The High Library at Elizabethtown College is under new directorship. Director of the Library Sarah Penniman began her position at Etown over the summer. As director, Penniman oversees the day-to-day operations of the Library and works on what she calls “crafting a vision” for the future of the High Library.
Under Penniman’s direction, the library has seen several changes, including the addition of a new reference collection. According to Penniman, the new reference collection will allow students to search the library’s numerous databases much more easily. “You can do one search and then pick and choose from all of our different collections,” she said.
Other recent additions at the High Library include a new set of engineering e-books called “Knovel.” Penniman said that the installation of the Knovel e-book collection coincided with the construction of the engineering fabrication laboratory in Esbenshade Hall.
The High Library also recently acquired a complete set of The New York Times articles. “You can do image searches, text searches and pull up the actual pages of the newspaper,” Penniman said. Students can retrieve Times articles from as early as 1851.
While the directorship is Penniman’s first position at the College, she has worked at other collegiate libraries in the past. “I worked for about seven years at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown [Pa.],” Penniman said. “I started there overseeing circulation and interlibrary loan,” she said and added, “Del Val by far gave me the broadest exposure to all of the areas in terms of purchasing books and electronic resources and going into classrooms to show students how to use those materials.”
Penniman has also worked at Ursinus College. “I sort of grew up in libraries,” Penniman said. “My mom is a librarian and worked at Albright [College] for about 30 years.”
Penniman stated that her first job was working in a library behind her house. “I’ve always been interested in libraries,” she said, “It’s really my niche.” Penniman said that while the new directorship is “a big challenge,” she has found that many of the libraries she has worked in provided her a wide array of experiences to draw upon. Her work at the High Library may be challenging but Penniman said that it is “not unfamiliar territory, so it’s not completely out of my comfort zone.”
Currently, Penniman and her colleagues are discussing several new plans for the High Library. “We are talking about our space here and thinking about how we can use it to our best advantage,” she said.
Penniman plans to meet with Etown faculty and discuss whether the library is meeting student needs. “We want to make sure that we are supplying the resources that would best help all the students with their assignments and their out of classroom research needs,” Penniman said.
Penniman has many plans for the future of the High Library. “We are still in the planning and initial discussion phases, but certainly we are open to any suggestions that the College community has,” she said.
“We are definitely putting our thinking caps on and trying to be strategic in terms of the future,” Penniman said. “We are definitely thinking of down the road and into the future.”
