The I-Create Lab has continued to find new ways to keep the creative flow in the lab. Since COVID restrictions, the lab has had to close study rooms, limit people in the lab, and halted the use of some equipment such as the Oculus rift. The lab knows this is all in protection for itself and its patrons. However, like most people, the staff and many of our patrons miss the time before COVID. To keep the creativity in the…
An access point. A touch stone. A portal. This is what a library is; it’s a place of accessibility. When people come to a library, they expect to find a place where they can reach resources and multi-media that will allow them to learn, to educate, to create, to grow, to entertain, and to expand their imaginations. At the Mary and Jeff Bell Library, this is an ever evolving and continual process to improving accessibility. A huge part of this…
Restrictions are starting to ease – for better or worse. Vaccines are on the rise – thank goodness! I don’t often focus on what I’m missing. I’m not really hoping for a “return to normal” I’m not sure I know what that would look like anymore. For some people it’s hanging out with a group of friends or attending big family gatherings – others miss movie theaters and the energy of live music. For the most part, I’ve been incredibly…
At I-Create, our student workers are immensely talented and creative. For this month’s spotlight, we would like to shine a light on one such student, Alex Esquivel. Alex hails from the small town of Eagle Lake, Texas. He began his education at a junior college, before catching word of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Upon reviewing the TAMU-CC fine arts program, Alex decided that the Island University was the institution for him. After he began attending TAMU-CC, Alex became drawn to…
I was given an assignment this week—to list all the library’s subscriptions from a particular journal publisher, then rank them according to their priority for TAMU-CC. The library subscribes to more than 2,700 of this publisher’s journals. How would you go about determining the relative importance of each one?Obviously, your personal favorite journal should be at the top of the list, right? (Hang on, I’ll say more about that later.) But what about the rest?As it happens, librarians like to…
Many students complete their educational career without interacting with the archives, possibly without knowing they exists. Having studied psychology for the entirety of my six years in higher education, I have never had a reason to interact with or investigate the contents of the archives available to me until recently.After being accepted at TAMU-CC, I began applying to available Graduate Assistant jobs indiscriminately. When the archives staff contacted me, I had to pretend to remember applying for this particular position…
I would like to welcome everyone to a brand-new year and the Spring 2021 semester! Every spring semester, pandemic or not, the Library is busy gathering and reporting data, which makes it a perfect time for reflection. The Academic Libraries Survey (ALS) portion of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) are both due in the first quarter of the calendar year. In addition,…
I started working in the Mary and Jeff Bell Library, March 18, 1998. The Library is a division of Academic Affairs reporting to the Provost. During the past 22 years, I have seen three Presidents and six Provosts in administration. I have worked directly under three Directors, one Interim Director, two Management Teams, one Associate Vice President, and currently the Dean of Libraries. There was a point when we had a void in library leadership and I was the only…
There is a bit of a rivalry brewing in the I-Create Lab. Since we have new rules set in place because of COVID-19, the I-Create Lab must work in two teams. So, the staff has worked on finding ways to stay connected. Now, some would immediately jump to thoughts of nice and encouraging notes, but those individuals don’t know the I-Create Lab team well enough (not yet at least). To stay connected (and entertained) two teams have been created -…
The I-Create Lab loves to talk about our student workers and in this blog, we will flex on our student worker, Stormie! Stormie has worked for the I-Create Lab for almost a full year and is currently a Sophomore at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. She is working on her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Psychology. Stormie sees this degree as a step in the right direction to obtain a career she wants, “I would like to become a type of…