Author Archives: Gary Daught

Fourth Annual Edible Books Festival: Books reduced to tasty crumbs!

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2014 Edible Books Poster

The poster announcing the P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library’s Fourth Annual Edible Books Festival on Monday-Tuesday, April 7-8, 2014 added the tagline “A Spring Tradition.” Based on the turnout of entries and persons coming into the library to vote and subsequently partake of the goodies the tagline definitely proved apt. This year we had 21 submissions, over 160 votes were cast for each of four entry categories, and by the early afternoon on Tuesday almost everything had been reduced to crumbs (we lost count of the number of tasters after 96 paper plates that had been put out were gone). Participation in the Edible Books Festival was enhanced again this year with submissions from Freshman Humanities creativity projects.

The mood was festive and celebratory as students, faculty, and staff streamed into the Welshimer Room just off the library main lobby to participate. Special thanks goes out to Mary Jackson (Research and Instruction Librarian) and Meredith Sommers (Information Resources Librarian & College Archivist) for organizing this year’s festival. Gary Daught (Director of Library Services) designed the poster and event banner.

The winning entries

A Farewell to Arms

Funniest/Punniest: A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway) by Mary Jackson

Much Ado About Nothing

Most Creative: Much Ado About Nothing (William Shakespeare) by Lucy Gaudiano

The Monster's Book of Monsters

Tastiest: The Monster’s Book of Monsters (from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling) by Alicya Suit

The Cat in the Hat

Overall Favorite: The Cat in the Hat (Dr. Seuss) by Grace Jackson

Books reduced to tasty crumbs!

The Aftermath: Books reduced to tasty crumbs!

Jake the therapy dog visits Milligan students during Finals Week

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Jake

The Library played host to some very special guests on Monday-Wednesday of Finals Week. Jake, a certified therapy dog and his owner/handler, retired Milligan College Biology Professor Dr. Julia Wade, were here for three mornings last week to help students cope with the potential stresses of final exams.

“In recent years, therapy dogs have been popular in educational settings,” says Dr. Wade. “Children who have trouble reading aloud in front of a class can read to a therapy dog without fear or anxiety. The dog does not judge or talk back, and is an excellent listener. They are counselors with fur! In 2009, colleges and universities started using therapy dogs to relieve stress in students studying for final exams.”

Jake is a Golden Retriever certified through Therapy Dogs International. He also passed the test to become an American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen. Jake and Dr. Wade have been involved in this rewarding mission for about three and a half years.

“I wanted to combine my love of dogs with a respect and admiration for those in the medical profession by volunteering to visit hospital patients who might need an emotional lift. God’s Word teaches us that it is important to help those who are in need. About a month ago, I visited a lady from ETSU who said that they sometimes had therapy dogs come to their library the week of final exams to de-stress students preparing for those exams. It occurred to me that Jake might come to Milligan College for an hour or two during exam week and let the students pet him.”

“I am so glad that Dr. Wade contacted us about having Jake come to Milligan College,” said Gary Daught, director of the library. “He was an instant hit with the students! I hope Jake will come back and visit us again–maybe at the end of Spring semester.”

 

Library Homecoming 2013 event: Reimagining books as works of art

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As we considered how the Library might participate in this year’s Homecoming weekend celebration (October 25-27, 2013), we stumbled upon a wonderful idea from the Claremont (California) Colleges Library. They have developed a “repurposed book art contest” called RE:BOOK. The RE:BOOK contest was conceived to “[invite] students to submit projects made from worn-out books and other forms of cast-off paper.” The planners posed a question as the basis of RE:BOOK: “When does a book outlive its intended use, and what (legitimately) happens next?”**

We weren’t (at this stage) so much interested in delving into a philosophical conversation about the life-cycle of books as we were looking for a creative Fall book-related event to engage Milligan College students, faculty, and staff, which could also serve as a nice complement to the Edible Books Festival we put on in the Spring.

