Library Notes

The first annual Missouri Association of Testing (MOAT) Conference, originally scheduled to be hosted in May here at Missouri State University, has been tentatively rescheduled as a virtual conference for Thursday and Friday, September 17 and 18, 2020.    Sessions topics include Accuplacer, HISET, RegisterBlast, SB 807 (Missouri’s State-Mandated Civics Exam), informational sessions about the National College Testing Association (NCTA), and transitioning your testing center post-COVID-19.    Sue McCrory, the head of the MSU Testing Center, managed by the Missouri…

Read More Read More

Three employees of the MSU Libraries — Tracy Stout, Shannon Mawhiney, and Sue McCrory — recently completed MSU LEAD (Leadership, Education, and Development), a University program that prepares leaders and supports MSU’s vision of: Being an employer of choice by providing supervisors opportunities to explore their leadership capabilities. Being a responsible and transparent steward of the University’s resources. Working for continuous improvement in programs, policies, and procedures. Being collaborative, to promote meaningful partnerships that further the university’s goals. This series…

Read More Read More

As Missouri State University prepares for the fall semester, many modifications, large and small, are being made to campus. Seated classes will continue to be the predominate way of teaching and learning at MSU, but online courses will play a larger role than heretofore. One technology that was used extensively during the last half of the Spring semester and during the summer session was Zoom. Founded in 2011 by Henry Yuan and launched in 2013, Zoom uses Internet-based communications technology…

Read More Read More

On Monday the three partner organizations — IMLS, OCLC, and Battelle — that had undertaken a large study of the safety of library materials during the COVID-19 pandemic began to release preliminary results.  The preliminary results indicate “that the virus SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 is not detectable on five common library materials after three days.” This seems to lend credence to the practice of the MSU Libraries and many other libraries that the quarantining of returned library materials for three…

Read More Read More

A proposal from Dr. Jim Baumlin from the English Department and Associate Dean of Libraries Rachel Besara has been accepted to present a session on An Open-Access Platform for Student-Faculty Collaboration at the 35th annual Showcase of Teaching and Learning on August 12, 2020.     The session will highlight how BearWorks, MSU’s Institutional Repository, can be used as a platform to facilitate production and dissemination of scholarly collaborations between students and faculty.  Materials from the Ozarks Studies Institute will be…

Read More Read More

Professor Tracy Stout graduated from the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program on Friday, June 12, 2020. The SPARC Open Education Leadership Program is an intensive professional development program to empower academic professionals with the knowledge, skills, and connections to lead successful open education initiatives that benefit students. The two-semester program blends online, peer-to-peer, and project-based learning to build a comprehensive understanding of the open education space coupled with practical know-how to take action on campus and beyond. Structured as a…

Read More Read More

The Spring/Summer 2020 issue of OzarksWatch Magazine is back from the printer and ready to read. The theme for this issue is Chronicling the Ozarks. Included are a round-table discussion of present-day chroniclers, articles about May Kennedy McCord, Gordon McCann, mapping the Ozarks, Lucile Morris Upton, the Unterrified Democrat newspaper, an essay by Dale Freeman, pieces about Maude Duncan and Bob Mitchell, photographing and drawing the Ozarks, various chronicles of Shannon County, and several letters and book reviews. As always,…

Read More Read More

Several members of the Library Science Faculty were honored in this year’s All-Faculty Recognition Presentation: Tracy Stout, FCTL Online Course Development Bootcamp Grace Jackson-Brown, 5 Year Recognition for Service-Learning Teaching Service Anniversaries: Raegan Wiechert, 15 Years of Service Jim Coombs, 40 Years of Service Retiring faculty members were also honored, including Jim Coombs and Cheryl Jones Grants: Rachel Besara, International Travel Award Lindsey Taggart, Assessment Grant Awardee   The full virtual presentation is available on the Office of the Provost website (scroll…

Read More Read More

Early Monday morning, June 15, 2020, a crew arrived to move the History Museum on the Square’s archival collections to their new location.  These materials were stored in Meyer Library while the museum planners worked on making a new and exciting local history museum.  That award-winning facility opened in 2019 and has been a boon to the community.  If you haven’t yet visited, you should! Their archives consist of the museum’s photograph collections, organizational records, family papers, and other research…

Read More Read More

On Tuesday, June 16, 2020 the Grammy Museum Grant Program, headquartered in Los Angeles, announced that $200,000 had been awarded to 13 organizations in North America for music research and sound preservation.  Awardees include Princeton University, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Ryerson University in Toronto, the Research Foundation for SUNY-Albany, the University of Oregon, the University of Pittsburgh Library System, and the Missouri State University Libraries.  The MSU Libraries has been awarded $18,000 to advance the ongoing Ozark Jubilee Digitization Project,  a…

Read More Read More