Welcome to New and Returning Students and Special

Ball State University’s Fall Semester 2008 classes began Monday, August 25, 2008. Our librarians, professional personnel, and paraprofessional personnel are delighted to welcome everyone. We hope we will see you often in the University Libraries and that you will find the Libraries to be your destination for research, learning, and friends.

The Libraries are filled with the sights and sounds of learning. These sounds are the voices of students asking librarians questions, conversations about projects, clicks from the keyboards of students preparing papers or finding Web sites, the whirl of photocopy machines or the swishing of scanners, the hum of high speed laser printers, and the greetings exchanged between classmates, fraternity/sorority members, acquaintances, and others.

Students and faculty access the Libraries’ rich print and digital collections, seek help from librarians with their assignments and research projects, prepare papers and analyses using any one of the Libraries’ 351 public PCs or 27 Macs, and they print their projects or store them in an iLocker digital storage space that is provided for free to all students and faculty.

The Libraries are wireless throughout so that students can be anywhere in the Libraries and make use of their own laptops, personal assistants, or other small-screen smart devices.

Of course, books, journals, music CDs, movies and educational presentations in DVD and VHS formats, maps, laptops, and a variety of items in an assortment of formats are popular for check-out.

The University Libraries offer a variety of comfortable spaces for collaborative and individual study and a number of small to large group study rooms for practicing presentations and listening/viewing assigned materials for music and cinema classes. Group study rooms can be reserved online. Bracken Library’s fourth floor is designated as a Quiet Zone. While the sounds from students are noticeably low on Bracken’s second floor and on the basement level, Bracken’s first and third floors are known to students as places to see and be seen, where students can work alone – yet welcome interruptions – or collaborate with others on papers and projects.

The Libraries’ subscription databases of full-text articles, abstracts, and citations can be accessed from anywhere in the Libraries. They can also be accessed remotely from anywhere on campus or off-campus through an Internet connection.

The popular Bookmark Café @ Bracken Library is a place where our students can grab a cup of coffee or tea, talk with friends or colleagues. Students see the University Libraries as a place to develop their skills for scholarship and their soft skills that involve community, communication, and creativity.