Library Gazette

At 12 noon on Earth Day, ZSR hosted a program called “Celebrating Nature” in Room 204. It was a joint lecture by four faculty members who addressed how nature could be celebrated in different ways: Bob Browne (”Celebrating Nature Through Preservation”), Emily Wakild (”Celebrating Nature Through Movement”), Bonnie Carr O’Neill (”Celebrating Nature Through Literature”), and Avram Hiller (”Celebrating Nature Through Photography”). Although it was a lunchtime program and there were several events going on at the same time, 33 people were in the audience. The feedback was very positive and included questions about whether another program could be held next year- it could be a tradition in the making!

This event would not have been possible without special contributions from several individuals: Carol Cramer for marketing suggestions, Craig Fansler for designing the flyer, Carolyn McCallum and Mary Reeves for helping with the planning details, and Caroline Numbers for recording it for a later podcast. Also, special thanks go to Lynn Sutton and Wanda Brown for their support of the idea.  Thanks to all of you for providing another great opportunity for ZSR to reach out to the campus community through its programming!

Person Recognized

Tim Mitchell

Given By

Susan

Reason

I blew out my network settings on my laptop today. I was leaving for vacation and needed to have my computer ready to go upon my return. Even though Tim also was going out on vacation, he stayed after hours this evening to reimage my computer and reconfigure it so it will be ready for me. I really appreciate him going the extra mile.

Person Recognized

Giz Womack

Given By

Bobbie L. Collins

Reason

On March 20 due to a change in library tour date, Giz stepped in to help with the Wake Forest Days library tours for prospective students and their parents.

Person Recognized

Mary Horton

Given By

Bobbie Collins

Reason

On March 20 due to a change in library tour date, Mary stepped in to help with the Wake Forest Days library tours for prospective students and their parents.

Person Recognized

Mary Scanlon

Given By

Bobbie Collins

Reason

On March 20 due to a change in library tour date, Mary stepped in to help with the Wake Forest Days library tours for prospective students and their parents.

Person Recognized

Caroline Numbers

Given By

Bobbie Collins

Reason

On March 20 due to a change in library tour date, Caroline volunteered to provide information about the ITC to prospective students and their parents.

Person Recognized

Julia Bradford

Given By

Bobbie Collins

Reason

On March 20 due to a change in library tour date, Julia volunteered to provide information about Baptist/Archives to prospective students and their parents.

Person Recognized

Megan Mulder

Given By

Bobbie Collins

Reason

On March 20 due to a change in library tour date, Megan volunteered to provide information about Special Collections to prospective students and their parents.

Person Recognized

Peter Romanov

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

Peter started some word-of-mouth buzz about our ZSR fan site on Facebook. The number of fans tripled overnight and we finally have some student fans!

Person Recognized

Cristina Yu

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

The Marketing Committee appreciates your help in staffing our booth at the Benefits Fair.

Person Recognized

Giz Womack

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

The Marketing Committee appreciates your help in staffing our booth at the Benefits Fair.

Person Recognized

Carolyn McCallum

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

The Marketing Committee appreciates your help in staffing our booth at the Benefits Fair.

Person Recognized

Sarah Jeong

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

The Marketing Committee appreciates your help in staffing our booth at the Benefits Fair.

Person Recognized

Roz Tedford

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

The Marketing Committee appreciates your help in staffing our booth at the Benefits Fair.

Person Recognized

Scott Adair

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

The Marketing Committee appreciates your help in taking apart our booth at the Benefits Fair.

Person Recognized

Peter Romanov

Given By

Carol Cramer

Reason

Peter started some word-of-mouth buzz about the ZSR fan page on Facebook. Our fan base tripled overnight and has continued to grow. Both students and faculty are signing on.

Person Recognized

Heather Gillette

Given By

Anonymous

Reason

For being so responsive, efficient, and knowledgeable about ILL. She is always helping me out.

Person Recognized

Charles Bombeld

Given By

Heather Gillette

Reason

Thanks to Charles for rushing a book through.

Person Recognized

Judy Simmons

Given By

Heather Gillette

Reason

Thanks SO much for rushing a book through.

