Library Gazette

Thanks to the efforts of the ZSR Library Administration, we now have tables and seating for 16 in study rooms 203A and 12 in 203B behind Starbucks, and more furniture is on the way! Thanks to everyone helping get the new furniture placed and the existing furniture relocated! I’ll post photos of new tables and chairs as they arrive! It’s going to be a busy and exciting summer at ZSR! Stay tuned!

Study Room 203A

Study Room 203B

The new Zeutschel

Special Collections is proud to present the newest addition to our arsenal of digitization equipment, the Zeutschel 12000! After a two day training, we are ready to use the new machine for digital projects, ILL requests, and user initiated scans. All are welcome to come visit our new digitization lab and have a look.

On Thursday, May 3rd, Mary Beth Lock and I carried out a crazy plan to make the shipping crate for the new Zeutschel book scanner into a temporary study room in the ZSR Atrium. (Please note, Rosalind Tedford was involved in our initial planning and Dean Sutton, while not sure what we so giddy about, gave us her blessing! Thanks, Lynn!)

We took the empty crate, lined it with cardboard, (No splinters that way!) tossed in some pillows, and carried on a hand truck out to the Atrium! (It wasn’t pretty!) Our fearless student worker and champion of the Library, John Walsh, bravely tested the new, temporary, study space and declared it a success! Thanks to everyone at ZSR who made this fun experiment possible!

On the evenings of February 23rd and April 3rd, a total of around 300 faculty, students and staff participated in a campus deliberation on “Imagining a Different Campus Culture”. Rosalind Tedford and I, along with 20 other faculty, students and staff, volunteered to be moderators for these discussions and received moderator training prior to the events. These were amazing events and you can learn more about what prompted the discussion at:http://college.wfu.edu/campusculture/. The results of these deliberations can be read in a report found at:http://college.wfu.edu/campusculture/wp-content/uploads/DeliberationResults.pdf. This report is a great read, full of insights about the campus culture at Wake Forest University.

After Angela Mazaris spoke to a ZSR Staff meeting, I talked with her about working together for an exhibit in ZSR. In January, I attended her class in Tribble and spoke to them about how to put together a good exhibit. Months passed. Winter became spring, then a sudden flurry of activity that bordered on frenetic. Angela’s class spent the last four class sessions coming to Preservation to talk about, draft and finalize their exhibits.

They cut colorful leaves, glued, taped, cut and did all the things that make an exhibit look compelling. I printed printed an 8 foot banner.

There were several days when I got asked for things so quickly in succession, I really didn’t have the mental space to question my own sanity. Mr. Fansler, do you have tape…how should I attach this piece of paper to this piece of foam core…if I want to…how can I ….if I have a pogo stick with a jet propulsion unit, how can I make this relevant to the gay culture at Wake Forest….just kidding.

Early in the semester, Angela’s class contacted alumni and did interviews with them about the culture at Wake Forest from the 1960′s til today. The class exhibits follow this theme. Eventually, the audio interviews will be archived in Special Collections.

The exhibits are now installed and tell a compelling story about the environment encountered by gay students at Wake Forest, the way this was portrayed in campus publications, the same sex marriage in Wait Chapel, the current NC Amendment and many other issues. It was a pleasure working with this class and Dr. Mazaris on this exhibit project. As with any collaboration, I learned so much and benefited from meeting and working with this class.

On Thursday I had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Administrative Professionals Conference at WinMock in Bermuda Run, NC. WinMock is a beautiful old barn that has been renovated to hold conferences, weddings, etc. Our audience was made up of Administrative Professionals from WFU, WFU-Health Sciences, WSSU, UNC School of the Arts and Forsyth Technical Community College. We had approximately 260 attendees.

I have been on the Administrative Professionals Committee, which plans the conference, for 9 years. This year I entered registrant information into a spreadsheet and sent confirmations to WFU attendees. I also handled the deposits. I was the liaison for the attendees from WFU. I was also the photographer at the conference.

We had 3 great speakers!

Speaker 1 was Laura Hamilton

Program Description “It’s Time to Sharpen Your Ax”:
Why do weird things happen to me? What do you do with your life when it’s not going well? Where do you turn for answers? Who do I need to know? When is the perfect time to change? How do I get started?

Some key points in her presentation were:

Change our focus

You can’t get lost if you don’t know where you are going

We are never going to be who we used to be

Have a grateful heart

Always point toward the finish line

Speaker 2 was Dr. Kathy Stitts. She is Associate Provost for Lifelong Learning at Winston-Salem State University.

Program Description: “The TV Guide to Working with All Kinds of People Effectively”
From supervisors to subordinates…from faculty to students…from president to housekeeping…people play all kinds of roles – literally – - – Is your supervisor a reality show? Do you have a faculty member who is a drama series? Do students come into your office playing a comedy show? How do you deal with all these different roles effectively while not changing the channel all the time?

