On Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021, the Cabrini Holy Spirit Library held an open house celebrating St. Jerome who is the patron saint of students, libraries and librarians.
Anne Schwelm, the library director, said, “We celebrate this annually. We’ve been doing this for the last 10-12 years.” She continued saying the library does this open house to “Draw attention to the library and their services; we celebrate this annually,” Schwelm said. The open house also gives the library a chance to display any new books written by some Cabrini faculty. This year they are displaying three new books.
You can check out a variety of interesting books at the library anytime such as Rosa Parks by Dr. Darryl Mace, Jackie Robinson by Dr. Courtney Michelle Smith and Unleaded: How changing our gasoline changed everything by Dr. Carrie Nelson.
On display, there are 11 different books handpicked by the librarians centered around libraries.
“Celebrating the feast of St. Jerome fits Cabrini’s Catholic identity. Celebrating a feast day means that we recognize particular men and women who have been elevated to sainthood by the Catholic Church,” Schwelm said.
“They are role models for us here on earth and we hope to join them in heaven one day. At Cabrini, we also celebrate St. Frances Cabrini’s feast day on Nov. 13,” Schwelm said
“Libraries are hubs for information sharing,” Christopher Jones, circulation and building manager for the library, said. “They provide pathways to inquiries and research using reliable, mostly scholarly sources, and can be relied upon by the public to assist in locating accurate information that may guide a user into making an informed decision.”
“Our staff members are friendly and customer service is driven,” Jones said. “HSL may not always have the answer to a question but be sure that a user will be directed to the right source to find one.”
Students need to use the library because it is the “information gateway” on campus. Using the library, students will be able to use the services it provides to complete their research projects and papers. Students also have access to 50 different research databases that the library subscribes to.
The library is open seven days a week for students to work together in study groups use the faculty reserves. Students also have access to over 200,000 eBooks, a variety of DVDs, magazines, newspapers and 46,000 books. Students can utilize the library’s scanners, color printer, fax machine and most importantly students can use the services of the reference librarians who are available six days a week to help with research questions, formatting your papers and citations.
The library has 42 desktop computers and 10 surface tablets and iPads that students can check out.
The library is also home to the Saint Frances Cabrini collections. The collection is made up of relics and artifacts of Saint Frances Cabrini who is the patron of Cabrini University.
“The thing I enjoy most about working in the library is that it’s a calming quiet environment, but at the same time also chaotic,” Cameron Wolf, senior library assistant and business management major, said. “I mainly see students using the computers, the printers and using free spaces in the library to do work or to relax.”
Made up of friendly staff and 11 undergraduate federal work-study, students the Holy Spirit Library is a great place to go to get your work done and to have a quiet place to relax.
