Your New Year's Resolutions

This January at The United Library we asked you all to share your New Year's resolution stories with us. We were thrilled by your responses which ranged from abstract to specific, simple to complex and serious to lighthearted. We wish you all the best with your resolutions and thought we'd share a random selection for further inspiration. Feel free to comment and share your resolutions with us too!

Emancipation Proclamation Exhibit

Emancipation Proclamation Exhibit

Now open!

This January 1^st the United States celebrated the 150^th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Join us in remembering, reflecting on and honoring this significant stepping stone toward human freedom by exploring our exhibit in The United Library. Now open, this exhibit highlights the Emancipation Proclamation, past and present responses to its impact, abolitionists and their work as well as an extensive amount of literary and media items from our collection on these subjects. 

Check out some of the display’s highlights below:

• Emancipation Proclamation Timeline
• President Lincoln’s funeral address transcript as delivered by the former President of Garrett Biblical Institute, Bishop Matthew Simpson
• Brief responses from 1863 to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation as posted in The Liberator on January 2, 1863
• Thoughtful quotes on why the Emancipation Proclamation still matters to all of us 150 years later from The Journal of American History article, “Freedom”
• U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War
• Abolitionists Bibliographies
• A bibliography of The United Library resources for check out on the subject

Want More?

LibGuides

The United Library has just launched LibGuides. LibGuides are compilations of materials from a variety of mediums on a given subject matter and put together by our own librarians. Our first guide is on The Emancipation Proclamation. Check it out and let us know what you think!

 

Go Team Retrocon!

Go Team Retrocon!

Seen these around? Students and staff wearing buttons with ‘Team Retrocon’ written across them? What could this mean? We’ll tell you- we are wearing these buttons in celebration of the last leg of a very important project here at the United Library. Our student workers and staff have been working very hard for quite some time on our retroconversion project and we’re almost at the end! Over the past 15 years we have been “retroconverting” data from our old card cataloging system to our online catalog. We began with 294 drawers and are down to 17! This means that very soon all of the books in our stacks will also be reflected in our online catalog. Doing this work ourselves has not always been easy, but it has been very rewarding. Not only do we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have helped bring books to our students in a very real way, but we have also been gaining a fuller understanding of the online catalog and its benefit to our community.

Reflections on Retrocon

"As I think about the retrocon project and my involvement therein, I am reminded that, when people come together to commit themselves to small tasks, a whole lot can be accomplished. I have been involved with this project for the past five years, so I have seen a lot of people work on this project in a variety of ways. Retrocon has made the library's resources more available, and the entire seminary has benefited. Now, our students, staff, and faculty, as well as the rest of the world, can find our books and make use of them, and this is an amazing reality!"

–Dan Smith, PhD student and 5^th year library student worker

Haikus

typing clean and bright

OCLC screen capture

brown drawer in the trash

podcast in my ears

OCLC on my screen

import export fun!

-Jennifer Moe, PhD student and 2^nd year library student worker

How our Fall Book Sale is Helping Change the World

       This fall we began a relationship with the Better World Books Company. Founded in 2002, this business began by selling used text books online, but soon developed its mission to promote literacy and reduce environmental impact as well. Better World Books recently accepted 15 boxes from The United Library full of left over books from our book sale which they will now resell or recycle, (they never throw a book away). The best part is that 5% of the profits from the sales will go directly to a high-impact literacy foundation of our choice. We selected The World Fund to receive contributions, a non-profit education program in Latin America. We are very excited about this new partnership and hope to donate our second hand books again after the spring book sale and beyond. Check out the Better World Books site to read more about their programs, (individuals can donate too), and let us know what you think.

“Click. Ship. Change The World.”