Faculty Newsletters: Spring 2016

NEW Graphic Design Intern

Josh Johnson joins the University Libraries as the spring 2016 graphic design intern. Here's a profile on Josh to help you get to know him better! Stay tuned for some fun and exciting new designs promoting library services and resources!

Q: What is your major/academic year?

A: Graphic Design/Senior

Q: What's one of your favorite movies?

A: Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel Cinematic Universe

Q: Favorite Book?

A: The Giver/The Hatchet Series/Series of Unfortunate Events

Q: Biggest Fear?

A: Not being able to save people from the injustice of the world.

Q: Why did you choose the University Libraries for your internship?

A: I chose it because the library is the coolest place in Bolivar!

NEW Staff Member

Dorothy Mantonya just joined the University Libraries' family in October. She is our Serials Clerk, so she checks in all of the print periodicals that we still subscribe to and assists the Technical Services area with other projects as needed.

Originally, we planned to roll out the biennial library survey in October 2015, but decided to delay the process due to the number of surveys distributed that semester. The biennial library survey will be open February 1-19, 2016. We hope to hear from faculty, staff, and students on services and resources the University Libraries provides, whether good or bad, so that we can bring the libraries to you more effectively in the future. So, please take 5 minutes of your valuable time to provide us with input.

As an incentive for taking the survey, the University Libraries will be GIVING AWAY several items: Subway and Walmart gift cards, Sonic coupons, flash drives, and an iPad Mini*, compliments of EBSCOhost. So, enter your name and e-mail for a chance to win. Giveaway information provided by respondents will not be connected to survey responses.

*Only students are eligible to win the iPad Mini.

The collection development policy provides faculty, staff, and students with an overview of the collection selection/maintenance guidelines that we employ in purchasing and deselecting resources to support the curriculum/leisure reading needs of our academic community. We are excited to share a new collection development policy with you that was written during the fall 2015 semester. Our last policy was revised in 1999, and as you can imagine, it needed to be revamped to include new collections that the University Libraries now curates, considerations specific to the way the personal librarian program now impacts collection development for specific academic areas, etc. We would like to extend a special thank-you to Susan Kromrie for investing hours in formulating this new policy for us. For questions about our new and improved policy, please e-mail Susan!

The Alteration - February 12-13

Landee Nevills, Director of Residence Life, contacted the University Libraries again this year about hosting another women's conference at the Harriett K. Hutchens Library. They will be utilizing our space for small group sessions like they have for the past year or two. We are excited about this partnership and look forward to more opportunities to do this in the future.

ComicCon - April 9, 2016

For the past 3 years we've hosted a murder mystery event in the library during the spring semester, which has been quite successful. This spring we have decided to move away from the murder mystery and explore a new way to engage our students. Over the past year, Rebekah Ruggles, Patron Services Assistant in the Harriett K. Hutchens Library, has had several conversations with students about some other events they'd like the University Libraries to host in the future. One event that students seemed especially receptive to was ComicCon, which will make a debut at the Harriett K. Hutchens Library in April!

What is ComicCon? It "is short for comic convention, and is generally a day long or all weekend event where comic fans gather for workshops, presentations, games, and other events like cosplay." Cosplay "is short for 'costume play.' This generally refers to people who normally dress up as characters from anime, manga, or video games."

Here are some activities that we're looking forward to hosting during this day-long event, which is being organized by Rebekah and a committee of students!

• Cosplay Contest
• Food & Movie - "I Know That Voice"
• Vendor Giveaways
• Photo Booth
• Scavenger Hunt
• Craft Station
• Presentations by faculty, illustrators/artists of ComicCon, and 501st fans (who dress up like - Clone troopers, bounty hunters, etc.)

If you have any questions about ComicCon, e-mail Rebekah.

Finals Week -Spring 2016

We will be hosting our regular finals week festivities again this year! We're thankful to the faculty, staff, and students, who have contributed to making this week so special. We love making popcorn and serving drinks to brighten your days during this very stressful time of the semester! For questions or suggestions, please e-mail Bethany.

The University Libraries would like to acknowledge the overwhelmingly warm reception we've had to Mango Languages, since subscribing to the database this summer. Faculty, staff, and students have mentioned that they'll be switching from other language learning software products to Mango. We're thrilled to be offering this service because it's a valuable tool not only for students going on mission trips, but for faculty/staff with high school students who are prepping for language courses as they transition to college, etc.

We gave away a lot of Mango swag during the months of October and November to those who spent time utilizing language modules in the database. Below are some statistics that speak for themselves.

Sessions Occurred Between: 7/15/2015-12/31/2015

• 304 Total Sessions
• 113 Mobile Sessions
• Average Session Length - 8.71 minutes
• Courses utilized - Spanish, Latin American, German, Pirate, Swahili, French, Japanese, Chinese, Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Hawaiian, Medical, Spanish, Turkish, Text Talk. If you have any questions about Mango Languages, please contact Doyin Adenuga or Bethany Messersmith.

Library Signage

As we mentioned in our last newsletter, the University Libraries is exploring new and improved signage options to help our constituents locate information more effectively. Although the signage subject has been dear to our hearts for quite some time, the inception of the marketing committee 3.5 years ago served as the impetus for moving forward with some new initiatives in the signage department. We've been in discussions with Blade Signs here in Bolivar about designing some customized signage that would help people locate books, computer labs, bathrooms, etc. They've come up with some great signage options that are within our financial means, so we've moved forward with this project. The next time you step foot in the library, be prepared for a modified look! We're moving up in the world!

