In an effort to promote its services, the Spiva Library will be hosting an Open House from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 1-2. The two-day event, which has a movie theme, will showcase different service areas around the building and include movie related games and activities.

“It’s really just to have a fun and open atmosphere where students can come in and meet with the staff and learn about the different services and resources that we have to offer both in the building and online,” said Nancy Crabtree, reference librarian. “A lot of students are unaware of the services we have and even those students who do come into the library are sometimes intimidated to ask for help.”

In addition to the games, the library will hold a raffle. Every year, they receive raffle prizes from third-party vendors such as ProQuest, Ebrary and Ebscohost. The big ticket item for this year’s raffle is a Kindle Fire HD, which was provided by ProQuest.

“Usually, what we do is we reach out to different vendors, people who supply us with library books, that we go through to purchase our ebooks and databases,” said Crabtree, “and they will provide us with pencils, pens and post-it notes and little trinkets that we hand out.”

According to Crabtree, the annual event began two years ago as a way to draw in first-year students, but it is now open to all students as well as the general public. Each year, the event draws around 500 students.

“We actually had, I think, 495 [people] the first year, and 509 last,” said Crabtree. “We’re planning on about 550 this year because enrollment is up a little bit.”

For more information regarding the Library Open House, contact Crabtree at (417) 625-9729 or email her at [email protected].