Library Notes

The Essie DeCamp Collection (LA 3) in Meyer Library’s Special Collections and Archives contains the papers of DeCamp, who was a founding member in 1936 of the women’s auxiliary to the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway Employees of America, Local 691.  She was also a founding member of the Joint Council of Women’s Auxiliaries and was very active in the Label League.  This collection includes records of these organizations as well as some personal papers.

The first official meeting of Local 691’s women’s auxiliary was held in January of 1937, although the local was not chartered until 1938 when the international auxiliary was formed.  Membership of the auxiliary grew quickly.  Before World War II, the auxiliary gave dinners and luncheons for members of the union, and spent time studying the origins of labor unions and ways women could help, and in welfare and service projects.

During World War II, the auxiliary kept busy serving the needs of O’Reilly hospital in Springfield.  Members served as nurse aides and “gray ladies,” rolling bandages and making pads and lap robes for patients.  In 1944, the International Auxiliary sponsored a fund raising program to raise money to buy at least one ambulance for the War Department for use overseas.  Local 691 Auxiliary at that time had 22 members, and raised the most money per capita.  They were given the honor of presenting two ambulances to the War Department on behalf of the International Auxiliary.  The money raised by the auxiliaries was more than enough to buy two ambulances, and excess funds were used to buy needed equipment for O’Reilly Hospital.

After the War, union membership increased as men returned to work from armed service.  Local 691 and its auxiliary was no exception.  The 1950s saw the heyday of membership.  During the ‘60s, however, membership declined.  In 1970, the Auxiliary disbanded.  Essie DeCamp was still a member at that time.  She had served as its president for four or five years, and as secretary for “more years than I remember.”

The Joint Council of Women’s Auxiliaries was organized on May 28th, 1947, following the Missouri State Federation of Labor Convention.  DeCamp was elected president of the organization. The Joint Council worked to organize auxiliaries in the area, and succeeded in organizing auxiliaries to the Hod-carriers and Laborers (the first auxiliary to this union in the U.S.), Bakers, Grain Millers, Electricians, and Plumbers among others.  The Council also worked to help educate the wives of union members about ways they could help labor.  They sponsored meetings of the Missouri State Federation of Women’s Auxiliaries when they were held in Springfield.

DeCamp was the daughter of J. R. (Bob) Andrews, an early Springfield labor leader and founding member of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America (Local 691) in 1916.  That same year, the Local went on strike against Springfield Traction Company.  The strike lasted 252 days, but the workers won the right to organize and to bargain collectively.  The union had the strong support of city leaders and citizenry, and the strike led the way for other street car workers in Missouri to organize.  Bob Andrews was active in the strike and was a union representative in negotiations at the end of the strike.

Essie DeCamp later married L. G. (Pat) DeCamp, who was also a member of Local 691.  He went to work as a track welder for Springfield Traction, while Essie’s father was a track foreman.  Mr. DeCamp served as an officer in the union for several years.

For more information, please contact Special Collections and Archives.

The Fall 2018 issue of OzarksWatch Magazine, a publication of the Ozarks Studies Institute, an initiative of the MSU Libraries, is now out. The theme of this issue is “End-of-Life Customs in the Ozarks.”

Article topics include:

• Cemetery symbolism
• Reminiscences of an African-American funeral director
• History of segregation in Springfield’s Hazelwood Cemetery
• Efforts to preserve and record the history of Ozarks cemeteries
• The unorthodox funeral of Rose O’Neill
• Ozark burial customs
• The rural cemetery movement
• Grave dowsing
• The Iberia Academy
• Part III in the series of articles about Art Song in the Ozarks
• A beautiful photographic essay about frost flowers
• An excerpt from The Valley Calls, an unpublished work of fiction from the 1940s
• Six book reviews

The themes for the Spring 2019 issue of OzarksWatch Magazine will be the end of Prohibition, Moonshine, and other libations.

PubMed comprises over 20 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed citations and abstracts include the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and pre-clinical sciences. PubMed also provides access to additional relevant Web sites and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources. PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

This past Monday morning, November 5th, Library Information Technology (LIT) rolled out a new-and-improved self-service system for booking group study rooms in Duane G. Meyer Library.

The system is composed of two main components: a touchscreen-based walk-up kiosk (pictured) and a new web interface for booking from your computer or mobile device.

While similar in appearance to the read-only screen previously located across from the elevators on the Second Level, this new walk-up kiosk interface, which can be found near the new Living Room area on the First Level (across from the Circulation Desk), has a touchscreen that allows you to select a room and/or time slot and book your reservation all in one place! All you need is a BearPass login.

