Library Notes

Although it’s still summertime and the start of the fall semester is over a week away, several employees of the Missouri State University Libraries are making plans to attend professional meetings and conferences this fall. For instance: Nathan Neuschwander plans to attend — virtually– the 2023 WOLFcon Conference. Quoting from the conference website, “WOLFcon 2023 brings together members of the Open Library Foundation’s project member communities as well as users of their products. Participants will attend presentations, community sharing conversations,…

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On Friday and Saturday (August 11 and 12), the Missouri State University Libraries will have an information table at the big Birthplace of Route 66 Festival in Downtown Springfield. We have been doing this for several years now as a way to connect with “roadies” and to promote the collections and research materials related to Route 66 available through the MSU Libraries.  Authors, artists, collectors, associations, societies, tourist bureaus, and others will gather in the Old Glass Place on East…

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Last Friday,  July 28, the Missouri State University Duane G. Meyer Library hosted its annual Rare Wine Rare Books event. The dinner raised funds to support the rare books collection, and this year’s party theme was a tour through Italy. Over a five-course dinner with various red and white wines, guests were entertained with a video made by student workers, trivia, jokes, giveaways, and, of course, rare books. On all three levels of the library, there were first editions and…

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This summer a team from Missouri State University, led by Professor Tracy Stout (Library Science), participated in a kickoff event for a program through the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). The AAC&U Institute on Open Educational Resources provides a year-long engagement opportunity for teams to actualize an ambitious strategy to broaden campus engagement with adoption on OER.   Later this month, Tracy Stout and Chris Craig (College of Education) will present at the August 16th FCTL Showcase about lessons…

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Work began last week to replace the carpet on the Third Level of Duane G. Meyer Library on the main Springfield campus of Missouri State University. The work, the first step in a larger renovation project for the Third Level, is expected to last two weeks. The project will generate some dust,  noise, and inconvenience. In the coming months new furniture will be deployed, supported in part by the MSU Student Government Association. 

The Reference and Instructional Services (RIS) Department of the Missouri State University Libraries, located in Duane G. Meyer Library on the main Springfield campus, seeks a graduate assistant to assist with the Library Media Specialist Certificate and Information Literacy instructional programs. The Library Media Specialist certificate provides secondary certification for Missouri K-12 teachers. In addition, the department is responsible for providing face-to-face research instruction for undergraduate and graduate courses and instructional support for distance learning. Work responsibilities: Assist instructors with…

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Greta Cross, the Trending Topics Reporter for the Springfield News-Leader, recently researched and wrote an article about the white oak logs that were transported from the forests of the Missouri Ozarks to the National Mall in DC, to be used for demonstrations of white oak basket making during the Ozarks Program of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  In her reporting work, Greta Cross focuses on localizing national trends and highlighting Springfield’s LGBTQIA+ and arts communities. Greta also enjoys long-form feature reporting…

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Craig Amason, a special projects librarian at Missouri State University, recently was interviewed on the “Making Democracy Work” weekly program on KSMU, the local public radio station, about his research into the increasing diversity of the population in Noel, Missouri, in McDonald County, located in the extreme southwest corner of the state.   Most of the population change has occurred in the past 30 years. Jobs have driven this diversification, especially the poultry processing plants in McDonald County, but the impact…

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Many good things came out of the Ozarks Program recently held on the National Mall in DC as part of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival. One of them was a new map of the Ozarks.  The planning committee for the Ozarks Program wanted to create a new map of the region specifically for this Festival program, and we commissioned Curtis Copeland to work with the committee on the design and details. Copeland is a GIS Manager for the City of…

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