I would be remiss if I didn’t dedicate a post to our current Friends of the Library membership drive. The Friends are a wonderful group of dedicated community members, corporate partners, and EU students, alumni, faculty, administration and staff who support the Warner Memorial Library and Eastern University through their generous donations. These monetary gifts help fund library projects and events that we are unable to support through our library budget.

Founded by John Baird over 50 years ago, the Friends have provided books, materials, computers and other enrichments to the library. This active group continually seeks new avenues that support Eastern’s and the library’s mission to provide scholarship and spiritual formation to the student body.

Some examples of Friends’ activities include:

• sponsoring student contests
• holding events (like the Friends of the Library Annual Dinner)
• fundraising through membership drives
• enhancing the library’s building and collection

The Friends are a energetic group! Both the beautiful Mazie Hall study room and the stately Edison study room were renovated with funds donated by the Friends.

Our current Jonathan Orr essay contest, which features prizes ranging from $150 to $500, is sponsored by the Friends.

Last month the Friends sponsored our Faculty Scholarship Celebration, where we had the opportunity of acknowledging our faculty’s recent publications.

And this year’s Friends of the Library Annual Dinner will be held on Friday April 15th and feature Eastern’s own Dr. Kent Sparks as our invited speaker.  He will talk about his upcoming book.

As mentioned above, we are currently holding our membership drive.  If you enjoy using the library and wish to see it continually improve, then I encourage you to consider giving a small donation ($10, $20) to the Friends.  Receiving donations from the Eastern community, like faculty, staff, administration, and students, is a great encouragement.

Questions about the Friends? Contact Joy Dlugosz, Executive Director of the Friends of the Library. Learn more about the Friends of the Library by visiting our website at http://www.eastern.edu/library/about/Friends of the Library.html