One Day in the Life of Arizona Libraries

Today our Hazy Library is participating in Snapshot: A day in theLife of Arizona Libraries.



An initiative of the Arizona Library Association, libraries are encouraged to share what happens @ our library on a single day: Customer visits or door counts, circulation, reference assistance, newspaper and magazine or book use in the library and even special events the library is involved in. (Choose your 'Hatitude'; photo: p. watkins)

Tomorrow is statistics collection day when numbers and photos will paint a picture of One Day in the Life of the Hazy Library - great fun and a wonderful idea for celebrating Arizona libraries!

A Librarian with a jones for Travel

I've discovered another great thing about a library career -- the opportunity to travel. Now that May graduation is behind us, long summer weekends loom. And there's no better place to begin the summer travel season than than Greer, Arizona!

Greer, in the upper northeast quadrant of the state, lies in Apache Country, in the middle of Arizona's White Mountains. Driving north, the high desert of mid-Arizona quickly gives way to tall pines in 8,000 elevation, approaching ShowLow and Heber, Arizona.

The mountainous drive winds along scenic Highway 260 into 'rim country' -- Arizona's Mogollan Rim -- through the small towns of Strawberry, Pine, and Payson, clean mountain air and piney smells, assailing the senses. No trip through Pine is complete, however, without a stop @ the small antique galleries on Highway 87, or the Herb Shop and the Nifty 50s Diner for breakfast.

Next trip? perhaps that long-awaited look into Navajo land @ Monument Valley.

Have 6 months Really Passed in LibraryLand?

It has indeed been that long -- guess time really does fly when you're having fun. We spent most of the months of September and October teaching information literacy classes in Room 123 -- the new Instruction lab. This room has 40 computers and is very popular with faculty. Where else can they get their students all in one room and working on software programs all together? The other buildings on campus have computers here and there -- 10 in one lab or perhaps 20 in another.

This month is Aviation History Month so we created a display (see photo) with a timeline of aviation history and included some old model planes we have in our collection as well as some rare pilot books. Perfect for an aviation university such as ours.

This new Hazy Library has an additional 40 computers upstairs in the Information Commons -- the place to see and be seen! It gets so busy up here that the computer stations are soon filled, and students spill over downstairs to the Instruction Room computers or borrow a laptop.

We are now working on completing an application/proposal to enter the John Dana Cotton Awards sponsored by ALA -- an award for outstanding marketing and advertising programs in libraries. We're pulling together the information to submit our application detailing all the work we did for Opening Day @ the Hazy Library in March, 2008. Wish us luck! If we win, then Suzie may go to Washington D.C. for the award ceremonies -- RAH!!!!

WOW! the New Hazy Library & Learning Center

It's week 2 in the new Library. The official Opening Day of Embry Riddle's new Christine & Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Library and Learning Center went off exactly as planned with balloons and snacks galore, flowers on the desk and two writing pads on both downstairs and upstairs floors for users to write their comments.

Patrons commented most on the SPACE, window views of the mountains and main campus, the 'blue' lit staircase, the utter newness and fresh smell of a 35,000 sq. foot facility devoted to Books and magazines, DVDs (main floor) and the HUGE Information Commons with 40 computers upstairs (adding tot the 40 desktops in the downstairs Instruction Room), as well as the state-of-the-art Media Center with production suites for video editing.


For now, we're still in the Honeymoon stage, wandering around and figuring out how everything works. With so much space to manage, it will likely take about 6 months to get truly acclimated, but we have much to do meanwhile. New Library CDs informing new students about the services offered here in the library, fresh signage pointing to the new spaces and how to monitor all this space!

More insights about the new library later as we approach May's official Dedication for the new library (May 3, 2008).