วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 9 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2555

The University Of Louisville Libraries - A Library of the 21st Century

Whilst in Louisvlle attending a consulation on modern American literature and touring varied sites of cultural interest the University Library was one of those sites that had a never-fading impression on my mind not only for its unique architectural plan but for other inexpressible qualities that make it an ideal place for quiet and serene study. My first visit was when the Director of our program led us there for an induction into the use of computers and the internet in literature research. The room we were led into for the class was fully qualified with computers in all the over fifty desks for students and a scholar screen monitor for the instructor. Many other rooms together with the state of art auditorium were equally well equipped.

I passed through the library on many other occasions. But the most valuable one was when on my way from the University post office the notion occurred to me of recording the beautiful vistas of the campus in pictures as well as in mind and one such was the Ekstrom Library which represented to me the focal point of all the other libraries scattered at varied ends of the tremendous campus.

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I took about two views of this building and I was still gaping in wonder especially at the bewitching splendor of its frontage with readers combining eating and relaxing. I was particularly struck by its inviting, comfortable, and open space teeming with students and bustling with activity, a lovely terrace qualified with outdoor furniture, facing a pleasantly piquant green outdoor space, exploiting the comfortably warm climactic conditions here for enjoying nature. Taking benefit of the ordinarily mild Kentucky weather with its ample, piquant green space, students can study or just catch a break at a amount of outdoor tables on the terrace. On nice days, there are few good places to study-and indubitably it makes for an piquant entry

I found myself wandering in to get a good view. As I wandered through I remembered my mission of seeking preserve for our resources-starved university libraries in Sierra Leone. My quest for the head led me into the office of Mr David Hogarth who right away became an able facilitator of my mission enabling me within a week to meet the Dean of libraries.

Whilst awaiting my appointment with her I was led on a tour of varied parts of the Ekstrom library. This library, I learnt, holds more than 1.1 million and 5,100 journal subscriptions supporting research and curricula in the humanities, public sciences, business and education. It also contains large collections of microforms, government publications, multi-media and current periodicals, the Granville A. Bunton Pan African Collection, the Barbara S.Miller Multiracial Children's literature collection and the Bingham Poetry Collection.

The Rare Books and Photographic Archives supply rare research sources for scholars and other researchers. African American collections, English, European, and American Literatures collections together with the tremendous space given to reference and reserved books make this library a very valuable research as well as information disseminating tool. But it is also a repository and exhibitor of many prized manuscripts and other documents like for example the superior 1482 first printing of Euclid's Elementia and a copy of the Principia with annotations in Newton's hand. The working collection of Richard M. Kain, and the first editions and manuscripts of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats preserve much of Irish Literary Renaissance heritage. There is also quite a good collection of modern English and American writers with superior editions by 1890's authors and books as well as autographed letters from members of the Bloomsbury Group.

A paramount and ever-growing and rich collection of extra materials, archives and photography include:

Roy and Dela White collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Arthur J. Slavin.Collection of English History.

Hattie Winston collection of African- American Scripts and Screen Plays.

Irwin Hilliard Archive of Fine Bindings.

Billy Davis 111 collection of Aerial Photography.

Other extra collections consist of the James Chandler World War Posters and Lafin Allen's Kentucky Maps.

The photographic Archives houses more than 2 million photographs and manuscripts as well as fine art prints. It also offers printing services and a rotating series of exhibits.

The Roy Stryker Papers consist of photographs and manuscripts from documentary projects directed by Stryker at the Farm security Administration, appropriate Oil business and Jones and Laughlin Steel. The Cautfield and Shook Royal Photo and Lin Caufield collections consist of photographs from Louisville's past. Whilst the Lean Thomas, Matlack Studio, Arthur Y Ford and Henderson community School collections document life and culture in Appalachia. 2,000 prints by many paramount American artists such as Paul Caponegro and Gary Winogrand constitute the library's Fine Print Collection.

