Winter 2007

Dean's gift to benefit library

When Judith Sessions arrived nearly 19 years ago as the Miami University libraries dean and university librarian, she thought she would stay for just a few years.

University President Dr. Paul G. Pearson told her “you might find it a special place” back then. Sessions said she quickly found out that Dr. Pearson was right.

“It became my family,” she said. “And in devoting my career here, I developed a passion for the institution, for the libraries, for education and for lifelong learning.”

So Sessions recently decided to make a gift to the Miami University Campaign For Love and Honor for the libraries.

“We live in a complicated age,” she said. “Information is actually very costly, especially for scholarly research material.”

There are libraries on the Middletown and Hamilton campuses as well as six on the Oxford campus, including the university archives. With 2.8 million books, 110,000 maps, 20,000 journals, and other materials, the collection is costly to maintain as well as to keep current.

Sessions knew a gift would make a difference, especially as technology continues to change. “It’s important to keep on the edge, to be innovative and see how to apply new ideas,” she said. “When I became a librarian, the goal was to help you find the information you needed so that you could write your paper. Now, it’s to help you find the right information and to not get bogged down by the wrong stuff.”

Sessions said the university’s libraries are evolving with features like the Center for Information Management, a new collection of textbooks for the most popular courses, a future student writing center and the just-opened King Library Café.

Echoing the words of Miami President Emeritus Phillip Shriver, the honorary chair of the libraries campaign committee, Sessions said such projects are worthwhile. “You cannot conceive of a university without a library. The library is the heart of Miami,” she said.