WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Spotlight on McQuade Library Graduating Student Workers!

McQuade Library student workers are a vital part of the daily running of the McQuade Library and they perform a variety of tasks, including answering the phone, referring patrons to staff members, and checking out patrons' DVDs and books. Nine of our library student workers will be graduating. We asked them to comment on their experience working at the McQuade Library and share their future plans.

Here are their comments:

• Aubrey Bean Circulation – I loved working at the library over these past four years. Everyone was always so nice and helpful, and it was a great opportunity to get to know the services and places throughout campus. It was a great job to have and I really liked it! I majored at Merrimack in Spanish and Secondary Education and I will be looking for a teaching position in this area.


• Katelyn Buote Circulation – I have greatly enjoyed working at the McQuade Library. Going to “work” was not really work because I enjoyed it so much. As both a student and a student worker, the McQuade Library was kind of like a second home to me and I hold great pride and appreciation for the Merrimack College McQuade Library. I am sad to leave the McQuade library, but I am excited for the future. My future plans are to go to graduate school for Library information science in the Fall of 2011. My goal is to work in a library while I pursue my degree.


• Lindsey deMont Media Center – I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to both work and study at the library. Kevin (Head of Media Instructional Services) is extremely knowledgeable about everything and the staff have always been able to find whatever obscure art history book I was looking for! Next year I’m attending grad school to earn a M.A in Renaissance Art History and will spend the spring 2012 semester abroad.


• Mary DeSantis Media Center – I’ve only been working in the library since the beginning of this semester, but I have really enjoyed it. Working in the Media Center with Kevin is a great time and an awesome experience. I’ve learned some really neat stuff and I’m sorry to see it be over. In terms of the future I am taking a year off and then my plan is to go to grad school for English and try to do either editing or linguistics.


• Kelly Fitzgerald Circulation – I am currently in the process of applying for graduate school. I am a sports medicine major here at Merrimack and am looking to be an Occupational Therapist.


• Tania Leeder Media Center – Working in the Media Center has been a great experience. Going to film events provided me the opportunity to meet the people who were lecturing and learn about topics that I might not have otherwise been interested in. I’m glad I had this opportunity because it did not just lead to learning opportunities but to a greater sense of community between everyone else who works at the library. My future plans include working part time at a group home for adolescents and continuing to do research with faculty over the next year before applying to grad school.


• Yanil Rojas Circulation – I am a Psychology major and I have been working at the McQuade Library since fall semester of my freshmen year as a circulation student worker. I love working at McQuade because I work with the nicest people on campus. They are all like family to me and I will miss them greatly. This has been the best working experience of my life and I want to thank everyone on the staff for caring and for all their help. After graduation I plan of finding a job for the summer, start a year of service in the fall and go to graduate school right after.

We congratulate all of our seniors, including Leah DeSalvo, Circulation Student Worker, and Kristine Johnson, ERC Student Worker and wish them all future happiness and success!

From left to right, Mary DeSantis, Tania Leeder, Yanil Rojas, Katelyn Buote. Missing – Aubrey Bean, Lindsey deMont, Leah DeSalvo, Kelly Fitzgerald, Kristine Johnson.

Library Instruction: Semester in Review

The spring semester was an active one for the McQuade Library instruction program. Reference and Instruction librarians met with over 600 students in approximately 50 course–related sessions and workshops.

Faculty Collaborations

This semester, librarians were especially pleased to go "beyond the one–shot session" and engage in many meaningful pedagogical collaborations. They worked with several faculty members to craft collaborative assignments that developed students' research skills and critical thinking. Here are a few examples:

• Melinda Malik collaborated with Dr. Lisa Michaud in her CSC1510 Introduction to Information Technology course. Melinda and Lisa team–taught a class on advanced web searching techniques. Using Movie Maker software by Xtranormal, Melinda created an online video outlining the differences between the visible web and invisible web. Plans are underway for an innovative “CSI: Merrimack” web searching game for next semester!


• Lyena Chavez worked with Dr. Joanne Gurry in her ED600G Adolescent Literature class. Lyena and Joanne collaborated to create an author website rubric for these students to help them evaluate author websites. A comprehensive course research guide was created to support the author website assignment as well as a jigsaw research project.


• Lyena and Melinda both worked with Professor Ann McGill’s WRT3050W Business Writing course. The two librarians led a social media workshop in which students explored various types of social media channels and examined their uses in the business world. Students found that social media offer tools which, if used carefully, are likely to be beneficial to the business community and help facilitate marketing objectives. In a second workshop, Melinda introduced the class to a class wiki in which students were given “sandbox” time to practice adding and editing content. Melinda also served as a panel judge for these students' end–of–semester presentations.


• Donna Maturi collaborated with Melinda and Dr. Clarisse Poirier to make primary sources in the McQuade collection on the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 accessible to History majors in HIS3991 Historical Methodology. The Strike, which took place in Lawrence, is the focus of renewed study and analysis as its Centennial approaches. Primary Source materials, original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories, are the raw materials historians and students of history use to interpret the past along with other scholarly assessments. Several of the resources made available are housed in the Special Collections bookcases in the Arundel Room.
  
  They include:
  1. Report on the Strike of Textile Workers in Lawrence Mass. In 1912 by Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of Labor to the United States Senate
  2. The Strike at Lawrence Mass., Hearings Before the Committee on Rules of the House of Representatives
  3. History of Lawrence Massachusetts, with war records by Maurice B. Dorgan
  
  Students were instructed on proper care and handling of these often fragile materials. These McQuade resources, together with the vast collections of primary resources available on the Web, permitted students to incorporate these firsthand accounts and inquiries into their research papers.

McQuade Librarians look forward to more collaborations with faculty members that develop effective, engaging, and creative classroom activities in the fall. To set up a library workshop or have a librarian create an online research guide, please contact Lyena Chavez (x5045 or chavezl@merrimack.edu).