Keep calm. The end of the semester approaches...

I'm sitting in my office right now, listening to librarian Amy Brinkley work with a student. If you haven't met or worked with Amy, you need to. She is one of the most helpful and articulate young women I have had the pleasure to work with, and I am *so* happy to have her on staff here at Jones. She knows her library stuff and her technology, and she loves sharing that knowledge. She's also hilarious. I love to laugh--it makes life and work so much more enjoyable.

Amy sent this message out to all students today:

We're heading into the final weeks of the semester -- crunch time!  Are you struggling to commit to a topic for a paper or unsure where to start with research for a group project?  Swing by the library and work with a librarian to make your search more effective and ease your stress level as we head into finals.

Swing by anytime for general help, or schedule an appointment with me to sit down and discuss your topic in more depth and develop a good search strategy.  Email me at amy.brinkley@brevard.edu to set up a time to meet.

Be sure to check out the Resources by Major pages to get started -- we've added some great features this semester!

Those "Resources by Major" pages are the kind of thing we'll be doing more of in the library. The goal is to make everything intuitive and user-friendly. Amy's been working hard to link very relevant resources on those pages and to make them as intuitive to navigate as possible. As an extra bonus, she has it worked out for everyone to be able to access databases off-campus without calling us for a password. Your username is your first and last name, with a space in between (ex.: Marie Jones). Your password is formed with the letters bv followed by your ID number (ex: bv123456).

Do call any of us with any questions or concerns you have! If you are a teaching faculty member at BC, we'd love to talk to your classes next semester to work with your students on finding the best possible information resources to use in your class. Email me or Amy to set that up.

Learning Bar

I have slacked at writing posts the last few weeks because I have been pushing to get a preliminary grant proposal written. If we are awarded what I hope (and we won't know until next summer), the library is going to become a much more active and comfortable place to be.

I've requested furniture and a number of other things to help make the library a more inviting place, but my favorite element of the project is what I am calling the Learning Bar. It looks a bit like the photo at the right.

The idea is that you can bring in your own devices--or check out an iPad that the library purchased with a grant last year--and connect them to show on the screen. Up to four computers can be connected at one time, so you can work together on a group project, share data from lab work, or meet with a whole class.

I'm really excited about this and the other collaborative elements we're going to add to the library in the coming year.

Now I'm heading out to the bound periodicals to see what titles we can remove from the collection to start to make room for some of the innovations that will  be coming to the first floor. Librarians call this "weeding"--and yeah, it is just about as fun as the garden job. Sigh.

Sit-in at the Library

I have been a librarian for a very long time, but today I have checked off a new item on my "Before I Die" (BID) list--I have seen students protesting at the library for a good cause, complete with guitar and bongo drums:

More people are on the floor inside, so don't think it's a totally lame number of protesters. For the size of this campus, I'm really impressed with the turnout.

So, why are they here? I am excited about this as more than a cultural phenomenon, because they are protesting for a really good cause. The participants are asking the campus to divest of fossil-fuel investments. If you read Donald Gould's article, "Why We Said Goodbye to Fossil-Fuel Investments" in the Chronicle of Higher Education a few weeks ago, you understand the points of discussion. Other colleges are doing this. You can see one list here: http://gofossilfree.org/commitments/. The movement is international, and hundreds of colleges and universities are exploring the idea of divesting.

You should be able to find out more about the event from WLOS and WYFF tonight.

Is it a good first date?

As I write this post, I am in the middle of my first week as the new library director at Brevard College's Jones Library. The last month and a half, since I accepted the job, has been a flurry of packing and preparing as I finished up my work at East Tennessee State University and moved here.

I feel a bit like a girl on a first date with someone she likes a lot, but doesn't know very well. "I hope they like me. What should I say?  Will they find my quirks charming, or should I play it safe and try to be less geeky? Please, please, please don't let me embarrass myself right away..."

But I get ahead of myself. Most of you haven't even met me yet.

I have high hopes for the coming months at Jones Library. We started the year with new staff members and some exciting ideas for the library. Follow this blog and my Jones@Jones feed on Twitter or the library's Facebook and Pinterest pages to learn more about activities and resources in the library.