WVU Libraries

CONTACT: Frances O’Brien, Dean, WVU Libraries, 304-293-4040, ext. 4000

Pick up an old book at a yard sale for 25 cents and think you found a treasure? Have a cherished volume your grandfather passed on to you? Curious what they’re worth?

If it’s a signed first-edition of Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, it could net up to $1,000. Other signed volumes by Papa Hemingway could fetch between $2,000 and $3,000.

Such a find is rare, hence the lofty price tag. But similar jewels can be found on bookshelves and in boxes everywhere. Just ask Jack Walsdorf, an antiquarian book appraiser and collector, when his traveling book show hits campus.

Read the rest of this entry »

CONTACT: Myra Lowe, University Librarian, 304-293-4040, ext. 4041

West Virginia University Libraries – including the new Downtown Library Complex – will remain free and open to the public, officials said Wednesday (July 2).

Recent news reports and headlines were somewhat misleading on this issue.

“While it is true that escalating costs for books, journals, subscriptions and access to online databases has forced the University to charge a $50 fee for residents and a $75 fee for non-residents to check out materials, individuals can and should feel free to just walk in and use our services and most materials at no charge,” library officials said. Individuals also can use guest computers to access materials for free.

This new fee for a library card applies to the general public only. Students pay a $30 fee each semester as part of the University fee structure; faculty and staff are not charged a fee.

Mountaineer Spirit

Faculty members traveling during the summer can call nearly 200 academic libraries across the nation home.

The Reciprocal Faculty Borrowing Program provides faculty from participating libraries with borrowing privileges and on-site access to the collections at some of the most important research libraries in North America.

To be eligible, one must be a full- or part-time time faculty member in good standing with the University Libraries and possess a library card and picture I.D. Eligible faculty may request a RFBP card at the access services desks at the Downtown Campus, Evansdale, Health Sciences or Law libraries. The card
is valid for one year and is renewable.

The Reciprocal Faculty Borrowing Program is sponsored by WVU along with other libraries connected online to the Online Computer Library Center in Dublin, Ohio.

For a list of participating libraries, check the Web site at http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/borrowing/reciprocal.htm.

Mountaineer Spirit

BY MONTE MAXWELL

Still in high school when Henry Louis Gates visited campus to explain the complexities of politics and diversity in the new century? A night class prevented you from hearing Terence Martin Keane talk about terrorism, war and trauma? Live on the
other side of the globe?

None is a hindrance any longer to watching a Benedum series lecture. WVU Libraries have made nearly 90 Benedum Lecture Series presentations available to the public over the Internet.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

BY MONTE MAXWELL

The WVU Libraries are seeking input from students, faculty and staff on the services they currently provide and what they should provide.

In a few days, about 4,000 randomly selected individuals will each receive an email requesting they participate in LibQUAL+, an online library service quality survey that takes place during the first two weeks of April.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

BY MONTE MAXWELL

Librarian emeritus Mildred I. Moyers passed away Feb. 22.

She retired in 1997 with 41 years of service to the WVU Libraries.

During her career, she served as assistant circulation librarian, cataloger, chief acquisitions librarian, chief bibliographer and interim head of cataloging. She also taught classes in cataloging and classification for the WVU Library Science Department.

She was a long time member of the West Virginia Library Association who awarded her with the 20th Dora Ruth Parks Award in 1992 for long and outstanding service to libraries and librarianship in West Virginia.

She served as editor of West Virginia Libraries and the West Virginia Union List of Serials; wrote a chapter on West Virginia union lists published in Implementing Online Union Lists of Serials: the Pennsylvania Experience; and complied A Brief History of the WV Libraries From 1931. Among her degrees was a master of arts from WVU.

Friends and family have established the Mildred Moyers Library
Collection Endowment to benefit the WVU Libraries. Memorial donations can be sent to the WVU Libraries, P.O. Box 6069, Morgantown, WV 26506-6069. Checks should be made payable to the WVU Foundation with Mildred Moyers Endowment written on the memo line.

Mountaineer Spirit

E-VALENTINES—Step into the past this Valentine’s Day by viewing the West Virginia and Regional History Collection’s
vintage valentines, such as the one pictured here, online at
http://www. libraries.wvu.edu/exhibits/valentine/.

See the graphic and read the full caption (PDF).

CONTACT: Monte Maxwell, WVU Libraries, 304-293-4040, ext. 4004

In response to student demand for increased library access, the West Virginia University Downtown Campus Library will remain open until 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday throughout the spring semester.

