New Books in September 2018

Gunby Letters Collection Uploaded to Louisiana Digital Library

Heather Pilcher, ULM Special Collections  Coordinator, is happy to announce that the      Gunby Letters Collection is now available for viewing through Louisiana Digital Library at

http://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/ulm-gunbyletters:collection

Gunby Letters Home is a collection of mostly letters, written home by the Gunby children, to their mother, Ellen (1866-1933). Their father, Andrew A. Gunby (1849-1917), was a prominent lawyer and judge in the state of Louisiana. He was very active in both the community of Monroe and the state of Louisiana, especially as it related to education. Together, A.A. and Ellen Gunby raised five children: Edith (1886-1978), George (1889-1962), Sarah (1891-1914), Olive (1893-1979), and Thomas (1897-1967).

Thomas (1897-1967) was the fifth child of A.A. and Ellen. Most of the letters in this collection were written by him, between the years 1915 to 1924. The major portion of his letters were written in France, during WWI. Thomas retired as a Colonel from the Army in 1953. After his sudden death at the age of 69, the Northeast Louisiana community named a local dam in his honor. The Thomas S. Gunby Dam is located near Hebert, LA. Other letters in the collection were written by his siblings, Olive and George.

Olive (1893-1979) was the fourth child of A. A. and Ellen. She graduated from Monroe City High School in 1907. She earned her B.A. from Tulane University in 1912 and her M.A.Ed. from Columbia University of New York City in 1916. She began her teaching career at Monroe Normal School as a third-grade civics teacher that same year. She taught at the Ouachita Parish Grammar School from 1930 to 1959.

George (1889-1962) was the second child of A. A. and Ellen Gunby. He graduated from Bingham Military Academy in Asheville, NC in 1904. He received his B.A. degree from LSU in 1909 and his M.A. degree in 1910. George was admitted to the Louisiana Bar Association in 1916 and shortly after began practicing law in Monroe.

 Olive Gunby

Checkout Portable Charging Stations

ULM Information Technology, as a service from STAP, provided portable charging stations in collaboration with ULM Library. Chance  Eppinette said that students can check these out and keep them for several hours a day if they get in a low battery bind between classes. The battery charging stations are compatible with devices that charge with Android, Apple, Samsung, and USB cables. Anyone with a ULM ID can check these out at the Circulation Desk on the first floor of the Library.

New Books in July of 2018

ULM Library Technical Services Catalogs CAES Literacy Lab Collection

The CAES Literacy Lab is a wonderful resource on the ULM campus and is important because strong literacy skills impact an individual's ability to fully participate in society, understand public issues, and lay the foundation upon which labor market skills are built. The lab recently received funding to purchase materials through a grant with Scholastic Inc. A need arose to have these materials cataloged for organizational purposes, and Dr. Lacy Hitt approached the Head of Technical Services, Chuck Hughes to enlist his aid in the effort. The ULM Library Technical Services department, including Miriam Barley and Chuck Hughes, cataloged around 1,500 items for the collection between October 2017 and May 2018.

The Literacy Lab provides ULM education candidates with a professional media lab/curriculum library where candidates can extend their learning, plan their lessons, and have access to materials needed to fulfill course requirements.  The Lab houses a diversity collection useful for helping children embrace differences and be more inclusive. Other materials include children's literature, subscriptions to Mailbox and Booklinks (classroom sources), an electric subscription to a premier children's literature database, a subscription to ed.helper.com, a laminating machine, and literacy, math, and resource materials for lesson planning.

New Books from March & April of 2018

ULM LIbrary Circulates New Webcams

ULM Library, in a collaboration with ULM Computing, purchased 20 new webcams for campus community use. They are on Reserve at the Library Circulation Desk on the 1st Floor and can be checked out for 4 hours. They may be taken out of the Library. Only one Reserve item may be checked out at a time, and remember reserve items have higher fines than other overdue items and can result in blocked borrowing privileges if not returned on time. 

Retired Acquisitions Librarian Emily Higdon Passes Away

Retired Acquisitions Librarian Emily Higdon passed away on April 11, 2018.  She began working in the library on September 1, 1956, when it was located in what is now Bry Hall.  She retired on July 15, 2005.  She remembered well the move from Bry to Sandel Hall in 1963.  She said the library staff was looking forward to working in a building with air-conditioning and new elevators.  Emily’s easy going personality and great sense of humor made her a pleasure to know and work with.  She was beloved by all who knew her and will be greatly missed.

Link to Obituary: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188728339/emily-alice-higdon

Virtual Reality Room Coming to ULM Library

Universities have always been at the cutting edge of new technologies, driving development and creating the next generation of scientists, developers, and entrepreneurs. One of these technologies is Virtual Reality, and ULM Library is excited to announce that the suite of rooms in Library 205 has been chosen for development as a Virtual Reality room. We wanted to thank Dr. Joydeep Bhattacharjee, Associate Professor of Plant and     Restoration Ecology who is working with the Computing Center to bring VR to ULM. There is hope to establish a VR classroom with 30 individual VR set-ups, and this classroom would be available for classes in the future for uses such as aircraft and healthcare simulations and applications in new media and arts.

Other Spring Library News From Staff Meeting

· The study room wait-list has been re-implemented for high traffic times such as evenings at the library.

· Vaping is a violation of the campus no smoking policy and is prohibited in the ULM Library.

