Farewell Reception for Dorcas MacDonald
...who is retiring after 40 years of service
Friday, December 16
2:00 to 4:15 p.m.
Peter Graham Scholarly Commons

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Farewell Reception for Diane Cooter
...who is retiring after 32 years of service
Wednesday, December 21
2:00 to 4:15 p.m.
Hillyer Room, 6th floor

Grove Press Project Archivist Susan Kline spoke to the Library Associates at the group's holiday party on Thursday, December 1st. In her presentation, "Grove Press and the Making of a Bestseller," Susan highlighted materials in the Grove Press collection related to the Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965. The Library Associates received an up close look at Malcolm X's letter from Mecca, pages from the book's original typewritten manuscript and a copy of the first cloth edition of the book. 

Make a point of being green during the 2012 Green Days by  turning off your computer. According to the website Carbon Rally, an average desktop computer with a 17-inch monitor needs between 150 to 350 watts of electricity while it is being actively used. If you were to leave that computer on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would use over $200 of electricity and lead to the release of over 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere. Turning off your computer - even an inactive computer - for just 10 hours a day can lead to substantial carbon savings.

One easy way to make sure you're not wasting energy is to plug your computer, monitor, printer, and any other peripherals you use into a single power strip. Once your computer is shut down, you can effectively unplug it and all the other pieces by turning off the power strip. That's a lot easier than unplugging everything individually and plugging them back in the next morning. Just turn the power strip back on and restart the computer.

The Library held its annual triple-threat United Way Auction Extravaganza on Friday, December 2nd in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons.

After all of the bids were tallied, we raised $1,046 towards the Library United Way Campaign. Thank you all for your contributions of money, art work, and white elephants.

Nancy Cohen was the lucky employee to win the first annual "Library Day Off Donation Giveaway." She will receive one extra full day off with pay during the current fiscal year. Congratulations Nancy! The day off donation giveaway raised over $300 towards the Library United Way Campaign.

Thank you for supporting our community through your participation in the Library United Way activities.

We have added two trackball mice to our selection of loaner technology. These mice are fairly large (about the full size of my hand) and are designed for either left-or right-handed use. One is available at the Technology Support desk in Bird and the other is available at the service desk in SciTech. They are wired, not wireless, but should easily connect to our public workstations. While we purchased them to assist users who may have difficulty using standard mice, they are available for anyone to use. Please feel free to suggest these to users as appropriate.

On Friday, December 9th, Cindy Barry and library volunteers staffed tables in the Learning Commons to give students an opportunity to write greetings in cards to our Holiday Sharing families. In the three hours the table was set up, students signed 125 cards with cheerful holiday messages!

Thanks to all who volunteered and to Cindy for arranging such a nice event.

Thanks to John Olson for the ordering help, and to Brian and Tony for the hanging help!

Since last month, we've received a number of suggestions and comments from the two-sided suggestion board, located on the first floor of Bird Library, as well as through social media outlets such as the Library's Facebook page and Twitter feed:

• I don't understand why it's 100 degrees in Bird Library.
• "Club Bird" is so cold, I might as well go study on the quad.
• Bird Library is too small.
• The peppermint pretzels in Pages are fantastic.
• Can Bird Library please put in some more outlets?

If you have a response you'd like us to post, please contact Pamela McLaughlin at pwmclaug@syr.edu.

Got news? Please feel free to send us any news items that you would like to share with colleagues -- graduations, weddings, new babies, travels, and such. As always, we welcome your feedback, comments, questions, or story ideas. Send your contributions to libcom@syr.edu.

Many thanks for your interest!