Some key points in her presentation were:

APN – Administrative Professional Network

It is important to self reflect

It is important to keep humor in the office – but not to be offensive

Speaker 3 was Lisa Withers

Program Description: “Do These Shoes Make Me Look Fat? The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback”
Feedback is an important key to life. It is the very thing that will keep you from walking around with a piece of spinach between your front teeth or trailing toilet paper stuck to your shoe all over Wal-Mart. Feedback is information about how we appear to others. This session highlights the art of giving it and getting it through some of life’s ordinary but hilarious moments!

Some key points in her presentation were:

Think before you speak

Respond appropriately to feedback given to you. Simply say thank you, even if you don’t agree.

Feedback is information about how other people perceive us – can’t be wrong

If you’d like to take a look at the pictures I took, they are on a Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/administrative_professionals_conference_2010/

Fourth grade students from Millennium Charter Academy in Mt. Airy visited the library on Wednesday, April 25. Hu and I were standing outside the library when the bus carrying 64 students plus their teachers arrived on campus. Although the day was cool and damp, our young visitors were eager to start on their adventure. The large group was divided into four small groups. While two groups went off with their teachers to tour the campus, the other two groups toured ZSR. Many thanks to Prentice, Craig, and Hu who served as tour guides. Special thanks to Megan who introduced the students to some of the unique resources in Special Collections and to Charles H. who provided information about reference materials and services.

This is the second time that this teacher has arranged a library tour for her class. In an email message, she thanked us for our “hospitality” and noted that she will be contacting us again. Hopefully, this year’s visitors soaked up some of the spirit of our campus and will consider applying to Wake Forest!

On Monday morning I along with 25 other North Carolina Librarians and library advocates took a scenic bus ride to join those camping out in Washington DC for the 2012 National Library Legislative Day. We arrived just in time for the ALA sponsored reception. The room was much too small for the overflowing crowd waiting to enter. It was here that we received the news that NC had the most attendees in its’ group, beating out Illinois for the second year in a row. NCLA funds the trip and attendees have only to purchase their meals. After attending, I was thoroughly convinced of the value NCLA gains with this sponsorship. We had a late dinner in the hotel and an even earlier start the next morning. We divided ourselves into two different groups with one visiting Senator Hagen and the other Senator Burr. My first stop was with Senator Burr’s aide. He listened attentively as we shared our top concerns.

Federal funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) – You may remember these funds were used for our Digital Forsyth initiative. LSTA funds to our 5th district total 1.9 million over the last 5 years.

Federal funding for School Libraries – the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program.

Federal funding for the Library of Congress, GPO and the National Archives and Record Administration.

Thanks to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Library and Information Studies Department we had this lovely video filled with stories demonstrating ways that “Libraries Change Lives.”

We divided the group again and paid visits to the other NC Representatives. My group met with the aides for Howard Coble, Mike McIntyre and Melvin Watt. After lunch we gathered for a photo on the steps of the Capital with Senator Burr followed by a brisk walk over to Union Station where we boarded the bus for home.

On Monday, April 16th, I traveled to Tyler’s Tap Room in Raleigh, North Carolina, with Gretchen Edwards and Patricia Boone from Alumni Services, to offer WFU alumni in Raleigh a session on Social Media. Gretchen and I teamed up to deliver the presentation. We used clickers to ask the alumni questions and get them engaged, and we talked about social media tools ranging from Facebook to Pinterest. The 25 alumni attending the event asked us excellent questions and seemed to enjoy the session. This was the Library’s third collaboration with Alumni Services to offers a session on Social Media. In the Fall we offered two session to Winston Salem alumni on Social Media. Gretchen and I are talking with Patricia about possible future collaborations and we have already scheduled a “Back to the Classroom” session on eBooks and eReaders for alumni during Homecoming in September!

WFU Alumni Social Media Presentation-April 16, 2012-Raleigh, NC.

In March, Susan Smith forwarded me an email noting that it had come through the generic ZSR email. The message was from a teacher at First Assembly Christian School requesting a library session for her 8^th grade students. Her students are writing a research paper on a modern US historical event. Taking advantage of the lovely weather, the teacher and 20 students walked from First Assembly to campus. Tuesday (April 10) was a beautiful morning to take a stroll, and a couple of minutes after 9:00 a.m. they arrived at ZSR. As the students settled into their seats in Room 204, I could hear them exclaiming: “Wow, what cool comfortable chairs.”

The first part of the class period was devoted to demonstrating the online catalog and databases such as Readers’ Guide Retrospective. Following the in-class demo, I provided a quick library tour. After the tour, students returned to Reference to apply their new knowledge and skills picked up in the orientation session. The students worked hard all day. They took a lunch break at Subway and returned to ZSR to do more research before departing around 3:00 p.m. for a hike back to First Assembly.

More requests are coming in for IL classes and tours. Millennium Charter Academy is scheduled to come on Wednesday, April 25. I will meet with students from West Stokes High School on April 26 to help them with their research projects. Project Launch has requested library tours for Friday, April 27. It is very gratifying to know that our visitors enjoy their day at ZSR. As one person noted in his email: “It’s always their favorite part!”