Monday, August 30, 2010

Botswana: Read and Watch!

Middfest is just a month away (October 1-3), and it’s time to participate in the Books of Botswana Reading Challenge and related events at GHL!

As we announced earlier this summer, on Tuesday, September 21 from 12-1 the MUM Book Discussion Group will discuss Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency as part of the Challenge (see http://ghlibrarynews.blogspot.com/2010/04/books-of-botswana-reading-challenge.html for more information). Copies of the book are available from Miami libraries and from OhioLINK.

The basic plan is that anyone who reads one or more books from Smith’s series can email middfestreads@gmail.com to be entered in a drawing for various prizes. The drawing will be held on Sunday, September 26th at a Botswana Tea and Talk gathering featuring Botswana historian Dr. Neil Parsons. It will be held at 2:30 at the Middletown City Building.

In addition to the Challenge, the Gardner-Harvey Library has a display of Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ books along with other recent publications about the nation of Botswana (including two of Dr. Parsons’ books). Please drop by to see the display, which is located by our front entrance.

Finally, the library will host a viewing of an episode of HBO’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. The series was filmed in Botswana and will provide a partial visual introduction to the country as well as an enjoyable drama. We will watch the episode on Wednesday, September 15, from 12:30-1:30. Join us in STAR Lounge 2 in the library. The library has two copies of the full DVD set for the series for those who wish to watch more or who cannot attend.

We hope you can join us in one or more of these activities!

New materials added in July and August

The July and August new materials list is now available. We added 133 books, DVDs, and other items over those months, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty selectors and the library staff.

We will shortly be providing 2010/2011 acquisitions budget figures to academic departments and selectors. Watch your email!

Have a suggestion of something to order? Use our online request form, email one of our staff members or drop by the library with your request. Thanks!

John

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Textbooks on Reserve for Fall

The Textbooks on Reserve program at the library has recently been updated. Thanks to the efforts of the MUM Bookstore posting the list of required textbooks (with ISBNs and prices) and to faculty members who placed their orders early, we were able to add many new and updated books well ahead of time this semester.

Though a few books are still being added, we now have textbooks for 124 courses offered at Middletown (most of these were purchased by the library, and others are personal copies added by faculty members or purchased separately by academic departments). The full list is available here.

We had a very strong summer of textbook use. From the middle of May through the end of July we had 179 checkouts (easily our biggest summer ever, even without having all of the stats in). Don't forget the other methods we have for accessing textbooks through the library.

If you can help further spread the word that the textbooks are available, that would be most helpful. If you would like to correct information on our list or if you have suggestions on other courses we should consider buying textbooks for, please let us know.

We thank you for your use and support of this program!