Welcome, Students! Tips That Save Time and Impress

Welcome to new and returning students to campus! All of us at Van Wylen Library, the Joint Archives, and the Music Library promise to do our best to help make this your best year ever.

Our goal is to create a comfortable, open, and stimulating environment for research and study. As you go about your way, remember these helpful tips to quickly make the most of Library resources:

  • Covered drinks and packaged food are allowed within Van Wylen. Cup & Chaucer in the front entrance lounge of Van Wylen sells a variety of “brainfood” snacks and drinks!
  • Configure your notebook for easy printing within Van Wylen by following these instructions.
  • Renew checked out items online easily by following the My Account link from our homepage.
  • There are many group study rooms and common areas available for collaboration.
  • Demystify college level research by Asking a Librarian. Stop by the Research Help Desk or make an individual appointment to get one-on-one assistance finding the best sources.
  • The Center for Writing and Research is conveniently located within Van Wylen, next to the Research Help Desk on the first floor. They won’t write your paper for you, but they’ll help you do it better!
  • We have giant bean bags.

With all that the Library has to offer, you will want to make it your go-to place for study, research, and group projects. Even when you can’t make it to the Library, there are hundreds of digital resources at your disposal – beyond just Google – including academic databases, journals, and ebooks. You can even access them off campus.

Impress your professors and peers by citing something smart. If you’re stuck, just ask! We’re here to help.

    New Database – IBISWorld

    Check out the Van Wylen Library’s newly added database, IBISWorld, which contains industry market research reports geared for business, economics, management, and accounting. We are so excited about this new addition! IBISWorld is one of the biggest sources of industry information in the U.S., housing a comprehensive listing of US Industry Reports and containing extensive analyses, including specific industry performances, industry wide products and markets, and overall industry outlooks. Each report is searchable and available for PDF download.

    — Rachel Bishop, Research and Instruction Librarian

    Farewell to Christine

    Chistine Cho, who has served as our Metadata Librarian since 2010, will be leaving Hope College and the Library at the end of June. While we are saddened to lose a colleague and friend, we have been fortunate to benefit from Christine’s expertise and hard work for the past two years.Along with performing traditional cataloging, Christine has been instrumental in establishing digital collections at Hope. Thanks to Christine, we now have a very robust collection of historical photographs documenting Hope College’s history, and an institutional repository of College academic output. The historical image collections Christine created can be viewed at contentdm.hope.edu and the institutional repository can be found at digitalcommons.hope.edu.

    One of the digital collections Christine created includes digitized versions of the Milestone, the Hope College yearbook. Many years have already been added, and eventually all the Milestones from 1905 to recent years will be included. The yearbooks are available to browse with page turning software or can be downloaded as PDF documents. The growing Milestone collection can be browsed at digitalcommons.hope.edu/milestone/index.html.

    Christine will be returning to her home state of California to be closer to her family and she will be seeking employment in a library there. We will miss Christine greatly and wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

    Brian Yost
    Head of Technical Services and Systems

    Hope College Yearbooks Online

    The Hope College yearbooks, Milestone, are now available online to view, print, or download. This past month, Van Wylen Library added the yearbooks to its institutional repository, Digital Commons. One of the oldest publications both in Holland and Hope College, the Milestone is an invaluable resource that documents the rich history of the school and city. Although the first Hope College yearbook was published in 1905, the yearbooks did not become an annual publication until 1916. The 1916 edition was also the first time the yearbook was titled Milestone.

    Jointly funded by the Joint Archives and the Hope College Advancement Office, Van Wylen Library was able to send all of the yearbooks to a company in Grand Rapids to be professionally digitized. Years 1990-1999 and 1926-1948 were recently uploaded to the repository and are now available online. The repository allows users to explore the yearbooks in different ways. Users can search the yearbooks, download a copy, or use an embedded page flipper to “flip” through the yearbooks online and print specific pages.

    The remaining years, with the exception of the last five due to publishing rights, will be available soon. Users can access and explore the yearbooks through the repository (all yearbooks are grouped under College Publications) at digitalcommons.hope.edu/milestone.

    — Christine Cho, Metadata Librarian

    Honoring Priscilla Atkins

    This past April, Priscilla Atkins announced that she was on the brink of completing her final semester at Van Wylen Library.  For eighteen years, Priscilla has been a highly active, influential, and respected member of the Hope College community; the ways in which she has impacted the lives of both students and faculty colleagues are beyond measure.  Priscilla is an exemplary teacher-librarian whose prowess in library education has proven to be second to none.  When asked to recall her favorite things about being a librarian at Hope, she said “learning and teaching, which happens all-over-the-place: research help desk, team-teaching with a classroom colleague, solo teaching, sitting in as a student while someone else leads, attending a BSU or LaRU or HAPA meeting…”  Indeed, many of us have had the privilege to witness firsthand how she can truly engage with students both in and outside of the classroom.

    Priscilla has also developed an impressive portfolio as a writer.  Her publications include articles about teaching, a critical essay on contemporary poet Cathleen Calbert, book reviews, and poetry.  Her poems have been published in journals both in the United States and abroad, including Poetry London, Salmagundi, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Raritan, Poetry, and The Southern Review, as well as in anthologies, such as New Poetry from the Third Coast: Contemporary Michigan Poetry (Wayne State, 2000).

    As her time on the library faculty comes to a close, Priscilla plans to remain actively involved at Hope.  This fall, she will be teaching a section of First Year Seminar as well as Women’s Studies 350 (Visions for Justice: Feminist Theory and Methodology).  Although she will be missed dearly here in the library, we wish her an equally successful and rewarding “next stage”.

    — Todd Wiebe

    PA and KJ

    Priscilla Atkins (left) sharing a laugh with Director of Libraries, Kelly Jacobsma, during her library farewell reception on May 23.