The library also serves a much wider community beyond the campus.Through e-mail, phone or in person one could invite and receive help or even fix a session with a research librarian here. A Cardinal card enables you to check out up to 99 items at a time and renew books on-line. Visiting academics are entitled to inter-library loans of up to 15 books. A University of Louisville pupil enjoys the privilege of searching for items reserved for his class on-line. Minerva gives on-line passage to catalogues and gateways to many collections. University of Louisville length learners could passage off-campus through their Ulink username and password both library assignments by their professors and electronic databases of library resources for self-directed research from non-University of Louisville internet addresses.

Ekstrom Library houses and lends resources to the Delphi and the Writing Centers. The Delphi center helps professors use technology in their teaching and prepares them to teach courses online. The writing center assists students, professors and staffs with writing projects and holds workshops on enhancing writing skills. through this center an appointment with a writing counselor could be scheduled and important writing resources found.

The University of Louisville libraries a conglomerate of libraries stocking books on few prime disciplines such as music, optic art, condition sciences, engineering, bodily science and technology at the time of my tour was in the process of piquant in to Ekstrom the main library, the over 149,000 volumes constituting the engineering, bodily science and technology books and journals.
Besides the William Ekstrom main Library, the University library network consists of: The Kornhauser condition Sciences Library; The Dwight Anderson Music Library; The Margaret M. Bindwell Art Library; and The University Archives and Records Center.

The Kornhauser condition Sciences Library a allembracing and the most current condition sciences information resource center is also a "Regional resource Library" in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. It represents a valuable resource for the entire condition sciences community of the Louisville metropolitan area and the western half of Kentucky. It has over 250,000 volumes, 2,700 journal subscriptions, audiovisual materials and a collection of electronic formats. It stocks numerous items relating to condition care in Kentucky and the Trans-Appalachian West, together with historical collections, the healing school archives, book manuscripts and bodily objects.

The Dwight Anderson Music Library providing user-centered services offers seamless passage to information resources in all formats and serves as a center for teaching and learning which supports the University of Louisville School of Music curriculum and research. It houses the largest academic music collection in Kentucky together with the Gravemeyer collection of modern Music comprising all submissions to the internationally paramount Music combination Award as well as a large assortment of sheet music containing thousands of Louisville imprints celebrating the history of music publishing in the city and the "Traipin Woman" collection with its emphasis on American folk song.

The Margaret M. Bridwell Art Library with its more than 80,000 volumes is a gateway to information for teaching, research and scholarship in art, design, art history and architectural history. It subscribes to over 300 domestic and foreign journals and museum bulletins. It has also hundreds of videos and provides passage to the major electronic and print indexes. Subjects covered here consist of painting, drawing, sculpture, print-making, photography, architectural history 45, interior design, visible design, art education, pottery, fiber arts and ornamental arts. It also holds roughly 3,000 rare and scarce volumes and about 150 linear feet of archival materials.

The librarians strive concertedly with academic staff to meet the information literacy and research needs of a diverse people recognizing that libraries are an valuable tool in the University's mission to become a premier nationally recognized metropolitan university.

The University of Louisville libraries is guided in all its undertakings by its vision that libraries are the academic heart of the university and a place for discovery and learning covering the classroom and the lab. They therefore seek to participate as active and integral partners in meaningful learning, superior teaching and productive research. Users are therefore all the time being instructed on information availability and use. Services and resources are tailored to suit the varying needs of users. Library staff thus identify, value and agree materials of varying formats to build collections that meet user needs. They also apply technology, research and instructional innovations to heighten services and passage to former and electronic collections.

