As with other areas on campus, the state budget shortfall has also impacted the Karrmann Library. Most significantly, both the vacant Library Director's position and the vacant Collection Development position will be absorbed by budget cuts. While these cuts will affect administrative and operational functions, the Library Staff is committed to insuring that quality service to staff and students continues. Our hope and goal is to restore these positions down the road when fiscal resources improve.
Printing and Interlibrary Loan Policy ChangesOn the public service side, we are no longer able to offer free printing and interlibrary loan services to persons outside the university community, that is, special borrowers. (These services are provided by the Platteville Public Library). However, community members are still encouraged to use the library and can still check out materials as special borrowers.
Circulation Policy ChangesFaculty and staff will notice a change to our Circulation Policy, approved by the Library Committee. Most materials can be checked out for a semester or summer session as before. However, checked out materials can be renewed only ONCE. After one renewal, the materials must be returned to the library. After a day for processing and inventory, the materials could actually be checked out again.
As always, we thank you for your understanding and welcome questions and suggestions. Click ";Ask a Librarian"; from the Library's homepage or email John Krogman: krogman@uwplatt.edu.
Want to read more about Cuba following the March 11th presentation by Alina Fernandez?
The library offers several up-to-date books:
Castro's Daughter: An Exile's Memoir of Cuba by Alina Fernandez
Cuba: A Country Study by the Library of Congress
Cuba by Martha Hostetter
Encyclopedia of Cuba (2003)
This is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives by Ben Corbett
Journal articles on Cuba can be found using databases such as Academic Search, Contemporary Women's Issues, JSTOR, or Social Sciences Abstracts. Access by clicking ";Articles, full text and more"; from the library's homepage.
From the library's homepage researchers can click a link called ";Ask a Librarian"; to e-mail questions to trained staff. Response time is generally within a couple of hours, and librarians typically receive at least one question a day by this method.
Academic and public librarians throughout the state of Wisconsin have joined to offer researchers the opportunity to chat online with a librarian when they have research needs.
During this initial implementation phase, live chat with librarians is available about 44 hours each week. Librarians at the Karrmann Library are scheduled four hours each week. One academic and one public librarian make themselves available for each chat session.
To participate in a live chat session with a librarian, go to the library's homepage and click ";Ask a Librarian";.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand, 2001
";The horses stretched out over the track. Their strides, each twenty-one feet in length, fell in perfect synch. They rubbed shoulders and hips, heads snapping up and reaching out together, legs gathering up and unfolding in unison. The poles clipped by, blurring in the riders' peripheral vision. The speed was impossible; at the mile mark, a fifteen-year-old speed record fell under them, broken by nearly a full second. The track rail hummed up under them and unwound behind."; (p. 272)
Literary gems similar to this jump off the pages of Hillenbrand's book about a thoroughbred racehorse named Seabiscuit. In brief, it is a biography of a racehorse and the men who brought him to the victory circle in the late 1930s.
With Seabiscuit, however, Hillenbrand achieves something rarely done in biography: She successfully captures the moment. She vividly transports you back in time, to the world of radio, Movietone newsreels and an underdog racehorse with ";stubby legs"; that made everyone feel a little better during the Great Depression. Avoid the pitfall of thinking that this book would appeal only to thoroughbred afficionados-quite the opposite. What makes this book ride is its great story, told with prose that truly sings; it's history as it should be written.
Please remind students that the library is open even more than its usual 97 hours per week during exam time. Click here for current Library Hours.
Kay Young, Editor
608.342.1134
young@uwplatt.edu