June 2008 Archives

The following is a report on the sixth and final library we visited during our tour of Eastern South Dakota Libraries.
Mikkelson Library is located at Augustana College in Sioux Falls. It holds over 200,000 volumes including the Rare Books and the Norwegian Collections. The Library is also a selective depository for the U.S. Government Printing Office housing more than 160,000 government documents.

We met with Deb Hagemeier (Assistant Director & Technical Services), Kay Christensen (Cataloging and Government Documents), Lisa Burnick (Reference & Instruction), and Judith Howard (Media & Distance Education). They are deeply involved with the Library’s extensive renovation. The staff is moving to temporary quarters while the collection is shifting to compact shelving. At the same time they are merging the library of the Sioux Falls Seminary into Mikkelson’s collection.

Because of the construction going on we were only able to tour parts of the library, but we could tell from the plans that after renovation the new library will be spacious and quite up-to-date.

While we were on campus at Augustana we took time to see the sights.

Here's the library.

Here's Ole Augustana's mascot.

They also have a 'woolly' mammoth

And a statue of Moses.

Site Visit to ID Weeks Library, University of South Dakota

This is another report on our tour of Eastern Dakota Libraries. ID Weeks Library is on the campus of the University of South Dakota in Vermillion not far from the Missouri River. Together with the University’s other libraries it has over 950,000 holdings. It is a selective deposit library for government documents. Its special collections focus on South Dakota and the surrounding region.

We met Joe Edelen, Cindy Soyland, Muriel Schamber, Deb Burnight, David Alexander, Sarah Hanson, and other staff members from cataloging, interlibrary loan, and archives and found that they are in the midst of major changes. A new dean of libraries will join them in early September. In the meantime, they are in the process of merging the University’s Lommen Health Sciences Library into ID Weeks, and they are beginning to work on digitization projects.

Joe Edelen gave us a complete tour of the library. One of the highlights was the Archives with its extensive music collection. It also has new digitalization equipment they will be sharing with other Regent schools and two freezers for preserving old photographic negatives.

ID Weeks Interior

A rare book on violins

Photographic negatives in cold storage

While we were on the University campus we also visited the National Music Museum with its wonderful collectioin of musical instruments from all over the world . . .

including antique pianos

and fancy guitars.

The following is a report on the fourth library we visited during our tour of Eastern South Dakota Libraries.

Mears Library is located on the University of Sioux Falls campus in Sioux Falls. It holds approximately 96,000 volumes and is particularly strong in business and education. There are special collections of juvenile and education curriculum materials. The Library also houses the University's archives.

We met with Judy Krull (Director), Jennifer Knutson (ILL), and Angie Wixon (Serials/Acquisitions). As a small staff they are quite busy.

Library Entrance

Curriculum Collection

Did you have one of these when you were a kid?

The University Mascot on its way to the library.

Wegner Health Science Information Center was our third stop on our tour of Eastern South Dakota Libraries. See our earlier blog post for a description of all our stops.

On our visit we met with Vicki Carlson, who does cataloging for the collection. Wegner is located adjacent to the University of South Dakota School of Medicine and Sioux Valley Hospital and University of South Dakota Medical Center in Sioux Falls where it serves faculty, students, and hospital staff as well as the public. It also serves other medical facilities in South Dakota. It's very spacious with many windows and on the day we visited it was full of sunlight. They have a large heavily used computer room and archives in the basement where medical students are setting up an area for role-playing. They also have a nice collection of children’s books that address different developmental disabilities.

View of the front of Wegner Health Science Information Center

A painted mural on the basement wall at Wegner Health Science Information Center.

Photograph of the Children's Collection