Rapid expansion in stocks, rapid technological advancement together with the introduction of a robotic retrieval principles has enabled more books than could be retained in the library halls being stacked in trays which are accessed by computers on user request. The principles gives the library adequate space for over three million volumes. The less oftentimes used volumes will be loaded into the system, and students can still browse titles in open stacks in the old wing of the library. Books stored in the Rrs are identified as such in Minerva, the library's catalog. To invite the item, patrons click on a live "request" button onscreen, and then a robotic crane is sent off to find the item, piquant among racks of steel bins holding books and journals from which the robotic arm selects, grabs and delivers the appropriate bin to a pickup station where a library attendant pulls the exact item and delivers it to the circulation desk within minutes. The entire process which I witnessed myself takes only minutes and handles numerous simultaneous requests.

Having the Rrs, I was told, also saves the library the cost of a courier service and the supplementary library staff needed to operate a remote storage facility. The Ekstrom Library's Rrs stands out in how artfully it is built into the central build of the new addition. With numerous windows on the system, students can indubitably stand at the circulation desk, make a request, and indubitably see the principles fill their form watching it work serving roughly as a piece of 21st-century art, a book fountain of sorts, whizzing and whirring volumes past the windows. In all, the Ekstrom expanding contributes a hefty 42,500 quadrate feet of space to the library

The library's robotic retrieval principles (Rrs) has freed up valuable space for exhibits in the library, like the one by Split Rock Studios, St. Paul; designer, Lisa Friedlander that highlights the year of Kentucky's founding and features a statue of Henry Clay, Kentucky senator from 1806 to 1850. The desk is a replica of the desk Clay used when he was in the Senate-the actual desk is in the office of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who endowed the Ekstrom expansion and the McConnell center for Political Leadership.

The libraries now seem poised to attain the ambitious goals of the university of becoming a premier metropolitan university that is nationally recognized for advancing intellectual, public and economic development. The library's heavy atrium allows light to pour into the building and over the circulation desk.

The libraries' technological resources have advanced to state-of-the-art electronic information centers for the campus community with more than 550 computer workstations from which one can borrow laptop computers for use anywhere in the libraries. advanced wireless technology enables laptop users to passage the internet and the libraries' vast electronic resources. Researchers could passage 25,000 full-text journals and hundreds of electronic databases.

Two teaching laboratories enable librarians to show the way classes in the library with instant passage to the online world. The library's three new, modern instruction labs qualified with wireless technology and state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, emphasize the library's continually expanding role in teaching and learning. Instructional Lab 1 and Instructional Lab 2 have become extremely flexible spaces hosting a version of the 3M Road Show for Kentucky librarians.

The university community can passage thousands of electronic information resources from hundreds of computer work stations in the libraries and also from anywhere: their offices, classrooms or home. Minerva, the online list indexes and accesses the many items held within the libraries. through its passage to national and regional electronic networks one could quest many library catalogs and databases around the nation and even around the world.

The University of Louisville Libraries is a member of the relationship of research Libraries, the most prestigious and influential library relationship in North America. Strong financial preserve from the University administration has propelled it up to national prominence and impetus in strengthening its ties with Metroversity, a consortium of higher instruction institutions in metro Louisville, Kentucky, Virtual Library and other library consortia in the region and nation thus adding significantly to the materials made ready to its students and faculty and to students and faculties from other campuses.

It has established Kentucky's first library chair, the Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair For Scholarly communication underwritten by the estate of a longtime university librarian and the state's research Challenge Trust Fund. The first chair holder, Dwayne K. Butler is a extremely regarded scholar in copyright law, particularly that associated to educational and electronic resources.

Overseeing all these developments for the past eleven years has been a charismatic, energetic, ingenious and visionary woman, Prof Hannnelorewery Rader, Dean of Libraries, whom I had the privilege of talking to. Prof Radar brought to Louisville a wealth of experience. For seventeen years she headed the Cleveland and Wisconsin university libraries and held varied positions at Eastern Michigan University for roughly twelve years. She has written widely in her field and attended many professional conferences. She was at last named in 1999 superior academic research Librarian.

