Don't forget to click on this link every month to see our most recent acquisitions! (The February 2004 list was posted March 5.) And then look for the titles on our New Books shelves across from the email stations.

While you are browsing the new books, also browse our Women's History month collection of books, videos and CD's from our larger collection of materials purchased with funds from the Women's Studies grant a year ago. As with the new books, these materials can all be borrowed.

The library's Black History at Millikin exhibit in the first floor cases will continue through March. Although Millikin has had African-American students almost from the beginning, the first African-American campus organization, For Soul Only, was established in 1968. Over the years, a number of nationally recognized African-American speakers and entertainers have visited campus, including activist Rev. Ralph Abernathy, actress Cicely Tyson, poet Maya Angelo, jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and comics Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby. (The exhibit has a complete list.)

The artifacts in this exhibit have been scanned, and will ultimately become a permanent exhibit on the library's Archives web site. 

The library's second floor exhibit space is currently showing an array of recent works by Millikin art majors., primarily paintings and prints. This show is coordinated by students in the MU Art Club.

During the month of April, this second floor space will feature poems by Carmen Aravena, MU Instructor of Spanish, and photographs by Greg Roach. The joint exhibit is titled Poemas Colgantes, or Poems Suspended on a Line. 

 On April 1 at 5pm, the library will host an "inaugural reception and bilingual poetry reading" to open this exhibit. The MU Department of Modern Languages is the sponsor and organizer of both the exhibit and the reception. Come listen and see!

In order to better manage the library's collection, we have instituted an end-of-semester due date of May 18, 2004 for all materials and all borrowers. This is a relatively common practice in academic libraries for encouraging borrowers to return what they no longer need, and also for assuring that what has been borrowed continues to physically exist. We also know from experience that once people leave for the summer, materials are far more likely to disappear in the fog of relocation.

We will of course continue to lend materials over the summer; so once you have brought your loans back for the May 18 deadline, you will be welcome to check them out again for the usual loan periods.

In recognition of the fact that JMS students are pursuing semester-long research projects, we have extended their borrowing periods for books to sixteen weeks, the same as for faculty. The usual overdue fines continue to apply, however - although of course we do not expect anyone to return materials after the due dates!

WorldCat, the worldwide collaborative OCLC database of cataloging records and interlibrary loan information, contains over 50 million bibliographic records describing individual items, 83% of which are books. Most of these items are owned by multiple libraries; and as of July 2003, WorldCat contained 888,669,152  ownership records! Our library of course contributes both bibliographic and ownership records to that database. 

We also use WorldCat as the source of interlibrary loan transactions outside of Illinois. Since 1979, 45,402 libraries in 84 countries worldwide had entered (as of July 2003) 128,176,785 loan requests into the system. And the numbers continue to grow for the use of this remarkable resource.

The World Wide Web continues to grow as well, although not as fast as it did in the beginning. In sharp contrast to the OCLC database, the Web is quite unstable: of the pages that existed in 1998, only 13% still existed with the same address in 2002. Of note to anyone who depends on the Web for information, sites that restrict access are now growing faster than public, freely accessible sites. An interesting, if also somewhat appalling, number (from 2002): "Websites that are not ready for access by users, such as sites under construction or with meaningless content, average 36% of the web [between 1998 and 2002]." (OCLC Newsletter, Jan. 2003, p.17) 

Using the web judiciously is one of the skills that the librarians teach to Millikin students.

Earlier newsletters

The librarians (Amanda Pippitt, Jen Masciadrelli, and Susan Avery) are in the process of finishing up instruction for CWRRII. This semester is the first time that this instruction has been tied directly into students' research papers, an approach both the librarians and CWRR2 faculty hope will result in students applying these skills in a more meaningful way and exhibiting stronger research in their papers. Among them, the librarians have provided a week's worth of teaching (about 3 hours) to each of the CWRRII 29 class sections, plus occasional subject-specific classes such as for SO224/IN250 (Poverty & Welfare).

On Saturday March 6, five of our student workers ( Chris Nelson, Lyndsay Brault, Emily Sites, Aaron Denk, and Catie Huggins) performed with the Millikin choirs and the Millikin Decatur Symphony Orchestra in a concert at Kirkland. Observes Catie Zimmerman, our Archives and Research Associate, " I just wanted to congratulate all the choir members who sang at the concert on Saturday. It was great to see so many library employees showing off their talents! It was a beautiful concert and I know that it took a lot of hard work to make it happen!"

Using statistics about the relative age of materials within subject categories, as well as visual examination of the same materials, the Art Department faculty are weeding the library's art book collection. This includes identifying some titles for disposal, other titles for mending, and a select few for replacement.

The statistics being used for this project are part of a database covering most Illinois academic libraries including ours. In the past we have used this data to evaluate the Tabor collection for their accreditation; and I have also used comparative graphs of the whole collection for my budget request. Sue Hemp, our part-time Reference librarian, prepares these reports.

 
As you know, from time to time we take advantage of database trials, with the thinking that even if we cannot ultimately afford a subscription (though occasionally we do end up subscribing), at least we have the use of the database for a limited time. The most recent of these trials is CQ Researcher Online, the award-winning choice of researchers seeking original, comprehensive reporting and analysis on issues in the news. This trial also includes access to CQ Encyclopedia of American Government and CQ Public Affairs Collection. Try it!

The link to our trial databases is the last one in the right-hand column of the library home page.

Peeps take a break from class research.

We are nearing the first anniversary of the creation (by Susan Avery and Jen Masciadrelli) of our Peeps page, that astonishing phenomenon that as of March 5 had been called up 313,547 times!  Librarians elsewhere still comment (via email) on how true it is to actual student behavior, and others continue to marvel that librarians actually have a sense of humor...

March celebration: St. Patrick was born in Roman Britain around 390 AD, and, after having escaped being a slave in Ireland, returned there as bishop and missionary of Christianity around 432. He traveled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries, schools and churches. Supposedly he used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to his largely uneducated listeners. He died in  461, on March 17, a date that has been celebrated as St. Patrick's Day ever since. 

The St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston started in 1737, while the one in New York City dates back to 1762. (Holidays, Festivals and Celebrations of the World Dictionary, p. 386. Ref GT3925.T46 1997)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!