Library Notes

On January 7, 2021, several employees of the Missouri State University Libraries attended a training session on chat and online reference services hosted by Amigos Library Services. This training was provided to staff and faculty members with a wide range of online reference experience from those with no experience to faculty with years of chat and reference experience. Jodie Borgerding, an MSU alumna, provided the training from Amigos with an agenda consisting of: an introduction to chat and online reference…

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If your New Year’s resolution is to turn more pages, the MarooNation Book Club is here to help! Read with fellow Bears and join the conversations hosted and moderated by the Missouri State University Alumni Association and the MSU Libraries. We’ll be reading four books per year and you can be part of any or all of them. The next book to be read and discussed by the MarooNation Book Club is The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig. All discussions…

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DPLA, the Digital Public Library of America, is highlighting a collection focused on Black Women’s Suffrage: “The Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection is a collaborative project to provide digital access to materials documenting the roles and experiences of Black Women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and, more broadly, women’s rights, voting rights, and civic activism between the 1850s and 1960. The collection explores both the roots of women’s activism in Black communities; the ongoing struggle to secure, protect, and use…

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In order to make Meyer Library a safer, more hygienic, and more environmentally responsible place, during this pandemic and beyond, new touchless paper towel dispensers are being installed in all the public restrooms in the building. Melissa Eiken, Executive Assistant II for the MSU Libraries, is coordinating this effort, which will be completed soon.  The new dispensers replace two older models: Dispensers that required the manual depression of a lever: Known affectionately as the “one-armed bandits,” because of their similarity…

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The Annual Report of the Missouri State University Libraries for the 2019-2020 academic year is now available online. The brief report highlights and illustrates some of the major accomplishments of the faculty and staff of the MSU Libraries, as well as major gifts and exciting initiatives. Examples include:  Information about the latest publication from the Ozarks Studies Institute called Living Waters: The Springs of Missouri, written by Loring Bullard. New digital collections on various topics.  Updates on a current project…

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Many types of plants grow naturally in the Ozarks and are gathered for various purposes, including nutritional and medicinal reasons. Black walnuts are gathered each fall in the Ozarks, with the hull, the shell, and the nutmeat having various human uses. More black walnuts are collected in the Ozarks than any other region in the U.S. Hulling stations pop up each fall at various locations in the Ozarks to collect and begin processing this harvest, almost always foraged by ordinary…

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Joshua Lambert, associate professor of Library Science at the Missouri State University Libraries, has created a new LibGuide that explains how data about COVID-19 are rapidly collected and reported, both locally and globally.  How do government entities get the numbers they use to make policy decisions related to COVID-19? What laws govern the collection of data for those numbers? Have you been in conversation with friends and thought it would sure be helpful to have the answers to the questions…

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When it comes to creating, finding, and using information in support of university research, teaching, and learning, people and technology make it all happen. This is true in 2020, and it was true 28 years ago, back in 1992.  A four-page insert in The Standard, the student-run newspaper on the Springfield campus of Missouri State University, celebrated Library Awareness Week in mid-September of 1992. An employee of the MSU Foundation recently sent the old insert to the Libraries. She found…

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The Missouri State University Libraries does great things. Gifts from friends and supporters enable us to do even better in providing excellent services, collections, expertise, and spaces to meet the information needs of the MSU community and beyond.  In years past, we inserted a printed “wish list” of books, equipment, and other things that would enable us to do even better. Donors have been very generous with their support to acquire these things.  This year, the MSU Foundation worked with…

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The annual report for the 2019/2020 academic year will be out soon. In the past, we typically have finished and distributed our annual report in the later summer. Because of the global pandemic in 2020, getting this annual report finished, printed, and distributed has taken longer than usual.  Despite all of the challenges caused by COVID-19 during the final five months of the previous academic year, overall it was another good year for the Missouri State University Libraries. For the…

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