Category Archives: Library Events

11th Annual (2nd Virtual) Edible Books Festival

Posted on by

In many ways it feels like it’s been a very long year since we had to go virtual with the 2020 Milligan Libraries’ Edible Books Festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then again, now that we’ve just concluded our 2021 Edible Books Festival, it sort-of feels odd that a whole year has passed us by already. Maybe that’s a good thing.

The festival rules are very simple. Submissions are received from the larger Milligan University community (students, alumni, faculty, staff, and family members) that are book-themed and edible. That’s it. Otherwise, we encourage creativity and we very much enjoy humor. Submissions receive votes from the community on the Most Creative, Funniest/Punniest, Overall Favorite, and (during normal years) Tastiest.

This year’s festival — our eleventh — ran from Monday-Thursday, April 12-15. Due to the lingering pandemic, we again celebrated the event virtually. Photographs of entries were submitted by the end of day on Monday and posted to the library’s Facebook page. Voting commenced on Tuesday-Wednesday (votes were cast using the appropriate emoji), and the winners were announced on Thursday.

This year, we received 14 submissions. Congratulations to former student Grace Jackson, winner of the Funniest/Punniest award for Cold Mountain Dew, and to Filo Lopez, who won both Most Creative and Overall Favorite awards for his rendition of Dante’s Inferno. (Filo is a Humanities 102 student who also submitted Dante’s Inferno as his Humanities Creativity Project.) Both winners received Dunkin’ gift cards.

You can view all the 2021 Milligan Libraries Edible Books Festival submissions on our Facebook page here. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Here’s hoping that next year we can hold the festival in person so that we can actually sample all the submissions, and cast our votes for the Tastiest!

“Faces of the First Ladies”: New Archives Exhibit at Welshimer Library

Posted on by

The Holloway Archives at Milligan University has recently installed a new exhibit for Fall 2020 in the Welshimer Library. “Faces of the First Ladies: A Photo Exhibit of Milligan’s First Ladies, 1882-1968” displays over two dozen photos of Milligan’s presidential wives, from Sarah LaRue Hopwood to Dorothy Keister Walker. Included in the exhibit are short descriptions of these women, including how long they served as first ladies and who their husbands — the presidents — were.

Perlea Derthick

“The presidents get a lot of the spotlight in Milligan history, but the ladies have an interesting history too,” says Katherine Banks, University Archivist. “Sarah LaRue Hopwood was just as much a part of Milligan’s founding and early years as Josephus was. Perlea Derthick ran the school while Henry was away, which was often. Dorothy Keister Walker was an ordained minister and evangelist in the 1950s and 1960s.”

Dorothy Keister Walker and Dean Walker

May Day Play, Olive Garrett on far right, circa 1896

While many of the photos in the exhibit are portraits of the women, Banks points out that several of them speak to the women’s involvement in the school as well. “Some of the only photos I could find for the early first ladies were of them with a group of faculty or with students,” Banks says.

Additionally, there are some photos of the women that show their personal side. “One of my favorite photos in this exhibit is of Sarah LaRue Hopwood with a parrot on her shoulder! Typically, you think of photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s as being stiff and unsmiling. But this photo breaks that stereotype and speaks to Sarah’s love of animals.”

Sarah LaRue Hopwood, circa 1898

“We’re in a unique position this fall, with the pandemic, which may limit who will be able to see any archival exhibits,” Banks says. “I thought doing an exhibit that was heavily visual would be helpful for having an online version of the exhibit, so that people viewing the exhibit online wouldn’t feel like they were missing anything.” The exhibit is available for online viewing on Milligan DigitalRepository, Milligan’s online archival repository. Although slightly different in format than the physical exhibit, viewers can still see all the same information and photos that they would see in person. For those able to see the exhibit in person, it is available for viewing on the main floor (first floor) of Welshimer Library in the archival exhibit cases.

