CUL NEWSLETTER

This website and newsletter service provides crime alerts for your neighborhood.  For more information, go to  http://www.crimeweb.net/ .  Thanks to Maria Bellavance for this important information.  University Park has subscribed to this new Web-based crime alert service and invited SMU to use it at no charge.  Members of the SMU community who subscribe to CrimeWeb.net will receive e-mail crime alerts posted by University Park, Highland Park, SMU, or other participating agencies nationwide in up to five cities designated by subscribers. To subscribe, visit www.crimeweb.net and follow the simple instructions. Selecting a five-mile radius will limit alerts to UP, HP, and SMU. For more information, contact SMU Police at 8-1582.

 It's a hot topic in the age of technology--will the library as place survive the digital future? After an Oxford-style debate, the answer, according to the vote taken by over 300 librarians, is a resounding "yes." Of course, what would you expect in a room full of librarians? Regardless, the debate was a tremendously entertaining and informative way of addressing the future of the academic library. Columbia University's James Neal and the University of Alberta's Ernie Ingles argued that the academic library will outgrow its need for space by the year 2020. In opposition Southern Methodist University's Gillian McCombs and St. Mary's University's (Halifax, NS) Madeleine Lefebvre, decked out in robes and powdered wigs, argued for the continued relevance of the library as a place. The debate was moderated in hilarious fashion by retired Dalhousie University librarian (and LJ Contributing Editor) Norman Horrocks.

The debate hit all the high points regarding the changing academic library. Neal and Ingles argued that technology is fomenting constant change in everything from document delivery to scholarly communication, spelling an end to the need for expensive structures to house increasingly less- used books. McCombs and Lefebvre countered that technology will never replace the social interaction necessary to the learning and research process. In the end, however, it was clear that both sides were not far apart on the essential issue--perhaps best characterized by Ingles, who argued that the key to the future was contained not in preserving the four walls of the traditional library, but in the expanding role of the librarian.

Public Services Director, Carol Baker, is pleased to announce that Rebecca Eve Graff will be joining the staff of Central University Libraries as CUL User Education and Outreach Librarian. Rebecca has been Reader Services Librarian and Reference and Instruction Coordinator at the Grinnell College Libraries for the past two years. Prior to that, she was the Reference & Instruction Librarian for four years at Loyola University in Chicago. Please welcome Rebecca when she joins the CUL staff on Tuesday, September 2.

FLC Reference would like to announce the new teams for the 2003/2004 school year:

Fondren Library Center Reference Resources Team

• Carrie Esch, Coordinator
• Violet Le
• Theresa Van Goethem Meyers
• Amy Turner

Fondren Library Center Reference User Services

• Sandra Setnick, Coordinator
• Rebecca Eve Graff
• Bill Jenkins
• Melanie Golder

Fondren Library Center Reference Staff Support

• Toni Nolen, Coordinator
• Joseph Milazzo
• Marcella Stark
• Erika Ripley

This is a new section in which a new CUL staff member will be featured each month.  The purpose is to get to know each other a little better.  Please feel free to send me the profiles of your newest staff members (tvangoet@mail.smu.edu) so that we can introduce them to the rest of CUL.

Music, Theatre, and Dance Librarian
Hamon Arts Library
Southern Methodist University
214.768.1856
arata@smu.edu 

Alisa completed her undergraduate degree in Viola Performance here at SMU in 1999 and went on to receive master’s degrees in Musicology and Library Science with a specialization in Music Librarianship at Indiana University.  Although she does not consider herself to have hobbies, she does have many interests.  She enjoys the study of musicology, reading, cooking, and playing her viola.  She especially enjoys playing baroque period pieces and is currently on the lookout for opportunities to do so (and is also looking for a period instrument to play on!).  She is currently the Chair for the Research Resources Interest Group of the Society of American Music.  Alisa is also currently beta testing a multiplayer strategy-based computer game, Civilization III Conquests.  Alisa and her boyfriend Jesse are the proud parents of two orange cats named Jack and Jill.  When asked to tell us one or two interesting facts about herself that not many people know, she said that she brews her own beer and is an aspiring belly dancer.  She hopes to one day be listed on the Bellydancing Librarian's Website: http://www.sonic.net/~erisw/bdlib.html .  When you get a chance, stop by and welcome Alisa to SMU!

In 1898 the Denver and Rio Grande Western narrow gauge Railroad reached Chama New Mexico, providing a link to the recently built Transcontinental Railroad. Today the 64 mile long section between Chama and Antoinito lives on as the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, an operating live steam tourist railroad and a national historic site. For the past 6 summers Clyde Putman has been a volunteer for the Friends of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, doing restoration and preservation work. A photographic exhibit showing some of the restoration work, and also historic photographs from the DeGolyer library collection is in Fondren Library until September 4, 2003. 

