Library Champions

This week’s library champion is Dr. Anna Higgins-Harrell. Dr. Higgins-Harrell walks around the Dorothy W. Hightower Collaborative Learning Center & Library once every few weeks. Higgins-Harrell is very active with ALG – Affordable Learning Georgia which the librarians are promoting. The ALG initiative allows instructors to create and/or provide free to low cost online course sources including library resources to their classes. Higgins-Harrell sends her English 1102 students to the library at least once a month and encourages them to use the group study rooms. Any of her classes that are involved in research projects are instructed by a librarian on how to research good materials, and Higgins-Harrell also uses LibGuides in her classrooms. GALILEO is what Higgins-Harrell recommends to her students when it comes to research. Higgins-Harrell recommends that “we all learn more about the OER – Open Educational Resources, and the Open Stax initiatives.” Higgins-Harrell also recommends that students “buy their coffee at the IC take it into a comfy chair in the library and get ready for your next class.” Higgins-Harrell thinks the library is “pretty. I love how student friendly it is; and I love the cool classrooms and study rooms.”

Library Champions

This week’s Library Champion is Dr. Edward Whitelock. Dr. Whitelock visits the Dorothy W. Hightower Collaborative Learning Center & Library several times a semester. “I have been using interlibrary loans for years and it has never let me down. Back when David Janssen and I were collaborating on our book project, Apocalypse Jukebox, we were able to complete nearly all of our research on campus through that service.” Whitelock was able to receive hard copies of articles that he could not get through the library’s databases. Whitelock is teaching History of the English language for “our BA majors this semester, and the library’s reference section is among our most important tools.” Whitelock has his class use the Oxford English dictionary, and the Shakespeare and Bible concordances.  Whitelock uses the ProQuest databases and he encourages his students to do likewise. “They are easily searchable and allow students to set exact parameters for what they are researching.” Whitelock recommends the interlibrary loan and the American National Biography, which he has contributed to, located in the library’s reference section. Whitelock likes “the library’s physical book holdings. He feels they “are excellent and exceed what is usually expected for a college of our size. The librarians have consistently worked to bring new and timely materials into the collection. Once or twice a semester, I’ll just wander among the stacks and find a few new and interesting books that I didn’t know we had received