Chris Schiff is one of Ladd Library’s research librarians, and he’s been known to ask a big question to those seeking a job at the library: “What’s a library?”

It’s a big question for a big building — the second-largest academic building on campus — and to figure out the answer, we spent the day of March 12 in Ladd Library, from around 7 in the morning (well after building custodians Sherry Lessard and Carrie VanHerzeele had arrived) to the library’s 1 a.m. closing.

First, its physical presence: the �ֲ���ý library is a large modernist structure. Opened in 1973, it represented a daring break in architectural style, prompting the late Phil Isaacson ’47, noted art critic and author, to admiringly call it “a helluva good building.” It was named for George and Helen Ladd in 1979, recognizing the couple’s extensive service and generosity to �ֲ���ý.

The �ֲ���ý library has physical collections — books, periodicals, documents, audiovisual materials — plus access to digital and online titles, more than two million.

And it also has a collection of people who support every library service. There are around 20 librarians and professional staff, bolstered by a team of students, around 220, who staff everything from the circulation desk and IT Service Desk to the Peer Learning Commons, which occupies much of the ground floor.

And it’s huge, runner-up to Pettengill Hall as �ֲ���ý’ biggest academic building. With 86,608 gross square feet, it is more than five times the size of its close neighbor and �ֲ���ý’ prior library, Coram.

Yet thanks to an imaginative design developed more than a half-century ago by The Architects Collaborative, led by Sally Harkness, Ladd’s bulk doesn’t dwarf Coram.  

The library’s famously pitched roof was the solution. It ensured that the front of the building remained in scale with Coram, while the large rear facade with its wide windows is compatible with the scale of Alumni Gym, the Gray Athletic Building, and Chase.

Some of the transfer of knowledge in Ladd library is silent, from screen to student, or from book to student. Some conversations are a bit louder, like those between seniors looking to find that last, crucial source to connect the dots in a senior thesis and one of the library’s experienced research librarians.

In the evening, some exchanges are downright loud, whether on the main floor, where students chat and gather around tables, or on the ground floor, where they work through challenges and difficulties with peer tutors in the Peer Learning Commons.

“We know that students learn best when they can interact with other people, when they’re in collaborative learning environments,” says Pat Schoknecht, the college librarian and vice president for information and library services since 2018.

“And so the library needs to be a place where they can find the resources that they need, using that word very broadly — a place where they can either work alone because �ٳ󲹳�’s what they want to do, or in pairs or small groups.”

Schoknecht recalls what someone once told her: “The library is the place where intentional learning should be happening.”

In that “let’s go!” spirit, Schoknecht and her team “want people to come in with that intentionality and we want to provide them with the services that help them accomplish whatever that intention is.”

What’s a library? Here’s what we found.

7:23 a.m.

“Sherry and Carrie at the Library” — that’s the library’s custodial dream team of Sherry Lessard and Carrie VanHerzeele, the latter seen vacuuming the floor near the reading area on the first floor. Lessard arrives at 5 a.m., VanHerzeele at 4 a.m.

When they’re not busy dusting Ladd’s more than half a million books, Lessard and VanHerzeele are wiping down tables, cleaning windows, and collecting Commons dishes left behind by students. They find any number of misplaced and lost items throughout their shifts and, on two occasions, have found snakes in the library.

“Little baby snakes,” VanHerzeele says. “Nothing venomous or anything.”

A white board affixed to the door of their shared office, featuring stick-figure drawings of both women, serves as a message board between the custodial staff and library patrons.

“That’s their way of communicating with us when we’re not here,” VanHerzeele says. “Most of the time it’s just really nice notes.”

7:30 a.m.

Fifteen minutes before the library opens to �ֲ���ý students, the usually buzzing main floor of Ladd is completely silent. However, if you open the stairwell you’ll hear a steady scraping of grit on the concrete that tells you Emmon Blackburn ’26 of Nardin, Okla., has clocked in for work as a stair sweeper, a student job that’s been around for more than a century.

Blackburn is here five days a week at 7 a.m to sweep the three and a half staircases inside Ladd, indie rock playing in their headphones. “It’s a good job if you can bring yourself to get up early,” Blackburn says. “And in the winter it’s early enough I get to see the sunrise, which is nice.”

7:46 a.m.

When the library officially opens, Salem Aqraa ’27 of Southaven, Miss., is the first one in the door. He’s come straight from his early morning rowing practice, and will shortly begin his shift as an “IT Service Desk Assistant.”

Working with professional staff at the service desk, he and other student workers offer quick-as-possible fixes for the wide range of technological problems that can beset a couple thousand computer users on a college campus. But, as he says, “mostly it’s printer troubles.”

Early in the morning, “barely anyone comes in, so I mostly study. During later shifts I like to talk to people though, especially professors who come in for help more than you would think.”

7:48 a.m.

Ilyas Bashir ’25 of Auburn, Maine, is the first person to sit down and study in Ladd today. He’s a Chinese and anthropology double major working on his thesis, and usually one of the first people in Ladd. His anthropology thesis looks at how immigrants navigate the healthcare system in Lewiston.

8:01 a.m.

Lee Desiderio, a member of the IT Service Desk team, raises the shades to begin the day. As an instructional support manager, he helps faculty, students, and staff get and stay up to speed on the rapidly changing technology they use.

8:10 a.m.

Two juniors from Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Megan Donaghy ‘26 and Lili Missbrenner ‘26, begin their day early by meeting in Ladd. It’s their routine, to enjoy the quiet, the light, and each other’s company.

8:30 a.m.

The circulation desk is near the front door, which means that whomever is on duty becomes an unofficial greeter, or concierge, of Ladd Library.

This morning, it’s Sloan Phillips ’25 of Evergreen, Colo., who has worked all four years at the campus library.

The greeter role, Phillips says, “is kind of nice, to be able to see who’s coming and going and chat with whoever comes in,” and to be able to triage computer questions, printer questions, or research questions.

“I like making small talk. Maybe making them feel a bit better, even if they have to talk with me because they’re waiting for their book. It’s still making a connection with another human.”

Reserve readings still have an emotional charge, says Phillips. “A sense of difference, they �徱���’t seek it out for themselves. They’re assigned to it. It’s a different dynamic.”

8:39 a.m.

Simon Clarke ’25 of Redwood City, Calif., a student worker at the audio desk on Ladd’s ground floor, moves between the mobile shelves containing music and movies, pulling items reserved by students and faculty.

8:43 a.m.

Emily Colucci, a library assistant for access services, settles in for a day of work on Ladd’s ground floor in a sea of neatly-organized DVDs, CDs, vinyl records, and cassette tapes.

A classically trained guitarist and singer, Colucci works in Ladd’s audio/video area and is currently embarking on a project to digitize the library’s many cassette tapes, several of which contain obscure NPR recordings, broadcasts, and lectures that are only available at �ֲ���ý and the Library of Congress.

The job nicely suits her love of music, as Colucci helps students and faculty check out records for both academic and personal use.

“Lately, I’ve been checking out vinyl to students who have a very vast range of musical interests, which I would suspect they get from their parents,” Colucci says.

9:03 a.m.

Among the stacks on the second floor, we find a familiar face reading the poetry of Jane Kenyon. It’s Professor Emeritus of History Dennis Grafflin, back on campus for one of his bi-weekly visits to Ladd.

The library, he says, was his favorite building on campus during his 35-year career as a �ֲ���ý professor and the spot he most often returns to in his retirement.

“The man who hired me, Ernie Muller, who was then chair of the history department all those years ago, was on the committee that designed this library, and it was one of his proudest memories of his time at �ֲ���ý,” Grafflin says.

9:20 a.m.

Next up at the circulation desk is Ruslan Peredelskyi ’25 of Kyiv, Ukraine. A full-service operation, students can check out and return books or items like scissors, light-therapy lamps, and more. Today, he’s also the keeper of a precious lost phone, whose owner comes by to retrieve the missing cell with heaps of thanks to Peredelskyi.

