Polk Library News
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Please join us in welcoming Polk Library's two newest staff members: The University Archives is pleased to announce the hiring of Daniel Rylance as this campus's first records manager. Daniel was previously the University Archivist at the University of North Dakota. He also served in the North Dakota state legislature and served as a local newspaper editor there. He's also worked as a history professor. You may have seen him on Eye on Oshkosh as well as other cable access television programs as a political pundit. Dan's thorough understanding of core records management principles and practices makes him a great candidate for this position. Dan will be working 20 hours a week as an LTE. Our funding for this position, courtesy of the Provost's office, will last for two years. In that time, Dan will help bring UW Oshkosh to a sustainable level of statutory records management compliance as well as construct training and informational materials to help offices understand their responsibilities in this area. He will be working with university offices across campus.
Polk Library has a remodeling project in the works. Library staff and campus Facilities Management staff have been working with Lerdahl Business Interiors, Inc. to come up with a plan for a newly remodeled 1st floor South. The area that currently acts as the Reference Room is being remodeled to function as an Information Commons. You can see the impetus for remodeling the room in this past newsletter article "What Do Students Think of the Reference Room?" We will be trying to make a more productive space for group study, while also carving out a space for quiet study. We want to provide some bigger computer workstation furniture and monitors to facilitate group work. We want to add soft seating areas for the comfort of people using the room. We would like to modernize the space to make an attractive place for students to convene on campus. Ideally, we would like the space to be remodeled in time for the start of the fall semester. A lot of work will have to happen between now and then! We will have to relocate all of the materials in the room to other spots in the library so new carpet and shelving can be installed. We will need to have all of the new technology and wiring installed. Please excuse the mess while we make a better space for students to collaborate with their peers.
The Today Show cameras focus on an ordinary-appearing man, normal in every way … EXCEPT he's standing next to a woman who is so much taller that you can't even see her shoulders, until the camera draws back, showing that the man is actually shorter than the female host of the show, and the young woman is a few inches taller than the male host. And that, of course, is the purpose of the camera angles, to draw the viewers' attention to the difference in height between these two guests, leading to a discussion of the way height influences peoples' lives. As it turns out, the tall young woman is UW Oshkosh student Rebecca Thomas, a 6'4” journalism student. On Tuesday, 3/25/08 , Becky's well-written essay on Life as a Tall Girl was posted to the New York Times Online edition, attracting a great deal of attention and reader response. Because of this, Becky found herself fielding interview requests from both Today and the NPR's Talk of the Nation show, not to mention the Oshkosh Northwestern. Set to graduate from UWO in December, 2008, Becky's ‘fifteen minutes of fame' – and then some, considering that the Northwestern just printed her own follow-up editorial on Sunday, 4/20/08 – will hopefully give her a good push in the right direction when she embarks upon her journalism career, hoping for a writing job in a larger city. Polk Library, however, has known Becky since 2005, when she started here as a student employee. For her first semester, she worked in Archives. Then, starting in spring of 2006, she joined the student staff in Circulation and Stacks Management, where she has worked ever since. Among her reasons for staying with this job throughout her college career are the ability to have a flexible schedule, liking the people she works with, and, as time goes on, the simple fact that she knows the job. All of us who work with her are more than willing to testify to this last fact: Becky does indeed know her job, and she does it quite well. Given the quality of her work here for the past three years, none of us were really surprised to learn that one of her journalism class assignments had merited this kind of response, although we were of course extremely pleased and excited. We've all been cheering her on and very much enjoying her tales of adventure: the 400+ online comments about the essay, being flown to New York with her mother to appear on national television, meeting some recognized authorities in her chosen field (and also meeting Keanu Reeves along the way), and being interviewed for a national radio program. Through it all, she has continued to handle her library responsibilities, her class work, and her activities on the track team. All of us here in Access Services are very proud of Becky's achievements, and we know she will continue to be an outstanding example of Polk Library's student employees, and of UW Oshkosh's student body as a whole.
