WKU Libraries Blog

Patron number count in the Educational Resources Center has almost doubled with an 87% increase since it’s relocation to the first floor of Gary Ransdell Hall. “The move to Gary A. Ransdell Hall has made the ERC much more visible and accessible to the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, as well as the larger WKU community. We have seen a tremendous increase in library use. Our circulation figures have risen dramatically, as have our reference and research assistance services. It’s a pleasure to have students, staff, and faculty come into the ERC, wanting to use our facility for study sessions, computer use, meetings, and other group activities. This is what a library should be–a vibrant center of any community. We are absolutely delighted with the response,” said Roxanne Spencer, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the ERC.

The Educational Resources Center offers more than 45,000 practical materials to check out for classroom, special projects, or home use. The collection includes books for youth, titles for teacher education, K-12 textbooks, as well as hundreds of family friendly and instructional videos, and other multimedia resources. Several computer workstations are also available to access WKU Libraries’ research databases, WKU online accounts, the Internet, and for general coursework.

Join us for our community wide reading program SOKY Reads! featuring the book “In the Sanctuary of Outcasts” by Neil White. Get your free copy of the book at our area book giveaways:
Thursday, August 9th-Warren County Public Library at 6:00 p.m.
Thursday, August 16th– Bowling Green Technical College from 2:00 – 2:30 p.m.
(Free books are made possible by the generous support of the Alive Center)
To view the complete SOKY Reads! program guide please visit www.sokybookfest.org/SOKY_Reads .

The massive rains of July 20th caused leaking on the 8th and 9th floors of Cravens Library. A portion of science and health books were damaged.

Stephen Ruemmele’s rendering of the restored Capitol Theater with its attractive marquee.

The Capitol Theater has a storied past in Bowling Green’s entertainment history.  An earlier theater at 416 East Main Avenue was called the Columbia.  It went through extensive renovation in 1920 and was renamed the Capitol.  That building was razed and a modern structure erected; it opened in March 1939.  The architect designed the Streamline Moderne structure using local limestone and Carrara glass and crowned the cornice with an appropriate belt course of stars.  The building was in constant operation until 1977.  A few years later local citizens and government officials decided to renovate the theater and use is as a community arts center.  Volunteers helped raise the $1.2 million necessary to restore the building in 1981.

Recently the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center (SKYPAC) assumed management of the Capitol.  During the transfer, six architectural renderings of the theater’s exterior and interior from 1979 were donated to the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives in WKUs Special Collections Library.  Each drawing has two components:  a mylar sheet with a line drawing of the facility and a colored back sheet that gave depth and visual interest to the otherwise staid renderings.

Stephen Ruemmele executed the Capitol renovation drawings in 1979.  To find the drawings in KenCat click here.  Manuscripts & Folklilfe Archives houses over 2,000 architectural drawings sets, some consisting of only one drawing, while larger projects contain twenty or thirty drawings.  The renderings chiefly date from 1920 to 1990 and document the built environment in southcentral Kentucky with an emphasis on Bowling Green.  The collection includes drawings of residences, schools, churches and governmental structures.  Click here to search KenCat for cataloged architectural drawings.