Tutt Library News

Huzzah! The School Year is Over! Huzzah! Our Seniors Are Graduating!

Every block 8, we celebrate our student workers with an all-staff fiesta and potluck.  This year the weather kept us in the atrium, but we managed to refrain from recreating the Harlem Shake video from earlier this spring :).

Once again, we find ourselves looking forward to Commencement on Monday with mingled joy and sadness (but mostly joy). We congratulate ALL of CC's graduating seniors, but especially those of you that we've been lucky enough to work with over the last few years: Achini, Anna, Eddie, Kathleen, Margo, Mikail, Phoebe, Saraiya, and Tatyana.  Best wishes to everyone at CC who's graduating; please come back and visit us!

 

Haiku Winners and Zine

Our enthusiastic congratulations go out to the winners of the Sixth Annual Tutt Library Haiku Contest, and our deepest thanks to everyone who sent us their poems.  The blind voting is over, and the results are in!

Third prize went to Rebecca Harburg's evocation of a typical window-gazing moment at Tutt:

Essay's killing me
I see friends slacklining while
I am flatlining

Anna McCreedy won second prize with her commemoration of our nightly ritual:

Lights wink, the bell dings,
reluctantly shut your book.
Closing time at Tutt.

In first place this year, Louisa Rich wrote about the power of language.  We imagine her flipping through the dictionary on top of the Century Chest as she composed this senryu: 

Words each taste unique
Some are marbles in my mouth
Like "impossible"

These three poems, and several of our other favorites, have been brought together in the 6th annual Tutt Library Haiku zine, which is available at the circulation, reference, and ID desks for free, until we run out (which probably won't be for a week or two).  If you stop by and don't see any, please ask at circulation!  Also, if you are one of our farflung alumni or other friends, you can email tuttcirc@coloradocollege.edu to find out about getting an electronic copy instead. 

Happy spring!

Harlem Shake @ Tutt Library

We know, we know, the Harlem Shake is sooooooo last block. But for those of our readers who have not yet seen the absolutely gonzo Harlem Shake flash mob that took place in the Tutt atrium last Tuesday night, as well as for those of us who just want an excuse to watch it AGAIN, here it is:

 

The consensus at Tutt is that this is the absolute BEST Harlem Shake video out there (bias? what bias?). Hats off to Stanley Sigalov, '13, and the rest of the crew who made this happen, as well as to the 200+ CC students in the video. 

Video about the Press at Colorado College

Watch this great short video about the Press at Colorado College, made by CC student Demetria Humphries. Tutt Library's Jessy Randall makes an appearance.

Hooray! Our Seniors Are Graduating! Hooray! The School Year is Almost Over! Hooray! We Made a Haiku Zine!

This post is a bit of a mish-mash: we just wanted to share some images with you that reflect our end-of-the-year joys.

First, congratulations again to the winners of our Fifth Annual Tutt Library Haiku Contest.  Their haiku, along with some of our other favorites, can be perused at your leisure in the free limited-edition Tutt Library Haiku Zine - stop by the library and pick one up. You should be able to find some at the ID, reference, and circulation desks - if we're out when you come by, there will be more next week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, the student/staff Cinco de Mayo party was a sunny outdoor success again this year!  Emma Mitchell handily decapitated our piñata.

 

 

Finally, and most importantly, we congratulate ALL of CC's graduating seniors, but especially those of you that we've been lucky enough to work with over the last few years: Rashidah, James, Abdoulaye, Kate, Mandy, Banele, Hannah, Tori, Lahya, Emma, Tashnika, Eleanor, and Hanna.  Best wishes to everyone at CC who's graduating; please come back and visit us!

 

CC Launches Search for New Library Director

Carol Dickerson, Tutt Library Director since 1999, is retiring at the end of this academic year.  Colorado College has begun the process of finding her successor, with Mike Siddoway, Professor of Mathematics, as chair of the search committee.  Isaacson, Miller, an executive search firm specializing in recruitment for higher education, is assisting with the search.

A full position description may be found here.

Hooray for the New Art Book Reading Room!

