Library status report

Because it's been such a hectic week, I'm going to use this post to take stock. Call it a status report; you're welcome to come along for the ride!

We had a few bumps in the road while getting the new printing system to work. Apparently, on Monday -- the very first day of school -- demand on AT's printing system was so heavy that nearly all the printers using it, both here in the Library and all of AT's other labs throughout campus, got pretty badly backed up. To relieve the load, they bypassed the usual controls so people could print directly, with the predictable effect of multiple jobs clogging the queue on every printer in use. Fortunately, it's all been worked out and life has resumed what here on campus passes for normalcy.

Elizabeth Henry, our newest librarian, shouldered the start of her first semester quite ably. We're glad to have her here, and are still getting positive feedback on the vlog interview I did with her a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad people are connecting with her so well; she's fitting right in!

She's also beginning work on managing our electronic resources. We The Librarians met yesterday, and have begun to discuss how we want access to those resources to change. Most of us aren't wild about the current system, with most of our electronic journals in a separate search from the catalog, because that makes it harder for you to find them, so we've started looking at ways to bring the catalog and our electronic resources closer together. It's similar in a way to what WRLC in general is looking at right now, but because we subscribe to upwards of several million journals either directly or through databases and electronic lending libraries like EBSCO and Ingenta, it's tricky. Fortunately, she's on the job!

Our e-Reserves are also very healthy this year! A fairly good-sized backlog has materialized out of thin air just this week, which, though annoying in some ways, is a great sign. All four librarians and David Bills, the technician working on e-Reserves, are working hard to get things posted! It's sort of like the Three Stooges: When all three try to go through the same door at the same time, nobody gets through. So to our faculty I waft a gentle note on the breeze: If you get your readings to us at least two weeks before the semester starts, we'll have them ready by the first day of classes.

We've also been planning different ways to get out there on campus, sort of bringing the mountain to Mohammed. For instance, we're planning on a sort of bookmobile this semester, where a librarian will haul some popular books and movies, a laptop, and a barcode scanner to different locations on campus. That way, if you're in, say, the Marketplace at the right time on the right day (don't worry, we'll announce it!) and have been thinking about checking out a book or a few movies for the weekend, but don't have time to get to the Library, you'll be able to find and check out something suitable right there!

We also did a laundry list of events for GSO (Graduate Student Orientation) and NSO (New Student Orientation) last week, and just yesterday hosted a lunch to welcome new Honors students. The event went so well, we'll be hosting it again, opening it up to more students next time.

I also started teaching a First Year Seminar course this week. Yeah, a librarian teaching a class. It's sort of like watching a dog playing poker, I know. But it's a good class, and if any of my students are reading this, enjoy the metaphysical extra credit I'm sending you right now.

Another bright spot this week is that it seems we are experiencing fewer issues with new students coming to the Desk to check out materials and finding out they're not in the system yet. Our director's been working hard on getting information from the Registrar's Office and feeding it into our circulation system every day, and the numbers keep getting smaller, so the road's getting smoother!

A not-so-bright spot was the effect of the Higher Education Copyright Act of 2008, which became law this summer. It requires us to inform ALL students about the penalties of copyright infringement, so we sent out an e-mail to the student population and included faculty and staff for good measure. Because this is a new requirement, a lot of folks who got the e-mail thought it was because of something they did, freaked out, and ran over to the Library, presumably to catch us before we called the Intellectual Property Gestapo on them. But that wasn't going to happen; it was only a notice, mandated by law. For some of the work that gets done on campus, reproduction of copyrighted material usually falls under fair use for educational purposes. But that's not true for everything, so check out Sarah Hamrick's Copyright Basics LibGuide for much more information. It's also always a good idea to check in with the Library to make sure; just don't let your blood pressure get too high until you know one way or another.

Other than that, we're getting back into the routine. Summer was one long period of crazy projects and interrupted habits, and it just snapped right past, so we're more than ready to return to the usual swing of things. Which now, apparently, includes brawls at Nationals games, thanks to Nyjer Morgan. Look up to him, kids; that's probably the opposite of what you want to be if you become a ballplayer.

Next week will see an inversion of the new order: a written book review and a vlog post about the Library. I'm going to take you down into the Deaf Copy 1 room and the Archives' vaults, so you can see how much Deaf history lives underneath our feet. Most of it is going to look boring, but trust me -- there's plenty of interesting things to unearth!