Posts filed under ‘academic libraries’
room-naming shenanigan
Colorado College’s Tutt Library will begin a major renovation in the summer of 2016, and the college will of course provide naming rights to high-level donors. For now, though, we notice that several spaces in the current building have acquired home-made honorifics. Suddenly this week we have rooms, nooks, corners, and even door knobs named for librarians both real and fictional: S. R. Ranganathan, Louise Kampf, Manly Ormes, Carol Dickerson, Melvil Dewey, Rupert Giles, and Starr Lackawanna.
No one has taken credit for this shenanigan. Perhaps several people are responsible? We look forward to seeing who else might be judged worthy of a naming opportunity. We expect that not all the names will belong to librarians. Perhaps I’ll name my office after Doctor Who companion Ramanadvoratrelundar, or Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn!
Addenda, November 18: B.R. Coad and E.J. Josey.
“roots libraries” diagram poem
Now and then I myself perpetrate a library shenanigan. I’ve been making a lot of diagram poems lately, using images from old library books and other things. Ohio Edit recently published my “roots” series, which includes a diagram showing my library roots. (It also includes one for my book roots.) The illustration is from: William Austin Cannon. The Root Habits of Desert Plants. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute, 1911 (full text available from Google Books). If you’d like to make a similar diagram poem showing your own library roots, email me the image (jessyrandall@yahoo.com) and I’ll collect them in a separate post.
weddings in libraries
Weddings in libraries, bookstores, and other bookish places. I suppose it’s not really a shenanigan if the library makes money by hosting weddings — but it might feel like a shenanigan to the brides and grooms and their guests! I wish BuzzFeed had found some photos of same-sex weddings in libraries, though. They do happen.
way, way overdue books
Many libraries have stories of overdue books being returned decades after they were borrowed. Portland State recently received a book 52 years overdue. This beats Colorado College’s figures: in 2005, we received books 25 and 45 years overdue. (See the full story in the Winter 2006 issue of the library newsletter.) But we’re nowhere near the record: 221 years. The perpetrator? George Washington. I kid you not. See the full story here.
research library radio show
The librarians at Georgia Tech have a rock ‘n’ roll radio show! It’s called “Lost in the Stacks.” Charlie Bennett (Undergraduate Programming & Engagement Librarian) and Ameet Doshi (Director, Service Experience & Program Design) have been broadcasting music and library talk since 2010. Topics on the show have included Citizen Archiving, The DC Punk Archive, Our Little Free Library, Beautiful Library Renovations, and Libraries as Inspirational Space.
Thanks, Daryll Stevens!
libraries and zombies
Alex Weiss, in her incisive Bustle piece “7 Reasons Libraries Are Our Only Hope In Case Of A Zombie Apocalypse,” cites “Maintaining Academic Library Services During the Zombie Apocalypse” by Sarah McHone-Chase and Lynne M. Thomas in Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies, ed. Robert Smith, University of Ottawa Press, 2011. You can read the chapter online at Google Books for free.
Thanks, Lynne M. Thomas!
Jack Carter & the Armory: “Smith and The West End”
Smith and The West End \\ Jack Carter and The Armory from Kim Newmoney on Vimeo.
Partly filmed in one of the libraries of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I wonder if they got permission? Either way, seems like a shenanigan. It’s a pretty catchy song, too, and I enjoyed the deliberately-half-assed lip-synching. Thanks, Robert Stoesen!
Research Wahlberg
In the vein of The Credible Hulk and Feminist Ryan Gosling, we now have Research Wahlberg. Thanks, Joan Petit!
yarn-bombing at Tutt Library
Architects tell us that Tutt Library’s concrete columns are “good bones,” but we are often irked by how they blockade our interior spaces. This week, someone (student? staff? possibly a group effort?) decided to treat one of the columns to a rather impressive yarn bombing.
Also, hello new subscribers! A recent post brought many new subscribers to the blog. Anyone is welcome to let me know about shenanigans in libraries and bookstores: jessyrandall @ yahoo . com (without the spaces).
missing issue yields a monster
As you may or may not know, Cosmopolitan releases each year’s worth of issues so that if you stack them in order you’ll see a bare-chested man. The Colorado College stacks are usually missing an issue or two, which means that instead of a man, we get a monster. Thanks, Diane Westerfield!
Library Shenanigans 