Greetings!

BY JULIE MUSICK HILLGROVE, SPHR

Purdue is an easy place in which to get lost. Thankfully it’s also a great place to be found. I am pleased to be here and be a part of the Purdue Libraries family!

Lafayette isn’t entirely new to me—I once lived here for a year—but I avoided the Purdue campus, especially on game days when traffic clogged the streets and black and gold flags waved from the windows of honking cars. Compared to Ball State University, in my hometown of Muncie, Purdue is enormous and its fans…well, passionate!

Barring frequent episodes of being lost, I have made it to half of the Purdue Libraries. My goal is to find each library and say a quick “hello.” I want to see where you each work. Later, I’ll phone ahead for official meetings and tours. So keep your eyes open for a lost woman with a compass and map.

My professional life started in the travel industry and eventually I owned a travel agency and tour company. Following that, I worked in manufacturing and for local government. I hope I bring a fresh point of view to Purdue.

I’m a history buff. In my free time, I do genealogy research, read, write, garden, sew historical costumes, and donate time in Pioneer Cemeteries doing restoration of tombstones. My husband and I compete with each other for preparing the “best meal of the week.”  I’m a good wife…I let him win now and then to keep him motivated! I recently dusted off my oil paints and began to paint again—so if you see really bad art hanging in my office, it could be mine.

My three children are (mostly) grown. The oldest, a vet tech, lives in St. Louis and the two younger ones attend Hanover College, one graduating this month. I enjoy time with my husband and two dogs. I love dogs—your dogs, my dogs, any dogs! At home, my primary occupation is Canine Logistics Coordinator! Please, show me your pet and family pictures.

We do important work at Purdue Libraries. My job is to make it as pleasant as possible. I come full of enthusiasm and energy. You can speak freely to me about anything. Whether it’s in my office or a place of your choosing, confidential things remain just that. I value your privacy. I value your time. I value your opinions. Tell me how Human Resources can help make your work-life better.

I feel welcome here. I feel at home. It’s nice to be found!

Budget Update
The Libraries and Press recently submitted our FY11 annual operating budget to the Budget & Fiscal Planning Office and presented it to the Provost. The initial FY11 budget allocation from the University remains the same as the final FY10 budget plus a small amount provided to faculty who were promoted in rank. The FY11 budget will become effective on July 1, 2010. We will likely learn about whether additional funds will be available for the materials budget to meet inflation during summer or early fall. We continue to plan for the possibility of a budget reduction in the coming year, although we do not know for sure if there will be a reduction or not. In the coming month I will be working with the dean, associate deans, and directors to establish unit budgets for FY11.

Travel Reminders

• All reimbursements for university business travel are to be requested within 120 days from the end of the business trip.
• The ‘Use of Vehicles for University Business’ policy was implemented on March 1. The policy ensures that anyone – staff, faculty, students, and volunteers – who drives on University business has an acceptable driving record, regardless of who owns the vehicle. Individuals who operate a motor vehicle on University business must review the policy and self-evaluate their driver status. When you fill out a form 17 Request to Travel, if you are operating any vehicle as part of your travel (even if reimbursement for vehicle expense is not being requested), you must complete Section 17 on the form. You need to complete a self-certification prior to filling out the form. More information about the policy can be found at http://www.purdue.edu/risk_mgmt/Vehicle_Use_Info/Welcome.html. 

Year-end Reminder

• The end of the fiscal year is quickly approaching – June 30. If you want expenses to post against the current year’s budget, please submit your orders during the first week of June.

Coming Soon

• Updated kiosk manual.
• Student supervisor employment training

Visit the business office intranet for current policies and procedures.

Purdue Libraries Welcomes T.C. Boyle for Distinguished Lecture Series in September

Purdue Libraries will present the eighth speaker in the Distinguished Lecture Series, T.C. Boyle, on Thursday, September 23, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. in Fowler Hall, Stewart Center. The event will be free and open to the public, with a book sale and signing to follow the lecture.

T. Coraghessan Boyle is the author of twenty books of fiction, including, most recently, The Women (2009), Wild Child (2010) and his forthcoming book When the Killing's Done (2011). He has been a member of the English Department at the University of Southern California since 1978.

