Happenings @ Hannon
May 2016 (Volume 6.9)

Congratulations Seniors!

As the Class of 2016 walks across the stage at this weekend's Commencement ceremony, we must once again bid farewell to another group of promising LMU students. We congratulate each and every one of you and wish you the best of luck as you progress from this stage to the next. 

We also wanted to say a special "thank you" to those seniors who worked for us over the past four years. So much of what we do depends on the work of our student assistants. We've enjoyed working with you and hope that you will look back fondly on your experience as an employee of the William H. Hannon Library. Onward and upward!
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In This Issue
Summer Library Hours
May 9 - August 27

The William H. Hannon Library is open all summer long, but our hours vary depending on whether classes are in session. For most of the summer (May 16 - August 5), we will open at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday and at 11 a.m. on the weekend, but be sure to check our hours page for specific dates and times.

Summer Jobs at the Library
Ongoing

Are you an LMU student interested in working for the library this summer? We currently have six types of positions open and encourage you to apply! Log into LionJobs and search for "William H. Hannon Library" (yes, include the quotation marks).
From Their Perspective IV: A Student Curated Exhibition Coming Soon
June 1 - July 29

For the past three years, our Archives & Special Collections staff have worked with library student workers to collaboratively create summer exhibitions. This year, the theme of the exhibition will be modern advertising postcards from the 1990s and early 2000s. Check out student Christiana Davis's sneak preview!
Featured Article
Comical Research Methods
By Jennifer Masunaga

Did you know that the first Saturday of every May is Free Comic Book Day? This annual promotional event celebrates one of America's most unique genres and so this month it is only fitting to explore how comics are used in LMU's curriculum and in the William H. Hannon Library. Graphic novels are more than just entertaining reading for kids: they have important educational and artistic value. In fact, comic books and graphic novels are increasingly used in the K-12 classroom to help struggling readers conceptualize the meaning of words through images.  Graphic novels place images in context with short narratives and require the reader to navigate both written and visual literacies. They are a useful genre for explaining complex ideas in a compressed format.

Here at LMU, students engage with comics in multiple courses. Close to our heart is Dr. Dean Scheibel's CMST 204: Introduction to Research in Communication Studies course. In this class, students are tasked with describing the process of writing a scholarly literature review in the comic format. Requiring students to describe their research visually is a unique and engaging way of encouraging students to formally conceptualize a personal and repetitious process. It helps them process and reflect on their own research fears, mistakes or triumphs and also gives Professor Scheibel an insight into his students' personal methodologies. Students describe various aspects of the research process, such as topic development, database searching, and (of course) procrastination.

There are many ways students create their comics. Some use photographs (and include Professor Scheibel and themselves in a staring role!) while others draw each panel by hand. The result is a collection of beautiful and creative masterpieces centered on concepts of information literacy. 

The library supports Professor Scheibel's course by displaying selections of student comics throughout the first floor of the library. If you are a fan of comics then these comics are a must see! Comics from previous classes can be found in our library's digital repository.

The library also has graphic novels for all age levels! For more information, stop by the Information Desk and talk to a librarian today.
All-Access Tours Take Graduating Seniors into the Library's Basement

As part of the Senior All-Access tour, we took 91 graduating LMU students on a private tour of the library's basement. Librarians Ray Andrade, Glenn Johnson-Grau, and John Jackson spoke to students about the need for preserving and maintaining access to older materials, even if their formats are now "obsolete."