What’s New at Brookens

Brookens Library will implement adjusted summer hours beginning 12 May.  The hours will eventually be posted on our homepage and on our Hours and Phone Numbers page.

A sneak peek:

12-25 May:
9a-5p Monday thru Friday
CLOSED Saturday and Sunday

26 May:
CLOSED for Memorial Day

27 May - 1 June:
9a-5p Monday thru Friday
CLOSED Saturday and Sunday

2 June - 3 July:
8:30a-10p Monday thru Thursday
8:30a-6p Friday
10a-6p Saturday
2p-10p Sunday

4 July:
CLOSED for Independence Day

5-25 July:
8:30a-10p Monday thru Thursday
8:30a-6p Friday
10a-6p Saturday
2p-10p Sunday

26 July - 23 August:
9a-5p Monday thru Friday
CLOSED Saturday and Sunday

24 August:
1p-Midnight

It takes more than a few skilled librarians to make a library work. Student workers, Civil Service staff, and Academic Professionals all play valuable rolls in maintaining library collections and delivering outstanding services to the UIS community and Springfield. American Library Association will celebrate 15 April as National Library Worker’s Day. Help Brookens Library celebrate by sharing stories of your favorite library moment, exceptional help from someone who works in a library, or another aspect of libraries you find enjoyable.

Instructional Services Librarian:

The Norris L. Brookens Library at the University of Illinois at Springfield seeks candidates for the position of Instructional Services Librarian. Under general guidance of the Chair of Library Instructional Services and working collaboratively with the other Instructional Services faculty, enhances teaching and learning for the students, faculty and staff of the University of Illinois at Springfield through the provision of reference, instruction, collection development, and other services to promote information literacy and lifelong learning. Also provides instructional support for the University of Illinois Global Campus. This position will be part of a group that plans, implements, and assesses library initiatives to provide excellent services for UIS students, faculty, and staff. He/She will be part of the library’s information literacy initiative, serve on library and university committees, and perform collection development activities in his/her assigned areas.

Minimum qualifications:

Master’s degree in Library science or equivalent from an ALA-accredited school; three years post-MLS public service and instructional experience in an academic library. Preferred job qualifications: Background in one or more of the following areas: social sciences, sciences, government documents and/or law. UIS is an EO/AA employer. Persons with disabilities, women, veterans, and minorities are encouraged to apply.
For a complete position description and for details and to apply, please see
http://library.uis.edu/jobs/

Long-time Brookens Library Specialist Ronnie Peddicord was recently named UIS’s Employee of the Month for February. For over 25 years Ron had diligently assisted his fellow library colleagues in their pursuits to more efficiently preserve and disseminate information. More over, he has helped countless UIS students, staff, and faculty obtain the services and materials they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond.

The campus celebrated Ron’s spirited contributions, considerable skill set, and affable personality on 26 February. To read more about Ronnie’s quarter-century of first-rate library assistance please read this press release and view this video.

Brookens’ Handy Writers Colony Collection featured in Illinois Times

In these days of instant access to information online, we sometimes forget that there are whole worlds of information that have never been digitized. Despite the Google library project, most books are available only in libraries and bookstores. And then there are the primary sources—manuscripts, letters, photographs—that a person will only be able to see by going to a library’s special collections department. Such a collection of primary sources provides the basis for the cover story in the February 21 issue of the Illinois Times. The story begins: “The contents of 77 boxes shelved in the special collections department of the Brookens Library at the University of Illinois at Springfield tell a love story, a love story that gave rise to one of the most curious chapters in modern American literature.”

The Handy Writers Colony collection in Special Collections at UIS has been mined by scholars and documentary film makers seeking to learn more about the colony and its most famous resident, James Jones. A documentary about the Handy Colony is to be aired on PBS sometime this year. In the early 1950’s, Jones, the author of From Here to Eternity and other novels, lived and wrote at the colony established by Lowney Handy in Marshall, Illinois. Brookens Library archivist Tom Wood spent several years organizing the 2,000 plus items in the Handy Colony collection to make them more accessible to users. You can learn more about the collection at http://www.uis.edu/archives/handy.html.

