WVU Libraries

The hottest new titles from area bookstores are available for browsing in Eliza’s, the Downtown Campus Library coffee shop. Whether your taste runs to current events, fantasy, science, or fiction, there are plenty of books to entertain you as you relax with a cup of Starbucks coffee or a snack. And if you discover something you want to take home, you don’t need to buy it. Books from Eliza’s are available for loan. Just be sure to bring your WVU ID card when you visit the library. It is your library card, too.

Are you interested in food? Eliza’s collection includes The Nasty Bits, the latest from Anthony Bourdain and Bill Buford’s Heat : an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany. Sports fans might enjoy John Feinstein’s Last Dance : Behind the Scenes at the Final Four or perhaps Clemente : the Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero.

The collection includes critically acclaimed graphic novels like La Perdida by Jessica Abel, as well as new works of fiction from John Updike, Gail Godwin, T.C. Boyle, and Elizabeth Strout. Mystery fans will find Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel, The Hard Way, but for those who prefer a gentler mystery, set in an exotic location, the collection also includes the newest installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series.

Eliza’s collection is accessible whenever the library is open, even at times when the coffee shop is closed. To find Eliza’s titles in the MountainLynx catalog, search on the keyword, “elizawv.” New titles are added frequently, so stop by often to see the latest additions.

Watch gangster, blaxploitation, western, and slasher films in the library.

The WVU Libraries are offering a new online course this fall called ULIB493: Film and Media Literacy. ULIB is a new designation for library courses. This is a fun and easy three credit course that students in many majors will enjoy. For example, students in Journalism, Communications, History, Theater, Art, English, Education, Liberal Arts, Multidisciplinary Studies, Sociology, and anyone who likes movies will increase their knowledge of film and film criticism by participating in this class. This course is taught online and students will watch films online and on Reserve in the Media Services Department of the Downtown Library, so they can do the work for the course at any time during the week.

Students will learn about media literacy and become informed film consumers in this course. They will learn film vocabulary and criticism, and how to use two online databases to find comprehensive film information. Students will study four film genres, Gangster films, Blaxploitation films, Westerns, and Slasher films. The final project is a film review of a movie they select from their genre of choice. To learn more about the course, visit the web page at: https://lib.wvu.edu/instruction/classes/ulib300/.

Learn more about U.S. Patents in this introductory session on the patenting process and preliminary patent searching.   This two-hour workshop will cover classification, Public PAIR, and hands-on instruction in using the U.S. Patent Office’s online database of patents from 1790 to the present.

Thursday, July 6 from 10 a.m. – noon     Evansdale Library, Room 130

Questions?
Contact Marian Armour-Gemmen
marmour@wvu.edu
296-4696 x5106

Sewit Araia, a senior, enjoys a piece of cake while chatting with Sudiksha Joshi, a graduate student, during the West Virginia Day celebration

Anna Schien, a WVU librarian, hands the first commemorative poster to Sylvia Bolyard, of Preston County.

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The Dominion Post, June 18, 2006

By Melanie Moroz
Campus Buzz

West Virginia’s 143rd birthday on Tuesday will be celebrated throughout the Mountain State, with WVU’s downtown library hosting several commemorative activities open to the public.

Beginning at noon Tuesday, the activities will kick off at Eliza’s coffee shop on the fourth floor of the downtown library. A birthday cake and the return of the library’s renowned West Virginia Day poster will be included in the celebration, as well as a launch of a new digital resource that will benefit both students and residents.

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Don’t worry about bringing a card or wearing a party hat. Come celebrate West Virginia’s birthday at Eliza’s in the Downtown Campus Library.

On Tuesday, June 20, the WVU Libraries will be celebrating the 143rd anniversary of the founding of the Mountain State with birthday cake, the return of the Libraries’ celebrated West Virginia Day poster and the launch of a new digital resource that is a true birthday gift to West Virginians everywhere.

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The Mountaineer Spirit May 18, 2006

By Monte Maxwell
WVU Libraries

If you attended West Virginia University anytime during the past 40 years, you probably owe the late Robert J. Bennett some appreciation for enhancing your college experience.

