How was the Gardner-Harvey Library used in 2025/2026?

Here are the full annual statistics from fiscal year 2026 (the 2025/26 academic year) for several of the Gardner-Harvey Library's (GHL) services. We hope you will find them useful to see how people use the library.

We were open from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday year round (semesters and breaks). Face to face courses at Middletown decreased to 96 in 2025/2026 from 144 in 2024/2025, and faculty members largely moved to the Hamilton campus by year's end, so we saw fewer individual students and faculty on campus and therefore in the library. We have a strong group of regular users, though, particularly from the Early College Academy (ECA) cohort on campus, and that kept things lively.

These statistics reflect what happened between July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.

Read on for full details on these and other activities.

On Average

Taking the statistics below and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 1000 students, faculty and staff members (also including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:

- checks out over three items from the library each year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)

- visits the library nearly 18 times per year

- accesses the library web site nine times per year.

- participates in a library instruction session or an embedded librarian course once every two years (if she is a student).

Now on to the detailed analysis!

Both a Borrower and a Lender Be

- In the first full year of our new catalog and backend system (Miami University Libraries Search and ALMA), our stats reporting has changed. Some statistics may be compared with that of past years, and others may not, which you'll note below.

- Patrons checked out 1187 books and DVDs from the GHL collection.

- Patron at Middletown requested 119 items from other Miami campuses (an increase of 183% over 2024/25) and 81 items from OhioLINK libraries (a 13% decrease from 2024/25).

- GHL sent 928 items to OhioLINK users (a 10% decrease from 2024/25) and 566 items other MU libraries (an 82% increase over 2024/25).

- GHL patrons checked out 2236 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, study rooms, laptops, and other equipment). That is an 11% increase over 2024-2025. 

- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty, staff, and students ordered 369 items to add to our collection this year. That is an 208% increase from 2024-2025. 

- We registered a total of 3423 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 31,297, so each item in the collection circulated 0.11 times this year (all items in our library circulate).

The Quest for Information

- An average of 26 people visit our web site every day of the year. That's a total of 9,351 visits for the year, by 4107 unique individuals. That's a 3% increase in visits and a 36% increase in unique visitors from 2024-25.

- A project we collaborated on in 2025/26 was the creation of a list of Miami University Regionals courses with free or affordable textbooks. At the inspiration of our TRIO Support Services director, the Gardner-Harvey and Rentschler Libraries surveyed Regional faculty to gather course section information where free or affordable textbooks were used. 54 faculty members have contributed their information, covering 120 course sections (and 108 individual courses). The total savings for Regional students who registered for these courses has been calculated at $300,000.00 per semester. We hope many more faculty will adopt textbook alternatives and add their courses to our list.

- Gardner-Harvey Librarians also create and maintain (with our colleagues at the Rentschler Library in Hamilton and University Libraries in Oxford) subject and course guides called LibGuides for our databases and other information sources. You may find guides for each of the Regional degrees, plus guides for individual courses and specialized areas of research.

Helping You Find What You Need

- Every day we answer questions from students, faculty, and staff through multiple means of contact. You may see the various ways to reach us on our Contact Us page, including in-person, by chat, text, e-mail, or phone, or by setting up a Research Consultation.

- In face to face and synchronous Zoom sessions, we gave library instruction presentations in 6 classes this year, reaching 126 students (a decrease of 55% from 2024-2025).

- Our Embedded Librarian program reached students from 15 course sections in their Canvas course sites during the academic year (that is a 6% decrease from 2024-2025). We helped over 362 students with their information needs through the program.

A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World

- GHL was open 45 hours per week during 2025-26. 

- We averaged 72 visitors per day, for a total of 17792 visits this year. This reflects a 2% decrease from 2024-2025. Our best attended day (tie) was September 23 and September 26, 2025, with 199 visitors. We had 159 days with 50 or more visitors (64% of our open days).

- The demand for GHL study rooms has remained strong, for individual study, Zoom participation, and small group meetings and study sessions, but checkouts did drop this year. Our ten study rooms were checked out 1867 times this year by students, faculty, and staff members. That represents a 27% increase from 2024-25. It was also the second highest number of annual checkouts of our rooms since FY19.

