The Campus with 2 Tornados

Sunday, March 29, 1998
A warm sunny day which turned out to be the 2nd time the college was under siege by nature's power. A tornado swept in and wiped out 90% of all windows on campus, demolished the Swedish house plus many other campus homes, ravaged St. Peter, and left the town with one casualty on that day. Gustavus campus was very fortunate that most of the students had already left for spring break the Friday before. The weeks and months ahead for Gustavus employees were filled with phone calling, debris pick up, repairing broken homes, returning to offices that were heavily damaged, or not returning to buildings at all that were deemed unsafe by FEMA. It was an event this blogger will never forget!

The tornado of Sunday, June 22, 1924 was equally as devastating for the town and college.


Fascinating fact is each tornado hit on a Sunday nearly the exact same time of day!

You can find more information about each tornado by reading the St. Peter Herald from the previous event dates in microfilm form at the library. Another way to find out information regarding the tornados is using the College Archives Manuscript Collection (CAMC) https://gustavus.edu/library/archives/college/

Reminder: with the warm spring weather it is advisable to "keep your eye to the sky" and beware of emerging weather changes.

Spring Break/Easter Recess Hours

Spring Break/Easter Recess Hours - Friday, March 30: 8:00 am - 4:45 pm; Sat. & Sun., March 31-April 1: CLOSED. Mon. -Thurs., April 2-5: 8:00 am - 4:45 pm; Fri. - Sun., April 6-8: CLOSED. Monday, April 9: 8:00 am - 1:00 am.

Steamed!

On Sunday night, just as many students were ready to start a marathon midterm study session and get serious work done on projects, something went wrong with the library's heating and cooling system. It got hot. Really hot - and we weren't able to get it fixed as quickly as we would have liked.

Our apologies for the tropical heat. We're working on ways to smooth out communication with the Powers that Be to ensure that problems like this get immediate attention. We know how busy Gustavus students are and want to be sure that the library is a good place to focus on academic work when students need to study - and we know Sunday evening is prime time.

Photo courtesy of Pete Lewis.

Hunger Games Trivia Night in the Library

Are you a fan of Suzanne Collin’s series The Hunger Games? Are you excited for the release of the movie? Come celebrate with Hunger Games Trivia Night at the library!

Join us Wednesday, March 21^st at 7:30pm on the first floor of the library. You and your friends will be forming Districts and fighting your way through rounds of trivia. At the end, members of the highest scoring District will compete against each other to select two Tributes—two people who will win tickets to the midnight premier of the Hunger Games movie at the St. Peter Cinema 5!

Sponsored by Faces of Folke and the Writing Center.

Library Star Students

Congratulations to Kexin Feng (Music Library) and Sam Opsahl (Circulation) on being chosen as the Library Star Students for spring semester!

Star Students are library student employees who have demonstrated superior performance in their departments. The library depends heavily on student workers and wishes to recognize those that go above and beyond the call of duty.

Stream music through our catalog

Did you know that you can stream music from anywhere on campus through links in the library catalog? There are over 3200 music CDs and LPs from our collection that we have digitized.

To listen to the library's digitized music in the catalog, click on the “Advanced Search” link and limit by “Digital Sound Online”. To find a specific title or artist, search as usual and click on the Online Access: Online access for Gustavus community. Campus use only.

There is more music to stream as well through our subscription databases Jazz Music Online and the Naxos Music Library. These are available under the "Articles" tab through the database lists.

Faculty: First Friday @ The Library

Faculty are invited to drop by for refreshments and conversation in the Gustavus Library Associates Reading Room (just past the reference desk on the main floor) this afternoon, March 2nd, between 1:30 and 3:30. The topic for this First Friday is Ebooks: what do you think of them? What impact might digital books have on teaching and learning? What are the implications for future scholarship? Will the future for books be open or pay per view? Will we have a future for books where sharing is disabled and privacy is not an option? Or does the digital shift offer new opportunities? Join us if you can for leisurely conversation and refreshments. 


Thanks to the Kendall Center for providing the treats.

photo courtesy of frankfarm

Dickens/Darwin Birthday Party

It's not too late! Join us today, February 28th at 1:30 for birthday cake and conversation about two notable Victorians whose 200th and 2003rd birthdays are celebrated this month. Julie Bartley (Geology) and So Park (English) will have a few words to say. And yes . . . there will be cake.