Friday Night Live at ZSR debuted on April 11th at 6pm. Sophomore Thomas Kozak sang and played acoustic guitar. He was periodically accompanied by a violinist, a keyboardist, drummer, and female backing vocals. Most of the songs were his own, but he did manage to throw in a few covers. He did a fantastic job! I was really impressed with the professionalism of his singing and guitar playing. At it’s peak, the audience reached 48 people all of which seemed very focused on the performance. Interestingly enough, Carol Cramer reported that she could hardly hear a thing in the study room across the hall or inside the library.

Many thanks to Carol Cramer and Chris Burris for helping me in re-organizing the study room furniture afterwards. Also, many thanks to Wanda Brown, Erik Mitchell, and Mary Beth Lock for attending the show! Hopefully, this series will become a permanent fixture in the Fall. I look forward to seeing other performances such as dancing, poetry slams, stand-up comedy, and student made films.

Yesterday I gave a talk on Blended Learning through the ITC. The formal description of the program was “Many students experience a disconnect between their experience in the classroom and their personal interactions on the web. One way to address this is the integration of tools that students already use with regularity. This presentation will explain how to do this with an introduction to blended learning, and it will cover how blended learning techniques can be used to strengthen the academic experience. Blended learning techniques can lead to a more engaged and communicative class and help prepare students for the changing work force.” The presentation was based on the following, though a bit toned down for our audience:

I attempted to introduce some generational trends, discuss a little bit of learning theory, and talk about some solutions that we can implement. I also tried to sell the library’s blog and wiki program, myself as someone who can help faculty figure out what makes the most sense for their class, and the library as a resource for technology training.

The content appeared to be newer for the group than I expected, but I did get a few requests for follow up meetings, so I’m excited about that!

A few people said they would like to come but weren’t able to make it. Giz and I are planning to offer the session again in late summer and in the fall if you’d like to try to make it!

On Wednesday, March 25th, 7 members of the ZSR Staff, Rosalind Tedford, Mary Beth Lock, Lauren Pressley, Kaeley McMahon, Sarah Jeong, Christian Burris and myself loaded up in the WFU Student Life van and headed up 421 to visit the ASU Library and Information Commons in Boone. We arrived and started a tour around 10:30am. Four members of the ASU staff who were members of the”Library Internal Building Group” led us all over the building. After an amazing tour, we were treated to lunch by our host and had a discussion about the lessons they learned in this building process. After lunch and discussion we resumed our tour and by 3:30pm were back on 421 to WFU! Our ASU hosts were just amazing as was their facility. To see pictures of the ASU Library and Information Commons, check out the library’s photo set from this trip!

At the ZSR Professional Development Blog there is a post with a list of tour highlights, positives outcomes from the building experience and lessons learned. The seven staff who attended collected these items together in a Google Doc to make this a collaborative report!

On Wednesday, April 2^nd, the Teaching and Learning Center held a session in room 204 on Blogs and Wikis@ZSR. Eight faculty members attended this event where two other faculty members, Professor Christa Colyer of Chemistry and Professor Stephanie Pellet of Romance Languages, presented how they are using Wikis and Blogs from ZSR in their classes this semester.In this one hour session, Professor Colyer showed the blog her first-year seminar has created. Each student posts on recent developments in science that are in the news, then students comment on each other’s posts. In the past Professor Colyer has students keep hand-written journals that they turned in monthly for her review. Doing this journaling in a blog has resulted in longer entries from the students and allowed the students to see each other’s posts and comment, something not possible in a hand-written journal. Kevin and I had met with this class back in January to get them started blogging, but it only required a few minutes and they were off and running!

After Professor Colyer showed her class blog, Professor Pellet showed the wiki her class has created for French 345-Langage et Societe. In this class students work in groups and create content that can be used not only by the class, but by anyone. Additionally, Professor Pellet is exploring options for using this same wiki in future classes, having students update and refine the content. Lauren had met with this class early in the semester to get them started using the wiki and that was all it took to get them successfully using it in class.

The faculty who attended the session asked numerous questions and had an excellent discussion of pedagogical issues regarding using blogs and wikis in the classroom. All in all it was a well-received program and we hope to repeat it this summer and next fall!