home Special Collections and Archives Zoom Backgrounds from Special Collections

Zoom Backgrounds from Special Collections

You asked, and we delivered: Zoom backgrounds from Special Collections are now available for download! Choose from an assortment of ten images, including medieval manuscripts, travel posters, and beautiful book illustrations, all from the collections of the University of Missouri Libraries. As a bonus, there’s also a shot of the classroom for your online sessions (remember that your Special Collections librarians can help you with online instruction).

Preview and download the Zoom backgrounds on Box.

 

 

Image sources:

Flores y frutas del Mediterraneo [travel poster].

Brazil [travel poster].

Norway: the land of the midnight sun. [travel poster]

Priscian, Institutiones gramaticae [medieval manuscript].

A New and Accurat Map of the World [map]

Antiphonal with historiated initial of St. Paul [medieval manuscript].

Rowlandson’s sketches from nature. [hand-colored etching]

Processional : (for the use of the Dominican sisters of St. Louis, Poissy). [medieval manuscript]

Africa Antiqua et Nova. [map]

Interaction of color by Josef Albers [serigraph]

Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.

home Events and Exhibits, Special Collections and Archives Student Curated Exhibit: Children’s Literature of the Harlem Renaissance by African American Women

Student Curated Exhibit: Children’s Literature of the Harlem Renaissance by African American Women

By Adetokunbo Awosanmi

I had the privilege of working with staff in special collections and a Visual Studies professor to create an exhibit showcasing children’s literature. Most of the books were written or illustrated by African American women. Stories were published within a few decades after the Harlem Renaissance ended. The twenty-one books in the exhibit represent how invaluable the Harlem Renaissance was for African American children’s literature. Finding books, writing labels, and setting up the exhibit were the main goals for this project. I also used Via Libri to find and recommend rare books by Ellen Tarry, Jane Dabney Shackleford, and Ann Petry.

World Cat and MERLIN were pivotal in locating most books. Other books were found through bibliographies and other relevant articles. The New Negro, albeit important for the Harlem Renaissance, focused on intellectual movements rather than children’s literature. Although The Brownies’ Book is not in Ellis Library, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has uploaded issues of the magazine online. After examining the magazine, it is easy to see the positive impact it had not only for African American children, but for children from different ethnic backgrounds. Stories, poems, and illustrations challenged the stereotypical and racist portrayals of African Americans in earlier texts.

Through research, I learned that poetry was a popular medium during the Harlem Renaissance, and it is seen in contemporary African American literature. Poetry and children’s literature complimented each other; as many authors wrote poetry. Some authors wrote multiple books; a few of Arna Bontemps’ books are in the juvenile stacks. A prolific poet and librarian, Bontemps wrote books for young adults and children. Golden Slippers and The fast sooner hound are for younger audiences, while We have tomorrow and Sad-faced boy are for slightly older individuals. Like Golden Slippers, Gladiola garden and The picture-poetry book are collections of poetry. With poetry, aspects of African American life were relayed to a younger, wider audience.

Writing captions was one of the more difficult parts of the project; I needed to balance my interpretations of the text itself and the creators’ motives for their works. While analyzing the text, I examined illustrations and photographs. Some images, albeit harrowing, are displayed in the exhibit. To reflect on the past, a past where racism was not as frowned upon as it is today, acknowledgement is imperative.

I cannot recall reading a lot of African American children’s literature as a child. Most of the books I remember reading throughout grade school had white main characters. Granted, these books were not as problematic as books written in the early 1900s and before. I found it hard to stay invested, as I could not relate to the main character. Humiliation and discouragement are the last things children should feel when reading books about themselves. Unfortunately, with few realistic portrayals of African Americans, negative feelings surface. However, as more children’s literature is written for minorities, more children will learn to love themselves and their skin.

The exhibit will be on display in the Ellis Library colonnade through mid-September.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Digitized slides from Hiller Collection are now available in MU Digital Library

Digitized slides from Hiller Collection are now available in MU Digital Library

Digital Services is excited to share that about 250 photographs from the newly acquired Hiller Collection are now available in MU Digital Library. A description of the collections and list of contents can be found in the Hiller collection library guide.

This collection is a valuable resource for students’ and faculty’s research. Yueheng Lyu, a spring 2019 history intern, worked with Special Collection and Digital Services to make part of this collection available online. She chose to digitize slides about two cities in China, Nanking and Soochow. She conducted research on the content of the photographs and curated a digital exhibit with some images that she had digitized. A professor in MU History Department also showed research interests in these slides, especially the ones related to the hardship that Chinese people experienced during the Chinese Civil War.

So far, about 370 slides have been digitized and 250 are available in MU Digital Library. We will continue working on digitizing the rest of the slides in the Hiller Collection and making them digitally available, accessible, and discoverable to more people.

