can record a professor’s lecture while the student takes notes. Later, the student can touch a spot on the paper, and the pen will play an audio recording of that lecture segment. For several semesters running, Mary Walsh, cataloging and acquisitions librarian, has worked with Dr. Laura Bruneau, professor of counselor education, to arrange for therapy dogs to visit the library for a few hours during finals week in a program called “Paws and Relax.” “A lot of students might be really missing the family dog back home by the end of the semester, so being able to visit with the therapy dogs can alleviate that,” Walsh said. “And taking a break from the grind to pet a really sweet dog is just a great way to de-stress for a lot of people anyway.” Nicole LeBoeuf, electronic resources and discovery librarian, is paving the way to EBSCO Discovery Service, a tool that will make research easier and more efficient for students searching the library’s collection. Backen spearheaded the library’s new membership in RapidILL, a consortium of academic libraries. Membership allows the library to more quickly obtain research materials. Johnson is out in front of the library’s instructional initiatives, helping faculty teach information literacy skills and how to use the library. He is quick to point out that all the Nielsen librarians are involved in teaching. “When students are working on a research project is a really great time to teach those information literacy skills and behaviors, because they have an immediate occasion to try them out and practice,” he said. Gortmaker and Karen Melgares, resource sharing library technician, coordinated efforts to update the library’s small study rooms, a
couple of decades overdue. The redecorating included fresh paint, new furniture, and lamps. Some of the rooms now include computers. “The study rooms get used like crazy now,” Gortmaker said. Yoga balls throughout the library allow students a few moments of relaxed fun when cramming for exams. “Those are lowcost upgrades that add color and punch to the library space,” Smith said. Last spring, the library extended its finals week hours to accommodate late-night cramming. The Grizz Cru (student organization) hosted a pillow fight in the library as a stress reliever. During Welcome Week in the fall, the library hosted a beach party, with everything from coconut rolling to hula hooping. Library staff have also reached out to student and community artists to display their work. White boards placed throughout the library invite a variety of written exchanges, from the deep and profound to the silly and trivial. Smith and Walsh led the way on “Seed to Seed,” a community seed library. The February 20 kickoff event invited community members to exchange flower and vegetable seeds and deposit some in the seed library for others to check out. “Our hope is people will bring in seeds they harvested from plants they grew from our check-out. The program can just grow and grow, like the rest of the library’s services,” Smith said.
Nielsen Library Director Carol Smith cuts the ribbon on the new community seed library with Mary Walsh (left) and Karen Lemke, director of College Readiness Programs, also housed in the library.
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