Dr. Mary Cullinan

On Friday (February 24), 60 people gathered at 7 AM in Grants Pass to talk about libraries. Dull? Not at all! People were enthusiastic and energized.

The event was a community breakfast planned and sponsored by the Institutional Positioning Committee of the SOU President’s Advisory Board. Several times a year, we bring together a group of regional leaders to enjoy a hot breakfast and discuss a topic of interest.

We planned this session in collaboration with Josephine Community Libraries, Inc.  The presenter was our own Paul Adalian, Dean of the Hannon Library.

Paul entitled his presentation “What Can Libraries Do for Us in the 21st Century?”  He started by evoking memories: photos of impressive library buildings, walls of card catalogs, Shhh! signs, librarians keeping order and quiet.

Exterior of The Library of UC Berkeley

Then he asked us, “What’s the role of a university library now that we have Google?”

Not to worry. Google, he stressed, is not actually about learning. That’s what libraries are for.

Giving us a virtual tour of the Hannon Library, he showed both traditional books and an innovative digital learning environment. He showed us a library that functions as a place to study as well as a social and cultural center. He showed us a hub that engages students, faculty, staff, and the local community.

A quiet moment in the normally packed-with-students Hannon 3rd floor.

Paul’s presentation highlighted students gathered together, talking together, performing music together, (making noise!), working together, learning together. And he showed us a library engaged with a larger community

No, this isn’t the library that most of us knew as college students.

Isn’t that great?

Dr. Robert Harrison and President Cullinan at Dr. Harrison's presentation.

On Monday evening (February 13), Dr. Robert Harrison packed Hannon Library’s Meese Room for the Winter Term Distinguished Lecture. Faculty, staff, students, and community members filled the chairs, perched on window sills, and leaned against the walls as Dr. Harrison walked us through centuries of history in a clear, succinct, and captivating manner.

The Distinguished Lecture Series was established in academic year 2010-2011 to celebrate the tremendous work of SOU faculty. Very often even our own campus community members don’t know what is being done outside their own department and throughout the campus.

Now many more people know about the work Dr. Harrison has been doing at SOU since 1990—and, before that, at Biola University and as a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt. He spoke without notes—but with the assistance of a few useful maps—as he traced the roots of the Arab Spring back over a thousand years and through multiple invasions and wars.

In one brief foray into European and U.S. history, he sketched the slow and painful emergence of democracy through the Magna Carta in AD 1215 and the French and American Revolutions and 20^th Century voting rights to illustrate the complexity and painful slowness of change. Change is happening in the Middle East, but he stressed that major cultural and political transformation can’t happen overnight.

Kudos to Dr. Harrison for providing an illuminating and exhilarating tour of a part of the world that is confusing and mysterious to many of us.

We will have another Distinguished Lecture in spring term with Dr. Mark Tveskov.  Mark your calendar for April 18!