"And now for a word from our sponsers..."

Sept. 28, 1933 p.4: Reading Room Is to Open Sundays

“Informality is Keynote of Furnishings; New Literature Is on Shelves”

ADVISER AIDS READERS

On the second floor of the Library there is a room which is a joy to both faculty and students. This is what is known as the Special Reading Room because it has an atmosphere all its own and meets a special need of the students. With its comfortable informal furniture, soft rug and shaded lights, it invites one to rest and read for an hour or so. All of the fiction is kept on the shelves in the eastern section of this large room and in the western end are the new books and also interesting collections of travel, biography, drama, poetry, etc. Here one may sit in comfort and read. Then if the book is not finished at one sitting and the reader wishes to take it out she may sign for it at the desk in the corner of the room and keep it for either one or two weeks, depending on the nature of the book.

Sometimes a student does not know what she wants or wishes to read on some particular subject in which she is interested. At all times when the room is open a reader’s adviser is present to help with reading problems, make bibliographies, and suggest interesting books.

This room is open from Monday through Saturday from 10:00 to 12:00 each morning and from 3:00 to 5:00 each afternoon. Then Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings it is open from 7:00 to 9:00. Thinking that the students might enjoy spending Sunday afternoon in this atmosphere, the Library Staff have volunteered their services and the room will be kept open from 3:00 to 5:00 on Sunday afternoon throughout the year.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

Sept. 28, 1933 p.1: Library Reading Room Will Be Open Sunday

Charles H. Stone announces that the library reading room and periodical room will be open to students on Sunday afternoon from 3 to 5 o’clock, beginning this Sunday, October 1. To meet the demands of the students the reading room is also extending its hours and opening from 7 to 9 o’clock on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights in addition to the daily hours of 10 to 12 and 3 to 5, on all week days and 3 to 5 on Sunday. The students are urged to take advantage of this privilege and use the reading room as much as possible.

Sept. 21, 1933 p.3: Library News

Among the numerous improvements made on campus during the vacation time, the library appears to be at the head of the list. The entire building has been remodeled and the list of books has been increased, so that all students can be well accomodated. In order to have better co-operation with the students, the librarians are asking that everyone abide by the following requests:

Keep the new Library clean; it belongs to you.

Reserve books and periodicals should not be taken from the building. However, reserve books may be signed for and taken out after nine o’clock at night, if they are returned before 8:30 the next morning. The system of reserve books is for your convenience, since the books coming under it are in constant use.

Do not bring any ink into the library. If your pen goes dry, you will find ink on the librarian’s desk. Be careful not to drop ink from your pen on the floor, and if you should, ask the librarian to see that it is cleaned up immediately.

Do not eat in the library. Crumbs not only make the place untidy, but they also draw ants and mice.

Please do not tear out or mark the periodicals. Put the magazines back where you found them so that the next person will not have difficulty in finding them.

The library is here in order to furnish books and a place in which to use them. Please be quiet so as not to bother those around you. If you are too noisy, the librarian will ring the bell on her desk. This in itself is disturbing and should not be necessary.

The reading room will be open from 10:00 to 12:00 a.m. daily and from 2 to 3 p.m. It will be open three nights a week. The circulation desk will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. I will however, close at 6 p.m. on Saturday. The reserve room will be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The reserve room will also close at 6 o’clock on Saturday.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

Sept. 21, 1933 p.3: New Library Affords Open Shelf System

Now that we are in our new library building we are anxious to give students the best service possible and we are asking their whole-hearted co-operation in bringing this about. Our new reserve room is comfortable and spacious. The system of open shelves where a student may procure a book without waiting in line to be served is quite a step forward from the old method of handing books out over the desk. In order to maintain this system, it is necessary that care be taken that no book be removed from this room. Hence someone is stationed near the door to inspect all books carried by students leaving the room. This is no reflection on any individual student and should not be interpreted as such. It is merely a precautionary measure to protect the whole student body. Please enter into the spirit of this service and make it possible for us to continue our open shelf system.

Charles Stone, Librarian

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

April 6, 1933 p.2: Open Forum

Dear Editor:

Since the library fire at the first of the year, the students have been greatly inconvenienced from time to time. The co-operation of the students, however, has been splendid in meeting the difficulties of the situation. The librarians and all concerned are grateful to them for their considerate attitude.

But: Has anyone ever considered the inconvenience and additional work such a situation has placed on the librarians? Their additional duties have been many. They have had many difficulties in their attempts to make the improvised library into a serviceable unit of the college. There has been a great deal of work connected with the repair of damaged books, cataloguing new books, and many other duties included in library work.

The librarians and their assistants have worked tirelessly to make the Students’ Building a substitute for our library. The students appreciate their service and co-operation in overcoming and unfortunate occurrence.

B.G.

March 23, 1933 p.3: Students Use Monthly Almost 20,000 Books

Does anybody have any idea how many books we use in the reserve room during one month? No, we didn’t expect you to; there’d be something wrong with you if you did. Well, in January the total number used from the reserve room was 10,653. How about that! When the attendance in the periodical and reference rooms is added, it was found that 19,091 persons used them.

The room has been so crowded in the circulation department this year that they haven’t been able to count attendance. But, nevertheless, 2,818 books have been checked out by the department.

You couldn’t use little pink slips to borrow books this year either because there just hasn’t been any room. You know from experience that you have to go through lines and lines of red tape to get periodicals and then you have to use them in the periodical room, again on account of lack of room in the circulation department.

During February, the month which the freshman had to write source themes, there were 580 unbound periodicals used and 230 bound copies from the stacks.