Fun facts: Interlibrary Loan

Gustavus relies on the generosity of other libraries to sustain faculty and student research through Interlibrary Loan. Likewise, we share our collection with those same libraries for their faculty and student research. We participate in a regional sharing network to meet most of those needs, but we also borrow and lend nationwide.

What kinds of unique materials do we provide on a national level? Still in first place as the book we lend the most, The Redeemer by Jo Nesbø has circulated to seven different libraries in six different states since last January. It's been to Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Texas and Arizona.

When it comes to journals, the title we copy and supply articles from most often is Food, Culture and Society (ISSN 1552-8014). We provided copies to nineteen different states in the last year alone!

Since January 2011, Gustavus materials were used in 47 of the 50 states across the nation. Only Delaware, Hawaii and Vermont were not recipients of our materials. To think of it another way, you have access to nearly every library in the nation because we share our materials!

As always, if you have a question about how Interlibrary Loan can assist your research (or help you get your hands on that book you've been dying to read), contact us!

Blast from the Past: Civil War in the Eyes of Union Soldiers

As we celebrate the sesquicentennial of Gustavus Adolphus College, it is important to look back and discover the events that occurred as Gustavus began.  One hundred and fifty years ago, our country was in the midst of a Civil War.  Many interesting facts can be revealed by studying the conflict, and the archives can help!  Check out the Civil War Documents display on the library’s main floor near the reference desk.  You’ll gain a greater understanding by reading what a Union solder’s life was like.  Some letters of Olof Nelson and excerpts from the diary of N.S. Carter are displayed to showcase the experiences of these men as they fought in the war.  This display was created by Lacie Micek, an archives student worker.

Birthday Party for Charles

As we write this blog post, it's Charles Dickens' 200th birthday. We are also approaching Charles Darwin's 203rd birthday. We though we'd go ahead and have a birthday party for both of them. Please join us on February 28th at 1:30 in the GLA Reading Room of the library for cake and a conversation with So Park of the English Department and Julie Barley of the Geology Department, who will have a few words to say about Dickens and Darwin.

Meanwhile, here are some links:

Dickens 2012 (sponsored by the Charles Dickens Museum and others)
Charles Dickens' works at Project Gutenberg (text, html, and mp3 audio versions)
The Dickens Project (at UC Santa Cruz)

Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University)
Charles Darwin's Scientific Manuscripts (American Museum of Natural History)
Darwin at 200 (a collection of features at Nature Magazine)

portraits courtesy of Wikimedia Foundation

Children's Collection - Now With Noise!

Over touring week, the library's children's collection did some traveling of its own - from the third floor to the lower level, where it now occupies a cozy nook at the south end of the floor. Though originally it seemed to make sense to place this collection near the education books, we realized that little kids - or bigger kids rediscovering a favorite from the past - might have trouble keeping the noise down. So now the collection resides on a floor where quiet is optional.

If you were used to studying in that space on the lower level, don't despair - we have kept some cozy study nooks.

Wikipedia Outage - and Free Books

As you might have heard, the English-language version of Wikipedia is one of many websites (including the Internet Archive) going dark on Wednesday, January 18th, to protest bills in congress that many internet users feel threaten the web. SOPA (Stop Internet Piracy Act - H.R. 6231) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act, S. 968) are supported by associations representing the the film, television, book publishing, and music industries. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told the New York Times the legislation is unconstitutional.

“The government could tell us that we could write an entry about the history of the Pirate Bay but not allow us to link to it,” he said, referring to the popular file-sharing site. “That’s a First Amendment issue.”

According to Wikipedia's statement

It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.

This protest will not affect the many specialized encyclopedias available in the library, however. Come on by if you need some information. We'll be open.

Or - if your favorite websites are down and you're stuck for something to do - drop by and pick up a free mystery. Barbara Fister, who reviews crime fiction, has brought in two grocery bags of advance reader copies. Feel free to take one home with you.

Scandinavian Crime Fiction Display

If you are looking to kill time this semester or just want a criminally good read try investigating the Scandinavian Crime Fiction display currently on the shelves at the reference desk. Discover your next fictitious victim on the display or in the PT section on the main floor of the library.