A new state agency called the “Wisconsin Government Accountability Board” has been created. The agency, which combines the operations of two existing state divisions -- “The State Elections Division” and the “Ethics and Accountability Divisions” -- provides online information to the public on campaign financing for state and municipal elections, information on lobbying activity, financial interests of state officials, and information on distribution of state contracts. The new agency's web site (which is under construction) can be found at http://gab.wi.gov/. The site links to the current web pages for the Elections Division at http://elections.state.wi.us/ and the Ethics Division at http://ethics.state.wi.us/. Both of the new board's subdivisions provide detailed information on the reporting requirements by state law for campaign finance, lobbying, financial interests of state officials, and state “contract sunshine” information. In addition, the site has online databases of information submitted in all of these areas. The Election Division page has links to the campaign contributions for previous elections. Candidates are not mandated to file electronically unless their campaign contributions are at least $20,000. This requirement does not preclude those having less than this total from filing electronically. The actual “electronic finance reports” from previous elections can be found on a search page at http://elections.state.wi.us/financereport.asp. The Ethics Division website has links to some very interesting reports in the area of lobbying, financial interests of state officials, and information on state contracts. For example, the lobbying section of the site has an online directory to all of the registered lobbyists in the state. In addition, it has a search engine that allows the user to search for specific legislative bills and lists the lobbyists who have an interest in the outcome of the pending legislation. The Ethics Division website also features a financial reporting lookup page that allows you to look up a specific business or corporation and find out which state officials (those mandated to report) have a financial interest in a specific corporation. This can be found from the Ethics Division page by clicking on the "Financial Relationships" icon, then clicking on the link under Financial Relationships: Search by financial relationships: Names of businesses or organizations. The result of a search using this link is a list of all state officials who have indicated as a reporting requirement that they have a financial interest in the business or organization being searched. There is little detail provided, but citizens can request a copy of more detailed financial information by filling out a form with the specific public official listed and sending a dollar for each official for which information is being requested. The requests are not anonymous, as the official for which information is released is notified as to who is seeking information regarding their individual financial interests. The Government Accountability Board website has important and interesting information that would be useful to government officials, academic scholars, and political aficionados. The information provided is essential for open government. It will be interesting to see the future development of the website and whether open access to this information will continue.
Polk Library's fourth annual book sale, held April 15th and 16th, was another success!
On March 13, 2008, Polk Library was recognized by the Fox Valley Workforce Development Board Inc. for the interlibrary loan department's efforts in helping area youth achieve their career goals and educational objectives by offering valuable work experience opportunities. In the past several years, the interlibrary loan department mentored four Youth at Risk students enrolled in the Youth Employment Service during the summer. The first was a new mother who has since gone on to graduate from high school and is attending UW-Fox Valley, majoring in criminal justice. The second student, a hearing-impaired Hmong girl, worked in interlibrary loan for 2 summers. She graduated, married, and is looking for a job in a public library. The third was a boy who had Asperger syndrome. He had never had a job before, but he did so well that he also worked in interlibrary loan for 2 summers. He graduated from high school and is attending a tech school studying computers. The next boy also had Asperger syndrome and Polk Library was his first job. After a "mom inspection" to quell his mother's nervousness, he worked in the interlibrary loan department scanning article requests and sending to libraries all over the United States and some to foreign countries.
Summer is almost here, and the Browsing Room has plenty of new titles to help you gain knowledge about staying fit, healthy eating, and looking great for the upcoming summer months. Below are just a few new books recently added to the Browsing Room.
Enjoy the read!
The first floor of Polk Library will be open 24 hours during the last week of classes, starting Sunday, May 11th at 11 am and ending Friday, May 16th at 6 pm. We will again be brewing free coffee each night that week from 10 pm to 7 am. Stop by for a late-night studying pick-me-up, and save landfill space by bringing your own covered coffee mug.
Spring Interim Hours, May 17 - June 6, 2008 Building Hours Reference Service Wisconsin Area Research Center and University Archives
Hidden Depths: Atlas of the Oceans Hidden Depths, collaboratively compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Smithsonian Institution, is a highly illustrated reference book that sheds light on a variety of aspects of the world's oceans. Living up to its name as an atlas, the volume includes numerous maps of the oceans, indicating ocean depths, plate boundaries, ocean currents, pollution caused by international shipping, and much more. Chapters within the book also provide summaries of other topics dealing with the ocean, including hurricanes, typhoons, and other effects of the ocean on weather; human impacts on the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and polar life; major historical events in oceanic exploration and current exploration technology; and uses of oceans for commerce, fishing, energy, telecommunication lines, and minerals.
Staff Highlights
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May 2008 issue, printer-friendly version (pdf)
Articles in this issue:
~Information Commons Remodeling
~New State Agency for Accountability
~Polk Library's Fourth Annual Book Sale