Through Dr Radar's innovative ideas, her drive and direction together with the expanding library collection, upgraded resources, a more piquant environment, helpful and innovative library staff and academics library usage has recorded a 60 percent increase thus exceeding the 2 million per annum mark. One of her astonishing innovations is the Tulip Coffee Shop in the spacious lobby where readers enjoy tasty sandwiches and other relishing rolls with cups of tea, coffee orange juice or diet coke as they read or scroll through the internet. The Tulip Tree Café has become so favorite that it may soon need to add other cash register.

Louisville offers one of the nation's best information literacy programs. Louisville libraries are no longer just places for research, but are now like other libraries today places of active instruction.
According to Prof Radar, her doctrine is to cater for the needs of the mostly non-traditional studentship mostly adults of varying ages and non-residential for increasingly comfortable climate and facilitating the processes of accessing information. This explains her introduction of the snack bar and the constant restructuring and redecorating of the premises.

"We wanted to have a space where students could learn and do research but also socialize. ... We wanted to offer a library space for all of those things," for as she stressed "Our students are urban, many are part-time and don't live on campus. We want them to be on campus." To achieve that, she says, they completely reimagined their library for the 21st century.

"Space was an issue," Rader says. "We were running out of space for our materials, and that's pretty much a qoute for most academic libraries." Today, the library space is more than repository but a place for instruction, to showcase unique holdings and exhibits, and to sustain pupil collaboration and all forms of interaction, both with information sources in all formats as well as with librarians.

With space a key concern, the highlight of the Ekstrom Library expansion is its robotic retrieval system, a unique principles made up of more than 7000 steel bins, contribution climate-controlled storage for up to 1.2 million volumes. Rader was already well-known with how productive the principles could be, having come from Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, one of the first to setup such a system. "We never indubitably carefully an off-site storage facility," as she said. "We don't want to store the books miles away, send for them when a pupil needs them, and then wait to have them delivered to campus." For as she notes, the robotic principles can retrieve and deliver a book in a matter of minutes while off-site storage can sometimes take days.

The University of Louisville being a public institution, open to the normal public,it is, according to Rader putting an even greater prime on space and efficiency. So rather than filling the space with immovable objects, such as banks of Pcs, it is completely wireless and filled with flexible seating, from stuffed, comfortable chairs and small tables to wooden chairs and large, roomier tables for students to spread out their work. "Students can bring their own or check out laptops at the circulation desk." Meanwhile, 600 former workstations remain in the old wing for those who wish to use them.

The Libraries in their entirety, the Dean told me, hold millions of print volumes from many countries, electronic books and databases and thousands of electronic journals, reference materials, other library resources, library guides and services.

In expanding to increased room for pupil collaboration, the library expansion features three new library instruction labs, where formal or informal classes are held, and the charming new 150-seat Elaine Chao auditorium, all handicapped accessible, and qualified with the newest technology, together with wireless Internet passage and state-of-the-art Av equipment.

With digital resources contribution passage to information, much of the library's space is freed up for the library's more unique holdings. An ambitious slate of lectures, seminars, conferences, exhibits, and displays, all designed to engage students, faculty, and the community in the library have been laid out as ongoing activities. Chao, who serves as Labor Secretary under President Bush, spoke recently in the auditorium that bears her name.

In addition, the library is home to the McConnell center for Political Leadership, featuring the papers and exhibits of Kentucky's Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. The bipartisan center sponsors a range of programming, together with lectures and seminars. In fact, the Ekstrom expansion owes a great deal to the McConnell Center-the .2 million project was funded by federal grants earmarked by McConnell.

The Elaine L. Chao auditorium is named for the current U.S. Secretary of Labor and plays host to a full slate of lectures and seminars. The space between the rows is exceptionally wide, preventing cramped knees or contortions to allow people to pass. The acoustics in the auditorium are "perfect," manufacture the space the university president's favorite venue for press conferences presenting a great location for Tv cameras, press feeds, etc. Chao herself recently spoke there, as has Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Ma).

To Radar though it's still a library storing information, it is also a place for people to hang out, a place for the whole university, a space to be, a space for events, for extra teaching and learning sessions." a 21st-century library."

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