Library Notes

In FY20 the amount of giving to the Missouri State University Libraries rose nearly 20%, compared to FY19, to a grand total of $2,034,172. This includes both cash and in-kind gifts. Of course, the fourth quarter of FY20 — April, May, and June — was most unusual this year, because of the pandemic.  Everyone at the MSU Libraries is very grateful to all the generous donors of funds and in-kind gifts. Your generosity and continuing support helps the MSU Libraries…

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On Wednesday, October 14, 2020, Tyler Drenon was the featured guest on the weekly one-hour Facebook event organized and hosted by the 1 Million Cups Springfield group. Nick Nelson from the Springfield Art Museum served as the conversation facilitator.  According to the 1 Million Cups website: “Based on the notion that entrepreneurs discover solutions and engage with their communities over a million cups of coffee, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation developed 1 Million Cups in 2012 — a free program…

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The Ozark Jubilee Digitization Project continues to produce results in preserving and making available to all this seminal country music live nationally broadcast television program from the mid-Fifties. It originated from the Jewell Theater in Springfield, Missouri, and was broadcast live over the ABC-TV network.  The first segment (i.e., first 30 minutes) of the Saturday, November 19, 1955 episode of the Ozark Jubilee recently became available on the dedicated YouTube Channel of the Missouri State University Libraries for episodes of…

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The annual United Nations Day is coming up on October 24th. The Missouri State University Libraries is the official UN depository library for the entire state of Missouri. One major UN-related e-resource available through the MSU Libraries is the UN iLibrary.  According to the iLibrary website:  The United Nations iLibrary is the comprehensive global search, discovery, and viewing source for digital content created by the United Nations. It provides librarians, information specialists, scholars, students, policy makers, influencers and the general…

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This week the 25 books that are the 2020 National Book Award Finalists were announced. In the Nonfiction category, the five finalists are: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, “The Undocumented Americans” Les Payne and Tamara Payne, “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” Claudio Saunt, “Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory” Jenn Shapland, “My Autobiography of Carson McCullers” Jerald Walker, “How to Make a Slave and Other Essays” The MSU Libraries has copies…

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The newest in a series of long-range plans for the MSU Libraries has been unveiled. Called “MSU Libraries 2025,” the new plan articulates focus areas for the Libraries regarding Collections and Content, Services, Spaces, and Organizational matters for the next five years.  Action Items for the current fiscal year (FY21) are woven into the current five-year plan. As time and initiatives progress, updates and outcomes will be articulated as well. The new long-range plan also articulates five guiding principles that…

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On Wednesday, September 23, 2020, several faculty members of the Missouri State University Libraries attended “Like the Ceiling Can’t Hold Us: Sharing Innovations in Libraries,” an online conference organized and produced by Amigos on the general topic of innovation in libraries. Because the MSU Libraries is a member of the Amigos library consortium, there was no direct out-of-pocket cost for attending and gaining information and ideas from this conference. Some session notes taken by MSU employees are below:  The opening…

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BearWorks, the institutional repository (IR) of Missouri State University, continues to grow and receive strong use. Institutional repositories are an archive for collecting, preserving, and disseminating the intellectual output of an organization, particularly research institutions. IRs can include not only articles and reports but also data sets, multimedia, and organizational documents. The Top Ten downloaded papers in BearWorks, determined by the average daily full-text downloads since each paper was posted to BearWorks, are shown in the captured screen below.  The…

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The Missouri State University Libraries offers a wealth of information resources, services, and spaces, both online digitally and in-person in Duane G. Meyer Library, as well as at the Haseltine Library in the Greenwood Lab School on the Springfield campus. After months of sheltering in place and teaching and taking online courses during the last half of spring semester and throughout the summer session, the Missouri State University community is largely back on campus, taking a mix of seated, blended,…

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On 9/17 and 9/18, Missouri State University virtually hosted the 1st annual Missouri Association of Testing conference.   Sessions included: College Board: Accuplacer and CLEP  Transitioning Your Center Post-COVID and Budget Crunch ETS, DESE, and HISET SB 807: Missouri’s Civics Exam Ouriginal Anti-plagiarism Software RegisterBlast NCTA Certification In addition, the annual board meeting took place at the end of the conference.    While attendance averaged about 20 people per session, we consider this a success considering it was virtual and…

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