“Students told us they needed a place available after midnight to study, do research or finish a paper,” Libraries Dean Frances O’Brien said. “The Downtown Campus Library is a convenient location for this kind of work.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

Amateur Genealogists – Dorothy and Gilbert Butcher of Clarksburg research their family tree in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection of the newly renovated Charles C. Wise Jr. Library.

See the photo and read the full caption (PDF).

Mountaineer Spirit

BY MONTE MAXWELL

WVU Libraries has begun one of the final stages in the completion of the Downtown Library Complex.

During the next few weeks, the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, along with 47,000 volumes from the general collection, and libraries faculty and staff will relocate to the renovated Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library.

The process will bring permanently improve services that students and faculty receive, but may cause some temporary inconveniences, officials explained.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

BY MONTE MAXWELL
WVU LIBRARIES

WVU Libraries has made research a little easier for psychology faculty and students with the addition of PsycARTICLES, an online database of 43 journals from the field.

“It’s the difference between night and day,” psychology professor Stan Cohen said. “The time savings alone will be incredible.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit
BY JIM DAVIS

If you have some spare time, slip on over to the Downtown Campus Library atrium and check out an exhibit on WVU’s electronic thesis and dissertation program – all to the sounds of roaring jazz and fingersnapping blues.

The exhibit includes both a physical display for traditionalists and an online version for the computersavvy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

The West Virginia University Research Corp. has fulfilled a $1 million commitment to enhance the collection at the WVU Libraries.

John Weete, president of the Research Corp., announced that a
recent payment of more than $73,000 brought the total contribution from the Library Challenge Grant Program to $1 million.

“The West Virginia University Research Corp. has been proud to
contribute to strengthening the library resources and thus provide
additional support for WVU faculty and student researchers and scholars,” said Weete, who is also vice president of research and economic development.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

BY PAM FRONKO
WVU FOUNDATION

The West Virginia University Foundation will dedicate 771 Scholarship Bricks to serve as the foundation of a Scholars Walk at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 15, at the Downtown Library Complex.

With the Scholarship Brick Walkway, the Foundation and West
Virginia University are recognizing those donors who have invested in the lives of WVU students. Each brick is engraved with the name of an endowed scholarship created at the University.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

Move over, Book-of-the-Month Club. The WVU electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) collection has been accessed more than 2.1 million times since inception.

Implemented as a requirement in August 1998, the ETD Initiative has several purposes, including helping students promote their careers, assisting learners and researchers within and outside WVU, and making available many scholarly works that were
previously inaccessible.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mountaineer Spirit

Historic Display – Harold M. Forbes, associate curator for the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, displays a first folio edition of William Shakespeare’s plays.

See the photo with full caption (PDF).

Mountaineer Spirit

WHERE GREATNESS IS READ — WVU officials dedicated the new downtown library April 10 in the multistory atrium joining the new building with the Charles C. Wise Jr. Library. Nancy Davenport, a WVU alumna who heads acquisitions at the Library of Congress, was the keynote speaker.

Read the rest of the story (PDF with photos).

By Sara Bott. Staff Writer. The Daily Athenaeum

Students walking the stairways of the new Wise Library will notice the orange walls with blue hand railings surrounding them. Natural light will stream in from the windows on both sides of the building. Circles seem to dominate throughout the library.

These aspects are ones they are hoping will help students feel more comfortable in the library, according to Ruth Nellis, coordinator of library construction.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Brad McElhinny, Charleston Daily Mail

MORGANTOWN — Packing up the contents of a library and moving them to another location is not like moving the contents of your home.

Do your spoons have to be numbered and placed in order? And if you don’t unpack a box or two as long as you own your home, will anyone care?

But when officials at West Virginia University start transferring thousands of books and periodicals to the new campus library next month, you can be sure the movers will possess expertise in moving heavy objects and in keeping them in order.

“This is like throwing the contents of 20 to 50 households all together and having everything end up in the right order,” said project coordinator Ruth Nellis. “If everything gets out of order, it’s a major problem. We’d prefer to be able to find everything.”

Read the rest of this entry »

WVU News and Information Services Virtual Newsroom

CONTACT: Frances O’Brien, Dean, WVU Libraries, 304-293-4040

A student takes a break from reading to gaze out a picturesque, curved glass facade at a busy University Avenue, shade trees swaying in the breeze and the Morgantown skyline beyond.

Nearby, another student types quietly on a laptop computer.

A few feet away yet another student searches for a book among the many shelves while a fourth studies in a computer-equipped carrel.

Read the rest of this entry »