CIC-PKAL Workshop on Learning Spaces

I just returned from Decatur, Georgia, where I joined my Dean and Sue Bonsteel (a library staff member) in learning how to rethink our library space. Wow! This was really inspiring! One highlight was a tour of the Cox Computer Center at Emory University, which features exciting floor layout and furniture configurations designed to enhance group work. We toured the facility on Friday afternoon, and were those students enagaged! If you want to see photos of this cutting edge computer lab, try a search on Flickr.

After the Emory tour, we began meeting in groups on the campus of Agnes Scott College (which was the prettiest college campus I think I've ever seen). Our assignment was to decide on a goal for our project, and we found it: we have decided we want to explore ways to support Villa Julie's Learning Beyond program, which encompasses experiential learning beyond the classroom.

Returning on the plane, Sue and I brainstormed ways to reach out to our campus and engage faculty, students and staff. We will begin at our Library staff Retreat in May, and keep building on this, hoping we can sustain momentum.

New Exhibit

Library staffer, Carol Maxwell has done it again! She's created a fabulous display as part of the College's 60th Anniversary on one of the most famous residents of the Greenspring Valley, opera singer Rosa Ponselle. The Display features some unique photos of the Singer, news clippings detailing events in her life, and 2 pairs of the star's shoes on loan from a friend of the library who wishes to remain anonymous. Oh yes, and books about her life are also featured. If you want to hear how she sounded, you can borrow a DVD or CD recording from the library's collection, or easier still, go to YouTube and plug her name into the search box. I promise you will not be disappointed. Rosa's voice is amazing, and she had quite a stage presence. To see where she lives, all you need to do is look out the window and across Greenspring Valley Road to her former home, Villa Pace.

In Spring a Young Man's (or Woman's) Fancy...

...turns not to Love, as might be expected and hoped for, but to Finals and Graduation!

The Library has been a hive of activity since we returned from Easter Break. Everyone is studying in groups or working on those last papers. We welcome the activity but we do find ourselves needing to do a little more shushing, as did our fore-mothers and -fathers in days gone by.

Shushing patrons is not a favorite librarian activity: we prefer as a rule to be genial and helpful. Perhaps this is overcompensation for those grade school, middle school and high school librarians all too ubiquitous in my day (I am NOT going to tell you what century) who delighted in correcting, glaring at, and otherwise making life in the school library a nerve-wracking experience. This behavior seems to have disappeared, probably since Dr. Spock's famous book was published! And all to the better!

We want you to love being in our library as much as we love it. However, we do need to remind you from time to time of the rules: no loud conversations (unless you are lucky enough to snag a study room upstairs and can close the door), and no real food.

M&Ms can be overlooked! Etudiez bien!