home Resources and Services Books That Pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test

Books That Pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test

Originally written by Danielle Gorman in Spring 2021

From Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, how many books do you know that barely pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test? The Bechdel-Wallace Test is a measurement used to determine the representation of women in media. There are only three requirements needed for a piece of media to pass this test. It must have at least two female characters, they must both have names, and they must talk to each other about something other than a man. While that may seem easy enough, some of the most popular pieces of media are still struggling to pass the test. This month, for Women’s History Month, we are highlighting some books that not just pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test but surpass the three requirements and focus on strong female-led stories by fantastic female authors! You can find these reads available at Mizzou libraries or request through our website.

 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

If you are looking for a classic read to celebrate Women’s History Month, then Little Women is the perfect choice for you. This story follows four sisters—Meg, Amy, Beth, and Jo March— as they come of age during the Civil War. The timeless novel tackles themes such as first love, friendship, grief, and the bond of family; any reader can find themselves hidden inside these pages and characters. Perfect for any age, you’ll leave this story feeling heart-warmed and emotionally invested in this lively story.

 

Circe by Madeline Miller

This bestselling novel takes one of the most infamous Greek figures and turns her story on its head, leaving the reader routing for a newfound hero. Perfect for those interested in mythology and action-packed novels, Madeline Miller weaves a hypnotic and captivating story filled with beautiful language and characters. Circe will leave you attached to Miller’s mastery of storytelling and entranced by the power of a well-written female lead.

 

 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

If you haven’t yet gotten the chance to read this highly praised novel, this month is an excellent time to grab it from one of our libraries! The Handmaid’s Tale is an unforgettable, must-read novel that is great for readers looking for a heartbreaking yet eye-opening story. Set in dystopian America, this story follows Offred’s perspective, one of the women forced into the role of a “Handmaid”; women used to help reproduce children for the Republic of Gilead. Atwood’s writing is captivating and devastating. She perfectly crafts a page-turning story that leaves the reader searching for answers on every single page.

 

 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

The first novel in the four-part series, The Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend, tells the heartbreaking yet touching story of two young girls growing up in Naples in the 1950s. Elena Ferrante is a master at her craft, perfectly capturing the story of two best friends who come-of-age during a time where it feels like everything around them is falling apart. This novel leaves you aching for these characters’ struggles and places you directly onto the page with them. It is a must-read for those looking for a novel with strong friendships and characters that stick with you long after you close the book.

 

 

Sula by Toni Morrison

In this brilliant novel, Toni Morrison beautifully captures the female experience inside of a short 200-pages. We follow the story of Sula and Nel, two childhood best friends who grow apart in adulthood due to an unforgivable betrayal. This novel shows the unbreakable bond that can last between two women through all the good and bad experiences of life. Sula is a tragic and sometimes upsetting novel that is told with both love and bitterness. Morrison mixes all the messy emotions of life and creates a stunning story that leaves the reader comforted and wounded by its impact. This novel is truly a must-read piece of literature!

By Danielle Gorman / English Intern / Spring 2021
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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home Resources and Services Ellis Library Sensory Maps Make Finding the Perfect Study Space Easier

Ellis Library Sensory Maps Make Finding the Perfect Study Space Easier

Finding the perfect study spot can be difficult in Ellis Library. Some days you need quiet and other days you want to be alone. In order to make finding these spaces easier, we’ve created some sensory maps.

These color coded maps show where in Ellis Library you can find quiet space, uncrowded spaces, and spaces with natural light.

You can access the maps here or you can find them under maps and floorplans on the main library website.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home Databases & Electronic Resources, Ellis Library, Resources and Services New Database: Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2014

New Database: Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2014

MU Libraries is pleased to provide access to Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2014

Since 1902, the Times Literary Supplement has provided a platform for an ever-expanding range of international thinkers, writers, and critics. This historical archive facilitates the study of the development of ideas and perspectives and identifies previously anonymous authors.

If you have questions about the database or how to use it, contact your librarian at ask@missouri.libanswers.com.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home Databases & Electronic Resources, Ellis Library, Resources and Services New Database: British Literary Manuscripts Online

New Database: British Literary Manuscripts Online

MU Libraries is pleased to provide access to British Literary Manuscripts Online.

British Literary Manuscripts Online provides facsimile images of literary manuscripts, letters, diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works. Images of the complete manuscript can be viewed, manipulated and navigated on screen, but text of the manuscripts themselves is not searchable. We have access to both parts: Medieval and Renaissance, and c. 1660-1900. This site also provides links to related resources, including paleography courses, images, maps, bibliographies, and digital scholarship.

If you have questions about the database or how to use it, contact your librarian at ask@missouri.libanswers.com.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home Staff news Marketing Highlight: Posts to Promote

Marketing Highlight: Posts to Promote

Here are some posts you can use to promote to users and/or your departments:

Seeking MU Faculty Books for Exhibit at Ellis Library

University Libraries Student Advisory Council (ULSAC) Book Project

Open Education Week 2022: Introduction to Creative Commons

Open Education Week 2022: Introduction to Open Educational Resources

Partnership Brings Medieval Manuscript Collection into the Digital Age

It’s easy to adapt these posts when you use the engaging emails template. Need help with creating an engaging email, contact Taira Meadowcroft.

