Library Notes

To keep up with accessibility trends and best practices, Jessica Bennett, a member of the Library Science Faculty at Missouri State University, recently attended the HighEdWeb Accessibility Summit.  Many valuable sessions were offered during the day-long virtual conference, but the keynote stood out as something new and unique to consider as we work towards reworking the library website.  The Keynote: Kickstarting Accessibility with Design Systems presented by Heather Battaglia and Robert Jolly (both with 18F) introduced the United States Web Design…

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Three employees of the MSU Libraries — Tracy Stout, Shannon Mawhiney, and Sue McCrory — recently completed MSU LEAD (Leadership, Education, and Development), a University program that prepares leaders and supports MSU’s vision of: Being an employer of choice by providing supervisors opportunities to explore their leadership capabilities. Being a responsible and transparent steward of the University’s resources. Working for continuous improvement in programs, policies, and procedures. Being collaborative, to promote meaningful partnerships that further the university’s goals. This series…

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The first annual Missouri Association of Testing (MOAT) Conference, originally scheduled to be hosted in May here at Missouri State University, has been tentatively rescheduled as a virtual conference for Thursday and Friday, September 17 and 18, 2020.    Sessions topics include Accuplacer, HISET, RegisterBlast, SB 807 (Missouri’s State-Mandated Civics Exam), informational sessions about the National College Testing Association (NCTA), and transitioning your testing center post-COVID-19.    Sue McCrory, the head of the MSU Testing Center, managed by the Missouri…

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In support of lifelong learning and our public affairs mission, the MSU Libraries is pleased to provide alumni* with access to SAGE Journals. These resources include peer-reviewed full-text scholarly content across the academic disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. The SAGE Journals portfolio includes more than 1,000 journals and nearly one million articles.   To access SAGE Journals, choose “BearPass” when prompted for how to authenticate, and log in with your MSU account credentials. Please note that by accessing SAGE…

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A proposal from Dr. Jim Baumlin from the English Department and Associate Dean of Libraries Rachel Besara has been accepted to present a session on An Open-Access Platform for Student-Faculty Collaboration at the 35th annual Showcase of Teaching and Learning on August 12, 2020.     The session will highlight how BearWorks, MSU’s Institutional Repository, can be used as a platform to facilitate production and dissemination of scholarly collaborations between students and faculty.  Materials from the Ozarks Studies Institute will be…

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On Monday the three partner organizations — IMLS, OCLC, and Battelle — that had undertaken a large study of the safety of library materials during the COVID-19 pandemic began to release preliminary results.  The preliminary results indicate “that the virus SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 is not detectable on five common library materials after three days.” This seems to lend credence to the practice of the MSU Libraries and many other libraries that the quarantining of returned library materials for three…

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As Missouri State University prepares for the fall semester, many modifications, large and small, are being made to campus. Seated classes will continue to be the predominate way of teaching and learning at MSU, but online courses will play a larger role than heretofore. One technology that was used extensively during the last half of the Spring semester and during the summer session was Zoom. Founded in 2011 by Henry Yuan and launched in 2013, Zoom uses Internet-based communications technology…

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Early Monday morning, June 15, 2020, a crew arrived to move the History Museum on the Square’s archival collections to their new location.  These materials were stored in Meyer Library while the museum planners worked on making a new and exciting local history museum.  That award-winning facility opened in 2019 and has been a boon to the community.  If you haven’t yet visited, you should! Their archives consist of the museum’s photograph collections, organizational records, family papers, and other research…

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Several members of the Library Science Faculty were honored in this year’s All-Faculty Recognition Presentation: Tracy Stout, FCTL Online Course Development Bootcamp Grace Jackson-Brown, 5 Year Recognition for Service-Learning Teaching Service Anniversaries: Raegan Wiechert, 15 Years of Service Jim Coombs, 40 Years of Service Retiring faculty members were also honored, including Jim Coombs and Cheryl Jones Grants: Rachel Besara, International Travel Award Lindsey Taggart, Assessment Grant Awardee   The full virtual presentation is available on the Office of the Provost website (scroll…

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The Spring/Summer 2020 issue of OzarksWatch Magazine is back from the printer and ready to read. The theme for this issue is Chronicling the Ozarks. Included are a round-table discussion of present-day chroniclers, articles about May Kennedy McCord, Gordon McCann, mapping the Ozarks, Lucile Morris Upton, the Unterrified Democrat newspaper, an essay by Dale Freeman, pieces about Maude Duncan and Bob Mitchell, photographing and drawing the Ozarks, various chronicles of Shannon County, and several letters and book reviews. As always,…

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