Library faculty, staff, and student workers, both current and former, were well-represented at the September 2024 Missouri Library Association (MLA) Annual Conference held at the KCI Expo Center in Kansas City, MO. The conference’s theme was “Innovate, Integrate and Inspire: Crafting the Future Library Experience.”

Two research poster sessions were presented about projects pursued at the University Libraries. Andrea Miller, Professor/Metadata and Cataloging Librarian; Lynn Cline, Emeritus Professor; and Scott Fischer, Library Associate I presented a poster entitled Scholarly Information Discovery Processes of Missouri State University Faculty. Their study, upon which the poster was based, had investigated the information discovery processes of faculty. The study included a detailed 29 question survey with a 25% participation rate and a three-section analysis of derived data, both straight-line and cross-tabbed. Several initial findings were identified, which can be applied to library efforts to further engage with faculty.

Andrea Miller, Professor/Metadata and Cataloging Librarian; Raegan Wiechert, Assistant Professor/Cataloger; Haley Frizzle-Green, Archivist, The State Historical Society of Missouri; and Annie Simphaly, student, Missouri State University and University of Missouri—Kansas City authored another poster entitled Revealing the Hidden Gem of the Ozarks: The Johnson Library & Museum. This poster discussed their work on digitizing the 20,000+ catalog cards of the Johnson Library & Museum in Osceola, MO to provide worldwide online access to the cards, which are now available online along with a finding aid. Attendees learned more about this family library, its founder, the partnership, the digitization process, and the Missouri Humanities Council (MHC), which awarded a grant of $2,500.00 to Missouri State University in support of this digitization project, “Public Access to a Private Neoplatonic Library: Digitizing the Johnson Library Card Catalog.” The MHC is the only statewide agency in Missouri devoted exclusively to humanities education for citizens of all ages. It has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities since 1971. For more information about MHC’s grants program, call 314-781-9660 or 800-357-0909, or write to the MHC, 415 S. 18th St., Suite 100, St. Louis, MO 63103.

Susan Croce Kelly, editor of OzarksWatch Magazine, and this year’s winner of the Missouri Library Association Literary Award for her book Newspaper Woman of the Ozarks: The Life and Times of Lucille Morris Upton, published by the University of Arkansas Press, was the primary speaker at the Missouri Author Talk at the conference. Her talk, before a full room of about 40 attendees, was entitled Susan Croce Kelly on Women, Journalism, and the Ozarks, and focused on women in journalism in the early to mid-part of the 20th century whose lives and professional work she encountered while researching her book on Lucille Morris Upton.

Rachel Kersey, Managing Editor – Writer, manned a vendor booth in the exhibit hall, which offered publications of the MSU Libraries’ Ozarks Studies Institute for sale.