The Joseph F. Smith Library at BYU-Hawaii hosted Library Week from April 25-29 to encourage students to use the library services.
Library employee Keturah Jensen, a sophomore from Virginia studying biology, said the goal of the week was to spread awareness of how libraries can transform people’s lives.“It’s not as evident in a college community, but in regular communities libraries are the driving force behind people being able to read and write,” Jensen said.
“People have to go there and practice because they don’t have their own books.
Libraries also provide Wi-Fi and computers for the community to use.”Library employees put up posers with slogans to highlight the importance of libraries. The posters contained slogans which started off with “Libraries transform…” and each poster had a different answer: “because not everything on the Internet is true; because employers want candidates who know the difference between a web search and research; because students can’t afford scholarly journals on a ramen noodle budget.”
The event kicked off on Monday where free spaghetti was served to students. Throughout the week, booths were set up to display the different services and resources the library has to offer.
The Reading Writing Center, Language and Speech Center, Math Lab, and other partner services of the library also participated, setting up activities such as a fishing booth and a balloon dart board.
One of the library’s most successful activities of the week was the spelling bee, held on Wednesday and Thursday. Ben Coffey, a freshman from New Zealand studying psychology, won the first round of the contest when he was able to spell “echocardiography.”
Coffey said, “Generally I do read quite a bit, but I never really thought of myself as a very good speller. I just think I got really lucky tonight and the other contestants got tripped up on a lot harder words than me.”
Katie Kelly, a junior from Idaho studying psychology, organized the spelling bee and chose the words used in the contest. “I think a lot of students aren’t aware of the things in the library that are available to them, and we want to make sure they know these services are free to them, and we want them to use them,” said Kelly.
Among these free services is the Academic Learning Center, where students can learn academic skills and create a personalized schedule to help them manage their routine. A service called the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) allows students to borrow books or receive copies of documents that are owned by another library.
Coffey said the Library Week helped raise his awareness of resources available to him. “It’s been interesting to see the different additional resources, especially the Media Production Center. They’ll help you to film stuff for your assignments. So that was something I didn’t even know existed,” said Coffey.
Throughout the week, library staff allowed students to leave sticky notes on a bulletin board with any questions they might have about the library. The answers to the most frequently asked questions are posted on the wall by the circulation desk.
A social media contest was held where students could take pictures that answered questions and stand a chance to win a free Angel’s Ice Cream gift card.
Library Week is a national event held from April 10-16. BYUH celebrated the event a few weeks later due to midterms. An article from The Conversation newsletter said in the last two decades, the number of libraries in America has increased, proving why libraries still have usefulness in an increasingly digital world.
“The number of books and other items borrowed from U.S. public libraries increased from 6.5 items per capita in 1993 to 8.0 items per capita in 2012. Over the same time span, the number of visits to U.S. public libraries rose 22.5 percent.”
According to The Conservation newsletter, “The popularity of U.S. public libraries is, it seems, at least as strong as it was before the web became a household word (much less a household necessity).”