See what's happening at Gardner-Harvey Library in our Fall Newsletter

Curious what Gardner-Harvey Library was up to this summer and what we have planned for fall? Check out our Fall Newsletter for an introduction to our new Middletown campus online archive, information about OER resources, a list of our upcoming events, and more. 


Here's a sneak peak at our new charging station!

The library welcomes you this fall with free beverages all week!

We welcome you to the Gardner-Harvey Library and the Middletown Campus this fall!

Come see our study rooms, our TEC Lab, and our computer and open seating spaces and enjoy a cup of coffee, tea, hot cocoa, or lemonade during the first week of classes.  We'll have beverages available from Monday, August 28 to Friday, September 1.

We hope we can help you have a great Fall Semester!

The image above was provided through a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license by Fronx.

#MoveInMiami - Help students by funding our textbook collection

#MoveInMiami -- a one-day fundraiser for Miami University -- is tomorrow, Thursday, August 24! 

This year the Gardner-Harvey Library hopes to increase the number of textbooks we purchase and allow students to borrow (saving them the expense of textbooks or making it easier for them to catch up on reading and assignments while on campus). This is an exciting opportunity for us to raise gift funds to support this service and our other programming.  Can we count on you?

If you are able to make even a small gift to the Gardner-Harvey Library (or our sister library in Hamilton), please use the form at http://www.givetomiamioh.org/regionallibraries. All gifts are tax deductible, and you will be emailed a receipt upon making a gift online. Gifts must be made on August 24 to qualify for this initiative.

Thank you very much for your time and your support of the library and our students!

John

John J. Burke, MSLS
Library Director & Principal Librarian 
Gardner-Harvey Library
Miami University Middletown

burkejj@miamioh.edu
513-727-3293
http://miamioh.edu/burkejj

Text your questions to 513-273-5360


Have you noticed another staff member going above and beyond?
Nominate them and the Miami University Regionals Staff Forum will recognize them at our next meeting!

Middletown book discussion title for September!

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, September 26 to discuss Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife.  We will meet at 12 pm in Room 124 in the Library. 

Here is a brief summary of the title, along with links to request the book from Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio libraries (Just click "Request" and choose "Miami University" from the dropdown list.  Then enter your UniqueID and password, and the library from which you would like to retrieve the item):  

"On what might become one of the most significant days in her husband's presidency, Alice Blackwell considers the strange and unlikely path that has led her to the White House--and the repercussions of a life lived, as she puts it, "almost in opposition to itself." How can she both love and fundamentally disagree with her husband? How complicit has she been in the trajectory of her own life? What should she do when her private beliefs run against her public persona?"

Miami, OhioLINK, and  SearchOhio 

Read the book (or read something else interesting), then come along to our discussion to share what else you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing, and help us plan our future readings.  

Have an idea for a book to discuss?  Let us know and check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

How was the Gardner-Harvey Library used in 2016/17?

Here are the full annual stats from fiscal year 2017 (the 2016/17 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. 

These statistics reflect what happened between July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.

Highlights for this year include:

• A 17% increase in the use of GHL's books and DVDs.
• A 57% increase in the use of reserve materials.
• A 58% increase in the number of items added to the collection.
• A 16% increase in visits to the library.
• A 688% increase in study room use.

Read on for full details on these and other activities.

On Average
Taking the statistics below and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 2000 students, faculty and staff members (and including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:

- checks nearly three items out from the library in a year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)
- visits the library 30 times per year
- downloads four full-text articles each year.
- accesses the library web site eight times per year.
- participates in a library instruction session or an embedded librarian course once per year (if she is a student).

Now on to the detailed analysis!

Both a Borrower and a Lender Be
- GHL patrons checked out 2,133 books and DVDs from us (1,011 from our local collection, 629 ordered from other MU libraries, and 493 items ordered from OhioLINK - that means that more than 52% of the items used by campus patrons came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 16% decrease in total borrowing from 2015-2016.  