- We hosted 51 events in FY26, a mixture of in-person, Zoom-only, and in-person/Zoom simultaneous events.  These included:

• Eleven MUM Book Discussion Group meetings.

• Two Short Story Club meetings.

• A talk by Leanna Hieber on her book "America's Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction."

• Five workshops by GHL librarians on using AI.

• A presentation by Dr. Natalie Hofmeister on "Making Sense of Murmurations."

• A presentation by Regional student Aidan Oglesbee on "Fungi and Mushroom Foraging."

• Four TEC Lab workshops and four pop-up making workshops.

• Six National Parks geology/archaeology presentations by Dr. Tammie Gerke.

• Seven Underground Academy presentations by Janelle Allen.

• Seven "Camper's Choice" sessions for the STEAM Studio program in July 2025 and June 2026.  

Total attendance for the events was 570 participants, for an average of 11 people per event.  

Helping to share ideas and spread the word

People may not know that we offer poster printing services for departments and individuals at the Regionals. You may use our form to request a poster print job for a final product that can be as large as 42" in one dimension and almost any size in the other dimension (since we print from a roll of paper). We print a number of academic posters for conferences and capstone projects, and also many marketing materials (a 24" x 36" poster is our most common requested item). We have two printers, and offer printing in both a standard coated poster paper and a photo quality paper. You are able to pick up your poster at our library, or we can send it to Hamilton or Oxford in campus mail.

What don't we know about how the library is used?

- One key part missing from these figures is off-campus use of library resources: all off-campus use is tallied as MU-wide use, so we do not know how many Middletown patrons are using databases from home (we estimate a lot of you are).

- We don't have campus-specific stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of the EBSCO databases, and other databases that are tracked on a whole-university level.

- We hope you'll continue to let us know what you think about the library, what you need from us, and what materials we should order for the collection. 

A big development for GHL at the end of FY26 was a change in our reporting structure. We and the Rentschler Library in Hamilton have reported to the Regional campuses administration since our founding. But now we have joined University Libraries in Oxford under the leadership of Dean and University Librarian Jerome Conley. We look forward to even closer collaboration and connections with our new colleagues in the years ahead, and continued excellent service to our Regional students, faculty, staff, and community members.

Thanks to everyone for making the library and its resources a vital part of your academic lives! We really appreciate the opportunity to meet your needs in the library and remotely during this year, and we look forward to even more interactions in 2026/27.

The Gardner-Harvey Library Staff

How was the Gardner-Harvey Library used in 2024/2025?

 

Here are the full annual statistics from fiscal year 2025 (the 2024/25 academic year) for several of the Gardner-Harvey Library's (GHL) services. We hope you will find them useful to see how people use the library.

We experienced a staff shortage late in the fall of the academic year, in addition to our ongoing budget reduction. That forced us to change our semester hours from 8am to 7pm from Monday to Thursday and open on Fridays from 8am to 5pm in the fall to remain open from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday year round (semesters and breaks) starting in January. We did decrease the percentage of face to face courses at  Middletown even further in FY25 (to 32% for the year), and that meant we saw a smaller number of students and faculty on campus and therefore in the library.

These statistics reflect what happened between July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.

Read on for full details on these and other activities.

On Average

Taking the statistics below and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 1000 students, faculty and staff members (and including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:

- checks out nearly three items from the library each year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)

- visits the library 18 times per year

- accesses the library web site nine times per year.

- participates in a library instruction session or an embedded librarian course once every two years (if she is a student).

Now on to the detailed analysis!

Both a Borrower and a Lender Be

- GHL patrons checked out 873 books and DVDs from us (738 from our local collection, 42 ordered from other MU libraries, and 93 items ordered from OhioLINK - that means that 16% of the items used by campus patrons came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 10% decrease in GHL patron borrowing over 2023-2024.

- The GHL collection registered 2085 checkouts (that's the 738 items checked out by Middletown patrons above, plus 1036 items sent to OhioLINK users, and 311 sent to other MU libraries - that means that 65% of the uses of our materials came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 36% decrease in total lending over 2023-2024. We should note that during our move to install our new Miami University Libraries Search from Ex Libris, OhioLINK borrowing was suspended right after finals week in Spring 2025, and did not pick up again until the new fiscal year. 

