Please note that the library will be closed Friday, July 4th through Sunday, July 6th, in honor of Independence Day. We will reopen on Monday, July 7th at 8 AM.
Have a wonderful and safe weekend filled with fireworks and festivities!
“New Books” Bookshelves have a new home
Check out our new book shelves, now located right next to the Reference Desk.
We just moved our “New Books” Bookshelves from the periodical area to the area right near the Reference Desk. This should make the new books in our collection a lot more accessible to you, and it also opens up the periodical area for more study space.
I took some time to browse these latest additions to our collection, and came across this cool book which I have plans to read as soon as I can:
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All
Clearly there is something for everyone on these shelves. Check them out!
Couches
The larger 2nd Floor Group Study Room is now home to 2 new, comfy couches. Bonnie Strohl, our Associate Director, who is also often seen at the Reference Desk, purchased the couches because she knows how many long, grueling hours of research, studying and planning our students put in here at the library. In keeping with our Library’s mission, we want the library to continue to be a place our students — ahem, that means you — claim as their own. I can already envision the group study sessions that will go down on and around these newest additions to our library furniture collection. (And they’re a cool, calm blue as well — nice choice, Bonnie!)
So, come to the library, get comfy, and read! (Or research. Or study. Or write. Or plan. Or simply do.)
Alumni Exhibit
Check out the Alumni Exhibit on the 5th floor Heritage Room of the Weinberg Memorial Library, available through July 2008. Students who have graduated from the University of Scranton and published have one or more of their books on display.
Did you see…
The book about the election process?
The book about Toponyms? What is a toponym?
The book about the local immigrant’s story?
The book describing Edith Stein among others as Catholic converts?
The Kashuba book about Scranton?
The book that was a Newbery Honor Book?
Our very own librarian’s book?
The Pulitzer Prize winning playwright?
Come to the display and see what your alumni have accomplished. Imagine what you could accomplish!
Shade for the 24 Hour Room
Workmen have been busy this week installing a sun blocking film on the windows in the ProDeo room. Most people call it the 24 hour room because it is open 24/7. Officially, it’s known as the “Pro Deo et Universitate” room because it contains a listing of the names of those members of the University community who have received the Pro Deo et Universitate Award for Twenty Years or more Service to the University.
“Planning for the Whole-istic Library”
Last Thursday a group of us had the opportunity to attend the Spring Workshop jointly presented by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Library Network (NPLN) and the Northeast Chapter of the Pennsylvania Library Association (NEPALA). It was a very nice walk of 5 blocks in the Scranton sunshine over to nearby Lackawanna College, who was hosting the event.
After registration and a brief welcome, librarians from all over Northeastern PA settled into the beautiful, plush seats of Lackawanna College’s Mellow Theater to hear Keynote speaker Jill Hurst-Wahl share with us what her 20 years business/library experience have revealed to her about trends in the library.
The Mellow Theater at Lackawanna College; image taken from: http://www.lackawanna.edu/mellow/mellow.html
She challenged the librarians present — hailing from public, college/university, and special libraries — by arguing that the only way libraries could ever become obsolete would be if we (i.e. librarians) allow them to become so. It’s our job to make users “dependent” on the library — and not because we feel the need for some kind of power trip! ;) A healthy dependence on the library, in my opinion, would stem from making our unique and exciting resources known to users (in our case, students, faculty and even the public), and furthermore by illustrating and teaching just how useful our information resources are to these key stakeholders.
(And yes, I just called our students stakeholders — if you’re a student, I bet you’ve never been called this before, huh? :) Information is power! :::cue super-hero music::: )
Jill Hurst-Wahl believes that the way to do these things is to “be where they are” — by “they” she means our library users, which in our case means most often students.
And where are you guys hanging out these days? On facebook, AIM, maybe MySpace (I get the feeling MySpace may be slowly going out of style — am I right?), and all sorts of other “Web 2.0” technologies. And so, that is were we must be as well.
As an aside, I feel the need to give a shout-out to our very own librarian Bonnie Oldham, who shares the night-shift with me at the ref desk. Bonnie serves on the 2008 Northeast Chapter Board for NEPALA, and helped put together this very cool event — so kudos to Bonnie for that!
There were a few other fun and interesting meetings and workshops at the event, but for me the Keynote Speaker stood out the most — followed very closely by the food served for lunch! :) Overall it was an interesting and exciting day — especially for this new librarian!
For information about this event as well as the NEPALA, visit:
Northeast Chapter of PaLA Wiki
Contact info for Jill Hurst-Wahl:
hurst@HurstAssociates.com
Meebo & Skype: jill.hurst.wahl
www.HurstAssociates.com
www.Digitization101.com
www.eNetworking101.com