+Mobile

If you have a smart phone or another type of portable device, give “+Mobile” a try! This is the new mobile device site for our library catalog, MnPALS Plus.

You can now search, find an item and go right to the shelves with the call number appearing right on your portable device.

Please note that the syntax for defaulting to an individual library is slightly different in +Mobile: Use "?mylocn=GAC" (Uppercase)

Example: http://mplus.mnpals.net/vufind/?mylocn=GAC

Christmas in the Archives

Stop by the Archives and check out our festive new look!  Swedish Christmas magazines along with a few intriguing Swedish bibles are on display.  

The Christmas lights and decorations will bring holiday cheer to your research, so come in and unwrap new knowledge!

Tools to Help You Focus

Do you feel that Facebook is nibbling away at your attention span? Do you find yourself checking status updates when you should be studying for the chemistry exam? There's an app for that - or at least a browser extension that will help you focus.

For Firefox users, the Leechblock add-on will let you set up a list of sites that you want to block during certain times during the day or that you want to limit to a limited amount of time - such as "I'll spend no more than five minutes on Facebook every hour."

For Safari users, try the WasteNoTime extension, recommended by a student in the Simple Living First Term Seminar.

And by the way, if you want tips on how to simplify your life and why you should, that class has published a lot of excellent advice and researched background papers.

Pearl Harbor and Gustavus

Dr. Peterson's Exposition

The United States of America remembers the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that occurred on 7 December 1941, seventy years ago.  You might be wondering how Gustavus responded in the event's immediate aftermath.  Editors of the Gustavian Weekly printed their first post-attack newspaper two days after the bombing.  While the infamous action failed to make the paper's headline, a story about the women participating in St. Lucia served that purpose, it did get a blurb below the fold.  Conrad Peterson, longtime Gustavus history professor, wrote about our need to prepare for war and turn away from pacifism or "soon become another queer little sect along side the Quakers and the Mennonites."  Peterson's comments were from the heart.  He supported the war effort passionately and spent much of his time during this period giving supportive speeches.  

To read additional issues of the Gustavian Weekly from the World War II era, please visit the archives digital collections page.  As might be expected, Gustavus was a very different place in the early 1940s.  In fact and as can be seen in the attached image, only four buildings from that period remain on the campus today.

Gustavus Adolphus College, Summer 1942

Need the Book Longer?

Did you know that as a student you can literally have a book for an entire semester without late notices, fines, and/or being billed for the item you borrow? For Gustavus owned titles the general collection book can be borrowed for 6 weeks and renewed one time so............. if you borrow the book on Sept. 15, it will be due Nov. 1., you renew it and now it is due the week of finals!

Renewing online is so easy! On the library website locate in the left hand column "My Library Account".

If the instructions rattle your nerves always feel free to contact the library directly or email library@gustavus.edu for quick replies to questions!!!

Spring Courses @ The Library - Seats Open!

Seats are still available in NDL 201 - Reading Workshop, a .25 credit pass/fail course offered by library faculty that meets half a semester on Wednesday afternoons, from 2:30 - 3:50. Students read and discuss a book together, read a book of the student's choice, write a review of their chosen book to share, and reflect on their personal reading tastes. The purpose of this course is to enjoy reading and to prepare students to choose their own reading material after college as part of lifelong learning and personal identity.

Barbara Fister will teach a section of this course in the first half of the semester. The book we'll read together is Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, a book about a man living in New Orleans who stayed behind when Katrina hit. It's a compelling story about his experiences in the flooded city, his eventual arrest and detention, and how his family tried to discover what had happened. It offers a lot to talk about, including how we as a people respond to disasters, both natural and man-made, how Arab-Americans are viewed in post-9/11 America, what is just, and what it means for an individual to do the right thing. We'll also talk about how to tell true stories in a way that does justice to the complexity of truth.

In the second half of the semester during the same time slot, Anna Hulseberg will teach another section of NDL 201, with Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother as the common reading. This book about "extreme parenting" raises questions about how families interact, what the role of parents should be, and cultural differences that shape family dynamics. It's a funny, sometimes disturbing, tender, and controversial book about "a mother, two daughters, and two dogs" and "a bitter clash of cultures." It should provide interesting fodder for discussion.