Message from your Library Director
Unstaffed Hours at D’Angelo Library
A Shameless Plug For MOBIUS: Why Everybody at KCU Should Be Using It
Something Fun: Weird and Wonderful Library Tech
Message from your Library Director
Welcome to KCU Libraries!
A big welcome back to all our returning students, and a warm welcome to our new students joining us this year! Here at KCU, the D'Angelo and Dawson Libraries aren't just buildings with books; we're a dynamic, learner-centered physical and virtual environment made to support your academic journey. Our core mission is to serve the informational and research needs of the entire KCU community.
We're deeply committed to aligning with the university's overarching mission by actively advancing education, research, patient care, and community service. We believe the library should be the heart of learning for the university, providing an inspiring space that sparks intellectual curiosity, innovation, and collaboration among all our users.
So, whether you're diving into a new research project, looking for a quiet place to study, or just need some help navigating our resources, we encourage you to stop by your campus library. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff are eager to assist you in any way they can. We're here to help you succeed!
Unstaffed Hours at D’Angelo Library
Starting in July 2025, D’Angelo Library will switch to unstaffed hours in the evenings and weekends, allowing the library to remain open and available at times when staffing is not feasible. Here are the changes that will come with that:
Let us know if there are any ways we can make this new system work better!
The KCU Libraries are continuing to expand our graphic novel section! At the time of writing, we have just added four new volumes to the collection, hopefully with more to be added in the future. To broaden the topics covered, we selected graphic novels that deal with women’s reproductive health, AIDS, and the stigmatization, confusion, and disorientation that can accompany chronic illness, especially when the illness is invisible.
Here's a few of the books currently on the shelves:
Rx by Rachel Lindsay
You do everything right. You take your meds, you go to therapy, you stick with the soul-sucking job providing insurance coverage for the meds and therapy. And still, your sanity won’t cooperate, causing your loved ones to doubt your ability to care for yourself, to take away your freedom out of legitimate concern. Lindsay’s graphic memoir is honest and turbulent, walking the reader through a chapter of her life where bipolar disorder (and the pharmaceutical systems meant to combat it) undermines her simple desire to live freely.
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley
An informative, frank-yet-hopeful account of the author’s journey through miscarriage, eventual conception, and the long, arduous process of pregnancy. From weeks-long bouts of unbearable nausea to the confusion of making a ‘birth plan’ to the fear and pressure of becoming a first-time parent, the author pulls no punches about the difficulty and danger of bearing a child. Still, humor and hope suffuse the struggle, and the author’s story imbues the process with joy.
Taking Turns by MK Czerwiec
A thoughtful exploration of the author’s experiences as a nurse during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Starting as a rookie nurse in Care Unit 371, a unit dedicated to treating HIV positive patients and easing them through death when it came, MK discusses the oddness of nurse/patient boundaries, dealing with grief in a profession where death is common, and the resonant effect the AIDS epidemic had on the medical world.
A Shameless Plug For MOBIUS: Why Everybody at KCU Should Be Using It
Shannon Fisher, Assistant Registrar at the Kansas City campus, is a frequent friendly face at D’Angelo library because she uses MOBIUS.
MOBIUS is a consortium of 75 libraries around Missouri who share books, both digital and physical. Couriers across the state shuffle loaned books from library to library, which allows our patrons to request titles from libraries in Parkville, St. Louis, Columbia, Springfield, and so many more, even stretching out to the exotic wilderness of Iowa and Arkansas.
Want to rewatch Stranger Things, but a Netflix subscription isn’t in the budget? MOBIUS has DVD copies of plenty of popular shows.
Want to try some new recipes, but hate clicking away ads on cooking blogs? MOBIUS connects dozens of libraries, which means dozens of cookbook collections. (This author scanned a few recipes from The School Year Survival Cookbook for her own use!)
Japanese graphic novels? Tabletop gaming modules? Big, nerdy coffee table books? Classic literature and popular current reads? Elvis CDs? If a library in Missouri has it, there’s a good chance MOBIUS has it, too.
This is a massive advantage for KCU. Our libraries are small, and our academic focus is narrow compared to undergraduate institutions and public libraries. We don’t have the space to stock popular items like fiction novels, biographies, and movies. But with MOBIUS, we don’t have to. KCU library patrons can access the entire list of available books, movies, music, etc. from libraries all across the consortium, directly through the KCU library’s online catalog.
