WMU library staff should be thanked for their hard efforts

By Hassan Al-Momani
Western Herald

The Western Michigan University library is one of the few distinguished libraries in the United States.

This is due to both the wise administration of the library and to the hard work done by all of the staff members. It is really a sample of WMU’s success in conveying its academic message to all the students.

The staff members within the library work hard to prepare the most comfortable environment for students and researchers and for the community of Kalamazoo.
Student inquiries and comments for the library staff are not ignored; they are always taken into consideration.

Additionally, the library provides a lot of students with part-time jobs in order to help them make their living. This is wonderful help for all student employees because they acquire work values that will later help them in life to be successful in their jobs.

We have a lot of students who decided after finishing their work at the WMU library to continue their graduate studies in the field of library studies because they were influenced by the value of library work.

As a graduate student, I really appreciate the hard work done by our library staff who spend their time working for us to produce successful researchers for America and the world. Someone might say that this is their duty and they should do it.

This is true, but we should not forget that they play a huge role in our success as students, so their efforts should be appreciated forever.

However, there is a suggestion that should be taken into account by our library administration:  the students should be given access to use the library electronic resources after graduation.

It is known that library services stop after the students’ graduation. Most students, especially graduate students who will be teaching at other universities, will be in need of these services after graduation.  Such online services such as ProQuest are needed after graduation to get articles and book reviews to assist with research and to help teach courses.

The international graduate students’ needs are greater than that of local students because the library services in their countries are not highly developed like the services here.

These graduate students, who will be faculty members at their universities back home, might face a lot of difficulties in finding articles and research in their own university libraries because of the lack of resources offered.

Thus, they will not be able to conduct good research and they will not be able to reflect a good image of WMU in their countries.

The solution of the previous problem lies in the possibility for these students to pay an annual fee in order to have access to the electronic library services.

This solution will provide the local and international students with a greater chance to write their research successfully and to stay connected with WMU.

Finally, the WMU library is a source of pride for each student at this university because we as students get the most updated services and recent books in the world.

Thus, we should always thank the library staff and administration and support them with our valuable comments that will help them to give us more.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=17808

Posted by kleonard on Jun 20 2010. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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