It’s hard for me to believe, but the library has just completed its second year of 24/7. The good news is that there has been very little property crime and no assaults. Students love having the library available any time they want it, and the gate count (number of people entering the library) shows it: The two big jumps reflect the renovation of the main floor to bring in the Center for Teaching and Learning in 2011 and 24/7 opening starting in 2014. My assessment: 24/7 … [Read more...]
Davidson Hosts College Library Director Mentoring Program Seminar
March 25, 2016 By
Over Spring Break, Davidson’s library hosted the annual seminar of the College Library Director Mentoring Program. This program, meant to provide new college library directors with mentors and a cohort, brought 17 new directors and three seminar leaders to campus. I also serve as a seminar leader. The curriculum over two-and-a-half days was intense, focusing on leadership development and big-picture thinking but also meeting participants’ needs for nitty-gritty management advice, too. The … [Read more...]
Library Publishing Initiatives
December 2, 2015 By
I’m grateful to Roger Schonfeld at the Scholarly Kitchen for his synopsis of a study conducted by Ithaka S+R and the Harvard University Library about the organization of scholarly communication at ten major research university libraries. His typology is helping me find some clarity on something I’ve been struggling with lately: libraries as open access publishers. What’s troubling me is the how, not the what. Scholarly publishing in its current form is on an unsustainable path; it must change or … [Read more...]
Associated Colleges of the South – Directors Meeting
March 5, 2015 By
The library directors (or designees) of the 16 institutions in the Associated Colleges of the South gathered last week in Atlanta. It was the first such birds-of-a-feather ACS meeting to include an attendee from each of the colleges, which made us librarians proud. ACS’s new president, R. Owen Williams, joined us for the entire meeting. I was impressed that he didn’t just pop in, deliver a greeting, and go on to more important activities. Instead, he spent a significant amount of his time, … [Read more...]
The Library as Spinach
August 20, 2014 By
(Think slimy canned spinach, not delicious fresh spinach in a tasty salad.) My first job as a librarian was in a theological seminary, where we had students aged 22-50 and beyond, many with small children. One day a student came into the library with his fussy toddler, clearly juggling child care responsibilities with the need to do some library research. As the understandably bored child whined and began to act up, the student said, “Stop it, or that librarian [pointing at me] will make you … [Read more...]
