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Shannon Cary (Ellis Library Media Representative): I think that it’s nicely centered on campus,
so that it’s literally in the center of campus, plus it’s where all of the programs
on campus come together in one space, because we have materials for all programs. Another
good thing about Ellis Library is that we have this history and the great building,
and we have bold, rare materials and special collections, but we have all the new things.
We have the information commons, we have computers and laptops, electronic resources, Ebooks.
So we are combining the history and tradition of MU and moving forward. We have great librarians,
graduate assistants, library assistants, that help out at the reference desk and have regular
exhibits in the cases. And then we have some computer kiosks that have a running slide
show. I think when people come in the library, especially when they go in the stacks, they
are always kind of amazed by the grand reading room that we have on the second floor – it’s
such a gorgeous space, with beautiful windows. When you get up in the stacks, there are a
lot of different rooms and they go in a lot of different directions, and I know that’s
kind of a unique thing to Ellis Library, and it has to do with the fact that the original
library was built in 1914, and there was a west wing added on in 1936, the East wing
in 1958 and then the South wing, where information commons is, was not added until 1987. So a
lot of people don’t realize the history behind the building.
One thing to remember is that we have group study spaces that you can reserve online,
same address, mulibraries.missouri.edu, and those are one of our most popular services
now that we offer. You need to start at mulibraries.missouri.edu and there’s a search box right there, that
will allow you to search books, journals, the website…that’s a great starting place
for looking for information. And also from the website there’s a button called ask
a librarian and from there you can get information – you can get the phone number, you can
email a librarian, the text number is you want to text and the chat information. So
all those ways you can access a librarian if you’re not in the building. We have a
mobile site now, so you can use your cell phone to access the library, so things are
changing quickly.