As we all head into Finals Week, here is a listing of extended hours, special events, and services that will be offered by the MSU Libraries: Dead Day Snacks: On Friday, May 12th, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., the MSU Traditions Council will be distributing free snacks in the lobby. Extended Hours: When Meyer Library opens at 8 a.m. on Sunday, May 14, we will remain open continuously until 10 p.m. on Thursday, May 18th. Snack Break: Sunday, May…
Last Thursday, April 27th, the MSU Executive Budget Committee voted to reduce the Internet course incentive paid to instructors from $55 to $40 per student per 3-credit online course. This decision slightly reduced the dollar goal for the MSU Libraries during this budget cutting process to $75,958, a reduction of 1.2% to our overall annual operating budget for FY17 of approx. $6.5 million. Clif’s Notes for May 2nd provides a summary of the overall MSU plan to reduce its operating…
John Henderson, a production technician at Meyer Communications, has produced over 300 short radio pieces about classic country music songs. The pieces, each of which lasts several minutes, provide voice-over information about the genesis of each song — the story behind the song. Henderson is in the process of donating his collection to the MSU Libraries. Nathan Neuschwander is in the process of adding the “Stories Behind the Songs” to the growing online digital offerings of the Missouri State University…
SocINDEX with Full Text is a full-text research database covering not only sociology, but also a broad range of related disciplines including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, religion, racial studies, and social work. It features hundreds of full-text journals and millions of records with subject headings from a sociological thesaurus. In addition to full-text journals, SocINDEX with Full Text contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. Complete with extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers, and other non-periodical content sources, the…
The two finalists for the Associate Dean of Libraries position at MSU are Dr. Jan Figa and Rachel Besara. Dr. Figa’s MLS is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His doctorate, also from UIUC, was done in the Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He has served as library director at both Rockford (IL) University and Illinois College. His primary interview day will be Tuesday, May 16th. Ms. Besara’s MLS is from Florida State University in Tallahassee, with an…
Please encourage all student workers to attend the MSU Libraries Student Workers Reception to be held next Thursday, May 11, 2017 from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. in Room 107 of Duane G. Meyer Library. The reception will honor our amazing student workers, especially those who are graduating this month. If you haven’t already done so, please send Joyce Stefka an email message with the names of all the graduating student workers in your unit. Refreshments will be served! Graduating student…
One of the two fit desks available on the Third Level of Duane G. Meyer Library recently became so buff that it pulled up stakes and moved down one level, in anticipation of the renovation of the southwest area of the Second Level this summer. The fit desks have proven to be quite popular with library users and employees, but the Space Committee (Jessica Bennett, Tracy Stout, Nathan Neuschwander, and Tom Peters) noticed that, when the two fit desks were…
On April 3rd the MSU Libraries applied for a $5,105 grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program of the National Park Service. We proposed to conduct, in collaboration with Ozarks Alive, at least 20 oral history interviews with individuals involved in and/or knowledgeable of the history of the trucking industry along the Route 66 Corridor in Missouri from 1926 to 1985. For example, Campbell 66 Express, a trucking firm based in Springfield, Missouri, was founded in 1926, the same year as Route…
Yesterday we learned that the dates for the on-campus visits of the two finalists for the Associate Dean of Library Services have been set. The primary visit dates for the two will be Tuesday, May 16th and Tuesday, May 23rd. Each finalist will fly into Springfield on the respective Monday before, and fly back out on Wednesday morning. In next week’s Library Notes we’ll provide the names of the two finalists, links to their resumes, and the schedules for their visits. At…
In 2015, the library developed 12 key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs include data (numbers) collected each month through Google Forms that various people submit. Can you tell someone how many people walked in the building last year? Do you want to quickly see if our website usage has gone up or down recently? Just take a look at the KPIs to find out. There are a variety of levels at which you can examine the numbers. For quick references, look…