Communities Matter by Leressa Joiner
Leressa Joiner submitted her short essay for the Communities Matter @ Bellevue University Library contest.
To the untrained eye, our library may seem to be nothing more than a brick and mortar structure, just another building nestled in between other buildings here on campus. But I know better. I know that it is no longer just the place where the Card Catalog and the Dewey Decimal System reign supreme, but more of a “communication destination,” if you will. Somewhere along the way the library underwent a metamorphosis. No longer is it that ominous location with spectacled spinsters charged with keeping its patrons silent and its books in meticulous order. It is now place where people come together to congregate and flourish under all the resources that the library has to offer.
Today’s libraries provide a sense of belonging, a sense of pride and ownership in our education and in our future. It is that place where you can check out the book that may be the missing link to pulling together the paper that’s due tomorrow, or the meeting spot for the writing group you joined, or maybe it’s the home of the book club that you’ve always wished you had the time to join. It is the place to meet new friends, or connect with old friends, and all hang out together to enjoy a movie night that’s being hosted there.
It’s a modern day community center where everything you need is right there at your fingertips. Sure, there are no stinky locker rooms, or basketball hoops or dodge ball games like we had at a traditional community center when we were kids but now it’s even better! We have access to all the cool big kid toys! We have Facebook, and audio books, as well as a wide selection of great classic prose. Maybe your into steamy paperback novels, and how –to handyman books, or maybe you just need to brush up on your technology and job training skills. You can do it all here. Who knew that the library could be your oasis, your happy place to retreat to when the outside world gets to hectic? Picture yourself curling up in a comfy chair on your lunch break with a magazine and loosing yourself in the words contained within. The library has a little something for everyone. Have you visited our library yet? Come be a part of something bigger than yourself. Join us…… you know you want to!
Take Me Out to the Ball Game!: June Display Case
June in Omaha is an exciting month because we host the Men’s Baseball College World Series. In honor of this event the library has created a display case featuring America’s favorite pastime, baseball. In the case are books on the sport’s history, famous players, photographs of past Bellevue University baseball and softball athletes from the Digital Archives, baseball trading cards and much more. So grab your peanuts and cracker jacks and get ready to play some ball!
Stick with the Bellevue University Library on Pinterest
The month of June will highlight what the library offers beyond books. This library newsletter article features the library’s Pinterest account. So keep reading to see how the library has gone beyond books…
What comes to mind when you think of the Bellevue University Library? You probably think of books, articles, databases, computers, helpful librarians, all great to have, but all things you would expect to find in a university library. If this is your perception, maybe you have not seen us on Pinterest yet!
Are you wondering what Pinterest is exactly? If so, Pinterest is basically a digital bulletin board used to organize and categorize images into different collections (boards). Images can be “pinned” or added to your board and “re-pinned” onto other boards. Pinterest was developed in 2009, by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Even Sharp, and officially launched in early 2010. By August 2011, Time Magazine listed Pinterest on its “50 Best Websites of 2011” list. In July 2012, with the help of seven enthusiastic Pinterest Committee members, the Library began its “ant-themed” campaign. By the end of July, the Library already had 75 followers and 381 images pinned! Find the library by searching for Bellevue University Library under pinners.
So, what interesting things could a library possibly pin and how many boards could they even devise? The quick answer is currently 22 boards and well over 2000 pins. Yes, there are the usual book related boards, New Arrivals, Staff Picks, Banned Books, and some really Amazing Libraries, but be prepared to also be amazed at the creativity on display with the Edible Books and Book Art boards. Then take a look at Book friENDS featuring bookends of all kinds, and More Than Just Books, which is everything else book related, from shoes to jewelry to teapots, even a bathtub!
At the library, we also celebrate holidays and special months, so you will see boards come and go as these do, most recently Easter, Women’s History Month, and of course, National Library Week. Take a look at our International Holidays board to see the many ways our international students celebrate their cultures. Do you like to eat? We do too and you may be inspired by our Food for Thought board and our Allergy Free Eats board. Stay healthy by checking out the ideas on our Save a Sick Day board. If you live in the area and think there is nothing to do, check out the Area Attractions board. We are always thinking of new ideas for boards and finding new pins for old boards, so be sure check back often to see what is new.
Now what comes to mind this time when you think about the library?
*This article has been altered for the blog post. To view the original article written by Margie McCandless and Chrystal Dawson visit: http://library.bellevue.edu/news/books.htm Vol. 16, No. 3, pg. 1. *
Communities Matter by Estefania Aguilar
Stefani (Estefania) Aguilar submitted a photo for the Communities Matter @ Bellevue University Library contest. Her photo is titled, “The Eyes That Speak.”
Lincoln Highway Centennial Celebration
Road trips! Some of us enjoy them and others merely endure them, but most of us have participated in at least one memorable car trip.
