Aside from the obvious academic tools at Blackmore Library, there are a number of lesser-known resources available to students, from electronic components to puppets to Pixar DVDs.
“Sometimes when you’re pulling an all-nighter, or even if you’ve been from class to class all day long, when your phone starts to go dead … we are always asked for chargers,” Matthew Cook, head librarian at Blackmore Library, said.
Last year, they purchased some multi-device chargers, which can be checked out and used in the library, along with extension cords, headphones, and HDMI adapters used to connect to the TVs in the group study rooms.
The library has 10 Mac and 10 Dell laptops available for in-library use for three hours at a time, and they can be renewed “to your heart’s content.”
During the library’s renovation in 2012, some computers were lost to give space for study rooms.
“What we did was to get these laptops … so basically, you’re not confined to a desk. You grab a laptop, you check it out at the library’s desk, you take it anywhere here in the library,” Cook said.
Aside from electronic resources, Blackmore Library has some other interesting collections.
“The puppets were part of a curriculum materials collection that the library hosted for the education department,” Cook said. “Part of that collection also included … board games and other little bits and pieces that they’d use for either training the students for working in a classroom environment or working with kids that they’d bring here in the library.”
Over time, however, those materials began to fall apart, but the puppets remained and are located in the juvenile section of the library, along with a large collection of juvenile and young adult literature and graphic novels.
The library also keeps K-12 textbooks which could be beneficial to education students who may be building curriculums.
Blackmore Library is also home to a collection of long play (LP) records located on the second floor, along with a record player.
“We have a good jazz collection, we also have some great classical compositions upstairs,” Cook said. “Even on our modest record player, it sounds incredible … another reason why you’d wanna check out the headphones.”
Cook mentioned some of the more leisure items, like popular movies on DVD (including films like Spirited Away and The Incredibles), and fiction novels by authors like Stephen King.
Blackmore Library also has a collection of classic novels that are bridged for ESL students.
The third floor of the library has some interesting resources, like copies of The New York Times and The New Yorker, microfilm, and old Capital yearbooks.
There are additional resources on the library’s website (capital.edu/library), like access to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, research databases like EBSCO, and an assignment calculator, which helps with time management.
The library also hosts events which are advertised on their Instagram, @BlackmoreLibrary.
Library services can be found here.