While handling books, Peredelskyi gets a front-row view of what faculty and students are working on.

“They tell you what caught their eye and why they need it, and they tell you about their projects, and it’s really exciting,” Peredelskyi says.

When circulation traffic dies down, Peredelskyi, perched behind the desk near the library’s entrance, works on his politics senior thesis and greets students and friends as they filter into Ladd.

“I get to say ‘Hi’ to every single person that enters the library,” Peredelskyi says.

9:36 a.m.

�ֲ���ý has had only 10 college librarians. The list starts with Horace Cheney, the son of Oren Cheney, founder of the college, who served in the position when was 19 years old.

The 10th arrived in 2018, when Pat Schoknecht was appointed college librarian and vice president for information and library services. Here, she meets with Ben Peck, who is the associate college librarian for research services.

Schoknecht’s title reflects the fact that at �ֲ���ý, the library and IT are joined. Two librarians before her, Gene Wiemers did the work to intertwine the two, making �ֲ���ý a national leader in that area.

In the words of Professor of Sociology Emeritus Sawyer Sylvester, Weimers did more than join the two areas: He “improved each by that marriage.”

9:41 a.m.

Custodian Sherry Lessard shines a bathroom mirror. Lessard and VanHerzeele keep Ladd in great shape for the hundreds of students, faculty, and staff who mill about in the building each day.

9:57 a.m.

Mariana Kaluba ’25 a physics major from Lusaka, Zambia, finds that the friendly and social environment of the library helps her get work done.

10:09 a.m. 

In the back of the administrative offices on Ladd’s first floor, Jenn Michel is in book doctor mode.

As the library’s acquisitions and preservation librarian, she is responsible for book conservation — i.e., repair, including remedying loose or detached spines. In today’s pile for repairs is a particularly charming copy of Jane Eyre, with an illustrated front cover and “Je t’aime” handwritten on the inside.

After applying glue to a detached spine, Michel places the book in a hand-operated bookbinding press.

The glue is a special pH-neutral adhesive. “We don’t want acidic materials used at any time during any of the conservation work,” Michel says. “That would deteriorate the paper products faster, and we want to preserve things for as long as we can.”

Michel’s work also includes creating pamphlets for music scores, which involves binding sheets of paper into folders. Above, she uses an awl to poke holes through sheet music and its enclosing folder below, then threads a piece of string through the holes and ties a knot to create the binder.

“Like the glue, this is a string that’s not going to damage paper, and I made this string three times as long as the score,” Michel explains.

10:20 a.m.

Stinky books, be gone! On Ladd’s ground floor, kitty litter and cedar branches make up the secret sauce for removing odors from books.

These ingredients rest at the bottom of a large trash can, just below a small laundry hamper fitted within the can. Odorous books sent to the can sit atop the hamper for a couple of weeks, until their smells are absorbed by the litter and branches.

While kitty litter is a common tool for removing odors, the cedar branches represent a uniquely �ֲ���ý technique. Former library assistant Jane Boyle had the idea to use cedar because of its strong, pleasant smell, and the branches in Ladd are still the very ones taken from Boyle’s backyard.

9:52 a.m.

Through the window of Instruction Room 128 on the first floor, near the printers, Christine Murray, who is the library’s social sciences librarian, is speaking to students in an anthropology course.

The course is “After Deportation Ethnographies from Latin America and the Caribbean,” taught by Benoit Y. Vallee, who is a visiting assistant professor of Latin American and Latinx studies. The class usually meets in Roger Williams Hall, but today they’re in the , in preparation for upcoming research papers.

After the class lets out, one of Vallee’s students, Christopher Viza ’28 of Chicago, gets straight to work, sitting in a chair by the big windows, and trying to get through articles that might inform his paper before his biology lab at noon.

10:28 a.m.

Custodians Carrie VanHerzeele and Sherry Lessard return reusable bowls and cups from Commons left in Ladd Library during the previous day’s study activity. Rather than a “no food” policy, the library asks students to help maintain a clean, welcoming space.

10:45 a.m.

Three seniors — Natnael Yaregal of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Devendra Thapaliya of Delray Beach, Fla., and Adrian Allannic of New York City — huddle in the Salter Room on the third floor for a morning spent working on theses and job applications. It’s a good study spot, they say: quiet but still open to group work.

10:58 a.m.

Students kick up their feet on Ladd’s first floor, getting comfortable for studying. On a sunny morning in late winter, a spot next to a window affords views of students enjoying the thawing campus and the refreshing, if fleeting, sunlight.

One floor below, in the Peer Learning Commons, Noa Hart ’27 of Hastings on Hudson, N.Y., double majoring in economics and English, is at work in the Peer Learning Commons, where she tutors students in economics but also helps with math, psychology, and statistics.

“When the students have a big conceptual thing that they’re worried about, I try to break it into an example that looks more familiar or maybe they could see in their daily lives,” Hart says. “These concepts from microeconomics are very abstract, and I say to them, ‘It’s a different language. It’s nothing you’ve ever seen before.’”

11:27 a.m.

The temperature has barely crept above freezing, but the sunshine beaming down on the terrace outside Ladd draws Bobcats seeking a warm spot in the sun.

One is Olivia Reynolds ’25 of Cumberland Center, Maine, who is stretched out in front of Ladd, studying Buddhist traditions of death practices.

“Today, I started hearing the birds outside, and that was my first indication that spring is coming,” Reynolds says. “It’s been a long and dark winter, and now that we have more light and sun, and it’s just starting to feel like spring, that’s motivating me to be outside.”

11:29 a.m.

Cecilia McQuaid ’25 (left) of San Francisco, Calif., and Abby Marriott ’25 of Brooklyn, N.Y. , take a break from studying and enjoy the sun on the Ladd terrace.

11:31 a.m.

From left, Cerise Stanley ’25 of Bentonville, Ark., May Whelan ’25 of Bristol, R.I., and Liam Shlager ’26 of Ross, Calif., create a game plan as they look over data related to paid family and medical leave in Maine. The project is for the course “Economic Analysis for Non-Profits,” taught by Assistant Professor of Economics Austin Smith.

11:37 a.m.

Marginalia has been around for centuries (see 1:15 p.m. entry!), and has been the bane of librarians equally as long.

If you seek out a copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (call number PR1866.S5 1929), you’ll see some ambitious marginalia. Someone decided not only to translate “The Prologue,” but to do so in pen. They got 11 lines in before giving up.

Nearby is Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (PR6045.O72 Z474). More marginalia. A reader circled the book’s feminist manifesto: “I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.”

Also nearby is a copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (PR5819.A2 P43), where marginalia sums up the telling moment when Dorian remembers being watched by James Vane, the brother of Sibyl Vane — whose death Dorian helped cause. The reader circled this text and wrote, “Evil never will forget.”

11:53 a.m.

Sav Thomson ’28 (left) of Saint Andrew, Jamaica, and Daina Velez ’25 of the Bronx, N.Y., lay on one of the square benches on the Ladd terrace enjoying a moment of sunshine.

11:54 a.m.

Ayden Brusa ’27 (left) of Skowhegan, Maine, and Madyson Gonzalez ’25 of Suffern, N.Y., offer assistance at the IT Service Desk on the first floor of the library.

Students complement and support the work of the IT Desk’s professional staff. During a typical month in the academic year, the service desk handles upward of 450 tickets for the campus community.

For the most part, student requests for help often include printing and software problems — the latter of which can usually be solved with a simple computer restart, says Mamadou Diallo ’25 of Somersworth, N.H.

Occasionally, the student team gets scam calls or a request that they have to elevate to their superiors, but they are able to resolve most requests on their own, they say.

“Mostly, it’s not that difficult,” Diallo says. “It’s just being able to communicate well with whoever needs help and trying to understand them.”

11:55 a.m.

You can still find some vintage card catalog cabinets in Ladd Library. This one is in the bibliographic area. The card lists annual reports for the Federal Power Commission (now the Department of Energy) dating to 1921.

