Welcome (back), Bonnie and George!

It’s been a busy year in the Library, with two important Library staff transitions. You may recall that last year at this time, we bid a fond farewell to Katie Duke, Coordinator of Information Literacy, and welcomed George Aulisio as our new Part-Time Reference Librarian. This year saw us searching for a Librarian to take Katie’s place, and our very own Bonnie Oldham turned out to be the best candidate for the job! This meant Bonnie’s position as Distance Learning Library Services Coordinator became vacant, and after yet another search (this time with one of the largest applicant pools ever seen at the Library), our joy was doubled when George emerged as the top candidate for this position. And so, we welcome (back) Bonnie and George, each in a new job role — Bonnie as Information Literacy Coordinator and George as Distance Learning Library Services Coordinator!

George and Bonnie 008
Bonnie and George in their 2nd floor office in the Weinberg Memorial Library

Bonnie was born in Harrisburg, PA, and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She has lived in Georgia and New Jersey, and twenty years ago she returned to Pennsylvania, where she has remained ever since. She currently resides in Shavertown. She received her undergraduate degree (A.B.) in History from Chestnut Hill College, her Master of Library Science degree from Kutztown University, and her Master of Science in Organizational Management degree from Misericordia University. Bonnie brings 19 total years of experience in academic libraries to her new role as Information Literacy Coordinator.

George grew up in Old Forge, PA, and still calls Old Forge his home. George received his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy degree from Bloomsburg University, his Master of Library Science degree from Drexel University, and is currently pursuing his Master of Liberal Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

If you are a student or faculty member in the Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Exercise Science and Sport, or Nursing Departments, then Bonnie is the Librarian you will want to get to know. She is the collection development and information literacy liaison to these departments, just as George is the liaison to the Philosophy, Communication, Mathematics and Computer Science Departments. Both are especially looking forward to working more with faculty and students in their collection development areas.

In her free time, Bonnie enjoys cooking and doing crafts – for example, five years ago she made her daughter’s wedding dress. George, who has a deep thirst for knowledge, spends much of his free time pursuing his studies; however, he also enjoys yard work, including cutting the grass and trimming the trees. Both enjoy reading (what librarian doesn’t?), and both can be found sharing the same 2nd floor office in the Weinberg Memorial Library. George can be found in the Library most evenings of the week, Sunday through Thursday, while Bonnie is easiest to find during the day, Monday through Friday. Feel free to stop by and say hello to them – they both welcome visitors!

Fourth of July closing

Photo courtesy of Stephen Baack, under a Creative Commons license

Photo courtesy of Stephen Baack, under a Creative Commons license

The Weinberg Memorial Library is closing at 10:00pm today for the Fourth of July weekend.  We’ll reopen on Monday, July 6, at 8:00am.   Enjoy the holiday!

P.S. Looking for a place to celebrate? The Scranton Times-Tribune has a guide to NEPA fireworks displays.

P.P.S. Wired has a great how-to wiki on photographing fireworks using a point-and-shoot camera, a digital SLR, or even your iPhone.

Summer Workshops for University Employees

The Library would like to invite all University of Scranton employees to two workshops that will be held in July.

Researching the Moving ImageInternet Movie Database logo
This workshop, presented by Kevin Norris, will look at some of the new developments that Web technology and social networking have brought to researching the moving image and motion pictures on the Internet. Attendees will explore some of the more useful and interesting Web sites and networks.

Light refreshments will be served.

When: July 8 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Where: Room 306 in the Weinberg Library

Do you speak Web 2.0

Do you speak Web 2.0?
Presenters Kristen Yarmey-Tylutki and George Aulisio will introduce attendees to the language of Web 2.0. A few of the topics that will be included are photo sharing, Facebook and Twitter.
Light refreshments will be served.

When: July 14 from 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Where: Room 306 in the Weinberg Library

Schemel Forum Event: Democracy’s Challenge

Ballot #710, courtesy of Gwens River City Images

There are only 10 spots left for Democracy’s Challenge: Reclaiming the Public’s Role, the latest event in our Schemel Forum series.  The session will be a discussion moderated by Steven Jones, Ph.D., the University of Scranton’s Associate Provost for Civic Engagement and Academic Mission.

The discussion will be held Monday, June 15th at 5pm.  It’s free to all participants, but since the number of participants is limited, reservations are required.