 

First Ladies of Milligan, 1882-1968:

  • Sarah Eleanor (LaRue) Hopwood, First Lady 1875-1903, 1915-1917
  • Olive Leola (Hanen) Garrett, First Lady 1903-1908
  • Pearl Katherine (Archer) Kershner, First Lady 1909-1911
  • Aileen (Moore) Utterback, First Lady 1911-1913
  • Allie (McCorkel) McDiarmid, First Lady 1913-1914
  • Elizabeth (Murphy) McKissick, First Lady 1914-1915
  • Perlea Derthick, First Lady 1917-1940
  • Florence Elizabeth (Anthony) Burns, First Lady 1940-1944
  • Geneva Dora (Tarr) Elliott, First Lady 1944-1948
  • Mary Lewis, First Lady 1948-1950
  • Florence (Ley) Walker, First Lady 1950-1960
  • Dorothy (Keister) Walker, First Lady 1962-1968

Library continues community engagement virtually with Story Time and Finals Week Therapy Animals

Posted on by

Recently, I reported how Milligan Libraries successfully pivoted to holding its 10th Annual Edible Books Festival virtually after the campus was closed and classes were moved online better than halfway through Spring semester, in response to shelter-in-place orders surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. We are a library that highly values opportunities to engage with our user community. We have very much missed meeting students and faculty in the library buildings.

We talked as a staff about how we could maintain library services and community engagement during this time. We felt pretty good that we were prepared to deliver needed information resources through a wide array of electronic content accessible from the library website, and we regularly monitor our communication channels (telephone, email, and chat) to respond in a timely way to requests for research assistance. But we knew more informal engagement would require some creativity.

Library Story Time

In addition to the aforementioned virtual Edible Books Festival, we were pleased to invite members of the faculty to record readings of favorite children’s story books and post them in the Library Story Time course on Canvas. We collected 10 readings (with the permission of the publishers) and posted these throughout the month of April. These included:

  • Are You ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems, read by Research and Instruction Librarian Mary Jackson
  • Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester, read by Associate Professor of Counseling Christine Browning
  • Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, read by Associate Professor of Counseling Shauna Nefos-Webb
  • What Do You Do With a Chance? by Kobi Yamada, read by Professor of Music Kellie Brown
  • Inside, Outside, Upside Down by Stan and Jan Berenstain, read by Associate Professor of Nursing Mary Fabick
  • The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, read by Professor of History and Humanities Tim Dillon
  • Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, read by Professor of Psychology Lori Mills
  • The Old Woman and The Pig an Old English tale retold by Assistant Professor of Business Administration Kristal Dove
  • El Arbol Generoso (The Giving Tree) by Shel Silverstein, read in Spanish by Associate Professor of Spanish and Humanities Allysha Martin
  • Voyage to the Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells, read by Associate Professor of Bible and Humanities John Jackson

Virtual Therapy Animals

At the end of every semester since Fall 2013 the Welshimer Library has received special guests during Final Exam Week. Therapy dogs and their owner/trainers — and occasionally kittens, too — would come in to help students cope with this stressful time. Obviously, this wouldn’t be possible this semester. Though not the same, perhaps, we thought we could still deliver the experience of animal visits to students virtually. User Services Librarian Catherine Hammer assembled several video playlists on our YouTube channel, featuring, therapy dogs and cats, cute baby animals, and videos that are relaxing by virtue of their satisfaction they provide while viewing.

Finals Week is winding down — along with the semester and the school year — but there is always time to watch dog, cat, and cute baby animal videos, right?

Milligan Libraries hopes you had a great year, even though the last part was disruptive and a little strange. We hope you have a good summer. Please stay healthy and safe. If you are not graduating, we look forward to seeing you in the Fall!

10th Annual Edible Books Festival goes virtual!

Posted on by

Planning was underway for Milligan Libraries’ 10th Annual Edible Books Festival when the word came down that Spring Break was to be extended for another week and then the campus was to be closed due to the growing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. With available time shortened, and then with classes moving online for the rest of the semester, what was to become of Edible Books on this auspicious anniversary? Would we have to cancel? No! We would just move the festival online along with classes! “Most folks will be home and close to their kitchens,” reasoned Research and Instruction Librarian Mary Jackson. “In some ways it will be easier for them to bake something up at home than if they were on campus.”

As the name suggests, the simple idea behind the Edible Books Festival is that persons create and submit an edible treat with a book theme. Beyond this there aren’t many rules. The idea originated with the founding of the International Edible Books Festival around 2000. We held our first festival at Welshimer Library in April of 2011. Since then, it has become a Spring tradition — a special event to engage with the Milligan College community.

In normal years, Milligan students, faculty, staff, and family members would submit their entries in person to the Welshimer Room at the Library. On the first day folks would cast votes for Most Creative, Funniest/Punniest, and Overall Favorite. Then on the morning of the second day library staff would sample from the entries to determine the Tastiest entry before the Milligan community was invited back to Welshimer to taste from all the entries. Winning entries each receive a prize.

This year, beginning on Monday, March 30, folks submitted photos of their entry/ies via email along with their name and book title(s). Entries were received through Monday, April 13. We received 28 entries — the most we’ve ever had.