The entries reflect the fact that the �ֲ���ý library is an official federal records depository, the first in Maine, in 1883. Because many federal documents were not originally cataloged into an online system, �ֲ���ý has kept this card catalog in use over the years.

11:59 a.m.

When a library needs to describe a resource for the online catalog — be it a book, a movie, or music — metadata librarians like Matt Banning go to work, ensuring that everything is properly described to maximize its “findability.”

On this day, Banning is in his first-floor office working to catalogue �ֲ���ý’ collection of nearly 2,000 pieces of 19th- and 20th-century sheet music. The antique pieces are less fragile than one would expect, Banning says, though flakes of paper still dot his office floor as he sorts through the collection.

The sheets have traveled far and wide to end up at Ladd. Music collector George W. Harris gifted much of the collection to �ֲ���ý upon his death in 1904; �ֲ���ý then sold the collection to Bowdoin, which later returned the sheets to �ֲ���ý.

Other sheets arrived all the way from Australia, by way of the collection of Australian-turned-New-Yorker Irma Caron and her husband Marmion P. Greenwood-Adams, an artistic couple who vacationed in Maine.

“These are really historical documents. They show us what music was popular back in the 1800s and early 1900s,” Banning says. “We also see this very interesting history of New England. I pay attention to things like signatures that are on them.”

12:09 p.m.

From left, seniors Henry Lennig of Scarborough, Maine, Miles Miller of Spring, Texas, and Daniel Snider of Belfast, Maine, “blow off some steam” by playing a geography game.

12:19 p.m.

Senna Cabenguele, a technology support specialist, dons a “Lewiston Strong” hat while working in the IT support area. At Cabenguele’s desk, old technology meets new, evidenced by a vintage Super Nintendo game console sitting beside his computer.

On his desk, and on those of his colleagues, are various trinkets, relics, and curiosities. Nearby, Nathan Hann has 3D printed objects on his desk that his colleague, Keith Hord, created at home. “I have them for people to play with while I work on their computer,” says Hann.

The 3D items include a frog, pumpkin, sloth hanging from a tree, an ocarina (a magical instrument from The Legend of Zelda series),  and a lizard with a broken tail.

12:37 p.m.

Midday, community members and �ֲ���ýies alike gather on Ladd’s first floor to watch Pat Webber, director of the Muskie Archives, “flip the birds” — a.k.a, change the page displayed from �ֲ���ý’ copy of John James Audubon’s iconic Birds of America.

The 2-by-3 foot book of illustrated birds rests in a wooden display case, designed by the late Thomas Moser, near Ladd’s main entrance. Each month, archives staff change the displayed pages to exhibit new birds and invite an expert to discuss the avians.

This month, the guest expert is ecologist Emily Runnells, who talks about the Atlantic puffin and the razorbill, species that build small colonies on difficult-to-reach rocky islands in the Gulf of Maine.

“They spend a lot of time here,” Runnells says. “If you manage to get out on the ocean in the winter, you can find anything out there.”

12:37 p.m.

Juniors Amanda Yolles (left) of Belvedere Tiburon, Calif., and Samantha Gabel (right) of Sherman Oaks, Calif., who are sitting with Lexi Inger, like to hang out on the ground floor — half studying, half socializing, they say.

12:54 p.m.

Christine Murray (left) talks with fellow research librarian Marianne Williams (right) at the main research desk on Ladd’s first floor.

Williams, who handles humanities-related research inquiries, is busy looking into acquiring a few French films for a Short Term course. She is constantly purchasing and managing physical and digital research assets, both for general campus use and for faculty’s specific research interests, which she closely tracks.

“At �ֲ���ý, we really try to make sure that our collection is reflective of the curriculum,” Williams says.

One of her recent purchases is Holy Smoke, an art book about the use of incense in classical cultures around the world, which Williams purchased to complement Assistant Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies Liana Brent’s research on ancient death practices. The dark smudges staining the large book are, surprisingly, not damage from an overly-inspired reader but rather an intentional artistic choice.

“It’s got a carbon material in the cover so that when you touch it, it creates this ashiness,” Williams says. “The idea is that you’re actually supposed to get the book dirty.”

Before she puts Holy Smoke away, Williams places the book back inside of the clear plastic bag that protects neighboring books from the ashy residue.

12:57 p.m.

Newspapers are displayed on the library’s first floor, just left of the entrance.

Titles here are, from top, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the World Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Washington Blade. Other print editions include the Lewiston Sun Journal, Bangor Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, and The �ֲ���ý Student.

1:06 p.m.

Ladd Library is for all ages. The physical collection of is housed on the first floor of Ladd, including titles of children’s books like All Because You Matter by Tami Charles, I Give You My Heart by Pimm van Hest, and Beautiful Moon: A Child’s Prayer by Tonya Bolden.

The Diverse Bookfinder is a resource for librarians, educators, parents, book creators, and publishers who seek children’s books featuring characters who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

The platform was founded at �ֲ���ý, based on work begun in 2010 by Krista Aronson, an associate dean of the faculty and professor of psychology; Anne Sibley O’Brien, an award-winning author and illustrator of books about diverse children and communities; and Brenna Callahan ’15 — now director of health services and student well-being at �ֲ���ý — whose interest in diverse picture books was inspired by her work with an early literacy-intervention program in Maine.

1:08 p.m.

Salem Aqraa ’27, who had the early morning shift at the IT Service Desk, returns for a busier shift. He is helping fellow sophomore Leighton Kelly of Cohasset, Mass., who is having wifi issues.

1:18 p.m.

After “flipping the birds,” Webber heads up to the second floor, to the storage area for the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. Tucked away just outside of a stairwell, the unassuming room is a treasure trove items related to �ֲ���ý and to Muskie, the revered statesman who graduated from �ֲ���ý in 1936.

Webber presents a collection of three baseballs signed by members of the Giants, Yankees, and Dodgers — all New York baseball teams at the time — including legends like Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and Willie Mays. The signed balls were given to Muskie, who was governor of Maine at the time, and other U.S. governors attending the annual governors’ conference in Atlantic City, N.J., in June 1956.

Another item represents �ֲ���ý campus history: architectural models of Olin Arts Center and Ladd itself, created by the two buildings’ famed architects, The Architects Collaborative.

And world history is represented by centuries-old rare texts. One such volume is a book written in Latin dating to around the 14th century and likely from the United Kingdom or the Low Countries, says Webber.

The book’s contents, seemingly composed of Biblical excerpts and sermons, are written on paper made from cloth, which is often more durable than modern paper.

As Webber carefully flips through the book, an amusing hand-drawn face peeks up from the top corner of a page, rare marginalia in the otherwise unadorned text.

“Maybe that’s a reaction,” Webber says. “It’s a 14th century meme. An OMG meme, or something like that.”

1:48 p.m.

First-year students and “best friends” Misra Ahmed, Natalie Gersen, Ellen Cabin, Natalie Damer-Salas, and Queenie Tsang study together at a table toward the back of the first floor of Ladd, a popular spot for group work and chatting.

They’ve pulled up extra chairs to their table so everyone is included — and within arm’s reach of a bag of chocolates, shared fuel for studying.

1:52 p.m.

Alec Spiro ’25, Matt Riseman ’26, Abby Hubbard ’26, and Olivia Dorion ’26 put their heads together on a midterm project for their “Youth Sociopolitical Development” psychology course.

Here, they’re organizing flyers that they’ll post around campus. The flyers have QR codes inviting students to take a survey about their experiences with dorm damage in campus residences.

2:11 p.m.

Chris Schiff, Ladd’s music and arts research librarian, points a student in the right direction from the research desk on the first floor. This time of year, when Schiff isn’t out on the floor, he’s in his office a few feet away, advising senior students who are finishing their theses.

2:27 p.m.

On the front end, books come to the library through purchases that are often funded by endowments.

For example, Wendell Wray ’50, who died in 2003, was an influential librarian who directed the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

His bequest to �ֲ���ý created a library fund to purchase books on African American topics. Recent acquisitions have included The Healing Stage by Lisa Biggs, highlighting the transformative power of theater in addressing Black trauma and resilience.