Alas, a dose of cold reality to the beautiful dream: this author wishes it were true that EVERYTHING could be borrowed through MOBIUS, but the system has limitations. Not all member libraries have their entire collection available for loan. Some list video game consoles in their collection (which can’t be sent via interlibrary loan) and there are oodles of ebooks available (but KCU doesn’t currently have a platform like Libby to view them). Many libraries also list ordinary books and movies that aren’t actually available to borrow, which can be irritating when searching for a copy that is available. Currently, the loan term for a MOBIUS item is 40 days, but the system does not support loan renewals. (Repeated requests can be submitted, however, so it is possible to get another copy quickly!)
MOBIUS is not perfect. The consortium is relatively young, and a lot of bugs are being worked out in the system. But the best way to make it better, and to help KCU libraries pursue upgrades, is to use it. Numbers help a library —foot traffic, checkouts, renewals. The higher those numbers are, the more we prove how valuable and useful a resource we are, and the easier it is to push for improvements. The same is true of MOBIUS. The more it is used, the more feedback we can give to the committees working to improve the system, the better things will get.
Plus, checking out books via your local KCU library (instead of a public library) saves you a trip after work and gives you an excuse to take a short walk. Yet another perk of being part of the KCU community!
If you want to learn more about how to use MOBIUS, the library team is happy to help! We love it when people make use of the resources we provide, and we love to put books in the hands of people excited to read them.
Something Fun: Weird and Wonderful Library Tech
Library technology has exploded in the past few decades, transitioning from physical card catalogs to digital catalogs, from vaults of research materials to online journals, from analog messages to email. But the world of library technology began changing long before the introduction of the computer. Equipment was rendered obsolete by new developments or proved impractical and never saw wide implementation. There are some inventions, though, that would be pretty cool if we still used them today.
Bookwheel
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/k3cosh/this_clever_300yr_old_library_book_wheel_enabled/ / https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/book-wheel-modern-search-engine-364122/#:~:text=The%20medieval%20studies%20library%20is,Italian%20military%20engineer%20Agostino%20Ramelli.
Wish you could organize several open books like extra tabs on your browser? Now you can! Or at least, you could. Designed by Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli in the late 1500’s, the bookwheel was never a common library feature, but it is certainly one that would stick in your memory if you saw it. Very few antique bookwheels still exist today, but the one pictured above is still on display in Biblioteca Palafoxiana (Pueblo, Mexico). It may not be an efficient use of space, but the bookwheel is such a fun blend of academia and whimsy that an enormous version of three bookwheels was used in the movie adaptation of Wicked as an interactive set piece during the “Dancing Through Life” musical number.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jniq78mKKcM&list=RDjniq78mKKcM&start_radio=1
Jacobean Traveling Library
https://www.openculture.com/2023/09/the-jacobean-traveling-library.html
Centuries before the invention of the Kindle, this travel bookcase was commissioned in 1617, possibly by English lawyer William Hakewill as a gift to a friend. Its gold-detailed, miniature volumes include works by Ovid, Seneca, Cicero, Virgil, and other classics. This particular travel library is kept by the University of Leeds, and other similar mini-libraries are held by the British Library, the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. A similar (but more extensive) miniature travel library was created for Napoleon so he could continue to reference the classics while on campaign. Never a man to do things halfway, his personal library was encased in mahogany and silk, and the books themselves custom-printed in order to fit into these miniature volumes. His collection included epics, history, poetry, religion, and later, books on Russian topography and geography as he prepared for an ill-fated invasion.
Pneumatic Tubes
https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/molisci / https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pneumatic-system-new-york-public-library
Once the primary means to send letters throughout New York City, the borough-spanning pneumatic tube system was dismantled in the 1950’s — all except for the New York Public Library Humanities and Social Sciences library. There, until 2016, patrons could still submit book requests via a still-functional pneumatic system, which carried request slips deep underground into the archive. A system of elevators were also used to transport requested books through the many successive layers that comprised the NYPL stacks. This kind of system would only have been useful in large libraries, but the length of its use is a testament to its effectiveness in the right setting.
Libraries are practical spaces. We regularly prune resources, reconsider initiatives, and overall try to keep things running as smoothly as possible. This also means keeping our ear to the ground for new technology that can make serve our patrons even more effectively. Sometimes, however, the limitations of technology is not in advancement, but in the imagination with which we apply it. There are plenty of devices that could be useful in a library which we’ve never even considered! Here follows a list of devices that should be used in libraries:
Card Shuffler
A simple yet practical device, eliminating the threat of card-stacking in poker, which could also be applied as a simple time-saving device while studying with flashcards. How much time gets wasted in re-shuffling the cards so you can quiz yourself again, without memorizing the answers based on order? However much time that is, it’d be shorter with this.
