Library Gazette

“When this old world starts getting me down……..” as the song goes, I go up on the roof! In May, I had the opportunity to check out our beloved former logo-the cupola- in person. I had mentioned in passing to one of my students, Kala Brown (whose Dad, Hugh is the “go-to guy” around here for most Facilities jobs) that I’d love to go up and see the library cupola. The next day, Kala had arranged a personal tour with Hugh. We went to the 8th floor, passed through a door into a dark room, and then through another door and we were under the library roof. A short climb up several sets of metal ladders and we passed through a door onto the cupola. The view was spectacular and a little dizzying. The campus looks different from above- a peaceful, idyllic community of buildings. In the distance, was Wait Chapel and BB&T Field. The inscription on the bell reads “Presented to Wake Forest College by the Class of 1957″.  Photos of my visit to the cupola are on the library Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zsrlibrary/

At 2pm this afternoon I placed the last of the Current Periodicals on the shelf with its shelf tag — and there was room to spare. There is still a lot of clean up and many loose ends to tie up, but at least they all have a home.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this merger a success! Mary Scanlon for being right there with me throughout the entire project; Laura for her planning help; Chris Burris and his team of Linda Z. and Jane for coordinating the new labeling process (thanks goes to Erik on that as well) and for fielding my numerous questions about the intricacies of serials; Mary Lib for lending her book trucks; all the liaisons for being willing to relocate and weed in the Reference collection; Carol for signing off on the weeds (and for keeping me honest!); Judy and Brigett for the countless relocations and weeds they processed; Charles, Scott and their students for the off-sites and recycling they did; our amazing group of student assistants who did lots of very mundane work like filling out the purple and green slips ad infinitum, dusting shelves and shifting for endless hours; and all the rest of the library for your support!

I think this will really be a good thing for our users one all the dust has settled.

Come visit!

Our total weight loss this week was 10.5 pounds — which brings us up to over 18 pounds!! And now Erik has joined us, so we’ll be raking in the lost pounds! Thanks for all the support we’re getting!! Of course we have family trips, vacations, birthdays coming up so we are not promising to continue the big numbers lost trend forever but we’re doing our best!

The six of us from ZSR who are participating in Weight Watchers at work (Heather, Roz, Mary Beth, Julia, Megan and Susan) are keeping a log of how much weight (collectively) we lose so we are accountable. This was a great week - We are 8.2 pounds lighter then we were last week!! GO US!!!

I’ve enjoyed meeting you all over the past couple of months, and thank you for helping me to feel welcome at ZSR. At the request of our very own blog-czar, and in case anyone happens to be interested, here are a few details that may help you to feel you know me a bit better.

First of all - there’s just no getting around it - I’m from Iowa, home to such cultural treasures as the Field of Dreams and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and birthplace of, among other notables, Herbert Hoover and Bill Bryson. I was born (almost literally) in the shadow of Maytag’s (now defunct) headquarters in Newton and grew up in a suburb north of Des Moines. My Midwestern roots notwithstanding, I have lived for six out the past seven years right here in the Old North State, first in the Chapel Hill-area and now in W-S.

I am an alumnus of the University of Iowa and of UNC-Chapel Hill, where I studied philosophy and classical languages. Besides reading and writing, I enjoy brewing beer, playing board games, hiking, and spending time with my partner, Catherine, and my dog, Gus.