Spectrum - Volume 21 Issue 15 December 10, 1998 - Library codes two million items; new catalog system unveiled

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Library codes two million items; new catalog system unveiled

Spectrum Volume 21 Issue 15 - December 10, 1998

Virginia Tech's University Libraries placed a barcode on its two-millionth item and unveiled its new web catalog system, which it has christened "Addison," during special ceremonies in Newman Library on December 2.
Three student leaders--Paul Wagner, president of the Graduate Student Assembly; Tara Berescik, chief of staff for the Student Government Association; and Melissa Smarr, associate justice in the Honor System--applied the barcode to The American Century, a history book by Harold Evans.
The book "chronicles our past, the period 1889 to 1989 in America--a time of change, evolution, growth, and becoming--much like the period we can anticipate that we are stepping into with the new millennium," Eileen Hitchingham, dean of Tech's University Libraries, told the crowd gathered for the event.
Hitchingham said that information on the book's special place in library history will be available in Addison, including the names of the students who applied the barcode. "Our students can learn from the past that is included in this wonderful volume and from the other resources in Addison."
The ceremony also included a talk by Clara B. Cox, manager of public service communications in University Relations, about William Addison Caldwell, Virginia Tech's first student, for whom the on-line catalog system is named and a discussion of "Virginia Tech as a Land-Grant University" by William E. Lavery, president emeritus of the university.
Addison can be accessed through the library's homepage at http://www.lib.vt.edu