Since we didn’t know what to expect in terms of entry response the first time around, we decided to pair the idea of reimagining books as art with a display of some of the wonderful art books we have in the Library collection. This led naturally to a name for our event: Art Book+Book Art. We also decided that instead of awarding prizes for favorite entries, we would simply hold a drawing where one lucky (non-staff) entrant could win a $25 Amazon gift card.

We were very pleased by the initial response. We had 14 entries submitted by 6 artists, representing both students, faculty, and library staff. Student Anna Dukart was the winner of the Amazon gift card. The exhibit was set up in the back study area on the Main Floor of the Library throughout Homecoming weekend. It will remain up through Friday, November 8 if you haven’t yet had a chance to see it in person.

We love the idea of having the Library serve as a venue for art. We definitely plan to hold the event again next year. We hope that it will become an annual Fall/Homecoming tradition. Here are photographs from this year’s Art Book+Book Art exhibit (click on a thumbnail to enlarge):


** Tagge, N. and Booth, C. (2013, September). Constructive destruction: Examining the life cycle of texts through RE:BOOK. College & Research Libraries News, 74(8), 402-407.

“It’s Your Library!” promotes services and encourages a sense of ownership

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Beginning with a “Welcome Back” banner hung in front of the building, followed by handing out “6 Thing we can help you with TODAY” bookmarks and our newest library pens at New Student Orientation, and adding a subtle update to the library website (and library staff email signatures), the Milligan College Library launched its “It’s Your Library: …and so much more!” promotional campaign for the 2013-14 academic year.

“It’s Your Library!” is the brainchild of User Services Librarian, Jeff Harbin and Library Director, Gary Daught. “We will be hanging new banners throughout the year,” said Harbin. “We want to keep the consistent ‘It’s Your Library!’ branding, but highlight different library services we think our users find most valuable–things such as research assistance, study spaces, and MCSearch. The ‘and so much more!’ aspect stresses that the whole is greater than the sum of any one library service highlighted at the time. Plus there’s the relational aspect we value and are trying to promote. All library services at some level are delivered to our users by competent, helpful, and caring staff.”

“That’s right!” added Daught. “We wanted to create an attractive promotional vehicle to enhance the visibility of the library to Milligan students and faculty while also encouraging them to take a greater sense of ownership in the library. The library exists for our users. So we figured, instead of talking about ‘what the library can do for you’ we would talk about ‘what your library can do for you.’ It’s a small but important change. The services are the same, but the relationship with our users is strengthened.”

Downloadable e-books in EBSCO Academic Collection now with 30-Day checkout period!

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In an earlier post, I walked you through the steps for downloading e-books from the Library’s EBSCOhost eBook Collections to your computer for offline reading. You will recall I pointed out that if the e-book is downloadable you would see this label in the title record:

Download This eBook (Offline)

At the time I first posted these instructions, the download or  “checkout” period of all our EBSCOhost e-books was limited to seven (7) days. I am pleased to report that the checkout period for the downloadable titles in our EBSCOhost Academic eBooks Collection has been extended to 30 days–the same checkout period we provide for our physical lending books. This extended period reduces some of the inconvenience of having to re-download the title after only a week–especially nice if you have also taken the steps to transfer a downloaded e-book to your mobile device of e-reader.

If the e-book you have selected for downloading is available for this 30-day checkout period, you will see this dialog box during the download process:

Please note that this extended checkout applies only to the EBSCOhost Academic eBooks Collection. The Library’s older EBSCOhost eBooks Collection (what some of you may know as our NetLibrary Collection) is still limited to a 7-day checkout. Incidentally, unlike this older collection, the Academic eBooks Collection also supports unlimited simultaneous users. You should never encounter a turn-away for any title you would like to read from this collection.

Please feel free to contact the Library if you have any questions, or if you would like assistance with the download/checkout or transfer to mobile procedure.