Library Notes

Beginning Monday, August 1, 2022, Rachel Kersey will be the new Managing Editor at the Missouri State University Libraries. This is a new high-level staff position. Her office will be in Meyer Library 006A on the Lower Level.  Rachel has a wealth of writing, editing, and publishing experience, having worked for the University Press of Kentucky, HarperCollins, a literary agency in NYC, a DC-based lifestyle magazine, and several newspapers, including a military newspaper. She earned a BA in Journalism from…

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Special Collections and Archives, part of the Missouri State University Libraries, is excited to announce the addition of a new finding guide available online. The Plaster Student Union Collection documents the numerous services, recreational and social activities, and organizations housed in the Student Union, later known as the Robert W. Plaster Student Union. The collection contains photographs, publications, the Ozarks Millennium Quilt and plaque, and scrapbooks. Sixteen scrapbooks document the activities and events of the various incarnations of the Campus…

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The Ozarks Studies Institute (OSI), an ongoing initiative of the Missouri State University Libraries, located on the main Springfield campus, has launched a new oral history project called “Songs of the Ozarks.”  Emily Flatness, a student at Missouri State, conceived and launched the series. Craig Amason is editing the raw files and adding metadata about each recording, including transcriptions.  Three oral histories have been published to date: Casey and the Atta Boys: https://youtu.be/v0ax5OEG3l8 The Creek Rocks: https://youtu.be/o1vhPh-fkyQ Lonesome Road: https://youtu.be/UBi9EROExrE …

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The National Mall will resonate with sounds of the Ozarks this summer when the Missouri State University Libraries offers a preview of the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program, “The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region.” The concert is part of the Festival’s “Next Up” series. This free and open-to-the-public event will be held Sunday, June 26 from 4-6 p.m. EDT (3-5 p.m. CDT) on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during the 2022 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In addition to…

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A recent news report on longtime local TV station KY3 focused on the Ozark Jubilee Digitization Project, a massive multi-year project organized and managed by the MSU Libraries in conjunction with the UCLA Film and Television Archive and many donors and supporters, including the catalyst for the project, Wayne Glenn, the Old Record Collector. KY3 reporter Chad Plein worked on and reported this piece which runs approx. four and a half minutes, with lots of original footage from the Jubilee….

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Associate Dean of Libraries Rachel Besara, Coordinator of Public Services Holly Kouns, and Technology Strategist Nathan Neuschwander recently traveled to two libraries in our region to form connections with colleagues and to see outstanding examples of thoughtful design and innovation. The trio visited both the Fayetteville Public Library and the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC).  At the Fayetteville Public Library, the group focused on the recently created J.B. and Johnelle Hunt Family Center for…

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The Missouri State University Libraries is happy to announce that Mohammad AlHamad has been appointed to a three-year term on the HathiTrust Program Steering Committee (PSC). Other current members of the PSC come from Yale, Penn State, Duke, UC-Davis, the California Digital Library, and the Ohio State University.    HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale, collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries.  MSU Libraries has been a member of HathiTrust since 2021, and we are proud to have Mohammad…

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Crystal Dicke, Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Missouri State University, who works and teaches in the Research and Instructional Services program of the MSU Libraries, has been awarded an internal Innovation Grant for the Summer of 2022 to assist with the marketing and successful roll-out and implementation of the new Graduate Certificate in Library Media Specialist that will launch during the 2022/2023 Academic Year.  The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is implementing new educational…

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The goal of the “Admitted Student Mondays” (ASM) program at Missouri State University is to bring students and their parents to the main Springfield campus on a Monday in March or April to tour the campus, meet with various campus stakeholders in their matriculation and success, and to instill in the admitted students and their parents an overall feel for the campus (including the warm, welcoming library!), its vitality, and the commitment of the university community to student success. Kristin…

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Route 66, born right here in Springfield, Missouri at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 30, 1926, will turn 96 years old on Saturday.  At 4 p.m. on the afternoon of Friday, April 30, 1926, a telegram was sent from the Postal Telegraph office in the Colonial Hotel in the southwest corner of the intersection of East St. Louis Street and Jefferson Avenue in downtown Springfield, Missouri, to Washington DC. Cyrus Avery from Tulsa, and B. H. Piepmeier from Jefferson City…

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