ISU students with a little time on their hands are taking advantage of the Fireplace Room in Parks Library for more than just studying.

The recently renovated room is now home to the library’s leisure books collection. The collection is a special sub-set of the general collection at Parks Library, made up of current releases or books that have recently been mentioned in the news, said Ed Goedeken, humanities bibliographer at the library.

Goedeken is one of several bibliographers who helps choose the books for the leisure collection. The titles include New York Times bestsellers and range in nearly every subject from health to geography to biographies of athletes, politicians and movie stars, he said. The books are usually current within the last two years.

“Leisure books are picked by the bibliographers, because we think they are something people would be interested in,” Goedeken said.

Kathy Parsons, associate professor at the library, also helps select books for the leisure collection. She said students and faculty are utilizing the collection on a regular basis.

“There’s always somebody in there looking at the books,” Parsons said. “I actually check books out of there frequently and I see other people checking them out.”

The book jackets are left on the books in the leisure collection, unlike books in the general collection, so that the reader can glance at the blurbs about the books before checking them out – just as they would be able to do at a bookstore or a public library, Goedeken said.

The leisure collection occupies more than 65 shelves in the Fireplace Room, with about 1,380 titles from across the subject spectrum.

Goedeken said there are about 10 new leisure books added to the collection each week, with a total of about 500 new titles each year.

“If someone comes to me looking for a book or novel to read, I send them [to the leisure collection],” Parsons said.

Goedeken said there is a two-week borrowing privilege for the leisure books to allow everyone to have a chance to check them out.

“Whether you are a professor or a new freshman, everyone has the same borrowing privileges,” he said.

The leisure collection also offers a new-titles shelf, located on the right side in the Fireplace Room, Goedeken said.

“On Thursday morning, we display the new titles we’re adding to the collection,” he said. “[Patrons] can’t check out the books on display. They are up for one week, and they are then available after the week.”

Goedeken said the leisure collection, which was formerly located east of the Fireplace Room in Parks Library, has a good home in the Fireplace Room.

The room was restored in 2000 as a gift to the university from the class of 1950 and through the use of presidential funds. It was designed to resemble how the room looked when the library was first built in 1925.

“It is a cozy room where people can go and sit, grab a book and read,” Goedeken said. “The ambiance has enhanced the reading experience.”

Parsons said the Fireplace Room is perfect for the leisure collection.

“It is almost like going to a library in a big house,” she said.