A Leak

The archives in Clapp Library after the leak

We had a major issue in Clapp library this past Monday. I was not here and this is based on what I have gathered since then. A pipe in the cooling system broke and glycol began leaking from the ceiling in the fourth floor near the archives. A staff member noticed it and several others came together and through their extraordinary collaborative effort, many of the affected boxes in the archival storage area were saved and moved to a makeshift area. The 4th, 3rd and the 2nd floor were all affected and the recovery is in full swing. Apparently in some locations, the amount of Glycol was ankle deep! The damage was pretty severe based on what I can tell. It is the amazing dedication of our staff and their ability to rise up to the occasion that served us well and I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped out!

A move

We are happily progressing towards our plan to move most of our services to the cloud. The most recent one is the move of the WordPress blog system from our campus to CampusPress. This was one of the most seamless transitions that I have seen so far and I am writing this post on the new system. So far, everything is looking great!

A redo

During the first week in August you will all be treated to a pleasant surprise! After the Registrar’s office began reporting to me, we had a gathering of faculty members to ask them how we can do better. There were a whole slew of suggestions and requests, many of which are being worked on. One of the ideas that came up was to turn the course browser around. As with everything else, the course browser, which was a definite improvement over the PDF catalog and developed 3 1/2 years ago, has a boring look and also has become more of a utility than a useful exploratory tool. I don’t want to give away too many secrets, but I think most of our users will really like what we have done, with considerable input from some of the enthusiastic faculty members…

Machu Picchu and Hyuana mountain

Finally, my wife and I spent a week in Peru and the highlight was a visit to Machu Picchu, the Inca site. It was difficult to get there even with all the modern comforts and I can only imagine how difficult it would have been for the Incas in the 15th century.

Now, back to work!