Whether you were an engineering student needing a place to study, an athlete performing his sport, or a student attending class, you benefited from Bennett’s architectural handiwork.

From the late 1950s into the 1980s, Bennett designed several new buildings and led renovations to many of the University’s historic halls, including Woodburn, Martin, and Chitwood.

After Bennett passed away in 1996, his wife, Jacqueline R. Bennett, and daughter, Sandy Bennett-Taylor, donated more than two dozen of his architectural drawings for WVU projects to the West Virginia and Regional History Collection.

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WVU New and information Services
New Release
April 28, 2006

The WVU Libraries’ online database of historical photographs has recently grown beyond 10,000 digital images.

The milestone comes only five months after launching West Virginia History OnView. The database made its debut during Mountaineer Week in November 2005 with about 5,000 images.

“We created the database with the ambitious goal of cataloging 25,000 photographs from our West Virginia and Regional History Collection (WVRHC), and I’m pleased that we are making brisk progress,” WVU Libraries Dean Frances O’Brien said. “We are also all delighted that the site already draws thousands of users every month. People have found WV History OnView to be a valuable research tool.”

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John Cuthbert, curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, poses with Susan Hogan, director of the Wheeling Symphony, prior to a recreation performance of “It’s Wheeling Steel” at the Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling Thursday. Broadcast during the 1930s and 1940s, “It’s Wheeling Steel” was a popular radio program that spotlighted amateur performers who were Wheeling Steel employees or their family members.
Cuthbert wrote the script for the performance honoring the historic radio show.

WVU New and information Services
New Release
April 18, 2006

During the Great Depression, the town of Wheeling gained international notoriety for weekly broadcasts of amateur musicians. Millions of Americans gathered around their radios Sunday afternoons to hear an announcer proclaim “It’s Wheeling Steel.”

At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 20, an audience will crowd into Capitol Music Hall to enjoy a re-creation of the popular show by the Wheeling Symphony.

“It’s Wheeling Steel” originally aired on WWVA radio and was heard nationwide on the Mutual Network stations and the NBC Blue Network from 1933 to 1944.

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The Daily Athenaeum, April 12, 2006

By Heather Bonecutter
Staff Writer

In a clearing next to Martin Hall stands a tree with ribbons on its limbs gently blowing in the breeze. This tree symbolizes peace – a peace that emanates throughout the generations of the Iroquois Confederacy to the countless generations to come.

West Virginia University librarian Anna Schien has been working to commemorate the spirit and history behind this tree in a book titled, “White Pine Spirit of Peace: the WVU Peace Tree,” which documents the life of this tradition.

“It’s a documentary transcript of the actual ceremonies so that people can know what happened,” Schein said.

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WVU New and information Services
New Release
April 6, 2006

A new West Virginia University limited-edition publication documents the history and significance of the campus “peace tree” that has taken root next to Woodburn Circle.

Edited by University Librarian Anna Schein, “White Pine Spirit of Peace: the WVU Peace Tree,” includes the speech made by Chief Leon Shenandoah, Tadodaho of the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, when the white pine was first planted on the WVU campus in 1992.

The white pine symbolizes the Great Tree of Peace, whose four White Roots of Truth go in the four cardinal directions of the earth. According to Haudenosaunee oral tradition, Schein noted, the Creator sent a Peacemaker to unite the warring Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk nations by planting the original Tree of Peace at Onondaga about 1,000 years ago.

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Attention WVU Faculty:

We are providing you with an opportunity to review the selection of journals subscribed to by the WVU Libraries. This is not a cut! We want the journals we purchase to be the ones most appropriate and the best use of our existing library budget. Our collection has changed and the decision making process has become more complicated in recent years due to the increase in electronic journal subscriptions, package deals, and full text databases.

Participate! What you can do…
Please help us review our journal subscriptions

We Want Your Recommendations

* are there journals that are outdated? Let’s drop them and add new titles relevant to your current teaching and research

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The Daily Athenaeum, March 23, 2006

By Colleen Wright
Senior Staff Writer

West Virginia University Libraries recently added two new electronic resources to their resume. Web of Science and Elsevier’s Science Direct give faculty and students access to thousands of new journals.

