Title:Changes to Serve You Better

Changes to Serve You Better

AS YOU BEGIN THE NEW YEAR, BE AWARE OF SOME OF THE CHANGES WE HAVE MADE TO SERVE YOU BETTER

If you have just started classes at the seminary, nothing in the library will be familiar—yet. You will quickly be-come familiar with the library as you take your classes (especially your Bibliography and Technology class taught by Prof. Robert Roethemeyer).

If you are returning from vicarage, however, you may look for things in the “old familiar” places, and not find them. Here we will tell you about some of the changes in the library.

Print Services Card. The first change is not a change in where things are, but a change to save you money. Photocopying and laser printing in the library are still available for $0.10 a page. But, if you purchase a print services card at the cashier’s window in the administration building for $7.00, you can copy or print for $0.07 a page—saving you 30%.

New Photocopier. Speaking of print services cards, the library has a new photocopier for which you can use the card. The photocopier has a document feeder: to copy a stack of papers, all you need to do is place the stack in the document feeder, and press the “go” button. The photocopier will even copy single-sided documents to two sides, or double-sided documents to one or two sides.

Reserves. For some of your classes, we now have reserve material in electronic format. You no longer need to wait for another student to return the reserve copy of a book; you can access the copy via the Internet. You can even access the material when the library is closed. If you are taking a class in which electronic reserves are available, your professor will give you the information you need for accessing them.

Ready Reference Stands. The library used to have a bookstand in the basement called “Overnight Books.” The books on this stand served both as ready reference material and books that could be checked out overnight. The “overnight book” stand is gone, replaced by a ready reference stand on each of the three levels of the library. On these stands, you can find books such as the following for quick consultation: Bibles (both in English and the original languages), lexicons, catechisms, the Book of Concord, atlases, and dictionaries. These are just the type of books you keep ready at hand at home, but don’t necessarily carry around with you.

No more dumb terminals. No, we aren’t trying to insult the intelligence of any of our terminals—we are referring to terminals that are connected directly to a (main-frame) computer, and simply display information coming from the computer. The dumb terminal that had been located on the circulation desk adjacent to the reference desk is no longer there. All access to our holdings is now done through PC’s. Four PC’s (the express terminals) are located right by the front stair-well. You may use these terminals for quick look-ups when you are locating library material. Five more terminals are located along the west wall of the main floor, and three more are located by the front stairwell on the lower level. You may use these terminals for longer-term work (word processing, sustained library searching, or working on the Internet).

Network Access for a Laptop. Along with the five terminals in a cluster along the west wall of the main floor is one empty desk with a data port connection to our seminary network. You may plug in a laptop at this station and access the seminary LAN, the mail server, the electronic resources server, your personal files on the P: drive, and any other drives to which you have normal access.

Zwemer Collection. The book collection of the Zwemer Institute for Muslim Studies has been located on the mezzanine level of the library for several years. The collection is still there; that hasn’t changed. What has changed is that much of the collection has been classified. The books are listed in our online catalog; they can be checked out for the same length of time as other books. Although a few books duplicate what we already have, many are not found in our regular collection. The Zwemer Collection is very strong in evangelism, especially evangelistic work with Muslims, and Christianity around the world.

New Locations for Some Materials:
(Audio) CDs. The CDs are now located on shelves above the new books (directly behind the express terminals).

Videos. Videos are now located on the mezzanine level, behind the Reference Z section (along the east wall of the library).

Cassette Tapes. The audio cassette tapes are located in the shelves where the videos were formerly housed.
Reference (Classes BX–V). These reference books have not been moved; rather, they have been expanded to fill the space where the CDs and cassette tapes used to be.

Well, what hasn’t changed? The entire staff of Walther Library is still here, ready to serve you as you prepare yourself for the pastoral ministry. Almost everyone here (including, of course, our student workers) is a student, was a student, is married to a student, or is related to someone who is/was a student. We all want to help you use the many resources in the library as you learn the skills and knowledge needed to shepherd God’s flock and to reach a world ready for harvest. We also are ready to help you access the wide body of knowledge available outside the physical walls of the library. Come in and see us—we are ready to help.

 

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