The end of an era has come for one of the buildings that housed numerous administrative services for Purdue University for over 40 years. Freehafer Hall has been vacated and is scheduled to be demolished later this year due to the State Street Redevelopment Project. Most of the departments previously housed in Freehafer have been moved to either the Purdue Technology Center Aerospace (PTCA) or Kurz Purdue Technology Center (KPTC) buildings. PTCA, also known as the Rolls Royce Building, is located at the corner of State Street and US231. KPTC is located on Win Hentschel Boulevard in the Purdue Research Park.

It will be more difficult for departments to handle walk-in visitors in their new locations; therefore, faculty and staff are encouraged to make appointments before going to the buildings. Most of the phone numbers remain the same, but you can reference the Purdue Directory to obtain current information.

Bethany McGowan – Rock Star Medical Librarian
Purdue University Libraries' very own Medical Librarian, Bethany McGowan has been tapped as a "Rock Star Librarian" by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Congratulations, Bethany!

Bethany, an assistant professor here in Purdue Libraries, provides this advice for 'wannabe' medical librarians: "Practice critical thinking and creative writing. Mastering those skills will go a long way in helping you figure out solutions to most of the problems you’ll encounter in medical librarianship. Networking and marketing your services is also important."

Ilana Stonebraker- LIRT Top Twenty Articles 2016
American Library Association-Library Instruction Roundtable (ALA LIRT) listed "Toward informed leadership: Teaching students to make better decisions using information" by Ilana Stonebraker as a 2016 Top Twenty Library Instruction Article. This article reframes information literacy as decision management using elements of evidence-based management. Steve Brandley, of the ALA LIRT 2016 Top Twenty Committee, said this about the article:  "Stonebraker provides clear examples of this approach from her own teaching, and makes a powerful argument for the need for a wholly revised assessment practice that emphasizes information use and decision making over information knowledge. This is a top-twenty article for its originality, strength of evidence, and applicability."

Link to ALA LIRT Newsletter announcing award.

Link to Stonebraker's article to read it here.

Mary Dugan is retiring June 30, 2017 after 21 years at Purdue University Libraries.

Mary began her library career at the University of Illinois abstracting environmental regulations for the Army Corps of Engineers. Following that, she moved to Memphis where she set up the library and library services for an environmental engineering firm.

Her career at Purdue began in 1996 with the Technical Information Service (TIS), the pre-Google fee-based service of Purdue Libraries. In TIS, she provided research and document delivery services to entrepreneurs, private individuals, researchers and professionals in business and the law. She also led the TIS marketing efforts, and participated in national and regional conferences of librarians, attorneys, engineers and other professionals.

When TIS was disbanded, Mary took on the joint position of e-Pubs Coordinator and Business Reference Librarian, and in 2007 she was appointed to her current faculty position. In her role as resource development librarian, she established Database of the Week as a tool to familiarize department faculty and students with the collection available to them. She was also one of the team that established the CareerWiki, a joint project with CCO and Krannert. She has been liaison to Agricultural Economics, and the last few years has been teaching an 8-week, 1-credit course each semester for students in the School of Management.

Mary is looking forward to being able to spend more time hiking National Parks and visiting her 4 children and 11 grandchildren with her husband, Darrell. She will also be able now to give more volunteer time to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a cause near to her heart.

Please join us for a reception in Mary’s honor on Friday, June 30 from 10-11:30 a.m. in the Parrish Library of Management and Economics.

Terry Wade will be retiring from Purdue Libraries on June 30, 2017, after 18 years at Purdue.

Terry began her employment with Purdue at the School of Education in February 1999. She moved to the Libraries in June 1999 as an assistant in the Physics Library (PHYS). She began splitting her time between PHYS and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Library (EAPS) about a year later. In 2001, she began working full time at EAPS. Terry served on CSSAC (2009-2011), LCSSAC, and SEC and completed the ACE program. “I became Terry’s supervisor in 2011 and have enjoyed working with her and getting to know her. Terry’s attention to detail in preparing for the move to the WALC has been invaluable,” said Amanda Gill.

Please join us for a reception in Terry’s honor on Thursday, June 22 from 2-3:30 p.m. in Stew 279.

Thank you
Dear Colleagues,

I cannot believe I am really retiring. When you start working, retirement seems like a long way off. The 18 years I have worked here in the Libraries has flown by. I want to thank everyone for helping make my career here at Purdue a memorable one. I have made so many friends both in the Libraries as well as across campus. In my retirement, I hope to do some traveling as well as continue to work the Purdue ball games. I won’t have to flex my work schedule to leave early for the games! I also plan to do some volunteer work but I haven’t figured out exactly where that will be. I also have a lot of projects around the house to keep me busy! Since I plan to stay in the area for a while, I’m sure I will be seeing many of you. If not around town then at Libraries events and picnic or at other Purdue functions. Thank you again for being a part of my journey here at Purdue! – Terry Wade

Marianne Stowell Bracke has accepted a position at Whitworth College Library in Spokane, Washington as Coordinator of Instruction, working with the science and engineering departments. She will be leaving at the end of June to join Paul, who left Purdue last year for his position as Dean of Libraries at Gonzaga University.

Marianne came to Purdue in September 2006 as the Agricultural Sciences Information Specialist at a time when the Life Sciences library was rebuilding its liaison program with the college and also increasingly focusing on information literacy and data services. She embraced these challenges and over the years developed partnerships within the college and Libraries that led to collaborations on sponsored research programs and publications and to being named instructor of record for three courses. Her scholarship and commitment to the professional organizations – library, agriculture and agriculture education – brought national and international attention to her, as well as to Purdue. Her collection development expertise has been invaluable as we built our digital content, when we have faced reductions in funds and as we right-size the Life Sciences collection.