The Cone of Silence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWtPPWi6OMQ
Though it may have been a fictitious invention for 1960’s spy comedy Get Smart, the Cone of Silence is a solid concept. When all the study rooms are booked, wouldn’t it be nice to wreathe yourself in your own private plastic terrarium of uninterrupted silence? The KCU libraries don’t have the budget to acquire these… yet. Somebody write a grant, and we’ll see what we can do.
Personal Weather Tent
https://shopweatherpod.com/products/wearable-walking-pod-reflective-safety?variant=31897340280943
A more realistic and inexpensive option than the Cone of Silence, personal tents are very easy to find for sale. Intended to ward off outdoor conditions such as rain and mosquitos, a personal tent might also be useful to clearly establish your quiet personal bubble. As a bonus, it would be a great infection preventative during flu season.
Miniature Rubber Busts of A.T. Still
https://rotblattamrany.com/projects/dr-andrew-taylor-still/
Hear me out.
In the world of software engineering, a common practice to help one figure out the solution to an uncooperative line of programming is “Rubber duck debugging”. Explaining your programming out loud, line-by-line, can help you see what is going wrong. If your coworkers/study mates are not available to listen to you, or if you’re embarrassed to talk to an actual person about it, then the next best thing to do is explain it to a friendly inanimate object like a rubber duck. The act of teaching study material is a great way to process the information differently, which may help it stick in your brain better. Plus, rubber ducks are durable and can withstand any frustrated outbursts that may occur in the debugging process.
Rubber busts could be checked out from the front desk for students (or any staff/faculty) to use as sounding boards. A.T. Still would be an appropriate subject for rubber-duck busting, but perhaps busts could also be made in the image of personal heroes, celebrities, or professors who make you nervous.
As the new school year begins, the KCU Libraries are ready to meet our campuses needs in any way we can. If you feel that any of these proposed additions would be beneficial, please contact us at library@kansascity.edu or through the chat feature on the library homepage. We’re happy to help!
1. “Behold the Jacobean Traveling Library: The 17th Century Forerunner to the Kindle.” Open Culture, September 27, 2023. https://www.openculture.com/2023/09/the-jacobean-traveling-library.html.
2. Chu, Jon M. “Wicked (2024) 4K - Dancing Through Life | Movieclips.” YouTube, March 1, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jniq78mKKcM&list=RDjniq78mKKcM&start_radio=1+https%3A%2F%2Frubberduckdebugging.com%2F. 3. Enemark, Michelle. “Pneumatic System of the New York Public Library.” Atlas Obscura, June 28, 2012. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pneumatic-system-new-york-public-library.
4. Lindaman, John. “Step inside the Museum of Obsolete Library Science.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 14, 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/molisci.
5. Marshall, Colin. “Behold the ‘Book Wheel’: The Renaissance Invention Created to Make Books Portable & Help Scholars Study Several Books at Once (1588).” Open Culture, September 25, 2017. https://www.openculture.com/2017/09/behold-the-book-wheel-the-renaissance-invention-created-to-make-books-portable-help-scholars-study-1588.html#google_vignette.
6. McGarvey, Kathleen. “Turning the Gears of an Early Modern Search Engine.” University of Rochester, February 8, 2019. https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/book-wheel-modern-search-engine-364122/#:~:text=The%20medieval%20studies%20library%20is,Italian%20military%20engineer%20Agostino%20Ramelli.
7. “Napoleon’s Kindle: See the Miniaturized Traveling Library He Took on Military Campaigns.” Open Culture, October 12, 2017. https://www.openculture.com/2017/10/napoleons-kindle-see-the-miniaturized-traveling-library-he-took-on-military-campaigns.html
8. “Rubber Duck Debugging.” Rubber Duck Debugging – Debugging software with a rubber ducky, 2008. https://rubberduckdebugging.com/.
9. “Signed Document Napoleon Great Travel Library: Raab Collection.” The Raab Collection, December 21, 2024. https://www.raabcollection.com/foreign-figures-autographs/napoleon-travel-library?srsltid=AfmBOopxGNrqqHERDvFYOuR3Q3AF4IFbDrpdlTTxThXmRabUoMOUYIyB.
10. “This Clever 300-Yr Old Library Book Wheel Enabled... - Reddit.” Reddit, January 1, 2020. https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/k3cosh/this_clever_300yr_old_library_book_wheel_enabled/.
Your libraries are more than just a physical space on campus. They're a portal to virtual information that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Having trouble accessing resources or finding what you need? Contact your library staff! We're here to help!