The Handy Colony Collection is one of the hidden treasures of the Brookens Library. It is also a reminder that a library is about more than information—go to almost any university library’s special collections and you will find these stories of real people, unfolding on yellowed pieces of paper and fading photographs.

Vernon Burton, Professor of History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will lecture on the subject of his book The Age of Lincoln. The event is sponsored by the Friends of Brookens Library, and we encourage you to join us 13 February at 7pm in the Public Affairs Center rooms C & D to hear Dr. Burton’s engaging and well-researched presentation. Admission is free, and there will be a reception and book signing following the lecture.

Today marks the end of the first week of our Library Services desk. Brookens Library has merged the Information Desk with the Circulation Desk to create a singular point-of-service for you. We think you’ll like having all your library service needs addressed in the same place!

The former location of the Information Desk is being transformed into a Copy & Collaboration Center with printers, a copier, and all the tools you need to create and collate your papers and projects.

We’ll be conducting a survey later in the year to see how you feel about these changes, but please don’t hesitate to tell us now if you have comments or suggestions!

Brookens Library recently subscribed to one of the leading databases covering health and nursing topics. CINAHL Plus is another great electronic resources from EBSCO. Featuring over 620 journals and an easily navigable interface, we think you’ll be pleased with the wealth of information in CINAHL Plus!

You may click here to try CINAHL Plus. And remember, it’ll always be available from our A-Z List of Databases located on the Brookens Library homepage.

Brookens Library’s website is always undergoing changes.  One of the recent additions is the Online Reference Shelf.  You can find the Reference Shelf at our homepage underneath the Need Help column.

The Reference Shelf contains links to online resources designed to provide quick answers and broad overviews of many subjects.  Examples of some of the things you can find are almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and statistics.  The Reference Shelf also points to physical items that you may access in our print Reference Collection at Brookens.  Happy researching!

Greetings! As Spring Semester (I’ve always found some cognitive dissonance in talking about Spring Semester in the middle of January) gets into full swing, I wanted to tell you about some changes that are underway in the library:

• Mary Jane’s café is under construction and we are close to finalizing a contract for food and beverage services. We are hoping for a “soft opening” in March and a grand opening in April. Although the loudest part of the construction process is over, undoubtedly there will be times as the process continues that some noise from the site will carry up the stairwell and over into Media Services. We apologize in advance for the disruption.
• New Library Services desk: You may have noticed that a desk-level insert has been added to the Circulation Desk. On Friday, February 1, the Information Desk and the Circulation Desk will merge, with all Library Services (circulation transactions, reference questions, reserves) to be offered from the one desk. For those who prefer self-serve, the self-check machine is also available. The former Information Desk will be repurposed as a Technology Support Center, with all of the printers and various other tools, such as paper-cutters and staplers, available at that desk. We welcome your comments as we try this “one-stop shopping” approach to service. We will be conducting surveys later in the semester to get your reactions to this change, but please don’t hesitate to tell us right away what you like, or don’t, about this change.
• Newspapers moved: To make room for the café, the current newspapers were moved from Level One to the Level Two Lounge. Although we had thought of this as a temporary location, it seems just perfect for the newspapers, and we are going to leave them there.
• JoAnn Isaacs retires: Many of you coming back after the winter break probably missed a familiar face in the library, that of JoAnn Isaacs, the Reserves supervisor and student supervisor in Access Services, who retired at the end of December after 17 years of service in Brookens Library. I miss seeing JoAnn every morning when I come in—JoAnn was the perfect embodiment of friendly yet efficient service. She gave a wonderful little speech at her retirement party, and urged all of us to remember every day why we’re here—for the students. She was so right-on—the library is here for our community, which also includes faculty and staff. We will miss JoAnn, and we will strive to live up to her ideals!
• New staff: Two new staff will be starting to work in the library within the next week. On January 28, Jon Pressley began working in Access Services as a night and weekend manager. On February 4, Tim Salm will join us in the newly created position of Library Technology Coordinator. We look forward to having them as part of our service team!