Library Display Recap: April & May 2019

Each month, the Campus Library staff create multiple thoughtful displays that can be found on the first and second floors. This post documents all of the library displays from the months of April and May 2019.

April Displays

April’s displays featured books, media, information, and art pertaining to the topic of Poetry in different forms.

April Poetry Month Meets Earth Day – 1st Floor

Created by Cora (Circulation Lead)

“The question I wanted to pose to our campus: How creative writing about the natural world can become a catalyst for people to look a little closer and think more deeply about the delicate connection between humans and nature. And how this new understanding can inspire individuals to be more aware of their individual impact on the environment on a daily basis. With the help of student employees I was able to create my vision of display decor. I wanted to center the ‘natural’ with words – using the bold visuals to introduce folks to my materials which were a selection of poetry, critical analysis, introductions to eco-poetry, essay collections, writings from women, people of color, and even different languages. I tried to encapsulate a wide range of work illustrating that environmental conservation is not a movement only concerning the centric U.S. but is an issue that is worldwide – environmental degradation effects a wide range of countries and communities (if not all). Effecting the whole – not only a small number. The nuanced message is that beginning with self (decreasing our individual carbon footprint) is how we can reach the whole when thinking about trying to reverse or at least balance out the progression of climate change.” – Cora

Diverse Children’s Poetry – 2nd Floor

Created by Lucy and Zoe (Circulation Student Employees)

In honor of this year’s April Poetry Month and Celebrate Diversity Month, the theme for April’s Children’s Literature Display was Culturally Diverse Children’s Poetry! The display featured children’s poems of multiple countries, written in multiple languages. We had also included a few children’s poems for anyone to take for Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 18th.


May Displays

May’s displays covered a vast range of wonderful topics, including activist and scholar Angela Davis; sexual assault awareness; teaching social justice, equity, and inclusion; and biking.

Angela Davis – 1st Floor (near elevators)

Created by Dani (American & Ethnic Studies Librarian) and Maya (Reserves Technician)

“This display was put together as a tie-in to the Angela Davis campus event on May 17th. I personally have been very interested in Davis’ work and look forward to attending the event.” – Maya

Sexual Assault Awareness – 1st Floor (middle of lobby)

Created by Tami (Access Services Manager) and Zoe

Although April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), we decided to keep our SAAM display up through May because it is important that we discuss and support this topic throughout the year. The display consists of informational flyers on consent from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, relevant books and media, handouts and bookmarks that highlight campus and community resources for survivors, and a station that invites library users to create healing circles or color pages.

Teaching Social Justice, Equity, and Inclusion – 1st Floor (near entrance)

Created by Julie (Nursing Librarian) and Caitlan (Education Librarian)

“The theme of teaching social justice, equity, and inclusion is important to both of us in our work as librarians. We want to support the work of instructors that are practicing and/or interested in inclusive teaching across UW Bothell and Cascadia College. We made an effort to select titles from multiple discipline areas (including education, STEM, social sciences, health sciences, arts, writing, etc.) to reflect the variety of subjects represented on both campuses.” – Caitlan

National Bike Month – 2nd Floor (near lobby)

Created by Kathy and Eva (Circulation Student Employees)

“Initially, we wanted to go with the idea of a physical fitness theme in order to encourage children to go out and stay active by playing sports or exercising. As we did our research, we found that May was National Bike Month, so we decided to follow that path for our May Children’s Literature Display.” – Kathy

If you can, be sure to check out the May displays before the end of the month, and stay tuned for more library displays coming June 2019! I intend to post a Library Display Recap here each month, so if you’d like to receive notifications whenever our student employees post on the blog, please follow us by clicking on the “Follow” button on the bottom right of the screen.

Working at the Campus Library

I’ve been working at the Campus Library for over two years and truly love my job. One of my favorite parts of the job has been getting to know and interact with everyone that works here. Each position in the library has its own duties, while every individual has their own stories.

This post shares testimonies from ten of our amazing Circulation and Reserves Student Employees that have worked between Fall 2015 and Spring 2018. Circulation employees pull and shelve materials, interact with patrons at the Information desk on the first floor, search for missing items, and all sorts of other circulation tasks. Reserves employees assist faculty at the Reserves department on the third floor, pull materials for processing, creates scans for courses, and creates Course Reserve records. All of our student employees assist with the second floor children’s literature displays and with this blog.

Further posts covering the other areas of the library will be coming soon!


Zoe


Jessica


Andrea B


Khabir


Stella


Andrea P


Nora


Emily


Molly


Kathy


If you are a UW or Cascadia student and ever have the opportunity to apply for a job at the Campus Library, I strongly encourage you to seize that opportunity! Open positions will be posted here: http://guides.lib.uw.edu/bothell/employment.

Four Best Places to Sleep in the Library

It is finals week and that means you got 5 hours of sleep last night. If those 2 coffees you had this morning aren’t keeping you awake, try taking a nap! The Library is a quiet place to find a couch and get some ZZZs. In this post, find the 4 best places to sleep in the Campus Library and learn where not to sleep.

1.    Second floor open area

These comfy couches are tucked away along the wall and are guarantee to be away from all cold window drafts.

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2.    Study carrels

Use a book as a pillow and no one will stare. A great way to get those 15 minutes of rest.

