Tumgik
#academic libraries
oldshrewsburyian · 5 months
Text
Dear college students,
I really hope that I, your spinster aunt of Tumblr, am not the first person to tell you this, but: please use your university library services. You are paying for them. They are there for you. Moreover, your professors are operating on the assumption that you will use them as necessary.
When I say "library services" I mean not only physical books that will help you with research, but the usually more extensive eBook collections ditto. Novels you've been meaning to get around to and can't afford to buy. Even (quaintly?) DVDs for your entertainment. And perhaps most significantly of all, interlibrary loan.
I'm going to reiterate interlibrary loan in its own paragraph because a student complained to me recently that publishers were "literally incentivizing piracy" by not pricing academic monographs for purchase by college students and my reaction is best summed up as: ????? Publishers typically price scholarly monographs in the pious hope of not losing money on them. Everyone complains about the ones priced at $300, and a lot of them are priced around $30-50. They are priced for purchase by libraries and specialists. And they are priced for purchase by libraries precisely so that libraries can make them accessible to college students. Anyway, use interlibrary loan, good grief.
TL;DR: the library is there for you, that is what it is for, please behave accordingly.
689 notes · View notes
wednesdaysfullofwoe · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
— beware the autumn people 🍂
2K notes · View notes
thewildetyme · 2 years
Text
rainy days, good books, coffee, tea, cold weather, autumn season, sweaters, the smell of pastries or baked goods, sunsets and sunrises, gorgeous buildings, and libraries with high ceilings.
4K notes · View notes
a-cloak · 9 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Old library in Oxford
638 notes · View notes
nando161mando · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
“As librarians, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to help.”
152 notes · View notes
whathehe11 · 2 months
Text
This is a friendly reminder that libraries exist and that they have more than just books.
Now, some libraries have more services than others but even the most basic libraries will have shelves upon shelves of dvd, cd, books, games, etc… that you can borrow and use for free(!!!)
Some more bougie libraries will also have other awesome stuff.
For example, I once went to a library with a recording booth with a good quality mic, they had a green screen room, cameras that could be borrowed, computers with the Adobe suite to do editing, as well as a plethora of other resources and help from librarians.
Another thing, ask what your local librarians can do. They often are really good at researching and also might be able to borrow things from other libraries as well.
Also, once you get a library card you can sign up for Libby that has a ton of books and audio books (again) for free.
Personally I just borrowed the 4th series of doctor who and have been watching the episodes and extra content on the dvds. I’m having a blast!
181 notes · View notes
0liver-hope · 1 year
Text
if you love books, save a library!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I hear people on Tumblr talk a lot about the importance of libraries; now’s your chance to help save one!
At Vermont State University is a newly merging Uni in so-called North America, pushing together three previously separate universities: Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College.
Just last week, the new VTSU administration sent out an email to faculty, staff and students announcing that all the libraries at each of the 5 campuses contained within these universities would be moving to an ‘all-digital’ model. Librarians will lose their jobs if this plan goes ahead; in fact, librarians were only informed of this change 11 minutes before the email was sent out.
We have come to understand that this means that all physical material will be removed from the library. They seem to want to do other things with the space, such as set up ‘a coffee or smoothie bar’ and determine ‘what students want’ to do with the space. This plan would go into effect on July 1st, 2023.
The fact is, students want to keep the library as it is. Quiet, and full of stacks and stacks of physical books. The administration cannot claim they are listening to students when we have demonstrated, via hundreds of emails and impassioned testimonies in front of the administration at a forum last week, that we hate this plan and oppose it vehemently. And the faculty and staff are with us, and they too have been speaking out. Not only that, the communities that surround these colleges greatly value having access to a research library, particularly in rural Vermont, and are opposing the plan as well, because, as far as I know, they will completely lose access to these resources if everything goes digital.
The image of the books above are what I just checked out today. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed browsing the stacks, in one case (not pictured above) finding a tiny book of Milton’s poetry inscribed with a reader’s name and the year 1865. So many important and precious books like that one are to be found in our library. Each book I checked out hasn’t been checked out for at least 10 years, and that’s one of the administration’s excuses for taking all our books away: that circulation is down, and that, somehow, it costs money to let books sit on a shelf. As many people have rebutted, though, just because books aren’t being checked out doesn’t mean they aren’t being read within the library and, most importantly, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have value.
