The library hosted a panel discussion of African-American Women as part of the Black History Month events. This panel, Our Journey: African-American Women Tell Their Stories, was an engaging discussion of the lives of these women.

The audio of this event is available below:

Troy and Joe discuss the landmark book A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

The audio of this discussion is available below:

The library’s Check It Out Audiocast welcomed Instructor Pete Porter for a discussion about the new mammogram guidelines released by the US Preventative Services Task Force.

The audio of this discussion is available below:

The library welcomed the Chicago Federation of Labor’s Jorge Ramirez to our campus last week to discuss unions today. Mr. Ramirez was here as a part of our One Book, One College programming

The audio of this event is available below:

Jorge Ramirez of the Chicago Federation of Labor

Librarian Troy Swanson, President Perry Buckley of the Cook County College Teachers Union, Chapter Chair Jan Hill of the Moraine Valley Faculty Association, Jorge Ramirez Secretary/Treasurer Chicago Federation of Labor, and Kevin Navratil Assistant Professor of Political Science

On February 10th, as were digging out from all of the snow, our library participated in the Illinois Library Associations’ event “Snapshot: One Day of the Life in Illinois’ Libraries.” Here is a quick snapshot of our day:

People who walked through our door: 3,179
Items checked out: 238
Public computer use (including laptops): 558
Number of students in our classes: 58
Number of questions at the Reference Desk: 79
Online catalog searches: 470
Hits to the library home page (www.morainevalley.edu/library): 2452

We collected 98 surveys. Some of our favorite comments:

As part of our One Book, One College events, we are very excited to host Chicago Federation of Labor Secretary/Treasurer, Jorge Ramirez who will lead a discussion entitled, The Union Movement Today. This will be February 16th, 12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. in the library lounge. Mr. Ramirez will discuss the current status of the union movement (organized labor) in the United States and around the world. How have globalization and shifts in our economy impacted the organization of unions? What is the future of organized labor?

The library’s textbook checkout program has been a great success. Many students visited the library in the fall semester to use textbooks. Due to the high volume and to reduce the numbers of books that were not returned for use by others, we have made some changes to the overdue fines for textbooks:

Loan: 2 hours or 4 hours
Overdue Fine: $3/hour
Loan: 7 Days
Overdue Fine: $5/Day

Access to the Library’s electronic databases will not be available from off campus January 5 through January 8, 2010. System configuration changes in the Library’s computer system are being made during this time that will impact the authentication for using the library’s databases from off campus. Access to the library databases and other research tools, however, will be available from computers on campus.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions or concerns about accessing the library’s resources during this time period, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The library is pleased to announce its schedule of events for the Spring 2010 semester. You can view this list of events at the Library’s Events Page.