News from the Director

I am excited to announce that the firm of Kubala Washatko Architects in Cedarburg has been selected to design our renovation project. The physical remodeling will begin early next year.

 The key to a successful library building project is good strategic planning every step of the way. This is exactly what we are doing. We have launched our overall multi-year strategic planning to create a blueprint for our future.  Not only is our library staff involved but we have invited students, faculty, administrators and community members to join us in our discussion. Both our strategic planning and our remodeling will be closely tied to the campus mission.

Based on results of our user surveys (e.g. LibQUAL+), focus groups and observation, our renovation objectives include creating collaborative study spaces and better integration of various campus and library services. We begin this process by asking how the Libraries can improve the educational experience for students and meet the faculty’s research needs.  Because the social nature of learning cannot be dismissed, we are looking at how students’ engagement in library space can increase student retention and success.

We intend to create the following learning opportunities within the Libraries:

• Learning Commons with flexible workstations and study spaces in close proximity to our skilled reference librarians
• Several well-equipped group study rooms that will offer students the tools needed to create multimedia presentations for collaborative assignments
• Additional hi-tech classrooms to accommodate increasing needs for instruction in information literacy
• Greater collaboration between student support services, such as tutoring, and library services, creating more linkages to facilitate learning
• Integration of service points to provide single point access for users and to better utilize staff
• Upgrading entrance area in the west wing. This more inviting "atrium" will provide clearer directions into the Libraries and refocus the circulation functions
• Accommodation of physical collection's continuing growth by installing several bays of moveable double density storage shelves

You may be asking if there will be space for faculty and staff in our collaborative learning spaces.  Absolutely—you are critical for student learning. The Libraries will continue to be a place to engage with students outside the classroom as well as a place to do research for everyone who is part of the learning community.

As a safe haven for exploring new ideas, the Libraries serve an integrative role between all campus disciplines. We will continue to collect, preserve, and make informational resources available and accessible to our users.  But how they are used to support learning is our measure of success.

The last addition to the Libraries’ building was completed in 1987. We need to take the long view that we are remodeling for several decades, but we are designing flexibility into the plans so that we can adapt as user needs and technology change.

Questions we are asking as we begin the planning for the “revitalized” library:

How can this library project serve as model of environmental sensitivity?
How can the Libraries contribute to the sense of academic community?
How can the Libraries contribute to student success?
How can the Libraries become a partner in the learning experience?
Can this project be the catalyst for further change?

As the project moves along, we will be asking you formally and informally for input. As always, I encourage you to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Ewa Barczyk
Director of Libraries
ewa@uwm.edu

 

Spanish Windfall

The UWM Libraries recently received a gift of over 1000 Spanish-language books from Northwestern University Libraries. NU Libraries had purchased an Argentine professor's large personal library, and was looking for a constructive way to dispose of duplicate volumes. They contacted the UWM Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), which coordinated the gift's transfer to the UWM Libraries.

The emphasis of the collection-assembled by Enrique Zuleta Alvarez, emeritus professor at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina-is general cultural studies, but mainly literature, history, politics, and religion. The books date from the early 1900s, but most are from the 1960s and later.

Janet Padway, UWM Assistant Director of Libraries for Collections & Technical Services, said, "We are grateful to Jeffrey Garrett, NU's Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development, and Julie Kline, UWM CLACS, for making these books available to us and the UWM community, thereby enriching our holdings in this area."

Libraries and SOIS Create New Course

Students matriculating in our so-called information century may be internet savvy, but many are, at the same time, information illiterate. To address this at UWM, the campus Access to Success initiative has awarded the UWM Libraries and the School of Information Studies a grant for a new course, "Information Literacy" (SOIS 210).

Collaboratively developed by instruction librarians from the Libraries and a SOIS faculty member, the course will provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to identify and critically evaluate information from the most appropriate sources and to use this information in all educational contexts.

Major issues covered in the course will include the quality, quantity, and ethical use of information obtained through research. The skills learned will serve students well in their post-academic lives, enabling them to compete and succeed in an information-based workplace. A pilot section designed for Academic Opportunity Center students will be offered this fall.

Eventually the class may satisfy a GER competency requirement, with the core knowledge in a lecture format and laboratory sections defined by school, major, or specific course. Acknowledging the importance of information literacy may also lead to a program similar to "Writing across the Curriculum," with information access, evaluation and use being integrated into various departmental requirements or advising.

Recent Visitors

Slovenian pianists Alenka and Igor Dekleva, and the Consul General for the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. Zvone Zigo, visited the Libraries November 8. The Deklevas were in Milwaukee to perform a recital of Igor's piano duets. At the Libraries they toured the American Geographical Society Library and the Music Library, which houses the largest collection of Slovenian music materials in North America, and to which the Deklevas added, with a donation of scores and CDs.