The arrival of new books requires a complementary back-end process. Today, �ٳ󲹳�’s the task for Xanthe Miller ’25, who works in the library’s bibliographic services area, which involves acquisitions, cataloging, processing, and preservation.

She’s sorting through books that will be donated to organizations like Better World Books, which raises funds for non-profit literacy organizations, or recycled.

It’s a dream job for this economics and music double major from Short Hills, N.J. A book lover and avid collage artist, she sets aside books that catch her eye, either for reading or collaging. Back in her room in the Village, Miller has dedicated an entire wall devoted to collages she’s made from old books.

Within the books, Miller finds fascinating ephemera: bookmarks and scraps made into such.  There was a pristinely filled-out but unsent Ovaltine customer quality survey promising $4.50 of coupons to participants; a 10 rupee banknote from India, from the Mahatma Gandhi series, and a Tommy John baseball card.

After a shift spent sorting through literature, Miller often finds herself covered in small bits of paper. They float away as she speaks with her hands, like literary fairy dust.

“The books leave their traces on me in a very real way,” Miller says. “I turn the books into art, and they turn me into some sort of whimsical being.”

3:56 p.m.

Outside, an Admission tour winds its way past the library. Inside Ladd, just above the visitors, Chloé Santucci ’25 of Falmouth, Maine, Josh Collins ’25 of Bodega Bay, Calif., and Madison Pavao ’26 of Franklin, Mass., have convened on the first floor.

They’re gathered at a table in the back corner to work on a group project for their cellular biochemistry course with Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Daniel Slane.

Since their work is collaborative, the students have selected a study area where they can chat, specifically at Ladd rather than in dorm study spaces. Surrounded by other studious �ֲ���ýies and just steps away from countless academic resources, the students focus best in the library.

“It’s nice because sometimes I will get confused or not know how to do an assignment or I need help, and there’s a lot of resources,” Santucci says.

4:02 p.m.

Ethan Vulcain-Sowkey ‘28 of Flushing, N.Y., walks to Ladd Library with Yuki Yasuda, a Learning Associated in Japanese.

Inside the library, Nicole Rossilli ’27 of Staten Island, N.Y., wanders over to Ladd’s printing stations, clad in a �ֲ���ý EMS T-shirt. A trained emergency medical technician, she’s on call today and brings along the radio that will alert her of any emergency situations needing attention.

“The library is a good central location on campus, so if we get a call and we need to get there, it’s going to be less time,” Rossilli says.

Two to three �ֲ���ý EMS student volunteers are on call 24/7 during the academic year. Between calls, student volunteers go about their normal on-campus activities, such as what Rossilli is doing, printing a reading on technology and illness for a course with Professor of Anthropology Jennifer Hamilton.

4:14 p.m.

During thesis season, Chris Schiff can often be found in his office on the first floor of Ladd, advising senior students as they complete the largest projects of their academic careers thus far.

Today, Schiff and Lauren Georgeou ’25 of New York, N.Y., are discussing Georgeou’s senior thesis about the valuation of objects on the show Antiques Roadshow. Schiff’s office, packed with piles of antique sheet music and collected CDs, is well-suited for an academic discussion.

Schiff and Georgeou are working on “big picture” themes of Georgeou’s thesis, tackling questions about distinguishing one’s scholarly lens from personal opinion and the purpose of asking why certain knowledge matters.

“If you can try to answer that question of why is this knowledge valuable, you really contributed to scholarly discourse,” Schiff tells Georgeou.

4:51 p.m.

The higher you go in Ladd, the quieter it becomes, which suits D.J. Mason ’28 of Naperville, Ill., just fine. Mason says he is easily distractible, so he’s intentional about finding study spots, “away from social traffic and talking, where I can zone in on my work.” Today, �ٳ󲹳�’s the very quiet third floor.

He’s doing some reading for the course “Black Poetry,” taught by Dana Professor of English and Africana Therí Pickens, including 1919, a book of poetry by Eve L. Ewing about the Chicago race riots of that year, during the so-called Red Summer of violence in the U.S. “She explains how it was during Black migration: geographic, social, and economic, from the South to the North,” says Mason.

The second and third floors are dominated by the stacks, which refers to how books are “stacked” on shelving units. “Sometimes I’ll poke around and see what they’re about,” he says.

“There’s this history attached to them,” he says, plus what he calls an “antique functionality.” They’re still integral to the academic experience, but Mason feels a coming change.

“Books, in my mind, make me think of sitting down and doing serious work. Maybe in coming generations, that might change. They might not have that secondary, social cue” — the signal that a book in hand suggests intellectual effort and concentration.

Some of the chairs near where Mason is studying are original to the building.

For example, when asked where he studies in Ladd, Pascal Wettermark ’27 of Truckee, Calif., replied, “Upstairs. The blue chairs.”

The vivid blue upholstery of those heavy oak chairs (a hue of lapis that, it’s said, was favored by Cleopatra), were made by the Monarch furniture company, a bygone manufacturer located in High Point, N.C., which once had dozens of furniture factories.

7:11 p.m.

Ladd Library glows in the early evening, its distinctive four-level facade on full display.

7:18 p.m.

At the circulation desk, Yoko Franklin ’25 (right) of Princeton, N.J., helps Eli Criss ’25 of Winchester, Mass. Inside of Ladd, opportunities abound for students to learn from one another, whether it be through checking out a book, seeking out IT support, or a tutoring session.

7:21 p.m.

Caroline Hughes ’25 of Fairfax, Va., a biology major, works on her senior thesis at the research desk with help from Peter Schlax, Ladd’s science and data librarian. During the winter semester, Schlax’s calendar is full of research appointments with graduating students, each chugging away at their thesis projects.

7:24 p.m.

From left, seniors Adam Joseph, Grace Flaherty, Aidan Wood, and Maura Ferrigno gather for a study session, equal parts laughter and study on Ladd’s first floor.

7:45 p.m.

After the sun has gone down, the stacks on Ladd’s upper floors are quiet, awaiting students on the hunt for last-minute research materials.

7:51 p.m.

To help students navigate the Peer Learning Commons, student tutors wear colored safety vests. Neon yellow/green vests — seen here stored in a wall organizer, ready for use — indicate tutors who provide support in STEM fields and quantitative social sciences. Tutors who work with students on writing wear blue vests.

7:53 p.m.

Axelle Tougouma ’27 of Fada N’gourma, Burkina Faso, dons a yellow vest to begin work as a peer tutor supporting students in math courses.

In the evening, the Peer Learning Commons space is loud — in a productive way — with many students coming straight from dinner in groups to go over a few calculus problems they’ve been having trouble with, or to get a writing tutor to look over their latest essay before they turn it in.

Putting on a blue vest that marks her as a writing tutor is Tammy Namangale ’27 of Manhattan, N.Y., and Lilongwe, Malawi. “I love the energy in here,” she says, “Sometimes they come in for a class we’ve taken before, and they just need to vent about something, and I’m like, ‘I get it, you know, and I can help.’ I like being that person.”

“The training is way cooler than it seems. When I was training to be a writing tutor, our final project, we ran workshops for 100 middle school kids, and I got the virtual reality rooms. Lots of fun.”

7:54 p.m.

Naziea Fruits ’25 (left) of Cleveland, Ohio, a neuroscience major who supports biology, organic chemistry, and neuroscience courses, talking to Joaquin Torres ’25 of Silang, Philippines. A theater and neuroscience double major, Torres supports DCS classes as well as student writers across the curriculum.

9:04 p.m.

Molly Allison ’26 (left) of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., and fellow writing tutor Charlotte Gisborne ’25 of Bishop’s Stortford, England, glance at work on Allison’s computer.

9:09 p.m.

Peer tutor Peter Weil ’25 (left) of Cooperstown, N.Y., works with Talia Winters ’28 of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., helping her with calculus studies.

10:04 p.m.

