NDSU Library Open House Welcomes Students

The NDSU Library will host an open house aimed at welcoming students. The schedule of events will expose students to available resources at the library Wednesday and Thursday.

The open house will be a fun way to make students more comfortable with going to the library and using its resources, Janine Kuntz, the reference associate at the library, said.

“We are here to help,” Kuntz said. “We have these resources that can help you throughout all of your college career.”

The front of the library will be full of booths of different organizations from inside the library and the Fargo-Moorhead community, Kuntz said.

MSUM, The Fargo Library, The Center for Writers and database vendors that the library subscribes to like ProQuest and SciFinder will have booths.

Events will occur late morning to early afternoon during the two days.

One speaker will discuss an award-winning design for a possible new NDSU library designed by an NDSU alumnus.

Ankit Rauniyar, an NDSU architecture alumnus, will speak about his senior thesis project “Sustainability: A Holistic Approach.” He created a sustainable design for a new library on NDSU campus.

A couple of years ago, Rauniyar heard about the NDSU Library Building Committee. Rauniyar decided to link his interest in sustainable design with the concept of building a new library. He talked to students and administration about what they were looking for in design, needs and space.

Rauniyar said the needs of a campus library are changing and a new design needs to be flexible and adaptable over time.

“If everything is digitized, what do you do with all that space?” Rauniyar said. “I absolutely think NDSU needs a new library.”

The NDSU Library Building Committee is not currently planning on building a new library, Rauniyar said. Though there may be a budget for the future, where they could consider his design.

President Bresciani will introduce Rauniyar’s presentation at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Shott Reading Room at the Library.

Jennifer Fairall, the NDSU digital initiatives and metadata librarian, will discuss digital preservation in her presentation “Managing Content Over Time.” She will give an overview of how to protect, manage, access and store digital content over a long period of time, Kuntz said.

She will gauge interest in this topic from the audience and may have a workshop to teach digital preservation in the future.

Another event is a presentation by an NDSU alumna Dr. Mitzi Brunsdale. She will be discussing the genre of murder mysteries and her research process she uses when writing.

Kuntz said she is most looking forward to this presentation.

“We usually have all these research-oriented presentations,” Kuntz said. “This is more of a fun one to have! It will still be informative, but a little different.”

Brunsdale has written eight books about murder mystery fiction and is currently working on one about contemporary crime fiction of Norway, Sweden, Iceland Denmark and Finland.

Students can sit in the Coffee House at noon on Wednesday to hear student writers read their own work. The selections will come from the Northern Eclecta, a creative expression journal produced in the NDSU courses ENG 213, 314, 413.

There will be prize given away at the end of each event, and three names will be chosen from a drawing in the library entrance at the end of each day.

Prizes have been donated from organizations including Scheels, JCPenny, Jitters Coffee Shop, Bison Athletics, The Salon Professional Academy, NDSU Athletics and the NDSU Bookstore.

Thundar will make an appearance on Wednesday.

Snacks, lanyards and pens will be given away for free.

For a complete schedule of events, go to http://guides.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/content.php?pid=292479&sid=2976862#10969502.