If there are other topics you’d the marketing team to promote, send your ideas to Shannon Cary.

 

 

Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home Cycle of Success, Special Collections and Archives Partnership Brings Medieval Manuscript Collection into the Digital Age

Partnership Brings Medieval Manuscript Collection into the Digital Age

In Fall 2020, Dr. Brittany Rancour worked with Special Collections to create a digital guide to the Fragmenta Manuscripta collection through a partnership with the Department of Visual Studies. The Fragmenta Manuscripta Collection is a collection of manuscript fragments, most of them from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, but with materials extending as far back as the eighth century and as recently as the seventeenth century. Dr. Rancour’s project involved updating and expanding the finding aid to provide in-depth descriptions of over 200 manuscript fragments, work that was first started by Nicole Songstad, a graduate research assistant in Special Collections.

Dr. Rancour, now a Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities at Dixie State University, came to Mizzou as a PhD student in medieval art history and was drawn to Special Collections, specifically because of the assortment of medieval manuscripts. “When the librarians wanted to develop an on-line learning experience for the collection, I jumped at the opportunity to work with the fragments,” says Dr. Rancour.

The fragments are parts of completed manuscripts that include bibles, books of hours, legal texts, and poetry. Over the centuries, people tended to cut fragments from the the original bindings as collectors valued parts of the texts rather than the entire product. The history of the collection begins with John Bagford, an English book collector around the turn of the eighteenth century. Bagford had a collection of manuscript fragments and had ambitions to write a history of the development of printing from handwritten manuscripts to the invention of the moveable type. In an essay dated to 1707, Bagford wrote that the collection was, “perhaps the first of that kind that ever was done in any part of Europe.” You can learn more about the collection here.

Before Dr. Rancour’s work on this project, there was no finding aid at all. “It was all digitized and available on Digital Scriptorium, but it was difficult to find groups of materials. This finding aid has helped staff and patrons tremendously in locating specific items according to various themes – poetry, or sermons, for example. In fact, I used it just last week to find materials for a class,” says Kelli Hansen, Head of Special Collections.

Partnerships between the libraries and different departments on campus open up various opportunities for learning and research. Asked for one piece of advice for those interested in working with the library, Dr. Rancour said, “ask a Special Collections librarian what types of objects are in their collection. It is an excellent collection and has so much to offer to students and others interested in history.”

Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.

If you would like to submit your own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home Staff news Marketing Highlight: Valentine’s Day and Post to Highlight

Marketing Highlight: Valentine’s Day and Post to Highlight

We made some bookish themed valentines. They all got great engagement on facebook, twitter, and instagram

The Health Sciences Library is working on an Increase Your Impact Series. : https://library.missouri.edu/news/tag/research-impact-series

It’s easy to adapt these posts when you use the engaging emails template. Need help with creating an engaging email, contact Taira Meadowcroft.

If there are other topics you’d the marketing team to promote, send your ideas to Shannon Cary.

 

 

Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services Overview of Recent University of Missouri Publications in Medicine and Related Fields: January 2022

Overview of Recent University of Missouri Publications in Medicine and Related Fields: January 2022

Each month we provide an overview of University of Missouri School of Medicine faculty-authored articles in medicine and related fields as well as a featured article with the highest journal impact factor.

This month’s featured article, “HIV-1 hypermethylated guanosine cap licenses specialized translation unaffected by mTOR”, was co-authored by Dr. Xiao Heng of the Department of Biochemistry. The article was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (impact factor of 11.205 in 2020).

Note that Dr. James Stevermer of the Department of Family & Community Medicine had another USPSTF guideline published in JAMA: Screening for Atrial Fibrillation: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement

See the list of publications in medicine and related fields we retrieved for this month: https://library.muhealth.org/facpubmonthlyresult/?Month=January&Year=2022

*This list is not intended to be comprehensive. Did we miss something? Email asklibrary@health.missouri.edu and we will add your publication to the list.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services New Books at the Health Sciences Library

New Books at the Health Sciences Library

We’ve bought a lot of new books lately at the Health Sciences Library. Below are a few of our favorite additions.

Find the complete list of this month’s new books here. You can use the drop down menu to see previous month’s additions.

Have a purchase recommendation? You can request a book for your teaching or research using this form.

Researching in the age of COVID-19. Volume III, Creativity and ethics / edited by Helen Kara and Su-Ming Khoo.

As researchers continue to adapt, conduct and design their research in the presence of COVID-19, new opportunities to connect research creativity and ethics have opened up. Researchers around the world have responded in diverse, thoughtful and creative ways -adapting data collection methods, fostering researcher and community resilience, and exploring creative research methods. This book, part of a series of three Rapid Responses, explores dimensions of creativity and ethics, highlighting their connectedness. It has three parts: the first covers creative approaches to researching. The second considers concerns around research ethics and ethics more generally, and the final part addresses different ways of approaching creativity and ethics through collaboration and co-creation. The other two books focus on Response and Reassessment, and Care and Resilience. Together they help academic, applied and practitioner-researchers worldwide adapt to the new challenges COVID-19 brings

 

Inpatient geriatric psychiatry : optimum care, emerging limitations, and realistic goals / Howard H. Fenn, Ana Hategan, James A. Bourgeois, editors.

