Library Notes

The Second Reptile Day at the Fairbanks was once again a smash hit. Organized with the dedicated assistance of Amy Hankins, the Reference/Maps Associate for the MSU Libraries, and held last Saturday at the Fairbanks School as part of the Northwest Project, the event was attended by 313 people, and was staffed by 17 reptile enthusiasts. The Northwest Project is a partnership led by the Drew Lewis Foundation, Missouri State University, and Drury University, with generous support from the Community…

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STAT!Ref is an easy to use digital medical library for healthcare professionals. It is a collection of clinically-oriented health sciences ready reference e-books. The collection provides convenient access to information about prescription drugs, diagnosis information, and treatment options for a variety of medical conditions. The titles can be browsed, searched individually, or multiple titles can be searched at the same time.

The large Theatre and Dance Department Collection (RG 4/9) in Special Collections and Archives gives researchers an in-depth look at the history of theatrical performance at Missouri State University, with material such as programs, photographs and slides, scrapbooks and albums, recordings of programs and commercials, reports, flyers, newspaper clippings, and more, dating back to the 1910s. Plays were performed in the early years at of the university, but not initially as a part of any formal department.  The senior class put on…

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The MSU Libraries has acquired a rare book for Special Collections & Archives that is notable because it contains a fore-edge painting. The book is a book of poems by Thomas Gray, an 18th century English poet and scholar, best remembered for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. In this particular type of fore-edge painted book, the landscape painting cannot be seen until the fore-edge of the text block is fanned.

Next Wednesday the 32nd annual Showcase on Teaching and Learning will be held in the Plaster Student Union on the MSU campus. The MSU Libraries will have several presentations. Jessica and Tracy to Promote New Library Space:  Jessica Bennett and Tracy Stout will have a table at the upcoming FCTL’s 32nd Showcase on Teaching and Learning. Showcase is an opportunity for faculty to highlight their teaching and learning and reaches approximately 350-400 faculty who attend.  Space is an important part…

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Howard Wight Marshall, the author of the new book, Fiddler’s Dream: Old-Time, Swing, and Bluegrass Fiddling in Twentieth-Century Missouri, will give a presentation — including musical performances — on Friday evening, November 10, 2017, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in Room 101 of Duane G. Meyer Library. In this sequel to his 2013 book on earlier old-time fiddlers in Missouri, Play Me Something Quick and Devilish, Prof. Howard uses oral history, archival photographs, and transcriptions of selected tunes to trace the evolution of…

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The Missouri State University Libraries, in partnership with Ozarks Alive (OzarksAlive.com), has received a $5,100 grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program of the National Park Service to undertake the “Trucking on Route 66” project. Twenty oral history interviews will be recorded with individuals involved in the trucking industry along the Route 66 Corridor in Missouri from 1926 to 1985. Tom Peters, Dean of Library Services at Missouri State, noted, “Oral histories have a proven track record of expanding and…

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Re-Carpeting the southwest section of the Second Level (the “Wedge”): Earlier this week PD&C (the office of Planning, Design, and Construction) informed the Libraries that the new carpeting would arrive sometime during the week of August 14th, and will take approximately four days to install. Once we receive confirmation that the new carpeting has shipped, we may be able to have the old carpeting removed and the floor surface prepped before the new carpet actually arrives. The installers have agreed…

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On Wednesday, August 2nd, it was announced (here and elsewhere) that Elsevier had acquired bepress. Bepress, started in 1999 as Berkeley Electronic Press by three professors from UC-Berkeley, had grown to 73 employees. MSU, as well as approximately 500 other institutions of higher education, has been using Digital Commons from bepress as the platform for its institutional repository. Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of academic journals in the world, has been moving toward preprints, open access journal content, data…

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The Oxford African American Studies Center (AASC) is a comprehensive collection of over 10,000 articles on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Comprised of eight major encyclopedias, as well as additional content from Oxford University Press, AASC contains over 5,000 biographies and 3,000 articles on a variety of subjects. This database also includes more than 450 primary source documents, 2,500 images, nearly 200 maps, and more than 150 charts and tables that offer…

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