Library, Department & Team News

Celebrate Diversity Through Poetry
The University Libraries are hosting a poetry reading as a part of United States Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky's, My Favorite Poem project. Readers from all nationalities, ages and backgrounds are encouraged to participate by sharing their favorite poems with an others in the Ekstrom Library Auditorium on April 18th 2000 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

For more information, or to become a reader call 852-8699 or send an e-mail to the following address: infolit@louisville.edu. Additional information on Robert Pinsky's My Favorite Poem project can be found at http://www.favoritepoem.org .

Assessment Team
Desperately Seeking Susan …
… or anyone else who would like to work with the Assessment & Resource Planning Team on our upcoming projects. You can see our project list at http://uofl.louisville.edu/library/teams/assess/

Technology Team
News
- Public used Laptop Internet Connection application forms (in Word) and location maps are available on the Intranet http://uofl.louisville.edu/library/ under Online Forms.

- 32 new PCs have been purchased (implementation plan will be out soon)

Voyager
99.1 preview Web OPAC has been set up (no customization to the interface yet). The URL is http://train.library.louisville.edu (You are viewing Endeavor's database, NOT our Minerva database in this preview.)

Networking Upgrade
Ekstrom will be completed except for a few new locations that are awaiting renovation. IT's tentative schedules for other libraries within this upgrade order:
1. Art Library
2. Kersey Library
3. Music Library

The target date for completion is the end of March.

Ekstrom Library
Media and Current Periodicals
Eric Succumbs to Spring Fever, Wakes Up One Morning and Finds himself in Hawaii
It's true, as this issue of The Owl goes to press, Eric Neagle is basking in the sunshine taking a two week vacation in Hawaii. Sounds pretty good, right? When he comes back I'm sure he will pass along some of his adventures to all of the eager readers of this column.

Meanwhile, the remains of Current Periodicals and Media are surviving his absence with great stoicism. Trish Blair has learned 75 more jobs to help keep the place afloat and to keep from getting crushed by endless flow of periodicals heading to the bindery or coming from the stacks. This is the big binding season, so Eric definitely picked a good time to be away.

But, not to sound like we're totally helpless, Trish has continued her work with the ever-present Voyager Circulation Group and finds herself sharing the Byzantine and strange ways of the system with her colleagues. David has helped talk the University into purchasing a site license for ZoomText, a very popular and easy to use screen magnification/reading program. It will be available for use on all public and office workstations. Carol McNeely is making plans for the move of Special Services onto the main floor.

"UnipriNT does not rock although it rules" Anonymous

"You can't predict a non-predictive pattern." Eric Neagle trying to explain serials check-in with Voyager.

Office of the University Librarian
People Support Team Named
Members of the newly-formed People Support Team, which will hold its first meeting on February 24, will be Alice Abbott-Moore, Carol Brinkman, Melissa Laning, Rebecca Maddox and Debbie Hawley, team leader. If you have ideas for this group to consider, please pass along to any of us.

New Hires
Chris Mabelitini has been hired as Library Assistant, Grade 11, in Ekstrom Circulation effective February 21, 2000. Following his employment as a student assistant, Chris has been on a temporary assignment in Distance Library Learning Services.

Tami Sexton has been hired as Library Assistant, Grade 11, in Content Access effective February 21, 2000. Tami will be transferring from the Graduate School Administration office.

Jeffery Drake has been hired as Library Specialist, Grade 13, in Ekstrom Circulation effective February 28, 2000. Most recently Jeffery has been a computer instructor and substitute teacher with the Bullitt County Public Schools.

Rachel Augello has been hired as Instructor and Government Publications Librarian in Content Access effective March 6, 2000. Rachel will be moving from Bismarck, North Dakota, where she has been the Head of State Document Services at the North Dakota State Library for two years.

Betty Johnson has been hired as Library Assistant, Grade 11, half-time, in the University Hospital Library effective March 6, 2000. She will be transferring from the Deptartment of Microbiology and Immunology.

Latisha Reynolds has been hired as Program Assistant II, Grade 11, in the Office of Information Literacy effective March 6, 2000. She comes to UofL from Providian Financial/First Select Corporation.

With these new hires, there are no staff vacancies in the Libraries for the first time in many months!

Promotion
Kathy Marsall has been promoted to Computer Operations Advisor, Grade 12, in the Office of Libraries Technology effective retroactive to January 1, 2000.

Resignation
David Kniss has resigned from his position as Library Assistant in Ekstrom Circulation effective January 23, 2000.

Kersey Library
Engineering Week
Kersey Library participated in Engineering Week this year by giving tours of the library as well as setting up an exhibit for Sunday, February 20 and Monday, February 21, offering refreshments and handouts. The tours were open to everyone. The theme of the exhibit this year is Great Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century and also some web sites in Mechanical Engineering. The tours and exhibit were a big success. Recognition for the exhibit goes to Jan Kulkarni, who headed the project with the assistance of Steve Whiteside. Student Assistants Heiman Ng, Terra Rogers, Andy and Tony Tran, Ravi Surapaneni and Terry Trowell put the displays up for the engineering exhibit.

Kersey Computer Lab update
Workstations have been set up in Room 203 for the Kersey Computer Lab and the lab is open for use! At this time there is only web access. Microsoft Office will be added when the new release comes out in July. More updates to come.

