Message from the Dean

In January 2002, WVU students will come back to campus for second semester to a new downtown campus library. They will see new group study spaces, new library classrooms, and new media facilities. Perhaps more important, they will enjoy a new library facility where students, faculty, and scholars can meet, talk, discuss ideas, reflect and study, and find both the historic and the newest information in their field.

I think most of us have an image in our minds of the library. In Elizabeth Berg's new novel, Never Change, her characters visit a library and speak of the familiar atmosphere we all know. They speak of " … a weighty richness in the air. A rough equivalent to the sound the pendulum of a large grandfather clock makes, swinging. Or to the sight of someone's head bowed over a book, a wash of late afternoon sunlight illuminating the pages."

The WVU Libraries have always been distinguished by high quality service to our users. Last year we responded to more than 37,000 in-person requests for reference and research information. This year we have added new services for WVU distance learners, and are experimenting with live, real-time reference assistance online. We are investigating ways to improve our interlibrary loan services, and we are learning new ways to use our online public access catalog system so library users can search not only our print collections, but also our growing electronic full text journal collections. Our Electronic Course Reserve, and Electronic Theses and Dissertations services continue to grow. We are taking the first steps toward digitizing some of our unique West Virginia and Regional History Collection materials, so citizens throughout the State could see some of our history.

The new downtown campus library represents the ideas of many innovative and dedicated people at WVU. It is an extraordinary commitment to serving library users. Our mission will continue to be to find the best ways to provide information to the WVU community and the state, using both in-person and virtual library services. We will provide the needed books, journal articles, reference sources, electronic texts, images, manuscripts, maps, and audio-visual media. In the midst of a changing world for library and information services, excellent library service and the success of our varied library users will continue to be our goals. Is the nostalgia still there? Yes, and I hope it never goes away. Libraries have always been more than just warehouses for books. Like Elizabeth Berg's characters, come visit the WVU Libraries and experience the distinctive joy of a library for yourself.

Frances O'Brien

Ex Libris is published quarterly by the WVU Libraries
P.O. Box 6069 Morgantown WV 26506-6069
www.libraries.wvu.edu
(304) 293-4040