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duPont-Ball
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NEWSLETTER Fall 2003
Message from the Library Director
There are many rumors and false assumptions
about libraries in the 21st century, and certain
myths appear periodically in journals and
newspapers read by university administrators
and others:
The Deserted
Library -"As
students work
online, reading
rooms empty out"
(Chronicle of Higher
Education,
11/16/2001). This
widely quoted
article has no
relevance for the
duPont-Ball Library,
which has become a destination for our students
- gate counts show an average of approximately
6,000 visitors per week during fall and spring
terms.
"The Library of physical volumes is dying -
no one uses books anymore." Our online
databases are heavily used, but our users still
need and use books. This is reflected in the
more than 1,500 requests for books on
interlibrary loan and the more than 20,000 books
checked out of this Library in 2002/03.
"We don't need to buy books - they will soon
all be available online," The eIectronic book
(e-book) bubble has burst. For the foreseeable
future e-books best serve for reference
information -encyclopedias, technical manuals,
etc., which one does not expect to read from
cover to cover online.
The academic library today is used as a place to
do research in both print and electronic
resources, to study (alone and in small groups),
and to organize, write, and print out
assignments. It is alive and thriving.
Betty D. Johnson, Library Director
Get To Know Some Special Faculty Members
At our fall reception the Library honored
University faculty who were promoted and/or
granted tenure. We also asked them to select
an author who had been most influential in their
lives and to provide a statement on that
selection. Special bookplates were placed in the
chosen books, and the books were displayed
with the statements. The diversity of the
selections is an indication of the varied talents
and interests of our faculty, as seen below in
their statements.
Robert Boozer - Business Administration
Promoted to Professor
"My most influential author and particular work is
Up From Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human
Evolution, by Ken Wilber. Wilber's model of the
evolution of consciousness in this book helped
me better understand Carl Jung's work as well
as develop perspective on a number of other
writers ranging from Freud to Habermas."
Michael DeMurga - Music - Promoted to
Associate Professor and Granted Tenure
"My author is Don DeLillo. During the latter half
of the 1980s, I was a college undergraduate and
Don DeLillo had recently completed White
Noise. I remember the excitement associated
with reading his prose, tracking down his earlier
novels, eagerly awaiting upcoming books and
being witness to a talented creative artist
introducing New York.
"DeLillo's writing illumined contemporary culture
and revealed the world behind the world -the
