Sunday, April 10, marks the beginning of National Library Week, and the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library has several events planned to celebrate.

Students can attend a book sale, listen to guest speakers, participate in a video and daily trivia contest and donate food items to pay for overdue fines.

“It’s a time for everyone to celebrate libraries,” said John Heintz, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library associate director. “There’s a lot of activity around Library Week, and it’s a way to get the word out to our communities, here at St. Thomas or our broader communities, about the value of libraries to society.”

Library Week events

The Falling Book Dominoes event, held before noon Monday, April 11, kicks off Library Week. The book dominoes will lead from the front door to the leather room, where the book sale will be held.

The book sale will be open every day of Library Week from noon until 6 p.m. Students and faculty can browse a selection of books including history books, biographies, novels and non-fiction books.

“These books have been weeded from our own library and also books that have been donated throughout the year by various people,” said Julie Kimlinger, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library administrative assistant.

Students can also make up for overdue library fines by donating canned food items for the Food for Fines project. One canned item is equivalent to $2 in fines. The project starts with Library Week and will continue until the end of the semester. Donated food will be given to the Franciscan Brothers of Peace in St. Paul.

“Hopefully students will take advantage of that,” Kimlinger said. “It’s kind of a win-win for everybody.”

Sophomore Katie Monnin said she plans to spend more time in the library during Library Week to participate in the events.

“I’ll definitely try to stop by for some of the smaller events that they have or maybe do my homework more in the library that week,” Monnin said. “I’m definitely going to mention to my friends that study in the library all the time, ‘You should definitely go on these days because these fun events are going on and you can get free stuff.’”

Using technology to interact with the library

Students can answer a daily trivia question during Library Week on the library’s website.

“That’s kind of a popular stop on Library Week. People that are here over and over again kind of look for that,” Kimlinger said.

Students can also participate in a video contest before the Monday, April 11, deadline. The two minutes or shorter video should focus on the theme, “Create your own story at UST Libraries.” Contestants can upload their videos to YouTube and share the link on the library’s Facebook page.
A panel of judges will choose the video contest winner, and the video that is most “liked” on Facebook will win the “most popular video” prize. The winners receive iTunes gift cards and all participants receive a Coffee Bene free coffee coupon.

Kimlinger said quick-response barcodes will be placed throughout the library during Library Week that will lead students to prizes, such as a free coffee coupon.

Guest speakers and receptions

Linda Hulbert, associate director for collection management and services, will talk about the library’s new research online feature at 2 p.m. Monday, April 11.

“Research online is what we call a digital repository of scholarship,” Heintz said. “So faculty will be able to put published publications that they have written on there so that they can make that available to the rest of the world.”

The new feature will also include electronic theses and dissertations for the graduate program.

St. Paul poet laureate Carol Connolly will read from her latest book and sign book copies at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

“She is well-known in the Twin Cities,” Kimlinger said about the author. “She just got her second book published and said she became a writer by accident later in life, so she has an interesting story.”

In addition to these two speakers, a reception will be held for published St. Thomas faculty members.

“They’re invited to send in what they’ve done in the past year,” Kimlinger said.

Hard copies of these faculty publications will be on display in the library.

Looking forward to Library Week

Heintz said he appreciates the hard work that goes into planning Library Week and hopes faculty and students enjoy the week just as much.

“We have a ball during library week,” he said. “People worked hard at setting up these events and we think they’re fun events and of value to people. We really want to show off what we have and what we can do for students.”

Kimlinger said she is looking forward to “having more and more students and faculty discover what goes on here and finding things that they didn’t know and now can make use of.”

For more information, students can visit the Library Week website.

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.