Please join us for a reception wishing Marianne all the best in Washington on Thursday, June 15 from 3-4:30 p.m. in the HSSE Conference Room 353.

Farewell and Thank You
Dear Colleagues,

I can’t quite believe that I’ve been at Purdue 11 years! Thanks to everyone for making my time here interesting and challenged me to grow and develop as a librarian. I’d especially like to thank Vicki Killion and many in the College of Agriculture for being constantly supportive and open to new ideas. I’m looking forward to new adventures, a new position at Whitworth University, a different climate, more time at the barn and in the saddle, and re-joining my husband, Paul, and my dogs, Daisy and Ringo. Please stay in touch through Facebook or email. I wish you all the best and enjoy the new WALC! Happy Trails! — Marianne Stowell Bracke

"To build up the future, you have to know the past." — Otto Frank

Over the next few months as Purdue University Libraries relocates six libraries into the Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC), INSIDe will feature a brief history about each library.

A LOOK BACK AT THE ENGINEERING LIBRARIES

The Engineering Libraries
In the 1950s, and into the 1970s, the Schools of Engineering were served by many separate libraries:

• Aeronautical Engineering was at the airport until it was combined with the Engineering Sciences Library in the mid-1960s. That library was then combined with the Industrial Engineering Library in the late 1960s and was located on the third floor of Grissom Hall.
• Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering was first noted in 1927, located in an office. In 1971, it was remodeled and moved to the basement of the Chemical Engineering building, now Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering.
• In 1963-64, the Civil Engineering Library was formally named the R.B. Wiley Memorial Library for Civil Engineering and moved into the Civil Engineering Building (Hampton) from the old Civil Engineering Building (Grissom Hall).
• Electrical Engineering Sciences was located in the Electrical Engineering in three rooms on the second floor.
• Mechanical Engineering was located in the Mechanical Engineering building on the second floor.
• The Nuclear Engineering Library moved from the Michael Golden Engineering Laboratories in July 1971 to the second floor of the Engineering Administration building (the current site of the Wilmeth Active Learning Center) and included departmental faculty office space.

In 1977, all the libraries were combined into the Siegesmund Engineering Library. (Editor’s note: I worked in all these libraries as a student employee, 1973-1977, under Ed Posey.)

Siegesmund Engineering Library
On April 22, 1977, the A.A. Potter Engineering Research Center was dedicated and a unified engineering library was opened for business.

Funds for the $6 million building were made possible partially by gifts received from engineering alumni and other friends of the Schools of Engineering during Purdue’s 1969 Centennial Fund Drive.

The Potter Center was named in honor of Dean Emeritus Audrey A. Potter who served as Purdue’s Engineering Dean, from 1920-1953. Dean Potter was born in Vilna, Russia, and came to the United States in 1897. He was an educator, counselor, inventor, administrator and author who was dedicated to making Purdue’s Engineering Schools one of the most recognized in the country.

The new library was named in honor of John C. And Lillian W. Siegesmund, benefactors of the building and library project.

At the time of the library’s grand opening, Edwin D. Posey was the Engineering Librarian. The merger of the six individual engineering libraries and the Goss Collection were Posey’s main reason for staying at Purdue for 26 years. Posey said, “Basically the individual engineering schools were against a merger, but many people, besides the librarians, could see the advantages that a single engineering library would offer its students and teaching staff.” It was billed as a “unified” engineering library, which in addition to the traditional library services, would have computer-controlled, student-activated storage and retrieval systems.

The original library plans included 45,000 square feet, but when enough funds could not be raised, the space was reduced to 24,000 square feet. Rather than give up the idea of a unified engineering library, Posey worked with the building’s architects to create a floor plan that included the Mezzanine floor in addition to its two floors of space.

Once the building was completed, “Operation Booklift” took place. The task of moving and shuffling 100,000 books (1/10 of the entire libraries’ collection) to the new library took approximately 5,300 staff hours, $11,000 and over two months to complete. It was the largest physical movement of books in the university’s history.

Since its grand opening in 1977, the Engineering Library has had two head librarians, Ed Posey and Sheila Curl. In 2003, Michael Fosmire was appointed as Head, Physical Sciences, Engineering and Technology Division. Prior head librarians included Mary Lee Rudd and Richard Funkhouser.

Jacinda Laymon’s name was randomly drawn from all those who were SMILED upon in May.  She received a $25 Von’s Book Shop gift certificate.

All faculty, administration and staff are invited to send a note of appreciation for a kindness or thoughtfulness given, assistance provided to or by a Libraries, Press or Copyright Office colleague.

Summer is Here but HSSE Rolls On!

Summers in the libraries can usually be counted on being slower when considering the number of actual patrons sitting at our tables, desks and carrels. This doesn’t mean it is slow behind the scenes in regards to work being done! This summer, we have a possible 20,000 books coming in from some of the libraries involved in the WALC move. This meant that we had to weed the same number and backshift thousands of books once again in order to be ready.

HSSE has already received 530 feet of geological surveys. We interfiled / consolidated / backshifted FIVE collections of government documents into one collection on the first floor periodicals to make room during the spring semester. If you have never ventured into the periodicals at HSSE library, please do so. It is warm year round and a great place to visit if you are cold-blooded.

In between carts arriving to be shelved from the other libraries this summer, our students are constantly busy performing other jobs. They can be seen pulling requested books for patrons, shelving LOTS of returned books, cleaning and dusting shelves, cleaning computer areas, readying chairs and assisting wherever we need them.  

HSSE library depends on student workers in order to function daily. We appreciate the work they do to assist us in keeping HSSE rolling and open to our Purdue patrons.

Pictured is Erin Biesterveld, a graduate assistant and Libraries student staff member — check out her shirt.
Photo by Patrick Whalen.