Closed Saturday

The William Smith Morton Library will be closed on Saturday, May 31st, for Union Seminary's Richmond commencement.

We will open on Monday, June 2nd, according to SUMMER HOURS.  Morning opening at 9:00 am.

Images from the Met online

Do you use art images while teaching or lecturing?  Do you need them for various publishing purposes?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has now placed almost 400,000 of its most significant works into a site called  "The Collection Online."  These high-quality images are available specifically for scholarly use.  There is a nice search structure provided,

Those labeled OASC are "Open Access for Scholarly Content."  They can be linked online or downloaded in various ways.

Here is the site :

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online

It might come in handy!

Paula

Whole lotta movin' goin' on

We want everyone to be aware that Circ is undertaking a major stacks shift right now, which we hope to complete this summer.  The ground floor and the lower level will be reorganized to follow an uninterrupted flow of call numbers in alphabetical order.

The arrangement that now exists took place gradually over time, without an overall plan, and it has resulted in strange pockets of out-of-order materials that defy logic.  Our aim is to make the entire stacks collection abide by the same plan.  We hope it will be more intelligible for both staff and users.

There will be some disruption while this move is implemented.  If you are trying to find an item that seems to have disappeared, please ask for help at Circ.  They will know which things have been moved on a daily basis.

When the process is complete, we'll publicize details of the new arrangement to help everyone adapt to it.  We apologize for any confusion in the meantime!

The children's books can breathe again !

If you've wandered up on the second floor east recently, you'll notice you can see some empty space where children's books have been fighting for space for the last several years.  A much needed weeding project has just been completed, thanks to the wonderful student staff from Circulation.  We moved nearly 1,000 books out of the circulating collection and they are currently making their way through the Cataloging office to be officially removed.

I've been working with this collection for more than 25 years and it has a different focus at particular times in its life.  When I first arrived, I was a little amazed to find that a large part of the collection included multiple out of date copies of encyclopedias (remember those?).   Later, stories that helped children navigate through life events such as the birth of a sibling or a divorce were a growing part of the collection.  When it became clear as we moved into the new library that we would have limited space for children's books, it was weeded to focus on primarily religious texts and themes.

More recently, the success of the Storypath website has meant that we are purchasing the books that are reviewed and books that are used to make connections with Lectionary texts each week.  That had the shelves straining and so another weeding project finally got underway.

We will continue to place the focus on supporting the Storypath site as a resource to our students, faculty and patrons.  We have also kept a fairly large selection of children's Bibles and Bible storybooks.   And we hope that being able to actually move the books on the shelves will make it easier to browse the collection and find good books just to read for the fun of it.

So thank Ryan, Jay and Kelli when you see them, and come enjoy the great resources of our children's collection on the east side of the second level!

Ann Knox
Instructional Resource Center

It's Sprunts time !

Come and join us!  Monday through Wednesday, May 5-7, here on the UPSem Richmond campus and at Ginter Park Presbyterian Church.  Prof. Dean McBride will be delivering the lectures, and there are lots of alumni/ae activities and other special events.

During the Sprunts, the William Smith Morton Library turnstile will be open, to make it easier for campus visitors to come and go.  Please consider yourselves welcome to come in!

For a schedule of the Sprunts activities, click HERE.  And for more information about the lectures and events, click HERE.

Sprunts Week is coming !!

We're all looking forward to the annual Sprunt Lecture Series, May 5-7, here on the UPSem Richmond campus and at Ginter Park Presbyterian Church.  Prof. Dean McBride will be delivering the lectures, and there are lots of alumni/ae activities and other special events.

During the Sprunts, the William Smith Morton Library turnstile will be open, to make it easier for campus visitors to come and go.  Please consider yourselves welcome to come in!

For a schedule of the Sprunts activities, click HERE.  And for more information about the lectures and events, click HERE.