In addition to students seeking help, the Peer Learning Commons attracts students helping each other.

On this night, Dylan Thomas ’25 (left) of Truckee, Calif., and Wyatt Hoffman ’25 (right) of Lyme, Conn., headed to Peer Learning Commons, along with Johannes Schwarz ’25 of Cincinnati, Ohio, to study together for an upcoming exam in their biochemistry class.

Their goal? “Hopefully not to fail,” jokes Hoffman.

12:33 a.m.

Gathering in one of the Peer Learning Commons’ public speaking and presentation studios are, top to bottom, theater majors Jack Hagan ’27 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Ruby Marden ’27 of Sidney, Maine, and Aidan Bergeron ’27 of Pelham, Mass.

They’re watching Hamlet as they outline the play on the whiteboard. The group is the last on the ground floor — and certainly the most enthusiastic for the late hour.

The presentation and speaking studios are equipped with multimedia technology for students wishing to practice pitches or presentations, whether a thesis defense, job interview, or Mount David Summit poster session. The rooms are staffed by tutors from the Peer Learning Commons.

12:38 a.m.

Mo Al-jabry ’28 of Singapore, a member of the IT Service Desk team, works on assignments as he waits to assist students with late night technical issues.

The library is winding down, preparing to rest. In less than four hours, the custodial crew will arrive to start the daily cycle all over again

There is a late night chorus of sounds. The occasional cough, muffled laughs, and unintelligible words. Cellphones hitting tables with a distinctive thud amidst the click and clack of keyboards. Zippers opening and closing as bags are packed and warm coats go on.

Since midnight, Karla Chichester of access services has been walking the floors, reminding students of the 1 a.m. closing time. Sometimes, she has to move within eyesight of headphone-wearing students to get their attention before reciting the same reminder.

“This is part of the job that I really enjoy doing. I like seeing who is here,” she says. “We have our regulars, which we love seeing. I asked one of them, ‘Do you get tired of my kicking you out?’ They say no, that it serves as a good reminder — they tend to lose track of time.”

As the lights go off, the stacks take on a new look, she adds. “It’s a more intimate view of the collections.”

12:43 a.m.

In two minutes, at 12:45 sharp, half the overhead lights in the library will flicker off, leaving the first floor ominously aglow. The elevator dings on the first floor, indicating its arrival and the departure of a few lingering students. 

In the distance of this image, one of the last students remains at work.

12:52 a.m.

This late-night regular is Maura Ferrigno ’25 of New Providence, N.J., who explains her nighttime studying ritual to Hannah Kothari ’26, an editorial assistant for �ֲ���ý Communications and Marketing.

Ferrigno likes how the lights going off signals that it’s time to end her day, and how the 1 a.m. closing time tells her it’s time to sleep.

“The library’s closing time is nice because it’s putting you to bed. It’s cozy here. I find it not as sterile as other buildings on campus. I embrace being here for as long as I need to be here.”

12:54 a.m.

12:58 a.m.

Ferrigno is still typing away on an annotated bibliography for an art history course. She has two more minutes, and she’ll use both.

1:04 a.m.

Karla Chichester (left), the late night timekeeper,  buttons her coat, walks out the two sets of double doors with her colleague from access services, Zeke Sturgeon, and locks them behind her.

“It was a good day!” she says, putting Ladd Library to bed for its brief, deep sleep.

Writing and reporting by Jay Burns, Alexandra DeMarco, Hannah Kothari ’26 and Ramona McNish ’28.

Students put studying on the chopping block on Monday by doing some target practice — with axes. The activity made for a great outlet for finals-induced stress and frustration, and an opportunity to do something outdoors.

“We were just talking about how we needed to split up studying and doing fun things,” said Hailey Singer ‘24 of West Hartford, Conn., who was on her way to study at Ladd Library when she saw a crowd gathered at the arcade, the covered outside area that faces Alumni Gym. “This is perfect.”

After signing a safety waiver and getting some pointers from an “ax-pert” instructor, students, two at a time, took turns tossing hatchets at a wooden target in a fenced trailer — dubbed “the cage” — provided by The Axe Pit, a Portland-based axe-throwing venue.

Despite the cold, foggy weather, the arcade was soon ringing with voices and laughter — and music — as students waited in line, cheering each bullseye and groaning when a hatchet bounced off the target to land on the floor of the trailer.

“It’s a good de-stressor,” said Piper Strunk ’24 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, who was on her way to study with Singer at the library. “Especially during finals, to be able to relax for a second and throw an axe.”

Fall semester finals began Tuesday and conclude on Monday, Dec. 13.

The afternoon event was part one of the day’s “axe and relax” theme sponsored by the Office of Campus Life. In the evening, a spa-inspired study break in Chase Hall Lounge featured a self-care product giveaway. 

Aml Mohamed, interim coordinator of campus life programming, came up with the idea. “I thought it would be appropriate for exams week,” Mohamed said. “But I wanted to make sure it would be safe.”

After a few video calls with Jules Slesarchik from The Axe Pit to check out their safety rules and regulations, Mohamed was satisfied that this would be the perfect stress reliever for students. The event definitely hit the mark, with over 120 students stopping to throw axes over the course of the four hours The Axe Pit was on campus.

It’s finals week, and we think students are foregoing routine tasks like laundry. How do we know? Two prepaid laundry cards were among the items in the Ladd Library Lost and Found on Dec. 6.

Here are the 19 items:

Pencil, imprinted with a single word in all caps: “ASPHALT”

Earbuds case, Apple brand, empty, with the word “Smile” and a happy face on the outside

Earbuds case, with wireless earbuds inside that feature LED readouts of Bluetooth battery strength; no brand noted

Honey lip balm, Burt’s Bees brand, still lost from the last edition of Lost and Found

Bracelet, with a moose (or deer) and a snowflake, still lost from last edition of Lost and Found

Five hair-organizing devices, including three scrunchies and two claw clips

Earring, single

Personal reusable container, empty, with �ֲ���ý logo. Dining Services gives out these lidded, insulated stainless-steel mugs to reduce paper waste

Nalgene bottle, 32 ounces and mostly full with water (we think), with Bobcat logo

Remote control, to operate the popular multicolored LED light strips that students hang in their rooms

Face covering, evolvetogether brand, one of the first consumer-facing, FDA-approved medical masks. “And while many styles have experienced fleeting popularity, it’s evolvetogether’s minimalist, disposable face masks that have by and large become the go-to mask,” says Vogue.

Baseball cap, black denim, Jack & Jones Vintage Clothing Co., with tagline: “Once tried, always used”

Laboratory manual, for organic chemistry, created by Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Andrew Kennedy, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Jennifer Koviach-Côté, and Assistant in Instruction Lorna Clark. The manual includes a variety of experiments, including how to purify an unknown compound by distilling it.

Green three-ring binder, Staples brand, with a folder inside jam-packed with completed problem sets and other coursework in the mathematics course Calculus II

Photographic print, on DNP Paper, showing a dog, from its POV, looking at a cat curled up on a Persian chair

Two prepaid laundry cards, by CSC , the company that owns and services the washers and driers located in almost all student residences

Notebook, for an introductory course in cultural anthropology, noting a final project proposal that might include explaining the implications of the German concept of “Kultur,” in the sense becoming civilized

�ֲ���ý rowing team jacket, L..L.Bean brand, in the “Mountain Classic Puffer Jacket” style, featuring the rowing logo, based on the college seal

Black woman’s glove, brand unknown, with small zippered accessory pocket, convenient for car key, debit card, tissue, or money

A warm stretch of early fall weather might explain a couple things about the Ladd Library Lost and Found on Sept. 29. 

First is what we �徱���’t see: many items. Perhaps the nice weather and the pandemic are keeping �ֲ���ý students happily outside. 

The second is clothes. We’re used to seeing fleece pullovers and the like. As cool Maine mornings give way to warm afternoons, and students eliminate (and lose) layers. Today we saw a T-shirt and tank top…. Now �ٳ󲹳�’s a commitment to shedding layers.

