Library staff on stage

Looking for a scare?  This weekend, the Actors Circle of Scranton presents “Jekyll and Hyde,” a Broadway musical based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (haven’t gotten to read it yet?  You can borrow it from the Library!).

Library staff member David Hunisch plays Simon Stride, Jekyll’s rival.  I got to see the show last weekend, and David’s performance as the pretentious Simon was spot on.  He did a fantastic job transforming himself into a villain.

Jekyll and Hyde will be at the Providence Playhouse in Scranton all weekend – the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday shows are at 8pm, and you can also catch a matinee on Sunday at 2pm.  Tickets are $15 for the general public, but students can get tickets for $10.  Call 570-342-9707 for reservations.

To David and the cast, from all of us here at the Weinberg Memorial Library — break a leg!

To poll or not to poll, that is the question.

Logically speaking, only one of these answers should accumulate results.

However, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, people aren’t always logical. In reality this poll is a glimpse into human nature, looking into the duality, (ir)rationality, hippocracy, intelligence, ignorance, and even the comical mind of the poll taker.

Well, possibly it’s just a good way to test the poll feature. So please join me in taking this poll, so that we can have more fun polls in the future.

New face at WML – Reference Librarian

Greetings to all University students, faculty, staff, and members of the public! I am yet another new staff member at the Weinberg Memorial Library (WML).  My name is Neil Grimes and I was born and grew up in Wilkes-Barre which is a part of the Northeast PA region.  You can find me working at the Reference desk on Sundays from 12pm-5pm and Monday evenings from 6pm-11:30pm.  I began working at the WML back in March of this year.  Everyone has been very welcoming and supportive!  I can’t thank everyone enough for making me feel like the University of Scranton is almost like a second home.  Each day that I spend on campus I find that I learn something different and something new from my co-workers, students, faculty, and members of the public.  

For my undergraduate education, I attended King’s College in Wilkes-Barre where I majored in history and secondary education.  During my undergraduate years, I worked at UPS where I sorted, scanned, and loaded packages and mail that was being sent to places all over the United States.  If you are curious as to how the whole shipping process works, feel free to ask me.  Following my four years at King’s I went on to graduate school at Clarion University of Pennsylvania where I received my Master’s in Library Science.  Following graduation, I began working as a high school librarian in the Wilkes-Barre area. 

Among the skills that I feel one needs to succeed in the 21st century are critical thinking skills, effective writing skills, public speaking skills, and research skills.  These are all skills that I have sharpened over the years and that I use on a daily basis.  Whether we realize it or not, people are constantly using their research skills when they seek to answer questions in their daily lives.  Librarians are very helpful in instructing people as to the best way to research and answer questions, even the most difficult questions.  You would be surprised as to how much you can learn from librarians!  Don’t be afraid to ask for help as librarians are very good to pointing you to the information that you are looking for.

I have been interested in reading and libraries as far back as I can remember.  Among the first books that I ever read were by Dr. Seuss, as I am sure that these are among the first books that most children read.  The most recent book that I finished was I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, a true crime story that solves the case of Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance once and for all.  I won’t reveal any of the details, but I do highly recommend that you read the book.  Recently, I read that Martin Scorsese is going to make this book into a movie starring Robert DeNiro. 

Outside of spending time in libraries , I love to travel and have been to Italy, Toronto, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Tampa, Florida, and Lawrence, Kansas.  This is not a comprehensive list of the places that I have been to, but it does hit many of the highlights.  Every new place I travel to brings with it new memories as well as the opportunity for some great photographs.  There are some great places to take photographs on campus, don’t be afraid to capture some memories when the chance presents itself.

Why is 94% so great?