Here are a few examples of the digitized slides:

home Cycle of Success, Ellis Library, Special Collections and Archives Librarians Help Prepare High School Students for College

Librarians Help Prepare High School Students for College

The Missouri Scholars Academy brings 330 gifted high school juniors from around the state to the University of Missouri Campus. “With a carefully selected faculty and staff, a specially designed curriculum that focuses on the liberal arts, and a variety of stimulating extracurricular activities, the academy enables students to be part of a unique learning community.” One of those stops for the academy is the library.

Last year, the students visited with Rachel Brekhus, Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian, who assisted the students with finding primary historical sources and secondary scholarly sources. The collaboration was so successful that, Ben Balzer, one of the Missouri Scholars instructors, jumped at the chance for his science fiction students to attend Rachel’s research workshop during the 2018 session as well as expanding that collaboration to include Kelli Hansen, Special Collections Librarian.

Rachel Brekhus

“Their work with my students was, in short, amazing! I extended my collaboration to Kelli because of how much last year’s students enjoyed working with library resources,” says Ben. Both his science fiction and censorship in literature classes met with Kelli, who provided literary texts from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries for the scholars to examine. The scholars looked at items ranging from a comic version of 2001, A Space Odyssey to a rare copy of Utopia by Thomas More. Ben found this opportunity provided his students the ability “to see the rich artistic tradition that underpins the literature we read today.” The scholars left their visit to Special Collections inspired and excited to work on their research projects.

Ben sees this collaboration being a regular component of his classes. “I want high school students to gain familiarity with university resources so they will feel prepared to make good use of academic libraries when they arrive on college campuses. Students of literature should also be introduced to the social, political, ethical, and historical significance of the texts they read. Working with research librarians helps students better recognize these broader contexts and how they enrich literary study,” says Ben.

Kelli Hansen
Kelli Hansen

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.

Although the Cycle of Success typically focuses on the relationships among the Libraries, faculty, and students, the Libraries also contribute to the success of all the communities Mizzou serves. The Libraries are an integral part of Mizzou’s mission “to provide all Missourians the benefits of a world-class research university.”

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.

Digital Services Looks Back at 2018

Digital Services at the University Libraries was a busy time for us in 2018. We worked with MU students, faculty and staff to add their works to MOspace, the online institutional repository for MU. We managed MOspace by making those resources widely available to researchers around the world.

We juggled a lot of projects with the goal of providing online access to useful resources. One of our projects was to digitize and make unique and special materials in our library collections available in the MU Digital Library and the HathiTrust, a digital library with content from research libraries and others.

See below for a sample of the projects we completed last year that we are excited to show off to the community.

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Partnerships enrich the resources within our institutional repositories.

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The MU Libraries are partnering with the HathiTrust to build a digital library of freely available resources.

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Digitized MU course catalogs and maps are available in MOspace.

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Digital Services staff presented at the annual Missouri Library Association conference.

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MOspace is the home of all theses and dissertations by MU students since 2006.

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Digitization of United States government documents is making these items easily accessible.

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We continue to value the work of our students and staff.

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Digital Services ensures permanent access to Center for Studies in Oral Tradition materials.

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New scanning equipment helped with productivity.

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MOspace turned 10 in 2018.

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Trudy the Tiger made her Instagram debut.

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Digital Services news can be found at http://library.missouri.edu/news/.

Find out more:

home Databases & Electronic Resources, Special Collections and Archives Celebrate Armistice Day with HathiTrust Books

Celebrate Armistice Day with HathiTrust Books

In honor of Armistice Day, Digital Services and Special Collections added five new items to the HathiTrust. These five items, from the University Libraries collections, offer unique perspectives on World War I.  Each of these is a new addition to the HathiTrust Digital Library.

First, is Democracy and Terms of Peace: An Open Letter to the People’s Council, by William Benjamin Smith of Tulane University. This small book has a large rallying cry to stay the course against the Central Powers.

Missouri and the War, by Floyd C. Showmaker, gives a wide array of information about how Missouri joined the rest of the nation’s call to join the fight against the Central Powers. This item gives farm outputs by cities in Missouri, lists of Missouri war heroes and in what country they fell, as well as a report about a person from St. Louis who discovered a treatment for poison gas.

Included are two pamphlets from the American Red Cross: Our Army and Navy and You and Why One Hundred Million Dollars for American Red Cross War Fund. These pamphlets give a picture of the American home front during the Great War.

Finally, Barney Stone’s Love Letters of a Rookie, is a collection of humorous letters from the author to his sweetheart, Julie. This book includes illustrations by Gordon Ross.

home Cycle of Success, Special Collections and Archives Inspiring Inquiry and Discovery Leads to Student Success

Inspiring Inquiry and Discovery Leads to Student Success

This past year, Kate Harlin, a PhD student and graduate instructor, won the Gus Reid Award from the English Department. Gus Reid, having taught composition within this program, donated funds to support an award for graduate students and other instructors who teach exploratory/persuasive writing. The award stipulates that each recipient “should not only be a good writer but an even better critic—one who views the job and self with both discipline and light-heartedness.” Kate applied with materials created from her international composition course, a course that greatly benefited from Kelli Hansen‘s Special Collections assistance.

