In April 2009, the OsoFast Delivery program marks 18 months of service to Baylor faculty. The University Libraries are pleased to celebrate this milestone by expanding the service to include digital delivery of articles and/or chapters from print collections found in the Central Libraries. While physical delivery of books and other circulating library material is greatly appreciated and has become a valuable service in its own right, faculty across the campus have expressed great interest in having better access to journal and magazine articles that are currently only available in print. We are excited to offer this new service and encourage faculty to submit article requests through OsoFast at their convenience.

While physical delivery requires departmental authorization to participate, all faculty across the campus are automatically eligible to use OsoFast Delivery for articles. Please direct questions by email to BU_ILS@baylor.edu or by phone to Janet Jasek at 710-3054 or Ken Carriveau at 710-4607. Please visit our webpage at  for future updates related to the OsoFast Delivery service.

Any late night visit to the Central Libraries, including Moody Memorial Library and Jesse H. Jones Library, will show studying is no longer an 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. pursuit.  Today’s students need a comfortable area where they can plug in their laptops, spread out their materials, work with their classmates and be able to go there whenever their schedule dictates.

Because of the overwhelming requests by students for study spaces like those in both the Information Commons and the Success Center, planners wanted to implement the same type of design in the recently renovated Moody study space closest to the Harvey Garden.

“Today’s students create their own space for their own learning styles,” said Tim Logan , director of the Electronic Library.”That is why we wanted the new space on the garden level to allow them to define their space with furniture that is functional, flexible and comfortable.”

To best determine which types of furniture are most utilized by students, an assortment of seating arrangements have been purchased including soft seating, movable dry-erase boards, tables and chairs. Workers installed more plugs for laptops along the garden wall, and there is also a Post & Beam divider containing fixed dry-erase boards, a high counter with stools and two different alcoves for group studying.

“If we provide students with this movable and adaptable furniture, then they will have the tools they need and the ability to create their study space at the time and in the way they need it,” said Tim Logan.

Over the next few weeks, library staff will observe how students use these furniture arrangements before purchasing additional seating for the Gregory Garden side of the library. This will be done through direct observation throughout the day and evening as well as observing how the furniture has been reconfigured by students for late-night study sessions. In addition, construction will begin in mid-May on new ADA-compliant restrooms and a second entrance to the enclosed Harvey Garden.

Baylor University will observe Earth Week from April 20-24, 2009. The week begins with a Sustainability Fair on Monday, April 20, 2009, from 11:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. on the Fountain Mall. The Fair will feature representatives from Aramark Dining Services, Keep Waco Beautiful, the University Sustainability Committee, and other local student and community groups sharing their contributions to sustainability.

Following the Sustainability Fair, the University Sustainability Committee will host a teach-in on the fifth floor of Cashion Academic Center at 4:00 p.m. The teach-in features Dr. David Garland, Interim President of Baylor University; Dr. Sascha Usenko, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science; and Dale Barron, Development Director of the World Hunger Relief Farm. Each speaker will offer a 10-12 minute presentation about sustainability from within his own area of expertise. Following the presentations, the speakers will entertain questions from the audience in what organizers hope will result in a community conversation about sustainability.

Earth Week will also mark the launch of a campus energy conservation effort focusing on lights, monitors and elevators. The “Last Out, Lights Out” initiative will encourage members of the Baylor community to turn the lights out in classrooms and other facilities when they are unoccupied. Baylor faculty and staff will be encouraged to turn off their computer monitors both when the office is closed and also when away from the office. To encourage this campus-wide effort, monitors on campus public computers will be set to power down during low usage hours, except in high traffic areas so as not to diminish the effectiveness of the campus screensaver for publicity. Finally, a “Take the Stairs” effort will encourage everyone in the Baylor community to opt for the stairs instead of the elevator whenever possible as a way to reduce energy use.

Following on Baylor’s recent successes in Recyclemania, Earth Week hopes to continue to raise awareness about sustainable living both on campus and in the Waco community. Given the impact of our way of life on the environment, it is important as part of the Baylor experience to place a spotlight on environmental/ecological concerns.

For more information, visit the Earth Day website.

To commemorate the Centennial Celebration of the Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing, an exhibition is currently on display in the Allbritton Foyer of the Moody Memorial Library. You are invited to come see various historic items on loan from the nursing school, as well as photos and other displays highlighting its impact on the Baptist, state, national and global communities over the last 100 years. This exhibit is also part of the University’s Baptist 400 Celebration and will run through mid-June.

The Riley Digitization Center is the proud home of a new Cruse large-format scanner, the first available in a Texas university. Cruse scanners are used world-wide by organizations such as the Library of Congress in D.C., the Vatican’s Secret Archives and NASA / Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to name a few.

Our Cruse Model CS 285 ST can scan objects up to 59″ x 88″ and several inches deep. It uses a camera mounted on a central column that scans objects passed below on the “sync table,” a platform equipped with a series of vacuums designed to hold large paper-based objects in place during the scanning process. The scanner can also be used to image items such as framed artwork on canvas — a special light setting allows operators to create images that highlight the artwork’s topography.

The Cruse scanner has already been used to digitize a series of Civil War maps created by the U.S. government in the 1890s, as well as a group of architectural renderings of the Armstrong Browning Library. Upcoming projects include the digitization of a large collection of maps housed at the Texas Collection at the Carroll Library and the newly-restored Henry McArdle portrait of Judge R.E.B. Baylor.