Towers Newsletter of the Library Associates of the University of Idaho Library Fall 2011
Volume 14, Issue 1
Inside this issue:
Library as Place, Library as Space
Library as Place, Library as Space.........1-2
How do academic libraries function as community centers? What are we doing to create a sense of community and place here at the University of Idaho library? What could we do better?
Twainiana & Angling Collections in Special Collections................................3 The Library by the Numbers.......................3 The Future of Past Time and Space: Recent Highlights and Future Directions for Digital Initiatives at the UI Library.......................................4-5 Information Commons & Tutoring...........6 September 11 Remembrance Exhibit.....6 Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Exhibit....6 Dean’s Corner: Library Advisory Board...7 Ways to Give.....................................................7
To subscribe to Towers, please visit us at: www.lib.uidaho.edu/giving/
P.O. Box 442350 Moscow, ID 83844 Phone: (208) 885-6534 Email: librdean@uidaho.edu
Across from the reference desk, on the main floor of the library, there is a white board. A young woman walks up to the white board and lingers, reading for a few moments, tilting her head this way and that to see what is written. Finally, she picks up a dry eraser marker and squats down, carefully printing Blueberries for Sal. It is all I can do not to run across the floor and say, “HEY! I love Blueberries for Sal too!” I restrain myself; after all, this is a library, right? Not a place for the kind of squealing in which I am tempted to indulge. Or is it? This white board, posing the question, “What books did you love as a child?” stands next to a library exhibit on Louisa May Alcott. In just 24 hours, it has been covered in children’s book titles, including everything from The Poky Little Puppy to The Chronicles of Narnia. The week before, the same white board stood next to our exhibit in remembrance of September 11th, asking library visitors, “How have the events of 9/11 changed your life?” The discussion that ensued was passionate, diverse, and engaged, drawing people toward the exhibit, and more importantly, into conversation with each other. These kinds of conversations are just one small part of the many ways the University of Idaho Library works to create a space and a place for community. Fostering collaboration, cohesiveness and diversity is part of fulfilling our vision statement, in which we seek to, “present the best of Idaho to the world, and the best of the world to our university.”
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A student adding a favorite children’s book title to our whiteboard. Photo by Bill Kerr In 2011, in Section 403 of the Stafford Act, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared libraries to be essential community organizations, eligible to receive relief funds and temporary relocation under the FEMA Public Assistance Program, formally recognizing what many of us have always known: the value of libraries reaches far beyond their ability to supply us with books and information. In the past fifteen years, as the Internet has permeated more and more aspects of our lives, providing instant access to overwhelming amounts of information, the demise of the library has been predicted regularly. The reports of the death of libraries, however, have been greatly continued on page 2