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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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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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 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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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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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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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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The Martin Family Foundation, founded by Don and Ruth Martin, has made another substantial gift to the Missouri State University Libraries. Their most-recent gift will be used to advance the years-long Ozark Jubilee Digitization Project, which now is much closer to completion, thanks to their continuing generosity and support.  A few years ago, another major gift from Don and Ruth enabled the MSU Libraries to furnish the new “Living Room” area on the Main Level of Duane G. Meyer Library,…

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The Special Collections and Archives unit of the MSU Libraries is excited to have been awarded a $2,100 grant from the Missouri Humanities Council to conduct oral history interviews with residents of Shannon County in the rural Missouri Ozarks.  “A Portrait of the Ozarks: Oral History Interviews in Shannon County, Missouri” is a one-year project beginning this fall to preserve the stories of Shannon County for current and future researchers. There is significant interest currently in the lives of Shannon…

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On Thursday, September 17, 2020, Tyler Drenon from the Missouri State University Libraries in Springfield, Missouri, operated Spot the robotic dog from its really remote location in Boston, Massachusetts.  Spot is a creation of Boston Dynamics. According to their website: “Boston Dynamics is a world leader in mobile robots, tackling some of the toughest robotics challenges. We combine the principles of dynamic control and balance with sophisticated mechanical designs, cutting-edge electronics, and next-generation software for high-performance robots equipped with perception,…

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