The following changes will be made before or during the Spring Semester to handle increased student need in Ellis Library due to the closing of Brady Commons:

• Two additional group study rooms (Room 2E21 and Room 3E21) are available for reservation.
• “The Cave” now holds the necessary furniture to temporarily enable its use as a study space. When construction begins for the teleconferencing room, this area will no longer be used as study space.
• Thirty new computers are available in the Information Commons.
• Two additional scan stations will be installed and available near the Information Commons by the beginning of this semester. One will be a Mac, and the other a PC. They will have internet access limited to the MU Web site (including Webmail) and printing through the print mart system. The scan stations will have access to the MU network and will allow students to use their MU email accounts, print and use their bengal space while using the scan station. Students will be able to scan articles and send to any university issued e-mail account including their own.
• Plans are in the works to have a dedicated computer for printing. The Journalism Library has already implemented an “express” printing station, and it has been successful.
• Administration is working with Campus Facilities to create more space and to provide additional tables and chairs in the immediate area of the Bookmark Café. It is expected that this will approximately double the Café’s current capacity. This expansion should occur in February.

One of MU’s distance students, Shawn Collins, has completed her dissertation and has most kindly mentioned persons in Access Services who have assisted her with her work in the acknowledgments in her dissertation.

To quote from an e-mail note that she sent:

“When I was back in Missouri to defend, I stopped by the library to thank you, Tammy Green and your staff for their great work. I think that you were out at the time, but I wanted you to know that I appreciate what you do–I literally could not have finished my Ph.D. without you and your staff!! I have attached the acknowledgments for my dissertation. I would send virtual chocolates and flowers if I could.”

And, to quote from her dissertation acknowledgments page:

“I feel that library staffs are often overlooked when recognition is given for supporting research projects. I give my sincere thanks to Tammy Green, June DeWeese, Rebekah Wilson, and their staff, as well as other unknown librarians hither and yon who have pulled obscure references from their shelves, dusted them off, and sent them to the wilds of southwestern Colorado. Without librarians, the world would be a sorry place indeed.”