Friends of the UNCG Libraries

The University Libraries at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) recently completed its fourth annual Staff Development Week May 11-15.  Designed as one of the responses to the Libraries’ 2011 ClimateQual Survey, Staff Development Week consists of a number of varied programs planned by a committee of paraprofessional and professional staff.  The week after graduation was chosen so that the event could be held during a week identified as low impact in order to allow everyone to participate. Examples of event types are personal enrichment; job-related skills; health and fitness; teamwork; career enhancement; and communication techniques and styles. Suggestions for events are solicited from the staff. The events have a foundation within the diverse experiences of existing staff as well as expertise brought in from outside the libraries. Several keystone programs are held each year during week, including presentation of the Staff Service Award created in 1997 "to ...

Tuesday, May 19 was Idea-thon day at UNCG's University Libraries as library faculty and staff took advantage of reduced summer traffic in Jackson Library to run two brainstorming sessions to generate ideas about possible changes to some of the public spaces in the builidng.  Facilitators guided groups looking at •    Materials and Resources •    Seating and Furniture •    Express Desk •    Technology •    Functions Said Dean of University Libraries Rosann Bazirjian, "we hope that this type of all-inclusive event will lend itself to the development of creative ideas, diversity of thought, teamwork and faster implementation since we will not be using a task force model."

Wrapping up a year of focus on Shakespeare and Galileo at UNCG, the University Libraries’ Jackson Society made a purchase of a rare quarto edition of Shakespeare’s Othello for the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.  As a result, UNCG will now be the only university in the UNC system owning one of the 30 known copies in existence of Shakespeare’s Othello in the seventh and final Quarto edition, published in 1705. Here is a description of the new acquisition: Othello. William Shakespeare.  London: Printed for R. Wellington, 1705. Seventh and final quarto edition. Lightly browned with some spotting and marginal dampstaining, small stain to title affecting advertisement at foot. Modern speckled tan three-quarter calf and marbled boards, gold-stamped red morocco spine label. Housed in a brown cloth folding box. Othello was first published in quarto format in 1622 and was then included in the First Folio edition of collected plays. It is o...

When and Where: In Greensboro at UNCG, 7 p.m. September 14 in the Elliott University Center Auditorium In Winston-Salem at the Bookmarks Festival , Saturday, September 12   (10:15 a.m. Winston Square Park) Both free and open to the public. Kwame Alexander is a poet and author of eighteen books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The Crossover is a novel in verse for young people. Other works include Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (the 2014 Michigan Reads One Book Selection), and the young adult novel He Said, She Said (a Junior Library Guild Selection). He is the founder of Book-in-a-Day, a student-run publishing program that has created more than 3000 student authors; and LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy project that builds libraries, trains teachers, and empowers children through literature. He visits schools and libraries, has owned...

Shakespeare's Othello , 1705 quarto Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy's The Trumpet Major Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare did battle in UNCG’s Jackson Library last week. Some odds-makers were expecting Dickens to triumph, but Hardy won in a runoff, and Shakespeare had such a fan following that within a day he won too, helping Jackson Library acquire not one but three rare selections for the University Libraries’ Special Collections. The format of the battle was a first for the University Libraries.  Representatives of the Special Collections and University Archives each made short presentations to members of the Jackson Society to persuade them to cast their vote to purchase a book or selection of books by each of the four authors. The presentations focused not only on the history of the book and its importance, but also on the ways in which acquiring it would help the Library connect better to...

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has selected a team from the UNCG Libraries to be among the 54 institutional teams to participate in the third year of the program Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success ( AiA ). The program supports the design, implementation and evaluation of a program to strengthen the competencies of librarians in campus leadership and data-informed advocacy. The UNCG team members will be: •    Karen Grigg, Science Liaison Librarian •    Kathy Crowe-Associate Dean for Public Services •    Lea Leininger- Health Science Reference Librarian •    Dr. Kim Sousa-Peoples,Director, Orientation & Family Programs •    Jeff Lail-Assistant Director for Student Groups and Assessment Each team accepted into the AiA program identified goals for action learning projects that will be pursued during the next year.  UNCG’s project is to extend work resultin...

Associate Dean of University Libraries Kathy Crowe  and Dean Rosann Bazirjian presented our Undergraduate Research award at the recent research awards ceremony on campus.  This award recognizes  outstanding work that demonstrates the ability to locate, select and synthesize information and use it in the creation of an original research project. The recipient for 2015 is Senior History Major Kyle Pope of Black Mountain, NC for his paper, “Lightbulb Moment:  Electricity in the YWCA Scrapbook”  which he wrote for History 430: Historical Research Methods for Social Studies. For this research assignment, students examine and contextualize scrapbooks from the early days of the university that are held in our University Archives. Kyle noticed that his scrapbook from the early 1920’s had numerous clippings that focused on light bulbs.  This led to a light bulb moment of his own when he realized many of the students at that time likely came from rural areas withou...