Web of Science contains 22,000 journals, 23 million patents, 12,000 conference proceedings, 5,500 websites, 5,000 books and other scholarly contents.

Science Direct includes electronic versions of a wide variety of frequently used journals. These journals contain information helpful to people in almost every field, especially the sciences.

“Web of Science was the most requested database by faculty. They have been asking for it for the last seven to eight years, and we didn’t have the money until now,” said Mary Strife, director of the WVU Evansdale Library.

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Two new West Virginia University Libraries’ offerings are providing a boost to faculty and student researchers. Web of Science and Elsevier’s Science Direct, among the top academic digital resources, can now be reached with just a few clicks on the WVU Libraries’ web site.

Web of Science is an index to 22,000 journals, 23 million patents, 12,000 conference proceedings, 5,500 web sites, 5,000 books and other scholarly Web content. Science Direct includes electronic versions of frequently used journals from 1995 to the present.

“We heard from our faculty and graduate students about their research needs and, through the support of the Research Corporation, we’ve been able to provide them with updated services,” Provost Gerald Lang said. “Like everything else, the educational environment and our learning environments are changing, and I think that the ability to provide access to the scientific literature in a much more contemporary way – at one’s desktop – will improve the quality of our faculty members’ research and student learning.”

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Eliza’s is open Sunday-Wednesday 3 p.m.-midnight and Thursday 3-9 p.m. The café offers espresso drinks, fresh-brewed Starbucks coffee, tea, hot chocolate, blended drinks to order, Italian sodas, bottled soft drinks, juice and water. The menu also includes muffins, bagels, biscotti and oversized cookies plus a variety of healthy snacks.

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The Dominion Post, February 23, 2006

BY ERIC SLAGLE
The Dominion Post

Students at WVU say a newly opened coffee shop in Wise Library should provide the caffeinated relief they need when studying late at night.

Student T.J. Cromwell said he thinks Eliza’s coffee shop on the fourth floor of the library – which is operated by university dining services and sells Starbuck’s brand coffee – is a hot concept.

“Being a coffee lover, I think it’s a great idea,” said Cromwell. “It keeps you more awake. It makes you stay up. I’m definitely going to buy a lot of coffee there.”

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The Daily Athenaeum
February 21, 2006

By Kevin Jeannette
Correspondent
Monday at 3 p.m. marked the grand opening of Eliza’s on the fourth floor of the Wise Library at West Virginia University.

On hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony were student body president DJ Casto, University officials and a number of students and faculty eagerly awaiting the opening.

Decorated with blue and gold balloons, Eliza’s was packed with students and faculty excited about the newest addition to the library.
While waiting in line for their free cups of coffee, patrons were treated to trays of fruit and flying WV cookies from WVU Dining Services staff members.

BILLY WOLFE/THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
Student Government Association President DJ Casto cuts a ribbon Monday at the grand opening of Eliza’s, a new coffee shop in the Downtown Library. Eliza’s is located on the fourth floor of the building and sells Starbucks coffee.

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WVU New and information Services
New Release
February 16, 2006

West Virginia University faculty, staff and students are invited to relax with a steaming cup of Starbucks coffee at the grand opening of Eliza’s at 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 20, on the fourth floor of the WVU Downtown Campus Library.

D.J. Casto, student body president, will join University officials to unveil the sign and hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony. There will also be free giveaways.

John Cuthbert, curator of the WVRHC, enjoys the first cup of java during Eliza’s soft opening.

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WVU New and information Services
New Release
February 3, 2006

Graduation no longer means bidding farewell to the West Virginia University Libraries.

A partnership between the WVU Alumni Association and the WVU Libraries now connects alumni with many of the valuable library resources students use daily. Alumni Association Chair Jim Gardill announced the initiative known as the WVU Alumni Library Gateway during the Capital Classic Luncheon at the Charleston Embassy Suites on Jan. 25.

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