Thursday, July 31, 2008

Alexandria Library Featured on Hungarian Webzine!

Librarians can find anything out. Just ask Brandee Worsham, who was experimenting with the new search engine Cuil. Brandee performed a search on her own name and discovered a feature about the Library's online tour in a Hungarian webzine.

Librarian Anne Anderson and Library Specialist Brandee Worsham collaborated to create the online tour in January 2008. Apparently the launch of the tour on this very blog in February attracted international attention.

Alexandria Library's online tour was highlighted in the Hungarian Webzine FIKSZ K2, a non-profit, independent professional webzine. The webzine’s goal is to establish young adult librarianship in Hungary, which currently is not a separate field of librarianship there, and also to adopt and spread the theory and practice of Library 2.0.

The article, which can be read in original Hungarian here, was written by is László Csobán, a student of library and information science. Laszlo points to the Alexandria library website as an example how great it is that the two librarians (Anderson and Worsham) are showing people how to use the Library through pictures and verbal instructions, available online. He goes on to commend this form of online education as a model. The article goes on to suggest that readers would benefit from clicking on the tour and watching for themselves, rather than rely on any lengthy description from him.

One comment left on the article suggested that tours like these would be useful not just for library patrons but for some library staff as well (!), as in the commenter's experience some library staff are not aware of their own library's holdings through lack of good communication.

(everyone in the Alexandria Campus Library has viewed the tour!).

Naturally, Library staff wondered how Mr. Csobán came across the tour. Never a doubt a Librarian's ability to reconstruct a search! After some furious googling in the Librarians' office, it became clear that Google Blog Search must have been the route of discovery. The article ran in FIKSZ K2 on February 7, the same day this blog featured the library tour.

The power of technology truly makes a smaller world!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

New Wing of the Bisdorf Building Opens Today!!

The long awaited Phase III extension to the Bisdorf Building received its certificate of occupancy on Tuesday July 29th & the first office opened for business on Wednesday July 30th.

To read more about the architectural process of building extensions (or renovations) to existing buildings, check out 100 Great Extensions and Renovations TH4816.2 J63x 2007

"From simple room additions to complete demolition and rebuild jobs, this book explores some of the infinite ways in which architects have reinvented original homes. The results are astonishing in their diversity and innovation. Detailed project descriptions, drawings, house plans and full-colour 'before' and 'after' photographs in some cases, explain the thinking and process behind each extension from inception to completion. "

The Phase III extension provides new science labs, additional classrooms, a circular lecture theatre, office space for administration, office space for adjuncts, and a completely new & functional suite for Student Services, Counseling, Financial Aid, the Business Office, & more.

See pictures of the Big Move & sneak peaks of the new offices on our Phase III Blog.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Arts & Culture

Take a walk on the sophisticated side with these new books ranging around the world & across time concerning the arts & culture.

The Blue Rider in the Lenbachhous. N6868.5 E9 Z87 2000. Learn about the avant-garde Expressionists active in Munich in the early part of the 20th century: Kandinsky, marc, Macke & others, collectively known as the Blue Rider School.

Tintoretto. ND623 T6 A4 2007. Lavishly illustrated catalgue raisonne, prompted by a recent exhibition at the Prado in Madrid.

The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947 - 1957. TT504.6 E7 G65 2007. Blurring the lined between fashion and high art, this publication from the V&A Museum lovingly surveys the work of Christian Dior, Norman Hartnell, Jacques Fath & more.



Iconic America: A Roller Coaster Ride Through The Eye-Popping Panorama of American Pop Culture. E169.12 H55x 2007. What do Route 66, the Cowboy Boot, the Smiley Button, John Wayne, Malcolm X, the Hot Dog and a Louisville Slugger have in common? All are iconic images from American Pop culture -- joined here by more than 400 more.

The Dinner Party: From Creation to Presentation. NK4605.5 U63 C482. In depth study of Judy Chicago's famous & infamous feminist installation.

Fired With Passion: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics. NK4167.7 L875 2005. A celebration of the high achievement of Japanese ceramic artists since 1945.

Country Music Originals. ML394 R87 2007. Biographical treatment of the men and women who created country music, from Hank Williams to the Dixie Chicks.

The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (on a Shag Rug) in the Seventies. NX504 H56 2007. Thomas Hine explores the 70s, from avacado kitchens to Earth Shoes, taking a tour through music, film & TV, society & advertising to unlock the secrets of the great funk.

Architecture of Authority. TR659 R62936 2007. For the past several years--and with seemingly limitless access--photographer Richard Ross has been making unsettling and thought-provoking pictures of architectural spaces that exert power over the individuals within them. From a Montessori preschool to churches, mosques and diverse civic spaces including a Swedish courtroom, the Iraqi National Assembly hall and the United Nations, the images in Architecture of Authority build to ever harsher manifestations of power: an interrogation room at Guantanamo, segregation cells at Abu Ghraib, and finally, a capital punishment death chamber...







Thursday, July 10, 2008

Summer Time in Your Library

What do Librarians get up to in the summer? Even as numbers of students fall and temperatures rise, summer is a very busy time in the Library.

Here are just a few of the things that have been going on, behind the scenes and out in the open, this summer.

  • The Career Books, previously shelved near the Counseling area, have been moved into the regular Circulating collection (check the Library Catalog to find a career book).

  • Library Staff have been busy in the book stacks, making sure all the books are in good order

  • The Circulating Books have been shifted in large sections of the collection to make way for NEW titles

  • Hundreds of New Books have arrived

  • Loads of New DVDs have arrived -- check the Feature Film Section for new favorites

  • Librarians are preparing to move their offices to a new location on the other side of the Library

  • Counseling and Financial Aid Staff prepare to move to their new home in Phase III

  • Some of the Library Periodicals moved onto an online format (check for your favorite in the Library Databases)

  • ALL of the Library's microfilm holdings were transitioned to an online format -- now searchable from on or off-campus!

  • The Library Course Reserve Collection continues to grow -- find your textbook here & read it in the Library for free!!
  • The old ELI VHS video collection has completely transitioned to Video On Demand. Watch ELI programs online!

  • The Library prepared to construct our first ever group study rooms (coming in Fall '08)

  • And MUCH MUCH MORE

The Library will look very different in the Fall Semester from the way it looked in the Spring. Our collections and services continue to grow, and hopefully so will our space and physical offerings to serve you better!

Have a great summer -- check out some Fun Things to do in Virginia This Summer!




Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Garden time

Even if your garden doesn't look like the Villa D'Este (below), summer is still a time get out into the garden.

To get in the mood, check out some of these new (and not so new) books on gardening from the Library's collection:

Gardens in Time. SB465 L417 2006

Oxford Companion to the Garden. SB450.95 O94 2006

The Garden Book. SB451 G373x 2005

Garden Your City. SB453 F394 2005

The Chinese Garden. SB457.55 K47 2003

A Photographic Garden History. SB465 P48 1995b

The Sun King's Garden. SB470 L4 T46 2006

Gardening. SB470.5 H63 2002

Poetics of Gardens. SB472 M64 1988

Gardens with Atmosphere. SB473 M298 2001

Italian Parks and Gardens. SB484 I8 L5713 1996