During the lecture, he will perform from his work, including one short story from Wild Child, which he promises to be highly entertaining.

Boyle received a PhD in Nineteenth Century British Literature from the University of Iowa in 1977, his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974, and his BA in English and History from SUNY Potsdam in 1968. His work has been translated into more than two dozen foreign languages, and his stories have appeared in most of the major American magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, GQ, and McSweeney's. He has been the recipient of a number of literary awards.

Click here to see a video of T.C. Boyle discussing The Women during "A Conversation with T.C. Boyle," an interview with the editor of The New York Times Book Review.

Information from http://www.tcboyle.com/. Previous lecture series speakers can be found at www.lib.purdue.edu/adv/lectureseries.

Purdue University Press Kicks-off 50th Anniversary Celebration with WBAA Series

WBAA will be airing a series of special programs highlighting Purdue University Press's 50th Anniversary, "Celebrating 50 Years of Scholarly Communication."

The anniversary series began May 12th with a call-in show featuring Dr. Alan Beck, Director of the Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine's Center for the Human-Animal Bond centered around Beck's best selling book "Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal Companionship. Beck was joined by A.G. Rud, head of Purdue's Department of Educational Studies, and Nancy Edwards, director of graduate programs for the School of Nursing.

A second event will feature a panel discussion moderated by Mike Loizzo, News Director of WBAA. Shofar: A Celebration of Jewish Studies at Purdue will be held Thursday, May 20th from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. in room B-848 of the Hicks Undergraduate Library.

Dr. Joseph Haberer, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Purdue University and Emeritus Director of Purdue's Jewish Studies Program, will be the featured speaker. The presentation is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served.

For more information, go to http://www.WBAA.org/inside_wbaa/pupress.shtml or click on the Purdue Press logo from http://www.WBAA.org.

The YouTube playlist for the series of interviews and events may be found at: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=72DE187EA1961DBF.

The WBAA archive of podcasts around the Press celebration: http://www.purdue.edu/wbaa/inside_wbaa/pupress.shtml.

Gretchen Stephens Wins OVATION Award

On April 9, 2010, members of the Indiana Health Sciences Librarians Association (IHSLA) were pleased to bestow the Association’s OVATION award to Gretchen Stephens, Veterinary Medical Librarian and Associate Professor of Library Science. The award was established in 2005 by the IHSLA Executive Board to honor an IHSLA member who has made outstanding professional contributions impacting IHSLA, their individual library, and/or the provision of health information within the state of Indiana.

IHSLA president Joan V. Zivich says, “Gretchen exemplifies the qualities inherent in the Award: Outstanding! Vivacious! A credit! Touchstone! Inspiring! Open! Notable! She is an outstanding librarian and is always willing to assist her colleagues. Gretchen has authored many articles and Grey Literature and served on innumerable committees. She has held many offices in library associations, and is an IHSLA Past President. She also serves as our Robert’s Rules of Order expert.

Letters of support for Gretchen’s nomination included these comments:

“Gretchen is a can-do person. When asked to take on a task, you know it will be done thoroughly, conscientiously, and on time.” 

Another wrote, “I have always found Gretchen to be very helpful, knowledgeable, and responsive to my requests. She’s also a good committee member and colleague.”

Congratulations Gretchen!

Katherine Purple Receives APSAC Grant

Katherine Purple, Purdue Press editorial associate, has been selected as a recipient of professional development funding from APSAC. Catherine plans to use the funds to support attendance at the 2010 Association of American University Presses (AAUP) Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah from June 17-20 (http://aaupnet.org/programs/annualmeeting/2010/).

“This will be my first opportunity to attend an AAUP meeting, and I am looking forward to gaining valuable information centered on this year’s theme, ‘Toward a Sustainable Future,’ and making meaningful connections with university press colleagues from around the country. I deeply appreciate Purdue’s dedication to its employees’ professional development,” said Katherine.