A century ago, the automobile industry was in the toddler stage of development. Automotive pioneers knew that in order for American families to make the momentous transportation switch from horses and rail to autos, reliability needed to be proved and their imaginations needed to be captured. Two men lead the charge. One was Carl Fisher, a Hoosier entrepreneur and idea man who was co-founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and began the Indianapolis 500 race in 1911. Fisher envisioned one paved road that would span the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and devised the unwieldy name of the Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway for this route. The other spearhead was the president of the Packard Motor Company, Henry Joy. Joy advocated the inter-coastal road be named in honor of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first president of the Lincoln Highway Association in Detroit, Michigan, on July 1, 1913. By the end of August of that year, the route was established. The eastern terminus was to be Central Park in New York City, and the western edge was to be Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The initial goal was to have the Lincoln Highway well underway in time for San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
Fast forward 100 years to 2013. The present-day Lincoln Highway Association is preparing for the centennial, and the focal point for the celebration will be in Kearney, NE, on June 30 and July 1, 2013. Kearney was selected because it is near the geographic center of the Lincoln Highway (1,733 miles from San Francisco and 1,733 miles from Boston). As of May 29,
270 enthusiasts in 140 vehicles have registered to drive the Lincoln Highway in twin caravans from New York and San Francisco, to meet on Kearney’s Main Street on June 30. Many miles of the Lincoln Highway are near (or part of) US 30. Think of all of the memories that have been made traveling the Lincoln Highway in the past century!
For further details, check these sources available through our library:
Hokanson, Drake. The Lincoln Highway: Main Street across America. E-book HE356.L7H65 1999
Wallis, Michael. The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate. HE356.L7W26 2007
http://lincolnhighwaynebraskabyway.com
http://brianbutko.files.wordpress.com
Please comment if you have a road trip story of your own to share. Have a pleasant summer!
The RDA Experience
The month of June will highlight what the library offers beyond books. This particular article discusses the technology behind organizing books within the library’s computer.
The RDA Experience
Picture it—you are sitting in front of the computer and want to find a copy of your favorite Tolkien story, The Hobbit, in a library’s catalog. You have typed Tolkien and Hobbit into your search and hit enter. Your search results are less than helpful as it returns a slew of titles in various versions, languages, formats, and publication years. Now you are faced with the task of scrolling through the titles to find what you really wanted. Wouldn’t it be easier if the titles where organized in a way so that you could rule out unnecessary formats, languages and dates? Enter FRBR, Functional Requirement for Bibliographic Records, and RDA, Resource, Description and Access.
FRBR introduced a theory by which a user could more easily find a “work” such as The Hobbit in the live-action “expression” which was actually “manifested” into a DVD and Blu-Ray by New Line Cinema in 2013, and is now available as an “item” sitting on the shelf in their local library. Work, expression, manifestation and item, called WEMI in the library world, only make up a small part of FRBR but WEMI makes important distinctions for users locating an item in the catalog by specifying which manifestation the item is.
The newest organizational structure on the block, RDA, even has some national backing to it. The Library of Congress has introduced a cut-off date of March 31, 2013, for creation of bibliographic records in the old AACR2 standard and will start solely creating records in the new content standard of RDA. As many US libraries, including ours, follow the Library of Congress in practices and standards, we know that we must gear ourselves, our catalog and our users for these changes. Knowing this, it is our goal to make the search experience more efficient and fruitful for our users and ourselves. We have spent hours educating, updating and inquiring about RDA and FRBR and its impact at our meetings. Moreover, we wanted to share our experiences and what we have learned. And even though some librarians are retiring because of the introduction of RDA, we are excited for the ride and happy to know that RDA does not mean “retirement day approaching” for us.
*This article has been altered for the blog post. To see the original article written by Casey Kralik please visit: http://library.bellevue.edu/news/books.htm Vol 16, No. 2, pg 1.*
Observations from a New Librarian: Finding a Book
Shelves, shelves and more shelves with books that have funny looking numbers on their spines. What in the world does this mean? How do you find what you’re looking for? No worries, this confused me to when I first started working here so I will walk through the process step by step to ease your troubles.
Finding the Book’s Location:
The library catalog can be accessed and searched at http://www.bellevue.edu/services/library.aspx, by using the “Discovery Search” box. Type in a subject, title or author into that box and hit search; your screen will now show a list of items matching your search term. Here’s a tip: on the left hand side of the screen is a shaded box that says “Refine Your Results”, check the box that says “Items in the Library Catalog”. This will show you items that can be accessed at the library. 
The item’s location, known as a call number and pointed to in the image below, is the last thing you see before the next title. This string of letters and numbers is kind of like a street address. Some call numbers may say “E-Book” like the first title, which means the book, can be accessed online. Now that you have the call number you can find the book.
Locating the Book:
With the book’s call number written down, make your way to the bookshelves. On the end of each shelf is listed what call numbers are on that side of the bookcase. For example: GN790 .B87 – H62 .S7247188 will have GV885.3 .C59 2002, from the example above, on its shelf. Now comes the fun part…pressing a button and watching the shelves move. This took me quite a while to get the hang of so don’t be afraid of pushing the wrong button. Here’s a tip: If the book you want is on the right-hand side of the bookcase then press the arrow pointing LEFT, if the book is on the left-hand side press the button pointing RIGHT. From here it is time to get the book. All the books are arranged first alphabetical (GV) and then in numerical order (885.3) then alphabetical again (.C) and numerical again (59 2002).
