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On Friday, April 27th, a group of fifth graders from Cook Elementary School visited the Z. Smith Reynolds Library. Their tour was part of their Wake Forest University campus visit, and we were asked to show them some of the interesting things that can be done in the library.

After a quick history of the university with digitized images to illustrate some of the neat things libraries do, Kevin Gilbertson used clickers to talk with the students about technology in libraries. The elementary school students liked the clickers as much as the college students do. One student even asked, “Will I get to use clickers if I come to WFU?” to which Kevin smartly replied, “You will if you take the library class!”

After that, we were out and about in the library. We went to reference, so the students could see where they could come get help with research one day. We saw Craig Fansler in the “book hospital” and he showed them some of the ways he repairs books and wowed them with his preservation tools. Everyone was impressed with the various cutting machines. Finally, we went to rare books to see Sharon Snow. She showed the students some of the older and newer rare books and explained some of the qualities that make books rare.

It was a good afternoon, and a pleasure to host the Cook Elementary School students.