"News is the first rough draft of history."

The Voice of the College at Florham

"News is the first rough draft of history." - The Voice of the College at Florham

Tag Archives: library

Certificate of occupancy needed for opening of Monninger Center

SAMANTHA REBA
Staff Writer

The John and Joan Monninger Center for Learning and Research has come a long way since it broke ground last fall. The center is expected to open after it receives a certificate of occupancy.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Oct. 11 and was attended by the FDU community and guests, including Former Campus Provost Kenneth Greene, several Board of Trustees and the architect of the building, Michael Farewell.

According to Maria Webb, the associate university librarian, Farewell designed the building as a connection to different eras.
“The building was supposed to bridge the past to the future,” she said.

The Orangerie keeps a hint of the old, while the newest, modern addition leads to the future.
Continue reading →

Library exhibit: Bag design; Shopping around the world

LAUREN KANNENBERG
Staff Writer

The College at Florham library has a new exhibit on display, “Shopping Around The World: Three Decades of Shopping Bag Design.”

The exhibit is free, open to the public and will be up through Oct. 28.

The exhibition displays an assortment of designed shopping bags from many cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It was put together by Eleanor Friedl, curator of special collections and exhibitions.

Friedl is also a reference librarian and selector of print resources in the humanities and social sciences.

“The variety in the designs of these bags make for a visually interesting show and also reflects on many distinct cultural phenomena attributable to their places of origin,” said Friedl.

She continued that the numerous bags were given by colleagues and fellow librarians.

“After shopping at bookshops, museum shops, fashion shops for adults and children, shops for tableware, and for delicacies, some travelers also collect the designed bags in which their purchases were carried. We are pleased to be able to show a selection of them, thanks to the collectors who loaned us their bags,” said Friedl.

An interesting bag from Tokyo is presented from a store called Ginza Familiar, a children’s clothing store.

They used the English word not because of its meaning, but because of its pleasant sound to the Japanese ear, said Friedl.

Another featured bag is from a bookshop in Zurich, Switzerland, called Pinkus Genossenohaft Buchhandlung and Antiquariat.

This store was founded by Theo Pinkus in 1933, when he fled Berlin because he was a Jewish Communist, according to a description next to the exhibit.

Friedl said that this shop was once a gathering place for Marxists, left-wing intellectuals and where spies used to gather during the Cold War.
Friedl pointed out a particular bag from a Japanese men’s store that is silk screen and hand printed.

“It is a real art form,” she said. “Libraries are not just about books. They are about print and design.”

This philosophy is exactly what Friedl tries to bring into the library at the College at Florham through its frequent exhibitions. Artistic value can be found in anything.

A bag from 1985 uses art from a local artist to attempt to show the world, “We’re really happy in our Soviet land.”

And a bag from the world’s oldest department store, Mitsukoshi, founded in Tokyo in 1673, tells the world that some things truly are timeless, Friedl said.
“It is important to learn about what is currently going on in the world with art,” said Friedl.

This is why Fairleigh Dickinson brings art exhibitions into the library, to incorporate other forms of learning.

Friedl brings in a new exhibition every few months, and tries to tie in parallels to what is going on in the world today.

She thought this exhibit was a perfect theme to represent International Education Week, coming up in November.

“These bags were collected by travelers, and we have many more of them. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough room to hang them all,” said Friedl.

She looks forward to the opening of the John and Joan Monninger Center for Learning and Research, the new addition to the library. There will be more room to display exhibitions, and there is even a possibility to hold a number of them at once.

According to the April/May 2011 Inside FDU Newsletter, Campus Provost Kenneth Greene believes that the Monninger Center will provide a dynamic learning environment that supports all levels of interaction between students and faculty and the many ways they engage in the world.

Friedl thinks that the art exhibits will be a great asset to the Monninger Center, and truly align with the goal of providing a global education.

“Regarding the library’s exhibitions, they are often focused on work of international art or design, and often tied to current discussions in the news- cities in the news, countries in the news, and graphic design commentary in international publications,” said Friedl. “This is just one way in which the library actively demonstrates its being attuned to a global view in our educational mission.”

Friedl plans to have another exhibition set up in November. It will be titled, “My Berlin – Two Halves of My Life,” Photographs by Lia A. Wagner.

The title refers to the artist’s native homeland which was divided, East and West, before her birth and during the first half of her life, and then changed, becoming the re-united Germany where she has lived for the second half of her life, said Friedl.

Late night hours return to campus library

MELANIE ANZIDEI
Managing Editor

Fall is back and so are the late-night library hours.

Every semester, the College at Florham Library stays open past its original closing hours to provide students with the available, and sometimes necessary, atmosphere needed to cram for exams, gather for group assignments or study in silence.

Despite this, students haven’t always have the luxury of late-night library access.

In 2005, the Student Government Association requested that the library stay open later. Prior to this, “library after hours” were only in effect during exam periods.

Realizing that this may not be enough for students, James Marcum, the then FDU librarian, and Colleen DiGregorio, the public relations and marketing coordinator for the College at Florham Library, searched for a way to satisfy SGA’s request.

They first had to overcome a challenging obstacle: finding the appropriate staff.

During the process of establishing an after-hours staff, Markum and DiGregorio realized that they did not have a large enough budget to provide current employees with overtime pay.

As a result, they hired a four-student-staff to work the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. shifts. Provost Kenneth Greene assisted by allocating the extra funds needed to help pay the student-staff.

According to DiGregorio, students must meet very high standards in order to become staff.

Those hired tend to be in the fourth year or graduate level of study. Staff are expected to know the campus and how the library works. They also are expected to be “responsible, reliable, and mature.”

By that spring semester, with the help of Greene and after struggling to find the appropriate staff, late-night hours began.

In 2007, with the help of Lauren Elgin, lab manager of Computing Services, the library was able to also fund and hire a late-night computer operator, who works alongside this student-staff.

The late-night library hours tradition still provides students with the only available place on campus that’s open until 2 a.m.

During late-night hours, however, students have limited services. They are not able to check out any books at this time and the periodical section, which is where the reserves are located, is closed.

Students are still able to access all other resources, just without the luxury of being able to physically exit the building with that resource.

Even though it’s not a semester-long or even a weeklong tradition – the late-night hours only begin two or three weeks into every semester and don’t run on Friday or Saturday nights – the change seems to be working.

Students who enter the library after regular hours are asked to sign-in.

The late-night staff is then expected to make a head count at every hour to see if students are actually taking advantage of the library and its resources.

According to DiGregorio, these counts showed that over 50 students occupied the library last week by the time original hours would have ended.

Throughout the remainder of that same night, about 20 more students entered the library.

Keeping in mind that midterms were still to come, the number of students seeking refuge in the Orangerie and Reference Room is sure to keep growing.

Denise Marshall, a reference/research and instruction librarian, as well as head of information literacy at the College at Florham Library, also sees success in the late-night hours.

She recalled her students tell her they wanted the library open later.

“Students seem to be happy,” she added.

The late-night library hours have benefited the campus community for six years and counting.

“We’ve never regretted this,” said DiGregorio. She added, “The library is not just a place for books.”

With all its resources, ranging from the obvious collection of books to the iPad2 and laptops, combined with the addition of the café in the Orangerie upon completion of the Monninger Center, the library has become a place for students to gather for whatever reason at all hours of the day.

By this time next year, it will hopefully be able to provide students with arguably the two essentials to pass a class – a place away from partying and caffeine.