For as long as most of us could remember, the oversized art books were on the third floor, while the regular-sized art books were in the basement in the movable shelving. Art history faculty and students may have seen some exercise benefits from going up and down three flights of stairs carrying stacks of books, but librarians and researchers agreed that this wasn't an optimal situation.

This summer, we moved all the art books--books with call numbers that begin with "N"--together in one room on the south side of the second floor. Oversize books now sit side-by-side with smaller books, making browsing easy.

The Art History Department was so happy with the new Art Book Reading Room that they asked to throw a little opening ceremony. Professors Ruth Kolarik and Tamara Bentley were generous with their praise of Tutt Library staff and students for all the planning and work that went into the move, and after presenting gifts, Ruth and Carol Dickerson, library director, cut the ribbon to officially open the Art Book Reading Room.  (If you'd like to see more pictures from the ceremony, including the ribbon-cutting itself, you can check out our Flickr photostream.)

Please come and enjoy browsing the Art Book Reading Room. It's on the second floor of the south side of Tutt Library, near Special Collections. 

JSTOR Print Withdrawal Project Leads to Impromptu Parking Lot Art

We were quite surprised to be greeted by a kiva-like structure in our parking lot as we arrived at the library this morning, and wanted to share it with our readers.  While searching for the right words to describe what happened, we came across a Library Shenanigans blog post by Jessy Randall, one of our very own librarians!  With her kind permission, we repost her photo of the installation, and personal response to it, more or less exactly as she posted them earlier this morning.

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Tutt Library is in the process of discarding bound journals now available in JSTOR and backed up electronically and in hard copy in multiple locations in the state and the country. Last night, somebody — or more likely somebodies (students? we don’t know) pulled hundreds of them out of the dumpster and built an igloo-like structure in the parking lot.

It’s beautiful, I think, and a fitting monument to progress and the future and all that stuff. It’s sad, too, and in the few minutes I stood near the igloo I heard wistful comments from passers-by, even some anger or disappointment that the library would throw these things away. I found myself defending the library’s decision, but feeling a mixture of emotions as I did so. Frustration at how bad we are at explaining ourselves, love and affection for the people who feel love and affection for these materials. A feeling of helplessness.

Why do people assume that libraries and librarians hate books (or bound journals) and can’t wait to get rid of them? We went into this field because we love books, most of us. But we have to care more about the students and researchers who use our libraries, and we have to try to do what’s best for them. For a long time that meant taking flimsy journals and magazines and binding them, making them into solid book-like objects that would last a long time. Now it’s a new paradigm, and we’re making the texts in those journals available via the internet. We don’t like throwing out the bound journals, but we have to make room for other things in the library. We receive something like 6000 new books a year. The library building isn’t getting any bigger, but our collections are growing and growing …

Ah, I’m doing it again. I’m defending our decision — which I should do, as a librarian. But let’s talk about the shenanigan. It’s a well-built piece of art, and does just what art should do. It moves us, surprises us, makes us see things in a new way for a moment. And makes us see other things besides itself in a new way for a while.

Whoever has to put all the journals back in the dumpster probably won’t appreciate it, though. And I hope it doesn’t rain.

Library Journal enthuses about a "Mover and Shaker" at Tutt Library

Congratulations to Tutt's Humanities Liaison Librarian, Steve Lawson, who was just named one of Library Journal's 2010 Movers & Shakers!  Steve, along with his partner-in-constructive-mischief, Kansas librarian Josh Neff, was honored for his role in catalyzing the Library Society of the World.  What's the LSW all about?  Our favorite description (at least today) comes from Kathryn Greenhill: "The best bits of the League of Justice, a library association, an unconference, goofing off at the back of the bus, barn raising, a learning community, new web tool lab with real subjects and just hanging out – all rolled into one."

Grrrreat Summer Reads on display

Tutt Library staff have put their heads together to offer some recommendations for summer reading.  You can't miss the display on the 2nd Floor North - just look for the orange and black tiger stripes.  Each book also has a bookmark with the name of the staff member who thinks it's a wonderful read, so come on by and find out what books we love .... and maybe find some new favorites of your own!