Library Collections Annex is Open for Business

The February 3 opening of the Library Collections Annex, the University's storage facility that can house and safely preserve 1.7 million volumes, marks the end of a decade of planning and nearly a year of renovation.

"The Annex not only allows us to shelve valuable materials in a preservation-quality environment, it also allows the on-campus libraries to reclaim and reshape space for our users and staff," said Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian. One example, Hemmasi said, is the new 24-hour Friedman Study Center that will open on the first three floors of the Sciences Library in spring 2007. "Without the Annex, the SciLi would not have had the space to accommodate this much-needed study area."

More than 400,000 of the University's less frequently used library materials are housed in the Annex's 25,000-square-foot storage space at 10 Park Lane, which is projected to accommodate approximately ten years of library storage needs. Materials being transferred to the Annex include full-text journals that are now available on line. To maximize space and efficiency, each item is stored according to size and bar-coded with its location information, instead of being ordered in a traditional call number system. The stacks measure 21 feet high, requiring a cherry picker for retrieval. The archival storage room is kept at a constant 60 degrees with 35 percent humidity to help preserve the materials. Four full-time staff members are employed at the Annex.

In addition, the Annex houses a 900-square-foot art storage facility, with space for hundreds of paintings and objects overseen by the University curator. There is also a public reading room on site, with a workstation, photocopier and microform readers. In the future, the Annex plans to install a scanning station, to enable requested articles and chapters to be sent electronically.

The Annex is open during University business hours, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Intercollegiate Athletics Undergoes Routine Review by NCAA

The University has begun a comprehensive study of its intercollegiate athletics program as part of the NCAA Division I athletics certification process. Specific areas of the study cover academic integrity, governance and commitment to rules compliance, and commitment to equity and student-athlete welfare.

NCAA certification of athletics programs is required every ten years. Brown received a status of certified, without conditions, after its last NCAA review in 1997.

To conduct the review, President Ruth J. Simmons appointed a seventeen-member steering committee whose members represent a variety of campus constituencies. Members' responsibilities include collecting and organizing data, reviewing reports related to Brown's previous self-study, gaining broad campus input, and producing a report to be submitted to the NCAA by the end of May 2006. The NCAA will review the report and provide additional questions during summer 2006; a campus visit by a peer-review team occurs in November 2006. The NCAA will make its certification decision in February 2007.

"This process provides me, as a brand new athletic director, with a perfect opportunity to get an overview of intercollegiate athletics from a wide variety of Brown community perspectives," said Michael Goldberger, director of athletics and physical education. "Our recertification team includes administrators, faculty, coaches, varsity athletes, and students who are not members of athletic teams. These people will provide the department with a comprehensive study that will serve as an important template for the direction of the department in coming years. It will be a lot of work, but I believe that we'll find the effort worthwhile."

Forget Paperback: Some Textbooks Go Digital

The Brown Bookstore is one of more than thirty college bookstores participating in a pilot program involving digital textbooks.

Of the 400 titles offered through the MBS Textbook Exchange's universal digital textbook pilot program, the bookstore is offering three: Investments, 6^th edition, by Bodie, Kane and Marcus; Adolescence, 7^th edition, by Steinberg; and A People & A Nation, Norton, Katzman, Blight, Chudacoff, Logevall, Bailey, Patterson and Tuttle.

A student who purchases a digital text, which typically costs 35 percent less than a new textbook, downloads it to his or her computer hard drive. The texts are written in Adobe PDF format and are read with Adobe Reader software. This software includes such built-in interactive features as document searching and printing, highlighting, underlining, note-taking, and read-out-loud capability.