Please note, the Health Sciences Library will be closed December 25th to January 1st for the holidays so our services will not be available. We will reopen January 2nd.
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 tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Looking to conduct research, develop guidelines, or write for publication and finding yourself spending too much time looking for evidence based literature? The Health Sciences Library expert search service is the time saver you didn’t know you needed.
With this service, you provide the details of your project and your librarian does the rest. They will search multiple appropriate databases, find the best evidence for your project, and package the results in an easy to read format. While your librarian expertly searches your topic, you have more freed up time to work on another aspect of your project.
Searches taking under an hour to complete are free. Any additional time spent is heavily discounted to $10/hour.
Did you know that the Health Sciences Library conducted more than 760 expert searches for our users in 2017? Our librarians have a lot of experience and want to help you.
