Extended library hours begin Saturday, May 3.
Saturday 8:30am - 10:00pm
Sunday 1:30pm - 2:00am
Mon-Wed 7:30am - 2:00am
Thursday 7:30am - 8:00pm
Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm
Sat/Sun CLOSED
Coffee, lemonade, and snacks served Sunday-Wednesday, 6:00 - 9:30 pm
Good luck on finals! Have a great summer!
I’d like to take this opportunity to say that it has been a pleasure to serve you this past year in all your interlibrary loan needs. As we wind down the end of the year, please make sure that you are aware of the following important dates:
LAST DAY TO REQUEST BOOKS
Monday, April 28
LAST DAY TO REQUEST ARTICLES
Wednesday, April 30
ALL BOOKS BORROWED THROUGH ILL DUE BACK
Friday, May 2
Good luck in all your finals, term papers, projects, etc. during the next couple weeks, and best wishes to all those who are graduating and moving on!
To those who are returning, ILL will have a very different look next fall. Over the summer we will be implementing a new ILL management system called ILLiad. (See what they did there? They used ILL, which stands for Interlibrary Loan, and then added the ”-iad” to create the word Illiad, just like the story by Homer.) This program also uses a document delivery system called Odyssey. (Isn’t that all so clever?!)
This software will streamline the way you request and receive items, and will put more control in your hands (i.e. you will be able to track every request you make from the time you submit the request, until the time it is ready to be picked up).
When you return to campus in the fall, you will have the opportunity to create your own ILLiad account, and start to see and use the benefits of this new program. We’re very excited to have this wonderful system coming to Ramaker and NWC!
Enjoy your summer, and God bless in whatever you may do!
April is National Poetry Month. First celebrated in 1995, National Poetry Month is the Academy of American Poets’ annual celebration of poetry.
I wondered why they picked April. I had some guesses, but thanks to the Academy of American Poets’ web site, I now know for certain:
With input from booksellers, librarians, poets, and teachers, the Academy chose a month during the school year so that schools and students could participate fully. February is Black History Month and March is Women’s History Month, so April seemed a logical choice. Also, there are many wonderful poetic references to April:
T. S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month.” It is our hope that National Poetry Month lessens that effect.
On a lighter note, Chaucer wrote:
Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr
Finally, Edna St. Vincent Millay asked, “To what purpose, April, do you return again?” For National Poetry Month, of course!
I recently discovered a short poem I like by a former American poet laureate, Ted Kooser. Since the Northwestern community has spent time recently analyzing our place here on the prairie, Kooser’s A Birthday Poem resonated with me. Using a cow as the comparison, he describes both the sun and himself. A fellow Midwesterner (born in Iowa, even), Kooser uses what he encounters everyday to describe more than what is there. You can read the entire text of the poem on the Library of Congress web site.
Ramaker Library holds most of Kooser’s books in its collection, if you’re interested in reading more.
You can access EBSCOhost, JSTOR, ProjectMuse and other electronic resources from off campus:
1. Go to the library homepage:
<http://www.nwciowa.edu/library/>.
2. Click on the “Off-campus Access” link on the library homepage.
It is under both the “For Faculty” and “For Students” sections.
3. After clicking on the link, you will see some instructions and another link <Vpn.nwciowa.edu>. Click on this link.
4. You will come to a page (a very red page!) at the top of which you will see a link to Ramaker Library. Click this link.
[You may encounter a Microsoft message to the effect of "this is not a recommended site." Disregard the message and continue.]
5. After completing step 4, you should see the library homepage again. You can now access all the resources just as if you are on campus.
The library will close Thursday, March 20 at 5:00 pm and will open on Monday, March 24 at 8:00am. We will be closed from Friday, March 21 through Sunday, March 24.
Have a blessed Easter.
Greetings from the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) office! I am the library staff member Dan mentioned earlier, who has experience with missiles. You can actually find out more about the missile system
that I used while I was in the National_Guard, at the link from a search I did in Google. (scroll to the bottom of that search page to see more pictures) Or, you could find even more scholarly information at the link on Ramaker’s website to do a search for the TOW missile,
and come up with the full text results found in EBSCOhost or JSTOR. (I would sort from most recent to oldest) Of course, it would be best to start your search for missiles in Ramaker’s current holdings or any of these sites before you submit a request to ILL!
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “How does your missile experience qualify you to work in a library?”
Here’s your answer: “I don’t know!” But I will say this. Using the missile system I used does have a relationship to ILL. When I fired that missile at a tank,
I had to keep my sights on that target until the missile reached it. Otherwise, the missile would have flown off into the sky 
or into the ground. 
I couldn’t stop tracking it until the target 
was hit. When you submit a request for an item through ILL, that item becomes my target. I stay focused on that target and don’t take my sights off it until it is hit. If your request comes back unfilled, I fire again at different libraries until that target is reached, or every option is exhausted. If I didn’t, your request would go off into cyberspace
never to be seen again, and I would have missed the target. So, everytime you submit a request to ILL, think of the book-and-article-requesting “missile system”
in Ramaker. (It’s in the office to the left of the circulation desk) I’m here to help you meet your educational needs and goals 
by getting you the information you desire.
If you ever have any questions, want to talk about missiles or the military, or about my last job as a high school choir director,
email me or come on over to my office . My door is always open! 
Bryan Van Gelder, ILL and Curriculum Library Coordinator
Friday, February 29: Closes at 4:30pm
Saturday, March 1: Closed
Sunday, March 2: Closed
Monday, March 3 - Friday, March 7: Open from 8:00am - 4:30pm
Saturday, March 8: Closed
Sunday, March 9: Closed
Monday, March 10: Open from 8:00am - 4:30pm
Tuesday, March 11: Open from 8:00am - midnight
Regular hours resume on Wednesday, March 12.
Murder in the Stacks
A Mystery Writing Event Celebrating the Minding Place Symposium
Do you like to write? Do you like mysteries? Would you like to write the first chapter of a mystery? The staff of Ramaker Library invites you to submit the first chapter of a mystery that is set in a library—the library in your hometown, the library of your alma mater, the library of your imagination, or even Ramaker. The title for this event comes from the 1934 book, Murder in the Stacks by Marion Boyd Havinghurst. Havinghurst wrote most of her mystery in the library at Miami University (Oxford, OH), and she sets the murder in a library similar to one at Miami University. Havinghurst opens her work by writing, “In a particularly charming spot in one of our maligned middle western states…”
Sound familiar? With the time, place and characters set out before you, she concludes the first chapter with the discovery of a body in the stacks and leaves you wanting to read on. You, too, can write the first chapter of a mystery. All students, staff, and faculty are invited to submit a first chapter. A panel of library staff and others from across campus will select three pieces to be dramatically read on the Day of Learning in Community. On the afternoon of April 9, during the workshop sessions, three of the submissions will be read to an audience in the library.
Please submit your chapter as a Microsoft Word document to Dan Daily ddaily@nwciowa.edu by April 1. When submitting…
· Include your name and e-mail address
· Limit your piece to 1,000 words · Indicate if are willing to have your chapter read at the Day of Learning in Community (April 9).
· Indicate if you are willing to have your chapter included in a collection of submissions that will be kept in the library and available for others to read.
Murder in the Stacks by Marion Boyd Havinghurst is on reserve in Ramaker Library.
