LC-2023-03: Tech Library

Welcome to the first issue of The Library Connection.

We know your time is valuable, so we have designed our newsletter to be quickly digestible.

There will be three issues in the spring semester (February, March, and April) and three issues in the fall semester (September, October, and November).

Each issue will lead with the library organized or sponsored events for the month, followed by brief articles about the many resources, services, and initiatives brought to you by the Ross Pendergraft Library & Technology Center team.

We hope you find the content informative and engaging, and heartily welcome you to connect with us to learn more about the resources, services, events, and initiatives highlighted each month.

In January, the Ross Pendergraft Library welcomed its new library director, Eric Rector.

Mr. Rector comes to us from southwest Virginia, where he served as the library director at Ferrum College. Before that, he worked at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and University of Maryland, Baltimore. He also worked as Director of Academic Services at the Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

In his spare time, Eric enjoys reading, playing video games, dining out, watching baseball, and relaxing with his dog, Moxie, and his cat, Hercules Mulligan.

The ATU Media Production Labs offer digitization services. Access the price list. However, there is a cheaper option: come with your analog media and we will teach you how to digitize it yourself by using the lab's material.

We can also share our best practices for organizing and preserving digital information. Select analog equipment is readily available for public use for the most common forms of media requested.

Possible projects: photographs, 35 mm mounted slides, and negatives in PNG; cassette tapes or vinyls (45 and 33 rpm) in MP3, or reformatting of CD audio or DVD video to digital file (lossy and lossless formats).

Students are able to schedule a personal library consultation with a librarian who can guide them in acquiring resources for an upcoming paper. Visit the Tech Library website, click "Ask Us" in the black header, and click the "Schedule Appointment" button.

Meet with a librarian sooner rather than later to get a head start refining a topic, creating a search strategy, and using Boolean logic. Encourage students to give it a try.

Do you ever wonder how schools advertised to potential students before television and social media? Check out how Arkansas Tech did it in the early days in The 1914 View Book of the Second District State Agricultural School of Arkansas, available now in the Online Research Commons @ATU.

This viewbook gave future students a glimpse of the campus, activities, and academic programs they would find at Tech. It even includes a schedule of classes. If you want to see more ATU History, check out some of our yearbooks in the ATU Agricola Collection.

The 8th International Film Festival @ TECH will open on Wednesday March 1, at 7:00 pm in the Doc Bryan Auditorium.

The festival offers 8 movies, with two in each of the languages offered at Tech: French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. This is a unique opportunity to be exposed to and learn about other cultures and ways of life.

And professors could extend their teaching (and offer bonus points...) through the suggestion of attending a viewing. Philippe Van Houtte, the event organizer, will contact you through email to confirm the students' attendance.

Volume 1, Issue 1