Milligan Library Life

by the staff of P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library & Seminary Library

Living history: Navy V-12 alumni share their stories

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Tuesday afternoon I joined members of the Phi Alpha Theta history honors society for a luncheon with local alumni of Milligan’s Navy V-12 program. These men came to Milligan between summer 1943 and summer 1945 as part of the Navy’s WWII officer training program. During those two years, the Milligan student body was composed entirely of Navy trainees and the campus was considered a naval base. Jane Anne Thomas organized the luncheon as part of Project Profile, which aims “to bring people in the Milligan community together with students, staff, and faculty they would not otherwise know.”

While we ate, the students, Theresa Garbe, Dr. and Jane Anne Thomas, and I talked to the V-12 alumni and their wives about classes and military training at Milligan. We took notes, were shown photographs of the men as uniformed students, and heard stories about what Milligan Blues inspection on Anglin Fieldwas like in the wartime 1940s. Back then, Stan Johnson told me, Milligan only had four buildings – the Administration Building (Derthick), Hardin Hall (then a dorm), Pardee Hall, and Cheek Gymnasium. Trainees woke up at 6am, reported for drill on Anglin Field for an hour, and went to “chow” at 7. Classes were taught by Milligan’s civilian faculty, including Sam Jack Hyder and Ivor Jones. A typical class load was between 17 and 20 hours with strong emphasis on math, engineering, and naval history. Basketball, baseball, wrestling, and football teams were formed and competed against other schools. In addition, an obstacleObstacle course course was set up in the athletic field and a running course wound around campus and up Pardee Hill (now Sutton Hill). Lights went out at 10pm after a long day of classes and physical training.

Many, but not all, of the young men who went through the V-12 program were deployed. After the war, some stayed in the Navy while others returned to civilian life. In 1945 Milligan was decommissioned as a naval base and launched a vigorous student recruitment campaign to help make the transition back into civilian use. In 1980 the first reunion of the Milligan V-12 alumni was held, and since then further reunions have been organized every couple of years. In talking with these alums, we could feel that they had good memories of their time on campus, were impressed with how far the college has come, and were delighted to share their stories about the V-12 and beyond with us.

If you would like to learn more about the Navy V-12 at Milligan, come by the Archives. We have lots of pictures and other materials to see!

Milligan Grad Joins Library Staff

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After a seven month search the Library has a new Public Services Librarian. His name is Jeff Harbin, and he is a graduate of Milligan College.

Jeff Harbin enrolled at Milligan College in 1999 and graduated in 2003 with a degree in English. He began working in the P. H. Welshimer Memorial Library as a work-study student his sophomore year, and his experiences in the library inspired him to pursue a career as an academic librarian. Jeff completed his master’s degree in library science from the Catholic University of America in 2006, and has worked in a number of libraries in the Washington, D.C. area. Jeff is excited by the opportunity to return to Milligan, and he is confident his knowledge of the college and the library will enable him to promote the library’s services to the Milligan community. Jeff also hopes not to bore current students with aimless yarns that begin, “Well, when I was a student here…” He is married to Debbie Harbin, whom he met during the Spring 2002 semester at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Oxford, England.

Jeff fills the position vacated by Tami Pettit, who resigned in July 2007. Being short-staffed has been a bit of a challenge for the Library, though essential public services tasks (e.g., supervision of student workers, and circulation issues) have been handled admirably by Jan Ricker, our Interlibrary Loans Manager.

“Although we have been short-handed for almost an entire academic year, the opening of the Public Services Librarian position has really proven to be a blessing in disguise,” or so says Gary Daught, Director of Library Services. “This opening has given us the opportunity to rethink the nature and delivery of public services at the Milligan College Library. ‘Traditional’ administrative, technical, and relational tasks relating to circulation of library resources, maintenance of library patron records, and the supervision of our student workers will continue to be important tasks of the Public Services Librarian. However, as the ways in which students and faculty access and use information resources continues to change, the academic library needs to change accordingly. We need to apply new energy, imagination, and creative thinking to reach out and promote library resources, library services, and library spaces to the Milligan College learning community. We are envisioning the Library as a destination for our students and faculty–a learning destination, a cultural activities destination, and a social destination. Jeff is energized by our vision, and I am very excited that he is coming to help us bring this vision into reality.”

Jeff will start on April 1. Be on the lookout for an invitation to a reception planned for before the end of the semester, where you will have an opportunity to meet Jeff and welcome him back to the Milligan College community.

Website Tweak Simplifies Search for Library Journal Holdings

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The Library collection includes not only books, and non-print media (CDs, DVDs, etc.) but also journals and magazines. Journals and magazines are an important medium of written communication.

