Libraries Prepare for Fall Semester

BY BETH Mc NEIL

Summer 2010 is disappearing so quickly! With classes beginning next week, students are already coming back to campus, and visiting and touring our libraries. They are coming by the administration offices in Stewart Center to apply for library jobs. It’s such an exciting time when they return to campus. The Orientation Committee, led this year by Jane Yatcilla, has planned a variety of events to welcome back students. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to assist with orientation activities. 

We have a lot going on at Purdue Libraries. In addition to keeping the doors open, literally in 12 libraries and Archives and Special Collections, and virtually 24/7 through our web site, we are always looking for ways to better meet the learning and discovery needs of Purdue students, faculty, and the rest of the campus community. As you know from recent issues of INSIDE and e-mails, we’ll also soon embark on a new strategic planning process for 2011-2016. With major renovation projects underway (MEL phases), an infrastructure/construction project taking place at Math this summer, a new building -- the Boiler STEAM Commons -- on the horizon, and conversations taking place with campus to re-conceptualize Hicks Undergraduate Library as a learning and discovery commons, it can be easy to forget the smaller changes we make each day to improve our services and access to resources.   

Please review this list of some of the changes that have taken place in recent months. Thank you to everyone who helped make these changes possible. If you have additional items to suggest, please send them to Teresa Brown and we will include them in an upcoming issue.      

MEL:

• Completion of Phase 2 of the MEL renovation, with an open house scheduled for Libraries staff and faculty on August 27th, 10:30am – noon.
• The RAWLS (MEL repository) collection was reviewed.

UGRL:

• Newspapers have been relocated to the Contemporary Literature room next to the magazines. The large free-standing shelves in the middle of Contemporary Literature were moved to create a more inviting, open space for study, collaboration, and browsing of materials.
• Study tables and chairs have been moved into the area where microforms used to be, allowing for more collaboration and study space.
• New ITaP workstations have been installed in the iLab and the library.
• Dawn Stahura is working on the "The Golden Age: Indiana Literature" (1880-1920) exhibit to take place September 17 – October 15, 2010.
• All printers and a work table equipped with 3-hole punch, scissors, staplers, etc. have been moved to a new common printer area.
• Jill Begley is now the Reserves Assistant for both UGRL and HSSE. Beginning this fall HSSE will also be a location for course reserves per the instructor’s choice.
• Reference Collection was moved over next to the iDesk for easy access by desk staff and patrons.

HSSE:

• The web pages between HSSE and Hicks UGRL have been merged  into one site  (http://www.lib.purdue.edu/hsse/)
• Many of the newspaper microforms collection were moved from Hicks UGRL to HSSE microforms on second floor. 
• The ERIC microform collection is now located in Hicks Repository.
• The HSSE Repository area is now the new ASC storage area.
• The Children’s Literature collection previously located at Hicks UGRL is now available on the second floor of HSSE library.
• The HSSE CSC no longer has laptops for library instructional usage, but will continue to offer librarian scheduled instructional space, an ITaP instructor podium with two screens for viewing, and 8 permanent ITaP desktop computers. The instructor station has all the software from all courses available, as well as Endnote 4.0.
• HSSE printers and the future printer release station are all located on HSSE’s first floor, close to the iDesk. This allows easier access and assistance for patron usage.
• Faculty will have the option to place course reserves at HSSE starting this fall. We have set up an area behind the HSSE iDesk to hold course reserves with possibilities for growth.

LIFE:

• Ongoing inventory scan project: start date August 2009 – present with 17,337 items scanned and all staff involved in the cleanup effort of correcting shelving, correcting cataloging records through the assistance of Tech Services staff, and replacing lost and missing materials.
•  As we continue to acquire more journals electronically, we have pared our print collection further which has allowed us to remove empty shelving on our main floor, gaining additional group study space for patrons.
• Reminder: Life Library Conference Room is available for Library related meetings. The room seats twelve and has a projector/computer (similar to HSSE Conference room). Contact us at 4-2910 for reservations.

EAS:

• EAS swapped the study room with the photocopy room.
• The bookshelves, formerly holding the indexes and abstracts, at the front entry were removed and the attached tabletops have been reconnected to the wall providing an entryway that has a nice clean appearance.

 MATH:

• Final details to the sprinkler project should be finished up by the time the fall semester starts.
• Fifteen of twenty-six windows have been replaced and the staff and patrons look forward to the reopening of the stacks and the return of places to sit and study or relax.

ENGR:

• Updated Conference Room (formerly the Goss Room) now has 5 white boards, a new projector and moveable seating and tables.  
• We will be hosting Tau Beta Pi’s FRESH Tutoring Service in our library 9:30 a.m. -5:30 p.m.,  Monday – Thursday.  FRESH stands for First-Year Engineering Study Help.
• We are now sharing a display case with the Office of Professional Practice. They provided a large flat screen television monitor for displaying informational content for students and visitors.