- GHL patrons checked out 2016 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, study rooms, laptops, and other equipment). That is a 19% decrease from 2023-2024. 

- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty, staff, and students ordered 120 items to add to our collection this year. That is an 89% decrease from 2023-2024.  Since our FY25 42% operating budget cut has become permanent going forward, we will be able to buy fewer books than we have historically, but we hope to add a larger number in FY26 than we did in FY25.

- We registered a total of 4101 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 31,150, so each item in the collection circulated 0.13 times this year (all items in our library circulate).

The Quest for Information

- An average of 25 people visit our web site every day of the year. That's a total of 9,065 visits for the year, by 3,022 unique individuals. That's a 6% decrease in visits and a 4% decrease in unique visitors from 2023-24.

- Gardner-Harvey Librarians also create and maintain (with our colleagues at the Rentschler Library in Hamilton and University Libraries in Oxford) subject and course guides called LibGuides for our databases and other information sources. You may find guides for each of the Regional degrees, plus guides for individual courses and specialized areas of research.

Helping You Find What You Need

- Every day we answer questions from students, faculty, and staff through multiple means of contact. You may see the various ways to reach us on our Contact Us page, including in-person, by chat, text, e-mail, or phone, or by setting up a Research Consultation.

- In face to face and synchronous Zoom sessions, we gave library instruction presentations in 15 classes this year, reaching 278 students (an increase of 36% from 2023-2024).

- Our Embedded Librarian program reached students from 16 course sections in their Canvas course sites during the academic year (that is a 24% decrease from 2023-2024). We helped over 461 students with their information needs through the program.

A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World

- GHL was open 45 hours per week during the majority of 2024-25 (we were open 53 hours per week during the Fall 2024 semester). 

- We averaged 74 visitors per day, for a total of 18220 visits this year. This reflects a 7% decrease from 2023-2024. Our best attended day was August 26, 2024, with 230 visitors. We had 174 days with 50 or more visitors (70% of our open days).

- The demand for GHL study rooms has remained strong, for individual study, Zoom participation, and small group meetings and study sessions, but checkouts did drop this year. Our ten study rooms were checked out 1473 times this year by students, faculty, and staff members. That represents a 27% decrease from 2023-24. It was still the second highest number of annual checkouts of our rooms since FY19.

- We hosted 46 events in FY25, a mixture of in-person and in-person/Zoom simultaneous events.  These included:

• Ten MUM Book Discussion Group meetings.

• Two Diversity Book discussions (co-sponsored with the Rentschler Library and the Regional Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).

• Seven TEC Lab workshops and three pop-up making workshops.

• Six National Parks geology/archaeology presentations by Dr. Tammie Gerke.

• Four Know Your Body talks by Dr. Al Cady.

• Seven Underground Academy presentations by Janelle Allen.

• Five "Camper's Choice" sessions for the STEAM Studio program in July 2024 and June 2025.  

Total attendance for the events was 548 participants, for an average of 12 people per event.  

Helping to share ideas and spread the word

People may not know that we offer poster printing services for departments and individuals at the Regionals. You may use our form to request a poster print job for a final product that can be as large as 42" in one dimension and almost any size in the other dimension (since we print from a roll of paper). We print a number of academic posters for conferences and capstone projects, and also many marketing materials (a 24" x 36" poster is our most common requested item). We have two printers, and offer printing in both a standard coated poster paper and a photo quality paper. You are able to pick up your poster at our library, or we can send it to Hamilton in campus mail.

What don't we know about how the library is used?

- One key part missing from these figures is off-campus use of library resources: all off-campus use is tallied as MU-wide use, so we do not know how many Middletown patrons are using databases from home (we estimate a lot of you are).

- We don't have campus-specific stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of Nexis Uni, the EBSCO databases, and other databases that are tracked on a whole-university level.

- We hope you'll continue to let us know what you think about the library, what you need from us, and what materials we should order for the collection. 

Two huge developments for GHL in 2025 were the hiring of Jennifer Hicks, long-time staff member, as our new Outreach & Instruction Librarian, and Leah Tabler as our new Circulation Supervisor for both the Rentschler and Gardner-Harvey Libraries. Congratulations and welcome to you both!