Here are the 18 items:

• Electric blue ribbed cropped tank top, extra small, by Babaton
  
• �ֲ���ý pre-shrunk cotton/poly blend T-shirt, by the “fashion-forward” company District Clothing
  
• Burt’s Bees honey lip balm, a perennial lost and found favorite
  
• Kanguru brand thumb drive, 1 gigabyte, another lost and found favorite
  
• Eastpak brand pencil case, empty
  
• Anker Soundcore Life P2 wireless earbuds case, empty

• Small container of Play-Doh, the manipulating and squishing of which can relieve stress, ease tension, and release endorphins

• Contigo travel mug, black

• Water bottle, by Hydro Flask

• Bracelet with a moose (or deer) and a snowflake

• Book, Reading Erna Brodber: Uniting the Black Diaspora Through Folk Culture and Religion, by June Roberts. The book looks at post-colonial infrastructure of Caribbean society and life through the writings of the Jamaican writer, sociologist and social activist.

• Book, Mad for God: Bartolomé Sánchez, the Secret Messiah of Cardenete, by Sara Tilghman Nalle.
  
  Described as a “gripping tale of madness and religious conviction,” the book tells the story of a Spanish peasant who believed that God had sent him in divine retribution for the crimes committed by the Spanish Inquisition. Professor of History Karen Melvin’s students are reading the book this week for her course on the inquisition.

• Power cord for iPhone with a Lightning connector
  
• Power cord for a Dell laptop

• Mini mechanical pencil with logo of Muskie Archives and Special Collections

• Face covering, worn to prevent the spread of infectious diseases (but you knew that)

• Pigna Monocromo notebook, featuring ruled pages with five-millimeter squares

• Water bottle by Garyline, featuring the University of Vermont logo and four �ֲ���ý stickers:

1. �ֲ���ý Campus Life and Traditions, a student-led program that plans inclusive events 
2. Legacy, the brand of
3. �ֲ���ý Green Dot, the college’s bystander intervention program
4. �ֲ���ý Academic Resource Commons, the one-stop shop in Ladd Library for academic support

“I think I’m on the phone with someone’s mom,” said a wide-eyed Jaimin Keliihoomalu ’21 of Kapolei, Hawaii.

I had been arranging items on a low wooden table to photograph for this edition of Library Lost and Found. Nearby, studying with a friend, Keliihoomalu was taking a look at a pair of lost (but soon to be found) Bluetooth earbuds.

“How do you work these?” he asked before fitting them in his ears and powering them up.

Good buds: Vidyut Yadav ’20 of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, poses with Jaimin Keliihoomalu ’21 of Kapolei, Hawaii, after the case of the lost ear buds was solved. (Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

It was at that moment that Keliihoomalu apparently connected to someone’s phone and, perhaps, to someone’s mom. So Keliihoomalu quickly took the buds out, a bit abashed. But still very curious, he put them in again and powered them up again. And again he was in conversation with someone. “She asked me if I disinfected them,” he said.

In search of the other half of the paired device, he and I headed toward the nearby forest of study carrels on the first floor of Ladd. Suddenly, a student stood up, looking at his phone, clearly bewildered. He saw Keliihoomalu; they gestured a greeting to one another as he walked over.

It was Vidyut Yadav ’20 of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and yes, he’d been on the phone with his mom, Anuradha, when Keliihoomalu inadvertently cut in to the call via Bluetooth. “I think these are yours,” Keliihoomal said. “Sorry, but I put them in my ears.”

“It’s all good. Thanks, man,” said Yadav, who’d lost the ear buds a few days before and had tried to find them, not yet realizing there was a Lost and Found.

The earbuds no longer lost, the once-18 items became these 17:

• A �ֲ���ý-branded carabiner
• USB thumb drive
• Knit cap by Greenbrier International, a brand of Dollar Tree
• Single earring with golden discs
• CSC Serviceworks money card for use in campus washers and dryers
• Jalousie brand air-purifying bag (useful for deodorizing shoes) filled with bamboo charcoal
• Hand-made clay mug with one handle broken off
• Book: Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions, by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber, which shares an iconic fable to show how an organization can do well in times of rapid change
• Book: Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, by Frans de Waal, which explores the biological foundations of one of humanity’s most valued traits: morality
• DS-Max PN-955 35mm film camera
• Water bottle from Philadanco, the Philadelphia Dance Co.
• Two course notebooks, one for a math course and one for a geology course, the latter with hand-drawn illustrations of types of rock deformation: translation, rotation, and strain
• Pink wired earbuds
• Pink pencil eraser
• Single glove, no brand
• Vaseline petroleum jelly
• Mastercard debit card
• Notebook from the Tufts Office for Campus Life

Note: Valuable lost items like credit cards are kept in a secure area behind the circulation desk.

When the north wind starts to blow, students turn to their lip balm…then leave the tubes on various carrels and desks in Ladd Library, where they find their way to the Lost & Found.

Here are the 18 items in the library’s Lost & Found on Dec. 13, 2019, a day before the end of finals week for the fall semester.

• Mario Badescu–brand lip balm
• Doctor Dan–brand “Cortibalm” lip balm
• Halloween-themed pinwheel
• Book, A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None, by Kathryn Yusoff, exploring connections among the science of geology, racism, and anthropocene thinking

Items seen in the library’s Lost & Found on Dec. 13, 2019. (H. Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

• Notebook for Chemistry 107,  a course that examines the structures of atoms and molecules
• Hoop earrings (many)
• Casio FX-CG10 graphing calculator
• Two buttons, one featuring the transgender pride flag and the other the initials “JR.”
• Faux ID card invoking Russian fashion designer and photographer Gosha Rubchinskiy
• Three pendants, gold, red, and white, featuring the Timberland logo
• Yaroce blue-light blocking computer glasses
• Two plastic rulers
• Variety of water bottles, including one from the college’s Mathematics and Statistics Workshop, and a commemorative one from the New England Patriots’ 2019 Super Bowl win
• Black cotton gloves
• Popup mirror and hair brush
• Pendant necklace with pyramid-shaped stone
• Bluetooth ear buds
• One footie sock

Professor of Psychology Krista Aronson is a key figure in the creation of the Diverse BookFinder, a �ֲ���ý resource that tracks how diversity is represented in thousands of children’s picture books.

She’s also the mother of two daughters. One daughter is in preschool. A teacher there recently told Aronson, “I actually knew you before I knew you” — and the connection was the .

In Ohio, where the preschool teacher had lived previously, her son’s middle school had based a classroom project on the DBF, and even used a beta version of its Collection Analysis Tool to audit the children’s book holdings in the school library. “I was flattered and excited,” says Aronson. “And I love to hear new ideas and new spins on our work.”

The episode illustrates the success attained by the DBF, a resource that identifies what groups — among Black and Indigenous People and People of Color, as the DBF mission statement says — are represented in a given book and, importantly, what messages the book conveys about those groups.

Since its launch in 2017, the DBF has broadened the reading choices for countless children and parents, thanks to its powerful Search Tool for multicultural picture books. It has also helped nearly 200 libraries analyze their picture book collections, enlarged its own collection from 2,000 to 3,000 books, established a newsletter and social media channels, and .

“We have thousands of people who on a regular basis pay attention to the work that we’re doing, which is really wonderful,” Aronson says.

The DBF website, which was redesigned a year ago, makes clear the accessibility of the resource for parents of young children, librarians, researchers, and folks in publishing. And new developments this fall promise to further the reach of the DBF and its goal of giving a richer view of diversity to the youngest readers.

In December, after months of pilot testing, the DBF will officially unveil its . Essentially, the CAT makes publicly accessible the engine that has powered the BookFinder right along: an analytical method that uses book-specific data, meticulously compiled from the DBF’s books by Aronson’s team, to assess how any children’s book collection represents different groups.

Professor of Psychology Krista Aronson reads in Ladd Library with her daughter Hope in 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Moreover, the Diverse BookFinder team recently launched a program to help Maine libraries use the CAT to assess their children’s book collections for diversity — and, through a competitive grant process, provide successful applicants with $300 grants to buy books that will help balance those collections.