August 26 is a historic date for women of the world. It is the 90th anniversary of when the United States added the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, securing for women the right to vote. It had been a long time coming. Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott started the suffrage movement in 1848 at a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York. Susan B. Anthony famously took up the fight until her death in 1906, 14 years before the realization of her dream. Today, women represent nearly half of the country's workforce and half of its college graduates. Fortune magazine reports the number of women CEOs at Fortune 500 companies grew four-fold in the past decade. Recent elections show women are gaining ground in the nation's statehouses and in Congress and can be formidable challengers for the presidency. In the fallout of the recession, women have become primary breadwinners in many families.

Despite these advances, Purdue Trustee Emerita and Libraries benefactor Susan Bulkeley Butler believes that women have a long way to go. Those Fortune 500 CEOs? They totaled 15 in 2009. Women may make up half of the U.S. population, but they constitute less than 20 percent of our Congress, the body that's supposed to equally represent all of America. Women still earn an average of 78 cents for every $1 a man earns. Based on her experience as a successful businesswoman and mentor, the first female partner at what is now known as the consulting firm Accenture, Susan Bulkeley Butler believes that it's time for a new revolution. She believes that August 26 should mark the beginning of what she is calling the Decade of Women, giving ten years to address the remaining inequalities.

In a new book, to be published by Purdue University Press on August 26, Susan calls on all of us to imagine if more women were involved in the decision-making regarding events that have shaped our world lately. Women Count: A Guide to Changing the World asks us to begin by changing our organizations. We must all ensure that women and men are represented equally in our companies, our government and elsewhere. Diversity, we have learned, fosters change. The author argues that women must take responsibility for themselves to move into more leadership roles, not wait on government agencies or current management. They must take responsibility for other women, by becoming mentors and advocates. And they must remember to help other women once they're in positions of power.

Join Susan and a panel of discussants on August 25, the eve of the historic day, from 5:00 p.m. - 6.30 p.m. in Hicks B848 to discuss the theme of Women Count. The event is cosponsored by Purdue UP and WBAA. It is free and open to all, and refreshments will be provided.

I am pleased to announce that D. Waheedah Bilal joined the Purdue staff as the Black Cultural Center Librarian this summer. Waheedah has a wide variety of experience in public services and instruction in university and college libraries, most recently as an assistant professor, Library Instructional Services, at the University of Illinois, Springfield and as an assistant professor, User Services/Reference and Instruction, at Westminster College in Missouri. She holds an MLS degree with a concentration in academic libraries and archives, and an MA degree in African American history, both from University of Missouri-Columbia. As BCC Librarian, Waheedah reports to the director of the BCC and is responsible for all aspects of the BCC Library's collections, instructional programs, services, and outreach activities, all of which contribute to the campus-wide impact of the BCC.

We in the Libraries look forward to increasing our collaborative relationship with the BCC Library under Waheedah's leadership. To facilitate communication between the BCC Library and the Libraries, Waheedah has been added to our libfap and liball listserves. 

Please join me in welcoming Waheedah to Purdue University and the community.

Greetings!

I am delighted to be the librarian at the Black Cultural Center and a part of the Purdue library community. I have been here since mid-June and those of you with whom I have made contact have been enormously helpful and extremely welcoming. Prior to this I worked as library faculty, and I am finding the responsibility of the BCC Library very different. I could not have gotten as much done this summer without Purdue Libraries support.

Although I came here from Springfield, Illinois, my home is Columbia, Missouri, where my husband still is and two of my four sons also live. I have another son who is completing his MFA at the University of Michigan, and one other came to Indiana with me, however, he will be leaving soon for a year of volunteer work in Chicago with City Year. That will be a big adjustment for me, but I suspect I will accumulate some surrogate children from amongst the returning students. I am really looking forward to that, just as I am looking forward to working closely with the Purdue Libraries and getting to know as many of you as possible.

Waheedah may be reached at 494-3093 or dbilal@purdue.edu.

ImaginAsian Project Raises $2,000 for Asian American Studies Collections

This spring, graduate student Kate Agathon collected more than a hundred pieces of artwork and cultural artifacts from notable figures in the Asian American community to showcase in an exhibit an online auction as part of ImaginAsian, a fundraiser for the Asian American Studies collection at the Purdue Libraries.

After the exhibit display at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, which featured 66 items, an additional 38 items were auctioned on eBay. The proceeds totaled $2,000, and were donated to the Purdue Libraries where they will be used to purchase materials to support the Asian American Studies program.

“Unlike many of its peer institutions, Purdue does not have an Asian American cultural center on campus, where resources specific to the field of Asian American Studies would be traditionally housed,” says Agathon. “As an Asian American Studies instructor, it is frustrating to have to put in special requests for media and books that other universities with Asian American cultural centers or with mature Asian American Studies programs would have immediate access to. Making a donation to the Purdue University Libraries seemed like the most logical choice.”

