Research Paper Prize

Have you written a paper you're proud of? Does it demonstrate excellence in the use of sources? It may be the next winner of the Patricia Lindell Research Paper Prize.

Papers must have been written within the past two academic years. They can be on any subject, but should demonstrate the excellent use of source material.  Only one submission per student will be accepted, so pick your favorite. Winners will be announced next fall. The prize carries a $400 award.

To submit, send paper copies to Barbara Fister, Library, or attach an electronic document to an email to fister@gustavus.edu. Please include your permanent address so we can contact you next year.

Deadline: May 23rd.

photo courtesy of foreverdigital

Time for Tea

Gustavus boasts many wonderful attractions and this Thursday will be another celebration. Help us acknowledge our Gustavus authors at GUSTAVUS AUTHOR TEA. This event will be in the Courtyard Cafe at 3:30pm on Thursday, April 26. It will highlight the following authors: Elizabeth Baer, Bob Douglas, Kathryn Christenson, Barbara Fister, Paschal Kyoore, Karl Larson, Sun He Theresa Lee, and Joyce Sutphen. This event is sponsored by the Book Mark and Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library.

Books in Bloom: Author Event

We're having a special Author Event during Books in Bloom this year. Several authors will be present on the afternoon of Saturday, May 5 to sign books and greet guests in the GLA Reading Room.

Come visit with the authors (all of whom have a book being interpreted as a bloom), and enjoy light refreshments from 11am-2pm.

• Joyce Sutphen, beloved Gustavus professor and Minnesota's Poet Laureate.
• Kent Nerburn, author of the recent Reading in Common selection, The Wolf at Twilight.
• Gustavus: 150 Years of Images & Stories author Dave Kenney.
• Author T.F. Wiklund and illustrator Marilyn Brown, creators of The Christmas Pony.
  

Celebrate Spring: Come to Books in Bloom!

Join us Honors Weekend (May 4-6, 2012) for Books in Bloom, sponsored by Gustavus Library Associates.

Books in Bloom features books, films, or other academic resources within the library interpreted through floral arrangements by designers and professional florists. Curious about how that's done? Check out the slide show of last year's event.

Come enjoy the blooms and learn more about our friends, the Gustavus Library Associates.

Library Love - National Library Week Style

For those of you on Twitter, the @yourlibrary folks are putting on a contest - 6 word stories about libraries. #nlw6words

My favorite: Books are family. Library is home.

Also, more library love from my comrades-in-spirit at the Office of Letters & Lights, which runs National Novel Writing Month, among other awesome writing events.

For those of who work libraries on a daily basis, it's inspiring to be reminded that so many people in the world love & value libraries.

National Library Week Medallion Hunt

To start your quest, find the reference desk!

In honor of National Library Week, the library is hosting a medallion hunt. From April 11th-13th, stop by the reference desk for a clue to send you off on the hunt. Prizes for our winners!

Open Library Ebook Loans

As ebooks become more popular, libraries and publishers have entered into new and often contentious relationships over ebook loans. Public libraries, in particular, face significant limits. Unlike the usual experience, libraries have to pay lots more for ebooks than they do for printed books. Apart from having to invest a lot of money into setting up a lending platform, two major publishers won't let any of their books be loaned in digital format, two won't let libraries loan recently-published ebooks, one deletes ebooks after 26 loans, and one charges libraries three times as much as individuals - all for books that can only be loaned to one person at a time.

Academic libraries are in a different situation. Publishers are more willing to let libraries purchase access to ebooks, but there are many different platforms, and many of them are lumbered with technology that is not convenient to use. Until we have more demand for ebooks and suppliers can provide us with easier-to-use systems at an affordable price, we aren't hurrying to add lots of ebooks to the collection.

Except that Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive had this intriguing idea . . . and we signed up.

In a nutshell, the non-profit Internet Archive has started an ebook lending library that offers a new approach to ebooks. Member libraries donate books that are scanned using the Internet Archives' home-grown scanners. The digital files can be borrowed by anyone at the member libraries in either PDF or ePub format. (EPub is the standard format used by Nook and other readers, but not by Amazon's Kindle, which uses its own proprietary format.) To borrow a book, you have to create an account with the Open Library and you need to be on campus, so that your Gustie credentials will be recognized by your internet address. When a book is digitally checked out by anyone at a member library, it's unavailable to others until it's returned.

The books in the Open Library collection are not ones that are in high demand. You won't find the latest bestsellers here, or academic books published recently on hot topics. We wanted to be part of this effort mainly because the folks at the Internet Archive are pioneering a model for ebook loans that we think is interesting - and we can be part of it at no cost to us other than a donated book.