The Atrium

Inside Walker Library

BLIND DATE WITH A BOOK

Ever wanted a book to read and didn’t know where to start? Sometimes one has to rely on friends’ suggestions to find that perfect match. The library gave this job a whirl in February, celebrating Valentine’s Day with Blind Date with a Book. Individual books were wrapped in paper with a few notes on the themes present in the text. The patron could then go check out a book before unwrapping it to find out what they were going to read. The idea proved incredibly successful for the library, as the “dating pool” had to be refilled multiple times over the course of a few days and strengthened many students’ relationship with recreational reading.

BLUE RAIDER INTRODUCTIONS

The library plays a key role in MTSU’s annual student orientation program, CUSTOMS. The event, which is required for everyone beginning their journey as a Blue Raider, walks new students through everything they need to know before starting life on campus.

For the library, this actually starts many months before any of the new students step foot on campus. Clay Trainum, the library’s marketing and communications coordinator, meets with the entire student orientation team to update the advisors on what they need to know to answer questions about the library. He also develops materials to distribute at every event. When the orientation day arrives, the library sets up a table at the Student Union to answer any and all questions and showcase everything on offer to students.

BOARD GAME NIGHT

With the growing popularity of board games and strategy games, the library partnered with the Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center and MTSU’s Tabletop Club to put on a de-stress activity in the final weeks of the semester with a Board Game Night. Dozens of students crowded into the third-floor Writing Center to learn how to play games and take a brief break from those often stressful final nights of the semester.

WELCOME TO THE MAKERSPACE

Once again, the Walker Library’s immensely popular Makerspace opened its doors to the entire campus community to showcase the multitude of items on offer to students interested in creating. Since the introduction of the Makerspace nearly a decade ago, the space has become a bustling hub of creativity.

The annual open house, conducted in partnership with MT Engage, welcomes hundreds of students, faculty, and staff into the second-floor space and offers the rare chance to sample anything and everything from virtual reality to robotics to 3D printing. The event is annually one of the library’s best-attended events and has long been a staple of MT Engage Week.

A LITTLE TRIVIA

In response to student suggestions, the library began hosting trivia nights, offering students a short break from their studies to work a different part of their brains and a chance to win prizes. Organized by a library faculty and staff team, the popular events drew a wide swath of students, with a little help from the Student Government Association.

DUCK HUNT

As the semesters wound down this past school year, one may have noticed the small yellow face of a rubber duck peeking its head around a bookshelf. While understandably a bit of an absurdist sight at an academic library, it represented a program built around lightening the mood going into the final weeks of school. Students were tasked with finding dozens of ducks hidden throughout the building, and each one found would result in a small prize pack and de-stress kit provided by the library’s first-floor reference desk.

BLOOD DRIVE IN THE LIBRARY

The library hosted its first-ever blood drive last March as part of a campuswide push to increase donations for the American Red Cross. More than 60 people flooded into the common area on the library’s first floor to participate, many of them donating for the first time. Gene Baker, who spearheaded the drive for the Red Cross, said the drive hit 150% of its goal for donations, resulting in enough blood to potentially save 173 lives.

STRESS-FREE ZONES

The library’s incredibly successful Stress-Free Zones continued this year as nearly 1,000 students participated across the two events. This is the single largest library program every semester. Taking place on Tuesday of the final week of classes, it offers a small release of tension and stress for students in the library working on that final project or trying to cram for that last test of the year.

Over the years the Stress-Free Zone has featured free food, stress reduction activities, and teams of therapy dogs from Music City Pet Partners. Additionally, the Raider Health Corps, an MTSU student group tasked with educating their peers on health issues, has provided hundreds of kits designed to help reduce stress.

VIRTUAL REALITY SHOW

Virtual Reality Night in the Makerspace always makes for a fun evening on the second floor as the library’s creative hub welcomes in speakers and students to feature the immersive technology. Taking place each semester, the program often showcases faculty work in the field and opens eyes to the limitless possibilities of what can be achieved with both virtual and augmented reality. Additionally, the space hosts demonstrations throughout the evening, both academic and recreational, that range from learning Beat Saber to taking part in a professional flight simulation.

CAREER WORKSHOPS

Partnering with MTSU’s Career Development Center, the library hosted a number of career workshops over the course of the school year. The events showcased how the library could help students learn to use research tools to discover information about prospective companies. Additionally, the Career Development Center demonstrated to students the role that it could play in helping them navigate their upcoming job and internship searches.

PLANT SALE TO STOCK PANTRY

The library’s annual plant sale was once again a smash with the campus community, with all proceeds going to support the MTSU Student Food Pantry. The event is developed and run by volunteers across the library. Plants are grown for weeks leading up to the sale in late April. While heirloom tomatoes are the star of the show, options run the gamut from catnip to lemon cucumbers to violet sparkle peppers. Originally planned for a three-day event, the plant sale was sold out in one day.

LIBRARY RACKS UP ALA HONORS

Walker Library was a two-time winner during this past school year’s Core PR Xchange Awards, put on every year by the American Library Association. JEWL Magazine earned recognition in the advocacy/ fundraising/annual report category, and Dimensions of Wellness captured the virtual exhibit category. These mark the first wins in the competition for the library, and the winners were showcased during the ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego during the summer.

FOOD DRIVE AND SNACK STAND

The library continued its partnership with the MTSU Student Food Pantry this past year with one of its most ambitious undertakings. Looking to fight food insecurity on campus, the library installed a student snack station on the first floor to provide snacks to students coming into the building. With food provided by the pantry, the snack station was kept stocked by volunteers within the library. Additionally, the library continued its long-standing February Food Fight, pitting the floors of the building against one another to see which could donate the most food to the pantry. This year, the fourth floor narrowly edged out the second on the final day of the fight as hundreds of pounds of food was donated in addition to $445 in cash donations.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS ON EXHIBIT

Special Collections is home to the library’s arm for acquiring, preserving, and providing access to valuable, unique, and fragile materials. The fourth-floor space hosted a pair of exhibits to showcase different parts of its collection this past year. In the fall, Making Connections featured the hidden collections within Special Collections. These are the microcollections that develop within some of the department’s established collections. The spring exhibit, Printing for the People, examined the role of press and print in everyday life, from the time Johannes Gutenberg printed his first Bible to now.