That effort has been made possible through a partnership with the and a $50,000 grant from the Brooks Family Foundation of Portland, Maine. The grants will target underresourced libraries, as determined by number of librarians or collection budget relative to community size. (Mayo Street Arts, in Portland, and Lewiston’s Literacy Volunteers–Androscoggin will share $1,000 of the Brooks Family funds for development of their children’s libraries.)

Applying for the grant is a fairly straightforward process, says Aronson. First, a library needs to use the CAT, , to analyze their picture book collection. (Creating an uploadable list of relevant ISBNs, or standardized book IDs, is the only tricky bit, she says, but there are tutorials online.)

A selection of picture books at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass. �ֲ���ý photographer Phyllis Graber Jensen took the photo during a Short Term 2017 visit to the museum by Krista Aronson and her students in a course related to the Diverse BookFinder. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“Within minutes, you’ll have your report,” she says. Then, to apply for the $300 grant, “you write 300 words or less about what you learned from your CAT report, and upload that and a list of books that you want to purchase.”

With the humanities council administering the application process, the program is accepting the first round of grant proposals now, with a Dec. 2 deadline. A second application period will begin during the winter.

“I hope that we can use the model that we’re creating with these funds to do something on the national level with additional support,” Aronson says. It’s one thing to raise consciousness and help librarians better understand their holdings, she explains, but ultimately there’s no better way to diversify a collection of children’s books than to help buy books.

To date, between beta testing and a soft launch earlier in the fall, about 195 libraries have used the CAT. The DBF team will start promoting the tool in December.

Matt Schlobohm ’00 reads a book with his son Avery, 6, in Ladd Library during a 2018 MLK Day workshop titled “Friends Across Difference.” The workshop used artmaking and picture books to explore cross-cultural relationship-building. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

One of the 195 is the Kennebunk Free Library in Kennebunk, Maine, which pilot-tested the CAT last spring. “It is so meaningful to see, with concrete numbers and graphs, how our collection represents all children,” says children’s librarian Maria Richardson. “It’s enabled me to develop our collection more mindfully.”

Among other results, the report prompted the library to expand its assortment of books about First/Native Nations/American Indian/Indigenous peoples, which had been underrepresented in its collection.

In fact, while the DBF is impressively inclusive in the attributes it measures, two sets are central to its workings. First, there are seven demographic categories (First/Native Nations being one of them). Then there are nine story types, which provide a lens for understanding what messages are conveyed about different demographic groups. Richardson, for one, has found the story types “extremely valuable,” she says. “I’ve started to use them when identifying books for purchase.”

Parents, like librarians, seeking diverse picture books find a robust helper in the DBF. Thanks to wide-ranging filters in the , you can tailor your search closely to your family’s circumstances. For instance, if you seek a book in the Folklore story type and the Asians/Pacific Islanders/Asian Americans demographic type — and you select Buddhism from the Religion category, too — the DBF will show you seven books. And even give you more information about each.

The Diverse BookFinder’s physical collection at Ladd Library in 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

DBF project coordinator Andrea Breau is encouraged by the amount and kind of feedback she’s getting about the DBF from parents, via social media and directly from folks who sign out DBF books at Ladd. “We’ve heard from parents who have prepared for the arrival of a new baby by ‘registering’ for books they’ve found using our Search Tool’s filter functions to home in on their family’s own racial, cultural, and religious identifications,” she says.

“We’ve heard from those who follow our newsletter and blog posts to learn how they might use a picture book to discuss issues of race and racism that their children are currently facing at school. And, of course, there are those who follow us on social media to get book ideas when their creativity is running low or to keep up with what’s happening in the broader diverse books movement.”

Aronson points out that as soon as new books are added to the collection in Ladd Library, the DBF team (this year including sophomores Ojochenemi Maji and Isabella David)‚ codes them for the database. The website reflects this constant updating in a feature called , which “are a first in the field,” Aronson points out. “And �ֲ���ý is a part of it.”

For Aronson, the accessibility of the DBF data beyond academe satisfies another deeply felt goal. “It represents the translation of research-based academic data into something that’s useful and usable for the public. When you think about how we engage and share out with people, how we move out of strictly academic spaces and interact with people, that’s certainly a good way to do it,” she says.

“It’s really exciting.”

The fall semester is at full speed as busy Bobcats plan their days, store their data, stay hydrated, and do their course readings…while losing appointment notebooks, thumb drives, water bottles, and books.

Here were 18 items seen in the Ladd Library Lost & Found on Sept. 25:

• Dane-Elec 4-gigabyte flash drive
• Staedtler Mars plastic eraser
• Tote bag with the logo of Analysis Group (a consulting firm founded by Bruce Stangle ’70) filled with handouts from a recent Purposeful Work information session
• Single black sock
• Spigen iPhone 11 case

Items in the Ladd Library Lost & Found on Sept. 25, 2019. (Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

• �����Ǵǰ�: Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum by physicist Leonard Susskind and data engineer Art Friedman
• Single hoop earring
• Vicks VapoCool lozenge
• Pocket schedule of a busy Bobcat: wake at 6:30, run at 6:50, and head to sociology class at 8 o’clock!
• The usual �ֲ���ý plastic water bottle
• Various pens, pencils, and highlighters
• Application for a student seeking transfer credits from Yonsei University of Seoul, South Korea
• Pendant, the kind that might hang from a graduation cap, with “Cleveland Metroparks Zoo” on one side and “Class of 2017” on the other, which may (or not) relate to a master’s program in partnership with Miami University
• Lightning to micro-USB cable
• Voter Registration Acknowledgement Notice from the city of Lewiston to a student approving a voter registration application and noting the voting location, the Lewiston Armory
• T-shirt with the college’s wellness program slogan, “Together We Can B-Well”
• Four Duracell AA batteries (charge: unknown)
• Pocket folder with Bobcat logo filled with readings from the �ֲ���ý politics course “States and Markets,” including ” by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

Full of portents and promises, Wednesday was optimal for an installment of Library Lost and Found.

Not just the first day of spring, the afternoon of March 20 was also the deadline for seniors doing honors theses; whoops and laughs could be heard throughout the busy first floor of Ladd Library as seniors did the thesis-binding thing.

Eighteen items in the Ladd Library’s Lost and Found on March 20, 2019. (Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

Here are the 18 items we saw:

• Bandana-print scrunchie
• Carhartt knit cap
• Pair of Timberland work gloves
• Paper for Anthropology 101, taught by Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring “Danny” Danforth, exploring whether ethnic clubs at the high school level perpetuate the false but persistent idea that race is a biological construction, or that it’s the same as ethnicity.
• Rainbow pencil eraser (broken in half)
• Band-Aid (unused)
• Book: Medical Apartheid, about the history of medical experimentation on black Americans, by Harriet Washington
• High-capacity, Homecube-brand pencil case (available on Amazon for $8.99), plus earbuds
• Ray-Ban sunglasses in the classic Wayfarer style, popularized in the ’50s and ’60s by James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Bob Dylan, and others.

Roy Orbison wears Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses in 1965. (Jac. de Nijs / Anefo)

• Single black sock
• Book: When Breath Becomes Air, the posthumously published memoir by  about his life and battling 
• Necklace with a pendant in the shape of the state of Maine
• Ghostbusters T-shirt
• Mug with dried cocoa inside and, outside, a sarcastic-housewife meme, showing a mother sipping coffee and saying to her son: “Caffeine first, darling, then we’ll pretend to listen to each other”
• Photocopy of pages from The Argentina Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Gabriela Nouzeilles, Graciela Montaldo
• Garnet �ֲ���ý cap
• Double-prong, vintage-style women’s fashion belt by Relic
• Tote bag from the 2015 conference “” sponsored by Maine’s Casco Bay Estuary Partnership

That was then: On Oct. 25, a week before the deadline for their completion, the hardscaping projects at Coram and Ladd libraries were the focus of intense activity.

