The Library in Gleason Library

The new Gleason Library is a huge success. Students love it. Though because there are no books and no desk, how to insert "library" into the space is an interesting challenge. Judi and the other reference librarians have made a point of meeting with students in the space. So every time they have an appointment, they go to Gleason Library. I think it's a great idea and a way to insert librarians into the space every day.

We're Big on the Little Things

We're big on the little things in the Science Libraries. One of Pat's ideas that has been a resounding success,was to put out bottles of hand sanitizer. Frankly I thought it was kind of nutty, but I learned a long time ago that I'm not very good at predicting what will and won't work. Students love it. Pat even had a faculty member thank her for it last week. Who knew?

It's Important to See and Be Seen

I was talking to some of our circ students last night who were RAVING about the new Gleason Library. The space is pretty much one big open room with floor to ceiling windows at one end. One of the reasons they like it so much (this is after less than one week of use!...) is that "people can see you" and "you can see your friends".

I had never thought of that as an important consideration.

They then proceeded to tell that of course, that was part of the reason that people liked to study at Carlson library -- you can see your friends thought the glass windows as they come up and down the glass staircase. I knew the windows gave the library an open, airy feel. I had never considered that the reason it appealed to students was that they could see their friends through the windows.

It's important to see and be seen.

You found *what* in the stacks?

I forwarded this very funny blog post entitled "amazing things found in the stacks" to my staff. And much to my amazement, it turns out that we too have found some pretty amazing things in OUR stacks over the years.

1. one pair of boxer shorts
2. on vodka bottle (empty)
3. several small cartons of milk (spoiled)

Who knew??

"This is the New Facebook"

After the dedication of the Gleason Library last night, Lorraine stayed around and watched what happened when the space was open to students. She typed up their comments which are just dreamy.


Some initial reactions:

• "Sweet!" (An exclamation by a student as he reached the top of the stairs, followed immediately by a cell phone call to a friend.)
• Students liked the colors, and the art. (Very excited to find out that art will rotate.)
• Some girls tried out every type of furniture in the room, and liked it all. One girl's favorite was the padded stools.
• Many students are enjoying the cup holders and writing tables on the chairs.
• The TV's were of great interest (until someone interrupted the feed).
• Students are moving the furniture already to suit themselves (eg: comfy chairs pulled up to the PC's)
• Students are already using the studio rooms (the ones I spoke to were studying for the GRE's tomorrow)
• An amateur film maker went nuts over the theatre room and declared his intention to "camp out" there.
• Looking in the windows from the outside is already bringing people into the space.
• Some students brought dinner in for themselves and ate at a table by the window.
• 13 laptops and 5 PC workstations being used at 8:25 pm
• Many, many, many questions about "how long this room will be open?" All are thrilled to find out that the space will not close when the IT Center does.
• "Oh my god, this is a whiteboard?!" "This is so awesome!"
• Don's student: "This is where we used to do the pasting? I'm actually excited to study!"
• There are people using the benches in the landing.
• There is already someone asleep on bench couches outside Studio B (which speak to the management of noise in here. There is a ton of activity right now, but there is only a gentle buzz in the room.)

Basically, every area of the room is being used in some way.

Some notes left on the white boards:

• This is awesome! I think I may live here
• I love Gleason. Love. Really love. (<--she's serious)
• All it needs is coffee. Nevermind. (The "nevermind" was added when I told her that there would be coffee on level G)
• I love the colors.
• This is really awesome! The new hotspot on campus
• This is so cool!
• This is the new facebook

I think a man designed this

This is the sink in the women's bathroom of the new Gleason Library. At first I thought "yeah". The gunky pink soap will go directly into the sink rather than on the counter like it does in all the other bathrooms. Then I thought, "wait a minute". Where am I going to put my purse when I'm washing my hands? Or my toothbrush? Or my book (this is a library after all). Hmmmm. No counter, only sink. I have a feeling that a man designed this sink.

A Day to Just be Silly

I dressed up for Halloween as a piece of candy corn. It was handmade and dorky. Students laughed and gave me the thumbs up. One of my class of 2011 friends (I've never met her) saw me in the stacks and we had a little exchange on facebook about it. (How can you miss a woman in a bun dressed as a candy corn?...) The mail guy and the janitor were nearly speechless when they saw me at the reference desk. It was a huge success. I had fun. They had fun. I think we all need more fun.

Just say NO to hand dryers

When it comes to women's bathrooms, I do know more than my boss, who is a man. Interestingly I rarely disagree with him about facilities - because he's usually right and I'm usually wrong. But when it comes to women's bathrooms - I am the expert.

He is excited about the hand dryers he put in the women's bathroom in the new Gleason Library. I know, it's open 24 hours and accumulation of paper trash will be a problem, BUT....

What is wrong with hand dryers?:

1. It takes way longer to dry your hands using a dryer than it does using paper towels, even those cheap, non-absorbent brown towels that we use.


2. If and when your hands are ever do DRY, they are also chapped from the heat.


3. Need to brush your teeth? Need to splash water on your face after a plane ride? How does the hand dryer work with that?? Not. No amount of toilet paper, folded or crumpled, can dry you.

