Reference point

              U n i v e r s i t y L i b r a r i e s ’ N e w s l e t t e r Volume 8, Issue 1
Fall 2012
Clarke Historical Library’s current exhibit, “The
Presidency,” captures more than 200 years of
dramatic presidential election campaigns.
While it offers a wide collection of legal
documents, political cartoons, books and
authentic presidential signatures, library
student employee Amber Wright is hoping
visitors pause and reflect on the importance
of what they’re observing.
“I want people to visualize standing in a
room where documents that physically went
through the hands of every U.S. President
are hanging on the wall,” says Wright, who
is studying music and art history “That’s
great, that’s amazing, and you are instantly
connected to that history dating hundreds of
years back.”
More than 100 artifacts will be displayed
through January 2013. The display room will
be constantly updated with new items as
they relate to the 2012 presidential election.
Janet Danek, CMU University Libraries
coordinator of exhibits, is excited about the
upcoming additions.
“The exhibit is historic at the moment, but
during the election it will be more of a
history-in-the-making showcase,” Danek says.
“Things will be changing during the course
of the election campaigns, so there will be
much more to see.”
Some of the featured pieces include political
cartoons. Since the turn of the twentieth
century, political cartoons have been used to
humiliate candidates or to persuade readers
toward a particular point of view.
“The exhibit shows the continuity within
American politics,” says Frank Boles, Clarke
Historical Library director. “The idea that the
president is incompetent is not a new idea.
It’s more of a standard for political cartoonists
and viewers who tour the exhibit can see
how it appears during election season.”
Danek says the exhibit will introduce visitors
to the immense wonders of history and
provide excellent examples of the many
unique things that Clarke Historical Library
has to offer. •
Reference Point is published
biannually by University Libraries.
Address questions and suggestions to:
Office of the Dean
Park Library 407D
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
Editorial Board
Thomas J. Moore
Dean of Libraries
Richard Cochran
Associate Dean of Libraries
Megan Moreno, ‘06
Director of Development and
Community Outreach
Gerry Edgar
Manager, Library Business Services
Reference Point Coordinator
Production
CMU University Communications
Writers
Chelsey Colston
Dan Digmann
Katie Pohlman
Darryll Stinson
Editor
Dan Digmann
Designer
Trevor Grabill, ’10
Photographers
Robert Barclay
Peggy Brisbane
Printing
CMU Printing Services
Libraries’ website
lib.cmich.edu
Academic Year
Library Hours
Mon - Thurs: 7:50 a.m. - Midnight
Fri: 7:50 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sat: 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sun: Noon - Midnight
Reference Desk
989-774-3470
libref@cmich.edu
CMU, an AA/EO institution, strongly and actively strives to increase
diversity within its community (see cmich.edu, keyword: AAEO).
UComm 8689
Ceaseless process
Growth and
progress in
libraries happen
like growth
and progress
in other service
organizations:
through constant
commitment
to improve
the service
experiences
and success of
clientele. In the
CMU Libraries this means working hard
today so that students, faculty, staff, and
visitors have even better library services
tomorrow.
It’s a ceaseless process. Across the range
of library collections and services that we
provide – in Park Library and electronically
through our websites – our librarians and
staff are engaged in dozens of efforts to
increase the positive impact of what we
do on teaching, learning, and research at
Central Michigan University.
One big effort underway now is the
redevelopment of our University
Library, Clarke Historical Library, and
Global Campus websites. In addition to
converting these sites to operate under
a new university-wide web software
platform, we’re also enriching them
to provide greater ease of use and
research power. Through use of a highly
sophisticated “discovery layer,” a single
search on a topic from the website
homepage will identify the books, journal
articles, videos, and other items now
requiring knowledge of multiple databases
and multiple separate searches.
An especially gratifying aspect of this
initiative for us in the Libraries is that the
“discovery layer” will reveal more of the
excellent resources, sometimes hard to
uncover by inexperienced researchers,
present in our vast print and digital
collections. This will help students
especially get greater academic benefit
from CMU’s large cumulative investment in
library collections.
Just about everywhere one looks in the
CMU Libraries there are projects underway
to review, streamline, add to, or reorganize
in quest of greater results and efficiency
in meeting the library needs of the CMU
community. Many of them are driven by
the ineluctable dynamism of technology,
but all of them are directed toward
achieving excellent library service for each
individual library patron.