  • Popular magazines inform or entertain general audiences on a wide variety of topics and interests (e.g., current news, computers, or cats).
  • Professional journals and magazines report on news and current practices within specialized professions (e.g., teaching and education, or nursing and healthcare).
  • Academic (or peer-reviewed) journals report on the results of research from various disciplines of scholarly study (e.g., Medieval history, physics, or Old Testament biblical studies).

The Library subscribes to many different journals and magazines of these various types, in both print and electronic formats. Until recently, if you wanted to find out what journals and magazines the Library held, you had to first browse a listing of print titles and then search for available titles in electronic full-text format. We are pleased to announce that you can now search for all the library’s journal and magazine holdings, in either print or electronic format, from a single location.

From the homepage of the Library website, click on the Electronic & Print Periodicals link. The link takes you to a journal search and browse service called Serials Solutions.

If, for example, you wanted to find Library holdings for the magazine Smithsonian, simply type the title in the “Find” box and click the “Search” button. The results indicate that we have holdings of Smithsonian in print and electronically in two online databases.

Smithsonian

Although we observe that most users prefer to access journal articles electronically, don’t forget that print can still be very useful. Notice that our print holdings of Smithsonian stretch back to 1971, while our holdings in electronic format only go back to 1983. If your research required you to secure an article in an issue from 1979, you would not be able to get it in electronic format. But it is available in print! (Back issues of all our print periodicals can be found in the compact shelving in the basement level of the Library.)

We hope this one-stop interface will help to simplify your search for journals and magazines held by the Library. Remember that articles from journals or magazines not held by the Library in either print or electronic format can be requested from interlibrary loan by filling out the webform here.

Research Assistance From the Comfort of Your Computer!

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Did you know you can receive personalized research assistance from a librarian from the comfort of your computer? Although it has not been widely publicized, beginning in Fall Semester 2007, we posted a prominent link for accessing online research assistance on the Welcome Page of the Milligan College Library website.

“Ask A Librarian” button

Clicking on the “Ask a Librarian” button links you to a page where you have the option of either initiating a real-time chat session with a librarian, or leaving an email that will be replied to by the Reference Librarian within 24 hours.

Utilize the embedded instant messaging (IM) window to initiate a chat session. This nifty service is provided by meebo.com. No separate software is required. The status bar at the top of the chat window will indicate whether the service is on- (green balloon) or off-line (red balloon). You can remain anonymous, or you can highlight the “meeboguest” nickname and type-in your real name.

We are still working out a regular schedule for this service, but it is generally staffed by the Reference Librarian 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, and by an evening Library staff member until 11:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.

If our chat service is offline, you can scroll further down on the page and fill-out the web form. When you submit the form an email of your research question will be routed to the Reference Librarian, who will make every effort to reply within 24 hours.

We are providing this online service in an attempt to assist you in a timely manner, regardless of your location. (We imagine this service will be especially appreciated by our non-resident students in graduate and adult degree completion programs.) But please bear in mind that not all research questions are easily handled through chat or email. Your question may require more extensive interaction and resource searching. The Librarian assisting you may recommend that you setup an appointment for in-person research consult. We want to reach out and be where our users are. But we also love to have you visit us here…in the Library!

New Self-Checkout Station in the Library

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The Library is pleased to announce that you now have the option of checking-out your own books by using the new Self-Check Station located at the Circulation Counter.

Self-Check Station Click here to see larger image

All you need is your current Milligan ID card with you when you are ready to checkout your books. The procedure is fairly simple to follow:

  1. Use Self-Check for checking-out books only (no periodicals, DVDs, or other media).
  2. Wake Self-Check by moving the mouse.
  3. Scan the barcode on your Milligan ID card.
  4. Scan the barcode on each of your books.
  5. When you are finished scanning all your books click the “Finished” button.
  6. Take your receipt from the receipt printer. The receipt serves as your record of check-outs, and tells you when your books are due.*
  7. “Desensitize” each book using the metal device to the right of the receipt printer. Push book spine-side-down away from you (in the direction of the arrow) across the desensitizer. Alarm will sound if books are not desensitized!

Self-Check Station Demo Click here to see larger image

The Self-Check Station will not replace the presence of real humans to greet and assist you at the Circulation Counter. At this point, Self-Check is limited for checking-out books only. You will need to go through the regular check-out procedure if, for example, you have DVDs or Reserve materials to check-out. Also, you may not be able to use Self-Check if you have an issue with your patron account (e.g., overdue books, or billed items). Like the self-check aisle in the grocery store, the purpose of Self-Check is to add an element of choice, convenience, and user empowerment in accessing Library services. We hope you will give Self-Check a try, and then let us know what you think!

* We have been using receipt printers at the Circulation Counter since the beginning of the 2007 Fall Semester. This in itself is something of a technological advancement for the Library. Not only do receipt printers enable the use of Self-Check, they also eliminate the need for manual date-stamping of all checked-out items.