Floor. And last but not least, we were able to purchase a new microfilm machine: this baby makes it possible to email yourself a tiff format image of your article! Watch for announcements of library tours and workshops during the first few weeks of the semester. Have a great Spring Semester and please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions!