Thanks to all who joined the Winter Solstice.  The winners for the best dessert contest were

Best Pie: Banana Cream Pie, Sheila Lafferty
Best Cookies: Star-Anised infused Sugar Cookies, Joelle Thomas and Marisol Ramos
Best Vegan/Gluten Free: Chocolate Truffles, Galadriel Chilton
Best Use of Chocolate: Chocolate Torte, Matt Hadis
Best Overall: Tie between Glutten Free Peach Cobbler (Melissa and Steve Batt) and Chocolate Torte (Matt Hadis)

The winners of the ornament contest were:
Prettiest: Chris McNevins
Most Unusual: Carole Dyal

Enjoy the quick slide show
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Elliott Shore was appointed the new executive director of ARL in January, and embarked on a “Listening Tour” through member libraries.  The tour has taken him all over the country to learn more about the issues that interest member representatives, to talk with the library staff, and to see the libraries and collections that make up the membership of ARL.  The tour has inspired him and has already begun to shape the strategic direction of ARL.  For example, at the 10th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services in September, he challenged the library assessment community to radically change the measures it collects and uses based on feedback he has received from member libraries. He proposed that libraries shift their assessment focus from description to prediction, from inputs to outputs, and from quantity to quality.

Prior to the public presentation, he will be meeting with Sally Reis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Michael Mundrane, Vice Provost and CIO.  The full itinerary is as follows:

9:00-10:00 Martha Bedard, Vice Provost for University Libraries
10:00‐11:00 Dr. Sally Reis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
11:00‐11:30 Tour of Thomas J. Dodd
11:30‐12:30 Dr. Michael Mundrane, Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer
12:30‐1:30 Lunch
1:30‐2:30 Meeting with Martha Bedard, Scott Kennedy, Francine DeFranco
2:45‐3:30 Staff Presentation Class of 1947 Conference Room
3:30‐4:00 Tour of Homer Babbidge

Our membership in ARL is an important one, and I hope you will join us for this one-of-a-kind opportunity to talk to Elliott regarding issues facing librarianship, and the role of ARL.  More information about Elliott Shore can be found at http://www.arl.org/about/staff/61-elliott-shore

You probably saw earlier this week and idea that Joel put into motion.

Inspired by Char Booth’s button making initiative at Claremont, he thought it would be fun to have a “make your own button” table in the library for the first week of classes. The Public Outreach Team had just enough funds at the end of last year to purchase the maker for the Library.

The free button making was run Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday from 12-3 in the main entrance to Babbidge.  Volunteer staff and students manned the table, allowing for folks to make buttons from pre-made designs (courtesy of Joelle) or they could design their own.

And in typical UCL fashion, statistics were taken, and a total of 196 buttons were made.

• Presets: 81
• MLK theme (thanks for the idea, Jane!): 26
• Custom: 89

So now that Joel and Joelle have been dubbed by the Public Outreach Team as our resident button makers, you are welcome to stop and ask them how it went.  If you are interested in using the button maker, let Jean know.

Vintage Beatles Guitar Collection to ‘Invade’ Babbidge Library.  That is what Ken Best, Senior Writer for UConn Communications, proclaimed in the UConn Today article about the exhibit in the Babbidge Plaza Gallery.  His article, and his interest in the story and the guitars has resulted in some great press.  Here is a list of the places we are aware of where it was republished:

• Willimantic Chronicle 8-1-13
• Patch

• NBC 30 Connecticut 8-1-13,  5 p.m.

• Hartford Courant 7-30-13

Ken Best and UConn Photographer Peter Morenus met with Carlo Cantamessa in his home, filling out the story as well as getting the great photograph you see above.  Several staff have asked where we came across this exhibit.  Carlo is better known to the staff as the guy from PSI.  PSI is the company that has designed and installed the new style furniture we have – the serpentine and bench-style seating on Levels 1 and 3.  I would take credit, but it would be wrong of me.  Dave Avery pointed me in Carlos’ direction as a great potential opportunity, and the rest is history.  He is an alumni of UConn (CLAS ’83) and this is the first time he has displayed his guitars like this. They are typically in cases in his home, and are only taken out when his show “The Cast of Beatlemania” is on tour.  When he left here a few weeks ago he said it was like leaving his children at college, knowing it would be months before he had a chance to see them again.

The other two exhibits include a stunning selection of works by women artists from the artists’ books held in the archives.  Located in the Dodd Center Gallery, Kristin Eshelman teamed up with fine arts student Sara Jamshidi (who works both for Michael Bennett and the Public Outreach Team) to chronicle the journey of women through the fine press and printing scene.  Titled “A Private and Sensuous Encounter: women’s fine press books, deluxe books and bookworks, 1980-present,” the exhibition is filled with some amazing and often unconventional approaches to the book form.

The third exhibition is a celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Asian American Cultural Center on campus.  As many of you who attended the programs sponsored by the Diversity Team know, the impetus of the forming of the Center on campus is a result of a terrible incident on campus.  The Center, and the accompanying Asian American Studies Institute, are now a respected and very active part of the UConn community.  At the time of writing this, the exhibition is not quite finished, but will be in the next few days.

A reception for all of these exhibits will be held on Sunday, September 29th from 3-5pm.  We hope you will join us.