“This is crunch time,” said Paul Farnsworth, Facility Services project manager for the projects in front and in back of Coram Library: the expansion of Coram Terrace and the revamping of Ladd Plaza. “We have all the materials, finally, and we have all the people. Now the weather is the challenge.” Nearly three inches of rain fell on Lewiston in October.

Among those feeling the crunch were workers for project contractor Contracting Specialists Inc. They’d been putting in 10-hour days, and floodlights by the terrace enabled them to see their work when they got there each day at 6, an hour before sunrise.

Spreading topsoil over the location of the recently installed steam lines feeding the Olin Arts Center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A scooter commuter enjoys the fresh asphalt on the two-lane connector between Ladd Plaza and the Historic Quad. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Ipe, okay? An early adopter of the new Ladd Plaza seating technology takes a call on Oct. 31. The wood covering the bench is called ipe. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Landscapers fill the planters in a cluster of concrete furniture on Ladd Plaza. The plantings include a decorative onion that was a 2018 Perennial of the Year. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

So-called barren strawberries, which resemble but aren't the tasty fruit, are ready to be planted on Ladd Plaza. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Some of the masons were placing the big granite pavers, 18 by 36 inches each, on the Coram Terrace floor. Curing blankets were heaped around, ready to spread over fresh-laid granite to keep the mortar from freezing. Other workers nearby fitted precast stone facing onto walls adjacent to the new stairs that connect Ladd Terrace to the Historic Quad.

A Lull forklift brought materials to that team from a stockpile near the Gray Athletic Building. Meanwhile, little front-end loaders — yep, Bobcats — scooted around and a junior excavator stood by to lift granite and move soil. Electricians ran cables from Coram out to in-ground receptacles for video and sound equipment.

Farnsworth himself was a bit crunched. Originally scheduled for substantial completion by the start of school, the library projects were slowed by supply delays.

In particular, the granite for Coram Terrace came late. “The marketplace for granite is really busy,” said Farnsworth.

Drilling granite for a fastener at Coram Terrace on Oct. 10, 2018. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

He also explained that the process for precision-cutting stone can slow things down a bit. The contractor, who is on the work site and can assess how things actually need to fit together, submits so-called shop drawings with measurements to the architect for approval. And it’s those approved drawings that the stonecutters work from.

You’ll recall that the terrace, which faces the Historic Quad, has been expanded to make it a better stage for academic ceremonies like Convocation. In the absence of the granite, Convocation this year took place on the terrace’s new concrete slab, bare but dressed up with flowers.

The granite showed up around the beginning of October. The CSI crew began by placing blocks around the slab perimeter to form a low parapet. Next came the steps, a particularly fussy fitting job, and then applying fascia blocks around the vertical face of the slab, which required excavating around it.

Finally, onto a bed of mortar, the team laid and grouted the pavers over which the graduates of 2019 and beyond will stride to receive their diplomas, and across which we’ll all walk on the unceremonial days of the year, not giving CSI and their hard work a thought.

With the Ladd Plaza renovation done enough to accommodate traffic, the library’s main entrance reopened on Oct. 1, 2018. Here’s the plaza two days later. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Up on Ladd Plaza, the pace was more relaxed. This was a sharp contrast to the summer and early fall, when the plaza was off-limits as it was torn up, a leaky subterranean water barrier replaced, and the whole works rebuilt to a higher technical and aesthetic standard.

With temporary signs pointing the way during the construction, visitors could access the library only through a ground-level service door facing Hedge Hall.

But the plaza and the library’s main entrance were reopened on Oct. 1, and by the 25th workers were concentrating on just a few tasks, mostly related to the aesthetics of this site intended to be an al fresco living room.

And this is now: On Oct. 31, hours before deadline, the Ladd Plaza renovation and the Coram Terrace expansion were more or less complete.

A scooter commuter enjoys the fresh asphalt on the two-lane connector between Ladd Plaza and the Historic Quad. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Along with punch lists, some strewing of soil and grass seed, and other chores of the tidying-up variety, the work yet unfinished involves the pedestrian connections between the plaza and the Historic Quad.

The northern route, at the Hedge end of Coram, is in service but awaits metal railings on its ADA-accessible ramp. Those will show up just before Thanksgiving.

Parallel to that concrete ramp, a second walkway was paved on Tuesday as part of a wide-ranging asphalt-a-thon by local firm Cooper Paving, and was opened soon thereafter.

Still closed is the southern access to Ladd, near Carnegie Science, while the placement of precast stone facing continues. That job will be done by the end of next week.

Landscapers fill the planters in a cluster of concrete furniture on Ladd Plaza. The plantings include a decorative onion that was a 2018 Perennial Plant of the Year. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Up on the plaza on Halloween afternoon, workers for Davis Landscape Co. of Lisbon, Maine, were planting plants in planters. These fixtures are combined with seating to form a cluster of concrete “furniture” that cleverly conceals the top of a Ladd Library elevator shaft.

It’s a good time of year to set out perennials, and the Davis landscapers were all green thumbs as they went to town with sumac, blueberries, barren strawberries (not actually a strawberry), sedum, and grasses. And don’t forget the decorative onions — never forget the decorative onions!

In this case, it’s a butterfly-friendly variety called Allium Millenium (yep, one “n”), named the 2018 Perennial of the Year by the Perennial Plant Association, which prioritizes other horticultural virtues over correct spelling, and rightly so.

The other major outstanding task was also at the cluster. Carpenters were nearly done covering the square concrete benches with wood that makes them more inviting visually and, er, posteriorly. The other benches scattered around the plaza, seven of them, had been ready for a couple of days.

Eeep, it’s ipe: two benches on Ladd Plaza newly topped with the hardwood called ipe. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The wood on the benches is a new one to us: ipe. Rhyming with “eBay,” this chocolate-brown, too-heavy-to-float Brazilian hardwood is something of a double-edged sword as a building material.

Not only is it good-looking, but it’s extremely durable and will survive years of Maine weather. But that durability also makes it tough and difficult to work, to the extent that it tends to quickly dull cutting tools used on it.

(Moreover, the Google says that ipe smells like vanilla or cinnamon when it’s cut. This was not our experience. It’s true that we could have devoted more time to the effort, but persons smelling sawdust at a work site tend to attract unwelcome attention.)

A look around the plaza revealed not just ipe-covered benches but the handsome barriers that, completed just within the last few days, fill selected gaps in the brick parapet wall. The barriers consist of black metal uprights with stainless steel cables strung through them, and ipe handrails on top.

Welding a joint on steam pipes in front of Wentworth Adams Hall in the rain on Oct. 11, 2018. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Sightlines helped determine where those fencelike intervals would go. In keeping with a larger trend in �ֲ���ý architecture, dating back at least to the building of Pettengill Hall, the plaza renovation has been designed to maximize views into and out of the site.

Aside from the bustle around the cluster, though, there was nothing much to see besides the students using the library. We went into Coram and exited onto the terrace, trying out the new granite. A couple of masons had just grouted the last three pavers and were packing up.

Cooper Paving, too, had knocked off for the day, leaving a power roller and an asphalt spreader parked by the Class of 1906 Gate. The yellow tape marking the construction zone around Coram was gone. We headed back to the office.

It’s all over but the paving: The steam-line replacement at North Bardwell Street was functionally completed, as predicted, in mid-October.

You’ll recall that the project was stalled for a while by a change in the pipeline routing and the consequent need to fabricate new pipes. Those arrived during the first week of October, were connected and tested the following week by ATA Piping, and were buried the week after that, said Alan Kelley, project manager.

All �ٳ󲹳�’s left to do is to put a top coat of asphalt on the roadway (don’t get us started again on ) and stripe it. All that should happen next week.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about campus improvements. Please e-mail news writer Doug Hubley, stating “Construction Update” or “Is that a trick question?” in the subject line.

Spreading topsoil over the location of the recently installed steam lines feeding the Olin Arts Center. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)