     

    Library Sustainable Collections Project is Underway

    This summer the library is beginning a large-scale deselection project for monographs at the Van Wylen Library and the Music Library.  We will be making evidence-based decisions to carefully manage the deselection of low-use print monographs and also identify monograph titles for preservation.  This effort is part of a larger state-wide effort to cooperatively preserve low-use titles.scstrucks

    Purpose of the Project:

    The Hope College Van Wylen Library is now nearly 25 years old.  It was built to accommodate 20 years of collection growth.  While the acquisition of e-books has slowed growth somewhat, our shelves are full.  In addition, we want to create new spaces for student collaboration, technology, and other support services, and make the remaining collections more attractive and usable for students.  The Sustainable Collections Project is a large-scale “weeding” project that will identify low or no use print monographs that could be removed from the collection.  The project will also identify monographs that need to be preserved because they are rare or not widely held by other academic libraries.

    Monographs are candidates for withdrawal if they were published before 2000 and had 0 or 1 circulations in the past 23 years and are held by more than 50 academic libraries nationwide and more than 3 peer libraries in Michigan.  Peer libraries include 14 academic libraries (both state public and small liberal arts) that are MeL participants and have expressed an interest in cooperative preservation of low-use titles.

    Preservation candidates are those titles that are held by fewer than 5 academic libraries nationwide, or we are the only library in Michigan holding that title.  Many of these titles will be moved to the rare book collection.

    Some collections will be preserved automatically.  Anything that is marked Banninga Collection, Hope Collection, or Muste Collection will be preserved for historical reasons.  The Hope Collection is a collection of books written by Hope alumni.  These three collections are not a part of the withdrawal candidate lists and will be handled separately.

    Collections that will be affected this summer:

    The library will primarily be working this summer on the lower level of Van Wylen Library and in the Music Library.  We are beginning with the Z call number range and working upward (Z, V, U, T, S, R, Q, PR-PZ).  Books in the Z call number range are currently under review.

    For more information about the project, see the Hope Sustainable Collections Page.

    If you have questions about the project, please contact Kelly Jacobsma, David O’Brien or Brian Yost.

    Library Congratulates its Graduating Senior Workers

    Today we honored and celebrated our fantastic group of graduating Senior library workers with a luncheon at CityVu.  We had 28 Seniors this year, some of whom have been working at the library all four years of their study at Hope.  During this time these students built up some good memories from Van Wylen and the Music Library.  Heather Mills appreciated the interesting research questions she helped with, particularly in the summers.  Arax Mikaelyan remembered John Hoyer cooking her the tastiest omelette she had ever eaten.  Ashley Berber enjoyed the summer dessert “taste offs” at the media desk.  Elizabeth Higginbotham appreciated the great relationships she developed with fellow student workers, library staff and patrons over her four years in the library.

    Seniors2012Our talented students are heading off to diverse post-Hope adventures.  These range from jobs in nursing and banking to journalism and marketing, graduate school programs in vocal performance, public health, and clinical psychology, and even some international travel.  Some are exploring possibilities with Americorps and Teach for America.

    As a memento of their dedication and hard work in the library, each student has chosen an item to be added to the library collection in their name.  You can see what each student has selected here.

    — Jessica Hronchek, Research Librarian

     

    Returning Materials

    bookcartAs the end of the semester approaches, don’t forget to return your books to the library before you head home for the summer. If your items are not returned, you will be charged an overdue fine based on the type of material you checked out. If items are not returned within three weeks of their due date, a charge for the item will be placed on your student account. A complete list of fines can be found here. Returning items on time is the easiest way to avoid paying later!

    — Bethany Stripp, Library Student Blogger

    Exam Week Hours

    booksThe library will have extended hours during exam week to provide you with ample time to study:

    • Friday, April 27: 8 a.m. – 10 p.m.;
    • Saturday, April 28: 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.;
    • Sunday, April 29: 11 a.m. – 2 a.m.;
    • Monday, April 30: 8 a.m. – 2 a.m.;
    • Tuesday, May 1: 8 a.m. – 2 a.m.;
    • Wednesday, May 2: 8 a.m. – 2 a.m.;
    • Thursday, May 3: 8 a.m. – 12 a.m.;
    • Friday, May 4: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

    The library will be closed on Saturday, May 5 and Sunday, May 6.

    — Bethany Stripp, Library Student Blogger

    1940s Census Data

    Screen shot 2012-04-10 at 10.15.30 AMOn April 2, the National Archives released the complete set of data from the 1940 census. While some census information is made available every 10 years, a statutory 72-year restriction prevents the government from releasing full information until those 72 years have passed.

    The 1940 census officially took place on April 1, 1940, though counting continued through the rest of the month. In the census, individuals were asked for basic information such as place of residence, age, level of education, occupation and citizenship. Five percent of the population was also asked supplemental questions about family history, social security and occupation.

    Over 133 million people were counted during the 1940 census. The census is currently not indexed by name, which means that in order to find a specific person, you would need to know where that individual lived during 1940. The census information is organized by enumeration districts, which are geographic areas determined for the purpose of taking the census. The enumeration district in 1940 for Hope College and the immediate surrounding area bounded by 8th Street on the north, 13th Street on the south, Lincoln Ave. on the east and College Ave. on the west, for example, was 70-19A.

    Many of the cottages currently owned by Hope were built prior to 1940 but not owned by the college at the time, so the census data makes it possible to find information on the families that once lived in these homes. Several cottages have been moved from their original location, however, so the current address of the house may not have been its address in 1940.

    There is an amazing amount of demographic data available through the US Census, and now with the full 1940 census available online, it is a useful source for finding historical information on your family and on your residence.

    — Bethany Stripp, Library Student Blogger