ULM Special Collections & Archives Aerial Photography Collection

ULM Special Collections and Archives has an outstanding aerial photography collection. 

Check out the collection at: https://www.ulm.edu/library/archives/aerialphotosofulm.html

Lucky Charms Guess Winner

On Thursday through Sunday to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, students guessed the number of Lucky Charms in a jar on the Circulation Desk for a chance to win Starbucks gift cards. Congrats to 

Kaylee Johnstone!

Winners Announced in Valentine's and Mardi Gras Games

Winners that were announced from the "Mardi Gras Find the Baby Game" were: Nia Collins, Prajwal Khadge, Brendan Coughran, Tiona Harris, and Dovie Milstead, and also from the "Valentine's Day Candy Guess Game" were John Neal and Lisa Lee. These students recieved Starbucks giftcards.

Find The Baby Mardi Gras Game and Student Selfies

The Weeks of February 18th and 25th, students played a Find The Baby Game with our Mardi Gras King Cake Baby Sandie Bry. They followed clues posted on social media for a chance to win Starbucks Gift Cards. Some of the selfies taken by students and posted to ULM Library's Twitter account are found below.

Sandie Bry really loves Beads!

Take A Break In The Library

Our Library Director Megan Lowe donated some items to help students take a break and relax. Students starting in the Spring 2019 semester, could checkout a card or table game or get a coloring sheet. A table was also provided with puzzles for student's enjoyment.

ULM Special Collections Mardi Gras Book Display

ULM Information Technology Adds MACS In Library

ULM Information Technology added 4 new computers with MacOS X Mojave with Adobe Creative Cloud   installed to the InfoCommons on the library 2nd floor in early February of 2019. Later in February, 4 more MACs were added to the first floor of ULM Library.

ULM Special Collections Gunby’s Legacy Exhibit

On February 6, 2019 Heather Pilcher announced a new exhibit for ULM’s Special Collections and Archives. The “Gunby’s Legacy Exhibit”  contains various items from the Gunby collection including pictures, maps, personal family items, personal papers, letters, speeches, quotes, and other unique items. Gunby family photos and letters can be viewed on the Louisiana Digital Library http://louisianadigitallibrary.org/ulm.

Featuring ULM Interlibrary Loan Service

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a free service that lets the ULM Library borrow materials from other libraries. It may take a week or more to get your materials, so do plan ahead. Sometimes other libraries require payment for certain materials, but we will ask you first.

If you need further assistance or have problems with your ILLiad account ask at the Reference Desk on the first floor. The ILL Librarian, Melinda Matthews, can be reached at matthews@ulm.edu or by phone at (318) 342-1067. The ULM Library's ILL service is not available to courtesy card users not currently affiliated with ULM. 

Grant Funding Being Pursued for Active Learning Classroom

The ULM Information Technology in collaboration with the ULM Library is pursuing a grant application for a $67,000 Active Learning Grant from Steelcase Education. ULM IT will facilitate technology integration for the proposed space. This grant will allow for the creation of an active learning classroom that facilitates both active learning activities and pedagogy, as well as collaboration. If the grant is obtained, room 259 in the ULM Library would receive the upgrades, some of which might include movable tables and seating. This would allow for the change of the setup as needed to allow for presentations, group work, and discussions. Space could be reimagined upon demand.  Other potential updates include charging stations and rolling and personal whiteboards.  The committee is a collaboration of ULM  Library and IT staff and members include: Kim Taylor (LMS Coordinator), Chance Eppinette (Director of the Computing Center), Thomas Hoover (CIO and Dean of the Library), and Megan Lowe (Director of the Library). 

InfoCommons Charging Station

If you need your phone or tablet charged on the 2nd floor, use the charging station by the desk in the InfoCommons. The station, which was installed courtesy of ULM Information Technology has Apple lightning, micro-USB, and USB-C cables. 

InfoCommons Hawkeye Story

Library lines up lavish upgrades

photos courtesy ULM Library

Miles Jordan, jordanm1@warhawks.ulm.edu
January 20, 2019
Filed under FEATURE STORIES, NEWS

Christmas came and went over break for everybody, but ULM students returned with the library’s gift of a newly renovated second floor of the campus’ focal point called the InfoCommons.