- The GHL collection registered 3,634 checkouts (that's the 1,011 items checked out by Middletown patrons above, plus 1,737 items sent to OhioLINK users, and 886 sent to other MU libraries - that means that 72% of the uses of our materials came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 17% increase in total lending over 2015-2016. 

- GHL patrons checked out 3,648 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, study rooms, laptops, iPads, and other equipment). That is a 57% increase from 2015-2016. Textbooks on reserve checkouts totaled 515 in 2016/17, a decrease of nearly 25% from 2015-16.

- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty, staff, and students ordered 1886 items to add to our collection this year. That is a 58% increase from 2015-2016.  

- We registered a total of 7,282 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 30,520, so each item in the collection circulated 0.24 times this year (all items in our library circulate). 

The Quest for Information
- Middletown patrons spent 13,424 search sessions downloading 8,192 full-text articles from Ebsco databases provided to us through Miami University and OhioLINK.  This only represents use of the databases on campus.  Those numbers reflect a 7% decrease in search sessions and a 27% decrease in downloads from 2015-2016).

- On their way to these databases, 44 people visit our web site every day. That's a total of 15,923 visits for the year, by 7,491 unique individuals. That's a 15% decrease in visits and a 10% decrease in unique visitors from 2015-2016.

A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World
- GHL is open 57 hours per week.

- We averaged 239 visitors per day, for a total of 61,034 visits this year.  This reflects a 16% increase from 2015-2016.  With our renovation concluding in August 2016, students and other patrons really flocked to the new library and made heavy use of the space (as the statistics below also support). Having the collection moved, the new elevator, the GRD 111 renovation, and the carpet replacement completed by the end of January 2017 provided even more improved spaces for spring semester 2017.

- We regularly schedule the library learning lab (GRD 111) for single class sessions. We also had one class meet there weekly during fall semester.  We also made use of our Study Room 110  with three classes meeting weekly in there during the fall semester and 5 classes meeting weekly during the spring semester.

- Our ten study rooms were checked out 1,907 times this year by students, faculty, and staff members. That represents a 688% increase from 2015-16 (partly due to increasing from two rooms to ten).  The average uses per room also rose from 56 in 2015-16 to 190 in 2016-17, which shows a tremendous response to the rooms.

- We held several events in the library this year that we sponsored or co-sponsored.  Aside from the monthly MUM Book Discussion Group meetings (for which we do not have attendance recorded), we had 15 events (12 TEC Lab workshops and three other events (two national parks geology video/lectures and one Casper Lecture book discussion)).  Total attendance was 120, for an average of 8 people per event.  A total of 99 different individuals came to at least one program, with 14 of those people attending two or three events.

Helping You Find What You Need
- Inside and outside of the library, we gave library instruction presentations in 36 classes this year, reaching 717 students (a decrease of 20% from 2015-2016). 

- Our Embedded Librarian program reached students from 68 course sections in their Canvas course sites during the academic year (that is a 6% decrease from 2015-2016). We helped over 1,332 students with their information needs through the program.

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 have also lost meaningful data for on-campus use from some of our OhioLINK full-text resources.

- We don't have campus-specific stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of Nexis Uni 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!

New books added to the Gardner-Harvey Library in July!

See our new materials list of items we added to the collection in July! We added 144 books, e-books, DVDs, and other items during that time, thanks to your selections and suggestions. The list is sorted by call number, with items grouped roughly by subject area (but it's now a Google Sheet, so you can sort it however you'd like).

Here are eight titles from the list, to give you an idea of what we've been buying:

• Rad women worldwide : artists and athletes, pirates and punks, and other revolutionaries who shaped history / written by Kate Schatz
• The Harlem reader : a celebration of New York's most famous neighborhood, from the renaissance years to the twenty-first century / edited by Herb Boyd
• Machine, platform, crowd : harnessing our digital future / Andrew McAfee & Erik Brynjolfsson
• Men without work : America's invisible crisis / Nicholas Eberstadt
• Chokehold : policing black men / Paul Butler
• No is not enough : resisting Trump's shock politics and winning the world we need / Naomi Klein
• Monstress. Volume two, The blood / Marjorie Liu
• Hundreds of interlaced fingers : a kidney doctor's search for the perfect match / Vanessa Grubbs, MD

This tag will show you all of the prior lists of new materials, in reverse chronological order. We are eager to hear from you about individual items you would like us to buy, or types of items we should be on the lookout for, or general subject areas we should build up in the collection.

