| WILLIS N. HACKNEY LIBRARY, Barton College, Wilson, NC |
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A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Kathy received her B.A. from Auburn University, followed by an M.A. from Appalachian State University; she joined the Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) library staff in 1975. Before coming to Atlantic Christian College, she worked as a cataloger at Wayne County Public Library in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Despite her many years on campus as Hackney Library's cataloger, Kathy, who shuns the limelight, had flown under the radar of many Barton faculty, staff, and students during her time here. Although some on campus may not have known her by name, anyone who in the last 35 years had checked out any library item has known and benefited greatly from her handiwork--she singlehandedly cataloged the library's myriad books, periodicals, and electronic resources since coming to the institution. In addition to her cataloging duties, she also served regularly at the reference desk one night a week and other times as needed, conducted inventory, served as library liaison to departments for the purchasing of resources, among many other professional duties. Library faculty and staff over the years always turned to Kathy when particular items had been misshelved or misplaced; like a bloodhound, she had an uncanny ability to sniff them out and return them to their proper locations for others to use and check out. Kathy saw a lot of changes during her time here at Barton. She served under four library directors since her arrival. And when she first began work at the college's C. L. Hardy Library (housed in what is now the Hardy Center's School of Education), her stock in trade included catalog cards (filed in separate subject and title/author wooden card catalog cases), typewritten spine labels, and other now-outdated tools. Two years after she began her tenure here, she moved to the brand-new Willis N. Hackney Library building. Almost 15 years ago, the card catalog literally became history in Hackney Library when Kathy began downloading cataloging data from electronic MARC records into the library's online catalog, part of the computerized integrated library system that enables users to locate library holdings and access many of them online. Although we will miss Kathy greatly, we and the patrons of Hackney Library will continue to benefit from her years of service here in making library resources accessible to students, faculty, staff, and the public alike. We wish her well as she at last finds time to read to her heart's content and to spend more time with her husband, Wayne. Thanks for the memories (and for all your hard work), Kathy!
The occasion of cataloger Kathy Thompson's retirement prompted Hackney Library faculty and staff to rethink its current organizational structure. The resulting reorganization is based on the various functions of the library to better accomplish the delivery of its services. The reorganization involves the creation of a new position, as well as the realignment of current faculty and staff into slightly different roles, and new titles to reflect those roles. The new organizational structure consists of three primary service areas: 1) Collections and Access Services; 2) Outreach and Public Services; and 3) Technology and Digital Services. Each of these areas will have a professional librarian responsible for providing leadership in that area, although there will be overlap in responsibilities among them as well. Rich Fulling, formerly Reference and Government Documents Librarian, will be the new Collections and Access Services Librarian, coordinating the provision of traditional technical services, including cataloging and acquisitions, as well as collection assessment and development. Norma Williams, formerly Acquisitions Manager, now Library Associate for Collections and Access Services, will assist him in this area. Ann Dolman, formerly Reference Librarian, will be the new Outreach and Public Services Librarian. As such, she will be responsible for coordinating the delivery of traditional library services such as circulation and interlibrary loan, but in addition, more emphasis will be placed on the coordination of library instruction and programming. She will be assisted in these endeavors by former Circulation/ILL Supervisor, Steven Stewart, whose title is now Library Technical Associate for Outreach and Public Services, as well as Cynthia Collins, formerly Friends of Hackney Library and Weekend Librarian, now called Library Associate for Outreach and Public Services. Weekend Librarians Tempie Hayes and Cynthia Collins will also continue in this area. The position created as a result of the reorganization is that of Technology and Digital Services Librarian, and that role has been filled by newcomer Jason Fleming, who began work on August 18. See the information on Jason for a more detailed description of his responsibilities in this role. As mentioned, there will be much overlap among the three areas, and collaboration will continue to take place among the library faculty and staff to deliver the library's services in the most efficient and effective way. But please bear with us as we all get used to our new roles (and our more lengthy titles!).
Hackney Library faculty and staff are pleased to announce the arrival of Jason Fleming, the new Technology and Digital Services Librarian, who started on August 18, 2010. The new position was created as part of Hackney Library's reorganization; Jason was selected from a strong field of applicants. Jason's duties in this position include maintaining the library's Integrated Library System (ILS), otherwise know as the online catalog and its associated systems, as well as the library's web site. He also serves as the liaison with the campus IT office and will help to ensure that our myriad of online resources are accessible and working properly. In addition, he is the library's point-person in exploring the use of cutting-edge technology to enhance the library's delivery of services. Like the other professional librarians on the library faculty, Jason also serves as liaison to various academic departments for collection development, serves on the reference desk rotation, and participates in the library's instruction and information literacy initiatives. A long-time resident of Florida, Jason comes to us from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he served most recently as Staff IT Project Coordinator and External Liaison IT Expert. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion from University of Florida and a Master of Library Science degree from the University of South Florida. He has recently moved to Dunn, North Carolina with his family. Jason brings with him a wealth of technology as well as library experience, including development of web applications, web design and site maintenance, IT technical support, ILS experience, cataloging, experience creating web manuals, teaching and training of staff on new systems, and more. He has been described by co-workers as a team player and one whose absence will have to be filled by several individuals, as he has the ability to see a need and craft solutions for a variety of situations. We are delighted to have Jason working with us. Our thanks go to those who served on the search committee for this position: Rodney Lippard, Library Director, chair; Jackie Ennis, Dean, School of Education; Susan Carnahan and David Graybeal, IT; Steven Stewart, Circulation Supervisor, and Ann Dolman, Reference Librarian. Many thanks also to those Barton staff who attended the presentations of several candidates for the position. Please join us in welcoming Jason when you see him in the library and around campus.