An especially significant example of
adding to library services is our intensifying
preparations to support CMU’s new
College of Medicine, for which the initial
class of students will arrive next summer.
As you’ll see in this Reference Point issue,
we’ve recruited our first medical librarian,
Bradley Long, and he and others, including
medical faculty, are determining collection
needs and planning purchases of a large
array of digital resources. The Libraries
will, of course, provide services to medical
students and faculty on the Mount
Pleasant campus, as well as provide them
digitally to students and faculty at clinical
sites elsewhere.
I hope you find in this current issue of
Reference Point plenty of examples of
growth and progress in the CMU Libraries.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me or
other members of the library staff if you
have questions or comments.
Tom Moore
Dean of Libraries
Tom Moore
> Dean’s Column
Updating resources to enhance users’ experiences
library.cmich.edu/pubs for more
2
Speaking of history
University of California, Berkeley, Professor
Emeritus Robert Knapp felt at home when
he pulled a chair up to the Clarke Historical
Library table and began poring through
past Clare County homestead maps.
This is a common activity for Knapp each
time he returns to Michigan, visits his
alma mater and utilizes its resources to
research his family’s or the region’s history,
depending on what his project is at
the time.
“You can’t take history away from a
historian,” says Knapp, a 1968 CMU
graduate who was valedictorian of the
mid-year graduating class. “I wanted to do
research on the logging history of the Clare
area, but when I started poking around I
became more and more interested in the
town itself. I’m currently working on a book
about the 1938 murder of Isaiah Leebove,
who was linked to the Purple Gang and
killed in the bar at the Doherty Hotel. ”
Knapp had returned to campus earlier this
year to speak at the Friends of the Libraries
Annual Luncheon and came back in early
November to receive CMU’s Distinguished
Alumni Award.
He says he never would have dreamed
that the university where he grew up and
earned his degree would recognize him
in such a way. In addition to graduating
from CMU, Knapp also attended the lab
school here because his dad, Austin, was
a political science professor, and his mom,
Gail, was a history department secretary.
“It was such a surprise and is such an
honor,” Knapp says. “I know my father and
grandmother, both CMU grads, would be
proud. And I have never lost my affection
for Central, Mount Pleasant and Clare.”
At the Friends of the Libraries luncheon,
Knapp spoke on “Ordinary People of
Ancient Rome: The Empire’s 99%.” His
presentation was based on his most recent
book, “Invisible Romans.”
Knapp says that he taught a course on
Roman civilization at the University of
California, Berkeley, and over time he
became dissatisfied with the textbooks’
focus on the elite such as Julius Caesar and
Augustus. They were the one percent, but
there was little about the other 99 percent,
according to Knapp.
“This 99 percent were the ordinary people,
and ordinary people drive any culture,” he
says.
In developing the book, Knapp says he
discovered there areseveral sources that
provided glimpses into the lives of invisible
Romans, including New Testament Gospels
and Epistles, books of ancient dream
interpretations, astrological texts and
epigraphy on the grave stones.
“I was able to knit the strands together
enough to tell their stories,” Knapp says. “I
didn’t want it to be a dry, scholarly book, I
wanted one that was carefully grounded
in the facts, but entertaining as well as
informative. ”
“Invisible Romans” was published by
Harvard University Press and has been
featured in publications including The New
Yorker Magazine and the Washington Post. •
K n a p p, ’ 6 8 , c o n t i n u e s c o n n e c t i o n w i t h C M U
3
Robert Knapp
Bradley Long doesn’t have a medical
degree, but he still is a pivotal player in
the team developing CMU’s College of
Medicine curriculum.
Long is the first medical librarian hired to
serve students and faculty in the College
of Medicine, which will have its first class
of 60 students begin in August 2013.
His involvement supports curriculum
decisions as well as developing the library’s
medical school collection.
“I’m an active participant and am at
the meetings not only to listen to the
faculty’s needs but to help them to
understand my needs as a librarian so
we can work together on behalf of the
quality education of the students,” says
Long, who began working in June. “And as
much as the medical librarians are here for
the students, we’re also here to help the
faculty.”
Medicinalpurpose
Librarian advances College of Medicine learning, resources
This type of active engagement will
continue when the second medical
librarian is hired later this academic year
and classes start next summer.
“We’re going to be embedded with the
students during group learning sessions,”
Long says. “This will help to show them
the library is more than the books and
journals and that the most important thing
is that the librarians are there to meet their
information needs.