This month we're adding some new materials along with replacements for items that have gone missing from the collection (and those that patrons have chosen to replace). We're looking forward to what you'll recommend next!

If you have a suggestion of something to order, please use our "Tell GHL to Buy It" form, email Amy Carmichael (carmicae@miamioh.edu), or drop by the library with your request. And pass your general suggestions or comments about the collection to us in those same ways.

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

Middletown Book Discussion Title for August

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, August 15 to discuss Paulette Jiles' News of the World.  We will meet at 12 pm in Room 124 in the Library. 

Here is a brief summary of the title, along with links to request the book from Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio libraries (Just click "Request" and choose "Miami University" from the dropdown list.  Then enter your UniqueID and password, and the library from which you would like to retrieve the item):  

"In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust."

Miami, OhioLINK, and  SearchOhio 

Read the book (or read something else interesting), then come along to our discussion to share what else you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing, and help us plan our future readings.  

Have an idea for a book to discuss?  Let us know and check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

New books added to the Gardner-Harvey Library in June!

See our new materials list of items we added to the collection in June! We added 208 books, e-books, DVDs, and other items during that time, thanks to your selections and suggestions. The list is sorted by call number, with items grouped roughly by subject area.

Here are eight titles from the list, to give you an idea of what we've been buying:

• We crossed a bridge and it trembled : voices from Syria / Wendy Pearlman
• What are the arts and sciences? : a guide for the curious / edited by Dan Rockmore
• Defiant Earth : the fate of humans in the Anthropocene / Clive Hamilton
• Grocery : the buying and selling of food in America / Michael Ruhlman
• Inferior : how science got women wrong ‐ and the new research that's rewriting the story / Angela Saini
• The waste lands / Stephen King
• The athlete's dilemma : sacrificing health for wealth and fame / John Weston Parry
• Remote control / Caetlin Benson‐Allott

This tag will show you all of the prior lists of new materials, in reverse chronological order. We are eager to hear from you about individual items you would like us to buy, or types of items we should be on the lookout for, or general subject areas we should build up in the collection.

We have entered a new fiscal year, which means we're ready to add new items as you request them. We're looking forward to what you'll recommend next!

If you have a suggestion of something to order, please use our "Tell GHL to Buy It" form, email Amy Carmichael (carmicae@miamioh.edu), or drop by the library with your request. And pass your general suggestions or comments about the collection to us in those same ways.

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

King Library, Oxford Campus Closes July 22 - August 6

Due to an electrical upgrade project on the  Miami University, Oxford campus, King Library will be closed from July 22 through August 6.  Please request materials from King Library prior to closing to avoid delays in requesting materials and other library services like digitization of videos for coursework.

The B.E.S.T., Amos Music, and Wertz Art and Architecture Libraries will remain open.

Learn more.

Learn about Mammoth Cave National Park in Middletown!

Dr. Tammie Gerke will discuss the geology and other interesting information about Mammoth Cave National Park on the Middletown campus next week.  She will show a video on the geology of the park as part of her presentation.

This session is on Tuesday, June 20th from 2:00pm to 3:30pm with time for questions and discussion.  The event will be held in the Open Seating Area at the entrance of the Gardner-Harvey Library.

All are welcome to attend.  Light refreshments will be provided.

The above image was provided through a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license by Garden State Hiker.

Middletown Library has a student job opening!

There is a student assistant job opening at the Gardner-Harvey Library on the Middletown campus.

See https://goo.gl/bnQlRS for details and to apply.  Questions? Contact Jennifer Hicks at 513-727-3221 or hicksjl2@miamioh.edu

Middletown Book Discussion Title for July!

