Library Gazette

L to R: Perry Ransbottom, Erin Cassidy, Dain Finke, Tim Brady

The Z. Smith Reynolds Library hosted its third annual Senior Showcase on Tuesday, April 24, 2012. Honoring Wake Forest students in their final year who are nominated by faculty advisors for exemplary research theses or projects, the Senior Showcase was originally proposed by a former student who was impressed by the diversity of his peers’ research projects, leading to desire for a forum for his fellow classmates to share their research with the campus community.

The Senior Showcase was held in the Library’s auditorium, which opened last summer. Four students were selected to present their research, representing four of the five divisions of the Wake Forest College. They presented to a large audience comprised of fellow students, faculty and staff, and family members. Beyond representing a cross-section of fields and departments, the honorees’ projects also represented a range of research methods and skills, from textual analysis to theatrical interpretation to ethnographic study to human subjects research.

The 2012 Senior Showcase honorees were:

• Erin Cassidy, Religion, for “John Calvin on Christian Responsibility for the Common Good,” nominated by Steven Boyd;
• Perry Ransbottom, Theatre, for Scenic Design for Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight, nominated by Rob Eastman-Mullins;
• Dain Finke, Anthropology, for “Understanding Caste and Self: A Dalit Caste’s Navigation of Caste Boundaries and Identify Formation in Nepal,” nominated by Stephen Folmar; and,
• Tim Brady, Health and Exercise Science, for “The Effect of Breathing Frequency on Baroreceptor Sensitivity,” nominated by Patricia Nixon.

Following the presentations, and a lively question and answer session with the audience, honorees and attendees enjoyed a reception sponsored by the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Center.

-Molly Keener, Scholarly Communications

The Z. Smith Reynolds Library is pleased to announce selections for the third annual Senior Showcase program recognizing exemplary senior research theses and projects completed by Wake Forest undergraduates in their final year. Four students have been selected to present their research on Tuesday, April 24, 2012, at 3pm in the ZSR Library Auditorium, Room 404.

The honorees are:

• Erin Cassidy, “John Calvin on Christian Responsibility for the Common Good”
• Perry Ransbottom, Scenic Design forEmilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight
• Dain Finke, “Understanding Caste and Self: A Dalit Caste’s Navigation of Caste Boundaries and Identity Formation in Nepal”
• Timothy Brady, “The Effect of Breathing Frequency on Baroreceptor Sensitivity”

We hope you will be able to join us for the Senior Showcase on April 24. Event details and registration may be found at pdc.wfu.edu/event/4814.

ZSR Zephyrs 2011: Erik Mitchell (doing his farewell tour), Gretchen Edwards (bringing a new generation of spirit to the team), Rebecca Petersen (a new speed rival to Erik), Susan Smith (oldest Zephyr around), Mary Beth Lock (major cheerleader and team Pollyanna about our weekly chances at winning), and Barry Davis (sport photographer and voted most willing to do anything but swim)

ZSR Library once again fielded a team for Campus Recreation’s annual Staff Summer Olympics, this year called the “Biggest Winner Summer Challenge.” The library has had a team in the 8 week-long event since its inception in 2003 (minus the lost year 2007, that’s another story). The format has changed over time, as have the team members. Only two original members remain: Erik and Susan! And for you curious readers, here is the Gaz article from the first year we competed (when we won the cup!)

As always, there is an activity component where, this year, each individual could earn up to 5 points daily for doing cardio, strength or by taking CR classes. New this year was a weight/fat loss angle that was accompanied by 2 nutrition lectures (don’t ask how we all did on that one!). That left 6 weeks of Wednesday athletic competitions that included old favorites such as bowling, water polo, quadrathlon, Frisbee golf and table tennis. The last day is always a mystery field day. This year Erik did a backward run then paired up with Susan for the wheelbarrow portion. Gretchen had to put on a vest, backpack and helmet to sprint to where she exchanged the gear Mary Beth who then bicycled back to the start line. Our pictures demonstrate that the Olympics remain a great deal of fun and a wonderful way to get to know colleagues better across campus!

This is Erik’s last showing as a Zephyr and he managed to go out in a blaze of glory winning the overall individual award for most exercise points earned over the 8 weeks. Is anyone surprised?

Last Thursday ZSR hosted a Google+ “Lunch and Learn” that was attended by a dozen members of the WFU community. This Thursday, three people attended the Spotify “Lunch and Learn” to hear about this new “invitation only” application for streaming and sharing music. Both of these came out of an interest by the staff to discuss and explore new technology. I would like to try to keep these going as cool new technologies become available. If you have suggestions let me know! Just today Bill Kane showed me BookLamp.org a beta site that matches readers to books through an analysis of writing styles, similar to the way thatPandora.com matches music lovers to new music. Send me cool tools you discover and let’s see if we can learn more about all these new technologies!

The Z. Smith Reynolds Library is pleased to announce selections for the second annual Senior Showcase program recognizing exemplary senior research theses and projects completed by Wake Forest undergraduates in their final year. Five students have been selected to present their research on Tuesday, April 26, 2011, at 3pm in the Allen Mandelbaum Reading Room, ZSR Library.