This book offers mental health guidelines for all medical professionals facing the emerging challenges presented by an aging population worldwide. The text acknowledges that as the geriatric demographic grows, limited resources and infrastructures demand quality protocols to deliver inpatient geriatric psychiatric care, and that many physicians may not be trained to address these specific needs. This text fills this gap with guidelines assessing, diagnosing, and treating aging patients as they present in the emergency room and other settings. Unlike any other text, this book focuses on how to optimize the use of the inpatient setting by recommending evaluations and treatments, and offering flow-charts and figures of key points, to guide both general workup and continued evaluation and treatment. This approach aims to minimize instances of premature release or readmissions and to improve outcomes. Chapters cover the various issues that clinicians face when working with an older patient, including legal topics, limitations to treatment, prescription-related complications, patients struggling with substance abuse, and various behavioral concerns. Written by experts in the field, the text takes a multidisciplinary approach to deliver high-quality care as needs of the aging population evolve. Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry is a vital resource for all clinicians working with an aging population, including geriatricians, psychiatrists, neurologists, primary care providers, hospitalists, psychologists, neuropsychologists, emergency room and geriatric nurses, social workers, and trainees.

 

Counseling the nursing mother : a lactation consultant’s guide / Judith Lauwers, Anna Swisher.

Counseling the Nursing Mother: A Lactation Consultant’s Guide, Seventh Edition presents topics within a counseling framework with practical suggestions and evidence-based information interwoven throughout. Additionally, the Seventh Edition is an ideal study guide for International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) certification and practice

 

 

 

Refugee health care : an essential medical guide / Aniyizhai Annamalai, editor

Refugee health is growing as an academic medical discipline. More and more health care providers are coming together to exchange research information, educational curricula and social policies related to refugee health. The number of practitioners attending the annual North American Refugee Healthcare Conference has doubled since 2014. Refugees arrive in the United States from different parts of the world. Refugees undergo a medical screening soon after arrival, as recommended by the U.S. Department of State, and it is usually primary care practitioners who usually evaluate these patients at this first visit. Psychiatrists and other specialists may also evaluate them soon after arrival.Though physicians receive a variable amount of training in cross-cultural medicine, virtually none is in the area of refugee evaluations. There are several major ways that the field has changed. U.S. refugee policies and refugee admission numbers have changed dramatically in the past four years as has the epidemiology of medical conditions because the demographics of refugees have changed. The CDC guidelines for domestic screening have also been modified significantly as some of the screening tests are no longer recommended. Protocols have also been updated for presumptive treatment received by refugees before departure to the United States of other countries. A new chapter on end of life care for refugees has been added to the book. Now fully revised and expanded, this second edition reflects the many changes that have occurred in the field of refugee health since 2014. Refugee Health Care remains the definitive resource for primary care physicians and mental health practitioners who see and evaluate refugees. It is also relevant for medical, nursing and public health students involved with refugee health as well as resettlement agency workers and public health officials overseeing refugee care

 

Well : what we need to talk about when we talk about health / Sandro Galea

Physician Sandro Galea examines what Americans miss when they fixate on healthcare: health. Americans spend more money on health than people anywhere else in the world. And what do they get for it? Statistically, not much. Americans today live shorter, less healthy lives than citizens of other rich countries, and these trends show no signs of letting up. The problem, Sandro Galea argues, is that Americans focus on the wrong things when they think about health. Our national understanding of what constitutes “being well” is centered on medicine — the lifestyles we adopt to stay healthy, the insurance plans and prescriptions we fall back on when we’re not. And while all these things are important, they’ve not proven to be the difference between healthy and unhealthy on the large scale. Well is a radical examination of the subtle and not-so-subtle factors that determine who gets to be healthy in America. Galea shows how the country’s failing health is a product of American history and character — and how refocusing on our national health can usher enlightenment across American life and politics

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.

home J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services Track Your Research Impact with Scopus Author Profiles

Track Your Research Impact with Scopus Author Profiles

Defining and managing your online professional identity is often as important as defining and managing your in-person professional identity. One of the ways you can help define and manage your online professional identity is keeping track of your author profiles.

Scopus Author Profiles are a good place to start. Scopus automatically creates a profile for you, based on their database algorithms, and curates a list of your publications, complete with citations and h-index.

Even though the profiles are already created, you should double check your profile every so often to make sure the information (name, affiliation, and publications) is up to date.

Below is what you will see in your Scopus Author Profile.

You can go one step further and link your Scopus Author Profile with your ORCID.

You can search for your Scopus Author Profile here. If you need help with your Scopus author profile, whether that’s updating your profile, linking your ORCID, or providing a citation report, you can email the Health Sciences Library for assistance.