Checking Out the Book:
Now that you have the book in your hand there are two ways to check it out. You can bring the book to the Circulation Desk or you can use the library’s self-checkout machine. In both cases you will be given directions on what to do. After you have checked out the item you are free to take it home with you.
Hopefully that clarifies how to search, locate and checkout a book at the Bellevue University library.
Communities Matter by Raphael Razuri
Raphael Razuri submitted his aphorism for the Communities Matter @ Bellevue University Library contest.
Many kind persons devote themselves to charity and good deeds essentially to enhance their own moral superiority, not to appear or feel inferior is one of the most constant concerns of every individual. Simply trying to justified oneself, is admission of weakness. This is not community service, it is a person who brings their uniqueness to the community; a doctor his personality, his talents and to mentor who are interested in him, a soldier his, etc. Reciprocal is created if untouched by any moral superiority, this will create and strengthen in the community.
The Traveling Librarian Braves Alaska
As I was contemplating where to go with this installment, I thought about how it all began. It was 5 years ago this month that I began my obsession with cruising again. Oh, I cruised many years ago and had about 5 cruises under my belt; however, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I did not cruise on a regular basis and took vacations very sparingly. Therefore, the trip I am going to focus on is the one that started the yearly trips with my family—our trip to ALASKA!
Let me begin by saying “Alaska is absolutely beautiful!!!” On this trip we were fortunate to visit three different Alaskan cities and enjoy scenic cruising through Endicott Arm. Our 
first port-of-call docked in Ketchikan, also known as Alaska’s “First City,” because it is the first major community travelers come to as they journey north. Our first excursion found us on a horse-drawn trolley taking in the sites of the city. We saw a lot of totem poles and an abundance of salmon. For our next excursion in Ketchikan we opted to board a wilderness explorer boat for the grand tour of the awe-inspiring Misty Fjords, and awe-inspiring it was—we felt the mist of glistening waterfalls as we glided quietly beneath the sculpted cliffs and spotted bald eagles and their nests, seals, seabirds, and other wildlife species. Nothing less than spectacular…
As we cruised towards Juneau, we passed through Endicott Arm Fjords and saw a lot of icebergs—well they were little ones, but still icebergs just the same. Juneau is famous for gold, beautiful glaciers, and magnificent views of the mountains. The first point-of-interest for us was the Alaska State Museum where a life-sized eagle nesting tree and a replica of a Tlingit clan house are on display. The museum provided an educational experience of what life 
was like for native settlers in Juneau. Next we traveled to Mendenhall Glacier—a meandering river of compressed blue ice and the largest glacier accessible by road in southeast Alaska. While at the glacier, we had the unexpected pleasure of seeing a baby brown bear up close and personal as it came towards us, and then right past us as a park ranger followed closely behind. That was a sight to see…
The last city in Alaska we toured was Skagway, and I would say we saved the best for last. Although the city’s population has dwindled to less than 1,000 residents, during the gold rush years this city prospered and was the largest with a population of around 20,000. The first thing we did was board a train and traveled the White Pass & Yukon Route. This iron trail was built during the Klondike Gold Rush and is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, an honor shared with the Eiffel Tower, the Panama Canal, and the Statue of Liberty. The fully restored cars, pulled by vintage diesel locomotives, climbs nearly 3,000 feet over 20 miles of steep grades and around cliff hanging turns. The view of mountains, glaciers, gorges, waterfalls, tunnels, Bridal Veil Falls, Inspiration Point, and Dead Horse Gulch were all breathtaking. The afternoon was
reserved for partaking in Alaska’s favorite sport—dog sledding. We toured the Musher’s Camp, home to around 200 dogs that have competed in the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest, we played with the pups, and flew down a mountain pulled by a team of excited Alaska Huskies. It definitely was exhilarating…
Sadly, the only library I visited on this trip was the one on the ship. Nevertheless, that just means I need to make another trip to Alaska, and the next time a library is definitely on the itinerary…
Preparing to Graduate
Recently, we’ve begun ‘theming’ our social media, so that each month a new theme will be briefly touched upon here, on our Facebook page, on our Instagram page, and on our Pinterest page. Here’s a quick summary of some of what we’ve posted over the last month:
- Did you know that you can continue to use the Library’s resources after you’ve graduated? Check out this blog post for details.
- Here are a couple of images that we posted on Pinterest that you may enjoy!
- We covered a lot of ground on Facebook this month; some things you should be sure to look at are the Job Hunting LibGuide and this new book: 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College.
- Instagram got in on the action too: check out the first Bellevue College commencement program, from 1967, straight from the University Archives.
Don’t forget to keep any eye out in June for our next theme: ‘We are More Than Books!’ Watch for the #morethanbooks, #newsletter, #june2013, and #bulibrary hashtags.