At Cedarville University, Greg Martin, Collection Services Librarian and IR administrator, has extended the community served by DigitalCommons@Cedarville to include alumni who have published books. The Alumni Book Gallery offers the Alumni Relations Office an opportunity to connect with former students and to highlight the scholarship and community that emerges from Cedarville’s campus. Greg says the Alumni staff are “terribly excited” about the visibility offered by the repository, and at least one author has already written in to ask that their work be included.
Tricia Clark, Library Digital Services Specialist, explains that when the library learns that an alumna or alumnus has published a book, they acquire two copies, one for circulation and one for the University Archives. These books are then showcased in Cedarville’s repository in an attractive book gallery. The library sees this as part of their role as archivists of the University’s scholarly output and heritage, while the Alumni Relations Office sees this as a great way to keep former students engaged with the University.
This project is part of a larger effort to expand the impact of DigitalCommons@Cedarville on campus and create a broad, engaged base of IR participants. Other projects involve a new print-on-demand publishing service, journal hosting for several groups on campus, press releases from the Public Relations Office, and other content for the Alumni Affairs office, including yearbooks and Alumni lectures. This active outreach to a broad base of constituents is helping to make the IR, in Greg’s words, “indispensable on campus.”
If you’d like to read more about how libraries are offering repository-based services to campus and beyond, click here.
Alumni Publications – Alumni Association – Cedarville University