Lynne Bisko

Elon students can win a reserved study room to prep for finals.

If you missed the November 6th Campus Conversation, we still welcome your feedback and comments on the draft strategic plan for Belk Library (link to PDF document).

As the academic heart of the residential campus, Belk Library is committed to advancing the culture of engaged intellectual inquiry at Elon University. We welcome input from the entire campus community as we continue our work to build a model engaged academic library. Our strategic plan is also your strategic plan – we would love to hear what you think an engaged academic library looks like.

The Dance in Video database includes over five hundred hours of dance productions and documentaries of dance styles ranging from ballet, tap and jazz to contemporary, experimental and improvisational.

Featured performers include Agnes de Mille, Mark Morris, Lestor Horton, Anna Sokolow, Anthony Tudor, Jose Limon, Paul Draper, and Chuck Green. Featured dance companies include the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, DV8 Physical Theatre, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

This database includes rare and hard-to-find archival material, including footage from the George Balanchine Interpreters Archive and Archive of Lost Choreography, and historical footage from Creative Arts Television, featuring dance performances from 1950s and 1960s CBS television productions.

Other features of the database include the ability to search and browse by performer, dance company, technique, genre and choreographer. Users can also queue video for in-class or assigned watching, with an unlimited number of simultaneous viewers.

We’ve added 50 new titles to the Belk Library Kindles, bringing our total up to 176 books. That’s one of the great things about e-book readers – all those books, and it still only weighs about 10 ounces. Some highlights from this new collection include:

• Twelve of the hardcover fiction and five of the hardcover nonfiction bestsellers from the New York Times bestsellers list.
• A mix of genres: romances, mysteries, thrillers, humor, fantasy.
• And some great beach books! Two new beach romances – Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer and Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews. And for nonfiction, we have David McCullough’s new biography of the Wright brothers, who made history right on our very own NC beach!
• Why not get ready for Fall Convocation by reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s Why We Can’t Wait. And we have several of the previous common readings too, if you missed them.

For a complete list of all titles, check out our guide at http://elon.libguides.com/kindle. For a list of titles by genre, select the “Kindle Titles” tab. And click the Belk Library Kindles link in the middle of the home screen to get in line for a Kindle today.

Check out our new audiobooks! Perfect for that summer road trip, or just commuting back and forth. We just added over 50 new titles, and we may have some older ones you missed. Click here to see a list and come browse our selection. The new ones are on the first floor in the new materials display (to the right as you come in) and the older ones are on the second floor by the DVDs.

Speaking of DVDs, we got in over 100 new ones last month! Check out this list  and come find them on the new materials display, to the right as you come in the door.Thanks, and happy reading! And listening! And watching!

The Belk Library Staff

P.S. – Please note – These titles are ONLY available on the Belk Library Kindles.
We do not have the capability to download books to personal Kindles.
However, this service is available at the Alamance, Greensboro, Chapel Hill,
and other area public libraries.

Belk Library now has access to the Films on Demand database through NCLive.

Films on Demand provides online access to high-quality academic video and multimedia. Collections contain over 21,000 videos, organized into 248,000 video segments, which cover subjects ranging from anthropology to world languages.

Set up a free user account to create and share video playlists, create custom clips from videos, embed video clips, and save a list of favorite videos.

To use Films on Demand

1. On- and off-campus, go directly to https://ezproxy.elon.edu/login?url=http://www.nclive.org/cgi-bin/nclsm?rsrc=379
2. You may also access Films on Demand on our Databases by Title page under F

This summer we welcomed Jerry Waller as a new member of the Belk Library staff. As our Systems Librarian, Jerry will administer the front and back ends of the online catalog system, provide systems and statistical analysis, and generally strive to make the patron experience the best it can be.

Jerry comes to us from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he served as Technical Support Analyst in the Media Resources Center. Prior to that position, Jerry’s professional experiences included books specialist for Duke University Press, associate programmer analyst for Pharmaceutical Product Development, Inc., user interface design intern at the SAS institute, and a variety of managerial positions with Borders Books, Music & Café. He has a Master of Science in Information Science degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and a BA in English from Concord University.

While Jerry never had the opportunity to study abroad, he has always had wanderlust and has been fortunate to travel the country and the world, including a recent three week trip to Seoul, South Korea. He’s already loving Elon, and is very excited to be in an environment that cares as much as he does about global and multicultural experiences.

Since Belk Library opened in January 2000, the way our space  is used has changed. Elon’s student body has grown from just over 4,000 to 6,300 in 2014. More library resources are available online, which are often accessed on laptops and other types of mobile devices. Students engage in more collaborative and group work.

To reflect how things have changed since we opened in 2000 and to build in greater flexibility for the future, the first floor of Belk Library will undergo significant renovation this summer.

Look for:

* New study rooms for individual and collaborative work for students, tutors, librarians & writing consultants.
* New computer tables featuring easy-to-access power for portable devices.
* New flexible furniture to support different study and work styles, for both individuals and groups.
* More quiet study seats on the 2nd and 3rd floors.
* New paint, carpet and furnishings to give Belk Library a fresh new look towards the future.

Here are a few renderings of the new space. Click on the image to see details.

New combined desk for both circulation/information services and elite students

Floor layout and color scheme

Belk Library now provides access to the Early English Books Online (EEBO) database.

EEBO contains more than 125,000 titles published in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America from 1473 to 1700. Subject areas include English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. The collection comprehensively documents the English Renaissance – an era that witnessed the rebirth of classical humanism, the broadening of the known world, and the rapid spread of printing and education.

To use EEBO

1. On- and off-campus, go directly to https://ezproxy.elon.edu/login?url=http://eebo.chadwyck.com
2. You may also access Early English Books Online on our Databases by Title page under E

How many people really listen to the sounds in Club Belk? We thought we’d have a little fun and see how many of you pay attention to and can recognize the background sounds in our library.

Each Friday during the spring semester, starting February 21, we’ll tweet a different #ClubBelksound. If you think you recognize the sound, reply to the tweet with your guess. Then on the following Friday, we’ll tweet the answer and Name That #ClubBelksound.

Follow @ElonBelk on Twitter to join in and let’s see how many really people know the sounds of Club Belk.

Thanks to Ryan Witt and his student film crew, we’ve got a new video about Belk Library. AND we hope you will help us spread the word and make it go viral.

Tag along with Cody, a college student who believes Elon University Belk Library is his crib. Join the tour as a camera crew follows Cody around the library. We won’t tell you any more — we don’t want to spoil the ending!

The video shoot, fall semester 2013