Kate and Kelli collaborated on an assignment designed so students could choose an object in Special Collections that they wanted to learn more about, generate questions and use as an object to springboard into an exploratory essay. From the get go, this open ended assignment was ambitious, but Kate says, “Kelli was so open and flexible with us that she was able to pull items that got every student in the class excited.”

Kelli Hansen

Kelli pulled a Physics textbook from the 1920s written in Arabic, which one of Kate’s students from Saudi Arabia was able to identify as a translation written by Mizzou professor Oscar Stewart. She also found a poetry manuscript, by Li He of the Tang Dynasty, written in Chinese that many of the Chinese speaking students were thrilled to look through. One of her students even submitted her work for the Mahan Freshman Essay Award and received an honorable mention.

“The best thing about these two examples is that it helped the international students to see themselves as experts and knowledge-producers, which can be hard for any first year college student, but is even more difficult when in a class that is all about a writing in a language that you’re still learning to master,” Kate says.

Kate suggests figuring out a way to incorporate Special Collections in your syllabus and if you don’t know how, reach out to your librarians.Special Collections provided examples that truly inspired Kate’s students and is one of the many reasons why she will continue to collaborate with Kelli for future classes.

“Every semester that I have brought students to Special Collections, I have received feedback that it was a major highlight of the semester! I value inquiry and discovery in the classroom, and there is no better venue for it than Special Collections.”

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.

home Events and Exhibits, Special Collections and Archives Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama Conference

Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama Conference

The University of Missouri Theatre Department presents an interdisciplinary conference titled “Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama,” to focus on Missouri’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Lanford Wilson. The conference will be held April 26-29 at Ellis Library and the Rhynsburger Theatre and features an MU production of The Rimers of Eldritch directed by Dr. David Crespy.

The conference and all the events scheduled are free and open to the public, with a goal to encourage students and scholars to avail themselves of the Lanford Wilson Collection located in the University of Missouri Libraries Special Collections and Rare Books.  Both the production of The Rimers of Eldritch and a new book edited by David Crespy, Lanford Wilson: Early Stories, Sketches, and Poems, have been supported in part through research in the Lanford Wilson Collection. The conference also features onstage interviews and master classes with guest artists Marshall W. Mason, Lanford Wilson’s Tony® Award-winning director; Tanya Berezin, the former artistic director of New York’s Circle Repertory Company, where Wilson’s plays were first produced; Danny Irvine, founding director of its Circle Rep Lab; and Mary Sue Price, an Emmy award-winning Circle Repertory playwright and protégé of Lanford Wilson.

A full conference schedule and additional information can be found on the Missouri Self-Taught conference website.

home Events and Exhibits, Special Collections and Archives “Tales from the Archives” at Unbound Book Festival

“Tales from the Archives” at Unbound Book Festival

Join University Archivist Anselm Huelsbergen for a panel on creative inspiration from the archives at this year’s Unbound Book Festival.

It’s not all on the Google, you know. For many writers, the archive is still the primary research tool for their writing. This discussion will give a fascinating and entertaining insight into the process, and show how there’s always the possibility of discovering the unexpected (although not always welcome) when you don’t have algorithms and search engines to guide you.

Anselm is moderating a panel that includes authors David Crespy, Julija Sukys, and Jo Ann Trogdon in Stamper Commons, 11:30-12:45.

Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.

home Events and Exhibits, Special Collections and Archives Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama Conference

Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama Conference

The University of Missouri Theatre Department presents an interdisciplinary conference titled “Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama,” to focus on Missouri’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Lanford Wilson. The conference will be held April 26-29 at Ellis Library and the Rhynsburger Theatre and features an MU production of The Rimers of Eldritch directed by Dr. David Crespy.

The conference and all the events scheduled are free and open to the public, with a goal to encourage students and scholars to avail themselves of the Lanford Wilson Collection located in the University of Missouri Libraries Special Collections and Rare Books.  Both the production of The Rimers of Eldritch and a new book edited by David Crespy, Lanford Wilson: Early Stories, Sketches, and Poems, have been supported in part through research in the Lanford Wilson Collection. The conference also features onstage interviews and master classes with guest artists Marshall W. Mason, Lanford Wilson’s Tony® Award-winning director; Tanya Berezin, the former artistic director of New York’s Circle Repertory Company, where Wilson’s plays were first produced; Danny Irvine, founding director of its Circle Rep Lab; and Mary Sue Price, an Emmy award-winning Circle Repertory playwright and protégé of Lanford Wilson.

A full conference schedule and additional information can be found on the Missouri Self-Taught conference website.

Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.