They're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

They're back - the freshmen. I'll know it's time to retire the fall that the freshmen *don't* bring tears to my eyes. They seem impossibly young and their excitement is palpable. I love these first couple of weeks. They're the best time of the whole year.

The libraries hosted a breakfast for the parents yesterday. The idea came from our research project and observations that these kids talk to their parents all the time about their course work. We figured maybe it would be a good idea to talk to the parents as well as talking to the students. It was super fun. The parents are so proud of their kids and so eager to learn anything and everything about being a college student. One of the mothers I talked to kept tearing up. It was so sweet. I loved it!

Bridge connecting the library to new building

They are building a bridge connecting the library to the new BME/Optics building next door. Yikes! We will have THREE entrances, one on every floor. Of course, this creates all kinds of security and staffing problems. But when departments actually *want* to make a connection to the library, how can you say "no"?? We're going to put in security gates and a self check out machine and keep our fingers crossed.

Browsing Nostalgia

Every year we discuss with faculty what print journals to cut. Sometimes we do it because inflation rates have outstripped our budget and sometimes we do it because they have requested new subscriptions. It's always an interesting conversation. Until just this year, we kept track of how often we reshelved the unbound journals. As you might except, we rarely reshelved any of them. With the exception of Science, Nature, or Chemical and Engineering News, the current print issues are rarely used. And yet, when we discuss canceling print, the faculty talk about their need to browse, presumably their need to browse print. So is this browsing nostalgia? Nostalgia for the old days when they found their research ideas by browsing through print issues of the journals in the library? Of course who am I to talk? Just look at my nostalgic print reference collection...