I have visited the Railroad Yards and it is a fantastic operation. If you are in the Chama area, do not pass by with out a visit and if possible a ride on the train. JFSP, Chair, Exhibit Committee.

HAMON LIBRARY EXHIBIT

Through September 28, in conjunction with the Pollock Gallery, of SMU's Division of Art, the Hawn Gallery will be the venue for “John Himmelfarb: The Card Catalog Drawings.”  This exhibition consists of over one hundred small scale drawings by Harvard alumnus John Himmelfarb and brings together a selection of works the Chicago artist has executed on now obsolete library card catalog cards.  Himmelfarb carries the cards when traveling to allow him the ability to constantly draw as a sort of travelogue of his thoughts as he moves through his world of places and things. Art Critic John Brunetti wrote of Himmelfarb, “Consistently blurring the boundaries between drawing and painting, [he] revels in line’s evocative potential to create a synthesis of graphic sign, text and elusive image that challenges one’s ability to interpret visual language. In the process, he initiates inward journeys whose rewards are not measured by reaching specific destinations, but by the experience of the chosen path.”   Himmelfarb is represented in several major collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.

Mildred Hawn Gallery hours:

May 27-August 20:  Monday-Friday, 9am - 5pm (closed July 4th).

August 20-September 28: Monday-Saturday, 9am - 5pm and Sunday, 1 pm-5 pm (closed Labor Day).

According to the 2003 Chase's Calendar of Events August is:

May Reading Be Your Haven Month

National Inventors' Month

National Win With Civility Month

1st-7th Simplify Your Life Week

2nd National Mustard Day

3rd Friendship Day

3rd Sisters' Day

5th National Night Out

8th Admit You're Happy Day

10th-16th National Resurrect Romance Day

10th Spoil Your Dog Day

10th-16th Thanks For All the Gifts Week

16th Watermelon Day

18th Bad Poetry Day

21st National Forgiveness Day

22nd Be an Angel Day

25th Kiss and Make Up Day

25th-31st Be Kind to Humankind Week

28th Race Your Mouse Around the Icons Day

• August Astrological Signs:
  • Leo: July 23-August 22
  • Virgo: August 23-September 22
• August Birthstones: 
  • Jade
  • Peridot
• August Flowers:
  • Gladiolus 
  • Poppy
• August is the eighth month, renamed by the Romans from Sextilis', meaning sixth, to honor their emperor, Augustus. 
• August is the height of the summer time in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere.  The longest days of the year is passed, but the hot days remain. In the northern regions and mountains, cool nights and early frosts lets one know that the summer is about to come to an end. In the Southern Hemisphere, August means the winter will soon be over. 
• The birds are already planning to fly south for the winter. The insects are more noisier and numerous than in any other month. This is perhaps the busiest month for businesses, since most people take their vacations in August. 
• Colorado became the 38th state, August 1, 1876. 
• Lincoln penny issued August 2, 1909. 
• Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on his first voyage across the Atlantic, August 3, 1492. 
• An American bomber dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare, on Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945. 
• United States troops landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in World War II, August 7, 1942. 
• Richard M. Nixon became the first U.S. President ever to resign from office, August 9, 1974 
• Missouri became the 24th state, August 10. 1821. 
• Smithsonian Institution founded, August 10, 1846. 
• Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States, born in West Branch, Iowa, August 10, 1874. 
• Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, August 12, 1877. 
• The United States annexed Hawaii, August 12, 1898. 
• U.S. Social Security Act approved, August 14, 1935. 
• Panama Canal opened to traffic, August 15, 1914. 
• United States and Canada arranged for joint defense of North America, August 17, 1940. 
• Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States, born in North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833. 
• Hawaii became the 50th state, August 21, 1959. 
• First local chapter of the American National Red Cross founded by Clara Barton, August 22, 1881. 
• British troops captured Washington, D.C., and burned the White House, August 24, 1814. 
• Amendment 19, giving women in the United States the right to vote, proclaimed, August 26, 1920. 
• Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States, born near Stonewall, Texas, August 27, 1908. 
• Spanish explorers landed in Florida where St. Augustine now stands, August 28, 1565.  
• Great Britain provided for the end of slavery in its colonies, August 28, 1833. 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/135224851_librarian10.html 

(Thanks to Linda Sellers and former CUL employee Will Stuivenga for this submission.)

Peep Research: A study of small fluffy creatures and library usage

(A big thanks to Alisa Rata for this submission.)