From the Director's Desk

As I write these words, the campus is in the midst of final exams week and the library is abuzz with studying, research, and group work on final projects and presentations. Opportunities to "de–stress" in the library have included free coffee service and massage stations courtesy of Student Involvement, and Student Involvement also coordinated the first ever "Library Rave" on Monday evening – five quick minutes of music and dancing before settling in for a long night of studying.

Lawrence Students Using Educational Kits These events, like so many library initiatives, succeed because of collaboration. During the past academic year, the library developed new partnerships and continued many already established ones. Our successful Green Grant was a result of close work with the Campus Sustainability Initiative and also the Biology department. This grant also enabled us to assist the Lawrence Math and Science Partnership by lending Educational Resource Center materials to study environmental topics. Media Instructional Services established new collaborations with faculty for the newly formed Mass Communication major in the Communication Arts & Sciences department, and continued ongoing partnerships with other academic departments and the Center for Augustinian Study and Legacy, to name but a few. Information Resources librarians worked with the Women's and Gender Studies department to acquire new materials by poet Joy Harjo prior to her campus visit this past March, an event co–sponsored by McQuade Library and many other campus departments. And of course, ongoing programs like our Information Literacy Instruction program, the annual Tolle Lege ceremony, and the "Conversations in Teaching and Learning" series all establish and reinforce connections across campus.

These are but a few of the library's collaborations over the past year, and every one of them strengthened the efforts of all who participated. I'm already looking forward to building new partnerships next year, so whether you are a student, faculty member, staff or administrator, please be in touch if you have an idea you would like to discuss.

In the meantime, remember that the library is open all summer, so visit us often if you will be teaching or taking summer courses, or if you are just looking for some good books or DVDs to take along during your summer travels. Packing light? Check out our growing collection of ebooks and digital audiobooks.

Whatever your plans, I hope you have a wonderful summer with plenty of time for rest, renewal, and fun! ~ Bridget Rawding

What's Happening?

SGA donates $1,000 to purchase DVDs

The McQuade Library is pleased to announce that SGA, (Student Government Association), gave the library a one–time donation of $1,000 to purchase DVDs in April 2010! We decided to put a suggestion box at the library circulation desk to solicit suggestions from the students and we received over 50 requests. Many students asked to be notified when the DVDs arrived so they could check them out! We have ordered over 50 DVDs, and some selected titles that have already arrived include: Avatar, Crazy Heart, Pirate Radio, Sherlock Holmes, An Education, and Lovely Bones.

All DVDs are free, circulate for 5 days, and are searchable in the library's online catalog.

Many thanks to SGA and Shawn DeVeau, Dean of Students, for this generous donation!

Integrated Search Trial extended through June 30

It's not too late! Help us evaluate Integrated Search from EBSCO. This service allows you to search multiple databases simultaneously. For example, you could search a history topic in "Historical Abstracts", "JSTOR", and the "Library Catalog" all at once.

More results, with fewer searches.

Choose from one of the pre–selected groupings below, or roll your own at the database selection page.

Let us know what you think! Comment here, IM us, or email a librarian.

Integrated Search Topics
News	Reference
Education	Health
History	International Business
Literature	Religion
Social Science/Psychology	Sustainability/Environment

How Green is McQuade Library?

Through a "How Green Is My Library" mini–grant, McQuade Library continues to promote environmental literacy by acquiring green resources and sponsoring various programs:

The Lawrence Math and Science Partnership is an after–school program in which Merrimack students visit sites and engage middle school children in hands–on enrichment activities. This year all the activities were built around a "Healthy Environment" theme. McQuade Library partnered with the Stevens Service Learning Center to offer resources to support this program.

In April, Merrimack students used "Investigating Groundwater Concepts" kits to teach Lawrence students to examine groundwater movement and contamination. "Reduce, Re–Use, Recycle: Plastics Identification" kits helped make these students "plastic literate" and everyone enjoyed playing a recycling game. Additional resources designed to help teachers integrate environmental education into their classrooms are housed in McQuade Library's Educational Resources Collection.

On Wednesday, April 14th, over 100 Merrimack College faculty, students, and staff attended Dyan deNapoli's "Penguin Rescue!" program and heard the amazing story of the world's largest rescue of oiled wildlife. During this program, students learned how to protect the environment and help save animals, just in time for Earth Day.

McQuade Library provided resources for the Campus Sustainability Initiative's Blue, Gold, and Green Environmental Festival. Films such as Food Inc., Heat, Trashed! and others were shown in various locations throughout the successful three day festival. A sampling of McQuade Library's recent DVD purchases can be found here.

In addition, librarians created booklists to support "green bag" lunch topics such as alternative energy, green business, and global climate change.

Library Hours

Final Exams 2010

Weekday	Time
Friday, May 7	7:30a.m. – 5:00p.m.
Saturday, May 8	10:00a.m. – 8:00p.m.
Sunday, May 9	11:00a.m. – 1:00a.m.
Monday – Thursday, May 10 – 13	7:30a.m. – 1:00a.m.
Friday, May 14	7:30a.m. – 5:00p.m.
Saturday – Sunday, May 15 – 16	CLOSED

Summer 2010

Weekday	Time
Monday – Thursday	8:30a.m. – 8:00p.m.
Friday	8:30a.m. – 12p.m. NOON
Saturday & Sunday	CLOSED

Exceptions:
See our website for special holiday and intersession hours.

What's New?

Merrimack College uses Smugmug for Photography Archive

Media Instructional Services has started a Merrimack College Photography Archive, which is intended to serve as a high–quality, selective collection of Merrimack College photographs and images for students, alumni, parents and friends. So far the site has been populated with photographs from Father Jim's 80th birthday party, experiential learning trips (including Pellegrinaggio), campus landscapes, McQuade Library Read posters, and images from the college archives and yearbooks. To check out what's available visit: www.merrimack.smugmug.com.

Congratulations, You Are About to Graduate From a Terrific College! Now What?

If you have secured a job or admission to a graduate program in your chosen field, kudos to you! If you, like many of your peers here and at other colleges, are about to embark on a job search, remember wherever you are the library can be a great resource. Whether you need to research an industry, develop a targeted list of companies to contact or the most up–to–date information for an interview tomorrow morning, the library is a wise stop on the road to your first job.

Titles like What Color is Your Parachute, the Knock'em Dead series by Martin Yate, The Everything Practice Interview Book; Occupational Outlook Handbook, along with titles, The Twitter Job Search Guide and I'm On LinkedIn, Now What? that help you optimize social networking sites and books to identify graduate programs or prepare for admissions and licensing exams, GRE, LSAT are all in our collection.

Use the search strategies you learned here to mine our databases to find current information on a company, firm, agency or potential interviewer.

There are many excellent career resources on the Web, especially the resources made available by Merrimack's Career Center. Dont't forget to check them out.

Who's hot right now?

Dan Demaio Newton, Director of Strategy and Business Development at Monster Government Solutions has his own blog: http://demaionewton.wordpress.com/, and a web site: http://www.betterjobsfaster.org/.

Diane Darling, author of The Networking Survival Guide (2nd ed. McGraw Hill, 2010) has a terrific site, http://www.effectivenetworking.com that even has a step—by–step diagram on "How To Work A Room".

Good luck on your road to success!

A collection of career and job hunting resources is on display in the Roddy Reference Room of the McQuade Library through commencement.

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