Thanks to everyone for making the library and its resources a vital part of your academic lives! We really appreciate the opportunity to meet your needs in the library and remotely during this year, and we look forward to even more interactions in 2025/26.

The Gardner-Harvey Library Staff

How was the Gardner-Harvey Library used in 2023/2024?

Here are the full annual statistics from fiscal year 2024 (the 2023/24 academic year) for several of the Gardner-Harvey Library's (GHL) services. I hope you will find them useful to see how people use the library.

Much like last academic year, we were open during the semesters from 8am to 7pm from Monday to Thursday and open on Fridays from 8am to 5pm. A preponderance of Middletown classes were, once again, held online for Fall and Spring (roughly 66% for the entire academic year), so we did still see a smaller number of students and faculty on campus and therefore in the library. But attendance at our events increased, as did some other measurable uses of the library.

The library roof replacement was completed in the first half of FY24, much to the joy of patrons and staff alike! We spent a very dry winter and spring, with no buckets or garbage cans full of water to empty. The library also had a beautiful interior paint job, with new accent colors all around. The image above is of our newly painted and arranged TEC SPACE on our lower level.

These statistics reflect what happened between July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.

Read on for full details on these and other activities.

On Average

Taking the statistics below and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 1200 students, faculty and staff members (and including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:

- checks out nearly three items from the library each year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)

- visits the library 16 times per year

- accesses the library web site eight times per year.

- participates in a library instruction session or an embedded librarian course once every two years (if she is a student).

Now on to the detailed analysis!

Both a Borrower and a Lender Be

- GHL patrons checked out 970 books and DVDs from us (745 from our local collection, 149 ordered from other MU libraries, and 76 items ordered from OhioLINK - that means that 23% of the items used by campus patrons came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 15% decrease in GHL patron borrowing over 2022-2023.

- The GHL collection registered 3249 checkouts (that's the 745 items checked out by Middletown patrons above, plus 1898 items sent to OhioLINK users, and 606 sent to other MU libraries - that means that 77% of the uses of our materials came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 10% decrease in total lending over 2022-2023.

- GHL patrons checked out 2488 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, study rooms, laptops, and other equipment). That is a 66% increase from 2022-2023. Textbooks on reserve checkouts totaled 52 in 2023-24, an increase of 27% from 2022-23.

- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty, staff, and students ordered 1073 items to add to our collection this year. That is a 64% decrease from 2022-2023.  

- We registered a total of 5737 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 32,754, so each item in the collection circulated 0.18 times this year (all items in our library circulate).

The Quest for Information

- 26 people visit our web site every day. That's a total of 9,614 visits for the year, by 3,145 unique individuals. That's a 9% decrease in visits and a 3% decrease in unique visitors from 2022-23.

- Gardner-Harvey Librarians also create and maintain (with our colleagues at the Rentschler Library in Hamilton and University Libraries in Oxford) subject and course guides called LibGuides for our databases and other information sources. You may find guides for each of the Regional degrees, plus guides for individual courses and specialized areas of research.

Helping You Find What You Need

- Every day we answer questions from students, faculty, and staff through multiple means of contact. You may see the various ways to reach us on our Contact Us page, including in-person, by chat, text, e-mail, or phone, or by setting up a Research Consultation.

- In face to face and synchronous Zoom sessions, we gave library instruction presentations in 11 classes this year, reaching 187 students (a decrease of 38% from 2022-2023).

- Our Embedded Librarian program reached students from 21 course sections in their Canvas course sites during the academic year (that is a 10% decrease from 2022-2023). We helped over 411 students with their information needs through the program.

A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World

- GHL was open 53 hours per week during the regular semesters in 2022-2023 (reducing hours for the summer and winter and spring breaks).

- We averaged 104 visitors per day, for a total of 19497 visits this year. This is based on our new door counter system, which did not begin counting until the first day of classes in the Fall 2023 semester (August 28). The statistics run from then through June 30, 2024. Just looking at total visits (and knowing that FY23 had gate counter issues at the end of the fiscal year), this reflects a 9% increase from 2022-2023. Our best attended day was April 22, 2024, with 223 visitors. We had 176 days with 50 or more visitors (84% of our open days).

