The Library Looks Back: Accomplishments from Last Year

At the library’s summer big staff meeting, Dean of the Library Laura Davidson reminded everyone of our mission statement: The Carlyle Campbell Library advances knowledge, empowers learners, and strengthens the Meredith community, with three vital resources—our staff, our collections, and our physical and virtual spaces. Each of the departments worked hard to support our mission over the past year and to welcome 97,000 visitors through our doors. Below are some of the highlights from the discussion.

The library has some new faces and some people have new positions thanks to promotions. In Technical Services CamiAnne Gentry-Berreth was hired as a Technical Services Librarian and Megan Otto was hired in Media Services as a Media Assistant. Brian Thornburg was hired as head of this department. In the same departments promotions were given to Carrie Nichols, who is now Head of Technical Services, and Courtney Hewitt, who is now Video Production Coordinator and Cable Administrator in Media Services.

Media Services and Technical Services also completed quite a few projects throughout the year. Media Services added new projectors and screens in many classrooms across campus. They also added two new MacBook Airs and two new Retina display iPads. There is also a new enlarging machine upstairs for our books to help our visually impaired students.

Technical Services houses the Archives Department and contributed greatly to Meredith’s 125th Celebration. They aided in supplying objects and content to the exhibition at The City of Raleigh Museum and a 125 Meredith Moments Blog was created. Technical Services has also been working hard processing a huge CD donation from an avid collector containing thousands of discs that has doubled the size of our collection. The CDs can now be browsed downstairs and checked out. Some recent additions are in the 781 call number area that includes the genres of jazz, country, and classic popular music from artists like Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin from the Rat Pack.

In the Research and Instruction Department, besides answering over 2,300 questions and teaching 147 information literacy sessions, we have been adding items to our collection as well. We now have numerous course prep and self-teaching books covering general education subjects from math, foreign languages, science and psychology. One of the online resources the department added was Kanopy Streaming Video. This database has a large collection of videos you can stream from top producers, with an emphasis on independent documentaries and foreign language cinema. Speaking of foreign languages, a new Study Abroad Guide was created for our faculty and students highlighting our language and fashion resources and even great fiction books for the countries our students can travel to while studying.

If you choose to stay more local the Technical Services and Circulation Departments have added more books and DVDs to our collection that can allow to travel from a cozy seat. Along with fun and educational non-fiction titles like Smarter, Faster, Better, Rocket Girls, and Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, we also have gotten in quite a few bestsellers and blockbusters. Some of the bestseller titles are Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Weekenders, A Sinful Calling (what a title!), and How to Build a Girl. Also hot off the presses and already a part of our collection is Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Some fun blockbusters to check out are Deadpool, Ride Along 2, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and Race to keep you in the Olympic spirit. To see a full list of new books you can check out our new books page where we add our fiction, non-fiction, and children’s titles. For new DVDs you can check out our catalog’s Books and Media tab and our Pinterest board for new DVDs.

We have also been sprucing up the library inside and out. Outside we have new pots on our patio as part of the edible landscape. Inside we have added several new displays and artworks. Now there are new periodicals out by our main seating area so you can relax and catch up on current news and trends. We also have a new CSA Day display that highlights presentations and creative works from our students year round. To help facilitate an open dialogue with our students, the Research and Instruction Department has created a “Reflect on This” display. This is an opportunity for us to ask students questions and see what they think from the answers they write on the mirrors. The questions will be changing every other week. Also, on the ground floor we have new book cover art up as well as new student artwork. Please stop by the library to check out all of these new things and see our hard work over the past year in action!

–Submitted by Amanda Sullivan, Research and Instruction Librarian