The 79th Annual Literary Awards -- Perspectives from Libraries Faculty

Each year, the Purdue University Libraries co-sponsor the Literary Awards program with the Department of English. Several Libraries faculty, staff, and donors attend a banquet to recognize the student award winners, and a reading with the author afterwards. Below are the experiences of two of the Libraries faculty, Scott Brandt, associate dean for research, and Kristine Anderson, professor of library science.

Scott Brandt: It was my great pleasure, along with Kristine Anderson and Judy Schumaker, to represent the Libraries at the 79th Annual Literary Awards Banquet sponsored by Department of English and Purdue University Libraries. Before I met the distinguished speaker, author Annie Proulx, at the pre-banquet reception, I had the honor of meeting a gentleman who had won one of the creative writing awards for poetry a few years earlier… in 1941. Mr. Sheets was a Phys Ed major back then and went on to become superintendent of schools for Tri-County. And yes, if you ask, he can still recite his award winning poem.

Shortly after that I was flabbergasted (from the Old English, “found dumb”), when Ms. Proulx walked up and introduced herself. She was immediately personal, like an aunt from New England you’ve never met before who puts you at ease as you start talking. After dinner, as all attention in Fowler Hall was focused on her, she gave a reading from a just-finished memoir, providing bare and brooding insight into her early life, furthering that familiarity feeling. She read stories ranging from being a naughty child (taking a fish’s eye and put it in the potty and calling her mother to come look) to being quite lucky (after being very annoyed by a store owner who detained them, she and her sister happened on a bad accident on the road, and realized it could have been them).

After the reading she answered questions from the audience ranging from why did Jack have to die at the end of Brokeback Mountain (he just had to… although several people rewrote the ending and sent them to her) to why cowboys (“are you kidding?! although really, they are cowboy wannabes”) to advice for young writers (“travel, learn a language, experience life… and don’t start too soon”).

One of the last questions of the evening came from a student who had moved 11 times in 17 years and who related to Proulx’s descriptions of place. The student asked what she thought about being able to move but stay very connected with friends in another place through email and social networking. Proulx remarked: “That’s the most interesting question I’ve heard all day.” She wondered aloud what that would be like after 5 years had passed, reinforcing a point that echoed through the evening, that perspective usually changes over time and place.

Kristine Anderson: I have been faithfully attending the Literary Awards Banquet and reading since 1989. In the immortal words of Leonard Gump, they are like a box of chocolates. Emeritus Professors still wax nostalgic about the visit of an inebriated Tennessee Williams in 1972, when they were kept up all night listening to his incoherent ramblings. More recently (2007) Sherman Alexie treated us to one of his signature politically incorrect stand-up comic routines instead of a reading. Alexie’s banquet address was quite enchanting and winsome in comparison, with hardly a four-letter word in sight. I myself heartily enjoyed both of his presentations.

This year’s speaker, Annie Proulx, spoke only briefly at the banquet, encouraging the many young writers who received awards. During the question and answer period after her reading later in the evening, however, she fielded the standard request for advice from aspiring young writers by telling them to go out and get a life first. This was quite encouraging to older aspiring writers who may have already squandered most of their life in living and now think they are too far over the hill. Proulx says this is not necessarily the case; she herself didn’t start writing until she was in her 50’s.

During the reading we were privileged to be the first to hear some selections from her recently finished memoir. These moved my friend Cecilia to stand up during the Q & A and share with her some of her own memories from her French Canadian background. She and Proulx had many things in common, including an apparently obligatory Native American ancestor (Proulx quipped that it was probably the same one.) Annie Proulx brought a sense of freedom with her, the feeling that life does not have to keep to a narrow, predetermined path to be successful.

Information Literacy Workshop with Dr. Ross Todd

The Libraries Faculty Seminar Committee hosted a workshop with Dr. Ross Todd on May 13, followed by Purdue hosting the National Forum on Information Literacy on May 14. Both days were informative with good opportunities for networking and discussing information literacy. Sharon Weiner said, “There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about new ways of thinking about information literacy.”

The PowerPoint slides from Dr. Todd’s workshop are available on the Information Literacy Council intranet page.

Dr. Ross Todd engages participants at his workshop on “An Inquiry-Based Information Literacy Agenda."