The new second floor is a grand remodeling with 60 new computers as well as four additional Macintosh computers coming soon. There are more printers, both new and additional seating, new carpeting for a fresh new look, both group and individual seating arrangements, mobile whiteboards for studying and most importantly, many more outlets for students to plug their electronic devices into.

The tech friendliness is a byproduct of necessary renovations as the library passes into its 20th year of existence in April as well as needed weeding of the library’s collection of books.

“We got rid of over half the collection which was 300,000 titles. There was a legitimate need to purge the collection,” Megan Lowe, the library director and associate professor, said.

Beyond the lack of weeding, some books that came over from the previous library in Sandel Hall needed to be thrown out due to leaking ceilings in Sandel.

“Being that the books stacks were eliminated, it gave us a clean slate for the whole floor,” Chance Eppinette, the director of information          technology, said.

The library is the gift that keeps on giving as the renovations are set to be done not only on the second floor.

“The key thing is to step back and see what [students] like [and] what they’re using because we have more money to add to the second floor and also to the first floor and other spaces,” Thomas Hoover, the dean of the library, said.

Through collaboration with the Student Government Association and the Student Technology Assessment Plan committee, the library tried to listen to the needs of the students- one of those being more collaborative space for students. The library is attempting to create this with easily accessible whiteboards all throughout the second floor and plans for many of the areas to have access to screens, so students can work together more effectively.

Quickly, through asking and seeing, it became clear that the library recognized another large need- more outlets and more power for students to charge their devices.

“[Students] really wanted more power. Students wanted more powered furniture. When we started rearranging the space in anticipation of doing a lot of these things, we noticed a lot of students sitting on the floor near the outlets,” Lowe said.

Eppinette said, “It was 20-year-old technology. 20 years ago, we didn’t have USB for devices. That was one of the key things to make it more convenient to plug in your personal devices.”

The technological upgrades are a huge plus for students, and many students are thankful for them.

“It’s life-changing. It’s good to see the college constantly change and continue to change ULM to a more tech-friendly college,” Nate Perdue, a sophomore psychology major, said.

The library, though, is showing that it is not going to wait another 20 years to make technological changes, but will soon add a virtual reality lab for students.

“We’re adding a virtual reality center and innovation space that will be in the bell tower in that back corner. There will be a 3D printer, high-end Macintosh and PCs in there,” Hoover said.

The virtual reality center will be a cross-disciplinary space meant to take ULM and students’ ability to learn into the future.

The center will be the first of its kind in the state of Louisiana.

Students studying geography will be able to experience the Great Wall of China from the library. Anatomy students will be able to experience the body and construction management students will be able to be inside of a building before the building is even made.

The current renovation is just a stepping stone for the library and the university as both journey down this path of making ULM an even more one-of-a-kind institution.

ULM Library Director Lowe Publishes New Book

Congrats to ULM Library Director Megan Lowe on the publication of her new book! See more information below.

University of Louisiana Monroe Library Director and Associate Professor Megan Lowe, M.A.,M.L.S., B.A., has recently co-written a book published by IGI Global.

Examining the Emotional Dimensions of Academic Librarianship: Emerging Research and Opportunities, studies the emotional experiences of academic librarians.

Libraries have made tremendous changes as demand and technology has dictated. At ULM, for example, what were the book “stacks” are now student study areas. Many of the hardback books have migrated to online materials.

“The book grew out of another publication my co-author and I worked on examining the emotional experiences of librarians. Librarianship is very people-oriented work, making librarians prone to burnout,” Lowe explained. “We wanted to get a better understanding of the emotional experiences of academic librarians as a means of identifying solutions and supporting those librarians in their careers.”

“Examining the Emotional Dimensions of Academic Librarianship: Emerging Research and Opportunities” is an essential scholarly resource that offers detailed discussion on the latest crises and challenges for librarians and supplies innovative solutions to these issues. Highlighting relevant topics such as emotional exhaustion, research agendas, and deselection, this publication is an ideal resource for librarians, academicians, students, and researchers who have an interest in the mental and emotional landscape of modern library environments. It is co-authored by Lindsey M. Reno of the University of New Orleans.