Just say NO to hand dryers in women's bathrooms.

My Greatest Accomplishment Last Year

I know I should probably have on my list of accomplishments for last year things like - established a wiki for class, answered reference questions via facebook, revolutionized the way graduate students are tracking new research by demonstrating RSS feeds.

But no.

Really, my greatest accomplishment (with most of the credit to Isabel) was getting shelves installed on the back of stall doors in the women's bathroom. I do not have to provide one more word of explanation to any women reading this blog. Purse hanging around your neck? Bookbag on the icky bathroom floor? Sound all too familiar?

Why is it an "accomplishment"? Because it took many, many conversations to explain why I needed a shelf in the women's stalls. And once I had convinced someone to order them - we had to show them where to install them. The facilities guy was completely baffled as to what the shelves were for.....

It really is a mars and venus thing.... Next, can we do anything about the super-tight toilet rolls? I am NOT a gerbil.

To see more posts about bathrooms, check out Bathroom Blogfest!

Things You Can Check Out

We check out a lot of things at our circulation desk in addition to books. Some have been suggested by students -- earplugs and headphones. Staff have suggested the others in response to complaints from students -- laptop locks, study lamps, extension cords, and power strips. The lamps were our solution to not great lighting. The extension cords are our interim solution to not enough outlets for laptops. Overall it's been a good way to be responsive to student comments.

Office in the Stacks?

Diane just asked about creating an office in the stacks for herself. Wow. What an amazing idea. Wouldn't that be the ultimate in outreach for faculty and students looking for Math books??? Students always come up to her and ask her for help when she's in the stacks weeding, etc. I wonder if she is actually sitting at a DESK, would they still feel comfortable asking her for help? Hmmmm.

Discouraging

I just had a woman come by the desk asking how she can send a note to library administration. We chatted and it turned out that she had been studying by a man who scared her. Of course, I told her to always let us know immediately, we will always call security immediately, etc. etc. But afterwards I mostly felt terribly discouraged. Her original solution was to send me an email hours or even days afterward the incident? How afraid do women have to be before they feel justified in saying something?

Once You've Been to the City, You Can Never Go Back

We briefly had to put notebooks with old chemistry exams on reserve yesterday. (The chemistry server went down the day before a big test.) The "solution" lasted about 2 hours. The students had to wait for the notebooks. It took too long. They were not happy. Mid afternoon, one the students in the class who had saved an electronic version, simply emailed the file to the entire class. And that was the end of revisiting the era of paper reserves.

It has always been my humble opinion that the same thing would happen if we ever lost access to an electronic journal and had to use the print version. I don't think people would bother at ALL with the print, but would simply wait, for as long as it took, for the electronic version to return.

You can't go back.

Sometimes Wikipedia Rocks

I just had a student come to the desk with a whole page of citations she wanted to find. Sigh. I thought this is going to take forever. It turned out that each citation had a DOI and PMID number - both of which are super easy to resolve. And where did she get such a lovely list of relevant references? WIKIPEDIA of course....

I will NOT give you my social security number

Just got off the phone with a lovely woman in university health services. (I am going to get registered for a respirator so I can clean mold off of books, but that's another story.). Her first question - "what is your social security number?" She was shocked when I refused to give it to her - their system "requires" it. Wait a minute. We still have systems that require social security numbers???? I DO NOT GIVE OUT MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. Geez.

Exam Tomorrow

Q. How do you know for SURE that there is a major exam tomorrow?

A. There is a big bag of chips on every study table.

Not just food. Not just a regular bag of chips. There has to be an enormous, family-size bag of chips.

Curious. I have never, ever seen students coming into the library with one of these bags. Where do they come from??

Things Change

When we had students take pictures of the things they carried with them everyday - none of them included a laptop. But almost two years have passed and I think things have changed. I am seeing more and more students with laptops in the library, even during the day. Yesterday at 2:30, I did a quick check and there were 14 students with laptops. And yes, all the public computers were in use too....

We're Making Progress

These are the days when I really miss Isabel. She was great at coordinating all these facilities things. We're making progress towards getting two new security gates and a self check machine installed. Every day, one more step forward. Today one of the gates and the self check equipment was delivered and taken up to the third floor. I can't wait until it's all installed and we can finally open the gate to the new BME/Optics Building! I feel like this has been on my "to do" list forever!

Housing Reservations for ALA Midwinter

opened today.

At 10:20, two of the hotels were already gone.

My credit card hung for 15 minutes. Amy's has hung for an hour.

It's not 11:40 and the www.ala.org site seems to be completely down.

It's days like these that make me wonder why I still pay my dues!

Facebook and a reference question

Good grief. I just used facebook to help me answer a chemistry reference question! I remembered that Sue's status yesterday was, " Susan Cardinal is learning about the element astatine".

So when I had a couple of freshman come to the desk and ask for information about astatine, I knew right away to go ask Sue.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Astatine wasn't even an element when I took freshman chemistry!!!