Library Mentors had a fun field trip to CSU’s Morgan Library last week. We traveled on the city bus, transferred and rode the Max to campus.
Mentors were surprised to hear that Morgan library has 2 million books and a full staff of dozens of working students working the circulation desk, serving 30,000 students; in comparison to our library of 12,000 books,17 mentors, and 150 students.
We tried on Google Glass, and saw an Oculus Rift set-up, and talked about how a 3D printer works. We flew around and above the globe with Google Liquid Galaxy, and manipulated giant movable bookshelves.
The archives were particularly fascinating, where we handled a plexiglass-protected cuneiform receipt for cattle and sheep dating to 2350 BC; viewed a papyrus sheet from Egypt that was a letter between two monks complaining about carpentry work; held a pocket sermon book from 1740 which was published by Ben Franklin; passed around an Olympic gold medal won by CSU alumnus Glenn Morris; and were awed by a rare Fore-edge painted book, revealing hidden artwork on it’s gold edges when it’s pages are fanned.
It was a fun day of using public transportation, learning new things, realizing the comparative size of libraries, and seeing the relation of technology to the library! Special thanks to our middle school Library Mentors alumnae for accompanying us on our field trip.