In December, a group of librarians from the National Library of Korea visited the UWM Libraries for a week and received hands-on experience in several divisions and departments including Automation, Government Information, Public Services, and Collections & Technical Services. Invited by the UWM School of Information Studies, they spent three weeks in Milwaukee. The group also visited Washington D.C. and the Library of Congress.

Nationally Recognized Book Artist in Special Collections

Clifton Meador, a nationally recognized book artist and a faculty member at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book & Paper Arts, will speak about his work on Tuesday, May 8 at 7 p.m. in Special Collections, as part of the Ettinger Book Artist Series. The event is co-sponsored by the Ettinger Family Foundation and UWM Libraries. For more information, call 414-229-4345.

Videophone For Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students Now Available

A Hamilton videophone for deaf and hard of hearing students has been recently installed in the Libraries' Adaptive Technology Room (E191). Using this two-way video web cam and monitor, a student can sign a conversation in front of the videophone camera to an American Sign Language interpreter at one of Hamilton's call centers, who then speaks the message over the phone to the person the student is calling. The reply is relayed back to the student by signing over the video Web link. There are three other Hamilton videophones on campus: one in a privacy booth near the ballroom in the Union and two in the Student Accessibility Center.

UWM Authors Honored

One hundred and twenty UWM authors who have published books or recordings in the last two years were honored at a book signing and reception Nov. 17 in the UWM Libraries' Conference Center. It was the eighth such ceremony, which was initiated by the Libraries in 1992. The UWM Authors Collection was established in 1973 to bring together as complete a collection as possible of monographs and audio and visual recordings produced by UWM faculty and staff in order to better document the university's intellectual heritage. The collection, held in the Libraries' Special Collections, now numbers more than 2000 works.

Recent Donations

Thank you to the following donors who gave significant monetary gifts to the Libraries from January 1 to December 31, 2006:

Wendy and Mark Alland
Angela Anderson
Bernice Balicki
Jody Barbeau
Ewa Barczyk and Neal Pease
Joanne and Michael Barndt
Mary and Michael Bartsch
Christopher Baruth
Joan Batlle
Fred Berman
Marlene and Bert Bilsky
Thomas Bliffert
Nancy Booker
Betty Bostrom
David Bresnahan
E. J. Brumder
Frederick Brumder
Kathleen and Robert Brumder
Sharon Buell
Polly Asmuth Bullock and Family
Robert Burg
Mark Burger
Carol and Alden Carter
Sinikka and Gilbert Church
Carol and Kenneth Collins
Deborah and Dennis Conta
Karen Cotter
Craig Culver
Bill Dargis
Patrick Davidson
Debra and Darshan Dhaliwal
Susan and Ronald Dix
Michael Doylen
Alexandra Drazniowsky-Curtis and Edward Curtis
Pamela Duerst
Denise and Gary Elfe
Robert Engel
Joy and David Erickson
Lyn and Bryan Eskra
Suzy Ettinger
Robin and William Evans
Michael Ferguson
Philip Fisher
Richard Foregger
David Foti
Cynthia and Gary Frank
Nancy and Robert Friebel
Paula and John Friedman
Frederick Ganaway
Anne and Mark Gleischman
Anne Golding
Kathryn and Michael Gotthardt
Betsy and Michael Green
Barbara Griffiths
Denise Grohne
Mary Lynn Haasl
Linda Hallquist
Sugandini Hamilton
Arlene Hansen
Joyce and Timothy Harrison
Jean Harvey
Joanne Hathaway
Virginia and Donald Higgins
Janice and Mark Hobler
Jack Hoffman
Deborah and Matson Holbrook
Janet and Arthur Holzheimer
Tom Horness
Carol Hughes
Tyra Hutcherson
Joann Hutton
Stefanie Jacob and Scott Tisdel
Marc Jampole
Nancy and Richard Janson
Christopher Jensen
Hamilton Jeyaraj
Wanda and Joseph Johnson
Paula and David Johnson
Mary and Robert Jones
Donna and Alan Kindt
Cheryl Kniaz
Debra and Patrick Kogutkiewicz
Joanne Kolodzik
Tammy Kopplin
Janet and Wilfred Kraegel
Patti Lardinois
Judith and Norman Lasca
Arthur and Nancy Laskin
Jack Le Veque
Cora Lockett
Karen Loebel and Mark Lacy
Marianne and Sheldon Lubar
Morgan Ludford
Mary Lueke
Ronald Malmstrom
Catherine Mayer
Stefanie McLaughlin
Suzanne and Robert McColl
Norton McElroy
Sandra and Robert Meldman
Vanaja Menon
Kathleen Miller and Bruce Thompson
Stanley Miller
Susan Modder
Phyllis and William Moritz
Julie and George Mosher
Leanne and Gary Mulry
Rosalie Neufeld and Thomas Bush
David Neumann
Patricia and Daniel Nistler
Ricki and Milo O'Dell
Tammy O'Grosky
Ellen Olinger
Ann and John Pesch
Anita and Robert Pietrykowski
Cindy Pipal
Barbara and Timothy Poser
Elizabeth Quadracci
Paula Rea
Tom Reminga
Dawn and Gene Reynolds
Iria Rilley
Martha Risser and Peter Tessner
Julia and Theodore Rolfs
Carolynne and Richard Rosenberger
Lisa Saxer-Buros
Ken Scheibe
Irma Schuck
Marion and David Schultz
Richard Schwartz
Cathrine Sloan
Maureen and Robert Smith
Rita Smith
Conrad Sniegowski
Margaret Stahr
James Startt
Mark Steinberg
Jody and Jeffrey Steren
David Strunce
Asenju Tamanji
Pat and Jack Tatzel
Nicole and L. William Teweles
Patti Thundercloud
Joyce Tikalsky
Sally Tolan
Bonnie Tripoli
John Udelhofen
Carol Valley
Pat and Tom Van Alyea
Myla Vanderhoof
Julia Vidani
Sprague Vonier
Julie Voss
Devin Walters
Sally Waters
Rebecca and Peter Watson-Boone
Lisa Weikel
Pamela and James Weise
Susan and Leonard Weistrop
Diane and Adam Wene
Todd Wesolowski
Karen and Robert West
Terry Wex
Todd Wiedmeyer
Paul Woehrmann
Nancie Wojciechowski
Frances Wurlitzer
Brad Zellner