“I’ve become a jack of all trades in the
health sciences,” he says. “You don’t have
to know everything about everything, you
just need to know where to find it.”
Long has concentrated his career on
serving as a medical librarian after earning
his undergraduate degree in health
sciences at Lock Haven University of
Pennsylvania and his Master of Science in
Library Science degree at Clarion University
of Pennsylvania.
4
Bradley Long
College of Medicine doctors already are
working on advanced research projects.
The medical library in the College of
Medicine Building is referred to as the
Learning Commons.
Online journal documents experiments via video
A new tool for CMU students studying science and medicine is
the Journal of Visualized Experiments.
This peer-reviewed online journal posts research content
and recorded experiments. As a valued resource noted for its
presenting visually captivating experiments, the Journal of
Visualized Experiments facilitates understanding a variety of
experimental techniques.
“This journal is a great resource that shows people how to do
different kinds of experiments,” says Matthew Ismail the library’s
director of collection development. “Students can benefit from
watching the videos over and over, rather than just watching it
once in a classroom setting.”
Ismail hopes that students will utilize this resource and benefit
from the experiments and in-depth descriptions provided.
The videos in the Journal of Visualized Experiments vary according
to complexity and are designed to be viewed in a 10-minute
timeframe. Steps and content of every experiment are listed to
the right of each video, giving students a step-by-step breakdown
of procedures as experiments unfold.
Students can access more than 1,000 experiments from the
Journal of Visualized Experiments any time by using the libraries’
catalog. Videos can be stopped, restarted and shared, allowing
students to view the information at their convenience.
“The Journal of Visualized Experiments is an important tool in
the library due to the significance and growth of the health
professions, neuroscience and medical programs at CMU,” says
Ismail. “When supporting these programs, an online journal such
as this one is a very useful resource.”
CMU subscribed to the Journal of Visualized Experiments in the
spring of 2012. Since then it has received positive feedback from
many faculty members. •
His previous positions include head of
reference and liaison services in the State
University of New York Upstate Medical
University’s Health Sciences Library,
serials and electronic collections librarian
at Thomas Jefferson University’s Scott
Memorial Library, and medical librarian at
Pittsburgh’s St. Francis Medical Center’s
Health Sciences Library.
Is there a librarian in the house?
Launching a medical school library
that is part of CMU’s existing University
Libraries is one of the features that drew
Long to CMU and its new College of
Medicine. He also was attracted to the
medical school’s mission focused on
training medical doctors to serve in rural
communities, explaining that his family
in rural Pennsylvania lived 25 miles from
the nearest doctor and 100 miles from the
nearest major medical center.
Immediate access to the medical
library’s collection is important for the
students completing their clinical work
at affiliated hospitals and medical centers
in communities across the region as well
as at the CMU College of Medicine’s east
campus in Saginaw.
This why Long says there are no
bookshelves in the medical library room
– called the “Learning Commons” – of the
College of Medicine Building on CMU’s
main Mount Pleasant campus. The entire
collection of books, journals and various
databases will be available online.
“Having access to all this information is
very critical,” says Long adding that there
are nearly 8,000 journals, 2,000 books and
various databases available electronically.
“When I started in the profession, students
had to swipe a card to get into the medical
library at three in the morning. Now they
have remote access 24/7.”
The CMU College of Medicine will train
generations of physicians to serve the
communities of mid- and northern
Michigan and the Upper Peninsula with
a focus on primary care and general
specialties. To date, the college has
received more than 2,300 applications. •
5
Donor support helps to keep Libraries current
Advancing technology
> Development Column
6
Megan Moreno
A 11,000,000
Michigan newspaper pages preserved on
microfilm at Clarke Historical Library
28
33
Days for an
undergraduate
student book
loan
Miles of compact
movable shelving
in Park Library
capabilities. At a cost of $100,000, the
upgrade has vastly improved the quality of
experience for both presenters – including
prominent visiting speakers – and attendees
alike. We know that in several years another
round of auditorium upgrades, large or
small, will be necessary, and assistance from
donors in developing a fund in advance
to support it would be an excellent way to
ensure future quality for all who enter the
auditorium.
The “Dean’s Column” in this issue of
Reference Point notes the exciting
implementation of a “discovery layer” that
will significantly enhance access to the
Libraries’ research collections. However,
the column doesn’t mention that even
after a large implementation expense this
marvelous new tool comes with an annual
cost to the Libraries of about $60,000.