On the days leading up to the submission deadline, highlights from the previous nine Edible Books Festivals were featured on our Instagram channel. An album of entries was created on our Facebook channel, and voting commenced on Tuesday and Wednesday. Using unique emojis, folks voted for their Most Creative, Funniest/Punniest, and Overall Favorite. Unfortunately, this year we could not award a Tastiest entry — though it appears Katherine and her brother are enjoying her entry:

Though not as uniform as when folks voted in person, online voting was still pretty brisk. And the winners are:

Most Creative, awarded a $5 Dunkin’ gift card, went to Katherine Eldridge for How the Grinch Stole Graduation! by Dr. Seuss (receiving 65 total votes)

Funniest/Punniest, also awarded a $5 Dunkin’ gift card, went to Mary Jackson for Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (receiving 40 total votes)

Overall Favorite, awarded a $10 Dunkin’ gift card, went to Jenny Simonsen for Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne (receiving 107 total votes)

Congratulations to our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in our 10th Edible Books Festival! “I wasn’t really sure what to expect,” said Mary Jackson. “But we had the highest number of entries we have ever had! There was a lot voting and sharing on Facebook. I am very pleased with how it turned out.” If you haven’t already done so, be sure to take a look at all the entries on our Facebook event photo album.

Own a piece of Milligan Library history!

Posted on by

How do you go about finding a book in the Welshimer or Emmanuel Seminary Library? If you are like most Milligan College or Seminary students or faculty today, the answer is obvious: you fire up your computer, launch your web browser and point it to the Milligan Libraries website, pull down the “Resources” menu, select “Books/Media Catalog” and then select “Milligan & Libraries Worldwide” to launch the online catalog. Search for the title. If we have the book in print or electronic (ebook) format, the record will pop up in your search results. The record will show you where the book can be found (library and call number location), and it even tells you if the book is currently available.

The card catalog

This wasn’t always the case, however. If you can believe it, once upon a time book records were typed on physical 3 x 5 inch cardboard cards (Title, Author/Editor, and Subject cards were created for each book) which were then arranged in wooden cabinets, collectively called the card catalog.

Here is a card that instructed students and faculty on the use of the card catalog.

The Holloway Archives at Milligan College, located in the basement of the Welshimer Library, still has one of the library’s old card catalog cabinets.

The Milligan College Library used a physical card catalog until the first online catalog went into service in the Fall of 1995. As it happens, the library was at the forefront of implementing computer technology on campus. The library implemented its first computerized library management system in 1988. Of course this was before the internet was (commonly) a thing, and the system was not networked. In a Stampede editorial from March 1988, then library director Steven Preston noted that the library system was used to print catalog cards.

In 1992, a collaboration between Milligan College, Emory & Henry College, King College (now King University), and (since closed) Virginia Intermont College resulted in the receipt of a 5-year United States Department of Education Title III grant that would be used to computerize the library catalog and create a barcode checkout system. Also during this time the Milligan College IT Department was installing fiber optic cable to create a campus-wide computer network that would be connected to the internet. Of interest, in an article from the September 30, 1992 issue of the Stampede, Steven Preston mused that “in the future, students and faculty will be able to link into the [library] system from their rooms and offices.” A Stampede article from May 3, 1996 covering Spring Board of Trustees meetings made specific reference to the newly implemented online catalog when it reported “[library] information is now easier to find due to the computerization of the card catalogs.”

What to do with all those card catalog record cards?

The transition from a physical card catalog to a computerized online catalog was a labor intensive process, as all the library’s catalog records needed to be translated into computer readable format. This process was outsourced to a company called Western Library Network (WLN) utilizing our card catalog record cards. The long and the short of this process was that after the records were computerized, boxes and boxes of catalog cards were returned to us to dispose of, or use as we saw fit. Since the old record cards were only printed on a single side, what ended up happening was that they were used around the library as scrap note cards. Ironically, a common use was that students or faculty would search the online catalog for a book and write the book’s call number on an old card catalog record card before heading to the stacks.

The library had so many boxes of these cards that it seemed as though they would last forever. But as it turns out, we recently reduced our backlog to a single box. We started to put the cards out next to the catalog computer as usual. But it then occurred to us that these cards were a part of Milligan Library history — a history we wanted to share with our users. So we’ve put this box at the Circulation Desk of Welshimer Library. Come by and take a card or two as a memento — a piece of Milligan Library history for you to own. But don’t wait too long. When they’re gone, they’re gone.