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Wednesday, July 12 to discuss Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation.  We will meet at 12 pm in Room 124 in the Library. 

Here is a brief summary of the title, along with links to request the book from  OhioLINK and SearchOhio libraries (Just click "Request" and choose "Miami University" from the dropdown list.  Then enter your UniqueID and password, and the library from which you would like to retrieve the item):  

"Caught between the pressure to succeed in America, her duty to their family, and her own personal desires, Kimberly Chang, an immigrant girl from Hong Kong, learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles."

OhioLINK and  SearchOhio 

Read the book (or read something else interesting), then come along to our discussion to share what else you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing, and help us plan our future readings.  

Have an idea for a book to discuss?  Let us know and check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

New books added to the Gardner-Harvey Library in May!

See our new materials list of items we added to the collection in May! We added 135 books, e-books, DVDs, and other items during that time, thanks to your selections and suggestions. The list is sorted by call number, with items grouped roughly by subject area.

Here are eight titles from the list, to give you an idea of what we've been buying:

• Yin‐yang : American perspectives on living in China / edited by Alice Renouf and Mary Beth Ryan-Maher
• Community‐based corrections / Leanne Fiftal Alarid
Climate change and the health of nations : famines, fevers, and the fate of populations / Anthony J. McMichael
• How autism is reshaping special education : the unbundling of IDEA / Mark K. Claypool and John M. McLaughlin
• Making places for people : 12 questions every designer should ask / Christie Johnson Coffin
• Into the water / Paula Hawkins
• Pachinko / Min Jin Lee
• Generation wealth / Lauren Greenfield

This tag will show you all of the prior lists of new materials, in reverse chronological order. We are eager to hear from you about individual items you would like us to buy, or types of items we should be on the lookout for, or general subject areas we should build up in the collection.

There is still time to add books from this year's budget!  Your input will help us keep the collection working well as we add items during the remainder of the 2016/17 fiscal year  We're looking forward to what you'll recommend next!

If you have a suggestion of something to order, please use our "Tell GHL to Buy It" form, email Amy Carmichael (carmicae@miamioh.edu), or drop by the library with your request. And pass your general suggestions or comments about the collection to us in those same ways.

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

How can the Library help you this summer?

Summer term will soon be here and the Gardner-Harvey Library would like to send some reminders about our summer services. The library is open year round to help with library instruction and embedded librarianship, offer a variety of technical equipment, including laptops and iPads, and provide study rooms for quiet study or group work. 

For more information about our services, please check out our Faculty Guide or our Library Services page.

Curious what an embedded librarian can do for your summer course? Having an embedded librarian in your Canvas course sites is a great way to strengthen students’ academic research skills and information literacy.

Looking back over past semesters, did your students struggle with … ?

• Incorporating scholarly sources in their research projects
• Evaluating online sources for currency, relevance, accuracy, authority, & purpose
• Requesting items from other Miami libraries and OhioLINK
• Citing sources correctly in APA or MLA style
• Using information ethically (i.e. academic integrity)

Regional campus librarians can help students master these skills through custom research guides embedded in your Canvas course site. Contact us to discuss your goals and we will tailor the guide to match them.

If you already collaborate with an embedded librarian, please let us know that you want to continue the service this summer. We will review your guide to ensure that links are functional and content is up-to-date before classes start.

If you are ready to try a new approach this summer, please contact 

Beth Tumbleson, Middletown, 513-727-3232,  tumbleb@miamioh.edu

Mark Shores, Hamilton, 513-785-3203,   shoresml@miamioh.edu 

Free coffee, tea, hot chocolate, lemonade, and mints at the Library for Finals Week!

The Library will offer free coffee, tea, hot cocoa, lemonade, and mints all during finals week, starting on Saturday, May 6th. It will be set up in our entrance area from roughly 12:00pm to 4:00pm on Saturday, 8:00am to 8:00pm, Monday through Thursday, and from 8:00am to 5:00pm on Friday. Please drop on by and enjoy a cup!

