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Third Helen C. House Party Features Library-Themed Mini Golf Course
Posted 10/19/2011
MADISON, Wis. – Promises of video games, pizza, dance music, and ninja tag at College Library attracted some 2,000 students to the third Helen C. House Party in mid-September, 2011.
Revelers were treated to new events for this year’s party, including a film festival hosted by UW Cinemateque and a mini-golf course with holes facilitated by several campus libraries.
Hole 1 · Go Big Read
Stacks of Enrique’s Journey, this year’s Go Big Red selection, formed the parameters of the challenging first hole in the mini-golf course. The primary obstacle on the course featured a poster of Bucky Badger reading Enrique’s Journey.
Hole 2 · Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC)
The CCBC used graphics from Banned Books Week to highlight the most-challenged book in the country, And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.
Hole 3 · SLIS Library
Graduate students in the School of Library and Information Studies created a difficult putting scenario with bookends featuring statistics about Internet use and the observation that, “Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” In addition to a reference to Dewey the Library Cat, their hole featured a checklist which included a few common library school student goals: “get kickass job” and “become Master of Information Universe.”
Hole 4 · MERIT
If their golf hole is anything to go by, the folks at the MERIT Library have lots of fun playing with toys and games, albeit in an educational setting. Plastic dinosaurs, bean-bags of various shapes, board games, and a tinker-toy truck served as obstacles for those trying to get a-hole-in-one.
Hole 5 · Mills Music Library
Using a beloved but obsolete technology, the crew from Mills Music Library created their putting challenges from the album jackets of vinyl records.
Hole 6 · Chemistry Library
One of the more challenging holes, created by the Chemistry Library, featured a number of obstacles symbolizing a number of database search engines:
- Mixed bean soup illustrates Google search engine (all topics and sources, everything all mixed together)
- Split pea plus a few misc. kinds beans illustrated Web of Knowledge (more specialized and focused than google, but still pretty broad)
- Garbanzo beans illustrated Scifinder Web - a specialized database for chemistry
A spider and spider web (retrieved from the Chemistry Library supply closet) focused on spider silk chemistry.
Hole 7 · Wendt Commons
Using books on engineering bridges and an actual wooden bridge, the Wendt Commons hole used rocks, dirt, and small-scale construction equipment (okay, toy trucks) to highlight the complexity of both golf and structural engineering.
Hole 8 · Steenbock Library
The Steenbock Library hole featured inflatable cows (both chocolate and plain varieties) to provide a challenge to golfers trying to reach the hole on the other side of the Playskool barn. A large milk jug from “Steenbock Dairy” warned of the Cow Xing.
Hole 9 · UW Archives
Vicki Tobias from UW Archives used old photographs of campus buildings and personalities to amusingly create obstacles for the ninth and final hole in the mini-golf course. Sayings include: E.B. Fred (I LOVE fedoras!), E.A. Birge (My friends call me Dr. Bugs!), Helen C. White (Welcome to my HOUSE! Party on, young Badgers!), Conrad Elvehjem (Where’s my museum?), John Bascom (Come winter, you’ll hate climbing my hill!), David Ward (I’m baaaaaack), and more.
We will look for more creative library-themed mini golf holes at next year’s House Party.
For images, see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/collegelibrary/sets/72157627740445125/
Special thanks to Pamela O'Donnell for collecting information about the mini golf course, and congratulations to Kelli Keclik and other College Library staff for organizing this fun library event.
Photo: Students supervise the School of Library and Information Studies' mini golf hole at the Helen C. House Party. Photo courtesy of College Library.
