Tag Archives: Taylor University

Top ten posts of the past week

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I’m going to try something new, and highlight popular content judged by number of views, in a summary post each weekend. If this isn’t useful, let me know by commenting. I’m using the WordPress.com stats plugin to determine what is popular. I really like it so far mainly because I think it may provide me with the most accurate and reliable accounting of traffic of any tracking service I’ve used thus far.

One other thing: I’ve decided to restrict the definition of what’s popular to posts, not pages. For instance, my photos page as well as the archives page held the #1 and #3 spots in terms of popularity this past week, but I made an arbitrary decision to not count them here.

During the past week, these were the top posts.

  1. A trip to Volo Bog
  2. Upcoming book on e-resource management in libraries
  3. My version of “Lots of links to David”
  4. Having computers understand what humans write
  5. UKSG 2008 underway
  6. Followup to UKSG blog plug
  7. Getting value out of conference attendance
  8. Some cataloging history
  9. Tragedy at Taylor University
  10. Sometimes He calms the storm

Tragedy at Taylor University

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I am a bit numb from the news this morning, first from Ashley Peck’s blog and then via national news media, that several students and staff at Taylor University, where I worked up until August of last year, were killed or seriously injured in a car accident last night. (Ashley is a recent Taylor grad who worked for me in the library there.) The news has been reported at CNN.com, the Indianapolis Star, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as several other places. Taylor is a very close-knit community, especially for students, and this tragedy hits very hard. A huge celebratory event marking the inauguration of a new president, planned for months in advance, is scheduled for tomorrow, but there is some doubt now as to whether or not the event will take place. On top of that, the spring semester is nearly done. Some of the students who were killed were a few short weeks away from graduation. This situation is incredibly sad. The place where the accident occurred is in an area that we have driven through countless times and even though we no longer live there and don’t know all of the people involved personally, it hits very close to home. The family, friends, and coworkers of all of those involved in this tragedy are in great need of prayer and comfort. Please join me in praying for them.

New library for Taylor University – Ft. Wayne

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Last week I was able to visit with my friends and colleagues at Taylor University – Ft. Wayne. They are in the midst of moving from their old facility (known as the Lehman Library), to a brand new, multimillion-dollar facility named the Calvin H. English Library. While they have a long ways to go before the building will be ready for the Fall semester, it is clear already that it is a wonderful facility. The style is classic, with nice blue and cream tones and lots of rich oak trim. A real highlight is the vaulted, coffered ceiling in the upper floor. Below are some of the photos I took during my extensive tour.

Wireless laptop usage

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Yesterday I posted a query on the Web4Lib discussion list about wireless laptop usage in my library. Shortly thereafter I got an email from fellow UIUC GSLIS alum Jenny Levine, of The Shifted Librarian fame, asking if she could post the information I shared on the list on her blog. Click here to read her posting!

What I asked Web4Lib’ers was as follows. I’d love to hear from anyone who has comparative statistics:

“Taylor University’s Zondervan Library serves a mostly undergraduate student population of about 1,700. We have four wireless-enabled laptops available for checkout for general purpose uses including web browsing and library research. Our spring term is ending and out of curiosity I decided to tally up the circulation stats for them. It seemed by my observation that they were quite heavily used, in spite of the fact that we also have a large computer lab and several thin client workstations, but I wanted to know specifics. I found out that for the spring term (about 90 days in length), three out of the four laptops averaged close to 170 checkouts each. The fourth laptop was out of commission for most of the time. The total number of circulations for all of them was just under 500. I’m a mathematical ignoramus but I think that averages out to about 5 1/2 circulations per day. How does this compare with other libraries who circulate wireless laptops? I’m just curious to know if this is high, low, average.”