To register, contact our Schemel Forum Events Coordinator, Kym Fetsko, at 570-941-7816 or fetskok2 (at) scranton (dot) edu.

Image courtesy of Gwen’s River City Images, under a Creative Commons license.

Commencement 2009

Commencement festivities on campus
Commencement Weekend - photo by Pat Savitts, WML Access Services Coordinator

This weekend, the University of Scranton conferred 856 undergraduate degrees, 642 master’s degrees, and 35 doctorates.  Congratulations to all of our 2009 graduates!

You can read the Scranton Times-Tribune’s coverage of commencement here and here.

Smile, Summer’s here! :-)

The end of finals week is 2 short days away… And the sun is out and the temps are high, which means, summer is here! …all of which makes this librarian a happy gal! :-)

It also means the Library hours change in honor of the summer months:

Memorial Day Weekend and the week following:

Saturday-Monday, May 23-25: Closed

Tuesday-Thursday, May 26-28: 8:00 AM-4:30 PM

Commencement Weekend:

Friday, May 29: 8:00 AM-8:00 PM

Saturday, May 30: 10:00 AM-4:00 PM

Sunday, May 31: Closed

Summer Hours:

June 1-August 4:

Monday-Thursday: 8:00 AM-10:00 PM

Friday: 8:00 AM-4:30 PM

Saturday: 12 Noon-6:00 PM

Sunday: 12 Noon-8:00 PM

And of course, congratulations (or conGRADulations, as I like to say *rimshot*) to our graduating seniors, U of Scranton Class of 2009!

LibQual Prizewinners

Prizewinners

Scott, Shawna, and Pete

In March, our University community was invited to give feedback to the Library by participating in our LibQUAL+ survey.  As a thank you to those who took the time to respond to our questions, we held a drawing for three prizes.  Our lucky winners were students Shawna, who took home a new digital camera, and Scott and Pete, who both won an 8GB flash drive.

We’ll be using the results of the survey to help us improve Library programs and better serve the University community.  Many thanks to Shawna, Pete, Scott, and all who participated!

P.S. Even if you didn’t get to fill out a LibQUAL+ survey, we still want to know what you think about the Library!  You can give us feedback by commenting on this blog, leaving us a message in our Suggestion Box, or posting on our Facebook wall.

Aquinas online, old and new

AquinasCover

Did you know that that archival issues of the Aquinas, the University of Scranton’s 77-year-old student newspaper, are available online? In the Weinberg Memorial Library’s digital collection, you can browse and search every issue from Vol. 1, No. 1 (October 16, 1931) through the last issue of 2007 (May 10).

(Side note: We love reading Tommyrot, a gossip column in the 1930s and 1940s that reported all the campus dirt.)

If you’re looking for current Aquinas articles, be sure to check out aquinas.jlcclients.com, where you can find the latest student news.  You can also follow @scrantonaquinas on Twitter for updates.

Faculty Scholarship Month

The Faculty Scholarship Exhibit is now open at the Weinberg Memorial Library Heritage Room, on the 5th floor of the library, through the end of May. If you think you had a difficult time with your recent paper, (you did finish that paper, right?!) just think about what the faculty have to go through. After a thorough review of the literature, and months of research, faculty face that blank page the same as you, but their profession is on the line. Faculty submit carefully researched and written papers to a panel of colleagues at selected academic or scholarly journals, or publishing houses. These “readers” carefully scour the articles for any errors, in research, or in grammar. They send articles back for corrections, or in some cases, totally reject the papers. After lots of hard work, it can be a very frustrating experience to have your work rejected. Faculty then make the corrections and resubmit their papers, and hopefully the paper will be published in a forthcoming edition. Sometimes the papers are again corrected and returned for more editing. It can be a time consuming experience. The successes of the past few years are on display! Come take a look and congratulate your favorite faculty author. See you in the Heritage Room!

Congratulations, graduating seniors!

Today at the Library we’re celebrating the graduation of our senior Library student workers.  Many of them have been with us for all four years of their Scranton career.  All of them have worked hard and will be dearly missed.

Students at today's luncheon

The students were honored today with a luncheon, where they received a certificate of appreciation.  Each student also will have a book in their major added to our collection in their honor (ask them which book is theirs!).

Student worker Allen Z. with his certificate and book