As for when the library will be finished, nobody seems to know. Lack of funds and rainy weather have held up construction so that it is certain that it won’t be finished June 1, as promised.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

March 16, 1933 p.2: Open Forum

Dear Editor:

It is truly disgusting to see how the library magazines get torn up! “The Stage” and “Country Home,” among others, are frequently mutilated to such a degree as to make use of them almost of no good.

May I suggest, sincerely hoping this request will receive as speedy an adjustment as did the position of the phone, that those magazines which are so treated be checked in and out by the desk librarian and carefully examined until students warrant the present usage?

Yours truly,
M.K.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

March 9, 1933 p.2: Open Forum

Dear Editor:

Have you ever been able to find anything in the reference room of the Library? If so, why—congratulations! I for one have to stumble around, looking on every shelf and then end up by having to ask the library assistant where I can locate such and such a book that I know to be in the Reference Room. The assistant is always very nice and eager to help, which is surely appreciated by the student body. But is seems to me that all this could be avoided. I am told that the books are arranged on the shelves according to a certain classification known to all librarians. However, I and most of the students are not librarians, and so I would like to suggest that a poster or a placard be placed in the reference room with a key or some notation which would enable one to locate their desired books without chasing all over the room, looking on all the shelves and sometimes giving up in despair as a freshman did last Saturday night.

S.E.

Feb. 23, 1933 p.2: Open Forum

Dear Editor:

Sometimes we forget that the library is not a place for our social gatherings. And, really, it is a most convenient place for us to meet our friends, whom we have not seen for perhaps hours and hours even days. So, at the expense of those who are studying seriously, we hang on the table corners and gossip as long as we feel so inclined. For example, the other day I saw a student leave the library after trying for 30 minutes to concentrate above the disturbing din of two girls, sitting at the table with her. Such a scene should revive our sense of justice and fair play, because there are times when we all want absolute quiet in which to study. Besides, there is a great deal of commotion made by the students coming and going. This seems to be a universal fault of ours—we are all humanly excessive in our loving to talk and socialize. And, since this fault is common to all of us, I recommend that we co-operate with each other in suppressing it.

M.B.F.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

Feb. 3, 1933 p.2: Open Forum

Dear Editor:

May I repeat a conversation which I heard in the reserve room—not verbatim, but as I remember it?

“What are you going to do this afternoon?” one student said to another.

“Oh, I don’t know,” the other tried to break off the conversation.

“Well,” persisted the first, “what did you think of the way Mary acted yesterday?”

“You’d better be quiet,” the second answered.

“You really don’t want to study, do you?” the other one whispered very loudly.

Just at that point the bell was tapped by a student assistant and all eyes turned toward the guilty person whom they had heard long before. The girl who had whispered so loudly looked up with a sneer on her face, as if to say, “Why, that is a personal insult for anyone to ring the bell because I was talking.” It IS an insult to her thoughtfulness and intelligence. The reserve room is our room and is for the benefit of all of us. It is a room in which there can be no whispering, no visiting, and by all means no gossiping, if everyone is to study.

We all like having a new chance, a new slate that the second semester gives us. Why can’t we take the new chance and make the reserve study room a place where all of us are “seen and not heard.”

E.M.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

Nov. 23, 1932 p.1: Library News

1,722 non-fiction books were circulated during the month of October.

207 fiction books went out during the same month.

108 travel books went out last month.

On one day alone during October, 995 books were used in the Reserve room.

The lowest attendance recorded here on any day during the month was 366.

During the school year 1931-32, 216,697 pairs of girlish feet crossed the threshold of the now burned library.

Sept. 29, 1932 p.4: Fire of Unknown Origin Damages College Library

“Most Serious Damage Done in Reading and Library Science Rooms”

LOSS ESITMATED AT $25,000

“Books Are Now Housed in Society Halls in Students’ Building—Stacks Not Ready for Students’ Use”

The library of the Woman’s College was badly damaged by a fire of undetermined origin early Thursday morning, September 15. The fire broke out shortly before 3 o’clock and was reported by a workman who saw the flames as he was going to work. Later discoveries were made and reported by night watchman and an air mail pilot. The latter had just left the airport when he saw the flames, and in an effort to see if help had been called, dived low over the buildings, waking many of the girls in the dormitories.

A crowd of students and faculty members gathered quickly about the building and watched as the firemen tried to get to the flames. Their work was impeded by the slate roofing which would not allow the stream of water to play on the root if the flame.

The most serious damage was made in the reading room and the library science rooms. The reserve room and the stacks were protected from the flames by the vault-like contrivance which was closed before the fire succeeded in reaching that part of the building.

The exact amount of damage actually made has not been computed. According to the local fire department, it will not exceed $25,000. However, the librarians feel that the damage will amount to a larger figure than that estimate.

The definite number of books completely ruined has not been found. Every book in the fiction room was burned beyond use, as were the majority of the books in the library science room. It is know that 27 tons of books have been taken to the bindery to be rebound. Such weight, roughly estimated, would mean between 12,000 and 15,000 books.

As yet no information about the reconstruction is available. A great deal of work has already been done both on the burned library and the improvised one in the Students’ building.

At present, reserve books are in the Cornelian society hall, reference books in the Aletheian hall, and periodicals in the Adelphian hall. The stacks not yet ready for students’ use, are being entered through Mr. Stone’s office.

"And now a word from our sponsers..."

Jan. 12, 1932 p.2: Open Forum

Dear Editor:

As everyone knows, exams are coming on, term papers are due, etc., and the library is practically full all the time. Anyone who studies there must certainly notice the lack of ventilation and the hot stuffy air. If one studies there long, one either gets awfully sleepy or develops a nice headache. Isn’t there something that we can do about it? Some students have tried to remedy the situation by opening windows which are immediately closed by those students who are “freezing to death.” I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible to have a thermometer in there and have one of the library assistants open the windows a few minutes at regular intervals and relieve the situation?

Eleanor Shelton