There’s a long list of other technology-related
needs in the Libraries that grows
steadily even while our university budgets
don’t: converting our large teaching
collection of films from VHS to DVD, since
VHS players are becoming non-existent;
purchasing software upgrades for our book
checkout system; and, of course, building
digital collections of books and journals to
keep up with the curriculum and student
demand for 24/7 access.
As you can see, each need is an opportunity
for designated charitable support with gifts
large or small. For those who give, I can
assure in return the personal satisfaction
of knowing your contribution will benefit
students and faculty across all academic
areas.
If you’d like additional information, please
contact me. I look forward to helping you
determine how your financial support can
best meet the needs of students and faculty
and also satisfy your philanthropic wishes.
Megan Moreno
Director of Library Development and
While academic libraries always need plenty
of books and journals – in physical and
digital forms – libraries today also need
plenty of technology. Many contemporary
library
services are
provided
through or
supported by
technology
and have
costs about
which many
people are
unaware.
I’d like to
share with
you a few
examples of the technology-related services
of the CMU Libraries, and their costs, and
thereby suggest some opportunities for
donors to help keep library technology and
services current.
Park Library offers 360 computers for
student use. These heavily used machines,
which have features and software most
students’ own computers don’t have, are
replaced every four or five years at a cost of
almost $500,000. Though this is financially
challenging, it is essential to the Libraries’
ability to provide excellence in service. We
try to set aside dollars, including donor
funds, annually.
Our five heavily used, mediated group
study rooms, booked free of charge and on
a first-come, first-served basis, have large
display screens to allow several students to
view one student’s laptop to aid learning
and collaboration. The cost to mediate
one group study room is about $5,000.
Mediating more of our 21 rooms would
benefit more students.
The 144-seat Park Library Auditorium,
an impressive setting in high demand
by departments and groups from across
campus, received a complete upgrade in
2011 to repair and enhance its audio-visual
7
N u m b e r o f
98.7 Hours the library is open in an average week
during the academic year 61
2 Time in the
morning Extended
Hours Study hours
end 5,000 Cubic feet of manuscripts and finding aids at
Clarke Historical Library
197 Course indicator for library introduction
and information research course
1,300,000
Park Library’s volume storage capacity
More than 27,000 Journal titles available digitally and in print 2,655
Park Library patron seating capacity
Individual
study rooms
available for
students,
faculty and
staff
L i b r a r y Fa c t s
3
Ways to search for journal
articles using the Global
Campus Library Services
(database by subject, database
by name, find a specific
known article)
88
With the cadence and conviction of an
established storyteller, Bob Kohrman
turned an 1873 piece on the Michigan
grayling – a long-since extinct fish – into
poetic prose.
“Its back is of dark-grey color, and its sides
are covered with fine whitish silver scales
running in well-defined lateral lines, and
dotted with shining diminutive black spots
a half-inch or so apart, especially about the
shoulders,” Kohrman read from his original
copy of Charles Hallock’s quintessential
angling book, “The Fishing Tourist.”
There are nearly four pages about
the grayling in this book that hooked
Kohrman, a CMU College of Science and
Technology dean emeritus, into the fish’s
short-lived story. The grayling, for which
the northern Michigan city is a namesake,
was discovered in 1865 and died off nearly
half a century later in the 1930s.
“I became interested in the grayling in the
early 1980s, wondering where did it exist?
How did it become extinct?” Kohrman says.
“Reading about the grayling in ‘The Fishing
Tourist’ was enough to whet my appetite
to learn more about it.”
Kohrman’s quest led him to build a
timeless personal angling collection of
extremely rare periodicals, books and
other printed publications that he plans on
donating to Clarke Historical Library.
He gathered sparse bits of information
here and there gleaning from various
library angling collections, such as Clarke
Historical Library and libraries nationwide
including the Library of Congress. Because
there weren’t many fishing-related books
printed in the immediate post-Civil War
era, historic periodicals quickly became his
primary information and research source.
Kohrman’s background is in chemistry,
specializing in areas such as organic
synthesis. He says while his research in the
Michigan grayling is more in line with a
biology project, the practices used in his
profession are quite similar to his hobby.
“Both interests involve solving a puzzle,
and bit by bit you put the pieces together
until you have the answers,” he says.
