12:23 p.m., May 19, 2009----The University of Delaware Library thanked its many library student assistants during a special appreciation reception held May 6.

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Since July 1, 2008, 177 library student assistants have worked more than 43,900 hours, the equivalent of 21 full-time staff. The library could not provide the level of services or hours of operation without its student workers.

The reception provided an opportunity for library staff to thank the student assistants who performed essential “front-line” services such as checking-out library and reserve materials; shelving new and returned books, journals, and newspapers; checking-in new journals, newspapers, and other periodicals; processing interlibrary loan requests; assisting library users with multimedia equipment and software; and many other information-related duties.

The library also recognized 42 graduating library student assistants for their academic achievements.

The highlight of the reception was a display of books selected by the graduating library student assistants from current library acquisitions in which special bookplates with their name and year of graduation were inserted.

The selected titles reflected the personal and academic interests of each of the graduating library student assistants, as well as current events. The books selected by members of the Class of 2009 ranged from: Mr. Lincoln's Book: Publishing the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, with a Census of Signed Copies, by David H. Leroy; to What Obama Means: For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future, by Jabari Asim; to Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage, edited by Louis Evan Grivetti and Howard-Yana Shapiro.

Two special awards were also presented. Richard Duong and Brendan Forbes received the 2009 Library Student Assistant Service Awards for each having worked more than 1,600 hours at the University of Delaware Library.

Megan Fisher, student assistant in the Instructional Media Collection Department, also received special recognition for her recent award of a Fulbright Scholarship. She will graduate with a bachelor's degree in biology with a concentration in molecular and cell biology and genetics.

The Fulbright award will take her to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen in Munich, Germany, where she will work at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen (German Research Center for Environmental Health). She will work with Jochen Graw on a project investigating the role of beta B2-crystallin in intracellular signaling.