The Friends of Hackney Library organization presented its fifth annual Open House event on Thursday, August 26 from 4-8 pm, which once again featured live music with 'The Band Book Tour 2010.' Over 200 people attended the event. This year's lineup featured four terrific bands and a wide variety of styles of music, plus food, prizes, and giveaways from local businesses. Live sound was provided by Miller Music Center. The bands featured included the following:
 4:00 pm: Straight-Up! (R&B, soul, funk, Motown);
5:00 pm: TripleWide (blues, funk, rock);
6:00 pm: Elemental P (rock, funk, blues, jamband); and
7:00 pm: The Oatmeal Conspiracy (indie, pop, rock, acid jazz)
The bands began to play in rotation at 4:00 pm, and dinner was served outside the library by Aramark to Barton students on the meal plan. The bands performed inside the library, where dessert was served. Like last year, the theme of this year's Open House riffed on the American Library Association's annual Banned Books Week campaign, sponsored each September to celebrate intellectual freedom and to decry various attempts through the years to ban certain books because of their content. In addition to the music, one of the activities during the Open House included a contest in which prizes were awarded to winners who guessed correctly the characters/locations of various attempted banned books. (Learn more about the Band Book Tour 2010 by viewing our "newscast" with anchor Brick Studley on the "Library News Network" [LNN].) There also were giveaways, door prizes donated by several local businesses, and plenty of new, exciting things to see inside the Library. An online survey was administered to over 140 respondents during the Open House concerning library services; those who completed the survey received T-shirts sporting the 2010 Band Book Tour logo. Also, there was a special giveaway of Band Book Tour 2010 backpacks for people who wore their Band Book Tour t-shirt from last year. Many thanks to the following additional sponsors for making this special Open House possible:
 Agave Grill
The Dog House Sports Grill
Miller Music Center
Professor O'Cools of Wilson, NC
Quince: "A Southern Bistro"
The Rib Hut
Subs Plus
Target
Wal-Mart
(For more information, see our flyer about the event.)
The Friends program will be held on Tuesday, October 5, 2010, beginning with a book signing and wine reception at 6:00 pm, followed by dinner and a lecture at 7:00 pm., in Barton College's Hardy Alumni Hall. A native of Hendersonville, North Carolina, Morgan received a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and an Honorary Doctor of Letters from UNC-Chapel Hill. As a teenager growing up on his family's farm in Blue Ridge Mountains' Green River valley, Morgan was interested in composing music as well as writing poetry and fiction. But as he explains on his web site, "I was encouraged to study science in those 'Beat the Russian" years after the first Sputnik was launched," and indeed, he embarked on studies in engineering and applied mathematics at NC State. After his first writing teacher at NC State encouraged him to write stories and poems of people and places he knew growing up, Morgan says "One day he brought one of my stories to class, an account of visiting a great-grandmother in an old house in the mountains, and announced he had wept when he read the story. This was better praise than I had gotten in math classes, and I was hooked on writing." Thus began what has become a prolific writing career. Although his earliest publications were short stories, his work covers a variety of genres. In the early 1960s, he became enthralled with poetry, publishing his first poetry collection, Zirconia Poems, in 1969. Three more books of poetry followed in the next ten years (Land Diving, 1976; Trunk & Thicket, 1978; and Groundwork, 1979). In 1980, he again began writing fiction, publishing his first book of short stories, The Blue Valleys (nominated for the First Fiction Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters), in 1989, followed by more poetry. After more stories, essays and interviews, Morgan turned to novels. His second novel, The Truest Pleasure (1995), garnered several honors: it was listed by Publishers Weekly as one of the outstanding books of 1995; was first runner-up for The Southern Book Critics Circle Award; and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. His novel Gap Creek (1999) also received recognition (it was the recipient of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for 2000, selected as a Notable Book by the New York Times, an Oprah's Book Club selection for January 2000, a New York Times best seller, and the Association of Appalachian Writers named it book of the year for 2000). More story and poetry collections followed, among them The Balm of Gilead Tree and Other Stories, whose title story was included in the 1997 O. Henry Awards anthology, and The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems (2004). His latest collection of poetry, Morgan's Crossing (September 2009), has been hailed by the News & Observer's Michael Chitwood as displaying "the rich, grounded work that he does so well...There's music aplenty in Morgan's work, and his portraits not only capture the daily lives of the people of the North Carolina mountains but always manage to get at an even larger canvas, to find the common human story that we all share, no matter our particular location" ("Mountains Make Fertile Ground," News & Observer, December 13, 2009, p. D9). Morgan's Boone: A Biography (2007), about the life of Daniel Boone, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Award. He has also published numerous poems, essays, and articles in a wide variety of magazines, journals, and anthologies. Morgan has been teaching at Cornell University since 1971. He has served as the Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell since 1992. He has also held numerous visiting writer and professorship positions throughout that time at a variety of institutions, including Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Duke University, Furman University, and Davidson College. He has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including NEA grants in 1974, 1981, and 1987. In 1988, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. In 1991, he was awarded the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize by the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the North Carolina Literature Award. He and his wife live in Ithaca, New York. Tickets are $30 for Friends members and Barton faculty/staff, students, and spouses, and $35 for all others, unless otherwise noted; they are available through the Friends of Hackney Library, Barton College, P.O. Box 5000, Wilson, NC 27893-7000; (252) 399-6503; fohl@barton.edu. Last updated August 27, 2010 |
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On June 30, Hackney Library faculty and staff bid a fond but reluctant farewell to professional librarian and cataloger Kathy M. Thompson, upon her retirement after 35 years of service to Atlantic Christian/Barton College.
Back by popular demand, the award-winning Band Book Tour returned to rock the Library! (See our 
The Fall 2010 Dinner/Lecture will feature award-winning author and poet Robert Morgan, Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell University.
