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On Saturday I dropped in to see Susan take on the challenge of the Academic Librarian Lightning Round. She did a great job sharing the details of our Wake the Library 5K.

Next, I attended an Ares Users Group meeting put on by Atlas Systems. The speaker was Genie Powell, the Chief Customer Officer for Atlas Systems. She highlighted some of the upcoming changes in Ares. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Ares, it is our new Course Reserves system. It’s up and running the summer semesters. Mary Reeves and I are looking forward to this fall and really putting this system to the test. Ares 4.0 (Currently Ares 3.0) will be rewritten to be more similar to its sister programs, ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan) and Aeon (for managing special collections). This will allow upgrades and add-ons to be implemented across all their products in the same manner. Another change will be the option to view a patron’s record in the web interface through the staff client. This will allow the Course Reserves staff to know what the patron is seeing and we’ll be better able to talk them through any problems they may have. Also, we had asked Atlas Systems about needing a notification when a faculty member changes a loan period or takes a book off Course Reserves. The new release of Ares will have that notification. It’s good to know they listened!

That evening Mary Beth and I attended an Ares Customer Appreciation Dinner at the Bourbon House restaurant. We had an excellent dinner and got to meet fellow Ares users as well as the Atlas Systems staff.

Sunday morning we attended the Alexander Street Customer Appreciation Breakfast and were privileged to hear Stanley Nelson speak about his latest movie, Freedom Riders. Even the 10 minute clip that was shown moved me close to tears. It’s being added to our film collection and is an important movie to see. Mr. Nelson credited his mother, a librarian, as having a great influence on his career.