Among nation’s best
collections
Through his steadfast pursuit of
understanding the demise of the Michigan
grayling, Kohrman concluded it became
extinct for three reasons: it was over-fished
following the state’s tourism focus
on the sport, it wasn’t a native species
to Michigan and the state’s commercial
logging business disrupted the grayling’s
ecosystem. Kohrman’s papers on his
research are included in the current and
forthcoming issues of The American Fly
Fisher, the peer-reviewed journal of the
American Museum of Fly Fishing.
Kohrman’s personal angling collection
will complement the already extensive
materials at the Clarke, which include
The Reed Draper Angling Collection.
Grayling in Michigan
Kohrman’s interests boost
library angling holdings
Robert Kohrman looks through one of the bound periodicals he’s
collected while researching the now-extinct Michigan grayling.
9
northern Exposure
Libraries’ Hemingway collection
shines at conference
Summers in Michigan, clear lakes, warm evenings and picturesque
sunsets.
Ernest Hemingway enjoyed the beautiful landscapes, great fishing
and the freedom from care for many summers in Michigan.
Members of the International Hemingway Society joined in
the renowned author’s love for the state by spending time this
summer in Northern Michigan for the 15th Biennial Conference in
Petoskey.
“The conference was a wonderful opportunity to showcase
resources regarding Ernest Hemingway’s life in Michigan,” says
Frank Boles, Clarke Historical Library director.
CMU Libraries were among sponsors of the conference, which
featured the exhibit “Hemingway in Michigan” in downtown
Petoskey and closed with a banquet at the Bay Harbor Yacht Club.
This conference provided attendees opportunities to view
selections from CMU Libraries’ extensive collection of Hemingway
materials, including letters, photographs and several unpublished
stories.
“The conference really helped the Hemingway Society understand
Central’s resources,” Boles says.
The conference also helped the library advance its relationship
with the Michigan Hemingway Society.
“This provided us another opportunity to work cooperatively to
promote Hemingway’s life in Michigan,” Boles says.
In addition to a rich collection that includes materials depicting
Hemingway’s boyhood adventures in northern Michigan, the
Clarke Historical Library also holds one of the state’s premier
collections of Michigan local history material. This collection
documents much about northern Michigan between 1900 and
1920, the years Ernest Hemingway frequented its streams and
forests. •
The Draper collection features books on the “gentlemanly art” of
fishing. It was a gift from the late Reed Draper (1928-2004), former
president of the National Automobile Dealers Association and
owner of the Draper auto dealerships in Saginaw.
“With the acquisition of my personal collection, the Clarke
Library’s angling collection surely will be a mark of distinction in
Michigan and quite possibly be the best in the Midwest, rivaling
other major research universities’ angling collections,” Kohrman
says.
Much of the historic documentation is preserved in electronic
formats, but Kohrman says there are no substitutes for the original
materials. Sometimes the scanning doesn’t accurately capture
all the words or x“We learn from our history,” Kohrman says.
“Having this information teaches us lessons from the past that are
important to our future.” •
Rare books are included in the angling collection Robert
Kohrman plans to donate to Clarke Historical Library.
10
Core Ten decades on Facebook
In addition to CMU President George E.
Ross’ State of the University Address on
Sept. 13, 2012, and a special reception
that followed, the university celebrated its
anniversary in a way it never has before.
Using Facebook Timeline, CMU gave its
fans an online opportunity to experience
the university’s 120-year anniversary,
debuting a decade of history every
Monday until catching up to the present
on Sept. 10.
The project was designed to bring
together generations of CMU Chippewas
for a celebration of the university’s role in
individual lives and the state as a whole.
“Social media has expanded how we
communicate,” says Sherry Knight, interim
associate vice president of university
communications. “Using Facebook and
Twitter, we’re connecting alumni, friends
and supporters from throughout the
decades and across the world to celebrate
CMU’s legacy.”
Visit CMU’s Facebook Timeline at
www.facebook.com/cmich. • •
The library helped to shape Central
Michigan University’s students and campus
since the institution was established on
Sept. 13, 1892.
As the CMU this year celebrated 120
years since opening its doors as Central
Michigan Normal School, the library has
remained a constant resource throughout
the past 12 decades.
“The library traditionally has been held
as the intellectual core,” says Frank Boles,
Clarke Historical Library director said.
“Without it, research would be extremely
difficult, if not impossible.”
The library’s original location was in the
basement of “Old Main,” the first building
constructed for the normal school.
