You may have recently found yourself standing in the aisles of the Hale Library stacks ready to peruse your favorite section of the library for knowledge only to be left thinking, "Hmmm. If I remember correctly, this is where the history section always resided. But these are child psychology books. I'm pretty sure this is where I've always gone to browse history. Am I losing my mind? What's going on here!? I DON'T LIKE CHANGE!!!"
Don't Panic!
The prior situation was a dramatization of feelings many people are having as Hale moves along with its material reorganization, which is just a fancy way of saying a lof of stuff's moving around. Why all this movement you ask? There are a number of valid reasons for the shift. These reasons, however, do not include the enjoyment of inflicting confusion on the masses because, trust us when we say that there are plenty of folks who work in the Libraries adjusting to this shift as well.
This shifting of materials was brought upon by the closing of Stack G for the purpose of housing special collections and archival materials that we could no longer store elsewhere. Therefore, all the contents of G needed to be evacuated and that caused a domino effect of everything being shifted to make room for those items. So, starting from the Z's in room 117, the great shift began.
Throughout this shift, we gathered ideas of how the library could be better organized. In order to implement those changes, they needed to take place when we were already shifting things around.
So what exactly is changing? Full of questions we are today. Here's what's happening so far:
- All music and art books (any material with an M or N call number already located in Hale) will be moving from the 3rd floor moving shelves to the 4th floor non-moving shelves on the east side for easier browsing. Yes, that means the M and N's will be shelved before the A call numbers. (The N call numbers in Weigel Library are staying there.)
- The media cabinets, containing all videos and sound recordings, as well as the LP's, will be moving to the 4th floor
- Stack F will now be the new home of Government Documents and Reference, as well as Kansas Documents
- Agricultural Documents on the 1st floor have now been integrated into the main collection in call number order---you'll mostly find them on stack A and in room 117
- Hale's main collection will now expand across the entirety of the 3rd floor. A small section of A's and some B's will remain in the 4th floor moving shelves
As you can see, there's a lot happening with Hale, and it's certainly been a ballet of chaos for the past few months.
But how can materials be found amongst all this movement you ask? Ok, I'll tell you, but this is the last question I'm going to answer, today.
- http://www.lib.k-state.edu/help/stacksguide/index.php provides an online stacks guide with up-to-date call number locations
- http://m.lib.k-state.edu/ is K-State Libraries' mobile application that provides call number locations for specific materials you would like to find, as well as direct help from staff members via IM chat. The mobile site is still in beta, so your mobile device isn't immediately routed there from our main website, but bookmark this URL until then, and you're good to go. (And the URL will work on non-mobile devices, too!)
- We do still have paper stacks guides, but the shifting is going so fast, that we haven't been able to keep up with printing new ones nearly as fast as we have with updating the online versions
- Finally, feel free to visit the Hale Library Help Desk on the 2nd floor and someone will be happy to assist you in finding and retrieving any materials you may need
So there it is, the gist of what's going on at Hale. We hope that you'll continue to have patience with us through the noise and confusion. As we like to say, "Please pardon our shift!" It's all a bit of a mess but things will settle soon enough and eventually you'll find that you'll have a new favorite spot for browsing materials.
- Ben Hedges
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