Nancy Lohmann, Senior Advisor to the Provost, welcomes the crowd to the ribbon cutting.

Nancy Lohmann give D.J. Casto, Student Body President, to go ahead to cut the ribbon for Eliza’s.

D.J. Casto cuts the ribbon.

A few hundred students, faculty, and staff streamed through Eliza’s on its first official day of operation.

A smiling student grabs her first iced coffee at the library café.

Two students relax with their drinks just outside of Eliza’s.

D.J. Casto and Provost Gerald Lang.

Libraries Dean Frances O’Brien, D.J. Casto, and Associate Dean Myra Lowe.

BY ERIC SLAGLE
The Dominion Post

Students at WVU say a newly opened coffee shop in Wise Library should provide the caffeinated relief they need when studying late at night.

Student T.J. Cromwell said he thinks Eliza’s coffee shop on the fourth floor of the library – which is operated by university dining services and sells Starbuck’s brand coffee – is a hot concept.

“Being a coffee lover, I think it’s a great idea,” said Cromwell. “It keeps you more awake. It makes you stay up. I’m definitely going to buy a lot of coffee there.”

The idea for the coffee shop, named after the first library director hired by the university back in 1897, Eliza Skinner, was introduced by the Student Government Association.

Library Dean Frances O’Brien said she thinks the coffee shop will be a great success. Besides giving students a place to fortify themselves during late-night study sessions, she said it also provides a location where they can check out what’s new in popular reading. Bookshelves in the coffee shop area are stocked with the latest novels, bestsellers and newspapers.

O’Brien said she was pleased to see a lot of students taking an interest in the popular collection during the grand opening of the coffee shop.

Though library traditionalists might question the propriety of encouraging patrons to eat and drink within the confines of the library, O’Brien said she doesn’t see the harm in it so long as students consume responsibly.

Snacks are not permitted outside the area of the coffee shop, she said. Students are allowed to have drinks throughout the library so long as the drink containers are covered.

O’Brien said many universities, including Marshall and the University of Pittsburgh, have coffee venders inside their libraries.

Current hours at the coffee shop are 3 p.m.-midnight Sunday through Wednesday, and 3-9 p.m. Thursday. The shop is closed Friday and Saturday.

Some students at WVU say the hours of the coffee shop should be expanded.

“It’s pretty ridiculous,” said sophomore Marie Rafa, who visited the shop midmorning Tuesday with friends and was disappointed to find it closed. “It should be open in the morning.”

By Kevin Jeannette
Correspondent
Monday at 3 p.m. marked the grand opening of Eliza’s on the fourth floor of the Wise Library at West Virginia University.

On hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony were student body president DJ Casto, University officials and a number of students and faculty eagerly awaiting the opening.

Decorated with blue and gold balloons, Eliza’s was packed with students and faculty excited about the newest addition to the library.
While waiting in line for their free cups of coffee, patrons were treated to trays of fruit and flying WV cookies from WVU Dining Services staff members.

BILLY WOLFE/THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
Student Government Association President DJ Casto cuts a ribbon Monday at the grand opening of Eliza’s, a new coffee shop in the Downtown Library. Eliza’s is located on the fourth floor of the building and sells Starbucks coffee.

Eliza’s offers a variety of drinks and snacks such as bagels, muffins, oversized cookies, Starbucks coffee, cappuccino, espresso, hot chocolate, juices and more for reasonable prices. The coffee shop accepts Mountie Bounty, Meals Plus, cash and credit cards.

“It is convenient because it is easier to get coffee and study at the same place,” said Jessica Domer, a freshman secondary education English major.

After three years of the student government continually getting requests for a facility like this in the library, it was a nine-month process to make it all a reality.

Originally slated to be put into the basement of the library, Eliza’s found a home when a space on the fourth floor opened up.
The fourth floor is an ideal location because it’s a close distance from where students study. Also, the noise level can be contained so that students are not bothe red.

“It is a great addition to the library and amenity for the students,” Casto said.

Eliza’s will be open from 3 p.m. to midnight on Sunday through Wednesday and 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday. It will be closed Friday and Saturday.

“I’d like to thank the students for their feedback and the advisers for their help,” Casto said.

The coffee shop is named after Eliza J. Skinner, WVU’s first professionally trained librarian.

West Virginia University faculty, staff and students are invited to relax with a steaming cup of Starbucks coffee at the grand opening of Eliza’s at 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 20, on the fourth floor of the WVU Downtown Campus Library.

D.J. Casto, student body president, will join University officials to unveil the sign and hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony. There will also be free giveaways.

John Cuthbert, curator of the WVRHC, enjoys the first cup of java during Eliza’s soft opening.

Eliza’s will offer espresso drinks, fresh-brewed Starbucks coffee, tea, hot chocolate, blended drinks to order, Italian sodas, bottled soft drinks, juice and water. Food items – jumbo-size muffins, bagels, biscotti and oversized cookies plus a variety of healthy snacks – will also be available for purchase.

