A Special Thanks To…

1. A Special Thanks To… Harmony Gardens Gator Dining Hippodrome State Theater Sweet Dreams Books Inc The Top Restaurant Floating Lotus Spa University Athletic Association Physical Plant Division

2. Gold Star Thanks To… Barbara Hood Facilities Documents Department All of our Wonderful Convocation Volunteers

3. Building Improvements A new storage space for the architecture archives was created in Room 450 Smathers Library. A training room was created in Acquisitions and Licensing Room 300B for divisional use. Marston Renovations Combined the Reference and Circulation desks Renovated 5th Floor Library West Renovations Installation of 4-outlet domes on tables Addition of  laptop table arms for lounge chairs Update of Video Conferencing Room 229   Addition of Classroom Response Units to  Classrooms 211 & 212

4. 100th Anniversary as a Federal Depository Library The Documents Department Celebrated its 100th Anniversary as a Federal Depository Library in August. The Celebration took place in Library East and was attended by dignitaries from UF and the surrounding community along with Documents coordinators and directors from the forty selective Federal Depository Libraries in Florida.

5. Library Mini Grants Awarded 2007-2008 Laurie Taylor, DLC (Principle Investigator) and Randall Renner, DLC, "Picturing Text: Comics and Other Imagetexts," $2,880.00 Jane Pen, DLC (Principle Investigator), David Hickey, and Hikaru Nakano, "Digital Collection in Asian Studies: A Catalog of Chinese Bronzes," $308.00 Chelsea Dinsmore, Government Documents (Principal Investigator) and Christy Shorey, "Digitizing Hansard's British Parliamentary Debates, 2nd Series {1820-1830,25 volumes}," $758.37 Valrie Davis, Marston Science Library (Principle Investigator) and Sara Russell Gonzalez, "Developing a Database to Foster Interdisciplinary Communication and Collaboration at UF," $5,000.00 (GatorScholar) Jennifer Farrington, Map and Imagery Library (Principle Investigator), Hesham Monsef, Ken Solomon, Kenny Herniman, and Jorge Gonzalez, "Developing an Online GIS Interface for the Topographic Map Collection," $5,000.00

6. Travel Grants and Mini Grants Alena Aissing received a travel award from the Center for European Studies to spend 5 weeks in Eastern Europe in pursuit of research on the Romani and to do on-site book selection and purchase for the Libraries’ collections. Carrie Newsom was awarded the ACS New Professional award (a $1500 scholarship to attend the SLA Annual Meeting). David Hickey received an award for a full travel scholarship to attend the Summer Chinese Studies Electronic Resources Workshop at the University of Washington, Seattle, July 18 – August 2. Laura Jordan received a Weeks of Welcome (WOW!) mini-grant for Mystery in the Stacks (Fall 2007). Tom Caswell won the 2008 ARLIS/NA Andrew Cahan Photography Conference Award.

7. Grants and Gifts Matthew Loving was awarded a grant from the African Studies Association-funded Book Donation grant program to help build community libraries in Uganda. Jana Ronan, Paul Victor, Laura Jordan, Blake Landor, Missy Shoop, Carrie Newsom were awarded a 2007/08 Office of Academic Technology Faculty Development Grant to create UF Libraries Information Literacy Tutorials. Laura Jordan:  Donation of Classroom Response System (CRS) to the Libraries from the Physics Department. (Fall 2007)

8. The first Annual GIS Day was held in November.  This event was organized by Carol McAuliffe and Hesham Monsef.  It featured poster sessions and a GPS treasure hunt.

9. Degrees and Certifications • Jack Waters and Kerstin Rao both completed Pro-3 Financial Certification. • Kristy Mills and Tina Pruitt both completed Pro-3 HR and Payroll Management Certification. • Jorge Gonzalez earned an MS in Geography from the University of Florida.  • Richard Saltzburg received an MA in Library and Information Sciences from the University of South Florida on May 2, 2008. • Amy Polk obtained her Microsoft Certified Trainer certification in Microsoft Office.

10. Mystery in the Stacks and Guitar Hero 3 Second Annual  “Mystery in the Stacks” event was held to provide new students with a fun-filled orientation to the libraries with a mystery-themed information hunt. Guitar Hero III Events helped students blow off a little pre-finals steam and have some spring break fun. There were over 125 people who came to rock out in the InfoCommons.

11. More Cool Stuff Dan Reboussin provided a library orientation tour for the Hon. Henri Lopes, Ambassador of the Republic of Congo to France and a former Prime Minister of his country. The tour was conducted in French on October 3, 2007.  Judy Russell was invited by the Librarian of Congress to advise on the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library in St. Petersburg, Russia as part of the Russian-American Joint Working Group on Library Cooperation.

