From Townhall to Rutgers Day, We Have a Lot to Celebrate

Hello all –

I hope you all enjoyed the Townhall meeting last week. It was great to see so many of our colleagues virtually and in-person and to review all the ways we’ve moved forward on the priorities we identified at the State of the Libraries in the fall. The presentation by the architects provided us with a glimpse of how the spaces in our libraries are currently configured providing a baseline for planning for the changes that will meet the needs of the students and faculty. The LibQUAL+ survey results give us insight into what our users really think of the services we provide – which are necessary or optional, where we meet their expectations and where we don’t.  Together, these provide us with a strong foundation for planning.

We are coming up with ways to share all the graphs and comments from LibQUAL+ with the Libraries’ faculty and staff, so look for this soon. I expect this will generate a lot of discussion and activity for us all, but in the meantime, with Memorial Day behind us and the summer yawning ahead, I wanted to take a breather and look back at one of the most popular and fun events the Libraries take part in…Rutgers Day!

As you all know, Rutgers Day was expanded to Newark and Camden this year, in addition to sites in New Brunswick at Busch and College Ave. Each site celebrated the day a little differently, but across the board, I heard nothing but praise for our displays and activities. Thank you for taking the time to make the Libraries’ contributions to Rutgers Day exceptional in every way.

From Newark bringing a bona fide Star Wars actor to campus and showcasing the activities of the archivists and IJS, to Camden collaborating with the public library branch to bring touches of superhero whimsy to campus, to New Brunswick inviting some impressive student athletes to read in our children’s reading corner—major effort went into making sure the Libraries’ booths and stands stood out from the crowd. Thank you to all of the volunteers who took time out of a sunny weekend day to participate in Rutgers Day and a special thanks to the members of the Rutgers Day committee who put it all together!

Most of us only get to see one part of Rutgers Day, so I hope you enjoy the photographs below.

Thank you,

Kris

 

 

Thank you to our Rutgers Day volunteers:

Busch:

Students:

Jenali Patel

Jacek Zmuda

 

Faculty & Staff:

Mei Ling Lo (Chair)

 

Camden:

Students:

Amanda Deptula

Alex Carrigan

 

Faculty & Staff:

Zara Wilkinson (Chair)

Julie Still

Vibiana Cvetkovic

Monique Whittle

John Gibson

Melinda Aviles

Theresa Macklin

 

New Brunswick:

Joe Abraham

Matt Badessa

Marty Barnett

Isaiah Beard

Jeanne Boyle

Stacey Carton

Henry Charles

Judith Cohn

Peggy Dreker

Melissa Gasparatto

Marianne Gaunt

Mina Ghajar

Erika Gorder

Bela Gupta

Pam Hargwood (co-chair)

Zachary Johnson

Melissa Just

Kim Kaiser

Rob Krack

Linda Langschied

Tara Maharjan

Jackie Mardikian

Jim Niessen

Erica Parin (co-chair)

Jessica Pellien

Tonie Perkins

Roselyn Riley

Kati Ritter

Sheridan Sayles

Connie Wu

Tao Yang

Katrina Zwaaf

 

 

Newark:

Consuella Askew

Dorothy Grauer

Maggie Harris-Clark

Tad Hershorn (chair)

James McElroy (Graduate student, assistant to IJS Associate Director Adriana Cuervo)

Mark Papianni

Vincent Pelote

Marlene Reilly

Chris Singh

Wen-Hua Ren

Elizabeth Surles

Ann Watkins

Krista White

 

 

If your name does not appear on this list and you volunteered at Rutgers Day, please email Jessica Pellien to have it corrected.