OUR MISSION
Joyner Library is the intellectual heart of ECU. We connect people to information and empower life-long learning by developing collections, superior services and people-friendly spaces.
FROM the DIRECTOR
The 2018-2019 academic year was marked by many successes as well as a few challenges. Enlightening exhibits and programs, redesigned web pages, new collections, affordable textbook initiatives and additional study spaces with alluring furniture were easiest to see. Behind the scenes, our staff worked diligently to help students improve their information literacy skills, made new resources accessible to our user community, provided scholarly communication infrastructure and advice, and evaluated and implemented new technologies.
New leaders in University Archives and ECU Records Management reinvigorated these critical programs and are ensuring that ECU’s history is maintained and preserved. We are helping to collect and tell the stories of all of our community members, including those that too often were ignored in the past. We expanded our commitment to high impact educational practices with a new program to help Joyner Library student employees connect the skills and knowledge they are gaining from their library jobs with their majors and career plans.
As for those challenges? They include budget cuts, unsustainable annual journal price increases and an aging building. With challenges come opportunities for creativity and innovation and we are working both hard and smart to deal with each of these areas. Stay tuned for updates on our progress in conquering them in collaboration with the ECU and broader research communities, and of course, with your support.
According to the 2019 “Princeton Review”, ECU students think we have a “great library.” It is only through the generosity of supporters like you that we are able to excel and we thank you for your support. We hope you enjoy this year in review and we invite you to be part of our future.
Sincerely,
Janice S. Lewis - Director, Academic Library Services
BRINGING the COMMUNITY TOGETHER TO LEARN, EXPERIENCE & CONNECT
“For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights,” a National Endowment for the Humanities NEH On the Road exhibit, opened the fall 2019 term in the Janice Hardison Faulkner Gallery. Through photographs, television clips, art posters and historic artifacts, the exhibition traces how images and media disseminated to the American public transformed the modern civil rights movement.
Exhibits featuring materials from Joyner collections complemented “For All the World to See” throughout the fall. These exhibits highlighted student activism on campus during the late 1960s, the civil rights movement in eastern North Carolina and the stories told – and not – by the media.
In conjunction with the exhibits, we welcomed to campus:
• Veteran journalist Hank Klibanoff, co-author with Gene Roberts of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.”
• Zena Howard, visionary architect of such spaces as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and Greenville’s Sycamore Hill Gateway Plaza, who spoke about urban design as urban healing.
• Actor and playwright Mike Wiley, whose production “Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till” brought to life events surrounding Till’s murder in 1955.
We also welcomed more than 1,000 area high school students to the exhibit and a special performance of “Dar He.”
JOYNER CELEBRATES GRANTS, AWARDS, & RECOGNITIONS
YOUR SUPPORT HAS IMPACT
In fall 2019, Joyner welcomed back students with new study spaces to support both individual work and group collaboration.
Approximately 15,000 square feet of former stacks space was created by shifting lesser-used journals to compact shelving, allowing for the addition of comfortable seating for 250 students
The most talked-about additions?
The active study desks, which help students exercise their minds and bodies at the same time.
Joyner Library’s textbook affordability initiatives directly support student success and have saved ECU students more than $900,000 in textbook costs in the past four years.
Since 2016, more than 50 faculty members have participated in Joyner’s affordable textbook initiatives. They represent departments across the university and reach nearly every student. Joyner also impacts textbook affordability with course-reserved texts for student use, library subscription materials, by purchasing multi-use electronic versions of course texts, licensing streaming videos and other library content such as journals and primary sources, and by helping faculty identify quality open educational resources. Donor support made it possible to expand course reserve texts in 2019.
Equipping Students for Success
This fall, Joyner also launched its first ECU Fund It crowdfunding campaign to increase the availability of equipment frequently borrowed by students, including graphing calculators, cameras, portable projectors and more.
Last year, students borrowed library equipment from Joyner more than 43,000 times.
Being able to access quality equipment for free through the library helps students succeed without requiring them to purchase often cost-prohibitive items.
The Equipping Students for Success campaign successfully ended in October, raising $2,000 to purchase additional circulating equipment.
YOUR GIFT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
Support the library
We are grateful for the many library supporters who share their time, talent and resources.
Want to learn more about library initiatives and naming opportunities? Interested in joining our Advancement Council or the Friends of Joyner Library?
Have family, professional, university or business materials appropriate for University Archives or our Manuscripts & Rare Books Collections?
We’d love to talk to you.
Contact Library Director Jan Lewis to start the conversation [phone: 252.328.2267; email: lewisja@ecu.edu].
Credits:
Rhett Butler - ECU Photography