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3.    Third floor open area

Take a cat-nap on the red couches on the 3rd floor in the open area. No one will mind, it’s finals week!

 3rd Floor open area

4.    Reading room soft chairs

This is my favorite place to count sheep while dozing off. It is especially cozy on a sunny day! And it’s always quiet in the reading room.

Reading Room

Take a rest from finals and find one of these 4 places. The Library is the perfect spot for a nap! But beware of places you are not allowed to sleep.

NOT if front of doors or the elevator 

Doors and Elevator

Taking a nap in front of doors or the elevator can put others in danger in case of an emergency. Plus, people may need to use the door!

NOT in the stacks

Stacks

Besides accidentally tripping passers-by, don’t sleep in the stacks because others need to have access to the books.

NOT in the study rooms

Study Room

These rooms are for studying only. Taking a nap in the study rooms takes away a valuable space for others to use for school work!

The Perfect On-Campus Job

Hi there!

I hope winter quarter has treated you well so far! My name is Kayla and I want to take a few moments to further introduce myself. I’m a senior at UWB majoring in Community Psych and with a minor in Education and Society. I am also a Student Circulation Specialist at the UWB/CC Campus Library. I started working in the library as a freshman (awwwww) and now I’m preparing to graduate in the spring. Amidst all of the craziness of midterms and spring quarter registration, I have some very exciting news to share with you: WE’RE NOW HIRING STUDENT CIRCULATION ASSISTANTS! In order to give you a better idea of what this position is all about, let me share some of my personal experiences about working in the library that will hopefully encourage YOU to apply:

1) Odds are, if you’ve been in the library in the last 3 and 1/2 years, we’ve probably crossed paths. That being said, working in the library presents so many opportunities to meet new people. The nature of my job is extremely social. I have had so many wonderful opportunities to chat with students and faculty members from different departments on campus. No matter if you’re a Community Psych major like me or working toward a degree in Business Management or Electrical Engineering, any job you look for in the future is most likely going to require you to work with other people in some capacity. A job in the library is a great start to building valuable social skills that will look great on a resume later, and build a network!

2) I get to work on campus! My flexible hours let me work before and after class, which cuts down on time where I would have to be sitting in traffic traveling from school to work (or vice versa). Each quarter my supervisors work with me and my coworkers to put together a perfect schedule that fits with all of our classes. My supervisors want me to be successful in both academics and work, so they do everything possible to custom create a schedules for all of the student. They truly do care about each and every one of their circulation student employees.

3) My job is downright fun and lets me be creative. After all, I’m writing a blog post aren’t I? For those of you who love writing and producing things, you get to do that as a student worker! Also, at the beginning of each month the student employees take turns building displays on the second floor using the books from our Children’s Literature collection. If you haven’t yet seen the one for February, the theme is Black History Month—you should go check it out! I personally get to work on the display for the month of March, and I need to come up with a theme… any suggestions?

4) Working in the library doesn’t mean I’m stuck handling with old, dusty books from the 1950s all day. Okay, there are SOME old books from the 1950s, but our reference librarians collaborate with your instructors and work on purchasing the newest, latest, and greatest materials in relation to your classes. As a circulation specialist I get to process and display all of the new books that arrive, and this is the most fun part of my job! We have an amazing and diverse collection of books with over 90,000 physical titles. And did I mention the UW Library system has around 9 million print volumes? Ya, as a student worker you get to handle a lot of books, and it’s totally awesome.

5) This job has helped me become a more detail-oriented person through daily use of the Library of Congress call number system. What is this fancy, odd, call number system? Well, if you take a look at the spine of any of the books in our library collection, you will notice a series of numbers and letters. That’s what we call a number, and all of the books in the library are organized in accordance to their unique number sequence. How can learning the call number system help you later in life? Aside from building you numerical and alphabetical skills (I know it sounds silly because most of us learned how to count and alphabetize in kindergarten, but trust me, you actually CAN improve on those skills), detail oriented tasks are part of every job/career out there! My passion is to be a teacher and work with people—not call numbers—but the principles and applications I’ve learned through working with call numbers have helped me become so much more perceptive in other areas of my life.

6) A final thing I want to highlight is that I get to be mobile! It may look like the circulation students get to sit in a nice comfy chair all day long, but sitting at the main desk is only half of the fun. When I’m not on the desk, you can find me searching the stacks (i.e. the main collection of books on the third floor) for missing books, retrieving books that have been requested, shelving, cleaning, checking study rooms, performing building counts, or working on other miscellaneous tasks. I don’t like being idle for extended periods of time, so having the opportunity to be on my feet and performing different tasks helps keep me active and alert throughout the day.

I absolutely LOVE what I do and I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to work as a student employee at the circulation desk for the entirety of my four years at UW Bothell. Working alongside some of the friendliest people on campus has been quite the treat. The opportunity to work here has led to building relationships with library staff, reference librarians, and other student workers, and I will eventually leave with so many wonderful memories and lasting friendships. For those of you who are ready to see a new side of the library, build valuable career skills, and have a ton of fun along the way, I highly suggest applying for the position as a student circulation assistant. I look forward to training YOU at your new job!

All the Best,
Kayla