New student assistant
Please join us in welcoming Was in Robbnajerd, our newest student here at Kersey Library. Was in comes to us from Thailand. He is an IE (Industrial Engineering) major. He will be working for Steve Whiteside (our Serial/Binding supervisor) and working at the circulation desk as needed. We're proud to have him aboard!

Plan B
Just another plug for Plan B, written by John Brietzman. The play is a Renegade Productions staged performance and will run March 2-4 and March 9-11 at 8:00pm at Artswatch (2337 Frankfort Avenue). For more information call Renegade Productions at 396-8662. Don't miss the show. It's going to be great!! John previews the play in an interview with The Cardinal. Look for this interview in the February 29 issue. The Courier-Journal is also going to be interviewing John about the play sometime soon.

Kornhauser Library
New Artwork for Kornhauser Health Sciences Library
If it's been a while since you've visited KHSL, you have no excuse to dally further. Now gracing the KHSL reading area is a painting by Steveq Kang, a medical student and member of the class of 2001. Mr. Kang graciously loaned his work to the library. The large painting, Triptych, boasts compelling color and composition. These poured concrete walls look simply stunning. Come see for yourself.

KHSL Increases Tech Support Services for Medical School
KHSL is expanding its role in tech support for the medical school. KHSL is now providing Tier One PC support for Family and Community Medicine, and also is providing tech support for a teleconference course for UofL students working in Madisonville, Kentucky. Through teleconferencing, the students in Madisonville are able to watch the lecture for a Primary Care Curriculum course taught at the HSC Campus. The course is team-taught by over 80 faculty members.

Changes at University of Louisville Hospital Library
Approval has been granted for the Kornhauser Library to continue to manage the University of Louisville Hospital. Jane Bottoms will continue as librarian and Nancy Utterback will now manage the hospital contract and budget.

Kentucky Health Sciences Library Consortium Meeting
Several KHSL staff members attended a meeting of the Kentucky Health Sciences Library Consortium on February 15. The Consortium, consisting of about 25 institutional and individual members, meets quarterly. Nancy Utterback is the current President of the Consortium.

Staff News
James Adler and his brother Mark will be co-editing the 1992 [Note: 1992 is correct] Speleo Digest for the National Speleological Society (NSS). The Speleo Digest is 450-550 page compendium of various articles pertaining to all things cave-related. While editing the 1988 edition, James and Mark discovered that there is a lot of drudgery involved, but a great deal of satisfaction in obtaining the finished product.

Betsy Baumeister will perform as violin soloist with the Jewish Community Center Orchestra on March 5. She will be playing the first movement of Symphonie Espagnole by Edouard Lalo. She also recently had the opportunity to play in the pit orchestra for the musical Titanic when it steamed into town. Unfortunately, she was not among the string instrumentalists performing on the deck when the ship went under, but at least she didn't her catgut wet.

Gary Freiburger spent a relaxing week camping on one of the uninhabited Florida Keys and gazing at galaxies and nebulae with about 400 other amateur astronomers who also attended this annual Star Party.

Elizabeth Smigielski has published her first article, a user's guide to a new molecular biology database produced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. She wrote the article while still at the National Library of Medicine. The citation for the article is: Smigielski, EM, Sirotkin K, Ward M., Sherry ST. dbSNP: a database of single nucleotide polymorphisms. Nucleic Acids Research, 2000. 28(1):352-355.

Law Library
Louisville Mandolin Orchestra Hits the Road (again)
The Louisville Mandolin Orchestra will perform in the 6th Annual Southeastern Mandolin Revue on Saturday, March 11 in Atlanta. This event will take place at the Conant Performing Arts Center of Oglethorpe University and will feature mandolin solo performers and groups from the southeast region of the U.S.

If you can't travel to Atlanta but would like to see the LMO live, the group's spring concert will take place on Friday, March 24, at 7pm at St. Francis of Assisi on Bardstown Road in the Highlands. The program will include several new works composed for the LMO as well as some old mando favorites and a terrific solo piece performed by LMO Concertmaster (and founder) Michael Schroeder. (Some astute Owl readers might recognize Mike Schroeder's name from his "other" groups, The Galoots and Hog Operation.) The concert is free and open to the public. Donations are, of course, welcome (and tax-deductible, since the LMO is a 501c-3 corporation). For more information about this concert or about the LMO, please contact Robin at 852-6083 or robin.harris@louisville.edu

Music Library
Jennifer Hunt presented the poster session "A Music Cataloging Practicum: Discovering Approaches" Feb. 24 at the Music Library Association's national meeting, downtown in the Hyatt Regency.

University Archives
For their 36th anniversary, Tom and Phyllis Owen recently took the very slow, overnight Amtrak train from Jeffersonville, Indiana to Chicago. Their weekend adventure included deluxe sleeping car accommodations--with an in-room toilet that converted into a hot shower stall! After a hearty breakfast in the dining car, they whiled away Saturday morning reading in the lounge/observation coach and watching snow sweep across the frozen northern Indiana landscape. They loved passing through picturesque towns like Monon, Lafayette, and Tippecanoe. Arriving downtown at Union Station, they bought a two day bus/subway pass for $9.00 and got more than their money's worth darting about for meals, museums, aquarium, theater, and neighborhoods. On Super Bowl Sunday evening, they took the "El--Orange Line" to Midway Airport for a quick flight home. Tom thought he would have slept better on the train than he did, warns that it's against the rules to ask: "When are we going to get there?" but would repeat the adventure any day.