Category Archives: Carleton

ACRL Award

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ACRL Award
Originally uploaded by Pegasus Librarian.

On Friday we had the great honor of receiving the ACRL Excellence in Libraries Award in the College Library division. Our college president, while introducing the award to those present at the Honors Convocation spoke about the importance of collaboration and of intellectual curiosity on a college campus, and of how he sees these twin values in evidence in the library and across campus. And looking around at all the students, faculty, and staff, at all the representatives of various academic and computer support teams, and at the supervisor of the students who do all our public computing support in the library, I realized again how lucky I am to work in this place. I realized yet again that the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts here, because no one of us alone could have done anything approaching award-worthy work. And I realized for the millionth time what an amazing experience it has been for me to work here as I learn to be a librarian in the midst of this type of community.

So what will we do with the award money? Well, people nominated ideas and we all voted, and kudos to whomever came up with this idea: we’re donating it to Katrina-damaged Dillard University’s library.

A Dose of History

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Scoville

This week a student came to do a staff development presentation for us here in the library. He’d done his senior thesis on the history of the library building and the stylistic metaphors each incarnation used as a foundation.

I was completely captivated. I wish I’d taken notes because now the talk is receding into a mysterious and tantalizing blur of impressions and phrases. “The second building to be built on campus was the library.” … “The original library was built in what was, at the time, the quintessential library style. Anyone would have looked at that building and known it was a library.” … “The 1956 building strove for universality of style, a very modernist enterprise.” … “Two art history professors were the driving forces for bringing buildings in the modern style to Carleton.” … “The 1984 building was designed to fit with the buildings that made up its context.”

I haven’t been able to find an image of the 1956 version of our building, but what I found striking about the remodel wasn’t brought up in the talk. The 1956 building (which I can’t find an image of, sorry) had a grand “drawbridge” entrance, which was supposed to “usher students into the halls of learning” or something like that. But it also had the effect of making the library something that stood apart, something that you had to cross a long bridge to get to. The new building entrance seems to lean forward to be part of the campus rather than reserve itself as a hallowed destination.

Comps Day

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Seniors here have to complete a Comprehensive Exercise (a senior thesis or similar project) commonly referred to as “comps.” Each major has it’s own rules and deadlines, but today was Comps Day for Econ majors. It was so fun to see them going up to the printer to collect their impressively long papers with impressively long titles and just glowing!

Most of these kids haven’t slept in about 3 weeks, they’ve been stressed to the hilt producing a paper that’s several times longer than anything they’ve ever produced before, and their graduations hang in the balance over this one project. But today they’re bursting with so much joy and so much pride that they just spontaneously come up the desk, show me their papers, and say, in wonder, “This is my comps!”

So between finding information about Korean assimilation into Japanese corporate culture, sussing out good starting points for a paper on the effects of globalization on education in inner-city Chicago high schools, and a whole bunch of citation questions for one class that has a project due tomorrow, I got to congratulate a steady stream of dazedly ecstatic Econ seniors and promise them that yes, they’ll be even happier tomorrow after they’ve eaten something and slept a little.

Carleton is an Excellent Library!

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It’s official. Carleton College is this year’s recipient of ACRL’s Excellence in Academic Libraries award in the college library division!!!!! (press release)

I’ve said it before, but I can’t say it enough: I’m so lucky to work with such a dedicated and creative bunch of co-workers, and I’m so lucky to be able to work with them in a library and on a campus like this one. Reading over the essay that my colleague, Matt, wrote for the award application, I realized yet again how much I’ve learned by working with this group and how much I value their energy, their creativity, and their friendship. They are Teh Awesome!

Come Work With Me?

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We’ve re-opened the search for a new (as in “additional” rather than “replacement) Social Sciences librarian.

From the job ad:

Carleton College seeks an innovative and energetic librarian to join us in our lively and imaginative program of information resources and services in a liberal arts setting. Within this dynamic library, the Reference and Instruction programs emerge out of and are informed by the skills, interest, and passions of the members of the Reference team. This is an ideal position for an individual who is 1) looking for an opportunity to work in a liberal arts institution focused on teaching, in collaboration with an unusually fine group of students, faculty, and colleagues; 2) committed to excellence in teaching and student learning; and 3) deeply rooted in and excited about a social sciences discipline.