Last May when they picked up their commencement information, graduation garb, and other necessary materials for making their final exit from the University of Scranton, the graduating class of 2008 completed their Senior Survey.   In this survey, students are asked a variety of questions about their experience at the “U” during the past four years.  Questions range from cafeteria food to lab equipment and virtually every other subject in between.  Of course we as librarians are always interested in their opinion of how they found the library resources and services to be useful and helpful to their academic careers.  The results for the Class of 2008 are in and the great news is that the seniors experienced a 94% satisfaction rate with the Library.  This figure is also compared to students at other colleges and universities in our peer institutions – and we excel here as well.  I would like to pose a question to all readers of this blog.  If you were to take the Senior Survey today (no matter if you are a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) what one improvement would you make to raise the satisfaction level even higher?  Every few years the library undertakes a survey sent to a random sampling of students asking questions about library resources, hours, services, etc.  But this informal question can help us make improvements (if realistic and within the bounds of fiscal responsibility) even before the next survey reaches your Royalmail account.

Going digital

A page from "Prominent Men of Scranton and Vicinity"

This fall, the Weinberg Memorial Library is one of 14 institutions participating in a mass digitization pilot project.  The program is headed by PALINET, a network of more than 600 libraries, archives, and museums  in the mid-Atlantic region, with a goal of making electronic copies of interesting books available to the public via the internet.

So far, we’ve had six local history books digitized by Internet Archive.   All six were written before 1923, which means means that they’re in the public domain – so we can post them on the internet without violating anyone’s intellectual property rights.  What’s fantastic about the digitized books is that:

1. they’re now accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime (while the physical books are only available to people who visit the WML Special Collections library in person, during limited hours), and
2. they’re full-text searchable!

Check out our books on the Internet Archive website here.  You can browse through the books using the “flip book” viewer, and you can also download PDF copies of each book.  If your family is from the area, be sure to use the full text search box in the flip book viewer to search for your last name – the books are great resources for genealogists.  Or just look at the great pictures, like this 1882 line drawing of the proposed design for the Lackawanna County Courthouse from “Memorial of the Erection of Lackawanna County” (if it looks a bit different from what you see on the Square today, it is!) –

Proposed Lackawanna County Courthouse, 1882

Happy Fall Break!!

 

The leaves of Northeastern PA

 

Now that midterms are over, take a walk outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and amazing foliage that Fall has brought us!! 

The Library is closed until Tuesday, October 14th, when we will reopen at our regular hours of 8am-11:30pm. 

We look forward to seeing everyone refreshed and ready for the second half of the semester… See you then!

Great news!

Check out the latest public transportation offering at the Weinberg Memorial Library, courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger?

P.S. Don’t get it?  Read up on lolcats.

Historic Vice Presidential Debate, if anything, a Reminder.

Vice-Presidential Debate 2008

I’m going on the assumption that I wasn’t the only one who skipped last night’s excellent Thursday night television line-up to watch the Vice-Presidential debate and the post-debate analysis. However, just in-case you missed it…

Despite what constituents of each political party had hoped for, Sarah Palin did not implode and Joe Biden did not explode. The majority of what I’ve read this morning and what I’ve heard from the pundits’ mouths last night say that Joe Biden gave the best Debate performance of his career. Sarah Palin also went above and beyond expectations by delivering a fluent and succinct speech (lesson learned).

Considering the final day to register to vote in PA is Monday, that would mean you might miss your chance to agree or disagree with me in a pragmatic as opposed to theoretical way.

Here is a deductive conditional argument for all you students of philosophy out there..

1.) If you are not registered to vote, then your opinion doesn’t matter.

2.) You are not registered to vote.

—————————

C.) Your opinion doesn’t matter.

Want to combat this line of reasoning? Well, good luck with that, the truth of the premises guarantees the conclusion. However, you can accept this line of reasoning and join the ranks of the 8,548,580 registered Pennsylvania voters (as of 9/29/08 - Pennsylvania Dept. of State).

http://www.rockthevote.org/

Use the above link. Click “Register to Vote,” fill out the relevant personal information. Print the form and mail it to the address it gives you. Then, you are ready to go on November 4th. It’s that simple!