Library Gazette

On Sunday, July 13th, Roz led the 30 new freshmen student athletes through a twenty minute introduction to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library. These students came to the library in three groups, one group every twenty minutes, over the course of an hour. We placed them in the ITC desktop computer lab and had the students spend five minutes searching for answer to three questions about a particular Olympic sport. After five minutes, Roz asked them what they found and how they found it. It didn’t take long for them to realize their trusted Google search didn’t always deliver the best results! This gave us the opportunity to show them how to contact a librarian for research assistance. After answering a few more questions about the library, we signed off on their “Deacon Discovery” worksheets (think “scavenger hunt”) and sent them on to their next destination. Hopefully this fast, fun introduction to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library will encourage these students to come back when papers are due! (We’ve already seen a few with a 10 page Anthropology paper due in summer school.) These students were great, and Roz and I had a wonderful time introducing them to ZSR!

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!