With every passing year Weber State University’s Stewart Library continues to be an ever-evolving location on campus as it continues to add new resources and utilities to help students succeed.
Consisting of three floors, Stewart Library is a central building on campus, but some of the provided resources may go unnoticed by students.
Erich Goeckeritz, the administrative associate of Stewart Library, has been working hard to make these new additions to the library.
“It really is a central hub,” Goeckeritz said. “We are right at the center of the university. It’s a place to spend time, to hangout, study, and meet up with people. It is more than just a quiet place to read books.”
Located on the second floor of the library, a new DIY studio will be opening in the coming weeks.
Goeckeritz explains that this new studio can be used for students to record video presentations for classes or even for personal use. The studio includes a computer, a camera, microphone and greenscreen for student use. Students from any major can use the new studio and can place reservations for the space through the library’s website once it is open for use.
Students can also find a computer lab on the second floor. The computer lab is part of Weber State’s Digital District. It is one of the few labs on campus that is open every day, making the lab accessible for any student who may need extra time to work.
In addition to the computer lab, the library also houses a testing center that is also open every day.
Goeckeritz also explains that Stewart Library offers course reserves.
“These are textbooks for your classes that you can have for a short-term borrowing period, or you can make copies of them,” Goeckeritz said. “We have tons of textbooks for almost all of the general ed courses…people do not realize that we have these here.”
Course reserves extend past textbooks. Students can also have reserves on anatomy diagrams and equipment.
At the start of the semester, reservations for laptop checkouts are available to students. Goeckeritz said that the laptop checkouts go quickly. Students will need to be proactive if they want to borrow one of the laptops.
“We are trying to get more because there has been some student demand saying that this is a resource people are interested in,” Goeckeritz said.
There are study rooms available for students that can be reserved through the library’s website.
A new resource that students can use is the podcast studio, which can also be reserved the same way as a study room. The podcast studio is operated by Weber State’s Studio 76 and can be used to create podcasts for class projects.
“It is available to every single student on campus. The faculty and staff have their own studio over in Lampros Hall, so we wanted to put one here that is available for students,” Goeckeritz said.
For students taking communication classes, Studio 76 offers equipment rentals to help students with their projects. This includes equipment such as microphone kits, tripods, video recording equipment, etc. This studio equipment can be rented for up to one week at a time.
Stewart Library offers 3D-printing services for students. Goeckeritz explains that students can print up to 50 grams of filament per month. The file students want printed can be submitted to the library and once it is done printing it can be picked up.
Stewart Library makes an effort to provide informative and exciting exhibits for students to see.
On the second floor of the building there is a demarcation exhibit that will be in the library until December. On the first floor there is an exhibit that features drawings of important women from northern Utah. These exhibits spread awareness of important subjects and give artists the chance to showcase their work in a public setting.
Later this semester Stewart Library will be partnering with the Native American Student Associate and the Native American Culture Center to host their Native Symposium key-note speaker, Darren Parry. They are working on a new exhibit for Native American Culture to put in the library.
The third floor of the library is the quiet study area of the library and is also home to many books that the library offers. If the library does not currently have a book that a student needs, there is a good chance they can obtain it through inner library loans.
“If you need a book from anywhere in the world and we don’t have it, we can get it,” Goeckeritz said. “We’ll find a library that has it, and they will ship it to us. Then when you are done with it, we will ship it back to them.”
One resource that students might not be aware of is the subject librarians.
“We have seven or eight subject librarians working in the building and are also faculty,” Goeckeritz said. “So if you need help getting sources or material for writing a paper or are doing research, they can help based on your subject.”
An appointment with the subject librarians can be set up through Stewart Libraries website.
The third floor of the library has introduced two new additional services for students. The first is a private lactation room available for anyone who has recently had a child and is looking for a more private setting. The second addition is a meditation/prayer room that opened up late last spring. Currently there are two rooms dedicated to meditation/prayer.
Goeckeritz said that both these services were brought to Stewart Library through student suggestions.
“Someone said they needed a space for this, a lot of our services are based on students just speaking up and then we try to make it happen,” Goeckeritz said.
Goeckeritz claims that the majority of new resources that are brought to the library come from feedback both negative and positive. This creates an ever-growing library that brings new opportunities for students every semester.
“Overall, we are just trying to make it a place where everyone feels welcome and we are trying to do events that people will want to participate in,” Goeckeritz said.