This title is currently available to order on the IGI Global Bookstore as well as through the InfoSci® Databases, which offer full-text book chapters and journal articles from over 3,500 books and 170 scholarly journals. To adopt this book for use in your courses, please submit an examination request form here : (https://bit.ly/2QDhgcy). To request a copy of this book for review, contact ccampbell@igi-global.com.

IGI Global, an international publishing company specializing in high-quality research publications focusing on the areas of education, social science, library science, healthcare, business, environmental science, public administration, computer science, and engineering.

New Addition Coming Soon to InfoCommons

Another space is under construction on the 2nd Floor. More information coming soon on new and

exciting additions to the ULM Library InfoCommons!

Library Workshops Offered In The Spring 2019 Semester

Faculty at ULM Library are offering free workshops for the 2019 Spring semester in ULM Library room 3A. The dates and workshop descriptions are in the flyers below. 

InfoCommons On the Bayou

ULM Library’s new InfoCommons is not just a computer lab. It will be a space where students can relax and study as well as access information, innovate, collaborate, gain knowledge, and produce quality work to complement their studies. The idea for the InfoCommons came about in part from requests from students to have computers moved away from the noisy and crowded first floor. Students also requested additional options for collaborative study.

Per Chance Eppinette, there will be more AxisTV displays on the 2nd floor to display messages about Library and IT activities. Chance also stated that they will be placing four MACs on the 2nd-floor lab at a future time.

Eppinette stated that the new Herman Miller furniture has expanded power options including more power and USB plugs for convenient charging. Wayne McDaniel said there are sixty computers total in the new InfoCommons. There are six tables with eight computers. There is also a new option which allows students to collaborate on projects. There are four sets of three computers with room for two users, and there is individual seating for users to use their laptops. Students will also have access to additional printing on the 2nd floor. Additionally, there is group study seating and a whiteboard collaboration bar that students may use for brainstorming and group work. 

InfoCommons Under Construction

Students were still out on Christmas break in December of 2018, but crews were hard at work at ULM Library changing out the carpet on the 2nd floor. Numerous boxes of Herman Miller furniture were wheeled in to update the space, and the furniture was assembled. All staff that walked by that day commented that they looked forward to seeing the completed InfoCommons space!

New carpet was put in in squares that may be removed if damaged or soiled.

New computer tables are being assembled that will allow a total of 8 computer stations.

New Herman Miller collaborative booth seating.

New Herman Miller individual study booths. The tables allow the students to use their own device, and the tables slide away or toward the user for their comfort.

InfoCommons Construction to Begin

After students finished with their finals, renovation of the 2nd floor began around December the 18th of 2018. Chief Information Officer Tom Hoover, Library Director Megan Lowe, and Lisa Burgess observe as the carpet is being removed.

Candy Guess and Elf On a Shelf Winners

Congrats to our Candy Guess and Elf on a Shelf Game Winners for 2018! They all won Starbucks gift cards in a random drawing. The winners were: Brianna Granville, Connor Roan, Chase Parks, Ivania Vallejo, Trevor Eskew, Mallory Moore, Christin Mims, Uchechi Owunna, Delayhia Stipe, and Jalyn Leblanc!

Elf on a Shelf Christmas Campaign

On the dates November 27th through December 6th of 2018, ULM Library staff assisted with a new activity for students called the Elf on a Shelf Christmas Campaign. Our Director Megan Lowe acquired the new Elf on a Shelf, which was named Loki after a child of a friend of a staff member. He was hidden various places in the library, and students used clues located on the Axis TVs or the ULM Library Facebook account to find Loki. They were tasked with finding Loki, snaping a photo of him, following the ULM Library Twitter account, and tweeting the photo with #ULMLibrary. This campaign was both fun for students in that they could win Starbucks gift cards, but it also helped the library increase its presence on social media. The number of Twitter followers to the ULM Library account increased 81%, and we were so thankful to all of the ULM Library staff that helped bring Christmas cheer to students before they left campus for break. Below you will find photos students took during the event and shared on the ULM Library Twitter account.

Jessica Louque