- In FY23, we converted one of our study rooms into the GHL Lounge, a spot for students to relax, play with our Nintendo Switch and Oculus VR headset, get free coffee and snacks, and use our microwave and refrigerator. The room was heavily used in FY24, and students benefited from not only the items listed above but also our Care Cabinet, which supplies personal hygiene products to students (many of which were donated by Regional faculty and staff). Jennifer Hicks and Jessie Long also sought and were awarded a Miami University Libraries Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant in late 2023 to provide hygiene supplies and snacks, which bolstered our efforts.

- The demand for study rooms has continued to surge, both for individual study and Zoom participation and also small group meetings and study sessions. Our nine study rooms were checked out 2010 times this year by students, faculty, and staff members. That represents a 69% increase from 2022-23.  

- We hosted 59 events in FY24, a mixture of in-person and in-person/Zoom simultaneously.  These included:

• Eleven MUM Book Discussion Group meetings.
• Six Diversity Book discussions (co-sponsored with the Rentschler Library and the Regional Centers for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).
• Eight TEC Lab workshops and four pop-up making workshops.
• Six National Parks geology/archaeology presentations by Dr. Tammie Gerke.
• Four Inside Biology talks by Dr. Al Cady.
• Four Underground Academy presentations by Regional faculty members.
• "Weird OH Road Trips" with author James Willis.
• Five "Camper's Choice" sessions for the STEAM Studio program in July 2023 and June 2024.  

Total attendance for the events was 766 participants, for an average of 13 people per event.  

Helping to share ideas and spread the word

People may not know that we offer poster printing services for departments and individuals at the Regionals. You may use our form to request a poster print job for a final product that can be as large as 42" in one dimension and almost any size in the other dimension (since we print from a roll of paper). We print a number of academic posters for conferences and capstone projects, and also many marketing materials (a 24" x 36" poster is our most common requested item). We have two printers, and offer printing in both a standard coated poster paper and a photo quality paper. To give you a sense of how much we print, we recently worked with Technology Services (our partner in poster printing) for a one year analysis of posters. From April 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, we printed 875 coated posters (4203.53 square feet of posters) and 64 photo quality posters (519.67 square feet). You are able to pick up your poster at our library, or we can send it to Hamilton in campus mail.

What don't we know about how the library is used?

- One key part missing from these figures is off-campus use of library resources: all off-campus use is tallied as MU-wide use, so we do not know how many Middletown patrons are using databases from home (we estimate a lot of you are).

- We don't have campus-specific stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of Nexis Uni, the EBSCO databases, and other databases that are tracked on a whole-university level.

- We hope you'll continue to let us know what you think about the library, what you need from us, and what materials we should order for the collection. We should note that we are experiencing a 42% budget cut for FY25, and books will only be added to the collection on a case by case basis. Streaming video licenses will also not be able to be purchased in FY25.

Thanks to everyone for making the library and its resources a vital part of your academic lives! We really appreciate the opportunity to meet your needs in the library and remotely during this year, and we look forward to even more interactions in 2024/25.

The Gardner-Harvey Library Staff

How was the Gardner-Harvey Library used in 2022/23?

Here are the full annual statistics from fiscal year 2023 (the 2022/23 academic year) for several of the Gardner-Harvey Library's (GHL) services. I hope you will find them useful to see how people use the library.

Much like last academic year, we were open during the semesters from 8am to 7pm from Monday to Thursday and open on Fridays from 8am to 5pm. A preponderance of Middletown classes were held online for Fall and Spring (roughly 65%), so we did still see a smaller than pre-Pandemic number of students and faculty on campus and therefore in the library. But attendance at our events increased, as did some other measurable uses of the library.

This year will certainly be notable for the replacement of the library’s roof, which began in June 2023. The tarps and buckets used to contain leaks and protect the library and its inhabitants will soon be a sight of the past!

These statistics reflect what happened between July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.

Read on for full details on these and other activities.

On Average

Taking the statistics below and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 1500 students, faculty and staff members (and including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:

- checks out nearly two items from the library each year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)

- visits the library 12 times per year

- accesses the library web site seven times per year.

- participates in a library instruction session or an embedded librarian course once every two years (if she is a student).