The honorees are:

• Ms. Beth Ann Williams, “Faith: Education Reform in Post-Independence Kenya, 1963-1970″
• Ms. Carey Carpenter, “En búsqueda de justicia en la novela sicaresca” (Seeking Justice in the Sicaresque Novel)
• Ms. Anna Walker, “Three Twenty-First-Century Perspectives of Music for Christian Worship”
• Mr. David Tokarz, “Accessing a Public: Enlightenment Rhetoric in First-wave Feminism”
• Ms. Allison Faig, “Nitrite Formation Through Reduction of Nitro-Containing Antibiotics”

We hope you will be able to join us for the Senior Showcase on April 26. Event details and registration may be found at pdc.wfu.edu/event/3389.

If you were unable to attend the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries award presentation Tuesday, March 22nd, want to see it again from a better vantage point, or want to share with friends, never fear! Video of the event is now streaming online.

ZSR Accepts ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries award in the university category from ZSR Library on Vimeo.

Join us Tuesday, March 22 at 4:00 pm in the library atrium when ZSR officially receives the Excellence in Academic Libraries award from the Association of College and Research Libraries. The ACRL President will present the award to President Nathan Hatch, who will accept it on behalf of the University. A gala reception will follow in the library atrium.

We do it all for you!

Watch WTL 5k & 1 Mile Fun Run 2010 on video:

And thanks to Lauren Pressley for videoing some of the early morning volunteer shift!

The day was beautiful for Z. Smith Reynolds Library’s 3rd annual Wake the Library 5K and 1 Mile Fun Run held on Saturday, October 9, 2010. Once again it was held as part of WFU’s Homecoming Weekend. Over 260 people came out to participate in both WTL5K events. The success of the day was thanks to the solid teamwork of the race steering committee: Mary Beth Lock (co-race director and volunteer coordinator), Susan Smith (co-race director and logistics expert), Erik Mitchell (co-race director and technical expert), Roz Tedford (Marketing), Carolyn McCallum (T-Shirts and food), Tim Mitchell (food) and Wanda Brown (fund raising). But it takes more than 7 people to put on a quality race event and the multitude of volunteers who assisted was key in making a memorable day for our racers.

Many ZSR staff contributed both during the months preceding the race and when race week arrived: Kevin Gilbertson (race web site, shirt/poster logo design) Craig Fansler (signage); Lauren Corbett, Giz Womack, Kaeley McMahan, Prentice Armstrong, Lauren Pressley, Julia Bradford, Anna Dulin, Kristen Morgan, Roz (registration); Linda Early, Joy Gambill, LInda Ziglar, Tim, David Link, Barry Davis, Steve Kelley (course guides); Mary Reeves, Ellen Daugman (water table); Doris Jones, Carolyn (finish line refreshments); Charles Bombeld, Ron Smith (photographers); Gretchen Edwards (videographer); Erik, Barry Davis, Tim (sound system set up); Patty Strickland (drink ice-down system). Still more supported the race by participating in it: Lynn Sutton, Mary Scanlon, Carol Cramer, Molly Keener, Giz Womack, Gretchen Edwards, and Sarah Jeong! It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the ZSR family pitches in to help pull off a major event. Thanks to all ZSR volunteers AND all the great students who came out to help as well!

Our sponsors are another major reason for our success. Even in these tough economic times, many sponsors, both internal and external, rose to the occasion and showed their support. Thanks to: WFU Student Activity Fund, Student Government, OMA, Information Systems, Lenovo, DataChambers, Campus Gas & Service, JS Clark, Bagel Station, Krispy Kreme, Chick-fil-A, Harris Teeter, Aramark, Lowes Foods, Campus Recreation, WFU Healthy Lifestyles and Lifestyle Plans, Sam’s Club and AB Enterprises.

Our special guests for the day were the students from Forest Park Elementary School. They chose our race as the culmination of several weeks of training. Their teacher, Alex Ray, turned out to be an excellent racer himself, winning our race! Our overall woman runner was Nicole Stevenson, from Toronto. The winner of the Lenovo Netbook drawing was Helen Daughtry (who also placed second in her age group).

Race results are available from Twin City Track Club (our timing company). Event and racer/awards pictures are available from our Flickr site.

On Thursday, July 29, we were lucky to have two special visitors from the University of Portsmouth in the UK: art professors Claire Sambrook and Maureen O’Neill, creators of the Visual Libraries project. Claire and Maureen obtained a grant to visit us here in Winston-Salem to check on the status of the Leave Your Mark project at Forsyth County Public Library that was inspired by Visual Libraries.

I originally read about Visual Libraries in a news email for libraries in 2009 while a librarian at FCPL and gathered a group of librarians to see if we could emulate the project in the US. When our fledgling project started, I contacted Claire, who was an enthusiastic supporter of our efforts. Fast-forward one year — FCPL has 36 Leave Your Mark books, Claire and Maureen are visiting Winston-Salem, and we are investigating the possibility of making Leave Your Mark into a collaborative project between FCPL and WFU!

Candace Brennan, a reference librarian at Central Library downtown, took over the project and has been promoting it widely in the community. She hosted our friends from Portsmouth and invited us at ZSR to host a workshop, which took place in the Rare Book reading room. The visit was featured in the Winston-Salem Journal!

Claire and Maureen demonstrated how their project started as a small idea and expanded into a community asset, incorporating faculty, students, and the community at large. They have over 230 blank art journals circulating in Portsmouth! Our group was then invited to add our own art to the FCPL and Portsmouth art journals in order to get a taste of the Visual Libraries/Leave Your Mark experience.

Many thanks to the library faculty, staff, and students who were able to attend. We are meeting with Candace to discuss expanding Leave Your Mark to include the WFU community!