Below I will post some links to various local news article on this subject as well as one radio broadcast that will probably be able to articulate this situation better than I can.
I’m just so angry and upset about this. I’ve seen students and faculty alike crying about this situation, and an old lady braver than me telling the administration that maybe they should consider lowering their own salaries before taking away our books. I think everyone here feels powerless, because the administration isn’t backing down, despite all our protests, because ultimately their goal is profit and to make sure that this new ‘equitable’ University makes as much money as possible.
At the Castleton forum, the president of the University said he was ‘deeply humiliated’, by the outrage, by the heckling, the ‘throwing of verbal tomatoes’ as I have taken to calling it, by having his and his fellow’s bullshit exposed and questioned.
Please, please, if you care about books, about libraries, about the problems with big tech and the way it continues to invade all our lives, replacing physical experiences with their more hollow, less engaging counterparts; if you care about the interests of the people triumphing over the interests of capital, about students, about education, then please -- help save our books by spreading the word however and wherever you can, by flooding the inboxes of the capitalists below; tell them how you feel about this decision and its larger implications for books and libraries in general! Not so much to convince them that they’re wrong (they already know that and don’t care), but to make going forward with this plan more of a nuisance and a PR nightmare than cancelling it would be.
I don’t know if anyone will read or see this post, but please if you do and you care, reblog, educate yourself on what’s going on, and take action if you can.
A few disclaimers:
Any specifics I mention pertain primarily to what I, as a student at Castleton University, have either heard via word of mouth or seen with my own eyes. I am not officially speaking on behalf of anyone but myself.
The only exception to all the physical materials being removed from the libraries seem to be the books deemed ‘most used’ and some valuable historical collections. This was not clear from the beginning and not yet fully clear in any further specificity.
please try not to use violent rhetoric - as much as I’m not into policing people’s speech and anger, I don’t want this to backfire and I don’t want them to crackdown harder on us or make a big stink about it if they receive those kinds of messages
Email addresses of administration officials responsible for this decision:
VTSU President Grewal: [email protected]
VTSU Provost Atkins: [email protected]
VSC Chancellor Zdatny [email protected]
VSC Board of Trustees Chair: Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson [email protected]
News articles + broadcast:
https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2023-02-10/vermont-state-university-president-on-move-to-all-digital-libraries-changes-in-athletic-programs
https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/local/castleton-community-protests-vtsu-library-cuts/article_100d9539-c6ca-569e-a9b9-ecd6b3cef0ad.html
https://vtdigger.org/2023/02/08/vermont-state-university-to-close-libraries-downgrade-sports-programs/
http://www.castletonspartan.com/2023/02/12/vtsu-library-plan-sparks-outrage-and-emotion/
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
1K notes · View notes
dreamspy · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media
Library aesthetic
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
358 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
i would live in this library if i could
728 notes · View notes
intothestacks · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media
Comic by Tom Gauld
69 notes · View notes
ijustkindalikebooks · 3 months
Text
“In principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.” ― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.
60 notes · View notes
dougielombax · 5 months
Text
Silence?
In the library?
It’s more likely than you think!
86 notes · View notes
wednesdaysfullofwoe · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
when black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam, may luck be yours on Halloween 🍁
– Unknown
842 notes · View notes
rosestothedead · 1 year
Text
I don't feel particularly proud of myself. But when I walk alone in the woods or lie in the meadows, all is well.
— Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors
251 notes · View notes
archivistic · 21 days
Text
Tumblr media
My secret plan to cultivate a professional reputation as omniscient and therefore indispensable is apparently moving ahead full steam
[Image: email with a subject line "question" and text reading, "hi there, you seem to know everything so I thought I'd reach out and ask you about any journals that..."]
20 notes · View notes
throwawaytherapist · 1 month
Text
(This is for a paper I'm writing, so it would help me a lot to vote, reblog, and elaborate in the tags. )
20 notes · View notes