Now on to the detailed analysis!

Both a Borrower and a Lender Be

- GHL patrons checked out 1143 books and DVDs from us (744 from our local collection, 230 ordered from other MU libraries, and 169 items ordered from OhioLINK - that means that 35% of the items used by campus patrons came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 10% decrease in GHL patron borrowing over 2021-2022.

- The GHL collection registered 3615 checkouts (that's the 744 items checked out by Middletown patrons above, plus 2232 items sent to OhioLINK users, and 639 sent to other MU libraries - that means that 79% of the uses of our materials came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 45% increase in total lending over 2021-2022. 

- GHL patrons checked out 1497 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, study rooms, laptops, and other equipment). That is a 47% increase from 2021-2022. Textbooks on reserve checkouts totaled 41 in 2021-22, a decrease of 23% from 2021-22. 

- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty, staff, and students ordered 2948 items to add to our collection this year. That is a 47% increase from 2021-2022.  

- We registered a total of 5112 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 32,036, so each item in the collection circulated 0.15 times this year (all items in our library circulate). 

The Quest for Information

- 29 people visit our web site every day. That's a total of 10,570 visits for the year, by 3,227 unique individuals. That's a 7% decrease in visits and a 44% decrease in unique visitors from 2021-22.

- Gardner-Harvey Librarians also create and maintain (with our colleagues at the Rentschler Library in Hamilton or University Libraries in Oxford) subject and course guides called LibGuides for our databases and other information sources. 

Helping You Find What You Need

- In face to face and synchronous Zoom sessions, we gave library instruction presentations in 21 classes this year, reaching 201 students (an increase of 233% from 2021-2022). 

- Our Embedded Librarian program reached students from 23 course sections in their Canvas course sites during the academic year (that is a 20% decrease from 2021-2022). We helped over 434 students with their information needs through the program.

A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World

- GHL was open 53 hours per week during the regular semesters in 2022-2023 (reducing hours for the summer and winter and spring breaks).

- We averaged 86 visitors per day, for a total of 17869 visits this year (through April 25, 2023). This is based on our door counter system, which had several breakdowns during the year (it completely quit on April 25, 2023). Even so, this reflects a 30% increase from 2021-2022. Our best attended day was February 8, 2023, with 220 visitors. We had 161 days with 50 or more visitors (78% of our open days).

- We converted one of our study rooms into the GHL Lounge (shown in the photo above), a spot for students to relax, play with our Nintendo Switch and Oculus VR headset, get free coffee and snacks, and use our microwave and refrigerator.

- With increased needs for participating in Zoom sessions for synchronous online courses, and lessening of restrictions for people to meet in small groups, we had eight study rooms checked out 1188 times this year by students, faculty, and staff members. That represents a 59% increase from 2021-22.  

- We hosted 50 events in FY23, a mixture of in-person and in-person/Zoom simultaneously.  These included:

• Nine MUM Book Discussion Group meetings.

• Five Diversity Book discussions (co-sponsored with the Rentschler Library and the Regional Centers for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). 

• Nine TEC Lab workshops, three TEC Lab certificate program sessions, and three pop-up making workshops.

• Seven National Parks geology/archaeology presentations by Dr. Tammie Gerke.

• Four Inside Biology talks by Dr. Al Cady.

• "Southern Ohio Legends and Lore" with author James Willis

• Our Human Library event.

• Six "Camper's Choice" sessions for the STEAM Studio program in July 2022 and June 2023.  

Total attendance for the events was 636 participants, for an average of 12 people per event.  

What don't we know about how the library is used?

- One key part missing from these figures is off-campus use of library resources: all off-campus use is tallied as MU-wide use, so we do not know how many Middletown patrons are using databases from home (we estimate a lot of you are).

- We don't have campus-specific stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of Nexis Uni, the EBSCO databases, and other databases that are tracked on a whole-university level.

- We hope you'll continue to let us know what you think about the library, what you need from us, and what materials we should order for the collection.

Thanks to everyone for making the library and its resources a vital part of your academic lives! We really appreciate the opportunity to meet your needs in the library and remotely during this year of the pandemic, and we look forward to even more improvements in 2023/24).

The Gardner-Harvey Library Staff