This has been a highly-requested feature, and LIT staff (particularly October Library Employee of the Month, Mark Arnold) have worked hard to make it a reality.

Our end-of-semester party (aka, the “Dead Day” party) will be held on Friday, December 7th from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in LIBR 301. Please join us to honor our graduating student employees and to celebrate another successful semester.

Private funds will allow the Libraries to provide the main dish (TBD) and soft drinks. Everyone is invited to bring a side dish or dessert to share with the group.

In order to further our sustainability efforts, attendees are encouraged to bring your own reusable plate, cup, and eating utensils. We will have some disposable paper plates, cups, and plastic eating utensils available for those unable to bring their own.

Retirees of the MSU Libraries and significant others are welcome to attend.

On Tuesday afternoon, November 20th, a contingent of librarians from the Kansas State University Libraries, led by Dean of Libraries Lori Goetsch, will visit Duane G. Meyer Library at Missouri State University to see and learn about our space renovation and revitalization project, which includes an extensive deployment of furnishings manufactured by Steelcase.

On May 22, 2018, KSU’s Hale Library received extensive damage during a fire. While the fire itself was confined to the roof of the building, smoke, soot, and water caused extensive damage throughout the entire building. By the end of September, over 1.5 million books and other information materials had been removed from Hale Library to temporary storage facilities. Restoration and renovation work continues.

For four years the MSU Libraries has had a dedicated YouTube channel, with new content being added all the time. Our channel contains a wide variety of musical recordings, films, television programs, tutorials, oral histories, and more.

During the month of October 2018, viewers watched 1,114,362 minutes of content on our YouTube channel. That’s equal to 18,573 hours of viewing, or 774 days, or 111 weeks. There were 58,456 “views” of our content in October, for an average of 19 minutes of viewing per view.

During the month of October our content garnered 569 likes and 634 shares. Congratulations to the team that has been developing this substantial, heavily-used YouTube channel.

Sheila Grant Johnson, who has served as Dean of Libraries at Oklahoma State University since 2004, will visit the MSU Libraries next Tuesday, November 13th, as the external reviewer of the Library Administrative Services program. The schedule for her visit includes:

• 8:30 to 9:00: Tour of Duane G. Meyer Library with Dean Peters
• 9:00 to 10:00: Meet with Library Administrative Services Team (Melissa, Vicki, Nathan, Rachel, and Tom) in LIBR Conf. Room
• 10:00 to 11:00: Meet with Library Staff in LIBR Conf. Room
• 11:30 to 1:00: Lunch with Rachel and Tom
• 1:30 to 3:00: Meet with Unit Heads in LIBR Conf. Room
• 3:00 to 4:30: Meet with Library Faculty in LIBR Conf. Room

On Wednesday morning Dean Johnson and Dean Peters will meet with MSU Provost Frank Einhellig.

Provost Frank Einhellig recently approved funding in the amount of $23,000 to the MSU Libraries to purchase three pieces of major equipment:

1. Whisper Room (Sound Isolation Enclosure): Whisper Rooms are sound isolation booths that can be used for a variety of purposes, including vocal booths for recording music, voice-overs, podcasts, interviews, and audiology testing. Duane G. Meyer Library installed a One Button Studio for recording presentations and instruction sessions and has yet to provide a space for students to practice and rehearse their projects.  As part of the Libraries’ 2020 project, the sound isolation booth fits our initiative to facilitate Multimedia Culture (1c) and provide Rich Multimedia Spaces (3b).
2. Network-attached storage system  to expand local capacity for original archival storage of born-digital and digitized materials. We are nearing capacity on our existing storage systems and the library is currently undertaking a large video digitization project that will dramatically increase our storage requirements and quickly outstrip our current capabilities. The migration to a new array will also provide us an opportunity to implement improved data integrity an preservation systems.
3. Counter-top Laser Cutter/Engraver: This equipment will give students access to create free-form objects from and engrave various materials, such as wood, metal, and other composite materials for projects in art, design, architecture, construction, marketing, physics, education and more.

The Office of Publications Collection, Record Group 16/13/0 in Meyer Library’s Special Collections and Archives is a collection of documents that illustrates the evolution of the public face of Missouri State University. The Office of Publications represents just one of the units responsible for MSU’s public relations, and provides graphic design, editing, and writing services to the campus community, as well as providing guidance in usage of the university identity standard. Since 1985, Publications has produced MSU’s printed materials such as recruitment publications, promotional items, signage, and the magazines Missouri State Insider, and Missouri State.

A sampling of printed materials from various years were photographed to show the wide range of materials created by Publications, representing numerous departments and offices. These include Admissions, Alumni Relations, Student Services, and various Colleges.

For more information, please contact Special Collections and Archives.