Rotating Art Gallery

We would like to thank Veda Gonzalez Photography, Ted Thurman, Jenn Martin, Cindy Rhoads, and Linda Pepper for contributing artwork to kick off our fall 2015 rotating art display. Dawn Katzer's students and students from Bolivar Schools will be lending us artwork this semester. We're so thrilled to embrace these new partnerships, which aid in brightening up the library for our daily visitors.

If you or someone you know is interested in showcasing a piece of artwork, please e-mail Bethany.

We continue to look for new ways to support faculties' and students' information needs. With the unveiling of Blackboard this summer, we've discovered some ways that you can embed library resources directly in the LMS. For more specifics, please consult our research guide for step-by-step instructions on how to do this. For additional questions, contact our Digital Services Librarian, Doyin.

During the COBACs renovation project, the CIS Department will be moving some of their classes to Lab 137 here in the Harriett K. Hutchens Library. That means we'll be down one computer lab from January 2016-Fall 2016.

Please encourage your students to take advantage of Lab 136 and the computers at the front of the library. Media Services also checks out Netbooks, laptops, and iPads, so we hope to accommodate students' technology needs in new and innovative ways during this time. Students can print wirelessly in the Harriett K. Hutchens Library if needed.

We recognize that being down one lab will impact the number of instruction sessions the library faculty can conduct on a given day, as we will no longer be able to accommodate multiple sections of a class simultaneously. Please book library instruction sessions and regular class sessions in advance to reserve the space. You can contact Bethany via phone at extension 1626 or via e-mail to make a lab reservation.

This virtual research assistance tool is well used by our patrons. We added a chat widget to the homepage at the beginning of the fall 2015 semester and for the term, 50% of chats were referred to librarians from the homepage chat widget. In order for our patrons to directly contact their personal librarian from the homepage, we've added a drop-down menu with a list of librarian names. 

During the fall 2015 semester, we made a portal announcement about extended Ask a Librarian service hours. For those of you who might have found this post confusing, we wanted to take a moment to explain the details. We have offered virtual research assistance for the past 3 years or so, but it has been limited to the hours the library is open/librarian availability at a given time. As a result of a consortia agreement with other MOBIUS libraries this fall, we are now contracting with a service that answers virtual research questions when the library is closed or a librarian is off-duty. We are excited about that, because some of our students have questions at 1 AM when our campus libraries are closed. The extended hours are:

Monday-Friday- 5 PM-8 AM

Saturdays - 10 AM-10 PM

Sundays - 10 AM-8-AM Monday

For additional questions, please contact Doyin.

As part of SBU, Southwest Baptist University Libraries is moving along with the branding of the university. So, with the newly designed SBU website, the library website navigation menu has also been changed. The sub-menus are almost identical to the previous menu items. Please visit the library website to familiarize yourself with the new look. ​

We are always looking for ways to make the University Libraries' collections more visible from our homepage. We've added and modified tabs/boxes found on the big teal search box in the center of the page. This one-stop-shopping box was adopted a few years ago to reflect the look and feel of a Google search and is often referred to as the University Libraries' discovery service. We hope that some of the changes we made to it during the fall semester will make searching more intuitive for faculty, staff, and students!

• You can now conduct an advanced search of all library resources from the homepage using the "Advanced Search" button.
• You will notice that we've renamed the E-Books tab to "Books/E-Books." When you click on the tab, you can choose which book collections you would like to search now - E-Books, Books (our print collection), or the Juvenile Collection. 
• You will now see a Videos tab that enables you to search for (media and streaming films). 
• When you click on the "Articles" tab, you can now select peer-reviewed and full-text search options. 

Special thanks to Doyin, our Digital Services Librarian, for recognizing the need to fine-tune our discovery service. If you have any additional recommendations for how we can improve this service, please contact him.

Our latest report on assessment for the 2014-2015 academic school year will be available by February 1st via the portal. We are looking forward to sharing our successes and areas of desired improvement, as we partner with you to impact student learning. The report is accessible via this path - portal/menu/campus services/library services/annual information literacy reports.

Previously, some of you have inquired about our audio book selection for an upcoming road trip. The truth is - we don't buy a lot of audio books. For the most part, faculty, staff, and students typically utilize articles and books to conduct research, but when it comes to leisure reading audio books are sometimes preferred.

If you are a member of the Springfield-Greene County Library District or Polk County Public Library, you might consider utilizing the OverDrive app. OverDrive provides access to audio books and eBooks free of charge to people who have library cards at the above local libraries, as well as many other libraries throughout the country. All you need to do is download the OverDrive app and create a profile. You can stream audio books or download them for ease of access in the event that you don't have WiFi accessibiliy on the road.

For questions, please contact your local public library or Bethany. Happy listening!

Mountain View Campus Library

No Events Scheduled at This Time.

Springfield Campus Library

Events (This newsletter will be available by the last week in January).

Wisdom Library, Salem Campus

Events

• Art Exhibition by Ms. Ellen Reynolds - January 2016
• "I Love My Student Patrons" - February 8-12, 2016 - Cookies and punch will be served in the library.
• Making a Difference - March 2016 - Collect baby item donations for the Riverways Resource Pregnancy Center.
• Showers of Blessing - April 2016 - Collect non-perishable items for the local food pantry.
• Capping Ceremony - May 2016 - Students graduate.