Library Notes

Dr. Grace Jackson-Brown is pleased to announce that her new book, Promoting African American Writers: Library Partnerships for Outreach, Programming, and Literacy, is now in print. The product of years of writing and publishing delays that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, the book was released in October 2022 by Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC—CLIO. Promoting African American Writers: Library Partnerships for Outreach, Programming, and Literacy is a guidebook for all librarians interested in library outreach programming, as well as…

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Last week the Missouri State University Libraries was notified that an LSTA grant in the amount of $3,500 had been awarded to bring the award-winning author Kwame Alexander to the main Springfield campus next April. With matching funds from various sources, the total project cost will be $12,500.  Dr. Grace Jackson-Brown, a Professor of Library and Information Science at MSU, wrote the grant application and will serve as Project Director.  Dr. Jackson-Brown applied for an Educator Presenter Grant titled “Springfield’s…

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Explore and learn about the world of sound and music found in the Smithsonian Folkways collection from the comfort of your little device. A Field Guide to… the Ozarks was curated by Jason Morris (Smithsonian Folklife Festival) with support from Drew Beisswenger (Performing Arts Librarian, University of Arkansas) and the curatorial team of the upcoming 2023 Festival program The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region. There are 26 tracks in this compilation, with a total run-time of 75 minutes. Full…

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Mohammad AlHamad, who has served as the E-Resource Strategist for the Missouri State University Libraries since June 2021, recently accepted an offer from Texas A&M University — Corpus Christi to serve as Director of Resource Management & Discovery, a faculty position. His final day at MSU will be November 30th. Best wishes, Mohammad. We appreciate the good work you did for the Missouri State University Libraries and its users, and we wish you the best in all your future endeavors.  

In his almost 42 years on campus, Lynn Cline quietly, professionally, and effectively provided service to the the Missouri State University Libraries and the campus as a whole. For most of those years he was Head of Collection Development and Acquisitions. There he used his professional knowledge and expertise in various subjects to build a strong research collection, useful to faculty and students in all majors. As an educator, Lynn taught courses in library science to students working on their…

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Members of the public are invited to come to the R&R Restaurant in Thomasville, Missouri, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 3rd for the “big reveal” of the newly-digitized version of the Civil War era diary of James Posey Woodside.  John Rowlett Woodside, father of James, who spent most of his adult life in Thomasville in Oregon County, Missouri, was a Colonel in the Confederate Army. As a private he fought at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. According to one…

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In early November, the Springfield-Greene County Library will host two events that look back on the Vietnam War.  On Wednesday, November 2nd at 6:30 p.m., three military veterans who experienced the Vietnam War as young men share their stories in two powerful programs in the Library Center auditorium. Offering alternatives to Hollywood’s “Rambo” and “Apocalypse Now,” the veterans strive to deliver a “more honest, balanced and nuanced history of that long and terrible conflict” on behalf of the victims and…

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The Missouri State University Libraries, anchored on the main Springfield campus, plans to administer the LibQUAL+ survey to the MSU higher education community before the end of the academic year next May.  Quoting from the LibQual website: “LibQUAL is a web-based survey offered by the Association of Research Libraries that helps libraries assess and improve library services, change organizational culture, and market the library. The survey instrument measures library users’ minimum, perceived, and desired levels of service quality across three…

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The Missouri State University Libraries and the Springfield-Greene County Library District are collaborating again to organize and host a free public talk by Sarah Jane Nelson, author of a forthcoming biography of Max Hunter. Ballad Hunting with Max Hunter: Stories of an Ozark Folksong Collector, from the University of Illinois Press, is described in the blurb: “A traveling salesman with little formal education, Max Hunter gravitated to song catching and ballad hunting while on business trips in the Ozarks. Hunter recorded…

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Planning continues for the big Ozarks Program at the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, to be held from June 28 to July 9 on the National Mall in DC. Here are a few updates: Today, Thursday, October 13, 2022, Tom Peters will be meeting in Branson with various representatives of the tourism and outdoor recreation industry, exploring those themes of the program. Next Monday through Wednesday a team from the Smithsonian Institution (SI) will be in the Ozarks to continue working…

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