The project was sponsored by the Asian American Network of Indiana, and artwork was contributed by 60 artists and cultural figures from 13 states, including writer Lac Su, artist and author Kip Fulbeck, civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, director Michael Kang, Senator Daniel Inouye, G.I. Joe creator Larry Hama, and other stakeholders in the Asian American community.

Agathon is working with Robert Freeman, associate professor of library science and liaison to Asian Studies, to select materials to be purchased with the donation.

Resources Help Provide a Better Understanding of Cultural Differences for the Common Reading Program

On Sunday August 22, Khaled Hosseini, author of the 2010-2011 Purdue University Common Reading Program selection The Kite Runner, will present a free lecture at 3:00 p.m. in Elliott Hall of Music. A current Purdue ID is required for free admission.

Mr. Hosseini will discuss his books and his subsequent work in Afghanistan in an interview with Dr. Kevin McNamara, Purdue University Professor of Agriculture and an advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education.

The presentation has been made possible by the Office of the Provost, the Common Reading Program, and with additional support from Purdue University Libraries, Purdue Convocations, the Student Access, Transition, and Success Programs Department, and the School of Mechanical Engineering.

For more information on this event, visit http://www.purdue.edu/convocations/show/khaled-hosseini.

In preparation for this event and for the 2010-2011 Common Reading Program, faculty in the Libraries have pulled together resources to help our faculty and staff better understand the cultural differences between the United States and Afghanistan.

• A bibliography discussing some of the challenges facing libraries in Afghanistan is available on the intranet, prepared by Megan Sapp Nelson.
• A listing of web resources is available on the SATS website, prepared by Catherine Fraser Riehle.

We hope that you will participate in the program and convocation, and engage with our incoming students around the Common Reading book selection.

Newly Configured iLab Ready for Fall Semester

The iLab (G959) is now open. The newly configured space has 24 desktop computer stations. The room will be an open lab for students unless the room is scheduled. The iLab may only be scheduled for Libraries-related instruction, including course-related, course-integrated and credit course information literacy instruction. Libraries staff training and development and University staff training is sponsored by ITaP’s Customer Education Group.

The room can be reserved by using the following web form:  http://www.lib.purdue.edu/hsse/infopages/roomReserves.html.

My mother used to say as I was growing up, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” My big mistake—I let those words became my anthem; I became the “Just-Do-It- Myself- Manager.”
New managers make common mistakes. Being the creative sort, I invented a few gaffs of my own to add to the list. Older and somewhat wiser today, I regret many past management decisions but probably few more than the lack of delegating work and projects to my employees. Oh, I had reasons, the same ones named by nearly every inexperienced manager. The most frequent—“It takes much longer to explain what needs to be done than it takes to do it. So why bother?” 

Like most new managers, I had little time and lacked confidence in my staff’s abilities. I set standards of success high but I did not give my employees the opportunity to achieve or to fail. I just did it. I wanted them to write like Steinbeck, (well at least like Vonnegut), but I didn’t give them an opportunity to write at all. I wanted them to be creative but I took all of the fun, creative projects for myself. If there was new software to learn, I became the expert. I jealously guarded my power and authority. I worked hard to be in charge and certainly didn’t want to “give it away.”

I didn’t get my role as a manager and leader. I just didn’t get it at all.

I should have been helping my subordinates develop professionally, giving them progressively challenging tasks and opportunities to do something new. It seems faster and more efficient to take on a responsibility rather than hand a task to someone else. But in the end, the investment in delegation can be a time saver.

Consider this. I taught my young daughter, Johanna, to bake cookies. I wanted to delegate this task. It was a mess at first. She lifted the mixer out of the bowl while it was still running, covering every exposed surface in the kitchen with batter, including the ceiling. We used extra bowls and utensils; a dozen eggs ended up broken on the floor. The cookies were not very good at first. After a few more times, they got better. More flour made it into the bowl. Eggs made it to the counter. She learned to leave the mixer in the bowl until it was turned off. Not only did I no longer have to bake cookies, Johanna developed essential skills that contribute to our family. This helped her build confidence in her abilities and gave her a sense of pride. And a bonus—it was fun to spend time together as she learned to bake. She appreciated the trust I had in her abilities as they steadily improved.

Think about this in relation to your work team. You don’t need to be the only “baker.” Think about what would be lost if Johanna never learned to bake at all? In the next issue of INSIDE, I will talk about HOW to delegate and WHAT managers should and should not delegate.

By the way, when I arrived home last Friday, Johanna had dinner ready--homemade clam chowder, grilled margarita shrimp, and homemade, hot cheddar biscuits. It was wonderful! And—drum roll—she cleaned up the kitchen as she went along! Not only can she bake, her skills evolved from simply baking to include preparing an entire meal. I love delegation (and a batter-free ceiling)!