It's our way of making your last minute studying and paper/project preparation a bit more relaxing. Thanks for being a part of our library community!


The image above was provided through a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license by Fronx.

Library open on Saturday! Come study and have a beverage on us.

To help you prepare for final exams, the Gardner-Harvey Library will offer extra study hours to students on Saturday, May 6, 2017. We will be open from Noon until 4:00pm that day.

If you need a quiet place to study, please come to the library and use our computers and our study rooms. Staff will be on hand to provide assistance.

If you want to reserve a room for the day, be sure to use our online reservation system (choose "Reserve Middletown Library Study Room").

Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, lemonade, and mints will be available to help you stay aware and awake.

New books added to the Gardner-Harvey Library in April!

See our new materials list of items we added to the collection in April! We added 195 books, e-books, DVDs, and other items during that time, thanks to your selections and suggestions. The list is sorted by call number, with items grouped roughly by subject area.

Here are eight titles from the list, to give you an idea of what we've been buying:

• Stand firm : resisting the self‐improvement craze / Svend Brinkman
• No one cares about crazy people : the chaos and heartbreak of mental health in America / Ron Powers
• Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI / David Grann
• Madame President : the extraordinary journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf / Helene Cooper
• Another economy is possible : culture and economy in a time of crisis / Manuel Castells
• Prison food in America / Erika Camplin
• A colony in a nation / Chris Hayes
• The stars are fire : a novel / Anita Shreve

This tag will show you all of the prior lists of new materials, in reverse chronological order. We are eager to hear from you about individual items you would like us to buy, or types of items we should be on the lookout for, or general subject areas we should build up in the collection.

There is still time to add books from this year's budget!  Your input will help us keep the collection working well as we add items during the remainder of the 2016/17 academic year  We're looking forward to what you'll recommend next!

If you have a suggestion of something to order, please use our "Tell GHL to Buy It" form, email Amy Carmichael (carmicae@miamioh.edu), or drop by the library with your request. And pass your general suggestions or comments about the collection to us in those same ways.

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

Middletown Book Discussion Title for June

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Wednesday, June 7 to discuss Frederik Backman's A Man Called Ove.  We will meet at 12 pm in Room 124 in the Library. 

Here is a brief summary of the title, along with links to request the book from Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio libraries (Just click "Request" and choose "Miami University" from the dropdown list.  Then enter your UniqueID and password, and the library from which you would like to retrieve the item):  

"Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him 'the bitter neighbor from hell'. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations."

Miami, OhioLINK, and  SearchOhio 

Read the book (or read something else interesting), then come along to our discussion to share what else you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing, and help us plan our future readings.  

Have an idea for a book to discuss?  Let us know and check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

50 Years of Publishing Research Reception

In recognition of 50 years of scholarly work by Regionals faculty and staff, we invite you to join us for a Research Reception on Tuesday, May 9th at Gardner-Harvey Library.  

 
When:  Tuesday, May 9th, 2:00-4:00 PM
Where:  Gardner-Harvey Library, Miami University Middletown
What:  Light refreshments will be served.

There is also still time to have your research added to our display.  Just email Jessie Long at longjh@miamioh.edu with the titles or citations of any journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, books or other work that you have completed within the last few years.  

Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns (National Parks with Dr. Tammie Gerke)

National Parks with Dr. Tammie Gerke

A new speaking series presented by the Gardner Harvey Library and  Dr. Tammie Gerke - a professor of Geology at Miami University Regionals.  Each session will focus on a different national park.

This time, Dr. Tammie Gerke will discuss and compare two national parks:  Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns.  Stop by to hear about the geology and other interesting information about the parks.

This session will run May 2nd from 4:30pm to 6:00pm with time for questions and discussion.  The event will be held in the Open Seating Area at the entrance of the Gardner-Harvey Library.

All are welcome to attend.  Light refreshments will be provided.

Remember, if you attend two or more of our TEC Lab workshops and speaker events in Spring 2017, you will be entered in a drawing for a Kindle Fire tablet.

The above image was provided through a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license by Garden State Hiker.