As part of Kansas State’s Week of Welcome, Hale Library hosted a “Purple Pride Putt Putt” event from 2-4 p.m. on Tuesday. Nine stops spread throughout the library guided students in exploring much of what Hale has to offer, and participants received free popcorn, cookies and Arnold Palmers upon completing their competitions.
Over its two hours, the event drew a consistent flow of students through the library’s doors, as well as K-State’s President Richard Linton.
Linton said he spent half of Monday “zipping around” campus aboard a purple golf cart, interacting with faculty and students.
“Today, I had a little bit of extra time, and I learned about what was going on with putt putt in the library, and I just thought it was fun,” Linton said.
Ashley Nietfeld, director of strategic communications and marketing, said this was the first time Hale Library held an event in this format, but it has held Week of Welcome events since around 2013.
“We’ve done kind of a Hale Monopoly event before, we’ve done a ‘map your path,’ where students just go around to different stations and learn about the different resources and services that we provide,” Ashley Stark, academic services specialist, said. “And then we added the putt putt element this year, just to make it a little more fun.”
After checking in at the welcome table, students were given a scorecard and a map showing the location of all holes, which could be approached in any order.
Each station highlighted different services offered at the library. Some of the services covered included the Welcome Desk, IT Service Desk, Innovation Lab and Archives and Special Collections.
“I think it’s a fun opportunity to familiarize people with [the library],” Linton said. “It’s fun, and it gives students a fun way to feel comfortable coming into a library and meeting some of the folks that they might work with and understanding what this incredible library has to offer as a resource.”
Linton explained Hale is a uniquely impressive college library.
“Most students don’t realize this is one of the top, probably one of the top ten library systems for a land grant institution in the country, and you have to come over here and see it and experience it in order to be able to appreciate it,” Linton said.
Bree Cole, sophomore in kinesiology and integrative physiology, said she heard about the event through her work as a campus ambassador.
“I got to learn so much about the things that they have at the library and resources around campus that we get to use, like, especially Powercat Financial and that kind of thing — that one stood out the most,” Cole said.
At another station during the event, students could find out which librarian is dedicated to their major and speak with them.
“There they can meet the librarian in their discipline, and kind of learn about how to make an appointment with the librarian, how they can help them be successful as a student,” Stark said.
Sean Browne, freshman in computer science, said his RA told him about the event.
“That’s just so cool having so much of that stuff just for free access,” Browne said. “It’s really interesting to me, especially because I feel like I don’t see a lot of that stuff everywhere. Like, you can’t just walk around and see a 3D printer.”
Browne said he’s more likely to visit the library because of the event.
“When I came here during the weekend, I was kind of stumbling around and just walking places,” Browne said. “I feel a lot better now to actually know places for real.”
Nietfeld said even if students didn’t attend the event, they can still learn more about Hale through its website.
“If students are interested, they can contact us, or contact our help desk and set up tours or anything like that,” she said.