Is it August yet?

In less than a month it will be August 19th. For the staff of the LITC this means making sure we finish up all our summer projects, and adding a few new ones...

Libraries are always changing. We rethink procedures, incorporate new technologies, move stuff around, to make information gathering easier. In a previous blog entry we told library patrons to expect BIG changes to Periodicals. That turned out to be a bit of an understatement.

We’re reshaping a portion of the first floor of the LITC, making it more conducive to study as well as allowing us an opportunity to spotlight some under-appreciated areas of our collection.
College and Career Planning has received a complete face lift, while Periodicals has been carefully weeded and shifted.

• These display shelves can be raised to reveal even more comprehensive resources for education and career decision making. There are books for determining your personality type, exploring Majors, locating graduate schools, and procuring a career.

Newspapers have found a new home facing the lounge area and our Recreational Reading collection will be jumping to the Computer Center.

• It may not be “Literature” but it sure is fun. Recreational Reading is exactly what it sounds like, a collection that offers patrons more leisurely titles. Look for big names like Stephen King, James Patterson, Nora Roberts and Nicholas Sparks to frequent this section.

• Also, look for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on our Kindle, currently on display at the Circulation Desk.

Our summer has proven to be productive - major shifts in the Juvenile and Art Collections, countless trips to Kalmia Gardens and a lot of hard work in Archives. With the addition of these newer modifications we are looking forward to better serving students when they return in August.

Briefly: LITC will close at 2PM on Fridays through July

The Coker LITC will close at 2PM on Friday afternoons for the month of July.

Remember you can renew most library materials by using the My Account feature on the Coker Library online catalog.

Chalok Literacy Project

Maggie Meyer, a recent Coker Alum, is completing a Fulbright grant as an English Teaching Assistant in Chalok Terengganu, Malaysia. She would like to collect used English language books for her students -- new English books in Malaysia are prohibitively expensive.

Here's how you can help:

" [The book(s)] can be any size you want. It can be about anything you think students would like to read. Ideally, books would be fiction and appropriate for intermediate English speakers. The age range of the students is anywhere between 10-19 years old, so topics can range from fictional animals and adventures to how to gain admission to American colleges."

Also:

"Head online to www.amazon.com. From there, locate and click on the Wish List button in the top right hand corner. A wish list search bar will appear. Type in Chalok Literacy Project. You can choose from a hearty selection of books, purchase them through their secure server and select to deliver them automatically to the CLP gift registry address."

Maggie also writes:

"Caution should be exercised when sending books that include opinions on religious and political matters. These subjects are extremely sensitive in Malaysia as the large majority of the population is conservatively Muslim."

For more information, including mailing instructions please e-mail Maggie at ChalokLiteracyProject@gmail.com

For more information on Maggie's year in Malaysia, read her blog here.

Good luck Maggie!

Did you know that there are books in the Garden?

One of Coker and Hartsville's best kept secrets is Kalmia Gardens. Located on West Carolina Avenue about five minutes from campus, Kalmia Gardens is a 35 acre botanical garden that is the gateway to the larger 796-acre Segars-McKinnon Heritage Preserve.

Admission to Kalmia is my favorite price -- free -- and is open from dawn until dusk. It is a perfect place to relax and enjoy nature.



But did you know that Kalmia houses Coker Library's botanical, horticultural and nature collection? This recently re-organized collection contains several hundred books covering everything from field guides and regional planting to ornithology (birdwatching!) and much more!

The Kalmia Collection can be searched specifically using the LITC's online catalog, selecting "Advanced," and then selecting "Kalmia Collection" from the drop down limiters list.

Stop by today!

From the Library Archives...Or You Thought You Had it Tough!

Nancy Matthews has been busy this summer reorganizing the Coker College archives. She has found some really interesting items, including an article about Ralph Nader's sister, who attended Coker back in the late 1940s.

Her latest find is a list of offenses from the 1920s that could have resulted in suspension or expulsion from the college. Take a look:

• Taking two or three steps in the parlor with a young man

• Wearing colored shoes downtown

• Making humming noises during meditation

• Washing face after light bell

• Wearing blue skirt and white middy* to dinner

• Impertinence to a council member and general ill attitude toward student government rules

• Threw tin cans and glass bottles over the railing on 3^rd floor to the 2^nd floor

• Bathing during study period

• Visit the drugstore two times in one week

• Talking to a young man on campus without permission

• Brushing teeth in hall after light bell

• Talking to a young man in drugstore

• Riding with boys morning and night without permission

• Singing and attracting attention on Richardson Porch at night

• Called before the executive board for smoking cigarettes in the college

• Restricted to the campus for 6 weeks for meeting and talking to young men at friend’s home on Sunday night

• Cutting breakfast, dinner, church…

Keep in mind that Coker was a women's college until the 1960s, although men were allowed to take classes on campus in the 1940s.


*The painting above is titled Young Girl in a Middy Blouse by Martha Simkins (1910). Thanks to CarolinaArts.com for the picture. I wasn't sure what a middy was either. I wonder if a blue middy would have been acceptable at dinner?

PaperCut - Expect BIG changes to Periodicals

Every summer we weed through our Periodical section, pulling and cutting titles that no longer support Coker’s curriculum. This year, with the nation in recession and academic libraries across the country facing major budget cuts, trimming the periodicals seems more important than ever. Currently, it looks as though we’ll be saying goodbye to a dozen titles, some moving exclusively to the Kindle while others will be available through our online databases. Link resolvers like Journal Finder should play an even greater role in the way we research, allowing LITC patrons access to over 27,000 different journals, magazine and newspapers.

The titles we chose to cut were picked for a variety of reasons - some rarely circulate and don’t get browsed, while others were far too expensive for us to justify keeping in print. In a few instances we had three or more titles all dealing with a similar topic. In all cases we seek the opinion of Coker faculty familiar with the subject of the periodical being considered for the cut.

It is also important to note, the current issues of the periodicals recieving the axe will not be discarded. They will find a new home on the shelves of our Back Periodicals Collection, located on the first floor of the library. Newspapers, magazines and journals can be searched in our catalog just like books, so there’s no need to waste time browsing if you have a specific title in mind.

Book Shift

One of our major projects this summer is to shift both the art and juvenile collections. But what does "shifting" mean? And why does it need to be done?

Shifting a collection of books makes better use of available space, particularly with rapidly growing collections. Our art and juvenile sections are probably the fastest growing areas of our collection, and space needs to be created for new holdings.

We have plenty of space for new books, but some shelves or stacks are more full than others. Shifting distributes the books evenly across the entire area of the collection, opening up space for future books or materials.

First, we calculate in linear inches the total amount of space for a particular collection. From that we estimate an approximate fill rate percentage for each shelf and convert that to a shelf measurement. For instance, our Juvenile collection will have 18 inches of books for each shelf for a fill rate percentage of 50%. Can you guess how long the shelves are? Put your answer in the comments below.