According to the Clarke Historical Library
website, Old Main’s cornerstone was laid
on Nov. 15, 1892, but a fire of unknown
CMU Libraries’
exhibits and
events calendar
lib.cmich.edu/exhibits
‘The Presidency’
Historical look at the United States presidency, including
legal documents, political cartoons, books and authentic
presidential signatures
• Through January 2013
• 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday at Clarke
Historical Library
• clarke.cmich.edu
Native American Expressions
Featuring Native American-inspired arts and crafts
• Through December 2012
• Baber Room, Park Library
Primary Visions: Foundation Art
Students’ Exhibition
Representing student work produced in CMU’s Department
of Art and Design Foundations Program
• Jan. 2-31, 2013
• Third Floor Exhibit Area and Extended Hours Study and
Student Gallery, Park Library
Drilling for Brine: The Dow Chemical
Company Mount Pleasant Plant,
1903 – 1930
A glimpse into the company’s brief Mount Pleasant
operation
• Feb. 4 through June 2013
• 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday at Clarke
Historical Library
• clarke.cmich.edu
National Undergraduate Student Print
Exchange and Exhibition
Fifth annual exhibit featuring prints created by
nationwide students
• March 1-29, 2013
• Extended Hours Study and Student Gallery, Park Library
Rural Impressions
Highlighting works by contemporary painter Alan Maciag
• March 25 through May 6, 2013
• Baber Room, Park Library
Library fundamental Strength
It is named in honor of a Central librarian
who served students from 1931 to 1956.
The current library is actually the second
Park Library on its site since a building
constructed during the late 1960s was
gutted, expanded and reconstructed 60
percent larger. It contains more than one
million books and 33 miles of compact
shelving to meet the needs of more than
20,000 students.
“The library commits to digital resources,
providing materials online 24/7,” Boles says.
“Everyone benefits from the change of a
‘book warehouse’ to an actively engaging
resource, providing a range of services
onsite and online.”
And the library continues supporting and
shaping CMU’s student learning today and
do so decades into the future. •
origin destroyed the building on Dec. 7,
1925, along with its 30,000 volume library.
“I shall never forget the all-gone feeling
I had inside me standing two or three
hundred feet from the fiercely blazing
structure,” Anna Barnard, then head of the
foreign language department, wrote of
the fire. “I all at once realized that I was
looking straight through and seeing the
woods beyond.”
The only books to survive were those
checked out by faculty and students.
But the library, as with the school itself,
aggressively moved forward and evolved
to fit the needs of the students.
Instrumental to student learning from
1893 to 2012, the library has continued to
expand and evolve, moving from Warriner
Hall to Ronan Hall and now in 1969 to its
current location in Charles V. Park Library.
in CMU’s 120-year history
A fire in 1925 destroys Central Michigan
Normal School’s Old Main building, which
included the school’s library (above). Students
study in the library when it was located in
library.cmich.edu/pubs for more Warriner Hall (below).
12
University Libraries
Park Library 407
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
Non-profit Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
Permit No. 93
e x t r a o r d i n a r y
Proctoring center caters to students’ needs
The Charles V. Park Library has in its various
facilities over time promoted learning and
provided services to ensure success of
CMU students for a half century.
The CMU proctoring center is no
exception.
The library proctoring center complements
a similar facility available at CMU’s Global
Campus headquarters on the north side
of Mount Pleasant. It is used to administer
tests for students in online classes.
“The new proctoring center is right in the
heart of campus, making it an extremely
convenient location for students who are
enrolled in online classes,” says Marnie
Roestel, manager of student services for
CMU Online. “It is a natural fit with the
additional services that are offered in the
library.”
The newly expanded center opened in
June 2012 and has a larger testing space
and flexible exam times for students. The
original library proctoring center was
launched two years ago, but it quickly
became too small as more students are
enrolling in online classes and the demand
for proctored exams has increased.
Compared to fall 2011, undergraduate
enrollment in online classes for fall 2012
has increased by 13 percent. Last year,
CMU Online proctored 4,077 exams, more
than half of which took place at the library.
With growing requirements of proctored
exams, the center is an important service
in Park Library. The expansion of the center
benefits students as well as CMU Online
and Global Campus staff.
E x p a n s i o n
12
“Using the online proctoring center comes
with many advantages for students,”
Roestel says. “Students can log right into
Blackboard and take their exam in a quiet
area free from distractions.”
The new center is open Wednesdays and
Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and
Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. During the
week of midterms, the center is open
Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. •
The expanded online proctoring center located in Park Library is
responding to the increase in students enrolled in online classes.