Beverages in Eliza’s containers will be permitted in other areas of the library. Hours will be Sunday-Wednesday 3 p.m.-midnight and Thursday 3-9 p.m. Eliza’s will be closed Friday and Saturday.

The library coffee shop run by WVU Dining Services is among a handful of campus facility improvement projects requested by the Student Government Association, Casto said. Other projects include a Burger King slated to open next month in the Mountainlair and a ’Lair Vandalia Lounge makeover scheduled to begin in July.

The coffee shop is named after WVU’s first professionally trained librarian, Eliza J. Skinner, who served as library director from 1897-1902. Prior to her appointment, librarians were either unmarried women looking for acceptable “genteel” employment or professors who tended the library in their spare time, according to WVU Libraries.

Skinner is credited with, among other things, classifying the University’s library books according to the Dewey Decimal System, starting a dictionary catalog, abolishing a $2 deposit previously charged to borrow a book, instituting open shelves for books and establishing a faculty library committee.

In 1902, she resigned to accept a position in the cataloging department of the Library of Congress.

jc

Graduation no longer means bidding farewell to the West Virginia University Libraries.

A partnership between the WVU Alumni Association and the WVU Libraries now connects alumni with many of the valuable library resources students use daily. Alumni Association Chair Jim Gardill announced the initiative known as the WVU Alumni Library Gateway during the Capital Classic Luncheon at the Charleston Embassy Suites on Jan. 25.

“Many of our alumni have expressed an interest in accessing our library online resources, and we want to thank Dean Frances O’Brien and her staff for their assistance in developing this unique program,” Gardill told the audience. “I know our alumni will be excited about this new endeavor.”

Among its multiple features, the Alumni Library Gateway provides users with quick access, from the comfort of home, to thousands of articles in reliable journals. The convenience of instantly finding useful information is something WVU students, faculty and staff have grown accustomed to on campus. The expectation is that alumni will appreciate that power, too.

“When you want to know more about a topic, perhaps global warming, Alan Greenspan, or the Winter Olympics, you can retrieve full-text online articles that are more reliable than some Internet sites,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien and Steve Douglas, alumni association president and chief executive officer, first began discussing alumni access to WVU Libraries’ resources a few years ago. However, it only recently became feasible when EBSCO, one of the Libraries’ database providers, began offering alumni packages to schools.

Typically, academic libraries must sign license agreements that only permit students and faculty to access library electronic resources and exclude alumni. WVU is the first university in West Virginia to offer these popular EBSCO databases to alumni.

“We are pleased to team with WVU Libraries to provide our members with quick and easy access to a wealth of information through the WVU library system,” Douglas said. “For some time, our alumni have expressed an interest in using these resources, and we are excited to offer them this new program as an added benefit through membership in the WVU Alumni Association.”

Initially, the service will be available to all WVU alumni. Simply go to the Alumni Association webpage http://alumni.wvu.edu/, click on the Gateway icon, and type in your password assigned by the Alumni Association. If you have not received a password, please contact the Association at alumni@mail.wvu.edu. After March 1, access will be limited to current members of the Alumni Association who register for the service. Alumni can register on the Association’s webpage.

Among the selections are EBSCO’s Academic Search Alumni Edition and Business Source Alumni Edition, both databases offering full-text electronic journal articles from more than 3,500 academic journals.

This introductory version of the Gateway may only be the beginning. If alumni like the service, O’Brien plans to investigate additional databases that could be added.

The West Virginia University Downtown Library Complex will soon be a place that students will be able to kick back and enjoy a cup of coffee while braving those familiar all-night study sessions.

Expected to be completed near the end of February, Eliza’s, named after WVU’s first professionally trained librarian, will be up and running, giving the fourth floor of the library a whole new edge.

But some students aren’t just looking for any old coffee beans. With Starbucks already on board as the supplier for the new library fix, WVU activists have been working alongside the popular coffee chain to ensure that all the coffee that passes through the fourth floor will be fair-trade.

“With the introduction of fair-traded coffee at Starbucks, it will create a precedent leading to other products on campus being of a fair trade,” said student Gibran Mancus. “This higher standard of equitable commerce spreads democracy and shows WVU as a leader of academic institutions in the effort of improving our global community.”

According to the Organic Consumers Web site, the $3 the average person spends on a gourmet cup of coffee is the rough equivalent of the daily wages for a coffee picker in Central America.

Fair-trade coffee offers an opportunity to help farmers of the world earn more sufficient wages equal to the work put into their product.
The money from fair-trade coffee goes directly to the farmer rather than passing through a middle man, where wages would normally be cut, leaving the farmer with the bare minimum to survive.

“As leaders of democracy we must be conscious of what conditions exist in order for us to have the products we use,” Mancus said. “This is what fair trade is all about. People being willing to pay a fair price in order to improve the lives of the people on the other side of the coin.”

With the introduction of fair-trade coffee, the annual income of farmers in developing nations has nearly doubled, leaving more than 500,000 people in 20 developing nations living above the poverty line, according to the Starbucks fair-trade campaign.
Amnesty International and the Peoples Progressive Community have already contacted the representatives of Starbucks and are currently in the process of demanding only the best for WVU.