Guest post written by Craig Milberg, University Librarian
Now that we are well into the current semester we hope you have noticed some positive changes to the first floor of the Mark O. Hatfield Library. These changes include:
1. A wall dividing the main table “farm” on the first floor has been installed. On the front side of the wall, we now have bookshelves and bulletin boards that let us create book displays that highlight our collections. On the backside of the wall, we have placed a series of whiteboards. The intent is to create a spot where students can leave comments, share their thoughts, draw pictures, and in general express themselves. We have dubbed this area “Mill Stream Musings.” Remember, it is a public space so please be respectful and don’t write or draw anything that you wouldn’t want your parents to see in the New York Times.
2. The sidewall next to the librarians’ offices is now dedicated to displaying creative works by Willamette students. Partnering with the Studio Art Department, we hope to have a rotating series of displays of student art over the course of the year.
3. Installation of electric outlets on tables in many spots on the first floor. This should alleviate the dangerous need to stretch extension cords across the floor.
Moving from the present to the future, we continue plans to integrate significant portions of the Claremont School of Theology’s print collections into the MOHL’s collections. With their hybrid educational model, it isn’t surprising that CST relies heavily on electronic collections but they also have wonderful print collections. Working with the CST library, we currently anticipate bringing approximately 50,000 volumes of books and periodicals. In order to accommodate these items, our plan is to find off-site storage for all of the bound periodicals (theirs and ours) and move their books, mostly representing religion and philosophy, into the shelves on the first floor where the periodicals are. We will then move our current collection of philosophy and religion monographs from the second floor, intermingling them with the books that come from CST on the first floor.
No need to worry about access to the bound periodicals. You will be able to request articles from these periodicals and twice a day library staff will plan on scanning articles and sending them to you. All of this should happen this coming summer so further news will follow as details become clearer.