Profile

The mission of Geisler Library is to provide Central College students with the information they need to achieve their highest academic potential and to help them acquire research skills necessary to lifelong learning; to support faculty and administrative staff teaching and inquiry; and to participate in cooperative information exchange within the wider library/educational community.

Geisler Library staff is comprised of four full-time librarians, a half-time archivist, 5.1 FTE support staff, and nearly 12,000 hours of paid student assistance annually. Library faculty are committed to teaching. Librarians assist students in locating information for class assignments and research projects. Instruction on locating, evaluating and using information is available one-on-one and through classroom activities, special seminars, web-based guides and the courses "Research Strategies" and "Introduction to the Web & Web Research." All first year students work with librarians to acquire information literacy competencies in the context of the course "Intersections." Librarians teach both basic and advanced library research skills using the latest technologies and electronic databases such as EBSCOHost, Lexis-Nexis Academic, Newsbank, JSTOR, America History & Life, OCLC FirstSearch, the American Chemical Society's complete electronic journal archives, and ACM's Virtual Library.

The library is housed in an award-winning facility completed in 1974 and designed by Charles Herbert Associates of Des Moines, Iowa. This welcoming and well-equipped, wireless facility is heavily used by students in all majors and programs. Collections and services are available on-site for 92 hours each week. Resources include individual and small group study areas, and a growing collection of 235,000 volumes; current subscriptions to 820 paper and 16,000 electronic journals and newspapers; and 15,000 audio-video items. The ground floor houses a Cafe and humanities faculty offices. The second floor houses reference services, circulation, reserves, interlibrary loan, personal workstations, and current periodicals. The third floor houses the main book collection, Archives, a Curriculum Library of 5,000 items supporting teacher education programs, a Music Library containing 4,000 music scores and anthologies, and private study and seminar rooms. The Alice Lammers Archives offers original documents describing the early settlement of Pella by the Dutch and records pertinent to the history of the college. In addition to the main collection in Geisler, a chemistry library in Vermeer Science Center contains 1,000 volumes. A branch library in Merida, Mexico serves Central's Yucatan Study Abroad Program. The library provides enhanced access to resources not owned locally through membership in the international cataloging and interlibrary loan network OCLC.

The library's Web Page provides easy connections to the online catalog, to fee-based databases and to selected sites on the World Wide Web. Students, faculty and staff can search the web catalog and full-text electronic resources from any computer connected to the campus network including in the library, their residences on campus or at home, offices, labs or from abroad.  Library systems were first automated in 1991, with integrated software from Innovative Interfaces Inc. In 2000, staff implemented a joint III Millennium system with the Pella Public Library, enabling members of the college and Pella community to search the holdings of both Geisler and the Public Library.

A full-service Media Center, open 70 hours each week, is located just east of the Geisler facility. Staff provides students and faculty with assistance in developing multimedia projects. The Center offers thousands of videos and DVDs and a variety of AV and digital equipment for checkout. Staff maintain satellite network broadcasts of foreign news via the SCOLA consortium and off-air recording of educational television programming within the North American continent. They manage the campus's closed circuit cable TV network and a distance learning classroom connected to the State of Iowa's fiber optic network, ICN .

Annually, the library hosts a Writers Reading series featuring nationally known authors who promote the appreciation of books and writing. Recent guests have included Maxine Kumin, Mary Swander, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, U Sam Oeur, Marilynne Robinson, Rekha Basu and Lan Samantha Chang.

Geisler Library offers an outstanding learning environment which combines the best of traditional services and collections with advanced information technologies.

Geisler Library Home Page
Library Catalog

12-20-06 rem