12. Even More Cool Stuff John Van Hook taught a course on the early history of the book and also started a book review club at Oak Hammock, a UF-affiliated retirement home. A new graduate research assistantship for Manuscripts was created. Flo Turcotte assisted in production work for a commemorative Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings stamp released by the US Postal Service. 

13. Courses Taught • Research Methods in Medieval Studies: MEM4930, Fall 2007 • Medieval & Early Modern Studies Research Methods: MEM4930, Spring 2007  • Preserving History: An Internship in Historical Archives: HIS 4944, Summer 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008 • Exploring the Virtual Library: IDH 3931, Spring 2008

14. Milestones • The Digital Library Collection hit the 2,000,000 page mark and has nearly doubled its production for each of the last four years. • The Digital Children's Literature Collection solidified its place as the largest Digital Library of literature for children in English in the world with over 500,000 pages.

15. More Milestones 2 year mark reached for staffing the Information Point at Library West on August 2, 2008. This service point has been staffed by volunteers throughout the libraries from a wide variety of departments. The "Spanish Colonial: Resources for Teachers of Florida History" project has had five successive years of funding-- no other project in grant series has had as much success.  The project is headed by Jim Cusick and is funded through the Florida Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

16. Greg Allen  Will Canova Justino Chana and Patricia Prevatt  Logan Clapp  Merrie Davidson  Michael Dietz DLC/Erich Kesse and Stephanie Haas Lori Driscoll  Winston Harris  Dee Hawes  Kenny Herniman  Human Resources  Vanessa Jewett Paul Lightcap  Jim Liversidge  Tisha Mauney  Elaine Needelman  John Nemmers Chris Nicolich and Stephen Williams  Bobbie Parker  Travis Schaben  Kenneth Solomon  Terri Smith and Todd Chisholm Carol Whitmer  Michele Wilbanks    Beth Zavoyski Employee Excellence Awards Nominees Behind the Scenes

17. Lisa Bailey Circ Staff - Library West Circ Unit  - MSL Logan Clapp Facilities Debra Fetzer April Hines Emily Madden and Elaine Needelman Laydene Manning Kerstin Rao Kenneth Solomon   Evan Wack Matt Weaver Logan Clapp Christine Cogar Sonia Coleman Will Canova Nathan Davies DLC & Systems Programming Michelle Foss Dan Reboussin Christy Shorey Mark Sullivan Laurie Taylor and Library Web 2.0 Committee Rita Smith Mark Sullivan Employee Excellence Awards Nominees Customer Service  Innovation

18. Amy Polk Amy Polk / Bobbie Meng / Cynthia Bowker Denise Bennett Jackie Brown Lourdes Santamaria-Wheeler Marilyn Ochoa Missy Shoop Rita Smith, Jim Cusick, Richard Phillips, and Susan Lupi Tutorial Design Taskforce:   Laura Jordan, Missy Shoop, Paul Victor, Blake Landor, Carrie Newsom Chelsea Dinsmore Christine Driver Flo Turcotte Jim Cusick John Van Hook Kelli Schoneck Special and Area Studies Curators Stacey Ewing and Laura Jordan Suzanne Brown Valrie Davis Employee Excellence Awards Nominees Instruction/Training Outreach

19. Employee Recognition Fund Events Documents Grants Luncheon Systems Liaisons Celebration MSL Extended Hours "Night Owls" Lunch  Extended Hours Pilot Party

20. Projects • 41 archival collections were physically arranged, described and made available to researchers by the Special and Area Studies Department. • In the Books on Demand project this year, 311 items requested by our patrons through ILL were purchased for our collection rather than borrowed from other libraries. Most books were for the humanities and social sciences.  • Extended Hours Pilot for Fall 2007 and Spring 2008: Staffed the Circulation and Reference Desks at Library West and Marston Science Library during finals weeks. • UF Libraries Orientation Video Team: Created promotional videos teaching undergraduate students about the collections & services available through the UF Libraries.

21. Multi-Departmental Projects • Domestic Vendor Transition to Blackwell (Monographs and Collection Management) • Developed new Blackwell approval system. • Created technical profiles with OCLC & Blackwell, revised existing specifications with FCLA, in order to allow shelf-ready, firm, approval, and standing orders for domestic materials from Blackwell. • AFA Reclass and Shift Project (Architecture and Fine Arts and Cataloging) • Analyzed the entire Dewey holdings and withdrew over 1500 volumes. • Moved out over 2,000 linear feet of material to storage. • Reclassed some 12,000 titles from Dewey to LC. • Shifted the entire collection at AFA.

22. Special Funding and Initiatives • Received Board of Governors approval of the SUS shared storage facility. • Return of lost book fees and fines to the library (Worth over $150,000 per year). • Self-check out machines funded by the provost (Worth over $85,000). • Grants coordinator funded by the provost ($100,000 per year for two years). • Development work through the Special and Area Studies Collections Department brought in more than $200,000 in new private donations and endowments over the course of the year.