Congratulations to everyone of you for successfully bringing up Endeavor and finally the online catalog, MINERVA 2000. All of you worked long and hard to get to this point and it is much appreciated. U of L is the first state university to bring up a client-server library system. Your colleagues around the state are watching and hope that they will soon be able to follow us. It was not easy to get this point and you did it in record time. Of course, we all know that this is just the beginning but it sure feels good to have achieved this much. To show some appreciation and to honor your hard work we all took a little time on October 2 to celebrate with our first High Tea, a well-deserved celebration for all you have accomplished recently.

Special thanks are due to Cindy Page and Weiling Liu for their leadership bringing up Endeavor. Without them and their hard working, magnificent staff and team members we would not have come this far so fast. Good job!

Remodeling work on the group study rooms and the poetry room has begun again. There is also some outside work being done on Ekstrom Library, including landscaping. More internal changes will occur throughout the year as we bring in more computers for public use, including a computer lab and a copying and printing center. So keep watching and you will be pleasantly surprised.

It is apparent that the Libraries are very much utilized. Our volume of use is at an all-time high and the staff is certainly aware of it. Due to several vacancies everyone is being stretched extremely thin. Hopefully, we will be able to fill some of these vacancies soon.

It may be of interest to you that the Athletic Department has announced that they will support the Libraries in their fund raising efforts during the next five years. Although we do not know yet what that means we are very excited about this support. Special thanks go to Professor Elaine Wise who has worked continuously on the Libraries’ behalf.

Happy Fall!

--Hannelore Rader, University Librarian