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Library Newsletter Fall 2000 In This Issue:
Welcome to the first issue of "CHECK IT OUT", the newsletter of the James Earl Carter Library. We plan to publish 2 issues per year in an effort to keep the Georgia Southwestern community informed about the Library and all its services. Whether you are looking for information on grants, education, current foreign affairs, health, Native American history, economics, or social problems, we can help you find what you need in the Government Documents collection. The James Earl Carter Library has been a participant in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) since 1966. The FDLP distributes thousands of government publications to over 1800 libraries each year. Each year, our Library receives more than 10,000 books, cds, serials, periodicals, posters, and maps from almost any government agency you can name giving us a total of almost 400,000 documents. These publications are intended for both general audiences and more advanced researchers. While government information is increasingly available on the Internet, most of the information in our collection is not on-line. To facilitate access to our collection, the Library is participating in a project funded by GALILEO, Georgia's statewide library consortium. Within the next few weeks, more than 100,000 bibliographic records will be loaded into our on-line library catalog for documents published since 1976. The Library is funding a similar project to receive catalog records for new publications. We also hope to add records for some older material as time permits. In another policy change, the Library now allows the checkout of most government documents to GSW faculty, staff, and students. Other citizens of the second Congressional District may request special checkout privileges. The government inspects FDLP collections periodically. In April, we were rated compliant in seven out of seven inspection areas. The overall operation of the Government documents unit of the JEC Library is coordinated by Diane Bradley, Reference/User Services Librarian. Ms. Bradley has several years' experience working with government information resources in both print and on-line format. Tish Smith manages the day-to-day operations of the depository. Ms. Smith graduated from GSW with a BA degree in history in 1999. She plays a valuable role in making material readily accessible to library users. For more information about government documents at GSW and online, please see our homepage at http://www.gsw.edu/~dbradley/homepage.html. To schedule a presentation for your classes or civic group, please contact Diane Bradley at cbradley@canes.gsw.edu or call 912-931-2259. Both Diane and Tish look forward to seeing you soon.
Over the past few years, the James Earl Carter Library has witnessed numerous changes. This Library Newsletter is the outcome of our desire to communicate to the GSW community the Library's new and enhanced services, collections, accomplishments, goals, and even a view of our behind-the-scenes, as well our more public operations. We also welcome the opportunity to introduce to your, our users, the talented staff who make all this possible. As we move forward into the 21st century, the Library has strived to provide its users with increased and easier access to information availing itself of the new technologies while at the same time maintaining and enhancing our more traditional collections and services. Over the past two years, we have created a professional reference service, a collection development program which provides each School with its own liaison/selector, extended our hours of opening, created a web site, added on-line renewal, hold, reference, ILL and classroom request services, brought up a new integrated on-line system, added a document scanning system to improve our Interlibrary Loan service, redesigned our physical facilities to provide more areas for public use, increased our collections in all formats, and improved our instruction program and resources. These and many more of our collections and services will be featured in future issues of our Newsletter which will also be available on our web site. We welcome your suggestions and support!
New Displays:
Art Gallery:
GALILEO 5th Anniversary Celebration:
Library Display Program Our new Display Program is one of the ongoing features in the Library. Within this program are five series: 1) specific topics which are of interest to the community; 2) Health Issues; 3) Cultural Diversity touching on the different cultures represented on the GSW campus; 4) Events such as holidays and programs on campus; and 5) Local and Regional Information on the history and culture of the area, and interesting sites to visit. Some of the displays during the past year included: 1) Americus/Sumter County, 2) President Jimmy Carter, 3) Thanksgiving Day, 4) Lee Ann Dalzell's Christmas Village, 5) Third World Displays, 6) Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday, 7) Black History Month, 8) Women's History Month, 9) Asian Studies Program, 10) Government Documents Collection, 11) SpringFest, 12) NASA Program, 13) Native American History, and 14) GSW Graduation (a semi-annual display featuring photographs from the early days of GSW). During the coming semester we are planning displays featuring New Computer Science Books and Americus/Sumter County. The Americus/Sumter County display will have new materials added and will be expanded to include the surrounding areas. This year's display promises to be informative not only to newcomers but also to people living in our community. The GSW community is invited to participate in the Library's display program. If you have a display that you would like to see in the Library or have any suggestions for future displays, please contact Tish Smith, Displays Coordinator, at 931-2259 or e-mail at tns@canes.gsw.edu.
The present library was completed in the summer of 1971 and was name the James Earl Carter Library in honor of President Carter's father. Macy Bishop Gray, GSW's Librarian 1931-1966, provides us with a history of Georgia Southwestern's library beginnings in her book, "Through the Years, A Brief Informal Record of Georgia Southwestern College 1908-1957", page 15: "The present library had its beginning in 1926 at the close of the summer school when students, teachers and townspeople gave to the school a collection of books that included literature, science, history, agriculture, biography, religion, and fiction. These books were housed in the space which is now occupied by President Moll's office. Beginning in the fall quarter of 1926 the library was open one hour in the morning and four hours in the afternoon. The library was named for Wade Barrington Lott, a graduate of 1917, who died in World War I." Page 27 of "Through the Years" continues: "The annual report of the University System of Georgia for 1956 revealed that the Wade Lott Memorial Library of Georgia Southwestern College excelled all other libraries of the same category in the System in volumes added, total number of volumes, student circulation, circulation per student and faculty circulation." The James Earl Carter Library continues this tradition of excellence and contains over 190,000 volumes. As a charter member of SOLINET (Southeastern Library Network), we fully utilize the network's on-line shared cataloging system and its interlibrary loan subsystem making more than 300 million books and other library items available throughout the network. The Library has also been a selective federal depository for United States Government Publications since 1966 providing a valuable resource to both the University and the general public. Our first floor houses circulation and reserve reading services, reference section, government documents, rare books room, ERIC collection, newspaper collection, art gallery and computer access to GALILEO (Georgia Library Learning Online) databases. Along with periodicals, the main book collection, the second floor provides areas for individual and group study. Through the years, there have been many changes to the Library at Georgia Southwestern, and we continue to evolve to meet the needs of the campus and community. Miss Macy's book is located in our Rare Books Room and can be checked out.
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