March 2020 from the university librarian
Posted: March 17, 2020
Outreach goals – New services – Library exhibits
The spring semester is in full swing and spring break will be upon us very soon. As a result of my “library listening tour,” the library has retooled its purpose statement and identified outreach as a major desire from faculty and administration. The following five outreach goals for 2020 were developed to meet that need to advertise the library and its collections and services:
- Meet with every student once a year (usually through a curricular or orientation encounter)
- Meet twice a year with faculty (usually though faculty meetings/retreats)
- Library director meets every college dean yearly
- Produce library newsletter every month
- Library introduction for every new faculty member
This spring also sees our innovative staff developing new services. We introduced a “happy light” space at the Kirksville, Missouri, campus library in the basement as well as a new collection of books authored by faculty and staff. We are starting to experiment with fabric poster printing on our Mesa, Arizona, campus library printer and hope to roll out that service completely in April for faculty. We have introduced audiobooks on Overdrive for students and staff to enjoy on their downtime (enjoy them over your spring break or on your commute). And, as usual, we continue to add new books and journals to our amazing collections.
Finally, the Mesa, Arizona, campus library finished hosting the Smithsonian-sponsored exhibit “Patriot Nations: Native Americans in Our Nation’s Armed Forces” and the Kirksville, Missouri, campus library is now hosting the National Library of Medicine-sponsored exhibit, “For All the People: A Century of Citizen Action in Health Care.” Please enjoy these information-packed traveling exhibits for the short time they are here on campus.
by Hal Bright, MERLS, university librarian