· Plans for the suite of offices down hallway 216 in the ULM Library include testing rooms and a lactation room for nursing mothers.

Tornado Warnings and Safety Drills

On March 27^th, ULM Library staff had a meeting, and Director Megan Lowe discussed safety and drill scenarios for staff training including bomb threats, inclement weather, active shooter, and fire. Staff was assigned to clear different floors in the event of an emergency and ask students to move away from the Library building when evacuating in case of a fire. A space on the north side of the Student Union Building was designated as a gathering place for library staff during emergencies. The very next day on March 28^th, some of that training was put to use. Around 4:30, a tornado warning was issued, and staff used their training to announce the warning over the library PA system and gather students into the service corridors away from the many ULM Library windows. Disaster did not come, but students could take comfort in knowing there was a plan, and ULM Library staff were ready to help.

ULM Librarians Attend Islandora Training

ULM Librarians Heather Pilcher and Rebecca Yantis attended an Islandora training session for the Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) on March the 6th. According to the Islandora website https://islandora.ca/about, “Islandora is an open-source software framework designed to help institutions and organizations and their audiences collaboratively manage and discover digital assets using a best-practices framework.” Islandora gives LDL members, including ULM, an easy-to-use method of uploading, organizing, and displaying digitized collections. ULM currently has five collections on the LDL                                        (http://louisianadigitallibrary.org), and the "Gunby Letters Home" Collection is in the process of being added to the Louisiana Digital Library. A sample of letters from this new collection can be viewed below.

GPO Staff Visit ULM

On February 28th, ULM Library faculty and staff welcomed visitors Joe Paskoski and George Barnum from the Government Printing Office (GPO) in Washington, D.C. The GPO is a federal agency that publishes government information both online and in print, distributing it to libraries across the country through the Federal Depository Library Program. Our library is a depository for both federal and state documents, which can be found in print on the 4th floor or online through our catalog.

Paskoski and Barnum were also joined by Louisiana Tech librarian and ULM alumna Abigail Desoto, who oversees the depository programs for our region. The visitors toured the library building and met with administrators as well as faculty and staff in Government Publications. Finally, Paskoski presented an informative training session on “Basic Government Resources for Reference”. We were very happy to have them here, and hope to see them again soon!

George Barnum, Thomas Hoover, Joe Paskoski, Megan Lowe, and Maren Williams.

New Books in February

ULM Hires New CIO/Dean of the Library

ULM Library is proud to announce the hiring of Thomas Hoover who will serve as the Chief Information Officer and Dean of the Library at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. (ULM). In his last position, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). He is the university's highest-ranking technology executive, responsible for creating and implementing the technology vision at ULM. Hoover has worked in Information Technology in higher education since 1999. Prior to his appointment at ULM and UTC, he served as the Director of Instructional Technology Support at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He was born in southern California and has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History from the University of California at Davis and a Master's in Public Policy from Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy. He is married and has five children. He enjoys golfing and traveling.

“Greetings!  We are excited for this spring semester.  There is a lot happening at the library.  We will be rolling out some study resources throughout the semester so stay tuned.       Please let us know any suggestions you might have”. 

Thomas Hoover, CIO and Dean of the Library

Megan Lowe Promoted to ULM Library Director

Megan Lowe started at ULM in 2003 as a tenure-track Reference/Instructional Librarian. Since then, she obtained tenure and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. In 2012, she became the Coordinator of Public Services and in 2016 became the Interim Assistant Director of the Library.  Lowe was promoted to Director of the ULM Library in February of 2018.

In 2010, Lowe founded Codex: The Journal of the Louisiana Chapter of the ACRL, an open access, peer-reviewed journal focused on academic librarianship and still serves as editor. Megan published several articles on various topics, co-authored a book chapter on the statewide library consortium LOUIS, another on the emotional impact of the deselection process on librarians, and co-authored a full-length book on that same topic. She frequently presents at conferences on a variety of topics and is a huge supporter of information literacy, open access, digital textbooks, institutional repositories, and digital humanities. 

Megan is married to Eric and has several cats with definitive (and sometimes infuriating) personalities. In her spare time, she reads; writes poetry; freelance edits; and enjoys making jewelry, soap, and candles; putting together puzzles; and playing videogames. Lowe also likes to travel, especially to attend heavy metal concerts, and sends letters and cards to family and friends all over the world.

New Library Improvements Coming

Administration at ULM Library has been hard at work securing improvements to our facility for our campus community. The water fountain on the first floor of the Library building was updated to include a bottle filler. This will help our community reduce their carbon footprint and faculty, staff, and students may refill their own bottles with filtered water. Other changes include the addition of 10 rolling whiteboards to be dispersed between the 2nd and 3rd floors of the library. 

New Annual Reviews

The database Annual Reviews has recently changed its interface. You can get to it at its new URL here:
https://ulm.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://www.annualreviews.org/library/start

Do note that we subscribe to most but not all titles, and not all new issues will be available. Click on "Current Volume" to see the latest full text available.

MLK Day 2017

(Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Oberlin College-- whitehouse.gov)

The ULM Library will be closed on January 16, 2017 to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

We'll re-open to our full Spring Schedule hours on Tuesday.

Spring 2017 ULM Library Schedule now available

You can see the ULM Library's Spring 2017 schedule here:
http://www.ulm.edu/library/hours.html