Ettinger Family Fund
Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Barbara Brumder Buzard Fund
J. Molin Norris Trust
Lipman Hearne, Inc.
Lucy and Jack Rosenberg Fund
Madelyn Co., Inc.
Map Society of Wisconsin
Milwaukee Art Museum
Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation
Wisconsin Library Services, Inc.

Thank you to the following donors who gave gifts-in-kind-books, maps, videos, and other library material-from July 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006:

Claudia Altmann
Mohammed Aman
Larry Baldassaro
Nestor Bayola
John Bibby
Tom Bliffert
Arlene Hale Brachman
Chris Burns
Curtis Carter
Wallace Cheatham
Rose Daitsman
Alenka and Igor Dekleva
C�sar Ferreira
Berri Forman
Doug Freshner
Dennis Gensch
Beth Giacobassi
Ann Hains
Ian Harris
Roberto Harrison
James J. Heinz
Alex Hill
Glen Jeansonne
Priscilla Kucik
Ivanka Kuzmanovic
Istvan Lauko
William Lavonis Michael Lawrence
Mordecai Lee
Rabbi Leonard J. Lewy
James Lowder
Markos Mamalakis
Harry John Manke
Kimberly Manning
John Martin
Dennis McCaughlin
Ralph H. McClure
Heidi Meier
Ruth M. Mueller
Eldon Murray
Ian Musson
David Nunley
Laura R. Owen
Richard Passman
Milton Peckarsky
Jeffrey Peterson
Lubomir Popov
Norra Prohaska
Mehvish Razvi
Nicole Roberts
Ryan Roney
Dave Schultz
Leon Schur
Jason Scott
Jim Shey
John Snedeker
Steven Snedeker
John L. Stebbins
Jody Steren
Thomas S. Strini
Gregoria and Raymond Suchy
Mark Teply
R. James Tobin
Judy Turner
Pat and Tom Van Alyea
Gabrielle Verdier
John Waldmer
Gilbert Walter
Daniel Weber
Raymond Weiss
Kathy Wentworth
Doreena P. Wilson
Linda Wolfe

Bradley Foundation
Charter Manufacturing Company, Inc.
Child Welfare Information Gateway
Cranbrook Art Museum
Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
Hillel Foundation Milwaukee
Irish Cultural and Heritage Center
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Public Administration Institute of New York State, Inc.
UWM American Indian Student Services
UWM Bookstore
UWM Center for International Education
UWM Center on Age and Community
UWM I&MT
UWM LGBT Resource Center
Winifred L. Stevens Foundation
Wydawnictwo Arcana Publishers

If you wish to donate books or related materials, please contact Janet Padway, Collections Manager, at 414-229-6458. Please note that the Libraries reserve the right to decline donations that do not fall within our collecting scope or that duplicate existing holdings.